Page 6 of Slayer Mom
“I have no idea, but I’d rather be in a play than real life, if that’s an option. Plays are all the highlights, the drama, the excitement. Real life is just ho-hum. Your life has been so ho-hum, it must have been real.” She laughed like that was so funny, and maybe it was.
I took another drink then set the bottle on the floor and opened the box. I didn’t have a ton of stuff from my life before, some tacky jewelry, like a barbell choker, and a bejewelled gold cross on a rusted chain, along with an odd assortment of cheap rings. I also had a few journals I’d kept, and my favorite fairy tank top with fake fur rainbow straps. Yeah, I was classy in my youth.
I put on everything, stripping out of the silky blouse so I could pull the tank on over my fancy bustier. I stacked on the necklaces and rings, then put in the ear cuffs before I noticed how Gloria was watching me.
“What?”
“You really are wearing ridiculous underwear. It doesn’t go with the skirt or shoes. Did you keep the red pleather pants?”
I looked, and sure enough, at the bottom of the box were my favorite old pair of pants, smelling of my old favorite blend of essential oils. No way I’d be able to get them on, but I’d try.
After a great deal of effort, I had the pleather pants on. I spun around, holding my bottle. “They fit! All I need are my old boots.”
“They’re in the hall closet. I use them for gardening.”
I gave her a look. “You never garden.”
“True, but once I had a racoon stuck in a tree, and I used your boots to knock it down.”
“That’s exactly like gardening.” I went to the closet off the main foyer and pulled on the thick-soled black boots.
“You look ready to go somewhere. Wow, that look. Could kill someone. And you’re walking around in those pants like a pro.”
I sniffed and took another liberal drink. “Rebel pants. Born to be wiiiiiiiild!”
“Born to be Wiiiiiiild!” she sang after me.
For a moment we grinned at each other, and then she darted to her aunt’s ancient stereo system and a random song came on from her aunt’s playlist. Her aunt had fostered a lot of kids, benign neglect was probably a good definition for her parenting style, but she’d been better than most, and she’d come withGloria who had felt more like my sister than anything by the time I aged out of the system.
We danced and drank until I decided that I needed to walk the few blocks to the old movie theater I used to work at and catch a matinee.
“Matinees are cheaper,” I told her seriously. “If I’m leaving my husband forever, I’ll have to pinch my pennies.”
She nodded very seriously. “Good thinking. Practice being poor so you can decide if the boredom is worth the price.” She threw her arms around me dramatically, knocking me back into a wall. “You always have a home here. Although if you live here, I’ll make you do all my cooking and cleaning like a glorified Cinderella. Also gardening.”
I squeezed her back. “I’ve been dying to clean your house for years. And garden. We housewives are terrors when it comes to cleaning and cooking.”
She pulled back and stared at me seriously then burst out laughing. “You don’t look like a housewife. Have fun at the matinee, Lucky!”
I danced out of the house, feather boa thrown around my shoulders and a big bottle of schnapps under my tank top, with a bright red wig over my usual blond. I sang the three blocks east, vaguely noticing that the neighborhood had gotten even more dismal and depressing in the last few years. I kicked a pile of leaves and spun around, feather boa flapping.
The old movie theater looked like a set for a haunted house, but it still smelled like buttery popcorn when I pushed through the barred front door. The bells jangled, and Tom came in, as tall and bony as I remembered, with a suspicious pinch to his eyes.
“Tom! I’ve come to sneak alcohol into the movie!”
He leaned closer to get a look at me then pulled back like he’d smelled something strong. “You justmissed the last matinee. The next show doesn’t start until six forty-five.”
I grabbed his arm, and he widened his stance to keep me from taking him down with me. “But I need to watch a matinee because it’s cheaper. Don’t turn me away, Tom, please?” I batted my lashes at him like I was still a fourteen-year-old trying to get a job.
He stared at me as emotionless as he was the first time we’d met. “I can set you up in theater number one. I’ve been using it as storage.”
“You stopped fighting the ghosts? How practical of you. Thanks! I knew I could count on you.”
He nodded and walked with me, flicking on his old flashlight as we went down the dark hall, past the other theaters with their moans and muffled shrieks. I kept quiet, because I knew the job. Paying customers got deference.
“What do you want to watch?” he asked when we finally got to theater number one. It was on the end, strangely enough.
“How about an old Jet Li film? I haven’t watched one of those for way too long.”
