Page 36 of Rest In Pink

I settled in the living room with my laptop trying to tighten up Anemone’s Chapter Three: The Mob Marriage. It was in pretty good shape except it was missing that Anemone factor, the unbridled enthusiasm she attacked life with. I think it was because Anthony was her first love, and she’d truly loved him deeply. I would have had trouble with that, the guy killed people to order, but Anemone was all in. I think she was trying to hold the emotion back because it just hurt too much, so I was really looking forward to her new bit about the house when she got it done. I was pretty sure that’s where the emotion would be for her.

Then we could move on to the actor, who’d been a mistake from the get-go, so his chapter was nicely acerbic, a good palate cleanser after the real tragedy in Chapter Three, hitman or not. I was going to ask her about the house she’d lived in with him. I was pretty sure whatever she was going to remember about the houses in her life was going to be her throughline.

Including the one she was renting now, the Blue’s mansion, known to all as the Blue House. The place was obnoxiously blue, but I could put my feet on the blue coffee table—that would annoy Faye—and loll on one of the blue couches like I was Veronica, so it was good. And the bathrooms were fabulous.

Peri came in and sat down beside me.

“Do we have a lesson to go to?” I said.

“Not until four o’clock. Can we go to the library?”

She said it politely, sitting very close, and it suddenly occurred to me that kids probably need more than good food, swim lessons, and snappy patter.

I let my arm fall across the back of the couch, not touching her, and she cautiously snuggled a little closer, keeping her eyes on my face.

So, I cautiously put my arm around her and she sighed a little and leaned on me.

This is why I’m never having children. I’d be a horrible mother.

“What are we getting at the library?” I asked, shoving my laptop onto the couch beside me.

“I don’t know. What are you getting?”

Something we can read together,I thought. “I’ve never read those books about the wizard kid. Harry Potter.”

“Me, neither. My mom checked and they’re for third graders.”

“So what?” I was annoyed. “We’ll get the first book and you can try it at the library, and if you can read it, it’s for . . . what are you, a second grader?”

Peri nodded. “Next year.”

I tried to remember what it was like to be a grade school kid, your life changing every damn year in September, new room where you spent most of your time, new authority figure, okay, teacher, some new kids. It was exciting and scary and by the time I got to high school a pain in the ass.

“You’re a second grader now,” I told her absent-mindedly. “First grade just ended, right?

Peri nodded.

“Well, that means you’re in second grade.”

“But the books are for third graders.”

“Listen to me very carefully, Periwinkle,” I said, and Peri’s eyes got large. “Never let anybody tell you what you can and cannot do. If you can read the book when we get to the library, the people who say it’s for third graders are wrong because they don’t know you. Only you know you. Do you understand.”

“I’m a kid,” she said.

“I don’t care if you’re a fetus, only you know you. Do not let other people define you. Trust your instincts.”

“Okay,” she said, clearly not grasping that this was a life lesson.

And then she hugged me.

And I hugged her back.

I finally get Anemone to stop hugging me, and this kid lands in my life.

Welcome to the New Liz. I hug back. If you’re Peri. Or Vince. Or, hell, Anemone.

“Let’s go to the library,” I said.

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