My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,9
admit that I admire your style.” She throws a nasty glance at her house and then back at me. “Besides, I was wearing gloves, so they’d have his fingerprints on them, not mine. I’m no fool.”
“Whose fingerprints?”
“My mom’s boyfriend, Pete.” She says the words like they’re poison. “Or, as I like to call him, Pete the Deadbeat. At least he’s better than Dave the Dealer or Steve the Sociopath, but only by a small margin. My mother has outstanding taste in men.” She takes the matches from me, shoving them in the back pocket of her jeans. I’m still processing that last comment, which she’s shared as casually as a preference for Coke over Pepsi, when she says, “C’mon. I want to show you something.”
I start to roll my bike, but she grabs the handlebars. “No, leave this here. It won’t get stolen. I promise.”
“You’re just saying that because it’s orange,” I joke. I let go, and she steers it into the bushes where it is perfectly concealed from view. Then she motions for me to follow her around the side of the house, putting her finger to her lips as she tiptoes past the window. I can hear the faint strains of a television inside.
“He’s glued to the couch watching some home improvement show. Trust me, he doesn’t like interruptions,” she whispers.
She leads me around to the backyard, which isn’t much more attractive than the front. On one end, there is a massive hole. She sees me looking at it and tells me, “Pete decided we needed a pool so he could skateboard in it. Dug it himself last summer, after watching how to do it on TV. Got about halfway through and gave up on the idea, which came as no surprise. My mom is pissed because this place is a rental, so it pretty much guarantees her deposit’s history. I think it’s a great place to hide his body.”
Her face is so serious that I can’t tell she’s making a joke until her mouth curls into a smile. “Kidding.”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Of course. I knew that,” I say, even though I’m not entirely convinced.
We pass a semicircle of broken lounge chairs and a table piled high with boards and rusted tools—evidence of other projects gone by the wayside. She leads me to the far corner of the yard, obscured from view of the main house by another abandoned pile of plywood, to a stone fire pit, like for roasting hot dogs or marshmallows. It’s loaded with ash and debris, and when the breeze kicks up, little particles fly in the air like those white thingies from dandelions.
“I know this seems small time, but I wanted to show you my spot.” Her whole face lights up with pride. “I mean, it doesn’t compare to what you did, but it can still be pretty satisfying.” She takes a deep breath and then puffs out her cheeks as she exhales slowly. “Anyhow, I’ve never shown it to anyone. I mean, not anyone who would understand.”
I look at the pit, then at her, and I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’m not quite sure I know what you’re talking about.”
She laughs and I laugh, almost as if we’re sharing some inside joke but only one of us knows what’s funny. And it isn’t me.
Then I start to worry. Because maybe if this girl thinks I get something and it becomes clear that I don’t, she could go completely batshit crazy on me. Who would even know where I was? I’m pretty sure Pete the Deadbeat isn’t going to have my back. So I swallow hard and decide to play along.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” I say and dig my hands into my pockets, then take them out again for good measure in case I need to defend myself. “So…show me how it works.”
She grins like the Cheshire cat. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Next thing I know, she’s pulling this blue tarp off a big plastic container near the fire pit. She pries off the lid, and I honestly don’t know what to expect when I peer in. For all I know, this is where she keeps pieces of her victims or a pet python or some other weird shit. What I don’t expect to see is a bunch of naked Barbies. The container’s half filled with them. I try my hardest to look unfazed, but this shit keeps getting weirder and weirder.
She kneels down excitedly and riffles through them. “At