“Are you all right, Dana?”
“I’m fine,” I reply. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
Manny claps a hand across my shoulder. “Now that is a stellar idea.”
Glancing back one more time, I see that my ex is still staring and now the woman with the purple dress is looking at me, too.
We get around the corner and I shake my head, trying to forget about it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam whispers, putting her arm around me.
“I just hate the way she was looking at me.”
“How?”
Shaking my head, I move on, pretending not to hear the question. I didn’t want to talk about it to Sam, but for a second there, I was pretty sure that my ex wanted to kill me.
Chapter Fourteen
Standing in my sister’s apartment, surrounded by tarps, tape, cans of paint, and facemasks, I ask myself yet again why I agreed to do this.
“Seriously, Susannah. Between playing tourist with Sam, rescuing Olivia, getting kidnapped by my ex, avoiding crazy dream lady, and doing your household chores, I barely have time for myself. How am I going to keep buying clothes for you to steal if I don’t have time to work?”
Ignoring me, she continues doing the cut work along the ceiling. “So then what happened?”
“Then the guys bought us lunch and we walked back to the cruise ship pier.”
“So how did you end up on the news?”
“Sam and the guys had several of the free rum samples meant for cruise ship passengers. When one of the ships started moving, she went running down the sidewalk with her shopping bags in hand yelling, “Wait for me, wait for me.”
Susannah bursts out laughing. “That’s so like her.”
“At any rate, she ended up slamming into a garbage can, flipped completely over it, and fell into the guy who plays the steel pan drum outside of Sandy’s on the Strand.”
Giving up the pretense of working, Susannah leans against the ladder and laughs. “I wish I had been there to see it.”
“While she extricated herself from the man’s drums, and Manny and Bob laughed their asses off, I talked the drummer out of calling the cops.”
“So where did the news come in?”
“Channel eight was doing a piece on crime against cruise ship passengers and the reporter asked if we wanted to be interviewed. Before I could say no, Sam agreed. So there we were on channel eight in our matching cock shirts.”
“Can I have that shirt?”
“Yeah, but I’ve already cut off the sleeves and the neck.”
“Of course you did.”
We paint together in silence for a while. I really do like my sister and I enjoy her company. She just knows how to push my buttons. That’s what comes from being raised together, I guess. No one else in the world can ever really understand what it was like to have our exact formative experience, but a sister comes closer than anyone else. It pains me to see her becoming more and more like my mother, though. Thomas stopped over on his way to work to bring her doughnuts and coffee and she barely even thanked him. When I questioned her on it, she said it was the least he could do since he wasn’t going to be here to help her paint. I started trying to explain to her that people want to feel appreciated, but then I decided it wasn’t worth it. Besides, with my track record, I’m not really in a position to give dating advice to anyone. Sometimes I wonder if Voldemort and I would have worked out if I hadn’t still been so fucked up over Fran. No, she has a host of other personality problems that really have nothing to do with me. Still, time was what I needed. I should never have considered getting involved with someone else so soon after Fran’s death. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I know my ex never got over the story in Annabelle Lies, though I feel I had given her enough background that she shouldn’t have been overly shocked. It really was a work of fiction, after all. I explained that while it was based on my own life, I was writing it as fiction and as such, there was a lot in there that simply wasn’t true. I don’t know how much she believed. To be fair, I don’t think I ever really treated her very well. Not that I want to get back together. I just think if I had been honest with her and with myself, I would have cut ties long before I did.
“Earth to Dana,” Susannah says.
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“Obviously. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m wondering if I ruined Jackie’s life.”
Shocked, Susannah rocks back, holding on to the ladder for balance. “Whoa, you said her name. Should I notify the papers?”
“Well, even Voldemort had a name in the books.”