Danger, Sweetheart Read online

  But that was yesterday and today was today. Today was today? Ugh. Need more sleep.

  Munching toast, he took the stairs to the kitchen, nodded at Harry and Larry (Gary had been getting difficult to track down, problem #62 on Blake’s list of things he did not know how to deal with but must), and headed outside. Another day, another dollar. Possibly less than a dollar; he had no idea what his salary was. He had $14,321.98 in his personal checking account the day Mom had frozen all the other accounts, the ones she controlled. His expenses were low; all he’d bought so far were clothes and periodicals, and he had changed paperwork with the car rental agency, opting for a long-term contract to get better rates for the Supertruck. He’d offered to pitch in for groceries, and had been politely turned down. He had no idea who paid the bills at Heartbreak—they might have been ready for foreclosure, but people still lived and worked there, and those people needed running water and electricity and food. But none of his, for which he should be grateful. At such a rate, his money would last for months.

  Oh God. Last for months! It didn’t bear considering, so he didn’t. And speaking of money, at what point would his mom decide he had been sufficiently punished? Perhaps the problem is you still see it as punishment. You’re here to learn empathy, to understand that not everything can be solved with multiple green pieces of paper. You’re here to appreciate the hard work that goes into feeding the world, and why unceremoniously forking over perfectly good farms to the bank spit in the eye of all of it.

  Or perhaps she’s waiting for you to grow up.

  Unfortunate. He had no plans to change his worldview, he did appreciate the hard work it took to feed the world, trying to help his mother was not a bad thing, and if not enjoying manual labor meant he hadn’t grown up … well …

  He hadn’t.

  And wouldn’t.

  So there.

  Sixteen

  “I have studied your ways, Equus ferus caballus, and I am to be your master now,” he told 626993 in a stern tone. He schooled his body language to project serene dominance. I know I’m in charge, so I need not flaunt it, and my not flaunting it will soothe you and you will accept me as the alpha pony. “It’s an uneven relationship that I cannot help, and I assure you I am, if anything, less enamored of this than you are. The best way to endure this, and survive this, is if we cooperate.”

  Six Two Six Nine Nine Three cocked her tail and let loose with what looked like a thousand brown crab apples. Her body language, Blake could not help but notice, projected, Fuck you, puny pink monkey-human.

  Blake told himself there were worse beginnings. The maiden voyage of the Titanic. Filling the Hindenburg with hydrogen. Plessy v. Ferguson. The Donner Party’s shortcut. His conception.

  He fished out his phone, took a picture of 626993’s retort, and sent it with a hext to Rake, because Rake was terrible.

  “This isn’t over,” Blake warned 626993 in what he hoped was a suitably threatening tone, and then walked away, because for the morning it was over.

  PLAN B

  “We must bond. It’s a matter of survival, yours as well as mine. No, wait! Come back. I don’t like it any more than you do, Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, but the quicker we endure and get this done, the quicker I can return home and you can do whatever it is you do when you’re not pondering my demise by squashing.”

  Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, as was her wont, let loose with dozens of poop-shaped, poop-scented golf balls. He preferred to think of them that way. I know it’s shit, he’d explained to a bemused Natalie. Let me have this illusion, dammit! It may be my only way to survive this.

  Poop-scented golf balls, it’s perfect, she’d replied, which made no sense, and then she dashed back to Main One, giggling, and left him to 626993’s rebuttal. He could actually hear Rake’s voice in his head: Rebuttal, get it? See what I did there?

  Blake stopped thinking about Natalie’s lovely giggles and Rake’s unlovely sense of humor and instead focused on the unlovely, unhumorous

  (that is not a word I am in so far over my head I am losing my grasp on my native tongue)

  specimen glaring at him. “As part of the bonding process, according to several online sources, it is vital that I give you a name. Naming you will bring us closer as a couple. Yes,” he added hastily when she cocked her tail in warning, “I know how that sounds, but consider the logic of it. It’s hard to feel as if you belong, or are among people you can trust, if you’re merely a number to them. Well, Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, henceforth, your name is Margaret of Anjou. I have named you for a woman who has gone down in history as the She-Wolf of France, remembered for being vengeful and blinded by her own importance. I trust I don’t have to explain why.”

  A snort. Margaret of Anjou tossed her head, trotted toward him, and when he stretched out a hand

  (it’ll be fine if she chomps, it’s not my dominant hand)

  she promptly turned and scooted the other way.

  He sighed at the feminine rejection, something as humbling as it was rare. “Very well. Margaret of Anjou earned her disrespectful moniker through several actions viewed unfeminine and disloyal for the times, ‘the times’ being the fifteenth century.”

  He checked Margaret of Anjou’s water. Fine and fresh.

  “Bad enough she was French,” Blake continued. “Nothing inherently wrong in that, but England and France had a long, bloody history of loathing each other. Bad enough she was entitled and arrogant—but such things often come from a royal rearing. Bad enough her husband, Henry the sixth, suffered from then-undiagnosed schizophrenia and was frequently unresponsive to stimuli. He once went over a year without speaking, or moving under his own power. (Do not get me started on his religious delusions.) And bad enough that her husband shared her bed so infrequently, even when in his right mind, that most believed her son was a bastard, possibly by Edmund Beaufort or James Butler.”

  Blake checked Margaret’s feed—too low. He trotted to Main One, helped himself to a scoop, trotted back. The corral didn’t have a gate, but the bars were wide enough so he could bend at the waist, insert himself vertically, then straighten and be inside with Margaret of Anjou. Who, true to her namesake, ignored him as she would anyone not her better. She never ate unless he was several feet away.

  “Any one of these could be overlooked, if not condoned,” he continued, running his fingers through the feed to check for insect life or irregularities. “But she had the gall to want to rule for her husband, not meekly hand over the regency to the Duke of York. Essentially, her actions were a domino effect that sparked off a thirty-year civil war and cost tens of thousands of lives. She paid a heavy price for her pride: in the end, she died alone, penniless, widowed and childless and hated.

  “Something to think about, eh, Margaret of Anjou?”

  The pony switched up her rebuttal this time, presenting a mighty squirt of urine to express her disdain.

  “Yes, well.” Blake sighed and was glad, not for the first time, that she kept at least five feet between them at all times. He had wondered if she’d been abused, which amused Natalie to no end.

  Sorry, there’s no dilemma-causing backstory for you to rescue her from. This is not The Pony Whisperer. Sometimes ponies are jerks. You know you’ve got shit on your chin, right?

  Odd how I always want to scratch my face while mucking out stalls, had been his chagrined reply. Now, back in the present, he returned his attention to Margaret of Anjou. “Pride was her undoing as well. You should take care.” I am threatening a pony. This is how low I have sunk. “She never quit, though. You have to respect that if you can respect anything.”

  Come to think of it, Margaret of Anjou had something in common with several significant females in his life: the pony, Natalie Lane, his mother, the nuclear option.

  His mother. Hmm. It had been several days; he was still here; Heartbreak remained unforeclosed upon. Perhaps it was time he acquainted her with new facts and sought her counsel. And perhaps her checkbook.

&nbs
p; Seventeen

  PLAN C

  “‘Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, though most people assume ‘beast,’” Blake explained, carefully setting up his phone on one of the posts, then activating the Margaret of Anjou playlist. “’To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.’ Did you know that is one of the most misquoted sayings of all time? And that the people who misquote it think William Shakespeare wrote it? Insanity. Now then. Pay attention.” He hummed a little and pressed play. The lilting strains of “Ode to Joy” filled the paddock, followed by the lilting thuds as Margaret of Anjou kicked the post so hard his phone flew thirteen feet.

  Music Margaret of Anjou Does Not Like

  1. “Ode to Joy”

  2. Brahms’ Double Concerto

  3. Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet

  4. Everything by Rachmaninov

  5. Tchaikovsky’s Concert Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra

  6. Strauss’ “Festival Prelude”

  7. Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World”

  8. Bing Crosby’s “Swinging on a Star”

  9. The Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back”

  10. Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party”

  11. Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”

  12. Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Own Me”

  13. Joan Jett’s “You Don’t Own Me”

  14. Everything else by Joan Jett

  15. The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

  16. Muddy Waters’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me (When I’m Dead and Gone)”

  17. The Rolling Stones’ “It’s All Over Now”

  18. Aerosmith’s “Cryin’”

  19. Tom Petty’s “Breakdown”

  20. David Bowie’s “Loving the Alien”

  21. INXS’s “Devil Inside”

  22. Def Leppard’s “Love Bites”

  23. The theme from M*A*S*H

  24. The theme from Psych

  25. The theme from Rocky

  26. The theme from The Simpsons

  Eighteen

  PLAN D

  “How?” he shouted, rolling to his feet and smacking the dust off his rear end. “How are you able to get any of your devil hooves off the ground enough to throw me? You’re so fat! Yes! I’m fat shaming you! That’s what your demon-pony antics have reduced me to! Margaret of Anjou, you are morbidly obese! I am switching you from hay to rice cakes at once.”

  PLAN E

  “If I put you back on hay and bring back your salt lick, will you stop shitting everywhere? My research on whether or not they make diapers for ponies has thus far proved inconclusive.”

  Nineteen

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Whispers became rumors became common knowledge became fact. Garrett Hobbes, self-proclaimed man of action, decided enough time had passed. Time to visit one of Shannah’s bastards and find out what was going on. Blake or Rake or Jake or whatever the hell; trust Shannah to not only not be embarrassed at being caught out as a slut in front of the whole town but then also give the bastards cutesy names. Like spreading her legs hadn’t gotten her bounced from Sweetheart! The whole town had seen that coming and the schadenfreude had flowed like wine. The Banaan family of quitters quit on Shannah Banana. Ha!

  He left his office and eyeballed his shark gray Fiat convertible, parked haphazardly to the left of the crip space. No scratches or dents from errant car doors this time, excellent. The local fucks were all jealous, and knowing that made it worth the occasional trip to the auto-body shop. Sure, visibility was shit and the car handled with all the maneuverability of a pumpkin, but still: convertible!

  I know you’re all mad about being losers, but leave the car out of it, chrissakes.

  He climbed in, started it, and waited a long moment to give the jealous fucks on the street a chance to see the difference between his future and theirs. The only people he could see were that crone Bev Harmon and her gross gay grandson, Cameron. Bev ran Sweetheart Sew and made a decent living doing alterations. She and her husband liked to flaunt their great love affair by tearing each other’s clothes. Fucking ripping her blouse like an animal! Bev mended so much of her own crap that she soon started doing it for neighbors. Her queer son was probably primed to take over the business.

  Oh, well. Maybe Cameron would mention it while he was repairing ripped bodices or braiding his hair or whatever the hell gay guys did. Not for the first time, Garrett breathed thanks he was a man’s man. No, not like that. A real man. That’s what he meant. Besides, the one time he’d asked Benjie to the movies, the guy had the fucking gall to point out Garrett’s 1) homophobia, 2) shit taste in movies, and 3) contempt for the Harmon clan.

  When did everybody start keeping track of every innocent little comment to come out of his mouth? He was surrounded by people who couldn’t appreciate him, never mind catch on to his subtle sense of humor. And they all had minds like fucking tape recorders, always braying back things he’d said like he didn’t have layers or something. He had plenty of layers, dammit! And a convertible!

  He had to drive through town to get out to Heartbreak, and was treated—as always—to a reluctant This Is Your Life slide show as he drove past businesses and people familiar from his earliest childhood.

  Here was the Dipsy Diner, where he’d knocked a tray of entrées out of the waitress’ hands for a joke nobody got, including the basketball players in the booth behind him. They’d expressed their displeasure by holding him down and squirting mustard up his nose. His luck to prank the one waitress working while her son, a center on the varsity squad, was three feet away. Fucking jocks, no sense of humor. He’d sneezed mustard for three days. Ruined his taste for the stuff; now he was strictly a ketchup man.

  Here was Sweet Gas, where he’d shoplifted half a dozen Hershey bars and a two-liter bottle of Coke with no one noticing. It was winter, he was in his parka, he was supposed to look bulky, it was working, dammit!

  His foolproof plan disintegrated when he tripped and fell against the counter, which made the bottle of Coke blow up. He’d looked like he was streaming Coke from every orifice, plus it turned out he’d snatched Hershey’s dark, not milk. He hated dark. And the old fuck running the station made him mop the floor and reimburse him for the Coke (no biggie) and the dark chocolate (which sucked), and he had to do it all without changing his clothes, so every step was a sticky squish.

  Here was Sweet Soft-Serv, where, after being ditched for prom, he’d eaten seven vanilla ice-cream cones in a row, then promptly thrown them up with a glurt! His barf had still been cold; that’s how quick it had come back up. He remembered watching it drip off his shoes and thinking, Jeez, tell one or two nigger jokes and Myra Dedman gets violently politically correct. Fifteen bucks for a box of condoms going right down the tubes with the puke.

  Here was Heartbreak Farm, onetime cool-kid hangout/cow-tipping HQ. For whatever reason, people liked the place. Didn’t matter if they were from a neighboring farm or sold used cars on the other side of town, the fucking idiots were drawn here. The unromantic origin story struck a chord with just about everybody, and once they saw the place for themselves they kept coming back. It was weird and baffling.

  Jonathan Banaan’s monument to his lost love, what a joke. What had been going through his mind, obviously gone to Swiss cheese after so many years of unrequited nooky? Welp, she said no to the house and no to the garage, but she sure won’t say no to the barn! Fucking moron. People ate it up, though. It had been the social center of the town—a good trick for a farm ten miles outside the city limits—and people had been gathering there for a hundred years, seemed like. Heartbreak had hosted fireworks and barn dances and (weird) christenings and (weirder) funerals. Funerals! Of people who didn’t own or work on the farm! What. The. Fuck?

  He was glad he’d outgrown the place even before he was forbidden to return because people have no fucking sense of humor. The horse was barely singed when the cherry bomb went off. You’d think the whole town had been brainwashed by PETA
fucks.

  And it didn’t matter. It was over and it didn’t matter, and sometimes he could forget the misunderstandings, and sometimes he couldn’t; sometimes they seemed so fresh they were like big bruises all over his chest. And it didn’t matter! Sweetheart was dying, and Garrett was almost free, and everything was going to work the way it should, and Blake Tarbell, who’d so obligingly bought up the deeds, who essentially traded deeds for a ticket to Garrett’s very rich, very exciting future, was somehow in this awful fucking town and somehow working as a fucking plow hand at fucking Heartbreak Farm, for fuck’s sake.

  And there he was! Striding from the house to the barn like he knew where he was going. Like he knew where things were, even. Which was so ridiculous it was funny. Where’d he even get blue jeans that not only fit him but looked like he’d been working in them for days? The guy had probably been born in a three-piece suit; who was he trying to fool?

  Garrett pulled up right next to the barn and climbed out, giving Vegas Douche a long look at his car. Blake might want to know where he could get one himself. Garrett would be happy to tell him—he wouldn’t even have the car if not for Blake Tarbell.

  “Hey.”

  Blake had paused, pitchfork over one shoulder, and nodded back. Then continued into the barn to do God-knew-what. A pitchfork? The fuck?

  Garrett raised his voice and tried again. “Hey, how are you?”

  “I’m fine,” came the cheerful reply. Tarbell had a helluva phone voice, all deep and rumbly, which translated well in person. Garrett had heard the old joke about the fat guy on the radio who sounded thin, or whatever the fuck, and had expected someone not at all exceptional. So of course the guy was tall and broad shouldered and blond and good-looking. Fucking of course. He was streaked with dust and sweat, was tanned in some spots and burned in others, and looked like he’d keel over and die if someone even glared at him, and of course he somehow made all that work. “Everything is fine.”