Page 78 of Road Queens
“Well, yeah. But also to give back. He’s had fifteen years to get out but hasn’t. And he’s a volunteer fireman in his spare time.”
“I remember when he hosed down our Christmas tree that year. I still don’t get the fuss,” Sidney griped. “It was barely even on fire.”
“And my mom’s been running the Christmas Meals on Wheels program for over a decade. For free. And she donates most of the food, so.”
“So it’s crazy that you guys spend all of Christmas morning and afternoon doing the Meals on Wheels thing and don’t get around to presents until, like, nine o’clock at night on the twenty-fifth.”
“I’m aware, Sidney. But it’s fun! And it makes Christmas Day last forever. When you’re a kid, you count the days and then the hours, and you open presents on Christmas Eve—”
“Nope! Only sociopaths open gifts on Christmas Eve.”
“—then the gifts are opened, Sidney, on Christmas Eveorthe next morning, and it’s over. All the delicious anticipation is gone by nine o’clock in the morning on the twenty-fifth.
“But the way my family does it, the day goes on forever. By four o’clock in the afternoon, you’ve fed three hundred people who were going to be stuck at home, alone, on Christmas. That’s—it’s really just the best feeling. Sure, we have to start at seven o’clock in the morning, and the day ends with a splitting headache because all you’ve had are food scraps and coffee, but you don’t mind because you’ve still got presents to look forward to.”
“Sounds like madness,” Sidney observed.
“Well, it isn’t. It’s more important than that. You’ve got to give back. Otherwise, you’re just a parasite, or Jeff Manners. Or Donald Trump.”
“Keep politics out of it,” Cassandra warned. “We had to make that rule after the pudding wars.”
“Oh, for—I throwonecup of tapioca, and you revise history and decide it was a war.”
Cassandra ignored Sidney’s irrelevant observation. “So that’s what OpStar is for you? Giving back?”
“Sure. And it’s way more interesting than making fifteen gallons of gravy, sucking down coffee, and sneaking stuffing. Also, do you even know you’re insulting me when you ask that question?”
“You might have, um, made that observation before,” Cass admitted. “I’m sorry. It’s not that I think you shouldn’t do it. I love that you’re in this with me. It’s that you don’t have to put yourself in those situations, but you do anyway.”
“By that argument, we should ditch Meals on Wheels because we don’t have to put ourselves in those situations. And we shouldn’t report a fire.”
Amanda could see the second Cass surrendered, mostly because she threw up her hands and said to the ceiling, “I don’t want you or Sidney to get hurt any more than you want me to get hurt, is all.”
“Noted. Now let us never speak of this again. And something else—we should follow up with Dr.Bimmerman. You still do her clinic notes, right, Sidney?”
“Sure do. She’s the unicorn of her profession: a physician with legible handwriting. I thought that was a cliché, but it’s not. Every single doctor except Bimmerman has the messy scrawl of a serial killer.”
“Good, that’s your in. She helped with getting Bobby new meds, and Bobby told me she was going to call her back to tell her how it went. I know the doctor can’t give us details about her patients, but we can giveherdetails of what we do. She could be a good resource for us, or put up flyers in her office or something.”
“See? We’re improving already. There, Cass, you fucking toddler, you’re all patched up. Or as patched up as I’m inclined to patch.”
“You’rea fucking toddler,” Cassandra pouted.
“You may now indulge in your ten-o’clock-in-the-morning hot fudge sundae.”
“Woo-hoo!”
After they’d exchanged a few carefully selected words and phrases about that first OpStar run, the girls exchanged nostalgic smiles.
“That’s it?” a clearly confused Sean Beane asked. “You’re just going to drop heavy hints without actually telling me the story?”
“Yep. We all just reminisced about it, so there’s no need to talk about it. That’s what this was.”
“I’m glad you tipped us off,” Cassandra said, straight faced. “I almost reminisced about the wrong event.”
“Ha! My favorite part of what we just reminisced about is how that fucker Prince Harming limped for a week and told everyone he got kicked by a horse.”
“Which isn’t entirely inaccurate,” Cassandra giggled.
