Page 16 of Crazy Spooky Love
I glance across at her as I drag the gearstick backward, and we both start to laugh uncontrollably.
Chapter
Five
Marina loses a tenner at 8:51a.m.the following morning when Arthur Elliott clocks in for his first official day as a trainee ghost buster. His tap on the door is every bit as mild as the day before, and Marina’s approach as she lets him into the office is every bit as in-his-face.
“Um, what the hell are you wearing?”
Arthur looks down at his immaculately ironed buff-colored overalls and then up at us again. His face is two shades from puce.
“Too much?”
“Unless you’re the actual Dan Aykroyd, yes.” I nod and shoot him a sympathetic smile. “Just jeans tomorrow?”
“I can go home and change,” he whispers. “It’s only two buses.”
Curious mix of granite-tough and butter-soft that she is, Marina caves instantly. “You know what? No need. You’re perfectly dressed to help me paint the van.”
He brightens and holds up a crumpled carrier bag. “I brought sandwiches for my lunch.”
Remembering Nonna’s donuts, I reach for the shiny lime-green tin and peel open the lid. “And Marina brought zeppole.”
I gaze down at the layer of perfectly bite-sized sugared donuts and my teeth ache to bite into one.
“You made those?” Arthur looks at Marina with new awe.
“Hernonna,” I interject, because she looks as if she’s about to do Nonna Malone an injustice and claim them as her own. “Grandma Maloneto you and me,” I add, when Arthur looks nonplussed.
“For our coffee break,” Marina adds, pointedly taking the tin away from me. I don’t like how that’s becoming a recurring thing.
“Can I have tea at the coffee break?”
Marina, a long-time devotee of coffee strong enough to stand your spoon in, shakes her head at Arthur. “No tea bags.”
Arthur pats his overall pockets until one crinkles, then reaches in and withdraws a little polythene bag containing a supply of tea bags.
“Got my own.”
I note the spark of humor in his eye as he lays them down beside the kettle and I approve ofit.
From Marina’s scowl, she clearly doesn’t. “Why would you do that?”
“Because coffee makes me go bonkers,” he says, turning back around.
Marina shoots me a “let’s give him coffee and see what happens” look, but I just shrug and smile benignly.
“If Arthur wants tea, he can have tea.”
“Nonna wouldn’t approve of tea with her zeppole,” she mutters darkly.
“Well, no one needs to tell Nonna, do they?”
Arthur turns his big hopeful eyes on Marina and once more she crumbles.
“Fine. Not a word to Nonna or we’ll be on store-bought biscuits, and no one wants that now, do they?”
We shake our heads in unison and Marina rolls her shoulders, partially mollified. It’s been one of her longest-held wishes to perfect the art of cracking her neck for added menace, and I know this would be one of those times she’d have used it to full effect. Thesetwo remind me of puppies establishing the pecking order in their brand-new pack; Marina is husky-like, pretty but lethal, and Arthur would be a leggy Great Dane, clumsy, bashful, and eager to please. What would I be in this pack, I wonder. Something yappy, probably, and liable to bite. A Jack Russell comes unflatteringly to mind; snappy, small, and often annoying. Although…aren’t they also tenacious and utterly unaware of their own limitations, therefore often foolhardy and brave? I’ll go for that. I want more than anything to be courageous, to make a raging success of the agency. I’ve spent my entire adult life either trying to fit into the outside world like a square peg in a round hole, or else being absorbed into the family business in a way that makes me feel smothered and childlike. I’m not a child any longer, and however hard I try, I’m never going to be a round peg. This agency is my attempt to bang a square hole in the wall to accommodate my square peg; to create somewhere I fit, somewhere I can be me without apology or the need to qualify myself constantly. This is my pack, and I want to lead them to glory.
