casseroles had all been eaten, Becca was too deep into the frantic busyness habit to stop. Just as well, too, because Mom fell apart definitively after Dad’s death. She was used up. There was nothing left for the rest of them.
From then on, it fell to Becca to keep it together. She learned to write checks and pay bills at the age of twelve. When she was thirteen, she learned the dire consequences of forgetting to pay property taxes for two years in a row. She put off creditors, dealt with the bills herself so that the past due notices wouldn’t send Mom off on a crying jag.
Or sink her into an even darker mood, when she would sit on her bed staring at the bottle of morphine capsules. Dad had hoarded a lethal dose of them early in his illness to have a way out if it got too bad. He’d never used them, but it had comforted him that they were there.
It didn’t comfort Becca. She combed the house for them when her mother was out, hoping to flush them down into the sewer where they belonged. In the end, her efforts were in vain. Terrible things happened no matter how prepared you were.
No amount of scurrying and effort could stop them. No mercy.
Dad’s stash hadn’t gone to waste, depending on your point of view. By the time Mom swallowed those pills, Becca had become expert at a lot of things, and seeing things from everybody else’s point of view was one of them.
She understood Mom’s despair. She understood Josh’s fighting, his problems in school. Carrie’s clinginess, bedwetting, nightmares, anxiety attacks. She understood the bank’s regretful necessity to foreclose. Mortgages had to be paid. That was how the merciless world worked.
She understood their relatives, none of whom wanted to deal with the financial and emotional can of worms that was her orphaned family.
She even understood the point of view of the life insurance people, when they’d informed her that the policy was void in the case of suicide.
Well, of course. Any reasonable person could see why. Becca was a reasonable person. She’d been reasonable about giving up going to college, in spite of the scholarship she’d been offered. It was flattering that they’d offered it, but it paid only tuition. Not for a roof over Josh and Carrie’s heads. Not for food for three, pediatricians, school clothes, sneakers, and all the rest.
Yeah, she understood everybody’s point of view but her own. She couldn’t afford a point of view. It was a window she didn’t dare peer out of. She was terrified of what she might see.
Anyway, fuck it. Remembering all that wasn’t going to help her now. Her eyes caught the gun-toting guy leering at her. He licked his lips. Rearranged his testicles.
Oh, God. Her stomach flopped, turned upside down.
No choice but to face it, straight on. Stark reality. As bad as it got. Like the day she found Mom on her bedroom floor.
What had happened upstairs with Mr. Big had leveled her defenses. Neurotic though they might be, they’d been all she had. They were in ruins. Colors were overbright, noises jangly, too loud or else fading out. The faces of the men in the kitchen stood out in high contrast. Carved by shadows sharp as knives, as black as ink. She glimpsed horrible things in the depths of their eyes.
“Keep it together,” Mr. Big whispered, shoving a paper towel into her hand. “Mop up your face. Stop sniveling. Get ready to serve wine and the appetizers.”
Sniveling? Snotty bastard. She dabbed her eyes and pressed the paper towel against her mouth. The anger focused her. And he knew it.
He stuck his hand into his pocket and rummaged till he came up with…her pink lipstick. Of all things.
“Showtime again. Don’t faint on me, for fuck’s sake.” He uncapped the lipstick and held it out to her. She applied it with a shaking hand. It was warm from his body heat.
He looked her over, and tugged her plunging neckline up so that her nipples no longer peeked over the edge of the blouse. She grabbed his hand. “Please, don’t,” she said. “If you do, it shows my—”
“Aw, fuck.” He scowled at the tuft of pubic hair that he had revealed.
“It’s one or the other, you see.” She shook with hysterical giggles.
He muttered something vicious in that unknown language, and put the tray with the decanted wine, wineglasses and the appetizers into her hands.
The glasses rattled. He put his hands over hers to steady them. His hands were so warm. Strong.
He nudged her along in the direction of the dining room. They stopped outside the door. He leaned down, gave her a swift, firm kiss on the cheek.
“Watch out,” he muttered. “And smile, goddamnit.”
He opened the door and gave her a push that made her stumble a little. Becca stretched her pink, shiny mouth, feeling like a plastic doll. Her bare toes gripped the carpet to steady herself. She felt damp with chilled sweat. Stippled with goose bumps, all over her body.
Someone had lit the candles. The tapers glimmered. Her nearsighted eyes swam with tears. She could barely see the two men seated at the table. Tears swirled the points of light into a bright blur. She squeezed her eyes shut, let them flash down her face. She couldn’t wipe them away with a tray in her hands.
The men swam into focus as she approached. Smile, goddamnit.
She could do that. Smiling, acting cheerful while she was actually dying inside was a skill at which she excelled, although she secretly wasn’t sure whether it was a skill she should be proud of. But it was coming in handy now.
The two men stopped talking as she approached the table. She had a brief moment of total vertigo, and a switch was thrown inside her.
She couldn’t call it courage. It felt more like an automatic default mechanism kicking into action. An emergency generator that came on during a power outage. Just enough juice for basic function. No frills.
She set the tray on the sideboard, flashed a brilliant smile at the men seated at the table. She set out their glasses, poured their wine with practiced grace. Automatic gestures, programmed into her from years of waitressing jobs and catering gigs. She caught a glimpse of the Spider’s guest when she poured his wine. He didn’t really notice, being busy checking out her boobs.
He looked like he belonged at her country club. Late forties, handsome, distinguished. Graying temples, white teeth, perfect tan, reeking of privilege.
“And what have you prepared for us, my dear?” the Spider asked.
She smiled, smiled, smiled, as she set out the antipasti. “You’ll start with four different types of bruschetta, and an assortment of fine Italian cheeses and sausages. Then we’ll move on to roasted zucchini dressed with mint and lemon, eggplant gratinée, grilled portobello mushrooms, and roasted stuffed red peppers. Wafer thin slices of Piedmontese capicollo, dressed with flakes of grana, arugula, and the very best Pugliese olive oil, followed by slices of spicy Calabrese sopressata…”
And so on and so forth. Hyped-up foodie blather was second nature to her. Thank God for her years of restaurant work. She had been able to put a feast like this together and buy a little time.
Or maybe not. She noticed the lustful greed smoldering in the Spider’s eyes.
When
