I felt my temper rise at the same time I felt like a knife had been plunged into my gut. My eyes moved to Sofia and as usual I tried to hide the hurt. Though it wouldn’t matter if she saw the hurt, she didn’t care and never would.
“Ava. Answer me,” Mom demanded before I could say anything to Sofia.
My eyes moved back to Mom. “Why are you here? Why didn’t you just phone?”
“We had to see it with our own eyes,” Marilyn informed me, sounding like me being with Luke was akin to finding a vision of the Virgin Mary in your morning coffee.
I was saved from having to answer by the phone ringing at the same time we heard a “Yoo hoo,” called from the front door.
Luke’s Mom had arrived. Saved by Super Mom Stark.
I fought the urge to grab Mrs. Stark and run screaming from the house. Instead, I walked to the phone and tagged it.
“Yo,” I said into the phone, turning and giving a lame wave to Mrs. Stark who was staring at my family in genteel shock. Then her eyes hit me, she saw my face, the genteel went out of the shock and she stared at me with unhidden concern.
“Yo, girl. We’re pickin’ you up in twenty minutes,” Shirleen said in my ear. “Ally got Brody shitfaced last night and got some info outta him. We got a battle plan.”
“Um, I have a situation here,” I mumbled, walking into the dining room with the phone as I watched Mrs. Stark greeting my Mom and sisters with warm Mrs. Stark hugs that, if you asked my opinion, they did not deserve. Unfortunately, Mrs. Stark didn’t discriminate, not even against Super Bitches.
Shirleen’s voice was sharp. “What kind of situation?”
“My Mom and sisters showed up unexpectedly and Luke arranged for me to go to breakfast with his Mom. They’re all here and I don’t think I can get away.”
Silence.
“Shirleen?”
“Shit, that boy is good,” she told me, sounding impressed.
He was and it pissed me off.
“Yeah, and it bought him forty-eight hours of Ava Barlow Silent Treatment,” I informed her.
“Not sure that’s good retaliation, Luke don’t talk much,” Shirleen noted.
He might not talk much to other people but the shit he said to me rocked my world.
“I have to go,” I said.
“No problem. We’ll move on the leads we got and we’ll keep in touch.”
“I’m missing all the fun,” I complained, sounding like Bad Ava.
“You find a way to ditch ‘em, let me know. I’ll come get you.”
“Thanks, Shirleen.”
“No reason to thank me, haven’t had this much fun in months. Later.”
Disconnect.
I turned toward the living room.
“We’re all going to breakfast,” Marilyn announced, a bitchy smile on her face (Marilyn had two smiles, fake-sugar-sweet and bitchy, she mostly used bitchy with me). It was clear she was looking forward to this and I didn’t take that as a good sign.
“Yeah, that way you can tell all of us what’s going on with you and Luke,” Sofia chimed in.
I looked for an excuse and my eyes caught their suitcases. “Why don’t you check into a hotel first? Then we’ll make it brunch,” I suggested, thinking that would buy me time to come up with an excuse to ditch them.