“Apparently Vance and I aren’t broken up. There was a misunderstanding. He was giving me space. He’s sleeping at my house right now.”
Daisy’s eyes got huge. Then they got bright. Then she jumped up from the couch and grabbed onto my forearms with both of her hands and jumped up and down, her enormous head of teased-out platinum blonde hair bouncing with every jump (I didn’t look at her cleavage and luckily she didn’t either or there might have been blackened eyes).
“Yee-ha!” she screamed.
I didn’t jump with her as I was a head crackin’ mamma jamma and as such didn’t jump around like a girlie-freak.
Daisy didn’t seem to mind.
Stil , I couldn’t help but smile.
“This is so great,” she shouted then let me go and turned to Clarice. “Isn’t this great?”
“Fuck yeah,” Clarice said, smiling broadly at me. Al the kids knew Vance and I were together and also likely knew Vance and I’d split up. Sniff had been in the building.
Vance and I’d split up. Sniff had been in the building.
“Don’t say fuck,” I said to Clarice and turned to Daisy. “I need a powwow. Can you get the girls together after work?”
“What’s the subject?”
I kept my eyes trained on Daisy not wanting Clarice in on the Is Jules A Slut or A Tease? If So, Discuss, Powwow.
“Long story. I’l explain at the powwow. Tel me where, I’l tel May.”
“You betcha, Sugar,” Daisy said and pul ed out her cel phone and started stabbing at the buttons with her long, lethal y-pointed fingernail.
Okay, one down, one to go.
I gave Andy his burrito and took mine into the empty yel ow room with my cel . I sat down at the table and peeled back the paper and foil on my burrito. Then I scrol ed down to Vance’s number and hit the green button.
It rang five times (I counted) then he answered, “Yeah?”
“Hey, it’s Jules.”
He was quiet for a second then he said softly, sounding like it was through a smile, “You know, Princess, I have your number programmed in my phone.”
This made me freak out but again in a good way.
“It’s rude just to launch in and talk,” I told him, not letting on to my good freak out. “You should always identify yourself.”
“I’l keep that in mind.”
“Did I wake you?” I asked this even though he sounded awake and alert. Then again he always sounded awake and alert.
“You caught me in the shower.”
Oh my God.
Major Good Freak Out.
I cleared visions of Vance naked in my shower out of my mind. I was so good at doing this I completely blanked my mind and forgot why I was cal ing.
“Jules?”
“Um… yeah.”
Pull yourself together, Jules.
“I’m meeting the girls after work,” I told him.
“When are you gonna be done? I’l make dinner.” This was too much. I could barely process Vance sleeping in my bed and he’d done it before. I’d even slept in his bed. The shower, dinner, I couldn’t hack it.
“Jules?”
“What?”
“Are we done talkin’?”
“No.”
“Then maybe you should talk.”
God, I was such an idiot.
“You cook?” I asked.
“No,” Vance answered.
I blinked at my burrito. “Didn’t you just say you were making dinner?”
“There’s a tray of what looks like incinerated brownies on your stove. I’m guessin’ we’d do better to take our chances with me.”
He was probably right. Stil , it was slightly embarrassing.
I made a mental note to throw out the brownie tray. “Nick normal y cooks. Maybe we should bum a meal off him.”
“I like Nick, Princess, but I been away for three days, you just let your guard down and told me you’re off with the girls for part of the night. That’s about al I’m wil in’ to share.” Uh-oh.
“Um…”
“That doesn’t sound like a good ‘um’.”
Throughout our conversation he’d sounded mel ow, relaxed, in a good mood, amused. Now, he did not.
“I kinda promised to go ride-along with Luke tonight.” Silence.
“Vance?”
“How ‘kinda’?”
“Kind of, definitely, kinda.”
The phone came away from his mouth but I stil heard him swear. Then his voice was back in my ear. “I thought we agreed you’d cal him.”
“We did.”
“You need to cal him.”
“I did.”
Silence for a beat then, “Did you actual y speak to him?”
“Yes.”
“So tel me how did your tel in’ him to back off translate into a ride-along?”
Yes, I was right. Vance had definitely lost his mel ow, relaxed, amused, good mood.
“He understands about Yoko Ono,” I explained, “it’l be al right.”
More silence then, “Maybe you should explain to me More silence then, “Maybe you should explain to me about Yoko Ono.”
The words were a suggestion, the way he said them was not.
“Do you know who Yoko Ono is?”
He didn’t answer.
I figured everyone knew who Yoko Ono was so I just forged ahead. “Wel , see, The Beatles had this thing, no women in the –”
“I know about The Beatles,” Vance cut in.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”