17.

Embalming is like one final spa day.

Dice

D ICE

“How long is your flight?” Mrs. Mason asked as she handed me a stack of plates and silverware. As I turned to walk to the table, she gave her husband a stack of napkins and some smaller plates and then opened a cabinet and pulled out some glasses. “Is it direct?”

“It’s a direct flight,” I confirmed. “I think it’s a little over two hours.”

“And you’re leaving your bike here?” Mr. Mason asked as he set a small plate and a folded napkin in front of each of the plates I had put down. “In Squid’s garage, or at Amethyst’s with Tiny?”

“I asked Cyd if I could just park it at her house, and she said that would be fine.”

“Where is Squid?” Mr. Mason asked.

“She walked over to Hank and Nichole’s with Gracy,” Mrs. Mason explained.

I counted the chairs around the table and asked, “Are they coming to dinner?”

“She’s going to try and convince them to, but the older Hank gets, the more he likes to stay home in the evenings.”

“He doesn’t stay home,” Mr. Mason huffed. “He sits on Grunt’s patio, and they plot world domination.”

“Grunt is the quiet man I met the other . . .”

Mrs. Mason burst out laughing and said, “That was definitely not Grunt. Bear maybe, but not Grunt.”

“You know how he gets when he’s irritated,” Mr. Mason reminded her.

“Oh. That’s true,” Mrs. Mason allowed with a funny smile. “Usually things get very, let’s say, dangerous when he’s quiet.”

“I’m still alive,” I said with a chuckle. When I saw the look Mr. Mason was giving me, I conceded, “Although I am well aware that can change at any time.”

“Grady, you’ve gotta stop being such a hardass. Obviously, Squid wants to be around him since she is about to leave town with him,” Mrs. Mason chided as she poured iced tea into the glasses she had arranged on the counter. “Is it Dice or should I call you Kenny?”

“Dice, please.”

“Dice, please call me Ella and call my husband Grady.”

When Mr. Mason glared at me, I winced and started to reply, but Mrs. Mason thrust a full glass of tea at her husband, causing it to spill when he fumbled and almost dropped it. “Stop being a dick, Grady. Good grief! How Nichole hasn’t killed Hank yet is beyond me, and the older we get, the more you act like him, but let me just say, sir, that I’m not nearly as nice as her.”

“Cyd said that you and her aunt were the meanest ones in the family,” I tattled.

“I’m nice, level-headed, and as pure as fresh snow on Christmas morning.”

Mr. Mason burst out laughing, and Ella glared at him before she said, “We have a small window of time to talk to him alone before Squid comes back, Grady. Let’s use it wisely.”

“Ella girl, the fact that you can lie outright like that still shocks me. Even after all these years, you still amaze me every day.”

“Don’t try and butter me up, Grady Mason,” Ella said with a frown. “Talk to him before I start because you know I’ll end up crying, and then there will be a whole thing.”

“No crying,” Grady ordered.

I decided to get ahead of the inevitable threats that I was positive were coming and said, “I give you my word that I’ll keep Cyd safe and make her as happy as I possibly can while she’s with me.”

“You’d better,” Ella said, as if that was a given, which in reality didn't even come close to all that I wanted to do for her daughter.

“Squid has always marched to the beat of her own drum, but more often than not, that beat gets drowned out by the wildness that comes from being part of this family,” Grady explained. “She craves peace, and even though that’s the last thing Las Vegas is known for, I believe that she very well may find that with you.”

“Cydney is going to be torn between what she’s always wanted and what she thinks she needs to do to make the rest of us happy. As parents, all we want is for our children to be safe and happy, which is something you might not understand quite yet, but you will someday,” Ella assured me. “As much as I hate the thought of her moving so far away, I know that she’s just a phone call or a quick flight away - and believe me, there will be plenty of both. What I really want to know is this - are you willing to completely change the life you have now and create a family, or are you just playing house?”

“Cyd and I couldn’t come from much more different backgrounds, Mrs. Mason . . . Ella. She’s had the two of you and the million other men and women I’ve met so far to learn from, but I never had anything like that when I was a child. I was lucky enough to meet a family who accepted me as one of their own, but that didn’t come organically at all. I know they’ve got my back and that they’re going to love Cyd. I want the baby to have everything I never did when I was young, but I don’t know the first thing about raising a child. I have no idea if I’m even man enough to do it. However, I want to be and know that I can be with the support of a woman like Cyd.”

“Good answer,” Grady muttered. “Squid is going to use the company as an excuse for why she has to stay here, but it’s not true. We’re all mobile and don’t mind traveling, so if there’s something we have to do in person, then we can just as easily come to Vegas as she can come here. As much as Squid says she wants adventure and a new home without people coming in and out, she doesn’t like change, so she’s going to resist. I hope she’ll be able to fight it, but she’s gonna need to know that you’ve got her back. As much as she swears she wants to be alone, she shouldn’t ever have to be.”

“She won’t. I’ll be by her side, and once the Turners meet her, they'll love her as much as I do.”

“You love her?”

I laughed uncomfortably before I admitted, “I think so, but again, I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing, so I’m flying blind here. We haven’t known each other for very long and . . .”

“I knew I loved my Ella before she even had a clue I was interested,” Grady admitted as he put his arm over his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “It took her a little bit to trust that the magic in front of her wasn’t going to disappear. Squid is a lot like her mom and will probably be the same way, so it will be up to you to reassure her.”

“I still pinch myself occasionally because the life I have is more than I ever dreamed of,” Ella said quietly as she looked up at her husband with so much love in her eyes that it made my heart ache. “Our children have had a life like I never even dared to imagine for myself, and I think that if you have your priorities straight, your child will have the same thing in your eyes.”

“I’ll never let him come close to the life I lived.”

“That was my mission when Cydney was a child and then for Gracy when I found out I was pregnant again. The fact that you already understand the importance of giving your baby the life you never dreamed of tells me that you understand the assignment and you’re more than willing to take it on.”

“I am.”

“We’ll come see her often and stay long enough for you to get tired of us,” Grady said, and I wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise.

“As long as she doesn’t get tired of you, then I’m okay with that,” I assured him. I thought about it for a second before I said, “You act like it’s a given that she’s going to move to Las Vegas.”

“It is,” Ella said firmly. “I voluntold her two best friends that they needed to encourage her in that direction.”

“You did?”

“I have a feeling that Cydney is about to find herself in the same position I was in when I met Grady - head over heels and unsure of how to hold on.” Ella shrugged before she said, “Her friends will help her get a good grip, but it’s up to you to hold her tight through the ride.”

“I’m happy that you have faith in me.”

“I don’t,” Grady said almost cheerfully. “But our Squid is a strong one, and she’ll make it work. All you have to do is make it worth her while.”

“Exactly!” Ella grinned at me as she said, “Otherwise, we’ll have to help her mourn your untimely death before we bring her and the baby home so that they’re surrounded by people who love them.”

Grady laughed as he slapped me on the shoulder. “And on that note, would you like a beer, son?”

I gladly accepted and then had another one when Cydney showed up with the two men I met in the diner the other day - Hank and Grunt. They were accompanied by their wives, who kept me in stitches as they set about helping Ella put dinner on the table. Cydney was clustered in the living room with some of her friends - apparently, a couple of Hank’s kids that she’d grown up with along with even more people who had popped in for the impromptu going away party. Luckily, Tiny had brought Tank with him, so I got to visit with my friends for a while. I felt bad that I hadn’t spent nearly as much time with them as I had planned to, but Cydney came first, and they understood that.

It was so weird to think of a woman before my club brothers - the men I could trust to have my back through anything, but then again, I had a feeling that Cydney would become just as strong an ally as the men I depended on.

“At least Cydney’s father doesn’t stare at you like he’s trying to figure out the best way to dispose of your body,” Tiny complained before he took a sip of his tea. “And I haven’t once seen her mom checking out your ass.”

I started laughing, and Tank said, “She does it all the time. I’ve seen it. Her husband just rolls his eyes, and then she sits on his lap and says things in his ear that make him smile. Of course, that disappears again when he looks at Tiny.”

“I’m not sure what makes him want to kill me more - my relationship with Amethyst or his wife’s salacious comments about what a big guy I am.”

“Salacious?”

“Yes! And don’t even get me started on what happens when Amethyst’s aunt and uncle get in on the game.”

“Her aunt and uncle?”

“Aunt on her mom’s side, uncle on her dad’s,” Tiny explained. “Her dad’s brother is almost as fucking scary as he is, especially when his husband is looking at my ass!”

Tiny was so flustered that Tank and I couldn’t stop ourselves from laughing at him, but when I caught Cydney’s mom and her Aunt Izzy whispering about us, I sobered almost instantly. “Cyd’s father might not be figuring out how to get rid of my dad's body, but his wife and her sister are. They both come off sweet and all, but I’ve got no illusions about just how dark they might get if I don’t take care of Cydney. I’m sure that Grady has his strengths, but Ella is the one that terrifies me.”

“Have you met the women in Cyd’s club yet?” Tank asked. When I nodded, he said, “They’re terrifying!”

“Why do you say that?” Tiny asked.

“I went for a ride with a couple of the guys a few nights ago, and we ended up at the same bar as a group of them. Cydney’s sister hustled me out of fifty bucks in a pool game, and her friend Janis explained what happens when you put someone’s hand in a pan of boiling oil.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I have no fucking idea!” Tank exclaimed. “We were talking about a little burn she had on her thumb and then the next thing I know, they’re discussing the most painful ways to torture people with common household items.”

Tiny snorted before he asked, “And you thought it was sexy as hell, didn’t you?”

“Maybe. Okay, yeah. A little bit.”

“What are you guys talking about over here all alone?” Cydney asked as she walked over with her friend Amethyst. Amethyst sat down on Tiny’s leg as if she’d done it a million times, and I smiled up at Cydney as I patted my knee. She sat down gingerly as if she was afraid she might hurt me, but I gently pulled her closer as I tried to make sure I didn’t hurt her still tender stomach. “You looked like you were having a very serious discussion.”

“We were talking about appliances,” I answered.

“We were talking about killing people,” Tank said at the same time Tiny muttered, “Your crazy friend.”

Cydney and Amethyst both burst out laughing, but then Cydney shocked all of us when she exclaimed, “A toaster!”

“It’s the Tourettes,” Amethyst said with a shrug. “You’ll get used to it.”

I ignored Amethyst and asked Cydney, “What about the toaster?”

“Over seven hundred people each year are killed by fires or electrocution caused by toasters.”

There was silence all around before Amethyst said, “You’re so weird.”

“And you smell like skunk ass on a hot July day,” Cydney retorted.

“You look like skunk booty even on your best day.”

“Your front teeth are crooked. I wonder why.” Cydney asked with a funny smile.

When Amethyst lurched toward Cydney, she didn’t even flinch, but Tiny grabbed his woman around the waist and held her on his lap.

“I’m not going to miss you even the tiniest little bit.”

“Because when I’m gone, you’ll finally be the smartest person in the room.”

“Pfft,” Amethyst scoffed. “You’re the reason there are warning labels on everything.”

“You’re the reason that . . .”

Tiny hopped up with Amethyst in one arm, held against his front like a toddler, and said, “Let’s go get another drink!”

Cydney giggled as Tiny walked off with Amethyst squirming to get away, but it wasn’t a cute giggle as much as it was terrifying.

“Aren’t the two of you friends?” Tank asked in confusion.

“She’s my best friend,” Cydney said cheerfully. “Why do you ask?”

◆◆◆

“Get it together,” I heard Cydney hiss as I lifted my hand to knock on the door. She’d been in the bathroom for quite a while, and we didn’t have much time left before we had to be at the airport to catch our flight.

The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of last-minute tasks to finish before we left today, and I’d barely had a minute to talk to Cydney. She had lists of things she needed to do and people she needed to talk to - everything from delivering her houseplants to various people to unplugging all the lamps in the hopes that it might prevent a fire if there was an electrical surge.

She had unpacked her suitcases at least three times, always referring back to the lists she kept on her phone before making changes - usually additions - and then repacking them until they looked almost exactly the same as they had before. The clothes she put in boxes for shipping didn’t get quite the same treatment, but the toiletries she had in the bag she wanted to check did. I found her sitting on the floor in the hallway with the open suitcase in front of her frantically scanning the UPC symbols on the different bottles and boxes in front of her and then purchasing them from Amazon so they could be shipped to my place and arrive within the next few days.

When I asked her why she was doing that, she gave me a lengthy explanation of how she wanted to have backups in case a rabid TSA agent decided to confiscate her Q-tips and mouthwash, leaving her feeling unclean and prone to cavities and gingivitis.

I knew better than to crack a smile at her long-winded, nearly desperate declaration because I could tell that she was teetering right on the edge of a meltdown and didn’t want to be the one to tip her over.

From the frantic whispers I could hear through the bathroom door, I knew something had given her that nudge.

“You’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay. You can do this. You can.” I tapped on the door with one finger and heard her gasp before her tearful and wavering voice cheerfully called out, “Just a second!”

“Let me in, Cyd.”

“I said just a second!” Cydney snapped.

I tried the knob, and since it was unlocked, I pushed the door open slowly and then leaned against the door frame before I asked, “What’s going on, babe?”

“I’d like a little privacy, please,” Cydney barked before she frantically swiped the tears from her cheeks. When I didn’t move, she said, “If we’re going to live together for any length of time and you want to come out of this at the end with all of your body parts in the right place, you’ll understand that when I say I need my privacy I mean I need my goddamn privacy! ”

“Tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

Apparently, that was the exact wrong thing to say because Cydney’s face morphed from irritation to disbelief and then anger before she yelled, “You can’t just breeze into my life and take over, Kenny. I know what I’m doing and how things need to be, and I won’t have you running me over all the time.”

“What’s the problem, babe?”

“It’s not up to you to solve my problems. You know what? Why don’t you go to Vegas, and I’ll stay here and take care of my problems and then get back to you.” Cydney glared at me for a long minute before she yelled, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“When you’re having a moment, does it help to yell at me and pick a fight?” Suddenly, Cydney got an even more crazy-eyed look and took a deep breath, probably to yell at me some more, but I cut her off and said, “If that helps, then I’m all for it. Yell, scream, I guess you can even throw things if you have to, but I draw the line at physical violence. I just can’t stomach that on either of our parts. It gives me hives just thinking about it.”

“That’s . . . Wow.”

“Whatever is going on in your head can’t be nearly as bad as you think it is, so just talk it out with me, and we’ll fix it.”

“I can’t be fixed,” Cydney warned with a sniff. As she spoke, her words got faster as her pitch got higher until it was all I could do to keep up. “I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember, and I knew this was going to happen, so I called Roscoe and asked him if I could take my meds. He said that if I really needed to, he didn’t think it would affect the baby but when he couldn’t tell me one hundred and fifty million percent for sure that they wouldn’t give her horns or a third nipple, I decided to just figure shit out on my own, but then I started thinking about it, and it freaked me out even more.”

I wasn’t sure how to reply, so I just asked, “The horns or the . . .”

Cydney burst into tears and wailed, “I took it a few times before I knew I was pregnant, and now, all I can think about is wondering if having a third nipple means that there will be an entire third boob or just the nipple by itself, you know?”

I did not know and had no illusions that I ever would because right now I was skating on such thin ice that I could see that sea monster beneath my feet just waiting for me to misstep so he could gobble me up.

I heard a sound and realized it was my soul leaving my body because otherwise I’d burst out laughing at the odd scenario her brilliant mind had created and just make things even worse. I managed to choke back my laughter and cleared my throat before I asked, “Did Roscoe mention a third nipple or is that just speculation?”

“It’s me! It’s all me! And the worst part is that I know that it’s all me but I can’t stop it. You know why? I’ll tell you why! Because my brain travels at the speed of light down these paths through the forest that lead directly to the dark side. Not even just the . . .” Cydney leaned forward between her raised knees and started gasping for air. “I can’t do this. I wanted to do this, but I can’t. What’s going to happen to my house? What about my car? What happens if I get there and you turn out to be a serial killer, but I’m stuck there with a severed head in the refrigerator staring at me every time I open the door to get a drink? I have to get into the refrigerator because I can’t stand the taste of warm water, so I need it really cold, you know? But if there’s a head in there, I won’t be able to get any water out, so I’ll get dehydrated, and that’s going to make her third nipple even bigger!”

I was running my hand over my face, trying to figure out where to start with that outburst when I heard a wheezing noise and then Cydney gasping for air. I rushed across the bathroom and tried to figure out the easiest way to get to her because the empty bathtub was apparently the most comfortable place she could find for her fucking meltdown, which meant that I couldn’t get close enough to do anything but put my hand on her back.

After watching how Cydney started behaving when things got to be too intense for her, I started to wonder if what her parents had tried to tell me without saying it outright was that she suffered from panic attacks. Unfortunately, Chelle and Courtney suffered from panic attacks too. Although I’d been in prison during the worst of them, I’d witnessed many over the years. Luckily, I knew a few tricks to help calm Cydney now because of my experience with the girls.

“Focus on my voice, Cyd,” I ordered as I stepped into the bathtub and sat on the edge with Cydney between my splayed knees. I started rubbing her back, firmly enough that the sensation would hopefully start to distract her, and said, “Think about what I’m saying, okay? Picture it in your mind. You’re standing in a field with dark green grass, and it’s soft beneath your feet. When you look down, you see that your toenails are a really bright purple. Can you see them? Now, look up and see the pretty blue sky with the puffy white clouds. Aren’t they beautiful? I bet they’re really soft, right?” Cydney’s breathing was still heavy, but she wasn’t wheezing anymore, so I kept going. “Now, over to your right is a big copse of trees. Really tall ones, like Christmas trees on steroids. Big, green, pokey branches and all that shit, but they start moving. There’s something in the woods over there, and you can hear it walking. Can you hear the sound of its footsteps?” Cydney didn’t respond, but her breathing was a little calmer, so I continued. “All of a sudden, this big head pokes out from between two of the trees. It’s like a giraffe’s head with the little nubby horns, but it’s not a giraffe like you’ve ever seen before. It’s pink. Dark pink, like the outside of a dragon fruit. The spots aren’t brown either. No, they’re, um . . .”

“Purple like grape jelly,” Cydney whispered.

“Yeah. So, it’s dark pink with big purple spots. It’s just chillin’ there in the treeline, looking at you like you’re the weird one, when a bluebird perches on the end of its nose and starts singing.”

“Singing?” Cydney whispered.

“Yeah.Singing.”

“What song is it singing?”

Without any hesitation, I started singing the first song that came to mind, an old tune that I’d always loved by Roger Alan Wade. “I’d like to shoot you in the ass with a BB gun, lay there in the tall grass and wait for the cops to come, put a blood blister upon each bun, I’d like to shoot you in the ass with a BB gun . ”

Cydney burst out laughing, but I kept going, singing as much of the song as I could remember as she kept laughing until she was leaning against me with her head on my stomach.

When the song was over, she said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Kenny.”

“It’ll happen again, I’m sure.”

“Sometimes, I get a little out of hand.”

“Nah. Sometimes, you get too into your head, but if getting a little out of hand helps you get through that, then I’m all for it.”

“I’m glad I met you.”

“Good because you’re stuck with me, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.”