Vic Vaughn is Vicious

And sure enough, there it is. Her dream goldfish tank. Thirty gallons? More? I can count fifteen goldfish in there. And it’s got plants, and bright pink rocks, and a shimmering castle big enough for the fish to swim through.

The entire thing is a little girl’s fantasy room. Hand-painted walls. Luxurious bedding. Fluffy decorative pillows. All the wood is vintage white. Like every single piece was hunted down in a flea market, then brought back to life by careful, attentive hands.

I look at Vic and my stomach sinks.

He shakes his head at me. Not a big shake. Not a warning. “It’s not what you think. My sister did this. But there is one extra bed.” He nods to one of the bunks. “Oliver sleeps in the basement with Pops and Cindy has a crib in the nursery. So there’s plenty of room for Vivi.”

“How many bedrooms do you people have?” It comes out… nasty. I didn’t mean it that way, but I can’t take it back now.

“Ten,” Vic says, “altogether. But three of them are up there.” He nods to the third floor. “That’s where Vann and Belinda live. That one’s mine.” He nods to another door on the other side of the stairs. Double doors, actually. Must be nice. “Vinn and Vonn have that wing up those stairs.” He nods to an almost-hidden set of stairs tucked into a corner. I can only see four steps up before it curves and disappears. “And Gramps is on the first floor.”

“Where are you gonna sleep, Mommy?”

I look at Vivi and sigh.

“Hey,” Vic says. “Who’s hungry?” He looks at me. “Wanna stay for dinner?”

Do I want to stay for dinner?

No. I want to go home, get in my crappy, shallow, student-apartment bathtub, and cry my eyes out. Because I can’t compete with these people.

And that’s pretty fucking sad. Because they are a clan of tattoo-artist bikers who collect decrepit trucks and live in the eyesore of Fort Collins and still they are so much better off than we are.

“Hey, sis?” Vic says. Oh, God. He already has his own nickname for her. “Go help Gramps with dinner. We’ll be down in a minute.”

“OK!” Vivi scampers off towards the stairs.

She is so clueless. And why should she care how I’m feeling in this moment? In her eyes, she has won the jackpot.

“Daisy?”

“What?”

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“No. I don’t think you do.”

“I get it. It’s… a lot. But this… I didn’t do this. None of it, to be honest. Veronica wanted the girls to have their own bedroom when they stay here. This was her room when she was a kid. I didn’t do this.”

I want to say all the right things. I want to smile, and play it off like this is no big deal, and be happy for my daughter. I want to see this whole thing through the eyes of Luu, and Ella, and Rina. I want to be excited about it.

But I just feel sad.

“And, speaking of Veronica,” Vic continues, “she called me today. She wants to know if you would like to drop Vivi off during the week while you’re busy with school and work.”

Spencer’s offer of money last night comes back to me. And I can’t take it anymore. I walk over to one of the bunk beds, sit down, and put my head in my hands.

“Daisy?”

I do not look up at him. I just stare at my feet. “What?”

“She’s a stay-at-home mom. Like, that’s literally her life. She loves it. She’s better than whoever you have babysitting Viv, because she’s her aunt, ya know?”

I understand this. It’s logical. And I have no doubt that Veronica Vaughn-Shrike is a top-notch mother. I’ve seen her kids around town. They are hard to miss. They walk around downtown in their little Catholic school uniforms like they own the place. Hell, they almost do. Their mother’s side of the family is Sick Boyz, their father’s side is Shrike Bikes. And I know they are somehow connected to the Fort Collins Theater, because they were always hanging out there after school last spring.

“Daisy?”

“I can’t think about this right now.”

“OK. But you’ll stay for dinner? Vivi is excited. She and Gramps came up with the menu. And I promise, it’s not SpaghettiOs.”

I smile, despite myself. Vivi was very excited about her trip into white-trash dinners yesterday. God, that’s horrible of me. I ate SpaghettiOs when I was her age. It was all we could afford for a few years there when things were tight.

“Are you gonna talk to me?”

I take a deep breath. “I want to, Vic. I do. I want to talk about all of it. But I can’t.” I look up at him, begging him to just… stop. “I need… I need to think about this.”

“Right. I get it. But come downstairs, we’ll eat, and then I’ll drop you guys off at home. Oh.” He smiles at me and then reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a tag. “I got you a permit. So now you can take the truck.”