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Bianca lifted a skeptical brow. “You’ve met Lara, right?” she said sarcastically. “You know it’s impossible to compete with her. At least for male attention. Just ask Maddie.”
Pescoli remembered that Maddie had been in love with TJ O’Hara, but he, like most of the other boys around that age, was forever lusting after Lara. “So you think Barclay Sphinx isn’t immune to her charms.”
“If you mean her boobs? Then no. It’s disgusting.” Scowling, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Okay. I’ve got dinner. It might be getting cold, but burgers, fries, and a spinach salad.” Bianca was forever trying different diets and every once in a while she was off meat, professing to be a vegetarian. But not always, so when Pescoli brought home takeout, she always hedged her bets.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to your face?” Bianca asked.
“Oh. Well, your mother got into a catfight.”
“For real?”
“Apparently Wilda Wyze doesn’t like how I’m treating her boys. You know, like they could be suspects.”
“So she fought you?” Bianca was both incredulous and somewhat impressed. “Don’t you carry a gun?”
“I usually don’t need a sidearm to pick up takeout.”
“So you just let her claw you?”
“Well, that’s not really how it went down. She took offense to the fact that we’ve been questioning her sons.”
“And she attacked you? Are you kidding me?”
“It was a . . . scuffle. She came at me, and I . . . convinced her to back off.”
“You mean, like a fight? You’re pregnant!”
“That is a fact. And Terri Tufts commented on it, too.” Without explaining how physical the altercation actually became, she told Bianca about meeting the three women in the foyer of Wild Wills, the accusations and the fight.
“Wow.” Bianca stared at the scratches on her mother’s face. “I know Kywin’s mother is kind of angry all the time, he says so, but wow.” Bianca carefully touched her mother’s face. “That’s intense.”
“I suppose I’ll live. Without plastic surgery.”
“Are you going to put her in jail?”
Pescoli shook her head. “I probably should, but nah. Wilda’s got enough problems. Older kids who are borderline hoodlums, an ex who’s a regular in prison, and two more girls she’s trying to raise. Even though I wouldn’t call her Mother of the Year, Wilda’s trying and so, just because she’s a hothead with talon-like nails, I’m going to give her a pass. This time. But if she comes at me again, I won’t think twice about arresting her and putting her in jail.”
“Good.”
“But I’m okay.” That much was true as far as her face was concerned, but she did feel a rolling pang in her mid-section, an increased pressure that gave her pause. It had to be another Braxton Hicks contraction, right? Her due date was still a few weeks off. Ignoring it, she said, “Do you know if those three are tight? Wilda Wyze and Terri Tufts and Billie O’Hara?”
“You’d know better than me. I mean, they all were when we were growing up, weren’t they? The boys were in soccer and Little League and basketball, all kinds of sports, and on the same teams a lot of the time.”
“Terri made a comment about my pregnancy, and said something like, ‘It’s going around these days,’” Pescoli revealed.
“Probably because Marjory is,” Bianca said, “You know, Emmett and Preston’s stepmom? She’s not very far along. Doesn’t show or anything. But I think Terri is pissed, anyway, Emmett said so.”
“She didn’t seem pissed.”
“Then I don’t know, but it’s weird for everyone. Especially Emmett. He’s kind of freaked out about it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s going to have a baby brother or sister and he’s like me. Almost grown.” She let her gaze drop to her mother’s abdomen. “I know you and Santana are all into it, and you should be, but for me and Jer, it’s kind of... well, upsetting in a way. We don’t like to think of you as . . .”
“Sexual?”
