Splitting her fingers into a ‘V’ shape and sucking her cheeks in, she held them in front of her face to show one pose before puffing her lips out like in the ‘duck lips’ or ‘trout pout’ one.
“Pretty, right?”
Naomi choked and turned to face the counter with her shoulders shaking, leaving me to answer her. Unfortunately, I wasn’t skilled at dealing with kids, regardless of how much time I’d spent with Shanti, so I panicked.
“I need to…” I trailed off, desperately trying to think of an excuse. Then one hit me. “The fish!”
“Oh, yeah, the babies. I gotta show you something.” Shanti grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the door, ruining my escape attempt before I could even put it to the test.
Hearing a snort, I glared over my shoulder at Naomi.
“I got more poses to show you while we check them,” the little girl told me. “Aunt Naomi doesn’t know I do it, but I got on her Intergam sometimes. I need to check on my girls, ya know?”
There was a lot about that sentence that was alarming and confusing in equal measures. “Your girls?”
“Yeah, holes before bros, and all that.”
As panic took over, my head snapped down, meaning I wasn’t looking where I was going. I tripped over an end table, knocked the lamp off it, and then hit my head on the wall. “Shi…akira, shake your hips,” I groaned, only just catching the cuss in time.
“Damn it, Carter, you okay?”
Dropping down onto the couch and holding my forehead with my hand, I prayed for a concussion or unconsciousness, but I wasn’t that lucky. I also wasn’t religious, so if God existed, he was probably wondering who the random guy begging for his help was, and if that were the case, I wouldn’t grant my wishes if I was him, either.
Maybe I should start going to church? Something told me that being around Shanti for long periods of time would require being on whoever was in the sky’s good side, so it might be a worthwhile investment to make.
“Your aunt will kick your as…stounding butt if she hears you say that.”
Rather than go with what I assumed she’d go with—i.e., agreeing or promising not to cuss, even mildly, ever again—Shanti jumped onto the couch next to me. “What does asssounding mean?”
Oh, Christ—yeah, God, I’m back. Is your son free?—I’d said “astounding butt.” I hadn’t meant it that way, I was just doing my best not to use any rude words in front of her and be a good influence in any way I could, but I’d just called a little kid’s butt astounding.
Maybe I should just admit defeat and ask Satan to help me out? He didn’t look all that bad in the South Park movie.
I was saved from any more torture by Naomi.
“Uh, it’s kind of a big word, honey, so we’ll put it in the box for another day to learn, okay?”
“Okay,” Shanti pouted, sounding like we were keeping a secret from her, when all we were trying to do was not have it taken out of context if she repeated it to people, which would end up with me being arrested.
“Didn’t you want to show Carter the fish?”
“Oh, yeah! Did you guys know there were more babies? I ran out of fingers and toes to count ‘em all, but I also kept forgetting which finger I was on ‘cos I had to use ‘em all to catch the slippy little suckers.”
Swallowing loudly, I peeked up at Naomi to see her glaring at me now.
Yeah, I don’t think any deity could save me after the last five minutes. That wasn’t to say I stopped begging any of them, though. I even went through all of the alternatives I could think of off the top of my head.
In the interest of equity and diversity, my instructor at the academy had made us learn as many of the alternative religions as possible. If a suspect wanted to believe in Pastafarianism—a faith that worshipped a spaghetti and meatball monster—then more power to them. There were alien-based religions, the Invisible Pink Unicorn—which always made me think of Cole Townsend—one, Dudeism based on The Big Lebowski, Jediism, you name it. Surely one of their leaders would hear me?
“Well, be quick, honey. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Tugging on my hand, Shanti bounced off the couch and yanked me toward the baby tank. “What’s for dinner, Aunt Naomi?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.”
Suddenly, today’s vocabulary argument at the retirement home had new meaning.
In the immortal words of Mrs. Dalry, et voila. I just didn’t know if I could bring myself to believe in a pasta monster.
Naomi
Because Shanti had been asleep for three hours, we knew she was deep into her dreamland and that we’d be able to get away with doing what we were currently doing.
With my head pressing back into the pillow, I watched him moving through the dim lighting in the bedroom. We might have been ballsy enough to have sex with her under the same roof while she was asleep, but having the light off meant, if she did come through, we had darkness to help us cover up what we were doing before we scarred Shanti for life.