“Fine.” Nelle motioned to a sales person. “I’ll take this. And we need clothes for this gentleman.”
“I’m not wearing clothes from here.”
“Why not?”
“One reason: I’m not European. And I feel like you have to be European to shop here.”
“He has a point,” Max muttered.
“And two . . .” He pointed at the gown Nelle wore. “I’m not shopping any place that charges thirteen thousand dollars for a fucking dress.”
Max’s head snapped around. “How much?”
“Didn’t you hear the sales guy? He said thirteen thousand. I heard him. God heard him.”
Now she looked at her friend. “Nelle!”
“Oh, for the love of Ming the Merciless. Can we get over the drama about a few dollars?”
Nelle lifted her skirt with one hand and spun away to go change into her street clothes.
“Ming the Merciless?” Zé asked.
“It’s from Flash Gordon.”
“I know where it’s from. How does she?”
Max shrugged. “She’s a sci-fi fan. Even bad sci-fi.”
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with Flash Gordon.” Slowly she turned her head so that she could gawk at him. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Okay,” Nelle said, standing in front of them, her street clothes back on. “Let’s go. I’ve already called Ándre and he’s waiting for us.”
Before Zé could tell her “no” as calmly but as adamantly as possible, Max said, “We are not taking him to any store where a guy named Andre will get him clothes.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with the name Andre?”
“Let me ask you this first: Is there an accent on the E in Andre’s name?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “It’s over the A.”
“Is he a DJ?” Max wanted to know. “Because that’s the only excuse I’ll accept.”
Zé laughed at that, ignoring the glare he received from Nelle.
“No. He’s not.”
“Then no, Nelle. No. We’re not going to any store where a guy named Ándre will get him clothes.” Max stood. “Come on, cat. Let’s go someplace neither of us will feel uncomfortable buying clothes.”
* * *
Livy Kowalski didn’t know how this had become her life: taking pictures of people’s weddings to make her living. It was true, art was not always something that paid off during the artist’s lifetime. She could think of plenty of artists and writers whose work hadn’t made a mark until long after their death.
Yet did any of them actually have to work a Leibowitz wedding? Putting up with a bunch of insane wild dogs that—and she was quoting here—“loved love”?
Even worse? The bride. She was lovely. Just the nicest person Livy had ever met or worked with. Livy preferred her brides difficult, rude, and out of control, so that she could really wallow in the misery of her work. What she didn’t need was a shining bride informing her that “Despite your outright bitchiness, you are awesome!”
Livy studied the pictures she’d done for the Leibowitz wedding and knew they were so good, she was just going to get more work from brides willing to pay anything to have her as their personal photographer.
How had her life become so pathetic?
“Hello, niece.”
Livy didn’t bother to look away from her work. She’d learned long ago, living with her parents, not to be easily startled. “Auntie. What do you want?”
“You can’t even pretend to be respectful?”
“No.”
That elicited a chuckle so Livy kept her focus on her work, knowing this was some honey badger shit she didn’t want to deal with. Being the “black sheep” of the Yang clan wasn’t easy but Livy managed to find a way.
“Have you seen your cousin?” her aunt asked, moving around Livy’s office in the Sports Center. For quite a few years now, Livy had been the official photographer of most of the pro shifter sports teams. The job paid her amazingly well and she often used the athletes as models for her artwork, but it still felt like another distraction from her true work. Her art.
Of course, her best friend, Toni, would call her an idiot for all this “whining” and tell Livy to “get over yourself!” And she’d probably be right.
“Which cousin?” Livy asked. “I do have about ten thousand of them.”
“That’s a bit of an overestimate.”
“Considering how many people may be genetically connected to Genghis Khan . . . I doubt it.”
“I’m talking about Max.”
Livy’s hand froze over her keyboard and she finally turned her chair toward her aunt.
“MacKilligan?” she asked for clarification.
“Yes.”
“I thought the Yangs didn’t consider Max MacKilligan family.”
“We don’t. But her mother still is.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
“Cut the sarcasm. You should talk to her.”
“Max? We’re not exactly friends. She’s actively attempted to kill me several times.”
“Oh, who hasn’t?”
“Thanks,” Livy said, returning her focus to her computer screen. “And talk to her about what?”
“Her mother’s back.”
“Back from where?” Livy’s hand froze again. “You don’t mean she’s back from—”
“Prison? Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. And to add to the fun . . . she wasn’t exactly allowed to go. If you get my meaning. She just went.”
“How the fuck—?”
“It doesn’t matter how she got out.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“What matters is that when she’s caught, it’s not here.”
“I’m not sure how that involves me.”
“You know she’s always been close to our European cousins.”
“So?”
“Worked on a lot of jobs with them. And the great aunts would prefer if she returned to Europe.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which she may not want to do if her daughter does not go with her.”
“Wait a minute.” Now her aunt had Livy’s full attention. “You want me to tell a woman I barely speak to—because we hate each other—that she should leave the family she has here and go off with a mother she hasn’t seen in about two decades? Am I understanding this correctly?”
“You are! That’s exactly what we want you to do.”
“And why should I do this for . . . I don’t know . . . anyone?”
“Well . . .” Her aunt came closer to her desk and rested her hands on the shiny mahogany. “We’d understand if you don’t want to do it. But we’d feel awful that we had to ask you in the first place. So we’d come here . . . every day . . . to see you. You know, to apologize for trying to involve you. That would, of course, include all the aunts, the uncles, the cousins. All of us. Doing our best to make amends. That would, sadly, mean we’d also be spending time around all the sensitive cats and dogs you have around here. Oh! And let’s not forget the bears! How we do love the bears. And how they do love us. All that sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”