The Arrangement Anthology 1(205)

“You’re not quite green enough to pull that off.” I snatch a Bugle from her fingertip and pop it in my mouth.

Shifting back to Mel’s normal don’t-screw-with-me voice, she sways her head and waves a finger in my face. “Don’t you go saying nothing about the color of my skin. I could make a perfectly perfect nasty witch—”

“I know.”

“Hey!”

“Mel, you walked right into that one. What’s with you lately?” Mel seems distracted. That’s the best word for it. It’s like she’s here, but her mind is somewhere else. Grinning at her, I elbow her side. “So, who is he?” It was a wild stab in the dark, but by the way she turns her claws on me, I know I guessed right.

“What the fuck makes you think there has to be some—” Her hackles are raised and I brace for impact, but at the same second, I see Sean walk out of the hotel across the street.

Lifting my hand, I point. “It’s him.”

Mel slaps me. “Put that down. If he looks over here, he’ll see you wagging your finger at him. Slip down into your seat. I’ll see which way he goes and then we can follow.”

“He’s not going to see me. We’re all the way across the street. Besides, look at him—he’s totally spaced out.” Sean is the kind of guy who usually soaks up the details of everything around him with a flick of his eyes, but today, his gaze is downcast. The warm weather and the sun doesn’t melt the frost that’s formed on his shoulders, either. Sean looks every bit as dangerous as he did going head to head with Henry. Cringe, that was the worst mistake ever, Henry, I mean.

It’s really strange thinking about it, but Henry seemed like a nice guy on the outside. Meanwhile, Sean seems like he’s actively looking for a puppy to kick because it would amuse him. All this time I thought the happy-go-lucky people were the ones carrying their hearts on their sleeves, but I don’t think that’s true anymore. It’s the people with that ferocious I’ll-eat-you-alive look—the folks that scare the bejesus out of old ladies—those are the people with their heart on their sleeves. The barbs in their vacant stares aren’t animosity or hatred, but pain and brokenness. At some point it becomes impossible to hide how many pieces they’ve shattered into and you get this charred outer shell that’s brittle as hell, and impossible to fix.

When I look at Sean, that’s what I see. What looks like a bitter, arrogant man is actually just another guy trying to hold it together. Dad used to say that when things got rough, having Mom around was like having a brace. Even if they both tipped to the side, if they leaned toward each other, they wouldn’t fall down. Being alone means falling flat on my face.

Sean must sense someone is looking at him, because his gaze lifts and searches the parking lot, his face slowly scanning the people.

“Oh shit!” I squeal and slink down at the same time Mel smashes my head into the dashboard. I yelp, but she doesn’t take her hand off the back of my neck. Instead, she sits there, leaning against her door, and looks behind us, like she’s waiting for someone to come out of the store.

“And he’s still looking…” she says over her shoulder. When her hand releases the back of my neck, I can breathe a little better, but I don’t sit up. “What the hell is he doing out here, anyway?”

“Something with his brother, Peter.”

“Pete Ferro is here too? Shit, add one more and it could be a Ferro family reunion  . I bet they’d all kill each other before we got to dessert.” Mel leans her head against her hand after propping her elbow up on the door. “He don’t know your license plate number, right?”

“That was so grammatically disgusting. Why do you talk like you took a brick to the head?”

Her foot gently kicks me, originally aimed for my side, but I turned my head and the tip of her sneaker goes into my mouth. Mel yanks her foot back as I spit out gravel, gum, and other parking lot nastiness. “Oh, that was foul. I didn’t mean to make you eat shoe. Sorry about that.”

I’m spitting and resisting the urge to strangle her. “The laughter kind of negates the apology there, Mel.”

“Well, you asked for it. All making fun of my intellectuality. I’m a smart girl. I can handle myself.”

“So, why do you flip between talking like an intellectual and a bag lady?”

“You don’t understand nothin’. I’m me and I let you see both sides of my life—the good and the bad. They mix together and fall out of my mouth in ubiquitous sentences that I got no control over. You think this mind can be reproduced? Hell no, and it won’t be tamed either, so keep your comments on my urban vernacular to yourself, thank you very much.”