Page 44 of Road Queens
“C’mon.” Sidney was concentrating on sugaring her vile brew, and Cass was flipping through a copy ofI’m Glad My Mom Died. Nevertheless, Amanda had the sense they were both listening hard. “A lot has changed, but the three of us still hate elephants. We saw too many women who ignored the pachyderms in their boudoirs, then got smacked around for it.”
Sidney shook her head. “Pachyderms and boudoirs. It’s like you don’t want people to understand what the hell you’re talking about.”
“My point is, can we just ... just ...”
“Fix everything?” Sidney suggested. “Abra-fucking-cadabra?”
“Nothing so simple. Obviously.”
Cass was already shaking her head. “We can’t. It’s too—there’s been so much—just bring me up to speed, and we’ll come up with a plan or we won’t, and it’s okay if we don’t.”
Having no plan is okay? Whowasthis creature? Amanda threw up her hands. “Fine. We’ll play catch-up. Guess where my new piercing is?”
“For the love of fuck, don’t answer that,” Sidney warned. “Also, I’m still married to that Canadian shitheel; Amanda’s still obsessed with her Hole; you probably didn’t kill anyone, but the dead are still dead; your mom’s still locked up; my husband still needs hunting down; and it’s all a fucking disgrace. There. Now you’re caught up.”
“Nice,” Amanda said. “You should write plot summaries for the AV Club.”
“You haven’t gotten a divorce?” Hilariously, Cass sounded more shocked about that than anything else.
“I have to catch him to divorce him, the slippery motherfucker.”
“Why? Besides bloody vengeance, I mean?” Amanda asked. “Can’t you get a divorce for desertion? In absentia or whatever? Is that still a thing?”
“Or whatever. Yes. And I will,” she vowed, and Amanda felt a bit sorry for Sidney’s soon-to-be-ex, a rogue who’d charmed them all back in the day. And then disappeared, leaving his wife-in-name-only holding the emotional equivalent of a Hefty bag full of diarrhea. “That’s a problem for another day, thank fuck.”
Amanda sighed. “And here I’ve been hoping you two crazy kids were going to make it.”
“No, you weren’t. This time next year,” Sidney vowed, “I’ll be a divorcée or a widow. His choice.”
“So! On that cheerful note, let me tell you what I found out last night.”
She did. It didn’t take long—
“He’snota cop? Fuck.”
—and the commentary—
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
—was what she anticipated.
“Son of a fuckity fuck!Whatis going on?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, Sidney,” Amanda replied with utter (maybe misplaced) confidence.
“The best part of the story is all the jelly you’ve squirreled away in your cupboard,” Cass observed with a grin.
“Ease up, she sends it faster than I can gobble it down. Think of the number of bread loaves I’d have to get through in a week. I’m only one person, Cassandra!”
“Dinah’s homemade stuff is so good,” Cass replied wistfully. “And her lemon-cranberry curd. I get homemade jam at the farmers’ market, but hers is ahead of the pack.”
“First, keep away from farmers’ markets; they’re hotbeds of haggling, and you’re terrible at it,” Amanda commanded. “Second, Dinah would have been happy to keep you in jelly. You could be in curd up to your tits right now if you wanted.”
“Yeesh.” Sidney snickered. “That’s quite the mental image.”
“But you’re not, and it serves you right for not leaving a forwarding address.”
Cass’s mouth tightened. “Well. Yeah.”
