Johnny Cakes (The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Page 22

  “What are you cleaning now? Hopefully the kitchen and this greasy mess.”

  “Sheila,” I stuttered. “I didn’t hear the door. I figured you had plans tonight.”

  “Sucking someone’s.” Francine muttered then dipped a spoon in the creamed corn to taste it.

  I willed Francine not to start something near hot oil and slow cooked corn.

  Sheila’s limber fingers nipped a corner of chicken before Francine had a chance to block her.

  “Not bad. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m making dinner for the normal folk in the house.”

  “Oh goody,” Sheila said. “I’ll just change into something more comfortable.”

  Had Sheila been in the house the entire time? Eavesdropping on Francine and my plans? I convinced myself she’d just slipped in unnoticed.

  With stage like timing, the front door opened and this time I heard the click of the lock. “Hey y’all,” Katie Lee shouted.

  She wasn’t alone. Hugh’s voice carried along with hers. “Something smells homemade.”

  Sheila didn’t move.

  They maneuvered into the capsule-sized kitchen and the air turned sour.

  Sheila leaned back against the counter and pressed her boobs against her button-down shirt, which instantly created über cleavage. It was like a magic trick and I wondered how long she’d practiced to perfect it.

  Hugh slid one arm around Katie Lee and rubbed his stomach with the other. “Sure have an appetite. What do I smell?”

  No one acknowledged Sheila’s presence. It was like the grade school “invisible.”

  Francine assumed defensive mode and guarded the stove with her backside. “The oil will burn and there won’t be anything if y’all don’t get outta my kitchen and give me room.”

  Obliging her, we all exited her kitchen. Sheila sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and Katie Lee and Hugh plopped on the sofa. I stood in front of the dining room table blocking the view of Sheila and Katie Lee’s collected personal items.

  “What are you doing tonight?” I asked Hugh.

  “Just hangin’ out.”

  I ogle-eyed Katie Lee, but her receiver was down. Her head was tucked in too tight to Hugh’s shoulder, which blocked all my incoming signals.

  “Did you forget the plan?” I asked her.

  “No.” she hesitated.

  “Am I cooking or not cooking?” Francine shouted. “This oil’s smoking. I need to start filling it with something.”

  “This is supposed to be girls’ night?”

  “Oh Lord. Is that what the fried chicken is all about?” Katie Lee asked.

  “Girls’ night?” Sheila asked.

  I knew she was a few slices short of a loaf, but acting like she was interested in bonding with us after what she’d done to backstab Katie Lee counted as certifiable and qualified for a free weekend at the funny farm.

  “Couillon roommates who prey on easy pickings are not invited.”

  Francine’s meant business. Her insults, although not always clear, were easily deciphered as negative by the clarity and tone with which she spoke. Since I logged the most time around her, I knew that couillon meant idiot. It was the first time since the cheating incident that she had pledged her allegiance.

  Sheila unwrapped a piece of gum from a pack on the counter and placed it in her mouth. Even the way she chewed, slow and rhythmic, had sexual undertones. Men were her only real priority. On the surface she went through the roommate motions, but any interest she feigned toward any of us was only bait to be used to lure men to fill her insatiable self-esteem cistern. But in that moment, I caught sight of a clink in Sheila’s armor. Francine’s verbal lashing had struck a nerve, stifling her mouth. That never happened. The acidic disdain in the room couldn’t have hung any thicker. This time, she had gone well over the line and if it hadn’t clicked before, now she knew it.

  We all waited, for what I didn’t know. An apology seemed unlikely and at best, insincere. Even if she managed to bubble up some sort of excuse, it wouldn’t have made a difference. I couldn’t blame Katie Lee for despising Sheila, but the way she acted nonchalant threw me. Was it a southern thing? Katie Lee was not the type to roll over.

  “Don’t you have somewhere you should be?” Hugh asked Sheila.

  Don’t you both have somewhere else to go?

  “Do you have somewhere in mind?” she asked.

  “Sheila, don’t,” he said.

  Subtleties, small mannerisms, and wordless actions can have a bigger impact than planned speech. A smirk rose on Katie Lee’s lips and she flashed her spite at Sheila. The hot iron struck bull’s-eye.

  “How dare you,” she said moving toward them. “This is my house. That’s my sofa you’re sitting on.”

  Hugh slid his hands behind his head and propped his feet on the coffee table.

  Katie Lee had shared the same oxygen with Sheila for long enough. On her feet and away from the sofa, she erupted. “We all pay rent. Even signed a contract. This is a common area.”

  Sheila’s face reddened and her fists clenched. “I will not be insulted by the likes of you.” The space between the two closed when the doorbell rang. I hated altercations. Did my best to avoid them in life. Since I was closest, I left to answer the door. I secretly hoped it was a surprise visit from Stone or Agent Cauldwell. We could use some sane company to keep the situation from escalating any further. I was way off on my wish.

  “Nash?”

  His jean jacket collar was up and he flashed his signature smart-ass smile, complete with a partially gnawed toothpick dangling from his gleaming grill.

  “O’Brien, we have to stop meeting like this or people might start talking,” he said and pushed past the space I left open.

  Before he made it down the hallway, I grabbed his elbow. “Listen, you boob. Paintings aren’t getting delivered and the professor may suspect that your courier service is skimming.”

  “Things go missing all the time.”

  “Normally, I couldn’t care less about your lack of business ethics, but this time, you’ve put my and Katie Lee’s reputations on the line.”

  Voices behind us continued to escalate as Sheila accused Katie Lee of being unable to satisfy the men in her life.

  “How’s that?” Nash asked.

  “Unbeknownst to me, Katie Lee recommended your stinking services to Schleck.”

  “That was nice of her.” Distracted by the voices in the next room, he broke loose from me. “Smells good in here. Looks like the makings of a party.”

  “Nash. If you screw up this account ...”

  “You’re the bottom feeder,” Katie Lee said, “Couldn’t hold onto a man, let alone a friend, if your life depended on it.”

  With a growing interest in the war of words, he asked, “How long have these two been at one another?”

  “I’ve busted my butt, tolerating the internship with Schleck, just to keep my scholarship, and in one stupid swoop you come along. I’m warning you, Nash, if you mess this up for me, your skinny ass will be grass.”

  “Whoa, darlin’,” he said. “Settle down.”

  Finally, my words registered inside his pea brain.

  Pausing at the kitchen he said, “Hey Francine, Roger around?”

  I wasn’t finished with my rant and followed, but my legs locked as I watched Sheila snatch a handful of Katie Lee’s hair.

  Lickety-split, Nash busted into the family room, and took a hold of Sheila from behind. A scuffle erupted and I watched in disbelief.

  Sheila must’ve seen him coming. She busted out a practiced defense mechanism that I’d seen before. Thrusting her knee upward, she chutneyed his preserves. Nash dropped with a thwack. The distraction gave Katie Lee wiggle room, and she managed to jam her elbow into Sheila’s chest.

  “You damn fools. Quit acting like animals,” Francine shouted.

  Hugh leapt over the sofa and took hold of Sheila’s waist. Writhing in his hold, she flailed her arms and kicked her feet at
Katie Lee, who shouted insults in her face.

  Backtracking, I grabbed an umbrella from the hallway coat stand and raced toward the pile up. Raising it over my head, I shouted, “Knock it off, Sheila.” Below me, Nash pinched his eyes shut while he rocked from side to side with his mouth open.

  Francine stretched the phone cord from the kitchen to the dining room table. With her free arm, she aimed a pop shot at Sheila, but missed and walloped Hugh instead. He flinched, “Why’d you do that?”

  “I’d like to report an assault. 72936 Maple. Yes, Ma’am. Yes, Ma’am.” With the phone still sandwiched between her ear and shoulder, she removed the cork from the unlabeled glass bottle and picked up the cross. Letting the phone drop to the ground, she held one in each hand. “Oh Jesus, we need you now,” she said before dousing the pile up with Holy Water.

  NOTE TO SELF

  Brawling inside The Flamingo House; we’ve sunk to lower lows. In my opinion, Hugh is not worth battling about, but Katie Lee and Sheila have turned his infidelity into a thing.

  Living with Sheila. I knew it would go horribly wrong. I hate when I don’t listen to myself.

  CHAPTER 24

  More Than I Can Say Grace Over

  Campus smelled sweet from the blooming dogwoods and Judas Trees. The third floor corner office, in the Humanities building, not so fragrant. Friday afternoon I’d arrived at Schleck’s office early on a gamble that she’d be absent, again. From behind her desk, she glanced at her leather band wristwatch.

  I’m not cut out for the gambling lifestyle.

  She twirled her Montblanc between her fingers, and I noticed a change. She’d traded her British phone booth red lipstick to a shimmering bronze and her nail polish matched. “Rachael, the boxes are piling up, I can hardly think with all the clutter. They all need to be out of here by end of day.”

  I’ve been better, but enough about me. Let’s talk about you.

  “Everything okay?” I asked

  “In what respect?”

  “Um, well with your, ah, lectures and all.”

  “Not really. I’m going to have a chat with the Dean of Admissions. The student pool this year is composed of buffoons. The papers I grade are even worse than your class last year. A waste of my time.”

  I’d hoped my afternoon in Schleck’s office would be a refuge. With the high drama at the house this morning, I needed an escape. In the last twenty-four hours, Katie Lee had filed a suit against Sheila, and the sheriff had shown up, looking for her. Sheila was gonna shit a major brick when she was served the paperwork.

  Being the experienced intern, I had a system and began thumbing through the inventory list the professor provided before I organized the packages. I’d type up the labels and UPS shipping forms first since that took the longest. Lastly, I’d inspect the prints, making sure everything matched before slapping the address label on the box.

  Schleck slammed down the phone. Apparently the call she dialed didn’t produce a voice on the other end. Her short fuse flared today.

  The harder the professor’s pen scratched against paper, the lighter I tapped the electric typewriter keys. Her irritability wick was not something I wanted to ignite. In between the clatter of the typewriter, and Schleck’s grumbling critique of the pages she graded, my mind backtracked over this morning. Jet and I were the only ones around when the uniformed dude arrived. Jet sputtered astonishment at the sight of the deputy sheriff, and I can’t say I was cool or collected. Neither of us knew where Sheila was and hadn’t seen much of her since the intervention turned blowout debacle.

  Katie Lee must’ve been lying low until the papers were in Sheila’s hands. I would’ve liked to track her down, but didn’t have a clue as to her coordinates. I called Patsy to see if Katie Lee had confided in her and arranged a road trip to East Carolina. Maybe she’d hitched a lift with someone? She hadn’t, but Patsy offered to come to Greensboro and use my mace on Sheila as retribution for sleeping with Hugh. I told her she’d get arrested for that but it didn’t faze her. “I’d just tell the judge it went off while I was cleaning it,” she’d said.

  After lying and assuring her we had the situation under control, I’d hung up. With Patsy off the list of where to find Katie Lee, I knew one thing for sure, my roommate wasn’t at Hugh’s. During the scuffle, she was underwhelmed with his intervention finesse. He’d gotten off to a good start by grabbing Sheila, but gawking at her Holy Water-drenched stripper boobs undermined his gallantry. Stupid, stupid Hugh.

  When the officer left our doorstep, Jet spat, “Oh my God, I should warn Sheila,” and covered her mouth.

  “What? Do you know something?”

  She shrugged.

  “Jet, tell me.”

  “It’s just that ...” She sighed. “I came across a new door hinge for Hugh’s Datsun’s busted door and swung by to drop it off.”

  “Did you bump into Clay?” I’d asked.

  “No! We’re not together.”

  “How come?”

  “He’s a player.”

  I stewed on that.

  “The guys weren’t there, but Sheila was. I think she’s been staying with them.”

  “We both said we hadn’t seen her. You lied to the police?”

  Schleck threw her pen on the stack she’d been working on and stood, startling me. A few of the artwork pieces that needed re-packaging were vertically stacked near her desk, next to a bag of kitty litter. A lot of fuss for not-so-great art. She stared at the first one, a Norman Rockwell iconic print of Saying Grace. Removing a dry paintbrush from a pencil jar, she rolled her desk chair toward it and swept the bristles across a corner before she began to lightly flick her nail at something near the top of the frame corner.

  If she damaged the poster. I wasn’t taking the blame.

  I pretended I had an intense interest in the typewriter keys and whipped up a bogus address label.

  “Rachael, can you handle things without me?”

  I spun around on the backless stool I used at the typewriter desk. “Sure, Professor. Is there anything besides these packages I can help you with?”

  Kiss ass O’Brien, gambling again.

  I held my breath.

  What if she hands you the stack of essays to correct!

  “Just make sure there aren’t any screw ups and get the packages out today,” She said, clutching her Louie V carpetbag. “Double check the zip codes; I don’t need any more lost packages to account for.”

  When the door shut, my breath flowed easier. On the positive, her underlying insults came so frequently that she must’ve inadvertently strengthened my backbone. For now, I had bigger worries at the house. Hiding out at Hugh and Clay’s, Sheila may think she has the upper hand, but wait until she gets wind of the papers. She was a firecracker and I worried that her explosive personality had begun plotting some sort of revenge, which for a normal rational person would be ridiculous since she’d been the one to start the whole to-do. Sheila was full of contradictions, and although sleeping with your roommate’s boyfriend did not make for a relaxing at-home environment, inside her mis-wired head, I doubted her actions were chance. Most likely, Hugh was a pawn for some scheme or rationalization for something.

  I clacked a few typewriter keys and stopped. I couldn’t help but linger on my roommates. On a good day, Sheila was annoying. When she pulled her bad-girl stunts, her company was like an oozing rash. Initially, Katie Lee had been so calm and forgiving to Hugh, then dropped him from her life? This was the roommate who always stayed friendly with old boyfriends. And Francine, she’d played up ridding Katie Lee of her demonic boyfriend tendencies with the spread on the dining room table. When the fight broke out, she was quick to call the police. Once the cop arrived and escorted Sheila out to separate her, Katie Lee knocked elbows with Francine. It was a subtle gesture. I thought the girls night, confronting Katie Lee intervention was my idea, but now I wasn’t entirely sure. Had my roommates duped me? The more I let it simmer, the more convinced I became that the two planned
for Katie Lee to lure Sheila into some sort of altercation so they could get her kicked out of the house. The only one not involved was Jet. She’d smartly spun off the planet.

  My key clacking became vigorous and I pressed the return key with a weighty finger. What else had the two plotted? Was I a puppet in some grand plan of theirs? My face felt warm. I stopped to open the window behind the professor’s desk when I heard raised voices.

  “Rachael’s not going to do a damn thing for you. You need to be accountable for your behavior. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh. He’s the one you’d be better off spending your free time with.”

  Sheila pushed the door open, wearing only mascara on her face and hair styled in a ponytail. Standard for me. Not for her.

  Francine was right behind and the two rocketed into the office. Francine glowed. Her bangs had grown to her ear lobes and she styled them in tight curls. A sharp contrast to the shoulder length bob that lay straight under a stiff gleam of gel she’d applied. Her eyelids were heavily shadowed with powder blue, which matched her form-fitting zippered ankle jeans.

  “She’s blackmailing me.”

  “Hello. I’m working here. Can’t you two ignore one another like normal?”

  Sheila threw a couple of Polaroid pictures onto the typewriter and they fell onto my lap. “Francine’s been having lesbo fantasies about me.”

  I kept typing.

  “Look,” Sheila heaved.

  Pretending to be deep in thought, while I rested my fingers on the typewriter keys, I ignored them. I didn’t need photos? When Sheila was home, I witnessed a live show every time I turned a corner.

  Francine crossed her arms and rested against a file cabinet. “Your scrawny freckled ass is as appealing as curdled milk.”

  I didn’t tell these two that I’d seen the photos before, and that I knew the ones splayed on my lap were only a portion of the stack I’d discovered in Francine’s knickknack box. Sheila Sinclair was born twenty years too late. When it came to sexuality, the more, the better, and I suspected that she would’ve enjoyed the sixties. She’d fit right in at one of those nudist camps out west where all the hippies still congregated.