“Is Billie helping?” I asked.

“No, she had a rough night and followed that up with a rough morning. Showed her mug shots but that’s as far as I wanted to take it with her. Hank, a friend of mine, came in with his woman. Now Billie’s drawing in an interrogation room with Roxie.”

“Thanks, Mitch,” I said softly. “I think that was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah,” he replied just as softly then asked, “You’ll be home around seven?”

“Just after,” I answered.

“I’ll get the kids fed. You got a taste for something for dinner?”

“I’ll pick something up on the way home.”

“No, baby, I’ll cook. I need to run by the grocery store with the kids anyway. Could pick up anything you want.”

I wasn’t breathing nor was I listening. I was stuck on Mitch telling me he’d cook just like he told me he cooked for me once or twice (or more times) a week for the last ten years of my life.

And I liked the way it sounded.

“Mara?” he called and I shut my eyes tight then opened them.

“I’m here.”

“What do you want for dinner?”

“Really, uh…I’ll just pick something up.”

“We both gotta eat,” he told me.

“You can eat with the kids,” I told him.

“Billie’s decreed she wants fish sticks and Billy’s decreed he wants whatever Billie wants. I stopped eating fish sticks when I was eleven and finally convinced my Ma I hated ‘em. So, I’m not eatin’ with the kids, I’m eatin’ with you.”

“Mitch –” I started to protest, sounding exactly like I was about to protest.

“Mara, baby, quiet,” he said softly, my mouth closed partly because he called me baby but mostly because he said my name softly. When he got silence he went on. “How’s this? Tell me what you don’t like and I’ll cook whatever I want just as long as it isn’t something you don’t like.”

“Um…” I began then stopped.

“Not hard, baby,” he whispered.

“Uh…”

“You like chili?” he asked.

“Um…” I mumbled and he chuckled.

“Mara, sweetheart, do you like chili?”

“Yes,” I forced out.

“Then I’ll make chili and cornbread,” he decided and the instant he did I started to get hungry because that sounded really good. What sounded better was going to Mitch’s and eating dinner with him whether he cooked it or not.

“Mitch –” I murmured but stopped speaking and my back went straight when I heard a shouted, “There you fuckin’ are!”

I whipped around just as Roberta whispered, “What on earth?” and I saw my Mom and Aunt Lulamae bearing down on us.

I watched them charging through the sea of beds noting they hadn’t changed, not a bit, except for the fact that they’d aged thirty years in the thirteen that had passed. Both of their hair was dyed blonde. Mom’s a brassy, straw blonde with at least an inch of steel gray mixed with dark roots. Aunt Lulamae’s was a mixture of blonde and chunks of brunette. She called it streaked but she did it herself so it looked more like stripes. They were baring way too much cleavage considering not only their breasts but also their skin were sagging. Their skin was also leathery and overly tanned even though summer hadn’t quite started. They were also both wearing skintight everything: Mom, Capri pants and a scoop-necked t-shirt; Aunt Lulamae jeans and a flouncy blouse that was unbuttoned way too far down and the buttons that were done up were straining. They both had on too much makeup as in enough to cover the faces of the entire squad of Denver Broncos cheerleaders during games for at least half the season. And they were both teetering on high-heeled, platform stripper shoes.

Good God. There they were. At my work.

“You little bitch!” Aunt Lulamae shrieked when she got close.

I did nothing, said nothing, just stood there staring at them in horror mixed liberally with fear.

“Jesus, is that the Trailer Trash Twins?” Mitch asked in my ear.

“And who are you?” LaTanya asked the Trailer Trash Twins.

Aunt Lulamae shoved her hand, palm up, about half an inch from LaTanya’s face. LaTanya’s head jerked back about half a foot, her hands went direct to her hips and her brows snapped together.

Uh-oh.

“I’m talkin’ to you,” Aunt Lulamae snapped at me. “You hear me, you too big for your britches little bitch?”

I started to come unfrozen when Mitch said urgently in my ear, “Mara, listen to me –”

“Gotta go,” I muttered and put the phone in its cradle.

“Get yo’ hand outta my face,” LaTanya hissed.

“Kiss my white ass,” Aunt Lulamae shot back.

I could swear I heard LaTanya growl.

Uh-oh!

“Aunt Lulamae, Mom,” I said quietly, starting to move around the counter, “please, this isn’t –”

I stopped talking because Aunt Lulamae’s hand dropped and both she and Mom skewered me with a glare.

“What the fuck, Marabelle? What…the…fuck?” Mom asked, eyes following me as I got to them and positioned myself in between them, LaTanya and Roberta but I felt both my girls positioning themselves close to either side of my back.

As we all took our positions, I wondered what the fuck what?

Mom didn’t elucidate. She and Lulamae just kept glaring.

“This is your Mom?” Roberta whispered incredulously.

“’Course I’m her Mom,” Mom answered. “Shit, she’s the spittin’ image ‘a me.”

That was when I heard Roberta making a gurgling strangled noise at the same time I heard LaTanya make a strangled gurgling noise. Both Mom and Aunt Lulamae heard the noises, both their eyes narrowed and both their hands went to a hitched hip.

Oh boy!

“Listen,” I said quickly, “I know you want to talk to me but now is not a good time. I’m at work.” Then I said what I didn’t want to say at the same time I vowed that once they got gone, I’d buy a new phone. “I’ll give you my cell number. Call me tonight. We’ll arrange to meet and talk.”

“No, we’re gonna talk right here, right now, about my grandbabies,” Aunt Lulamae declared. “And we’re gonna do it here ‘cause you don’t got no stick up his ass po-lice detective here to get all…” she paused then considering she had about a quarter of the brain cells normal people have since she killed all the other ones, she went on unimaginatively, “stick up his ass po-lice detective on us.”

But it was with that, she made a mistake.

She’d insulted Mitch.

The Mitch who, just weeks ago, was my dream man from afar, smiling at me warmly even though he didn’t know me.

Then he was the Mitch who took care of my doohickey on the sink and even paid for it, no matter that it cost a few dollars, he did it. And then he was the Mitch who fed her grandkids Lola’s, which might have been the nicest meal they’d ever had in the nicest place they’d ever been. And that very night he was the Mitch who was going to feed them fish sticks. And he was the Mitch who held Billie close to him when she was scared and cared a great deal that Billy trusted him. And he was also the Mitch who handled me with care when my apartment had been torn apart, yes, exactly as LaTanya said, as if I was the finest piece of crystal in the whole wide world and he’d go direct into smackdown should anyone threaten to break me. And lastly, he was the Mitch who did hundreds more things to kick in for a woman and two kids he barely knew just because he was a good guy, a nice guy.

Okay, so, maybe it was in part to get in my pants but that, I figured, was a small part.

He was just a good, nice guy.

What he was not was a guy with a stick up his ass.

Therefore, as I felt my body freeze from head-to-toe, I also felt my lips move and they moved to whisper angrily, “Don’t talk about Mitch that way.”

“And don’t you tell your auntie how to talk,” Aunt Lulamae shot back then looked at Mom. “Always high and mighty, always –”

I interrupted her, still whispering but this time with a hiss giving words that had no sibilant edge a dangerous sibilant edge, “Don’t you ever talk about Mitch that way.”

“Uh-oh,” LaTanya muttered from behind me.

“Mara, honey –” Roberta started.

But Mom ignored them and leaned into me. “And don’t you tell your aunt how to talk.”

I leaned into her right back. “I haven’t seen you for thirteen years. Thirteen years. This is the first time I see you, you come into my place of business and you’re loud, rude, bossy and you insult my…my…” I lost it for a second then said, “My Mitch who’s a nice guy, a good guy and you don’t know him enough to insult him. You don’t say hello. You don’t ask how I am. You just be…” I lost it again then finished, “you.”

“Marabelle –” Mom began but I shook my head and raised my hand up in front of her face. Her eyes narrowed on it but I’d made my point, she shut up so I dropped it.

“Be who you are, say what you have to say, treat me like you always treat me but don’t you dare, don’t you dare insult Mitch,” I snapped.

That was when I heard Mr. Pierson say from behind me, “Mara, dear, Mitch is on the phone.”

I blinked and turned to look over my right shoulder, seeing LaTanya grinning like a lunatic and beyond her Mr. Pierson grinning like one too and holding out his cell phone.

I sucked in breath, turned my head back, blasted my Mom and Lulamae with the heat of my eyes which, unfortunately, didn’t incinerate them then I took the two steps I needed to take to get to Mr. Pierson. I lifted my hand and he put his phone in it.

I put it to my ear and whispered, “Mitch?”

“They insulted me?” he said back but he didn’t sound upset, he sounded like he was smiling.