The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,103
front of my mom. “Wait a minute, Mrs. Spia. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“Leo’s right. You don’t need anymore trouble,” Nick said.
“Who asked you?” Mom spit out the words in total anger.
“No one. I’m just giving you the facts,” he said in a calm, rational voice.
My mom would have none of it. “She needs a good right to her jaw. She has a glass jaw, you know. I punched her out once before when she told everybody in town that we were hiding gangsters at our orchard. She didn’t press any charges then, and she won’t press them now. That woman is asking to have the shit kicked out of her, and I’m just the person to do it.”
Nick stepped in closer to her. “I’m sure you are, but your family has enough going on right now. Do you really want me to have to drag you in for assaulting Liz Harrington?”
This logic seemed to work on my mom. Her hand dropped to her side and the tension went out of her face.
“Take a deep breath, Mrs. Spia. Breathe in and out through your nose. It will help calm you,” Lisa said.
“That’s right! I read that chapter in your first book, Coping Under Stress,” Mom said.
“Am I the only person on the planet who hasn’t read your books?” I protested.
“Pretty much,” Leo said while everyone else nodded. Even Nick joined in on the head bobbing.
“You too?” I asked Nick.
He flashed a smile. “I finished her latest last night. They’re really very informative,” he said, all serious like.
As luck would have it, Liz walked by at exactly the moment my mom was beginning to relax.
So much for keeping her calm.
Once Liz walked into my mom’s airspace, Mom began pressing her for information. Liz denied everything, but then Nick stepped in and said, “This is an ongoing murder investigation and we already know your truck was possibly used to run Lisa and her friends off the road. Plus, you were corresponding with the deceased while he was incarcerated. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
Uh-oh!
My mom lunged for Liz. It took all my strength to hang onto her. “You tried to kill my daughter? You got a lot of nerve, you old goat,” Mom hissed.
“You’re the goat. Not me.”
“You better come clean or I’m going to start swinging.”
“You think you scare me?”
Mom broke free and grabbed for Liz, taking hold of her hair and pulling until Liz was down on one knee. Nick tried to break them apart, but my mom had a vice grip on Liz. “Tell the truth, you mean old witch, or you’re going to have a bald spot for the rest of your life.”
“Mom, let go of her. Mom!” I was yelling now.
Liz said, “The way your family treated me, I had to show Mia she couldn’t mess with me.” Nick backed off, and so did I. We simply watched as my mother got Liz to fess up. “I had to show that Jade girl, too, swooping in and spreading lies that she was engaged to Dickey. Too bad that damn smarty-pants Lisa was driving or I’d have showed all three of them. I watched. I was there in the bakery yesterday, listening. Nobody knew. I’m good at disguises. That Jade girl was spreading lies. She wasn’t Dickey’s honey-bear. Lies! And nobody even invited me to Dickey’s party when everybody knew he loved me. Only me.”
“You’re a crazy woman. He never loved you,” my mother roared. “You probably killed him out of spite.”
Mom let go of Liz, and took a step back. Both Lisa and I grabbed onto her, just in case she wanted to lunge at Liz again. No one moved for a moment while Liz rubbed the side of her head where my mom had tried to rip out her hair.
“I ain’t the one with his dead body in my trunk,” Liz grumbled. “Dickey told me all about how he coulda taken back his olive grove if he wanted to, and how you wrote him threatening letters not to do it or you’d have to take drastic measures.”
“That’s a dirty rotten lie,” Mom said as she broke free and tackled Liz to the ground, arms flaying, skirts hiking way too far up for their age group. “Get her,” Hetty yelled as she came up on the girl fight. “Give her a good sock in the jaw.”
Hetty was totally inebriated, a state that didn’t suit her. A state that turned her otherwise somewhat