“I’ll buy what I buy and it’ll work,” he replied. “You don’t like it, you can go out and get what you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “If I don’t like it, I’ll go out this weekend and find something I do like. Maybe the girls will get into that.”
“If there’s money to be spent on somethin’, they will.”
That made me smile.
Then I told him, “Justine is here. I need to go.”
“Right. Tell her I said hey. Later, beautiful.”
“?’Bye, Low.”
We rang off and I looked to Justine, who was staring at me.
“Geez, it’s like twenty years didn’t pass. You guys were always like that. Me and Ronnie could fight for three days about who was going to go out and buy a litter box.”
This was true.
Justine and Veronica found a lot of things to fight about mostly, from what I could tell, so they’d have a variety of reasons to make up.
“Low says hey,” I told her, and watched happy hit her face.
“Say hey back when you see him,” she replied right when the door flew open.
I hadn’t heard a car come up the drive, so my eyes shot there with surprise and I felt more surprise when I saw Kellie stomping in, Dottie following her.
I didn’t pay much mind to Dot because Kellie had her arm raised and she was pointing back and forth between Justine and me.
“You! And you! I just knew it!” she shouted.
“What the heck?” Justine asked.
Dot closed the door as Kellie crossed her arms on her chest, face set right at pissed, that pissed aimed at me.
“I knew you’d tell her first,” she accused. “I knew she’d get the lowdown on Logan before we got our LBD on. I knew it.”
“Kellie—” I began.
“Admit it!” she snapped. “She’s your bestest bestie and I’m second fiddle.”
Not this again.
This had been happening since forever.
And it wasn’t just me she accused of Justine being my bestest bestie, it was also the other way around with Justine.
“You’re both my bestest besties,” I said on a sigh. “We’re all bestest besties. You know that.”
“The biggest thing that happens to you since you met Logan is you gettin’ back with Logan and she gets the goods first?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I tried to stop her,” Dot put in, and I looked to my sister. “We were having lunch. I mentioned Justine was here. She lost it and there was no going back.”
I looked back to Kellie and explained, “I’ve offered Jus a job, babe.”
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Likely story. And that bullshi—” Her eyes dropped to Raff, who was staring up at her in wonder, and she finished, “.?.?.?shtein was what Dot was spouting.”
“It isn’t bullshtein,” Justine stated. “It’s true.”
“It’s bullshtein,” Kellie spat.
“I don’t know any more than you,” Justine returned.
Kellie threw out an arm. “So you’re just talkin’ about a job and that’s it?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Can I just say,” I cut in, “that I’ve been in Paris for two weeks. I came back to a variety of dramas that changed the course of my life. I’m taking on a new employee. Imminently I face Logan moving in, and by imminently, I mean tonight, but the truth of that is that he’s already pretty moved in considering he currently lives in an RV, so I’m guessing there isn’t much to move. This weekend I face meeting Logan’s two daughters. And tonight we’re picking up my new kitties. I don’t mean to be mean, Kel, but I don’t have time to have a conversation that I’ve had a thousand times since fifth grade. You have no bestest bestie, Jus or me. Jus has no bestest bestie, you or me. I have no bestest bestie. Because we’re all bestest besties.”
“Logan’s moving in?” Justine asked me.
“Like you didn’t know that,” Kellie retorted.
Justine looked to Kellie. “I didn’t,” she snapped.
“I didn’t either,” Dot put in, and grinned at me. “Wow, Mill. The mom in me is freaked. The sister in me is also freaked. The woman in me is ecstatic.”
“Roll with the woman one, Dot,” I advised, grinning back.
“Why does he live in an RV?” Kellie asked.
“He’s been looking for a house since his divorce,” I answered. “It’s been a while but he wants it to be right for his girls. He hasn’t found anything.”
“But...?an RV?” Dot asked.
I did not have good memories of that RV.
I was looking forward to making better ones.
“Well, it’s an RV but it’s the kind of RV Aerosmith might decide not to buy considering the cost of the upgrades,” I explained.
“Ooo,” Kellie breathed reverently. “A Rock-Mobile. Radical!”
“Uh...?Mill, you have an appointment?” Justine asked into this exchange.
I looked to Justine, then followed her eyes out the window where I saw an SUV driving up.
I didn’t know that SUV and I couldn’t see who was in it, though I could see there was more than one person. A lot more.
“No,” I answered Justine.
“Drop in,” she said, and looked to me. “More work. I hope it’s Christmas. I found these lights online, like big ornaments but with dangly bits at the bottom. They so totally have to go into someone’s scheme.”
“Email me the link, Jus. Wanna have a look,” I told her.
“On it,” she stated, and then got on it, right there and then, digging in her purse to pull out her phone.
Rafferty crawled around the desk and started teeth/gumming my boot.
I bent down and picked him up to put him in my lap just as the door opened.
I looked that way, distractedly noting Kellie and Dottie were moving aside to let the newcomers in.
I was not distracted in any way noting who the newcomers were.
Tyra, Tack’s woman. Lanie, Hop’s woman. Elvira, and I didn’t know who she belonged to. An exceptionally pretty young woman with lots of curly strawberry blonde hair.
And the amazingly beautiful, all grown up Tabitha Allen.
I stared at Tabby.
She was looking at me.
“Hey, Millie,” she said softly.
She remembered me.
I felt my eyes fill with tears.