She was a dog and Vanessa was a cat. It was about that simple. Kelly liked cats. But when you weren’t one and when you ran into somebody who was . . . Life got more interesting than you really wanted it to.
Vanessa was younger than she was, prettier than she was, more graceful than she was. She’d been on the road for a while. She was grubby and looked tired as she walked up to the door. Kelly opened it. Vanessa looked at her and said, “Oh. You must be Kelly.”
In another tone of voice, or without that flat Oh, it would have been fine. As things were, Kelly’s hackles rose. She still didn’t know what they were, but, whatever they were, up they went, all right. “Uh-huh,” she said, her own voice colder than post-eruption winter at the South Pole. “Come in.” She had to make herself get out of the way so Vanessa could.
Once past the front foyer, Vanessa looked around. “It’s . . . different,” she said, as if that should have been a hanging offense on the off chance it wasn’t.
“Yes. It is.” Kelly hadn’t known she could sound any chillier. She surprised herself, because she had no trouble at all. The decor everywhere but in Colin’s study had still been Louise’s when she started hanging out with him. The front room didn’t look like a rummage sale in a Russian Orthodox monastery any more.
“Well . . .” Vanessa had said, and then, “It’s better than Camp Constitution, anyhow.” By the way she said it, it wasn’t one hell of a lot better than the enormous refugee camp.
“Thanks,” Kelly’d answered. “If it doesn’t suit you, I’m sure you can find a motel.” She knew that was a mistake as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Too late then, of course. Things would have been bad enough even without a formal declaration of hostilities. Now? Now they’d be worse than bad enough.
“Where will you put me?” Vanessa had asked. It wasn’t No fucking way I’m going to a motel, lady, but it might as well have been.
“One of the upstairs bedrooms. Colin says it used to be yours a long time ago.” Stressing the last four words, Kelly’d hit back.
“Oh, boy. Back to high school,” Vanessa had muttered.
If they hadn’t already got on bad terms, Kelly would have forgiven her that one. Having to move back into your parents’ house was every grown American child’s nightmare. As things were, Kelly wasn’t in a slack-cutting mood. “Come on up, why don’t you?” she’d asked tonelessly.
Marshall was clacking away down the hall, behind a closed door. Eyeing the yellow tape on the door—POLICE LINE! DO NOT CROSS!—Vanessa’d curled her lip. “My God, hasn’t he changed at all?” she’d said.
“You’d know better than I would.” Kelly had knocked on Marshall’s door.
The clacking stopped. “What?” Marshall had sounded irritable, or as irritable as he ever sounded. He didn’t like getting interrupted while he was writing.
This was a special occasion, though, or Kelly thought it was. “Your sister’s home,” she’d answered.
After a few seconds, Marshall had said, “Cool.” He’d started typing again. Kelly wondered if he was ripped. She didn’t smell weed in the hallway. As far as she knew, he didn’t smoke much while he was working. He saved it for other times.
Vanessa’d looked ready to detonate. Again, even not liking her much, Kelly’d had trouble blaming her for that. But after a sentence—two at the most—the typing had stopped once more.
Out came Marshall. He’d nodded to Kelly, then (and only then) to Vanessa. “Hey,” he said to his sister.
“Hello, you big lunk. It is good to see you,” Vanessa answered. “So you finally graduated, did you?”
“’Fraid so,” Marshall admitted ruefully. He’d staved off the evil day as long as he could, till UC Santa Barbara requirements and Colin’s unwillingness to write any more tuition checks at last conspired to cast him forth into the real world.
“And?” Vanessa’d asked. Kelly was impressed at how much snark she could pack into a single word.
By the way Marshall’s eyebrow had twitched, so was he, and not favorably, either. “And so I’m back in San Atanasio instead of up at UCSB,” he’d replied. With a certain snarkiness of his own, he’d added, “You’re here, too.”
“Only till I find somewhere else,” Vanessa declared.
“Job market’s a little tough around here right now,” Marshall said. “Ask Mom if you don’t believe me.”
“Half the time, Mom doesn’t know enough to grab her ass with both hands,” Vanessa said scornfully.