Page 98 of Rest In Pink

I put the bear in my backpack, got down on my knees, squeezed between the boulders and grabbed it. I pulled it back. It had a combination lock on both latches but of more importance were the two initials under the handle: N.B.

Navy Blue.

Chapter Forty-Six

Peri slept with me that night, waking up a couple of times to make sure I was there. I missed my run because she was still needy, sitting close to me at breakfast. We went to swimming lessons and she and Crys talked about the fire truck, but she was still rocky, so Crys told her to take it easy, maybe practice her kicks on the side of the pool. Then Crys came to me and said, “That was bad yesterday,” but she looked happy.

“What were you doing in that gear?” I asked.

“I was at the firehouse when the call came in. Mr. Blake was showing it to me and I was trying on stuff, and then everyone jumped on and Mr. Blake told me to come along. Captain Olson chewed him out later, but I don’t think he was too upset. The good news is Mr. Blake put me in his next course and the captain is okay with me hanging around to learn. I think he was happy I was a woman. Diversity and all that. And I told him I was really serious about it.” She stopped. “Mr. Blake . . . . Mac, he told me to call him Mac . . .”

“Everybody does,” I said. “I had a minute trying to figure out who you were talking about.”

“He said that if you recommended me, he had to give me a chance because you never recommended anything. So, it’s all because of you.”

I shook my head. “I was helping out the fire department. They need you, and Mac was smart enough to see it.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to be good at this.”

“You’re going to be great,” I said, and made a note to kick Mac’s ass for saying I never recommended anything. I was the reason he’d gotten a damn tenderloin at JB’s. “He’s looking out for you, right?”

She nodded. “He introduced me to everybody and said that if anybody made a pass, he’d rip their nuts off. He’s a lot like you.”

“We grew up together. That leaves a mark. Did anybody hassle you?”

“No.” She bit back a smile. “But there’s this cute guy who was a senior when I was a freshman, Chris Blake, and he winked at me and did that thing with thumb and forefinger that means ‘call me,’ and he was laughing so I laughed, too, which was wrong because Mac saw it.”

I frowned, remembering. “Isn’t Chris Blake Mac’s younger brother? The surprise baby?”

“I don’t know about surprise baby,” Crys said, “but Mac slapped him on the back of the head when he did it.” She did grin then. “I’m going to wait until I’m hired and I’ve worked a couple of months and then I’m going to ask him out.”

“You are going to own the world,” I said, and she went back to teaching and I went back to a comfy chair and my writing notes, taking breaks every now and then to tell Peri she was awesome.

Faye did not come to harass Peri, so that was good, too.

Lunch was Marianne’s BLTs made the way the gods would eat them—thick cut crispy bacon, redder than red tomatoes, and romaine that was vying with the bacon for top crisp, plus some kind of dressing that Marianne must have dreamed up because it wasn’t plain mayo or ranch but it was divine, I think there was sriracha again, all on lightly toasted brioche bread—and thin cut fries that were like potato chip sticks except hot and better, and a pile of finger vegetables with some more of that dressing. The raw vegetables had seemed very un-Marianne-like the first time she’d served them until I’d watched Peri fall on them like a locust. Marianne evidently understands kids.

Also evident: an obsession with food was genetic in the Blue family. First Molly and now Peri.

And me,I thought, looking down at my BLT which already had two big bites out of it. Mickey had brought that home forcefully: I was a Blue, too.

“So, it’s Wednesday, what’s the lesson for today?” Anemone asked Peri.

“Mandarin,” Peri said. “At the Red Box with Sun. We can have cokes and fries.”

“All of your lessons should be at the Red Box,” I said. Multi-lingual was always good. Plus, there was stealing the treasure.

I turned back to Anemone who was nibbling daintily on the last of her BLT. It was amazing how much that woman could consume while nibbling daintily. “Today, we get serious about finishing this book. We go over Chapter Eight which has no men, and then we write the last one that pulls it all together, and then we send it to Rebecca and we’re done.”

“There were men,” Anemone said. “I just didn’tmarrythem.”

“I think I’ll write a book, too,” Peri said. “After I’m finished with the bears.”

“Good. I shouldn’t be suffering alone,” I told her. “Maybe we can pick up the rest of your mom’s stuff today. I think we got all the bears.”

Anemone looked around the living room, a barn of a place that was now full of hundreds of bears, Veronica ensconced among them, probably plotting against us.

I really had to get a stuffed badger and plant it in there, just to see if she’d notice.

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