“She’s sleeping.”
“I don’t care.”
“Jesus! You don’t have to yell.”
“And you don’t have to curse.”
“Fine.”
As the traffic light turned green and she drove along Boxer Bluff, where the uppermost part of Grizzly Falls was sprawled, she heard a series of muffled voices and finally her daughter’s sleepy “Yeah?”
“What’s up?” Pescoli demanded.
“Me, now,” Bianca grumbled.
“The school called and said you missed class.”
“I didn’t feel good.”
“Well,” Pescoli automatically corrected as she turned onto the street winding out of the town. “You didn’t feel well.”
“Whatever.”
“How’d you get home?”
“Chris.”
The on-again, off-again boyfriend. “He doesn’t have a license.”
“We were with his brother, Gene.”
The seventeen-year-old who already had been involved in a wreck. Pescoli knew all about that one; she’d seen what was left of the 1990 Honda Accord after it had hit a mailbox, then a tree. It was a wonder the kid had survived, let alone got away with only a broken collarbone and a few scratches. “Look, I’m on my way home. We’ll talk then.” Checking her mirrors, she changed lanes to avoid a work crew that had dug up the street.
“I already ‘talked’ with Dad.”
More good news. “And what did your father say?” she asked through gritted teeth. Luke “Lucky” Pescoli was hardly the epitome of parenthood.
“To get some rest.”
Perfect. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Now put your brother on the phone.”
“Your turn.” Bianca’s voice was a singsong reprimand as she obviously gladly turned the receiver back to her son Jeremy.
Again, Pescoli considered lighting up but thought better of it as the storefronts lining the street gave way to homes.
“Uh-huh?” Jeremy said as his way of greeting.
“Just wondering, what are you doing at the house?” When he’d moved out of her small place, little more than a cabin in the woods and the only home he’d ever known, this past summer, his leaving had been a blessing as well as a curse.
“Uh . . . ’cuz it’s home.”
“You moved out. I didn’t want you to, but you insisted last summer,” she reminded him. “I thought you’d be at work.”
“They turned off the gas at my place. There’s no heat. Guess they, um, didn’t get the check in time. But that’s bogus, ’cuz I mailed it yesterday. It’s not my fault that one of my roommates didn’t get the money to me.”
“And your job?” she asked with extreme patience.
Hesitation. “Lou didn’t need me at the station today.”