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“I am not amused, Elizabeth,” Alice said woodenly, as she stood in front of the red painted door, her arms crossed defensively. “I don’t care what your brother says. This is not my idea of a good time. A dinner with Gladys Jones? In the house I used to own? She’s probably going to give me botulism.”
In truth, Alice didn’t want to see FP. She was beyond irritated that Elizabeth’s decision to arrive at her Baptism with the newly-minted Sheriff Jones in tow had caused her investigation on The Farm to end sooner than she’d intended, not the least because FP had spent quality time texting her the names and numbers of therapists that he thought she’d need, and apologizing profusely for ‘abandoning her during her time of crisis’, and of course the fact that she’d had to be given CPR did not couple well with her claims that she was an FBI informant. Elizabeth had believed her, but she was relatively certain FP had, and did not.
Which had led them to today. Charles had contacted her and informed her that he was going to be in town, and wanted to know if they could have a family dinner, even though the thought of having any sort of contact at all with either his father or that hideous woman made Alice want to drown herself in the damn river, she had found herself unwilling to refuse her son, and the damn moron that was FP had fallen over himself for the chance to spy a glimpse of Alice in the flesh. Alice had tried to warn him that she was bringing a guest, but he had assumed that she meant Elizabeth, and she had not been able to dissuade him of that assumption.
“I think they’re ordering pizza,” Betty said. Alice bit back a sigh. She gazed heavenward. “Look, don’t you want Mr. Jones to get a chance to meet Charles? You can’t possibly still be mad he arrested Polly?”
“Right,” Alice snapped. “Why would that possibly annoy me? Because I get the joy of two squalling infants under my care when I never wanted to deal with them in the first place? Grandma-Mommy Alice...they are going to end up on daytime television. And I don’t understand why we have to be here, or why we have to have dinner at all,” she ranted. “Can’t he just visit the Sheriff in his jurisdiction as a member of law enforcement?”
“Mom--”
“I know, Elizabeth,” she sighed. She raked her fingers through her hair. “I would never want to be the one to deny Charles a family dinner, since it’s what he so clearly wants. I just wish that I didn’t have to see her.”
Alice had never liked Gladys Jones. She had even less desire to see her than she’d ever had, now that she had wormed her way back into FP’s life, and was “the mother of his children”. Well.
It was a pity that he hadn’t bothered to listen to her when she had warned him of the reason behind her desire to ‘come over and see what he’d done to the place’.
“Charles was very specific,” Betty reminded her. “He wants her there.”
“I can’t ever imagine why,” she said, her lips pursed. She sighed. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. I don’t know how long I trust Hermione and Fred around two impressionable children.”
Alice had had no choice but to allow Fred and Hermione to babysit the twins, given that there was absolutely no way in hell she was worsening this experience for herself by adding squalling, cult raised, brats to it. She had a constant headache due to them. God only knew what negative influences Gladys could cause. She wouldn’t risk it.
With gritted teeth, Alice rang the doorbell.
***
“Would you care to explain to me where your wife is?” Alice demanded. “What in God’s name have you done to this house, FP? Where is my dining room table?”
“Gladys replaced it with a pool table,” he said, and he shrugged. “I don’t know where she is. Around? Want to shoot a round?”
She drew in a deep breath, and steepled her fingers together. Alice wanted to take his service revolver and fire a round in her temple, not play a game of pool with FP in what had once been her formal dining room. The most irritating thing about the debacle was that he seemed entirely sincere.
“Why would I want to partake in frivolities with you?”
“Al, don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like what?” She demanded, and her brows rose to alarming heights. “Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? Being here? Getting to watch you and Gladys play happy families because I didn’t have the heart to tell Charles that I didn’t want to be here? And then you have the absolute gall to ask me if I want to shoot pool with you? Why? Because you’ve decided that we’re friends?”
“Alice…”
“If they’re playing happy families,” an unfamiliar voice chimed in, and Alice jumped about a mile, “they’re sure as hell doing a shitty job.”
“Who taught you how to speak like that?” FP demanded.
The girl scowled. “Why do you care? You never came looking for me. It’s your own fault she’s being investigated.”
Alice blinked. FP’s expression was one of utter stupefaction. That Girl rolled her eyes.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t know,” Alice hissed. “What is the child talking about, FP? Are you telling me that I dragged myself and Elizabeth here to be unwitting pawns in an insane scheme? After you had the nerve to lecture me about putting myself in danger?”
“I don’t--”
“Please,” Jellybean said. “She bought this house with cash and she doesn’t even have a GED. That didn’t raise suspicions with you?”
Alice felt her migraine coming back.
“I thought it was from selling her garage in Toledo!”
“She came back with me because she got a tip that she was going to get popped by the Feds for running drugs with me as her runner,” she informed him. “Figured that they’d think they’d have the wrong person since you were the Sheriff. Guess she was too dumb to figure out who was investigating her.”
“Jelly--”
“What is wrong with you?” Alice thundered. “Oh my God, FP. Do you have any idea how much money I got from Gladys? In cash? She paid for this house outright. I knew there was something suspicious about her coming back and I tried to tell you, but do you listen? No. And now you are being investigated by the FBI because of it?”
“Not him,” the girl said. “Just her.”
“And you knew about this?” FP demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Agent Smith said that he had a plan that would make it look natural,” Jellybean said, rolling her eyes. “I told him that a family dinner would just blow up in everyone’s faces. Jughead thinks it will be fodder for his novel.”
Alice drew in a deep breath. She was not at all amused by this. “Well. I am so glad that after I became his informant, Agent Smith decides that a good way to repay me is letting me be a form of bait in his attempts to catch your drug cabal leading mother.” She sighed. “You know what? I will play that game of pool with you.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” she said, her tone brusque. “I’ll play. Rack ‘em up.”