“Tell your cat to leave my birds alone,” Phil hollered from the kitchen. “He’ll end up with his skinny ass sleeping outside if he even thinks about touching one.”
“Stupid Cunt …” Callie let the words hang for a few seconds “… is afraid of birds. They’re more likely to hurt him than the other way around.”
“Stupid Cunt sounds like a girl’s name.”
“Well, you tell him that. I can’t get through to him.” Callie plastered on a smile as she walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, Mother.”
Phil snorted. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her, a cigarette in her mouth, and her eyes glued to the giant iMac computer that took up half the table. Her mother looked the same as she always did in the morning hours. Last night’s make-up was sloppy on her face, mascara clumped, eyeliner smeared, blush and foundation scratched by her pillow. How this bitch wasn’t a walking case of pink eye was anyone’s guess.
Phil said, “I guess you’re laying off the dope. You’re getting fat again.”
Callie sat down. She wasn’t hungry, but she reached for the plate.
Phil slapped her hand away. “You paid for rent, not food.”
Callie took the coins out of her pocket and slapped them onto the table.
Phil eyed them suspiciously. She knew where Callie kept her money. “That come out of your pussy?”
“Put it in your mouth and find out.”
Callie didn’t see the punch coming until Phil’s fist was a few inches from her head.
She pivoted too late, getting clipped above the ear as she toppled out of the chair at an almost comically slow pace. The comedy stopped when her head cracked against the floor. The pain was breathtaking. She was too winded to do anything but watch Phil stand over her.
“What the hell, I barely tapped you.” Her mother shook her head. “Fucking junkie.”
“Crazy drunk bitch.”
“At least I can keep a roof over my head.”
Callie relented. “Fair.”
Phil stepped over her as she left the room.
Callie stared up at the ceiling, her eyes fixed like an owl’s. Her ears became alert to the sounds of the house. Gurgling, tweeting, barking. The bathroom door slammed shut. Phil would be in there for at least half an hour. She would shower, slather on her make-up, dress herself up, then sit back down at the table and read her conspiracy bullshit until the Jewish cabal turned everyone infertile and the world ceased to exist.
Pushing herself up from the floor took more strength than Callie had anticipated. Her arms were shaking. The shock was still working its way through her body. She coughed from the remnants of smoke curling around the room.
Phil had stubbed out her cigarette in the eggs.
Callie sat in her mother’s chair and started on the bacon. She clicked through the tabs on the computer. Deep state. Hugo Chavez. Child slavery. Child neglect. Rich people drinking the blood of infants. Infants being sold for food. For a woman whose own daughter was literally molested by a pedophile, Phil had come late to the anti-pedophile movement.
Roger’s snout pushed at her bare ankle. Callie picked around Phil’s crushed cigarette, finding pieces of egg to drop on the floor. Roger hoovered them up. New Dog hot-stepped into the kitchen. He gave her the kind of persnickety look you would expect from a half terrier.
She told him, “Our safe word is onomatopoeia.”
New Dog was more interested in the eggs.
Callie looked at the time. She couldn’t put this off any longer. She strained her ears, making sure Phil was still in the bathroom. When Callie was satisfied she wasn’t going to get caught, she turned to her mother’s computer, selected incognito on a new browser window, and typed in TENANT AUTOMOTIVE.
The search returned 704,000 results, which only made sense when you scrolled down and saw that sites like Yelp, DealerRater, CarMax, Facebook, and the Better Business Bureau had all paid for placement.
She selected the main site for Tenant Automotive Group. Thirty-eight locations. BMW, Mercedes, Range Rover, Honda, Mini. They did a little bit of everything, but mostly stuck to high-end vehicles. Callie read through the brief history of the dealership’s growth—From One Small Ford Dealership on Peachtree to Branches All Over the Southeast! There was a line drawing of a tree showing the short succession: Gregory Sr. to Greg Jr. to Linda Tenant.
The mouse found its way to Linda’s name. Callie clicked. A slick-looking photo popped up. Linda’s hair was short and frosted, probably courtesy of dropping a godzillion bucks at a tony hair salon. She sat at a Darth Vader-looking desk with a shiny red Ferrari behind her. Papers were stacked neatly to her left and right to impart the message that she was a lady who did business. Her hands were clasped together in front of her. No wedding ring because she was married to the job. The collar of her white Izod polo was popped. A choker of pearls lay like gerbil orthodontia around her suntanned neck. Callie imagined Linda was wearing acid-washed jeans and white Reebok high-tops because who wouldn’t fully embrace their Brooke Shields with that kind of money?