“Fine, you dictator,” Julia said.
“Good,” Gertie answered.
Afraid he’d get teased, Larry left Robot Boy behind. The three of them headed for the front door. Once out, Gertie got into her dented red Passat. Larry and Julia made their way toward the Rat Pack.
Windows down, engine idling, Gertie watched.
The more Julia walked, the more she hunched. By the time she got halfway to the trampoline, even her head and pimpled neck hung heavy. “Wanna play on my Slip ’N Slide?” she called to the pile of kids.
Shelly Schroeder stopped jumping. Her hair was braided intricately, about ten of them all down her back. It had to have taken hours for her mother to set. “When’s your mom gonna get that crappo car fixed? It looks like it’s made outta clay,” she hollered.
Gertie stiffened. Replayed the words, to be sure she’d heard them right. How could such viciousness have come from sweet Shelly Schroeder? This was a girl who’d set Gertie’s table for dinner without asking, who used to watch the Robot Boy show with Larry when nobody else’d had the patience. A girl who squirmed at Animals on National Geographic on the TV because she hated to see the otters get hurt. What had gotten into her?
Julia stole a glance back at Gertie. She and Larry looked so flummoxed and out of place. Help me, Julia’s expression pleaded.
Gertie rolled down her passenger-side window and leaned, but the seat belt caught her belly and held her. She used the time to try to think of something to say.
What was going on here?
The last time Gertie’d spent a serious chunk of time with Rhea had been back in April. Rhea drank too much wine and didn’t eat enough pesto that night. Gertie’d done the opposite because she’d just found out she was pregnant. The two of them wound up on the front porch, Rhea in tears, mumbling gibberish. For her own good, Gertie’d cut her short. Called it a night. They’d still been friendly the next morning. Waving and texting and such. No overt hostility. She couldn’t imagine Rhea held a grudge over something so small.
But then, what was the problem? Why all this attitude?
It had taken all her courage to approach Rhea on the Fourth of July. She’d felt like a beggar with that half-eaten bag of Ruffles, crashing a party right in front of her own house. Was it an accident that we weren’t invited? she’d asked straight-out.
Of course! I’m so sorry! she’d honestly expected Rhea to answer. We forgot and used an old chat chain! Then they’d laugh and catch up like old times, because suburban college professors aren’t supposed to be petty. They don’t invent problems and instigate pointless fights. They’re bigger than that, aren’t they?
No accident, Rhea’d said. Then she’d grinned this stark, toothy grin, and Gertie’d been totally gutted. It had hurt to see that kind of grin, because she’d known what it meant. She’d seen it before, on her crazy stepmom, Cheerie, who’d kept Prozac in the Vegas-era Elvis sugar jar, and she’d seen it on fellow pageant contestants, right before they Vaselined somebody’s wig, and she’d seen it on the handsy judges whom Cheerie had liked so much. Hunters grinned like that.
Instead of letting her walk away, Gertie could have followed Rhea that day. Challenged her. But in all her time dealing with hunters, she’d learned a very serious golden rule: never confront. It doesn’t make them stop. It just whets their appetite, like blood in the water.
No accident.
Gertie hadn’t wanted to believe that Rhea was a hunter. Even after Rhea’d walked away, Gertie’d tried hard to pretend that they were still great friends. Rhea was distracted, or playing a joke, or heck, had a brain tumor.
When the sinkhole opened, she’d figured it would put the entire neighborhood on a reset. A real and serious thing had happened, rendering everything before it inconsequential. Rhea couldn’t still be mad after something like that! Probably, she hadn’t been mad to begin with. Gertie was just paranoid. You see enough bad guys in your life, and you start to imagine them. You forget that the world is mostly good.
That’s the story she’d told herself, anyway.
But, watching Shelly Schroeder spew vitriol at Julia on that trampoline, the truth came hurtling back. Rhea hadn’t been making a joke, and she hadn’t been confused. She’d been intentionally cruel on the Fourth of July. She’d turned on Gertie, even though they’d shared and confided so much. And now, her daughter Shelly, the leader of the neighborhood Rat Pack, was being cruel to Julia on purpose. Why was this happening? Gertie didn’t know. All she knew was that she felt bad. And something deeper than bad: She felt scared. Full-on panic.