Page 63 of It Runs in the Family

“Earth to Iris,” Ava said, waving a hand in front of my face.

I realized I was holding a plate in the air, mid-swipe with the sponge. I rinsed it in the running water, then handed it to her. “If you’re gonna stand there, at least make yourself useful. I’m not washin’ all of this by myself.”

She laughed as she took the plate, then opened a drawer to pull out a clean dish towel.

“So, what are you gonna do?” Mary Ellen asked, picking up a plate and scraping the food remains in the trash can.

That question was so open-ended, I had no idea how to answer it, so I said, “Clean Granny’s kitchen, then go home.”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “I meant about Boone.”

I hadn’t figured out what to do with Boone, but I obviously wasn’t going to admit that. “There’s nothin’ to do. He’s trouble and I have enough trouble in my life. Especially since Billy seems determined to exact some kind of revenge out of me.”

“For what happened at T-Birds?” Ava asked in alarm.

“That and sassin’ off to him before lunch.”

“I know he grabbed you at T-Birds, but he was probably drunk,” Ava said, not sounding convinced. “He says he’s changed.”

Mary Ellen gave me a look that said she didn’t believe her sister’s declaration either.

I continued washing dishes, wondering what I was going to do. I had so many problems, I needed to figure out which order to deal with them in, or else be overwhelmed. There wasn’t anything more I could do about the man who’d accosted me in the Shop-n-Go parking lot Saturday night, so that was out of my hands. I needed to let the Boone situation stew a bit longer, so I supposed that made my job search the top priority.

A twinkle filled Mary Ellen’s eyes as she leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Hey, what do you say when everyone else comes in to start helpin’, we sneak out and go shoppin’ at Walmart?”

“Walmart?” Ava asked in disgust.

“Well, seein’ how Iris is unemployed, I figured she wouldn’t be up to going to Waco for some real shoppin’.”

“I can’t even afford Walmart,” I grumbled.

“There’s always Dollar General,” she said hopefully.

I shot her a glare, but the playful look in her eyes told me she was trying to lighten my predicament.

“Okay,” she said. “So shoppin’s out, but we could head over to Bueller’s and drink a few beers.”

“On a Sunday afternoon?” I asked incredulously. Bueller’s was a bar I hadn’t been to in years, but it was common knowledge the place drew a rougher crowd.

“Sure. Why not?”

“It doesn’t seem like your kind of place.”

“We like to mix it up a little,” Ava said. “And it’s relatively tame on Sunday afternoons.

Mary Ellen nodded. “Which is why we go then.”

“So you can live a little dangerously with relatively little danger?” I said with a laugh.

“Something like that,” Mary Ellen said. “Next argument.”

I scrubbed at a dried piece of mashed potatoes on a plate. “Granny would be furious if she found out we left her to go to a den of iniquity.”

Ava snorted. “I wouldn’t call Bueller’s a den of iniquity.”

“At least on a Sunday afternoon,” Mary Ellen added.

I lifted a brow and looked Mary Ellen square in the eye. “I heard they have strippers now.”