Precocious
pulled the phone away from her ear, looked at it like it was going to start
singing tunes from “West Side Story”, and placed it back to her ear. “
“May I explain myself?”
Some part of Precocious’s brain registered that she and Tyler were talking like
two overly polite people who occasionally shared a ride on the same morning bus
to work. “Go ahead, if you’d like.” She heard a heavy breath on the other end
of the line and leaned back into her pillows, knowing from previous experiences
with explanations, that the process could take some time.
“It’s no excuse, but I’d like to state for the official and unofficial record
that I was blind drunk.”
“So you don’t recall actually fucking her?” Precocious’s politeness had dropped
away to give room to her usual blunt form of speech.
“I’d like to say I don’t, but unfortunately, with sobriety came my memory,”
Precocious knew an unspoken plea for conscience salve when she heard it. “I
really appreciate that you didn’t start this conversation with, ‘I got so
damned drunk’ or some version thereof.”
“You said that last part already.”
“I think part of me is relishing it. I didn’t get to kick her out the first
time.”
Against her mood, Precocious laughed a little. It was nice to know, for some
reason, that pettiness was still enjoyed by people in a bad situation.
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
There was a substantial pause, and Precocious was the one to break it. “For the
official and unofficial record, I want you to know that I’m not harboring any
pointless jealousy. Friday night was very nice, even given the extra guests
that weren’t supposed to be there, but I didn’t take it for some declaration of
a relationship or anything of the sort. I’m not going to stalk you wearing the
dress from Friday and beg you to love me. I’m mad because I thought you’d be
above something as stupid as doing what you did, but since you’re not trying to
blame it on however many gallons of booze you had, I’m finding it very hard to
be pissed at you for much longer.”
“Well, that’s a minor relief.”
Precocious had the temptation to call him a coward, but she held back out of
sheer respect for the hangover. She’d had a few herself. “Call me when you feel
more like yourself. I’m willing to talk more if you’d like.”
“I appreciate that, thanks.”
Precocious let
“Yeah, I added it to the shopping list.” Linda sounded half-distracted, already
inside her own head, planning out the painting. “Who was on the phone?”
Precocious put the phone back on the cradle to charge. “
“Was he, by chance, drunk when it happened?”
“Apparently so, but he didn’t lay the blame there. He blamed his own
stupidity.” Precocious sighed in defeat and sat in the same chair she’d been in
twenty minutes before. “You know, it’s decidedly hard to hate the bastard when
he’s willing to take full blame for being an asshole.”
“Don’t you hate it when you decide to go out with a guy who admits his own
mistakes?”
“It puts me at a certain disadvantage when he won’t react like I was
expecting.” Precocious watched Linda dip three fingers into yellow paint. “I
thought you were doing a whole, Gene Kelly as the Virgin Mary thing.”
“I think I may still. I’m not sure.” Linda stood on the tips of her toes to
reach the top of the door and smeared a line of yellow paint. “This is just
background.”
Precocious watched some of the yellow paint from Linda’s fingertips drip into
Linda’s hair. “You can’t use a brush?”
“I’m having a five-year-old feeling. I haven’t fingerpainted in the longest
time.”
“You decorated our last table with only your hands, remember?”
“No, I didn’t,” Linda squatted down to get some red paint on her fingertips. “I
used a brush for a few spots. It isn’t the same.”
It amazed Precocious sometimes that Linda could still surprise her with the way
her brain worked on occasion. “Sure, whatever you say. Don’t forget you have a
coffee date with
*
Clara was a sturdy looking woman in her late thirties with ash blonde hair and
green eyes. She wore her reading glasses on a chain, and she was the current
love of Zachary’s life. She smiled up at him when he walked over to the table
where she had been waiting and bent down to kiss her. “There you are.”
“Sorry for the delay. Precocious stormed into the office after running some
errands, told me she was taking the day off, and stormed out again. I had to
remember how to read her handwriting so I knew which appointments were when. I
nearly confused the machine inspectors with the union reps.” Zachary smoothed
his jacket and tie down as he took his seat across from Clara at the table.
“What was Precocious in a huff about? I don’t think I’ve ever seen her upset.”
“You’re missing quite the show, trust me.” Zachary smiled with faint amusement.
“I’ve seen her completely lose her professional demeanor twice. It’s quite a
show. If you weren’t so smart and beautiful, I might be tempted to see-“
“Oh, shut it.” Clara was smiling as she gave Zachary a mildly exasperated look.
“Any idea what set her off?”
“I think I can place the blame squarely on one Tyler Carey and his inability to
think while drinking and in the presence of his ex-wife.”
Clara’s mouth dropped open before she could stop it. She snapped it shut as
quickly as possible. “Please, tell me you’re kidding.”
“I wish. Tyler called me this morning right after Precocious stormed out to
give me the news.” Zachary narrowed his eyes in contemplation. “Then, he went
on about Julia and how she does and doesn’t react in a situation and what she
does and doesn’t do before showing up anywhere. I don’t really know what the
hell he was going on about, but I think it means she got booted out of his
place.”
“If she hasn’t been, I’ll kill him myself.” Clara’s tone was even, and she
spoke with her face tucked halfway behind her menu. “Are you having the
chicken?”
Zachary couldn’t help but smile at the way she turned the conversation from
murder to lunch. It was, in a mildly disturbing way that made some men search
for a weapon, very charming. “I had chicken for dinner last night. I think I
may try the special.”
Clara glanced at the list of specials that were printed on the left leaf of the
menu. “You hate cream of broccoli soup.”
“I thought today’s soup was chicken and vegetables.”
“That’s Tuesday’s soup.”
“Damnit.” Zachary made a face at the menu. “I read the wrong day.” He flipped
to the back of the menu and eyed the sandwiches. “Maybe I’ll get a BLT.” Clara
chuckled at him from across the table. “ What’s so funny?”
“I just wonder sometimes how you can go from wanting chicken and vegetable soup
to wanting a BLT. The next thing you’ll decide on is to have a salad with your
sandwich.”
“Salad? Maybe.” Zachary flipped back to the list of salads on the first leaf of
the menu. He shook his head at them. “Nothing sounds good.” He spied the list
of condiments that the restaurant was willing to put on a baked potato. “But I
might load up a potato.”
Clara, while not being a potato person, liked to see just how offensive any
particular restaurant could make the vegetable. She perused the list. Bacon,
cheese, broccoli, coleslaw, beans, chili, chives, onions, cheese, sour cream,
butter, tomatoes, bacon bits, lettuce, ranch, and picante sauce were all
listed. “I wonder if they’d add the kitchen sink and a free artery cleaning if
you tipped well enough.”
“We could find out.” Zachary smiled at her over his menu as the waiter came
over. He was tempted to ask about the kitchen sink option, but a quick look
from Clara kept him from trying. Hs liked goading waiters on occasion, but he
tended to enjoy sex on a regular basis just a little bit more. “I’ll have the
BLT and a glass of water, please.” Zachary listened as Clara ordered a large
chef’s salad with a side of vinegar and oil and smiled as she asked for extra
tomato. When the waiter had left, Zachary found himself the recipient of a
rather pointed stare. “What?”
“Why is Tyler the reason Precocious is so upset? I thought they only went out
on Friday night for the first time.”
“They did. She’s not jealous. She’s angry. She can’t believe he’d be so stupid
as to sleep with Julia, considering what she’s done to him.”
Clara looked thoughtful. “How do you know all this?”
“Intuition, mostly. Precocious bought Tyler a burger at that hole in the wall
she’s so fond of, and I’m sure she got enough information on Julia to start
painting the picture. She’s a smart woman; she knows trouble when she smells
it.”
“Especially considering all the trouble she’s had to put up with, lately.”
Clara hadn’t had a great deal of contact with Precocious outside of the
professionalism of the office, but Zachary had given her an overview of the
relationship between Precocious and Chad one night just so she could know what
topics to avoid when chatting with the other woman while waiting for Zachary.
“How is the situation with Chad, anyway?”
“It hasn’t changed. He’s still a dick, Precocious is still exasperated, and the
police still can’t do anything until it looks more like stalking.” Zachary
sounded disgusted.
“You know, stalking laws in this country are much too lenient.”
“You’re the big time lawyer; you should fix that.”
Clara smiled at Zachary. “Believe me, if I had the kind of time it takes to do
it, I would. There’s a group in Wichita that’s trying to make headway, but they
don’t have a strong enough spokesperson for the job. They offered it to me, but
I like where I am right now, and I’m not ready to settle into a life of civil
disobedience and rally lectures.”
“You’d be great at it.” Zachary could see the fire in Clara’s eyes and knew
that, given the proper chance and timing, she’d be on Capitol Hill with a
microphone, a picket sign, and five thousand women and men chanting right along
with her. “If you ever decide to go for it, I’d be willing to make a very
generous donation.”
“You could always make one now.” Clara tapped her fingernails against the
tabletop. “There’s never a bad time to help a good cause.”
“Get me some more information, and I’ll seriously consider it.”
To anyone away from the table, it sounded like idle lunch chatter between two
colleagues. In truth, it was flirting as it could only be done between a shrewd
businessman and an even shrewder lawyer. In worked for them, and had the added
bonus of confusing the hell out of people who watched them end their lunches
with a kiss that looked like it was pulled off of some trashy romance novel
that would have been graced Fabio in the early nineties.
*
Knowing Linda as she did, Precocious tapped her on the shoulder at ten before
one and pointed at the clock. “You’ve got a date in an hour.”
Linda, with paint running up her arms and smeared on her face, looked at the
clock and shook her head. “I’ve got time.”
“You do not.” Precocious tried to find a stretch of arm that she could grab
without getting coated in paint. There were streaks of red, yellow, green, and
blue running all over Linda’s arms. Precocious gave up her search and wrapped
her hand around the driest looking part of Linda’s arm. “It’s going to take at
least a half hour to get the majority of the paint off, and then you have to
change.”
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Linda was in her usual uniform of
overalls, a tank top, and bare feet.
“Those are the overalls with the tear over the back pocket. Don’t get me wrong,
I think your teddy bear underwear is adorable, but I don’t think you want Leon
to see that on a first date.”
“It’s not a date.” Linda slid her arm free of Precocious’s hand and twisted her
overalls around so that she could survey the damage. “Damnit. I like this
pair.”
“If you’ll go and shower right now, I’ll throw a patch on it for you.”
Linda eyed Precocious skeptically. “Can you sew that fast?”
“I sewed those in a day.”
“You made this pair? I thought they were a store-bought pair.”
Precocious shook her head. “Have I ever *not* made a pair of your overalls?”
She gestured “Off with the pants and into the shower.”
“What, are we making porn?” Linda unhooked her overalls, stepped out of them,
and handed them off to Precocious. “Thanks.”
“Don’t miss the paint behind your ears.” Precocious eyed the tear on the
overalls and walked over to the coat closet in the living room. The top shelf
was a tangled combination of fabric, yarn, thread, crochet hooks, knitting
needles, sewing needles, stacks of sewing patterns, books with patterns for
knitting and crocheting, half-finished projects, and three sewing machines.
Precocious pulled down a yellow and green striped pattern and tried to remember
what she’d done with her sewing scissors. She did a quick search through the
drawers in the kitchen and was mildly confused when she found her scissors
stashed at the back of the silverware drawer. She couldn’t remember putting
them there. Shrugging to herself, she cut out an octagon of material and
settled down with a spool of blue thread and a needle.
Linda came out of the shower twenty-seven minutes later with a towel smeared
with paint wrapped around her, and her hair dripping down her back. “What’d you
decide on this time?”
“Yellow and green stripe in an octagon.” Precocious snipped off a bit of thread
and quickly rethreaded her needle to finish off the last side of the octagon.
“It’ll take me five minutes to finish this last side. Get your hair dried.”
“I swear, you’re worse than my mother.”
Precocious laughed. “Oh, hardly. If I was your mother, I’d be shoving you into
a mohair sweater set and a pencil skirt and clipping a gold necklace around
your neck while lecturing you on how you can do so much better than a caterer
and a coffee date.”
Linda unhooked her towel and threw it at Precocious’s head. “You forgot to
lecture me on my hair color and career.”
“We’ll cover that when you’re not naked and dripping on the carpet.” Precocious
tossed the towel back to Linda. “Go dry your hair, will you? You’ll catch cold
and die, and then I’ll have to console Leon, and it’s been so long since I’ve
had any sex that I’ll jump him before he asks.”
“Oh, you will not.” Linda wrapped the towel around her head and walked down the
hallway to her bedroom. She raised her voice so she could continue the
conversation. “ He’s not your type at all.”
“That’s not something that usually matters in a one night stand.” Precocious
snipped off the final bit of thread and held her needle between her teeth so
that she could hold the overalls out at arms’ length and review her work. She
took the needle out from between her teeth with her left hand and stuck it into
the arm of the couch. “They’re patched up, now. You’ve got another rip down by
the hem, but I don’t have time to patch it now. I could do it if you want to
wear another pair of overalls.”
“Leave it. I’ll wear them as is.” Linda walked back into the living room in a
fresh tank top in acid green and a pair of underwear printed with orange
flowers. Her hair was twisted up into a wet, somewhat messy bun, and she was
carrying a pair of yellow flip flops. She held out her hand for her overalls.
“Thanks, for the patch job.”
“I do what I can to insure you don’t embarrass yourself on a date.” Precocious
stood up from the couch and went to tuck her sewing scissors back into the back
of the silverware drawer. It’d be the first place she looked, whether she
remembered where she put them away or not. “Don’t forget to let him pay.”
“Why?” Linda sounded disgusted by the idea. “I make way more than him in one
night than he does in a week. I can afford my own coffee.”
Precocious closed the silverware drawer and rolled her eyes at the total lack
of social skills that Linda could sometimes display. “Look, he’s been trying to
get you to agree to a date for almost three months. Let him feel like he’s
finally won you over and let him pay. He asked you; he should pay.”
“And if I ask him for a date?”
“Then, you can throw a fit and insist on paying.” Precocious stood in the
kitchen doorway and watched Linda fiddle with her flip flops. “You have paint
on your toes.”
“Yeah, I noticed. If I’d scrubbed it off, my toes were going to be really red.”
“Oh, my god,” Precocious grinned evilly. “You’re worried about this date!”
“I am *not*.” Linda smoothed her hair away from her forehead and towards her
bun. “I don’t get nervous about dates.”
“Sure you don’t. That’s why you squirted an entire tube of white paint down
your front when Sam Kessler called back for a second date that one time.”
Linda blew a raspberry at Precocious. “I had one case of nerves over a second
date. *One*. It does not mean I’m always nervous before a date. You’re the one
who threw up before prom.”
“That wasn’t nerves. That was four dollar a bottle whiskey.” Precocious made a
face, remembering that particular bout of sickness that she’d somehow convinced
her mother was nerves. She was still relatively sure that her mother hadn’t
bought the line. “And you always get nervous before a date. I could list off
all of the high school moments when you called me in a high-pitched panic
because you were worried that the microscopic pimple on your head was going to
suddenly develop its own time zone and try to take over the world.”
Linda raised her chin in challenge. “I see and raise your date with Mickey
Spooner that had you calling me *mid*-date because you had misquoted a baseball
stat, and he had called you on it.”
“I see and raise you your date with Scott Morrison that ended *before* it began
because you were so scared of the idea of dating a football player that you
told him you had mono.”
“The scary part was, he still wanted to kiss me.” Linda shuddered at the memory
and checked the clock on top of the television. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Hey, can I put on a fedora and a trench coat and watch you from a dark corner
while I hide behind a newspaper?”
“No.” Linda didn’t even bother to look back as the door closed behind her.
Precocious stuck her tongue out at the closed door. “Spoilsport.”
*
‘Beanie’s’ was situated just off of main street in a corner storefront that
made a lopsided triangle when viewed from the outside. The inside was not
decorated with coffee beans and coffee bags and other coffee paraphernalia, but
was rather covered in pictures and video covers of Sean Bean. The owner of
‘Beanie’s’ was a pleasant woman named Melanie who was originally from a small
town in England and had, like a good deal of English women in the early
nineties, fallen hard for Sean Bean when he’d tramped around the telly in tight
green pants and played Richard Shape. When she had purchased the, at the time,
abandoned storefront from the previous owner, she had known that she’d wanted
to open a coffee shop. Being a woman who loved a good play on words and lots of
pictures of a handsome man, she gathered up her not inconsiderable collection
of Sean Bean pictures, magazine covers, video covers, and autographed bits, and
put them to good use. When “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” had
come out, Melanie had hiked it to three different overpriced entertainment
stores before she’d found a cardboard Boromir that she was proud to call her
own. Four months ago, much to the general enjoyment of the whole town of
Hugoton, Kansas, Sean Bean himself had graced ‘Beanie’s’ and signed the cut
out. He’d also kissed Melanie on the cheek. She had promptly swooned, grabbed
him, dipped him, and kissed him full on the mouth. Needles to say, Melanie was
an object of envy in Hugoton.
Linda, for one, envied her very much as she walked into the coffee shop at five
before two and looked around for Leon. Untrue to Precocious’s theory, Linda was
not nervous. Linda was scared out of her mind. First dates led to second dates.
Second dates led to third dates. Third dates led to relationships, and
relationships led to hitting a man over the head with a cast iron skillet. Or
testifying against him in court while one’s eye was still swollen halfway shut.
Or calling the cops when he showed up drunk and started winging beer bottles
full of cigarette butts and tobacco spit at the door. First dates were not
something that Linda looked at with a great deal of thrill, excitement, or
anything other than nervous fear anymore.
“Linda, hey.” Leon spoke in a soft voice, like he realized that Linda was
replaying all her previous first dates over in her mind, trying to spot what
went horribly wrong. “Sorry, I’m a few minutes late. I had to scrub spaghetti
out of the carpet when one of the kids belonging to a client decided to start a
food fight with her sister.”
Linda turned around and had to smile at the flecks of spaghetti sauce that were
still decorating Leon’s white caterer’s shirt. “That’s okay. Up until a half an
hour ago, my arms were covered in paint.”
Leon smiled. “I thought you took a little time off from painting after a show.”
“I’m just painting the sliding glass doors that lead to our patio.” Linda
stepped up to the back of the line, and Leon stepped with her. “It’s not a
serious project.”
“How much of your work do you consider serious?”
For nearly anyone else, that would have been a loaded question. Linda, thanks
in part to the total lack of support she received from her parents, usually
took such questions to be veiled attempts at saying, ‘when will you get a real
job’, but she’d known Leon since grade school, and he’d always been a genuinely
nice guy who asked questions for genuine answers, so she seriously thought
about the question before answering. “Most of what I do is for display. I have
an ego. I like to see my stuff up on a wall. I like to see people buy my stuff.
Sometimes, for the hell of it, I’ll paint something for the sheer sake of fun.
I was going to do a bit of sacrilege to the sliding glass doors, but now I
think it’s going to be a bunny.”
“An abstract bunny, though, right?”
“Most likely. At the very least it will be vaguely bunny-shaped.” Linda stepped
up to the counter and glanced at Leon. “Do you want to order first? I don’t
know what I’m having, yet.”
Leon smiled at her, looking suddenly shy, and shrugged. “Sure.” He stepped
around her and didn’t bother to look at the board when he ordered a tall,
double-caf mocha with a raspberry shot. He looked at Linda. “Do you know what
you want, yet?”
“Um…” Linda surveyed the board, and had a sudden, desperate wish, that the
coffee revolution brought on by Starbucks had never happened. Sometimes she
craved a plain, cheap cup of regular coffee. “Let me get a decaf cappuccino
with a shot of chocolate, please.”
The girl behind the counter, Cindi, with emphasis on the last ‘i’ of the
nametag because it was in a different color, looked mildly annoyed. “Tall,
grande, or venti?”
“Tall’s fine, thanks.” Linda stepped away from the counter while Leon paid and
accepted the table marker with a number eighteen stamped on it. “Whatever
happened to regular coffee?”
“I think it went the way of phones with cords, cars without massive bass, and
guys that wear button-down shirts on a regular basis.” Leon stopped at a table
for two that was situated next to the wall. “Is this okay?”
“It’s fine.” Linda pulled out her own chair and sat so that she could see the
front door and the people who were coming and going.
Leon sat down in the other chair and placed the table marker between them. “Can
I ask you a personal question? You can refuse to answer, if you want.”
Linda felt a little nervous, but she nodded and spread her hands on the table
to keep from clenching them shut. “Go ahead.”
“Why’d you finally say yes to me?” Leon saw Linda wince a little and
immediately started apologizing. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked. I
just-"
"No, wait, it's okay." Linda held up a hand to forestall anything
else Leon might say. "I'm not reacting to the question; I'm just a little
pissed to have to admit that if I hadn't said yes, I would have made a
hypocrite out of myself."
Leon's eyebrows made a furrow over his nose when he pulled them together.
" Excuse me?" He wasn't quite sure if he had been insulted or not.
"You saw the man Precocious was with at the gallery on Friday,
right?"
"Yeah, sure, that Tyler guy. What does he have to do with this?"
Linda sighed. "I goaded Precocious into asking Tyler out by pointing out
to her that just because Chad had been a dick, didn't mean that Tyler would be.
She pointed out to me on Friday night when we were packing up, that I was
turning you down more out of reflex when it came to my bad judgement in men
than because of anything you had done personally to offend me. I think you're a
very nice guy, Leon. I just kind of forgot that when I wouldn't stop playing
stare down with my past." Linda's hands had clenched on the table top
while she was speaking. She made herself relax, and she tried to smile at Leon.
"It sounds kind of bad when I word it like that, but I don't mean it to
sound bad."
"I…um…" Leon trailed off and gave a shrug. "I'm just going to
say thanks for finally accepting and take the whole thing at face value. You
think I'm a good guy?"
"Yeah."
"And you genuinely like me?"
Linda nodded. "Yeah."
Leon nodded back at her. "Great. We'll let it lie there for now."
"Thank you." Linda breathed a sigh of relief and gave a silent shout
of happiness at the sight of the waiter with their drinks. Steaming hot coffee
was a wonderful distraction when it needed to be. They both sat in silence for
a few minutes, blowing on their coffee and sipping cautiously. Linda broke the
silence when she noticed a red welt on the inside of Leon's arm. "What'd
you do?"
Leon followed her gaze to the mark. "Oh, I burned myself trying to deep
fry some stuff at a party. The basket slipped, and the oil kind of went
everywhere. And by 'everywhere' I mean, 'on my arm in a cascade of pain'."
Leon smiled at Linda's small laugh and turned the tables. "Where'd you get
that?" He was looking at an inch-long scar on the top of Linda's forearm.
"That would be a badge to my bad judgement." Linda ran a thumb over
the scar absently. "One of the very bad men I dated lunged at me with a
knife. I managed to deflect it. He was aiming for other places,
obviously."
"Can I ask how many bad men there have been?" Leon waited for a flat
refusal and prepared himself to dodge any hot coffee that may get thrown his
direction.
Linda just counted silently on her fingers for a moment before answering.
"Four, as near as I can remember. There was the knife guy, a guy who beat
the hell out of me when he got drunk once, a guy who tried to get me to commit
to a suicide pact, and then my cast iron skillet asshole." She made a face.
"My taste in men is a legend for being so bad."
"It's not so bad." Leon stuck his leg out from under the table and
pulled his pants leg up. He had a scar of about two inches in diameter that was
spiral shaped. "One of my ex-girlfriends got pissed at me at work one
night and grabbed a corkscrew. She fell on her ass thanks to some spilled
marinara sauce and only managed to get my leg. She was aiming for my eye, I
think."
"We're a pair."
Leon pushed his pants leg back down and smiled at Linda. "Of something,
all right." He toasted her with his glass. She toasted back.
*
When the knock on the door came at ten minutes after two, Precocious was ready
with a quick comment in case it ended up being Linda or Leon. The comment died
a quick death when she opened the door and recognized Julia Patterson standing
on her stoop. Good manners, ingrained years ago and usually forgotten, sprang
to the forefront, and Precocious just managed to bypass being rude. "What
can I help you with?" ~And why the fuck are you here?~
Julia looked fully put together in a two thousand dollar, Richard Tyler
pantsuit, Manalo Blahniks, a Richard Tyler bag, and earrings that Precocious
would bet were Harry Winston. "I came to speak to you."
Precocious's nearly forgotten good manners disappeared just as quickly as
they'd showed up to save the day. "Talk to the door. It's more willing to
listen." She slammed the door shut. She counted under her breath, and when
she reached ten, she wasn't surprised there was another knock. She opened the
door again. "Leave." She slammed it again and walked to the phone. As
the knocking started again, she rang Tyler. "Your shrew of a banshee is
taking up space on my stoop."
There was a pause as Tyler tried to figure out what was going on, and when he
spoke, he sounded defeated. "She's not my shrew of a banshee. You'll have
to deal with her yourself."
"You're the last one who dealt with her, so come and get her off my
porch."
"Can't you call the cops?"
Precocious was getting peeved. The knocking was constant now. "Look, I was
enough of an adult not to drop those donuts on your head. I was enough of an
adult when I let you say your piece earlier, and I was enough of an adult not
to get irrationally jealous at the fact that you shtupped your ex-wife, but if
you do not come and peel her off of my stoop, I will stop being an adult and
slash your tires."