The Big Easy & Other Lies - Melanie Jacobson Page 0,10
would have done next.
“Let’s sum up,” said Livvie. “You can let evil triumph, or you can make a grip of cash. I worked the LeBlanc’s Thanksgiving soiree last year and trust me, Judge LeBlanc tips huge.”
“If I set Angelique on one side of a scale and my paycheck on the other, how’s that scale going to lean?”
“Toward your paycheck by a hair,” said Bran. “He’s loaded. Sick piles of old family money. And if I tell Dean to keep pouring the whiskey for Judge LeBlanc, then he’ll get even more loaded and hand out bonuses like crazy.”
Livvie pressed her advantage. “You have to come. If Angelique tries to get at you, I’ll spit in her soda and serve it to her as a cocktail, I swear.”
“Gross!” I yelped and then broke up when she held up her hand and Bran high-fived it. “You are terrible people and excellent friends.”
Livvie and I went all the way back to the first day at Magellan Middle School when we were assigned to do an icebreaker together in our life science class. In eighth grade, she appointed herself my bodyguard after the Toni Chenevert debacle.
Toni had hung out with us in PE, and we liked her. She wanted to know why Livvie always invited her over, but I never did. Since I hadn’t wanted to lose one of the few friends I’d made thanks to my paralyzing shyness, I invited Toni to come over one day when I knew Delphine would be out shopping. I had warned Toni about the house, but as soon as I’d let her in, she burst out crying and ran home. The next day she blabbed about it to everyone under the guise of “being worried for Cam.” Her mom even said something about it to the principal. He called me in to investigate, but since Delphine had put the fear of God into me about ending up in the foster system, I had denied that there was a problem, and my overworked principal dropped it.
I ate my lunch in the library that day and every day for the rest of the year. Livvie joined me sometimes, but she couldn’t convince me to show my face in the cafeteria again. No one was mean to me or anything, but they had all looked at me like . . . I don’t know. Like I was tainted or something. Or like they felt sorry for me. Or better than me.
Livvie had convinced me to apply for LaSalle to leave the humiliation behind when our classmates all went on to the public high school. She helped me write the most tear-jerking essay ever to win my scholarship. She won hers with a perfect grade point average. Not that my grades were bad. I just couldn’t get higher than a B in science to save my life. Dr. Bickham’s class would be keeping the 3.8 streak alive for me this year.
“Fine,” I said, conceding defeat. “I’m going on the condition that neither of y’all talk to or do anything else,” I poked Livvie, “to Angelique.”
“Miss Annie thanks you.” Livvie snatched the water bottle from her cupholder and took a swig. “But you should let me at Angelique.”
“Can we stop talking about her?” I begged. “I’ve got bigger problems right now.”
“Capstone?” Bran asked.
“Meaner.”
Livvie snorted. “Delphine.”
“Yeah. She’s getting worse.”
Bran shook his head. “Not possible.” Bran was the only other human being on the planet who knew the details of my living situation. He and Livvie had “dated” for about a week during our freshman year, until they decided they had no chemistry. And they didn’t, but Bran fit us somehow, and he stuck around. Eventually, I got used to him enough to let him in on the crazy. Over time. A lot of time.
“You wouldn’t think so,” I said. “But the new dollar store opened over in Metairie and she came home with a car full of canned cat food and more yogurt than we can fit in the fridge. Guess what I had for dinner last night? And breakfast this morning?”
“Cat food?” Livvie asked.
“Ha ha,” I said, too tired to fire back an insult. I’d been up late looking for Delphine’s stupid owl picture. “The worst part is that even after we finish all the yogurt, it’s not like I can clear the containers out. They’ll just go in one of her random collections.”
“Collections, huh?” Bran asked. “She still doesn’t believe that’s not a synonym for piles of junk?”