“Didn’t I tell ya, Edna?” Irv interrupted Delaney’s conversation with the as yet unnamed entity. He let go of Delaney’s hand and thwacked the table with his meaty fist.
Edna’s row of thick bracelets clanked, jarring Delaney’s tenuous at best connection with Aunt Gwyneth as she, too, let go, rearing up in her chair and leaning forward toward Irv. “Tell me what, Irv?” Her words were raspy and clearly annoyed.
Irv’s wide, bulldoglike face screwed up, adding more wrinkles to his pudgy cheeks. “That this broad was a shyster. A fuckin’ fruitcake! I told ya this would never work! But no, ya just had ta throw some cash out the window like I piss it out in the damn toilet every morning to pay for your crazy ideas. This is a load of bullshit, and I want my damned deposit back, you freak!” Irv bellowed.
And Irv’s bellowing startled the dogs.
All six.
Which meant there’d be no shutting them up.
Which also meant her landlord, Mr. Li, would be downstairs to hassle her tout de suite.
Because it would remind him she was twenty days overdue with her rent.
Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.
Do you see what you’ve done? she scolded, channeling the interfering voice in her head and tuning out Irv’s angry rants now mixed with the incessant, shrieking yaps of her dogs.
His voice blew through her head, calm like a soft ocean breeze—all reasonable. “Well, that’s what Gwyneth said to tell you. I was just doing what you asked. She also said she wouldn’t have given Irv the fucking house on the lake if they’d peeled her skin off while she was still alive. He’s a putz, she says. A no-good, lazy piece of shit—”
Again, shutting up would behoove you right now. Especially if you need my help. I can’t concentrate on you and the Dabrowskis all at once. Now let me try to salvage some of this while I can, and you practice waiting your freakin’ turn.
“My turn for what?”
She didn’t have time to answer him. Irv had popped up, with a squealing, protesting Edna following close behind him. The scrape of his chair against the floor, the stomp of his feet while Edna shot Delaney a look of sympathy, meant game over.
The tinkle of the bell on her front door signaled their raucous, angry exit.
Booyah.
Delaney laid her head on the cool surface of her old wood table, letting her cheek rest against it. She puffed out a sigh of defeat while rolling her forehead over the hard oak. Damn these dumb-ass entities that couldn’t be bothered with just a little consideration for a working girl. What about “Get the fuck out of my head” didn’t they understand?
Always yammering, day and night, night and day—in her head—in the grocery store—while she was in the bathroom—when she was trying to wax her legs. And always it was at the most inopportune of moments—like the ones that involved freakin’ cash.
She didn’t hate her gift. There were just times she wished she could put it on mute and finish a whole television program without experiencing other-dimensional difficulties.
The dogs, yipping as though someone was swinging them around by their tails, forced her to act. Placing her hands on the wood, Delaney pushed off to rise from her chair and head to the back of her store where her small apartment was.
“Guys! Shut up!” she yelled to her dogs with frustration. “What do you suppose the Dog Whisperer would say if he could hear how unruly you knuckleheads are? Christ on a cracker! Cesar’d shit a Pit Bull if he could see your behavior. Didn’t we just spend a whole weekend learning that I’m the leader of the pack, and when I tell you to can it—you can it?”
Five and a half pairs of soulful eyes collectively rolled when she entered her small, makeshift living room as if to say, Here comes the “I will use the duct tape” speech. Six bodies in various shapes and sizes lined up on her couch, shaking with anticipation, their tails of various colors wagging. “Don’t. Even. Don’t you even give me the eye roll, you beasts.” She waved a finger under their wet, eager noses. “You know, it just isn’t enough that I saved every last one of you from the chopping block in one way or the other, is it? You’d think I’d be due a little grateful, but nooooooooo. We can’t have Mommy earning a living or something crazy, now can we? I’m telling you, if you can’t all be quiet, I’m not kidding when I say there’s a roll of duct tape in your very near futures, and don’t think—”
“You really do have six dogs,” the male voice said matter-of-factly, reentering her head with the ease of applying room-temperature butter to toast.