Bad Wolf(26)

"Stop being cryptic, sis. I'm desperate here."

"I'm trying to tell you nobody can give you the advice you want, brat. Only you can decide if Jarett is worthy of my little sister, and you don't seem to have enough evidence in order to decide yet. Therefore you need to study the matter more. Gather more clues. And then, Gigi, please …  don't do anything stupid, okay?"

"Really?" I put my hands on my hips. "Like what? Elope? Go on a road trip around the country? Move to Africa with him?"

"So many bad ideas..."

"Yeah." I huff a laugh. "Mom would have a fit if she overheard this conversation."

And eloping with Jarett shouldn't sound so appealing.

Jesus take the wheel.

"Speaking of Mom," Octavia says, "tell her that her grandbaby is not here yet. She keeps asking. She's driving me up the wall. Like I'd have the baby and not tell her, hide here at the house? What is she thinking?"

"Well, she's probably just worried because you're almost due. I mean, you do look … " At her dark look I hesitate. ‘Big like a whale' may not go down well. Just a hunch. "Um, radiant?" I suggest.

"Go away," she says disgustedly.

"I'm going. Goodbye, Bean! And rest well, sis. You'll call me if the baby decides to come, right? If your water breaks, or you feel any contractions, or-"                       
       
           



       

"Go. Away."

Snickering, I bend to kiss her cheek and get the hell away.



"Gigi! Come help me for a sec!" Mom calls out the moment I step inside our house. The smell of freshly baked cake coming from the kitchen makes my stomach growl.

"Coming!" Shrugging off my jacket and dropping my backpack at the door, I follow my nose and find my mother setting a baking tray on the table, hands sheathed in huge pink oven mitts Merc and I bought her last Christmas.

"There you are," she says brightly. "Help me get the other tray out, and put the icing on the cakes that have cooled down."

Okay, I can do that. I've turned into Mom's assistant ever since Octavia moved in with Matt and his kids. I mean, I do my best, but I can never be Octavia. Girl knows everything-how to cook and bake and clean and wash and keep a household in order.

Unlike me. Setting the house on fire would be easier for me than cleaning it.

I manage to get the other tray out of the oven without burning myself-this time-and set it on the mat to cool, then grab the icing bowl and give it a swirl with the spatula.

This is actually a part I really enjoy: icing cakes. Decorating them. Fixing them.

Wait a sec …  Is that what I'm trying to do with Jarett? Fix him?

I freeze, the spatula held up in the air. Good God. Am I that predictable? That simple to figure out, and an idiot to boot? Making the same mistake girls the world over have made since the dawn of time?

No, I'm not going to freak out now. Well, not worse than I have.

Gather more clues, Octavia told me earlier, or something like that. More information before you make up your mind.

If only it were that easy. Find information about Jarett, where?

"Have you heard from Octavia?" Mom asks, breaking through my thoughts. "I'm so worried about her."

"Why? I just saw her. She seems fine."

"Oh, how is she doing?" She wipes her hands on her apron. "She's not telling me anything anymore. She likes to keep me in the dark."

I blink. "Mom. That's so melodramatic."

If you knew my mom, you'd know she's a perfectly easy-going person. She's never pushy, never oppressing, never annoying. But it looks like the idea of a grandkid has changed her in unpredictable ways. What's this new possessive vibe coming off her?

"She never tells me how she is. Never calls me. I'll never even know if the baby comes."

"Mom. The baby is still in. In case you were wondering. And Octavia is fine, and will let us know if little Bean decides to come. Okay?"

"Okay, but-"

"No buts. You'll be the first to know. You can't doubt that, right?" I give her a quick hug. "Seriously."

"I know." She gives me a watery smile. "It's just …  I want to be there for her. My mom wasn't there for me, and I missed her so badly. I needed her. And I'm right here, offering to cook and clean and help, and your sister won't let me."

"You cooked, like, ten dishes last week and took them over to her. They still haven't finished them."

"It's not the same. I want to be by her side."

"Mom, she knows that. And you are. That doesn't mean you need to be attached at the hip. When the baby comes, she'll call you. I'm guessing that she and Matt want some time alone now, before Bean arrives, that's all."

"You're right." Her smile brightens, and she wipes at her eyes jerkily. "Of course you're right. You're wise, my little Augusta."

"Uh, no, Mom. I'm not." I check out the cooling cakes, set in a row on the table. "I just know how much Octavia loves you." I look up and wink at her. "We all do. Even Mr. Nelson."

Her face colors, and she pats her cheeks. "Hush."

Paul Nelson is a neighbor, and he and Mom have been dating for most of the past year. They're like schoolchildren, kissing behind doors and going out for romantic dinners, apparently. I haven't seen much of that, but Merc swears it's true. Merc knows everything that goes on in this city.

Mom is endearingly shy when talking about this Paul Nelson, and I wonder if they've gone beyond kissing and hand-holding yet. She has yet to introduce us to him, so when I pass outside his house sometimes and he's in the garden, it's kind of awkward. I want to go-hey, isn't my mom the shit? Aren't you totally in love with her? Isn't she the best?

But I don't.

I'm discreet and awesome that way, and I will let them do this in their own sweet time.

Smoothing the spatula over the cake, I check that the icing is perfect, before moving to the next cake.                       
       
           



       

"This one," Mom says, pointing at the cake as I slather icing on top of it, "is for Becky, bless her kind soul. She always liked my cakes. Her husband, too, though he passed on way too early."

"Sounds like a sad story," I mutter, slapping icing on the sides of the cake and spreading it. "What's her favorite cake?"

"Coffee cake, even if she doesn't remember much these days."

"Oh? Why not?"

Mom always has all these stories about people. It's soothing to listen to her, half-turning my brain off, as she prattles about neighbors in Destiny, and here in St. Louis, and people she met at work, and in the homes and hospitals she visits. Her memory of people is phenomenal.

"She got sick. Alzheimer's. Progressed pretty fast, too. She doesn't remember who I am, or where she is on most days."

"Oh no." I stop, inexplicable sorrow filling me for this woman I don't know. "That's so sad."

"It is. Such a nice lady. Helped me so much when we first moved here. She had me over for coffee with the other neighbors every Saturday."

"She was our neighbor?"

"Lived down the street. You know, people said it wasn't a good neighborhood, that gangs ruled it, but my memories from that time are good."

Gangs. Jarett.

Of course Mom knew all our neighbors. What if she knows what I need to find out? "Mom-"

"Jesus, look at the time!" Mom grabs more boxes and piles them up on the table. "Help me pack them up, Gigi. Janet is picking me up any moment now."

"Okay, but, Mom." I help her pack up the cakes, then place them inside cloth bags, my frustration mounting. "I wanted to ask you something."

"What, honey? Can it wait? I'll be so late."

"Yeah, sure." We load the cakes in the back of the car in a frenzy, Janet, one of Mom's friends, talking on her phone the whole time and glancing at us through the rearview mirror.

I wouldn't ask Mom about Jarett, if she remembers him and if she knows anything about him, with this lady in her beehive hairdo listening in.

After I watch them drive away, I head back to the house, feeling defeated.

Who can tell me about Jarett? There's no one left …  except Jarett himself.





Chapter Sixteen





Jarett





"You're sick again?" Suzie asks over the phone, the buzz of the bar filling up with customers loud in the background. "Jarett … "

"I know," I say, turning away from Mav and Angel who are talking in low voices at the street corner. "I know, okay? I'm sorry."

"I can't keep covering for you. What's going on?"

What am I gonna tell her? Gang business? We're about to rob a store, and I'm the lookout?

Hell.

"You're gonna lose the job if you keep doing that, Jarett," she says, and actually sounds sad. Fuck me …  "You know that, right?"

"Yeah. Thanks, girl, I appreciate it."

"If this is about your mom, you just come out and say it," she goes on. "No need to lie to me."