Page 54 of Filthy Savage
“I was born at night, Alexander. Not last night. I know you. Anyone with eyes can see the two of you belong together.”
I laugh.
“What?” she asks.
“I’ve barely been under your roof for a day and you’re playing matchmaker,” I point out with a smirk. Nancy stares over at me. “Keep those eyes on the road, sis.”
She shakes her head and turns her head to face forward again. “Well I hope you don’t let her slip away just because I like her.”
“There it is. You approve. Bring out the bubbly then. Big brother’s getting hitched!” I announce, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“You’re a cynical assclown sometimes.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I answer, just to provoke her. “This is exactly what I needed this morning. A hefty dose of sibling bickering.”
My sister is miffed now, and taking it out on her stick shift. She accelerates, pulls out on the one-lane stretch of highway into oncoming traffic to get out from behind a slow as fuck minivan driver, and merges back into the right lane. She flips on her indicator light and turns off the highway less than a minute later. “The building’s a few blocks from here.”
After parking in a nearby lot, me and Nancy head up the street to the large warehouse. She nods to the middle-aged man working at the front desk, and he buzzes us into the long, wide, fluorescent-lit hallway lined with metal doors large enough to drive a moving truck inside. She leads me to the end of the corridor and steps into a waiting warehouse-style elevator.
“It’s on the second floor,” she chokes out, already upset again.
I reach my hand out and find hers. “Are you sure you want to do this right now?”
“Yes. We need this.” She takes a breath and straightens up to get off the elevator. “The best way to get this done quickly is for you to go in and decide what you want. Once you figure that out, I’ll help you clear a bit of space upfront. That way, once everything has settled down, you can come back to haul them away.”
“I can pretty much guarantee you there’s nothing in there that’ll leap out at me,” I say as I follow her. Nancy opens her mouth to speak at the storage room door, but I beat her to it. “Don’t stress out, all right? I’ll check through everything before I decide.”
“Fine.” She finds the key, places it into the locking mechanism, then she stops. “Are you ready?” she asks looking up into my face.
“Nope, but let’s do this. One and done.”
* * *
Three hours later,I’m still sorting. Fuck. No wonder Nancy hasn’t gotten rid of a thing. How could anyone let these thing go? I sure can’t. All I’ve managed to do is move things around. The massive locker contains furniture, photos, clothes, keepsakes, trinkets, and even trophies from grade school sports.
“I am not helping, am I?” I huff out, wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. I sit on the piece of sectional sofa I’ve just moved and slump back to rest my head.
Nancy smiles and sits beside me. We both stare at the semi-transparent plastic containers stacked on the dusty shelving unit against one wall. “I don’t know. I kind of like the sofa here in the center of everything.”
“How about I pay for the next, I don’t know, say fifteen years of the storage lease, and call it even?”
“Nice try.”
A blue and white porcelain oriental vase in one of the containers catches my eye. “Wait. Is that Mom’s prized flower vase?” I ask, getting up to check the box. “It is. Remember how Dad used to hate that thing?”
Nancy nods. “Yes. He’d bring her flowers, and she would only use this particular one, which would get them bickering every time.”
I snap open the box lid and lift out the vase. “For some reason, Dad hated it.”
“And they’d go all quiet and cuddly after their little tiffs,” Nancy adds.
“Maybe I’ll take this home with me when this is all over. It’s strange…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t remind me of that night, I guess. You know, for porcelain, this thing is damn heavy.” I turn the vase upside down to check whether the manufacturing stamp looks mass produced or more like a one-of-a-kind. Something clinks around inside, but doesn’t fall out. “Hey, listen to this.” I shake it around. Something metal is definitely inside. “I think this thing has a trick bottom. Here. You try.”
Nancy comes to my side and takes the vase in two hands. She shakes it around, then she looks inside, turns it upside down, and shakes it again. “You’re right.” She passes it back to me. “Weird.”
