Goodbye Earl(68)

“I’m not against the idea! Obviously I think he’s a total piece of shit who deserves this. Not only for what he could do to her in the future, but for what he’s already done! It’s just…it’s just that everything went completely sideways last time, and I want to make sure—”

“That’s not going to happen again,” Rosemarie said, interrupting her.

“Okay, so what—we’re gonna wrap him up in a tarp and dump him in the lake?” Ada asked. “We’ve gotta have more than one country song to talk us through this.”

“Actually, there are a ton of outlaw country songs about killing people, so we’re plenty covered,” Rosemarie said.

“Trey doesn’t know how to swim,” Kasey said. “What if he ‘drowns’?” Kasey made a show of her finger quotes around the word drowns.

“They’ll still check his blood for alcohol or drugs. They’ll be able to tell by looking at his lungs or whatever. I may not be a master murderer but I do watch a lot of Dateline, y’all,” Ada said. “Can’t we plant some of the LSD in his car or something to lock that down?”

Rosemarie got chills and looked at her, impressed. “How much Dateline do you watch?”

“A lot,” Ada said.

“Damn, girl. That’s brilliant. I’ll do that,” Kasey said.

“I’ll get it all from my dad and he won’t blink. And don’t tell any men about this right now. Even your handsome Castelow boys. Not yet. We’ll figure out the rest later. I don’t care how it happens…at all. He’s gotta go,” Rosemarie said, shaking her head. Her phone vibrated with another call from her doctor and she shut it off. She was so tired. None of these things would matter when Trey was dead. Everything would be better. Caroline would be free and they’d figure their way out of it. “There’s probably no end to the people who want Trey Foxberry dead, to be honest. They’ll have no shortage of suspects. Tomorrow morning we’ll meet at the farmhouse and start cooking,” she said.

Kasey’s phone rang and she silenced it.

“Who’s that?” Ada asked.

“Devon. I’ll tell him everything later. I mean, about my mom,” Kasey said. “I love him. So much. But there’s no room in my head for him right now. Not until after tomorrow.”

“Are we sure we have to do this so soon?” Ada asked.

“Ada, we don’t have time to lose, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to be a part of this. You have so much more at stake. Do not do this if you don’t want to,” Rosemarie said. “I’m serious.”

“She’s right. Please don’t,” Kasey said.

“Well…” Ada said, looking out the window. She closed her eyes.

“Well, what?” Rosemarie asked after giving her some time.

“Well, if I don’t do it, who’s gonna make the lasagna? And Caroline certainly can’t do it, so who’s gonna make the pie?” Ada said, rolling her eyes as if she were giving them the easiest answers to the dumbest questions ever asked.

*



Rosemarie and Ada stopped to pick up Basie at Rosemarie’s parents’ place, then Ada dropped them both off at Leo’s. He’d made a big pot of chicken noodle soup and biscuits too. Rosemarie’s appetite had been funky and sometimes nonexistent, but that didn’t stop Leo from trying.

“How are you real?” she asked him, sitting at the kitchen table.

“I like taking care of you. You know that,” he said. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, put them back on. Basie pawed at him, and he gave her some sweet talk and love.

“You also know I can take care of myself, but gimme that,” Rosemarie said, reaching for a biscuit and putting an unholy amount of butter on it.

“You’re welcome.”

“Thank you, Leopold,” Rosemarie said with a full mouth. Maybe she could live on Leo’s biscuits and not have to worry about her appetite anymore.

“So that’s it? Trey walks away like none of this happened?” Leo asked.

“Y’know what? Here lately, whenever I think of Trey, I think of Odetta singing ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down.’ God’s gonna cut Trey Foxberry down—trust me. It’s what happens in this world eventually, even when it takes too long.” She drank some water, ate some more biscuit. She also swallowed all she couldn’t tell Leo yet, even though she wanted to.

“I want to kill him. So, I can’t imagine how someone feels who, you know, actually kills people or has ever been in a fight or isn’t, like, a peaceful, bookish musician,” Leo said. The hair on Rosemarie’s arms stood up when he said the word kill.

“You wouldn’t last a minute in prison,” she said, petting her arm without being too weird about it, and eating more. It was the best food she’d ever tasted.

“Watch it. You’re dangerously close to hurting my feelings.”

“Come here.” Rosemarie motioned to him, and he leaned into her. She rubbed her nose against his and kissed him.

*



Later, after they smoked a bowl and sang and recorded two songs, they went to Leo’s bedroom and moved together, slick and breathless in the dark. She lay on his chest afterward with Basie at her feet and listened to his heartbeat. It was the only way she could fall asleep lately. It was where she felt the safest.