Hard Eight (Stephanie Plum 8)

“I'm telling my mother you made Oliver cry,” Amanda said.

“Hey, give me a break,” I said. “I'm trying. You're his sister. Help me out here.”

“He wants a grilled cheese sandwich,” Amanda said. “It's his favorite food.”

“Good thing he didn't want the leg of lamb,” Lula said. “We wouldn't know how to cook that.”

I found a pan and some butter and cheese, and I started the bread frying in the pan. Oliver was still bellowing at the top of his lungs, and now the dog was yapping, running in circles around him.

The doorbell rang, and I figured with the sort of luck I was having it was probably Jeanne Ellen. I left Lula in charge of the grilled cheese sandwich, and I went to answer the door. I was wrong about it being Jeanne Ellen, but I was right about my luck. It was Steven Soder.

“What the hell?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting.”

“Where's Dotty? I need to talk to her.”

“Hey,” Lula called from the kitchen, “I need an opinion on

this grilled cheese.”

“Who's that?” Soder wanted to know. “That doesn't sound like Dotty. That sounds like the fatso who hit me with her purse.”

“We're in the middle of something right now,” I said to Soder. “Maybe you could come back later.”

He muscled his way past me and stalked into the kitchen. “You!” he shouted at Lula. “I'm going to kill you.”

“Not in front of the k-i-d,” Lula said. “You don't want to use that kind of violent talk. It stirs up all kinds of latent shit when they get to be teenagers.”

“I'm not stupid,” Amanda said. “I can spell. And I'm telling my mother you said shit.”

“Everybody says shit,” Lula said. She looked to me. “Doesn't everybody say shit? What's wrong with shit?”

The grilled cheese looked perfect in the fry pan, so I lifted it out with a spatula, slid it onto a plate, and gave it to Oliver. The dog stopped running in circles, snatched the sandwich off the plate, and ate it. And Oliver went back to howling.

“Oliver has to eat at the table,” Amanda said.

“There's a lot of stuff to remember in this house,” Lula said.

“I want to talk to Dotty,” Soder said.

“Dotty isn't here,” I yelled over Oliver's screaming. “Talk to me.”

“In your dreams,” Soder said. “And for crissake, somebody get this kid to shut up.”

“The dog ate his sandwich,” Lula said. “And it's all your fault on account of you distracted us.”

“So do your Aunt Jemima thing and make him another sandwich,” Soder said.

Lula's eyes bugged out of her head. “Aunt Jemima? Excuse me? Did you say Aunt Jemima?” She leaned forward so her nose was inches from Soder's, hands on hips, one hand still holding tight to the fry pan. “Listen to me, you punk-ass loser, you don't want to call me no Aunt Jemima or I'm gonna give you Aunt Jemima in the face with this fry pan. Only thing stopping me is I don't want to k-i-l-l you in front of the b-r-a-t-s.”

I saw Lula's point, but being working-class white I had a totally different perspective on Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima conjured nothing but good memories of steaming pancakes dripping with syrup. I loved Aunt Jemima.

“Knock, knock,” Jeanne Ellen said at the open door. “Can anyone come to this party?”

Jeanne Ellen was back to being dressed in the black leather outfit.

“Wow,” Amanda said, “are you Catwoman?”