Monster - A. Lee Martinez [43]
She waited another half hour for Paulie. He never showed.
* * *
Judy didn’t call ahead. She knew everything Greta would say, and Judy knew that she would have to hear it all. No way around that. But if she had to hear the “talk” on the phone, odds were that Judy would just get disgusted, hang up, and end up in a cheap hotel for the day. If she was going to be annoyed, she might as well get something out of it.
Greta lived in a perfect house. It had a perfect yard, perfect flower beds. The driveway was perfect too. Not a single crack in the smooth, unstained concrete. There wasn’t a fleck of falling paint on the perfect walls, and even the lawn gnomes were perfectly arranged in the four corners of the front yard. It was the house that Barbie dolls lived in. Judy had always been more into G.I. Joe. Her ideal house would look pretty much the same as Greta’s, except there’d be a secret lever you could pull to reveal a command center, a helipad, and maybe an anti-aircraft gun or two. Greta probably had all that hidden in there somewhere. Greta had everything.
Judy rang the doorbell, which chimed a lilting tune. Something classical. Probably Beethoven. The door wasn’t answered right away, and Judy wondered if Greta had already left for work. She found herself hoping Greta was still home as much as she hoped she was gone. All possible futures involving the answering or non-answering of the door before her seemed equally fraught with peril.
The door opened. Greta was in her power suit.
Judy forced a smile. “Hi.”
“What’s wrong?” It was more of an accusation than a question.
“Nice to see you too, sis.” Judy wrestled with her grin, trying to keep it from transforming into a scowl. “I need a place to stay for a couple of days.”
“Okay. Sure. Come on.” Greta stepped aside and made a half hearted welcoming gesture. “But you’ll have to put that out first.”
Judy took a final drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out in the potted plant on the front porch. She crossed the threshold with a shudder. Greta’s house was more like a museum exhibit than a home. Weird art hung from the walls, and strange sculptures occupied the corners.
“You’ve redecorated,” said Judy.
“Three years ago,” said Greta, sounding again as if Judy had done something wrong.
Judy ignored it. She had enough experience. “I miss the masks. So where are Chuck and Nancy?”
“Nancy has already left for school, and Chuck is out of town on a business trip until Tuesday.” Greta went into the kitchen and began going through papers, adding some to pockets in her briefcase, removing others.
Judy went to the refrigerator and picked through the inventory. There weren’t any leftovers. The disposal of day-old foodstuffs was a religion for Greta. There was no place for them in her neat and tidy universe. There was nothing to eat or drink.
“Don’t you have any soda or anything?”
“We don’t drink processed sugar in this house. Chuck has an allergy, and it makes Nancy hyper.”
Judy found a bottle of orange juice. She was tempted to drink directly out of the bottle, but the only reason to do that would’ve been to annoy her sister. And Greta was giving Judy a place to crash, so she could at least play by her rules.
“How’s the kid?” asked Judy. “She’s—what—ten now?”
“Nine.”
“She can read, right?”
“At a tenth-grade level.”
“Cool.” Judy poured the juice into a tumbler and gulped it down in a long swig. “That’s good, right?”
Greta sighed. “So what happened this time?”
“I lost my apartment.”
“You could’ve asked me for help if you couldn’t make your rent.”
“No, I mean I lost it. As in, it was destroyed.”
“What do you mean, destroyed?”
“I mean destroyed. Ravaged. Demolished. Obliterated. Annihilated. Gone. Along with pretty much everything I own. Except for my car and these clothes I’m wearing.”
“What? How did that happen?” Greta finished sorting papers and closed up her briefcase. “Was there a gas explosion or something?”
“No. It wasn’t anything like