Page 3 of Deja New
“I did not!” Well, maybe sometimes. During middle school, possibly. Maybe once or twice in high school. “All of you, back off. And backup.” They’d all climbed off or from beneath various pieces of furniture and were closing in, which was as dreadful as it sounded. “We didn’t get along when we were kids, but that was years ago.”
“Years.”
“Years, she says.”
“Hey, guys, it’s all in the past because, y’know, Angela here says it’s been years andyearsand—”
“She thinks last Christmas is ‘years’?”
“She thinks last month is ‘years.’”
She groped for the flyswatter hanging on a nail between the living room and kitchen, then lunged forward like a fencer on the offense. “Back! All of you, get back!” The Horde collectively flinched as the swatter swung and hissed through the air.
“Oh, gross.”
“Seriously with this, Angela?”
“Don’t point that thing at me.”
“We have a flyswatter?”
“Yeah, it’s usually on one of those little hooks on the keyboard.”
“All right!” Swish, lunge, parry.If I didn’t know better, she thought,I’d think I was a fencer in a former life.But nope. Alas: She’d been nothing more exotic than a minor league baseball pitcher just after World War I.
Which was probably why she didn’t consider softball a real game. “You’re right.”
“Hear that? I’m right!”
“Which one of us is right?”
“Shut up, you’re all basically a hive mind, anyway.” She’d stopped ducking and weaving (literally as well as figuratively) and held them all at flyswatter length. “I admit it: I was a shit to Archer through most of our childhood—”
“The sordid truth comes out!”
“It was awful,Iwas awful, and I’ve apologized to him.” So many apologies. Even now, she flushed hot with embarrassment when she remembered the cutting things she’d said over the years. The fact that, as an adult, he tolerated her with absent good humor was more a testament to his easygoing personality than to her amends. Which she found perversely irritating.The guy can’t even hold a grudge right.
But, again: The Plan.
“We need to put that behind us now because— Oh, my God they’re here!” She almost dropped the flyswatter, hesitated—it had kept the throng at bay pretty well—then hung it back up. She would not meet Leah Nazir with a flyswatter in one hand. Most likely.
“This is the most excited I’ve ever seen you.”
“Of course I’m excited! She’s the Mangiarotti of Insighters.” She could actuallyfeelthe puzzled silence, and tried again. “The Mozart of Insighters.”
“She’s a famously immature genius harpsichord player who loves jokes about shit?”
“Scatological humor,” she corrected automatically, then cursed herself. “I mean, no!” She flinched as she heard car doorsthunking shut in the driveway. They’d be heading up the walk to the front door. They’d beenteringthe front door! Her cousin/maybe brother/worst enemy and the James L. Brooks of Insighters! Here! In her house! Where she’d been stood up for prom! Twice!*“Please. I’m begging you guys. Be nice. Be... not weird. I mean—as best you can,” she modified.
No use asking for miracles.
