“Um, he’s kinda in jail,” Roxie reminded me. “Remember, Hector and Darius got him? Hank told me Bobby ID’d the guy from mug shots and after that he confessed.”
Oh. Yeah. I forgot the first part, the second part was good news.
I decided to forge ahead. “Okay, that’s sorted,” I announced. “Then, second, last night was not good. For some reason it seems it was worse for Luke than it was for me.”
“That’s because you’re a steel magnolia, Sugar,” Daisy chimed in.
She got more nods than I did.
“What the hell does that mean?” Tex asked.
“You seen the movie Steel Magnolias?” Daisy asked Tex.
“Fuck no,” Tex stated the obvious.
“Watch it, then you’ll understand,” Daisy went on.
“Will someone please tell me why we’re talkin’ about a fuckin’ Julia Roberts movie?” Duke put in.
“It wasn’t a Julia Roberts movie, it was a Dolly Parton movie,” Daisy snapped back.
“It was really a Sally Field movie,” Jet said quietly.
“Oh pu-lease. Everyone knows Shirley MacLaine stole the whole damn show,” Tod threw out.
“Someone kill me,” Smithie begged.
“People!” I yelled.
Everyone quieted and turned back to me.
When I had their attention I continued. “All right, so, second point, part A. Luke’s off-the-scales pissed and Lee’s none too happy either which means Noah, my ex, is fucked. I don’t mind that, I just don’t want anyone I care about doing something stupid and fucking up their life in order to make Noah pay. Which takes me to part B, I’m pissed too. I mean, the guy beat me up, taped me to a post and put his hand down my pants but it’s worse! At the same time he was stealing my auntie’s jewelry and all my money, he was conning a seventy-year-old disabled lady out of her retirement fund and he stole her car!”
There were gasps all around.
Finally. Now I was getting somewhere.
“Oh my God,” Sissy breathed.
“No shit?” Ally asked.
“No shit,” I told her. “That means we have to find him first and make him pay by turning him over to the proper authorities.”
“I know some proper authorities,” Roxie said.
“Me too,” Jet put in.
“Practically my whole family is proper authorities,” Indy added.
“Right, they come in later, first we have to catch him,” I went on and looked at Duke, Tex and Smithie. “Everyone with me?”
The girls, Tod and Stevie nodded.
Tex, Duke and Smithie did not.
Shit.
“Are you guys here as members of the Rock Chick gang or are you here as informants for the Hot Bunch?” I asked them.
“Shit, woman,” Tex said but I noted he didn’t answer my question.
“I’m being serious,” I told him, sounding just as serious as I was being, which was ultra serious. “If you’re here as informants, take off now. If you’re not, you can stay. Either way, I don’t want you talking me out of this. My crush on Lucas Stark began when I was eight years old. Now, twenty years later, he’s mine. He just caved in a locker with his fist, for goodness sakes. God knows what he’s going to do to Noah when he catches him. I’m not spending the next twenty to life visiting him in a penitentiary. Got me?”
Tex, Duke and Smithie just stared at me.
“Got me?” I snapped.
Tex looked at Duke “She’s got spunk,” he said.
“Where I come from, we call it sass,” Duke replied.
“Where I come from, we call it attitude,” Smithie put in.
“Oh for the love of God, whatever you call it, are you in or are you out?” Jules clipped.
Smithie looked at me. “I don’t know about your firsts and seconds or A’s and B’s, all I know is, Jet told me a friend of hers got violated. I ain’t down with that shit. I don’t care who nails this motherfucker, I just wanna be in on nailin’ him. So yeah, I’m fuckin’ in.”
“In,” Duke growled.
“Fuck yeah, I’m in,” Tex boomed.
I nodded to them. Once. “All righty then, here’s my plan.”
And I told them my plan. It was kind of a shit plan but luckily Indy, Ally and Jules had ideas to share and they were better than mine. In the end, I felt all right because instead of a half-assed plan, we had a pretty decent one.
When we were done, Tod raised his hand and I nodded to him.
“Can I just ask, after we find this guy, can we talk about the Vibrator Ceremony? I’m thinking of making us all kind of choir like robes to wear but with sequins and some satin sashes as belts. Maybe in chartreuse.”
It was then I was wishing someone would shoot me.
*
The gang handed out assignments, everyone prepared to move out and I approached Jules.
“Hey,” I said.
“You hanging in there?” she asked, looking at me closely.
I nodded. “Listen, I... um...” I started but May came up to our group and I stopped.
“It’s okay. You can talk in front of May,” Jules told me.
“About anything?” I asked.
“Hon, if you mean about you freakin’ out yesterday about Luke makin’ out with Jules on her couch while Vance was watchin’ on the monitors in the surveillance room, then yeah, you can talk about anything,” May put in.