Page 20 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
“No! Get the spare. The spare!” Julie hisses.
“The insurance policy,” Mom says before running into the house with the wet blanket and moose.
“Just don’t send Bea.” Portia kicks her legs up on the arm of the sofa. “She’ll throw it in the pool again.”
“I did notthrowanything in the pool. I tripped. It was an accident.” I’ve shed both my cutoffs and crochet cover-up, downto my swimwear, and am trying to gather the tarot cards with as much dignity as possible.
Mike dives in again, after Mom’s phone this time. “It might dry out okay.” He hands it to me.
He’s wet and shirtless, and I’m in an old black gingham bikini. I want to die, but I take the phone and place it next to the stack of tarot cards I’m collecting on the ledge of the pool.
“Granny is gonna fix it. Granny is gonna fix everything,” my dad says to a distraught Eaton, bouncing him up and down on his knee.
Mom reappears with identical, if slightly less battered, replacements for the blanket and moose.
The entire crowd cheers. Eaton clutches the blanket to his chest and snuggles in with my dad.
“Maybe we hold off on the rest of the presents until after naptime,” Dad says.
“Excellent idea,” Mom says. “Adam, go get my tarot cards.”
Adam shrugs and is about to dive into the pool when Mom stops him. “No, not those. There’s a deck in the piano bench. This will be fun.”
“This is your fault,” I say to Mike.
“Bea can start,” Portia yells. “She could use a little more insight.”
Chapter 6
“Oh, do me,” Mike says to my Mom. “I’ve never had my fortune read.”
Mom squeals. “I love an eager volunteer.”
"Ma, I can't find them!" Adam calls.
"Check the corner pockets of the pool table." She disappears into the house.
I round on Mike. “I do not need saving from my mom’s tarot reading.”
“Really?” Mike gracefully swims past me and climbs out of the pool. He grabs a striped towel from the stack and wraps it around his shoulders before offering me a hand.
I swat it away and climb out of the pool without help.
“Why don’t you take your smug smile and obnoxiously”—I stop myself before I saygood looks—“bleached hair and just leave before you ruin anything else, and I get blamed for it.”
“Hold on.” Mike hands me a clean towel, and when I don’t take it, he unfolds it and wraps it around my shoulders. “You’re blaming me for you falling into the pool?”
“Yes.”
“How? You bolted from the kitchen straight into the water.”
“I wouldn’t have had a reason to bolt if it weren’t for you.”
“I was trying to help.” Mike says, taking a seat opposite my mother’s rattan peacock chair.
“By putting your arms all over me.”
“You catapulted into my arms when you slipped.”
