“Of course not,” she says. “Humiliating? Definitely. Some property might be damaged. We might even do something we’ll regret later, but it’ll feel real fucking good at the time. That might happen. Actually, that I’d like to guarantee.”
“I don’t want to commit to anything right now. But, um. What did you come up with in your brainstorm? I mean. Your brain perfect storm.”
Connie itches her head restlessly. A snowstorm of dandruff falls from her sinister mop of curly hair onto her black t-shirt. Beddy had tried once to suggest, delicately, that Connie should try salicylic acid, and her friend had responded with her own: “I’ve been saving up enough dandruff to make you a cake. And I thought you didn’t turn down cake.”
Connie never apologizes verbally, only with her eyes.
“Well, we would have done that, but this one over here spent her swweeeeet time getting ready. I can certainly quote some classics, though.”
Beddy thinks it is funny when she is mean about other people, and funny some of the time when she goes after Di, which she does often, and with relish. But it is tough being in her crosshairs, and because she started in them, Beddy does her best to avoid them.
“Hey,” Di protests. “I wasn’t trying to delay us. But I agree with Beddy. We don’t have to do this if she doesn’t want to.”
Beddy mentally sighs. Di is unequivocally the mom of the group, able to suck the thrill from any adventure. Her moralizing is not so much condescending as castrating.
“Classics?” Beddy asks.
Connie looks proudly over at Di. “Right. From the canon. Paybacks that worked for me, or for somebody I know.” She reaches into the bag on the table and pulls out a muffin. Peels the paper from it. “Give you one example. Dogshit. You rub it on someone’s car door handle,” she wiped the muffin wrapper through the air, “or stuff it on the inside, the underside, all stealth-style? So when they go to get in their car, fingers full of dogshit.”
Di shudders.
“If you’re lucky, it gets under their fingernails,” Connie says.
“God,” Di protests. “Aren’t we about to eat?”
“Yeah, what’s the ETA on breakfast?” Connie asks, and bites the entire top off the muffin. “Or, ETB?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I stopped. I could start again.”
“Please do.”
Di throws eye daggers at Connie.
“It’s okay,” Beddy says. “I’m happy to.”
And the truth is, she is. In the kitchen, unlike outside it, she acts with the certainty of its outcome.
She busies herself.
“How does it not get under our fingernails when we’re placing it?” Di says.
“What are you, a moron? We’d obviously wrap it in a plastic bag, and use that as a smearing tool.”
“Obviously.” Di rolled her eyes.
“There’s the Smell Jar, of course.”
“What’s that?”