Chapter 18

"It's too bad your friend Suzie isn't here."

I cocked an eyebrow. That was the second time that Robbie had brought up Suzie. We were sitting in the gazebo, my girls and I, Hailey, and Cinnamon. Rosita and Mitch had lit a dozen tiki torches around the backyard, and that was keeping the bugs away. The gazebo had lights, but Cinnamon hadn't turned them on. There was no moon, but the torches and the stars made it nice.

"Why?" Cinnamon asked.

"I had a present for her. I guess I can mail it."

I was looking at Robbie suspiciously. I suppose everyone was.

Tami put it into words. "You have a present for Suzie? But you've never met her, have you?"

"Never even heard of her until today," Robbie admitted.

"So you bought a present for somebody you've never met, and only just heard of," I said in an effort to clarify. I was remembering that somebody wrote a book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. I think he was on the right track but just didn't go far enough. When I got time I was going to write my own book, Men Are From Andromeda, Women from the Milky Way.

"Well, I didn't exactly buy it," she admitted. "But when I heard about Suzie, I knew this would be perfect."

Okay, maybe Andromeda isn't far enough away. Wait a minute. "Your errand!"

Robbie nodded.

"Where'd you go?" Cinnamon wanted to know.

"Downtown," I said.

"Where?"

"How should I know? I just followed instructions. 'Left, right, left, park, stay in the van.' Robbie went up the street without me.

Cinnamon turned back to Robbie, cocking her head in that analyzing way of hers, but Robbie just smiled. I wondered if my cousin had met her match.

"So, like, what'd you get her?" Traci asked.

"It's Suzie's present. I really shouldn't tell."

I decided that while I was digging a shallow grave for Traci, I could make room enough for Robbie too.

"At least a hint," Hailey said

"Wellllllll..." Robbie was wearing a denim shirt over her t-shirt, since the night had cooled off. She reached into her shirt pocket and pulled out a cassette tape. Even in the dim light, I could see that it didn't have a manufactured label, so it wasn't pre-recorded.

"Let's see," Tami mused. "You went downtown and got a cassette, without buying it, for a girl you don't know and only just heard of. Where's Sherlock Holmes when you need him?"

"Or Ron Lopez," Cinnamon added softly. Whoever he was.

"Elementary, my dear Watson," I said in my best upper crust British accent. "During young future doctor Taylor's story this afternoon, we learned that Suzie and young future doctor Taylor became for a time, as they say, boyfriend and girlfriend. Robbie, not wanting the young lady irreparably scarred, found a hypnotist who recorded an hypnotic suggestion to avoid short, horny kids with glasses. Because no one in their right minds would want to associate with such a cad." I was looking at Traci and Kelly when I finished, but they were both busy looking at the stars.

Tami, who was sitting across my lap, grabbed my face in both hands. "Love of my life, you are so full of it." She kissed me. "And stop teasing your sister." She slapped the top of my head.

"Actually, he's close," Robbie said.

"You're kidding!" Darlene and Tami gasped at the same time. I grinned and buffed my fingernails on my chest. Then I got smart and buffed them on Tami's.

"I got the idea from Kenny's story," Robbie said.

I mentally reviewed the kid's story. Like I said before, I tossed out about half of what he said as exaggeration. I still didn't see the connection.

"Kenny got real animated when he was talking about Suzie's tirade. Maybe even more than when he was talking about his own actions."

Like that was possible. The kid was so full of himself.

Robbie looked around waiting for us to get the connection. I guess we disappointed her. Well, maybe Cinnamon didn't, but cuz let Robbie continue.

"Kenny said that after Suzie blew up, the judge didn't jump on her because of the reporters right there. The newspaper and radio reporters."

Tami got it before I did. "They taped it?"

"He sure did," Robbie said smugly. "Our emcee, Junior Arnold, was there with his microphone. I knew that radio reporters don't usually broadcast live but tape everything. Then they broadcast what they can, or what's most interesting. Obviously they couldn't use Suzie's little verbal assault because of her language. But radio stations are kind of like pack rats. They archive everything.

Cinnamon grinned. "You went down and asked if they taped it and if you could have a copy?"

Robbie grinned back. "I did, and they did. Mr. Black was very nice about it. I figured from what I heard that Suzie would love it, and Jimmy and Wynter would want to hear it, too."

"And me," Cinnamon said.

"Me, too," Hailey chimed in.

Sometimes Robbie amazed me. I decided that the shallow grave was for Traci alone. I could see Robbie now, in a gray tweed suit with a rumpled raincoat and a deerstalker cap, a cross between Miss Marple, Columbo, and Sherlock Holmes, solving the great mysteries of the world. Where was Jimmy Hoffa? Who killed Cock Robin? And how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

"Have you heard it?" I asked.

"Well, only for quality control purposes," she said, trying to hide a smile.

"And?"

"The girl has excellent mastery of the language," she said pompously.

Hailey jumped to her feet. "I have a tape player in my room," she announced and was gone almost as fast as Ghost earlier.

Hailey was back within a couple minutes with a small cassette player that she handed to Robbie. Robbie hesitated. "Suzie really should hear it first..."

"Stop teasing," Tami told her. "Or I won't loan you my boyfriend anymore."

Robbie looked indignant. "I can get my own you know."

Tami just smiled and kept looking at her best friend. I decided to stay out of it.

Robbie grinned and put the tape into the machine. "It's cued up to the good part. The first part is the reporter's commentary as they bring Kenny out of the mine. Then you can hear part of him telling them what happened." She pushed the play button.

"SHUT UP!" a young girl screamed.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU SANCTIMONIOUS ASSHOLE!" she screamed a second later.

"Young lady! You do NOT use..." a pompous voice said.

"Goddamn it, shut UP you obnoxious old BASTARD!" the girl screamed again. "Don't you DARE blame Kenny for what happened! You wanna blame somebody, fine. Blame yourself. It's YOUR fault! If I fuck up, my parents punish me. I don't like it, but it makes me think before I do it the next time. But nothing ever happens to Will because YOU WON'T LET IT, so he just does whatever he WANTS! The only one who ever tried to teach 'em right from wrong was Ron! I'm gonna be grounded for the rest of my life after this, but I DON'T CARE, 'cause I'm not gonna let Kenny take the blame 'cause you're too STUPID to be a parent!"

I have to say, I was impressed.

"I can't vote, but next election I'm gonna ask Mom and Dad to payroll me from restriction long enough to tell everybody what a STUPID FUCKIN' SHITHEAD you are and tell them to KICK YOU OUT!"

I wondered if I heard right. Payroll? I knew she meant parole, but did she actually say payroll?

"They were gonna make Wynter 'n' me BLOW them, and then they were gonna RAPE us and KILL us and throw us in a stupid hole in the floor! You'da got 'em off on a JAYWALKING charge or something 'cause YOU DON'T CARE! Kenny cut Will's fingers off? He shoulda cut his stupid PECKER off! This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"

I decided that I like Suzie. I liked her a lot.

There was several seconds of background noise on the tape, and then the girl continued, a lot calmer but still agitated. "So go ahead and ground me already. I DON'T CARE!"

Robbie clicked off the tape.

Cinnamon grinned. "Suzie is going to love that. Kenny and Wynter and Jimmy, too."

I looked at Cinnamon. "Tell her that Tami and I are getting married in two years and we want to adopt her."

"You just want her body, you pervert," Tami accused.

I tried to look innocent. "I haven't even seen her body.

"I need to recycle some of this Coca Cola," I said, standing and stretching."

"Me, too," said Hailey as she jumped to her feet. "I'll escort you."

I started to protest that I didn't need an escort to get to the bathroom, but from the corner of my eye I saw Tami grin and shrug. I bowed to the inevitable.

Hailey had her arm around my back by the bottom of the steps. I'd already accepted that Hailey had a crush on me. Now I was beginning to think it wasn't a cute schoolgirl crush but more like out-and-out lust. Hailey reinforced the lesson as her hand moved off my back and squeezed my butt.

I'd always thought I was pretty sexual. I mean, I made love to Tami in the seventh grade. Now I had a harem that Hugh Hefner would die for. But I was starting to wonder if my two cousins might not put me to shame.

I moved Hailey's hand up to my hip and left my hand on top of it.

She'd been making small talk about the tape and what Suzie was going to think and didn't even pause when I moved her hand.

As we walked in the breakfast nook, she stopped us and moved from my side to my front without ever breaking body contact. Her hand had slid under mine, across my butt, and to my other hip in one smooth motion. I was still being impressed by her feat when I found my mouth full of tongue again and Big Tony getting another massage.

I was too surprised to stop her. I gave her ten out of ten for technique, skill, enthusiasm, and difficulty level. Big Tony gave her a standing ovation.

"Tony?" she said when she pulled back. I was still trying to remember why I was supposed to stop her. "Robbie was serious when she said that Tami shares you with the others, wasn't she? And that this is Tami's night? Well, do you think Tami would, like, share you with me tonight?"

I half-remembered an old fable. Something about an ant, or a squirrel, or something like that. It was spring and all the other squirrels wanted to play and have fun, but one squirrel worked hard and gathered food for the winter. Maybe it was a grasshopper. Anyway, I kind of felt like that. There was one voice in my head that was saying run, don't walk, straight back to Tami. But all the other voices, including Big Tony's, and I didn't even know he could talk, were saying, 'Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!' And the sad thing was, I couldn't even remember how the blasted story came out. The squirrel or ant or whatever was probably run over by a truck and his buddies ate his food and partied all winter.

"You're only thirteen," I stammered. Mostly to buy time.

"I'm fourteen-and-a-half," she corrected. "My birthday was in January."

"What would Unc... I mean, Cousin Mitch say?" I asked thinking fast. I was kind of amazed I was thinking at all. Her hand was still rubbing the front of my shorts.

She glanced at the kitchen clock. "Uncle Mitch has to work tomorrow so that he can be off for our picnic on the fourth. He's rolled off Rosita by now and is asleep."

"WHAT?" I just couldn't picture Mitch screwing the maid while his wife was away. He didn't seem the type.

She pulled back slightly from the waist up, but kept her grip on Big Tony. She gave me the first truly serious look I'd seen from her. "You so don't know about Aunt Gwendolyn, do you, Cuz?" She searched my eyes, not with Cinnamon's intensity, but with more than Robbie had ever used.

" I didn't think so," she said, answering her own question. "She's another example of how bogus this fucked up family is. She inherited Grandmother Millie's gene or chromosome or what ever it is that makes you a drunk. Only she started taking drugs with it. They sent her to rehab in Massachusetts. She can't come back here, or she'll be arrested for the drug charge. She divorced Uncle Mitch last year. It was the second best thing that ever happened to him. Cinnamon was the best."

I tried to process that. Aunt, no, Cousin Gwendolyn was an alcoholic? And a druggie? And the family has a gene for it? I'd never seen Grandpa Doug take more than two beers. No, wait. Wrong family. I don't think I've ever seen Grandma Vickie with anything alcoholic. Mom says Patti drank like a fish in college, but now she only has a couple glasses of wine. In fact, about all I ever see Mom have is one or two glasses of wine, though Dad said she was putting away the tequila pretty good at the New Year's party. But then there's me. Tami thinks I could have a problem. Do I have the gene?

She shushed me to stop my saying something. "We call my aunt 'Millie' after Grandmother. It is so not the compliment. She's, like, an evil, hateful bitch. She damned near drove Uncle Mitch to suicide twice. The only reason he's still alive today is Cinnamon. He so refused to leave her in Aunt Bitch's care because she hated Cinnamon, and I'm not exaggerating at all. She blamed Cuz for everything that was wrong in her life. The woman so hated her own daughter."

How could anyone hate their own daughter? Especially a bright, talented girl like Cinnamon?

She took a deep breath and continued. "And the only reason he is sane today is Cinnamon. You have no idea what she's been through with him. I know very little, but I know it was torture for both of them. I couldn't have done it in her place. I'd have killed myself, I think, so that he could, too."

She pointed to a spot on the ceiling. "That woman has been, like, everything he deserves in a wife, everything Cuz so deserves in a mother, everything they should have had in Aunt Bitch, everything that all of Grandmother Millie's spawn should have been but weren't, except for my father."

It took me a second to realize that she was talking about Rosita.

"I never realized..."

"I know. Wynter's told me a couple of things because she was there to see them. Cuz is so afraid to talk about almost all of it with others, even with me. I don't think she can, and I so don't blame her, but you are family and, like, need to know. I'll tell Traci later, or you can tell her. You decide. But you should also know that Rosita is, like, no longer the maid. She's now your cousin, too, and that's the third best thing that ever happened to Uncle Mitch."

I nodded. I still wasn't sure if Mitch and Rosita were married, but decided it didn't matter. If Rosita was good for Cousin Mitch and Cinnamon, then she could be my cousin anytime. Besides, she can cook.

I was still sorting everything out in my mind, and deciding that I didn't need to know any more of my relatives, when I found my mouth full of tongue again.

"Now," she said as she pulled back, "what about my offer, Cuz? I guarantee that you'll so love every moment of it. Three holes, no waiting, and you can, like, do me all night if you want. I'd so like that."

"Well... Uh... What about Cinnamon?" I was still trying to talk my way out of it, though I wasn't completely sure why. But she was only thirteen. I mean, fourteen. I know Kelly was too, no, thirteen, but that was different. It was... complicated, I finished with a mental sigh.

Hailey shrugged and gave me a smirk, running a fingertip down my chest. "If you want a threesome, she'll join us. She likes them. How about it?"

Oh, God!

"Hailey! I'm your cousin!" It was the last argument on my list.

"Second cousin, which means we could even get married if you want. You'd be, like, keeping it in the family. Come on! Traci is so the cute! Don't tell me you've never thought about banging somebody in the family before. No way!"

'Fuck!' I thought as a picture of Traci riding my cock flooded my mind. But the picture shut off all the other voices, including Big Tony.

"It's not going to happen," I said.

Hailey finally released the big guy and took two steps backward, shoved her shorts to her ankles, and lifted her shirt. She wasn't wearing anything else.

Which is why, at that moment, the patio door opened, and Robbie and Tami walked in. The universe loves a good joke.

Robbie grinned and shook her head.

Tami smiled and sighed. "Couldn't wait long enough to find someplace more comfortable?"

Have I mentioned I hate my life?

The girls giggled and passed through.

I stepped up to Hailey, leaned down, and grabbed her shorts and pulled them up. "Hailey, you're my cousin, and I love you. But not like that," I said pretty convincingly.

But if I was so convinced, why was I still seeing her naked body as I followed the girls to the bathroom?

I was playing with Ghost. Or he was playing with me. I wasn't sure.

I was standing a dozen feet from the gazebo. I'd throw a tennis ball and, like a shot, he was after it. He'd snag it, bring it back, then lie down a few feet from me and grin. I swear he was grinning. And he wouldn't give the damn thing back. I'd walk over, grab the tennis ball, we'd play tug-of-war for twenty or thirty seconds, then he'd let go and we'd start all over again.

It was almost midnight, and I was playing with the dog. I was just too pumped up to sleep. It had been a hell of a day.

Darlene, Robbie, and Traci had decided on beds. They'd gone in to settle down about half-an-hour ago. Tami, Mikee, and Kelly were going to sleep in the big tent that I'd set up on one side of the badminton net. The small tent was on the other.

Tami, Mikee, Kelly, and Cinnamon were talking quietly on the gazebo. I had no idea what had happened to Hailey. Maybe she'd gone to bed, too. As I played with Ghost, I picked up a word or phrase, but nothing interesting enough to try and translate from girl-speak to boy-speak.

I reared back and launched the ball hard into the mini forest on the back of the property, and Ghost took off. I hoped his night vision was good enough that he wouldn't run head-on into a tree.

"His name was Kenny, wasn't it?"

I froze. I think I even stopped breathing as I processed that. It was Cinnamon's voice, damn her.

"What?" Mikee and Kelly said together.

I willed myself to move like Ghost. To run and clamp my hand over her mouth before she...

"The boy who..."

I'd only turned and taken a step before the words were coming out of Cinnamon's mouth.

"... attacked you."

Fuck! Damn! Shit! Fuck! I really needed a larger vocabulary for situations like this.

I was at the edge of the stairs, and even in the dim light I could see the blood had drained from Mikee and Kelly's faces. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Mikee surged to her feet. "It was Kenny!"

I jumped to the top of the stairs, and Mikee saw me. "It was Kenny and you didn't tell me!" she yelled as she leaped at me and smashed one fist against my chin and the other against my chest. Damn, the girl can hit. I think she loosened a tooth. I grabbed her and pulled her into me, then looked at Cinnamon.

I think we'd finally managed to surprise her. Maybe even shock her. I don't think she expected Mikee's outburst. Holding Mikee tightly against my chest, I stepped toward the stairs. "Kenny's their brother," I explained.

I took Mikee down the stairs and back toward the trees, leaving Tami and Cinnamon to deal with Kelly, though I didn't think she'd need that much dealing with. She'd mostly worked through her experience.