Page 60 of Half Baked

She gave me an apologetic look. “Yeah.”

“Then I definitely need to be back before five. That doesn’t give me enough time to do anything.”

“Why don’t you see if that Trista chick will cover for you?” Mallory suggested. “She’s always showing up late and making you stay past your shift.”

I poured the eggs into a hot skillet. “She’s really not a morning person, but she was saying she wished she had Friday nights off. She might be willing to trade with me.”

“Tonight just so happens to be Friday night,” Mallory said with an exaggerated grin, which quickly turned into a frown. “But that means you’d have to work tonight. Margarete might be able to stay with her.”

“No, it’s my responsibility. I’ll stay with her,” I said with plenty of guilt. This felt a lot like what my mother had done with me—pawning me off onto her sister and babysitters, which wasn’t fair, but I was feeling ungrounded. I’d seen my mother as a homebody with a low-key job she loved and a normal life, and it turned out that she’d likely had a second life that had been completely invisible to me.

Mallory had already pulled out her phone and was tapping on the screen. Her face screwed up with concentration.

Anxiety stretched my nerves like a rubber band. I’d seen that look before, and it often meant she was doing something I wouldn’t like. “What are you doing?”

“Texting Detective Americano.” She looked up from her screen with a look of triumph. “He says he’ll babysit Aunt Deidre so you can work tonight.”

“What? I can’t ask him to do that. His mother is in town.”

“He said that won’t be a problem.” She held up her phone and showed me his response to her asking if he could watch my aunt so I could work tonight.

Yes. My mother won’t be here so it’s not an issue.

“Did he kick his mother out?” I asked, feeling panicked.

“I know as much as you do, Maddie. Now call Larissa and ask her to switch.”

“Trista.”

She shrugged. “Whatever. Call her.”

I hated calling Trista this early when I knew she wasn’t a morning person. Still, she’d mentioned more than once that she wanted to go to a concert in Chattanooga tonight. She had passive-aggressively tried to get someone to trade with her, and last I’d heard, no one had taken the bait. Texting would be preferable, but I doubted she was up. I wasn’t even sure a phone call would wake her.

I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and called, steeling myself for what was likely to start out as an unpleasant conversation.

She answered after several rings, sounding half-asleep but also pissed. “What the hell? This better be an emergency.”

“I don’t think offering to work for you tonight is an emergency, but time is definitely an issue.”

“Wait,” she said, sounding more agreeable. “You’re offering to work for me tonight?”

“I’m offering to trade you for tonight.”

“Okay.” She sounded less excited. “When?”

“Today.”

It took her two seconds to respond. “Are you out of your mind?” She ranted for a half minute about how unfair this was and couldn’t I trade her for another day?—but by the time we hung up, we’d agreed that she’d show up at nine-thirty and work until three, and I’d cover her five-to-nine shift.

“I’ve got to go,” I said to Mallory, shoving the skillet with the cooked eggs to the other side of the stove. “Trista’s coming in at nine-thirty, and I’m working her shift tonight. Which means I need to work the first part of my shift, and I’m going to be late.”

“I’ll take care of Aunt Deidre’s breakfast. You go find out who your mom was sleeping with.”

I shot her a dark look and raced out the door.

ChapterSixteen

Noah

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