Pretend You Love Me by Julie Anne Peters Page A

church-y social thing that I’ll no doubt be forced to
     go to and be paraded around. So glad I wore my black leather S&M bustier and spiked dog collar. When Gramps saw my belly-button
     ring, he about popped the blood vessels in his one good eye. Did I mention he has a patch?”
    I snorted.
    She blew out a long breath. “He had to show me the shrapnel scar on his abdomen too. That’s when I checked out. I’m holed
     up in the downstairs bathroom now, which smells like moldy mildew. There’s a mousetrap by the sink. You don’t think that means—”
     She screamed.
    I laughed so hard, I about peed my pants.
    “Okay, false alarm. It was only a cockroach. I’m sorry to bother you with all this, Mike. It’s just I’m going psychotic here.
     Aunt Faye won’t let me call my friends at home…. My friends, right. Like I even have any. They all turned on me after… you
     know. They made me feel defective. Which, I guess, I am. If, or when, you get back from whereveryou are—pitching cow pies—whatever, would you please,
please
call me? My cell number’s seven two oh…”
    I rummaged through Darryl’s junk on the counter to find a pencil and paper, and missed the number.
    Xanadu’s voice on the machine muffled. “I’m down here, Aunt Faye. I’ll be right up. No, I just have a touch of diarrhea.”
     More distinctly, she spoke to me. “I am now going to attempt to suck my brain out through my nose with this toilet plunger.”
     There was this weird sound, then the machine clicked.
    I replayed the last message to retrieve her cell number. She’d rattled it off so fast, and our machine tape was scratchy,
     and I had to replay it six times. When I thought I finally had it, I dialed the number, but only got a recorded out-of-service
     message.
    The Davenports were in the phone book. I dialed their number. It rang and rang. Maybe I could drive out to their place. Park
     and wait. I didn’t want Xanadu to think I wouldn’t call her at the first possible moment. She needed to hear she wasn’t defective.
    The phone rang. I lunged for it. “Hello?”
    “Mike, thank God you’re there. Did you get my message?”
    It took me a moment, since I was expecting, hoping, to hear Xanadu’s voice again. “I just got home,” I told Nel.
    “This is a disaster. Both my toilets are overflowing and I can’t find the shutoff valve.” She sounded frantic. “I don’t know
     if the septic’s full or there’s something in the line. It shouldn’t be full. I had the tank pumped a couple of months ago.
     I’d call up to Goodland, but they won’t come on a Sunday, and even if they did it’d cost me an arm and a leg. Your dad always
     handled this kind of thing for me. Do you think you could come over and take a look?”
    I hesitated.
    “Mike?”
    “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be right there.” This was Nel. She had an emergency.
    “You’re an angel.” She hung up.
    There was a clog in her line somewhere. An easy fix. I’d have to stop by the shop for the snake and pump—
    No.
    Please no.
    Not the shop.

Chapter Eight

    M y stomach felt queasy as I turned up Main. I could see it from a distance, the front window, S ZABO P LUMBING AND H EATING . I’d done the lettering myself in sixth grade. Stick-on letters—big deal. The glass was still cracked from the hailstorm
     that about demolished the town the day of Dad’s funeral. Our roof at home had been pulverized so bad a bunch of shingles had
     busted loose. Did Darryl fix it? No. Every time it rained the water spots on the ceiling in my room spread like a grease fire.
     One of these days the whole roof was going to collapse.
    This vision materialized in my mind: Me, that day, standing on the porch at home watching the world get ripped apart. Same
     way my insides felt. Like an idiot I’d rushed out into the mucky backyard to retrieve a handful of hailstones. They were still
     in the freezer as a memento, I guess. I didn’t need any mementos.
    I parked in the alley