“Pssst! Girlie!”
I’m in my dream house, white with big windows and oak floors.
“Girlie.”
Hot, shirtless blond men offer me platters of pizza rolls.
“I want the pepperoni ones.”
“Girlie, wake up.”
A hand-carved wooden cane comes down on my thigh. Someone stuffs a pillow over my face before I can scream.
“Don’t let Zephyr hear. He doesn’t want any of us driving.”
“Driving where?” I mumble.
“We’re going to give that cheating dog-stealer what he deserves.”
My grandmother’s elderly service dog makes a sickly coughing noise.
“You can’t let these men walk all over you, girlie.”
My great-grandmother is wearing a metal World War II army helmet. Another elderly woman, Sunflower, is wearing a backpack with a garden gnome duct taped to it.
“I’m going to show you how the Greatest Generation took care of triflin’ men, as you youngsters like to say.”
I moan. “I need an Advil.”
“You need to grow a pair of ovaries.” She pats her abdomen. “I could stop a bullet with these. Steel ovaries is what they are. No female descendent of mine is going to be treated that way. Both your mother and her mother are disappointments. Don’t you join their ranks. We fight them in the streets so they respect us in the sheets.”
“I’m drunk.” I clap a hand over my mouth.
“Good. Little liquid courage is just what you need.” Granny Mavis waves a bottle under my nose.
I almost hurl.
“Now, who do you hate most in the world?”
“Fucking McCarthy.”
“Not the cutie pie!” Crocus cries.
“He’s not cute.”
“Is that where we’re going?”
“No, Rainbow, pay the fuck attention. We’re going to Nathan’s house,” Granny Mavis hisses.
“I really think this is a bad idea…”
Granny Mavis slaps me. “Man up, soldier. Respect isn’t given or earned. It’s taken.”
“Yeah, and Nathan doesn’t respect me. Never did, never will,” I slur.
“Make him,” Granny Mavis whispers.
“Yeah, I’ll make him. Come on, Truman.”
