Smokin' Seventeen

Was that another new car you just drove up in? What happened to the Shelby?”

“Exploded.”

“Shit happens,” Lula said.

“That would lead me to believe it didn’t go well with Uncle Black,” Connie said.

“Also exploded,” I told her.

“It was a tragedy,” Mooner said. “They blew up a Creeper comic in primo condition, man. Someone should pay.”

“People will be scared after this,” Connie said. “No one’s going to be talking on Stark Street.”

“What’s all down the front of you?” Lula asked me.

“Chocolate ice cream. Mooner lost his mellow over the Creeper demise, so we stopped for ice cream to calm him down.” I glanced at my shirt. “I needed calming down, too.”

My phone buzzed and my parents’ number popped up. No way was I talking to my mother. She’d ferret the car explosion out of me, and she’d want to talk about Dave, and God help me if she found out about the chickens. I’d need more ice cream.

“I’m going home,” I said to Connie. “I need a new shirt.”

The good thing about always wrecking cars, is that at least for a while no one knew what I was driving. I parked in my lot and thought chances were good I wouldn’t find a dead body in the Escort when I returned. I let myself into my apartment, went straight to the bedroom, flopped onto the bed, and covered my head with a pillow.

I woke up to a phone ringing.

“I’ve been calling and calling,” my mother said. “Where were you that you couldn’t answer?”

“It was in my bag. I didn’t hear it.”

“Well thank goodness I finally got you. Everyone will be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Everyone?”

“The dinner party. I told you about it days ago. Emma and Herb Brewer and Dave. Emma said everyone was very excited to get the invitation.”

“Not everyone,” I said. “I’m not excited. I’m horrified. I’m not interested in Dave, and I don’t want to have dinner with his parents.”

“I made chicken Parmesan.”

“I can’t come. I have plans. I have to work.”

“I know when you’re fibbing Stephanie Plum. I went to all this trouble just for you, so you could spend some time with a nice man. A man who could give you a future. A family. The least you can do is make an effort. I even made pineapple upside-down cake.”

I was screwed. A major load of guilt plus pineapple upside-down cake.

“And for goodness sakes,” my mother said, “wear something nice. Please don’t wear jeans and a T-shirt.”

I pulled the T-shirt over my head and looked around. Lots of dirty clothes. Not many clean ones. The new red dress was hanging in the front of the closet. It was the easy choice.

Grandma was waiting when I parked in the driveway behind my dad’s car. “Don’t you look pretty,” Grandma said. “I read somewhere that men like women who wear red. It’s supposed to be one of them things that gets a man in a state.”

From my experience it didn’t take much to get a man in a state.

“Dave might even propose when he sees you in this dress,” Grandma said. “This dress is a man catcher.”

I didn’t want to catch any more men. I wanted to eat chicken Parm and go home and put the pillow over my head again. I watched a silver Honda Accord roll down the street and park behind my car, and I was relieved to be one step closer to dinner. Dave was driving. It looked like his dad was sitting alongside him, and his mom was in the back. Dave got out, ran around the car, and retrieved a party platter from the backseat.

All the blood drained from my head and pooled in my feet. I put a hand out to steady myself and forced myself to breathe. Put a rubber Frankenstein mask and a padded coverall on Dave and you had Juki Beck’s killer. It was an instant gut reaction. There was something about Dave’s posture and the way he moved when he rounded the car that clicked in my brain. The next thing that clicked in my brain was disbelief. There was no way it could be Dave, right?

“Omigosh,” Grandma said when she saw Dave. “What the heck happened to you?”

His eyes were less swollen, but they were still pretty ugly. Black with tinges of green. And he still had the Band-Aid across his nose.

“I took an elbow to the nose in a football game,” Dave said. “No big deal.”

“You always were an athlete,” Grandma said, ushering everyone into the living room.

Emma and Herb Brewer were in their late fifties. They were pleasant-looking people, tastefully dressed, seemingly happy. Hard to believe they’d spawn a killer. Hard to believe nudnik Dave would strangle someone.

“What a lovely home,” Emma said.

My father stood from his chair and nodded hello. He’d been coerced into abandoning his Tony Soprano–collared knit shirt in favor of a buttoned-down dress shirt. This signified a major social event. The buttoned-down dress shirt was usually reserved for Christmas, Easter, and funerals.