Page 75 of Road Queens
Bobby shrank back, though he was still twenty feet away. “I—I—I—”
Oh, shit, look at this. Didn’t go to work. Waited for us instead. So he’s monitoring her screen time and her phone. Lovely.
“Good morning, ladies!” Prince Harming (who had an actual name, but who cared?) waved and smiled. “Roberta, invite your guests inside for some tea.”
“I’m good,” Sidney said, brandishing her empty V8 can. “And we were all just leaving.”
Prince Harming sighed and shook his head at his wife. “All this? Over one little fight?”
“The fight where you popped her eardrum, or the fight where you deliberately stressed her into an asthma attack?” Cassandra asked with the charm and warmth of a concentration camp guard. “Well. Fights, plural. You guys tend to stick with what works.”
His smile slipped. Just a bit, but it did Amanda a world of good and got her back on track. “Come on. We’re not here to confront, defend, fight, or even have a mild disagreement. We’re not here to talk at all. We’re here to give Bobby a ride and that’s all.”
“I—I—I—”
“C’mere.” Sidney reached out to Bobby, who took her hand after a long moment and let Sidney lead her to the van. “It’s fine. We’re going. You don’t have to worry about him for a couple days, anyway. That’s the point. That’s the guarantee.”
“Roberta! This is foolish. I apologized, and you claimed you forgave me.” His wife looked back but kept going for the van. “But instead of the forgiveness I earned and thatyou promised me, you blabbed private family business, and now you’ve got these ladies all wound up.”
“I’m not wound up,” Sidney said. “Not even a little. How ’bout you two?”
“I’m whatever the opposite of wound up is,” Amanda replied. “Wound down? Like one of those creepy mechanical monkeys that can’t beat their cymbals when the battery’s too low?”
“And for what?” Harming continued, clearly determined to whine them into submission. “A silly domestic squabble?”
“How silly could it have been,” Cassandra asked reasonably enough, “if you had to lie to your wife and piss away half your morning hiding in a shed?”
“I wasnot—” He gritted his teeth. “I wanted to see if she was a liar. And she is. That’s disappointing, Roberta. Your judgment of late has been suspect. Overreacting and then calling kids for help?”
“Hey! We’re old enough to be drafted, to fight and/or die for Merika. We’re adults in every sense of the word.”
Harming ignored Sidney’s outburst. “And all because you can’t exert the smallest bit of self-control.”
“I’ll bet that’s important to you,” Cass said. “Control.”
“Oh, look at the high school psychology student peering into my murky brain. How adorable.” He flashed them a game show host grin. “But yes, it is. It’s how I came up in the world. There’s a reason I’m the fourth richest man in the county.”
“Oh my God,” Cassandra said with one of her helium giggles. “Who keeps track of stats like that? Fourth? Who’s the seventh? The thirteenth?”
Bobby, to her credit, wasn’t letting the conversation stop her from getting into the van. Also,why the hell were they still having a conversation?
Sidney carefully shut the passenger door and turned to Prince Harming. “Here’s the thing. If you 7had to spend half your morning cowering in a shed, you’re not controlling shit.”
“I wasnot—wait! You can’t leave. It’s a medical imperative. Look at this, Roberta!” His Royal Harmness dug in his pockets and held up two inhalers. “The last thing you need is to run off and have another asthma attack without your meds. Remember last time? How awful it was for both of us? It wasn’t easy seeing you in that state. Please stay here where your meds are. We’ll work all this out, and you’ll feel much better now we’ve cleared the air.”
God, he sounds so reasonable. No wonder nobody believed her.Amanda half expected Bobby to hop out of the minivan and then climb up the porch steps to her husband. Instead, there was a decisive click as she buckled her seat belt. Then she leaned out and spoke to her husband through the car window. “I, um, asked these gals to swing by Walgreens and pick up my inhalers on the way.” Pause. “I thought you might find my backups, so I explained the situation to my doctor, and she wrote me a new scrip.”
For the first time, Prince Harming looked worried. “You explained ... you told people ... you dragged Dr.Bimmerman into this?”
“Yes. She’s been worried about me for some time. So you can hang on to those. I’m all set.” Longer pause. “Thank you, though.” Longest pause. “Goodbye.”
“Fucking masterful,” Sidney said, then laughed so hard that small amounts of spit made an appearance.
“Roberta, you can’t leave! Don’t listen to these people; they just want to break up our family.”
“Fair,” Cassandra allowed. “And it doesn’t make us wrong.”
As Prince Harming rushed to the van, Bobby took another hit on her inhaler, then speared her husband with a dead-level look. “I can’t dance,” she continued, fiddling with her earlobe. “My balance is all screwed up now. From the—from what happened. I’ll have to relearn everything, and I’ll still never be any good. You shouldn’t—”
