Chapter Twenty-Three
“Whose idea was it to play outside?” Kristin asked, teeth chattering.
“Baby,” Joanna said, and Kristin stuck her tongue out at her.
“Glad to see you guys are maturing,” Trina said, adjusting one of her cymbals.
“Is it normal to feel like you’re going to throw up before a show?” Kristin asked.
“Yes,” Joanna and Trina said together.
“It’ll be fine,” Joanna reassured her. “Nobody will be paying attention to us anyway.”
That was a lie, but Joanna didn’t see any reason to make Kristin worry any more.
She was actually starting to like the woman.
Damn, she really was getting soft.
She blamed Liam. If he wasn’t so nice to her, she wouldn’t be so soft. And she’d be long gone by now. She didn’t know where. Someplace where there was actual stuff that was happening.
Not that she particularly wanted to be anywhere else at the moment. It was Halloween, Trina and Rick had dragged the drums down from the barn loft, and Delicious Lies 2.0 was having its informal debut concert.
If Joanna from six months ago could see her now, playing with Kristin Klomberg, in daylight, wearing a Halloween costume.
That was Liam, too. He’d insisted since everyone else was dressing up, she had to, too. He was dressed as a scarecrow, with hay poking out of his too-short jeans and plaid shirt. He looked friggin’ adorable.
He only very briefly suggested that she dress like Dorothy, but that was way too much. She was never going to be the kind of woman to voluntarily wear a couples costume.
She was dressed as a librarian.
She’d baby-powdered her hair gray and Granny dug out one of her dowdy maternity jumpers, which Joanna paired with a festive and terrible turtleneck with pumpkins on it. Liam said he was offended by her perpetuation of stereotypes. She told him she wasn’t wearing underwear.
And he was right, everyone was dressed up. Granny was dressed as Charlie Chaplin, twirling her cane around so much Joanna thought she was going to have to take it away from her. Skyler showed up, dressed as a mime, bien sur. Rick had on a very fancy Iron Man costume, Trina was rocking a red wig as the Black Widow, and Max was painted green and stomping around as the Hulk. Hazel refused to participate in the Flunderman superhero theme, though, and she was wearing her red snowsuit with the hood pulled tight.
“I’m Peter,” she told Joanna when she arrived. “From The Snowy Day.”
The girl was obsessed.
And she was bouncing-off-the-walls excited when Kristin showed up with Kale, who was also wearing a red snowsuit.
Kristin was wearing Lycra, because of course she was. She turned and waved her cat tail at Joanna and Trina. “I’m Josie and the Pussycats!” she said proudly.
And now she was standing on the makeshift stage, trying not to throw up.
“You guys ready?” Trina asked, sitting down at her drum set. “You’re not going to run away, are you, Joanna?”
“Ha ha ha,” she said, hiking up her skirt so she could get to her effects pedals easier.
“Oh, God, Hal is here! I can’t do this!”
Joanna squinted out across the yard, and sure enough, there was Hal, standing at the beer cooler talking to Liam. He wasn’t wearing a costume. Or maybe he was. Washed up, entitled loser.
Hey, maybe she wasn’t totally soft.
She stepped in front of Kristin, blocking her view of her husband and the rest of the town, who all seemed to be crammed into the Flundermans’ yard. “Look at me,” she commanded.
Kristin looked at her.
“You are going to rock, do you hear me?”
Kristin nodded weakly.
“You can throw up after.”
She nodded again.
“Good. We got this.” Joanna stepped back in front of her amp. Trina pulled down her mic.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she shouted. “We! Are! Delicious! Lies!”
* * *
“Big, cute costume.”
Hal slapped Liam on the back, hard. He dislodged some of Liam’s straw.
Liam clenched his jaw.
“Mayor, nice to see you,” he lied. “What are you dressed as?”
“A goddamn adult,” Hal said, taking the beer Rick handed him.
“You know this is a costume party, right? I could kick you out,” Rick teased.
“And I could call the cops on this noise violation.”
Okay then.
“Just joking, Klomberg, you’re welcome any time.” And with that, Iron Man slunk away.
Liam looked around for any excuse to be standing anywhere but next to the mayor. But he didn’t want to be rude. He wasn’t sure how Hal would take it out on him.
“You come to see the band?” Liam asked.
“Band,” Hal scoffed. “I thought Kristin and Joanna hated each other, and now they’re in a damn band together?”
“I think they buried the hatchet. For the sake of rock and roll.”
“I can’t decide which is worse, Kristin bitching about Joanna all the time or her being gone all the time for this stupid band.”
“I’ve heard they’re pretty good.”
“Who’d you hear that from, Joanna?”
“Well, yes.”
Just then, the band in question started up, loud and fierce. Liam watched Joanna hike up her skirt and bear down on her guitar. He couldn’t help the goofy smile he felt forming on his face.
She fucking rocked.
“I always had a thing for her,” Hal said. Liam had forgotten he was still standing at his elbow, sucking all the joy out of the party.
“She’s like a caged tiger, you know?”
Liam looked at Hal. It occurred to him that he was not talking about his wife. He was talking about Joanna.
He clenched his fist. He was not going to engage in this, not with the man who was responsible for signing his budget.
“I bet she’s great in bed,” Hal said, making vulgar gestures with his hands. “I bet you like that, don’t you, sinking into that—”
And then Liam’s clenched fist connected with Hal’s jaw.
As Hal sputtered and flailed, Liam kissed the library’s budget good-bye. But it had been worth it.