“Oh yeah?” Still totally unconcerned. “What’d I say?”
“‘Go, Packers.’”
She laughed. “Now I know you’re lying. I don’t like football, but if I did, I’d never root for the Packers. That’s practically a violation of state law.”
Christ, she has no idea.
“Well, you mumbled something, I didn’t quite catch it, I was supertired because you’re such a goddamned slave driver.” He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t telling her everything. He didn’t want to embarrass her, that was part of it, but he also had the uneasy feeling that the Delaney who walked in her sleep wasn’t this Delaney, the confident young woman who walked right up to a dripping, livid man who’d just been fished out of the canal, who’d tossed a kid into his life, ruthlessly put him to work to earn a cell phone, frequently told him to shut up already, stole the last piece of toast off his plate, and laughed when he complained.
“Sorry if I disturbed you.”
“You didn’t.” Lie. “It was no biggie.” Lie.
“All righty.” She’d finished her oatmeal, waved at a couple of the others, gathered her stuff. “Ready to get back to it?”
“Not at all. Not even a little bit. I’d rather be doing almost anything else.”
“We can get your new phone tomorrow.”
“Bring me every Easter basket in this building!” he cried, jumping to his feet. “And then stand back, ladies, because you’ll see a basket-stuffing fool.”
“Or just a fool,” Teresa piped up.
“Silence, peon!”
That got Elena and Teresa and the others laughing, and he smiled at their gentle teasing, and that was good; it was always good when people were laughing because their guards went down and no one ever seemed to notice that while they laughed, he was figuring them out.
Delaney left the table and he was about to follow, when …
“She was sleepwalking, wasn’t she?”
“Gah! Jesus, Lillith. How do you do that? Only get noticed when you want to?”
“Mama taught me. She was, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Because she didn’t know what foster home she was in.”
“… Yeah.”
“It’s okay. I was surprised the first time, too. Just say nice things to her and she’ll go back to sleep.”
“Yeah.” It was low, but his options were limited. He already knew that asking Delaney for details was futile. Time to pump a kid. (Argh. Phrasing.) “So I get the feeling she had a rough childhood.”
“Yes.”
“Like your mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Sofia and Teresa and Elena.”
Lillith nodded.
“There’s a bigger picture here, isn’t there? It’s not just about finding your dad.”
She beamed. “I knew you were going to get it. Y’know, eventually. They’ve been saving for the Big Pipe Dream for years. That’s why they need us.”
“Wait, ‘need’? Us? How do—”
“C’mon, Rake and Lillith.” Delaney was standing in the front of the restaurant, beckoning them forward. “And the rest of you lazy bums, too. Back at it.”
“Fanculo questo,” Eleana replied cheerfully.
Exactly. Fanculo questo. Times ten.
Twenty-two
His Stockholm syndrome was coming along nicely. After lunch (still mindful of the toxins swimming in his system, Rake stuck to bruschetta with most of the tomatoes scraped off—so, stale bread), he and Delaney and Lillith got into a plush Peep free-for-all and at one point he was dodging several bright yellow marshmallowy missiles. Her speed was scary, her aim devastating. And Delaney wasn’t bad, either. “Not the face, not the face!”
Elena, Teresa, and Sofia came back to the room to find them whipping small foil-wrapped eggs at one another, and Elena let loose with a burst of Italian that even Rake had trouble following.
Delaney and Lillith stopped at once, a costly mistake. Sorry, ladies, Rake didn’t get that memo! Ha! Ya like that, cutie? And another! Ha! And—
“Ow!” He whined and rubbed his cheek. “You could have put out my eye, you rotten bitch.”
“You’ve got a spare,” Delaney replied with a smug smile.
“Exactly what I was saying to you!” Elena was about five eight, pleasantly round in all the right places, with deep brown hair, latte-colored skin, and loads of freckles from forehead to chin. She told Rake she was in her twenties, but only spiritually. “Stop that! Stop wasting the candy.”
“She’s right,” he replied, humbled. “Wasting is the one thing you never want to do with candy. That and boiling it. I really have only this to say and then we can drop it: Delaney started it. She is responsible for everything.”
“Ah, yes, Rake Tarbell’s go-to excuse for everything: ‘Hey, it wasn’t my fault.’” Which would have been a great point, except she lost the moral high ground when she stuck her tongue out at him.
“The good news is we’re done for the day.” Sofia was so cheerful she could make the return of the plague sound like a positive (“If I’m sick now, I won’t have to worry about being sick later!”), but anyone could make that news sound good.
“Great! We’re done!”
“Baskets are done. Not you, pal. We’ve got other stuff lined up for tomorrow.”
He muttered something under his breath that might have been “Well, fuck.” “Whatever tomorrow’s job is, it won’t be worse than what I’ve already had to deal with. That was not a dare!” he added when Delaney opened her mouth. “Seriously, please don’t set right out to prove I’m full of shit again. Always happy to be selfless and also earn more money for steaks and cherry tomatoes and a phone and eventually money to ransom my way to freedom.”
Delaney smiled, but it wasn’t her usual “Go to hell if you can’t take a joke” smirk. This one was sad, and a little … bitter? “I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has more freedom than you do. Even now.”
Hmmm. Wonder if that’s got anything to do with your “eventful childhood” leading to your “eventful adulthood.” But he let it go. It wasn’t the time (he was hungry and pooped), it wasn’t the place (he didn’t want to get into it in front of the others, especially Lillith), and, again, it wasn’t the place (he was pretty sure he had Peep dust in his hair; he definitely had some on his face).
“Did you tell them?” Lillith asked Delaney.
“We’re going to pick up Rake’s phone tomorrow,” Delaney replied. Poverty was making him paranoid, because that almost sounded like a warning. Certainly the others didn’t hang around long after that.
“Why’d you tell them?” He didn’t mind, but couldn’t help being curious. “And why were they in such a hurry to take off after you did?” He’d barely had time to blink before the three of them were on the other side of the door.
“Oh. They—they’re curious about you is all.”
“I can’t be the only American they’ve worked with.”