The baby starts to fuss a few moments later and the pot dealer neighbor starts his wall banging.
I lay there for all of two minutes before I throw myself out of bed and jam the monitor in my pocket, taking the stairs three at a time before I jump down to the main floor and explode out the back door.
I have just about fucking had it with this son of a bitch.
I head into the backyard, climb up onto the small cement area where Mercedes grows an organic fucking garden, and gaze over the fence. There's a big ass rottie back here, and the dog growls at me, but what's he gonna do from there?
I reach down and grab the wooden handle of Mercedes' clippers. They have about a four foot reach, and she says she uses them to cut blackberry clusters off the thorny vines that peek above her fence.
I use them to reach into the neighbor's yard and snip his weed plants off at their bases. It takes me about two minutes, and then it's done.
“Eat shit, you cocksucker.”
I drop back into the yard and head inside. Twenty minutes later when that son of a bitch finds his prized crop, there ain't none of it left.
His scream is enough to lull me into a soft, melodic sleep.
Six kids. One car. Nightmare from hell.
Kinzie and Bella are screaming and fighting over one of those dead dolls with the weird eyes and the freaky body proportions while the twins kick and yell and argue over possession of my phone. I have a blinding headache, and I kind of want to … die right now. My cat's stuffed in a kennel in the front seat, and the horrifyingly putrid little chihuahuas are trapped in the back, yipping and growling and fighting with each other. Suddenly, there are like, three of them. I thought there were only two? Did they multiply? I can't remember how many goddamn chihuahuas I'm supposed to have.
I drive the whole kit and fucking caboodle over to Brooke's house and pull into the driveway, my heart constricting at the empty swath of pavement where her ugly ass Subaru was sitting this morning.
I'm really on my own here. Really, seriously, truly alone with six children and four dogs and a hairless cat named Hubert.
My life is so over.
“Alright, guys, let's do this shit with military precision, shall we?” Nobody's listening to me, so I just start unloading demons from the seats and making sure they get in the front door. Once I think I've got everyone, I start counting and realize I've lost that hideous hairless gray dog thing. You'd think Hubert's hairlessness would endear me to that rat, but all it does is make me realize how much I despise little dogs.
Seriously.
Get a cat. Get a large dog.
What's with this in-between shit?
A quick search of the vehicle and I find the creature eating a dirty diaper under one of the seats.
Don't cringe away from that. Reread it. I had to live it, okay? And it's fucking gross.
As I'm dragging the rat-thing in by its harness, I find my phone on the cement outside the front door. When I pick it up, I see the screen is cracked.
My mouth twitches.
“Who did it?” I ask as the rat-thing attaches itself to my leg and starts to death shake my pants, growling and snarling and … is it hissing at me? No, that's Hubert. Who's out of his kennel. Shit. I shake the dog off and try to ease forward toward my cat. “Come on, Hub. Don't do this to me, man.” The cat takes off up the stairs, the chihuahuas on his ass like white on rice.
Great.
“Best day of my goddamn life,” I grumble as I hunt down the herd of wild dogs and corral them in an upstairs bathroom. I feel bad for the things, but what am I supposed to do with them? They're not my dogs, and these aren't my kids. The only thing here that's mine is the damn cat, and he wasn't even mine to begin with.
Vegas, Vegas, Vegas, I think as I tromp back down the stairs and into the kitchen to make snacks or whatever. It takes me a while to come up with something, and I start slapping together PB&Js for the whole lot of them. That's what our parents fed us. My brother and I had stupid peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch at least five times a week. All kids like 'em, right?
“I have a gluten allergy,” Kinzie barks as I toss the plate of sandwiches on the coffee table and let the kids go at it like animals.
“You have a … what?” I ask as I shove bread and jelly and peanuts into my mouth.
“A gluten allergy, stupid.” I narrow my eyes at Kinzie and then point with the whole of my sandwich.
“Okay, that's it. Last warning, kid. Next time, it's a time-out.” She scoffs at me, but I'm not playing around here. Seriously. My niece has slapped and kicked and punched and spit at me. I'm finished with the attitude.
“I don't like time-outs,” she says, picking up one of the sandwiches and tossing it onto the floor for the gray rat-dog thing. I watch as it gobbles it up and then set my own food down on the table.