Page 69 of The Big Easy & Other Lies
Chapter 25
Saturday morning, I opened the front door to find Bran, Rhett and Livvie standing on my porch in grubby clothes. I glanced over my shoulder to the den. Silence.
“Are y’all sure about this?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “She agreed to it, but she wasn’t happy about it.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Please still be my friends if she yells.”And after you realize how completely disgusting this house is.
Livvie shot a double bird in the direction of the den. “Of course,” she said loudly. “We’re glad to help.”Don’t worry,she mouthed, and pushed past me into the foyer. She gagged at the smell. I handed her the Vicks.
“Under your nose,” Rhett explained, applying some before stepping in. Bran followed his lead.
“Where do we start?” Livvie asked.
I yanked hard on the door to pull it shut behind me. With a screech, the handle came off in my hands. I stared down at it, and then up at my friends. “With this?” I said, extending it and trying not to cry at the sheer impossibility of trying to accomplish anything in this festering trash heap of a house.
“I’ve got this,” Rhett said. “I’ve swapped out a doorknob before. Don’t stress, okay?”
Yeah, right. The doorknobfell off.With the rest of the house in worse shape, it could only be an omen of things to come, but I nodded and turned to Livvie.
“You come with me,” I said. “Rhett, would you show Bran the spare room before you fix the door? Bran, maybe you could start with the boxes I already sorted. A lot of them had knick-knack stuff I didn’t check too closely.”
Rhett nodded and stole a quick kiss before leading Bran down the hall. Bran’s eyes widened when he passed the sitting room and caught a glimpse of the wreckage inside. I turned and led Livvie upstairs to my room. She said nothing about my sewing setup but when she stepped inside my room, she smiled. “Somehow, I knew it would look exactly like this.”
“Have a seat,” I said, pointing to the bed. When she did, I liftedTear Girlout of my nightstand and set it in her lap, then took a seat on the floor against the wall. I wanted to watch her face as she looked through it. I wanted to see how my mom’s story affected the only other person on the planet to see it besides me.
Livvie pressed her palms against the book’s sides as if she were afraid to touch the cover. “Are you sure?”
I smiled and nodded.
She opened it carefully, like she was handling a medieval manuscript. Her eyes widened as she studied the first page, and stayed that way through the second and third, traveling across my mom’s beautiful spiky script, drinking in the paintings. When she turned to the page with Trista in her blue gown, she breathed out an, “Oh, wow.”
At the second to last page, she gasped. It showed a full-fledged swamp battle rife with energy and color. At the end, she sighed and looked up. “Amazing,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “She was so good.”
“You’re this good, you know. In fabric. You are this good.”
“Really?”
“Beyond really.”
“Thanks.”
She hopped up. “I’m done being all cheerleader-y. Let’s go explore some garbage.” She placed the book carefully back on my nightstand.
“Don’t let Delphine hear you call it garbage. Actually, don’t let Delphine hear you at all.”
“Word.”
She followed me downstairs to the spare room where Bran and Rhett were shifting bulging trash sacks around.
“It amazes me that polyester can weigh so much,” Bran complained as he waved a purple and brown paisley sleeve at me, an attempted escapee from the bag he was holding.
“Boys, boys,” Livvie said, clapping her hands. “Those are not the money bags. The discount bin rejects in there will not pay for any meds.” She held up the gigantic caftan attached to the sleeve, stretching it to its full width. “What did humanity do to deserve this?”
I snatched it from her with a smile. “She’s right. Stick to boxes for now. And watch out for the one with the anvil. It’ll hurt your back.”
“Anvil?” Rhett asked. “Wait, no. I’m not even surprised.” He stood and headed for the exit. “I’m getting back to doorknob duty, but dig in, y’all.”
“You said y’all!” Livvie said, her tone gleeful. “We’re influencing you!”
