“You bitch!” I shrieked.

She was pulling herself to her feet and wiping blood from her lip. She looked at the blood mixed with raindrops on her hand then she stared at me.

“You busted my lip!” she squealed.

“I’m gonna bust more than that!” I screamed then demanded, “Joe, let me go!”

“Come on, girls,” I heard Dad say, “get in Vinnie’s car.”

“Mom –” Keira called.

“Car, Keirry, sweetie. Please.” Bea said.

“I’m gonna sue!” Susie shouted.

Joe was trying to move me toward the car but was having trouble since I was fighting like a she-cat to get at Susie. Fighting so hard even big Joe Callahan couldn’t subdue me.

“If you’re gonna sue then I best give you something good to sue me for!” I threatened.

“Cal, everything all right here?” a man asked, running up and holding a jacket over his very blond head and I saw it was Chip Judd, the man who put in my security system and screwed up the wiring so Joe had to fix it.

“You let her break you?” Susie asked Joe, ignoring Chip and pointing a finger at me. “Her?” she repeated, her voice filled with disgust, her mascara melting down her face and another rumble of thunder filled the air accompanied by a flash of lightning.

“Vi, quit fightin’, get in the car,” Joe muttered in my ear.

“You once were magnificent. You’re nothin’ now. The whole town’s talkin’ about it,” Susie insanely taunted Joe.

“Shut your mouth, Susie Shepherd,” a woman with long dark hair and a fabulous figure (and I knew this because her sundress was plastered to her body by the rain and the wind which had sprung up and was lashing all around us) rushed forward to stand by Chip. “No one’s talkin’ that trash but you and Tina.” The brunette turned to Joe and me. “We’re all real happy for you Cal.”

There you go. Explanation of why everyone kept staring at us and mostly Joe.

“Josie, do me favor, babe, don’t get involved,” Chip said to the woman.

“Like she’ll listen to you,” Susie’s voice was dripping with derision, “you’re so pussy whipped you’re not even a man.”

Acting on manly instinct at such a slur uttered at one of his brethren, Joe stopped moving. Chip pulled himself up to his full height which was pretty tall and he dropped his arms and the jacket but it was Josie who acted.

“You bitch!” she shrieked, lunged forward and shoved Susie in the chest causing Susie to step back on her foot. “Don’t you talk about my man that way.”

“Don’t you touch me!” Susie shrieked back.

“Susie, get gone,” Joe warned.

“Fuck you, Joe Callahan!” Susie snapped.

“You wish!” Josie yelled. “Everyone knows you tried to get in there and nothin’ goin’. Now everyone knows you and Tina are talkin’ trash about Cal and Violet because you made your play and he didn’t like what he got when he had his piece of you so he threw it away and Tina’s been livin’ by him yonks and couldn’t catch his eye.” She looked at me. “Can’t deny, we’re all real curious, the whole town is, but it don’t take a psychiatrist to see you’re hot, Cal’s hot, hot attracts hot so, you know, hot moves in next door, shit’s gonna happen.”

I’d stopped struggling because I was staring at Josie and now trying not to giggle as I got the rest of why everyone kept staring at Joe, me and the girls and I found it didn’t annoy me anymore. It would hit me much later that Susie Shepherd was one of Joe’s ex-lovers but when it did, it didn’t hit me hard. She was gorgeous for one so that explained that. She was a bitch for another and that explained why Joe took what he wanted and then didn’t come back for more. Therefore it wasn’t worth discussion, something which I decided Joe and I would never have and we never did.

“Um…” I started, “you know me but I don’t…”

“Josie Judd,” she said, coming forward seemingly impervious to the rain, hand extended, “Chip’s my husband.” I shook her hand and shoved wet hair out of my face while blinking against the fat drops of rain hitting my eyes as she stepped back and kept talking. “Sorry Chip fucked up your wiring. He tried real hard to figure that shit out, spent all night goin’ over Cal’s plans but Cal’s a security genius. My Chip, he’s good but he isn’t a genius or I’d be livin’ in LA gettin’ a pedicure every week.”

“Oh, please, this is gonna make me sick,” Susie griped and Josie whirled on her.

“Then go away and by the way,” Josie said, “Chip likes my pussy but it’s my mouth he loves and that’s because I love his big, gorgeous dick. You stop bein’ such a bitch, Susie, and use your mouth for good not bad, you might get a man with a beautiful dick who’ll give you some on a regular basis instead of runnin’ as fast as they can to get away from you. Only man you could hold onto was Colt and he was only fuckin’ you ‘cause you reminded him of Feb.”

“Oh Jesus,” Chip mumbled.

I was thinking this was a lot of information most of which I didn’t want to know but I really didn’t want my daughters to know it.

I twisted my neck slightly and whispered over the wind to Joe, “Please tell me my daughters are no longer here.”

“Gone, buddy,” Joe muttered and he didn’t sound pissed, he sounded like he wanted to laugh.

“Bea?” I asked.

“Gone,” Joe answered.

“Thank God,” I murmured.

“He likes your trashy mouth,” Susie shot back, my eyes turned to see she looked fit to be tied but she was also not stupid enough to go so far as to make it get physical again. She’d learned that lesson twice in the last five minutes. Now she was just trying to save face.

“Only one’s got a trashy mouth is you, Susie Shepherd,” Josie retorted and put a hand to her hitched hip and threw out a foot and I tensed because this stance boded bad tidings in Catfight Land. Josie didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that it was pouring buckets and the wind was whipping her hair and dress all around, she was in the zone. “I don’t know what you said to Violet to make her take you down like that but I do know you better watch your ass. You got enemies and we’re not talkin’ enemies like Denny Lowe. We’re talkin’ women who are up to here,” she lifted a straightened out hand to her chin and continued, “with your and Tina’s shit and we ain’t takin’ it anymore.”

She’d mentioned Dennis Lowe, the serial killer that made Feb and Colt’s life a living hell and that was when I knew who Susie Shepherd was. I’d read about her in the articles about that whole mess. At the end, Dennis Lowe had held her hostage and shot her.

This shocked me. Something like that happened to me, I would likely not be wandering strip malls, randomly picking fights with my ex-lover’s girlfriends. Hell, I’d never do that.

That was just me though. Maybe she was experiencing post-traumatic stress or something.

“Josie –” I started.

“You the one toilet papered Tina’s yard?” Susie, eyes to Josie, asked over me.

“Nope but I’ll give you ten guesses as to who did it and I’ll bet you still won’t figure it out ‘cause there’s probably a hundred women in this town who’d do it,” Josie answered. “Both of you tryin’ to cozy up to our men, talkin’ shit about what we do and wear, makin’ trouble,” Josie said. “You know, Susie, anyone shot me because I was a bitch, I’d learn my lesson. Maybe you should take some of your Daddy’s money, go somewhere quiet and reflect. For, I don’t know, say,” she paused then finished, “a hundred years?”

Susie paled and whispered over the wind, “I can’t believe you’d say that to me.”

“And I can’t believe you’d get in Violet’s face when her brother was murdered three weeks ago!” Josie snapped. “Let me set things straight for you, Susie. Your Daddy’s money didn’t give you carte blanche to traipse around town bein’ like you are and you can’t trade on the tragedy of what happened with Denny Lowe to be like you are. We all know you sold Colt and Feb’s story to that reporter. We didn’t think much of you before, now we don’t think anything at all.”

“Josie –” Chip started, Josie jerked her head to look at her husband and lifted a hand.

“I’m done,” she stated, turned to me, switched topics and turned off her attitude so quickly I wasn’t keeping up. “You two come over for dinner. Maybe I’ll get Colt and Feb to come over too. I’ll make my pot roast. That’s a winter dish but my pot roast kicks ass. I’ll call,” she offered this invitation again like she wasn’t standing in the pouring rain and like she hadn’t just laid it out for Susie Shepherd in an extremely brutal way.

She came up to me and gave me a cheek kiss even though Joe still had me in his arms and I didn’t resist and cheek-kissed her back mostly because I was a little scared of her. Then she moved away, smiled at Joe and trotted over to her husband while I could do nothing but stare.

“Sorry, Cal,” Chip muttered.

“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” Joe replied and since his arms had loosened, I pulled a bit away and looked up at him to see he was looking at Susie.

“Later, Vi,” Chip called.

“Bye Chip,” I said and Chip and Josie moved away.

“You done or is Vi gonna have to put up with your shit every time she sees you?” Joe asked and I looked to see he was speaking to Susie.

“You gonna threaten me like you did Tina?” Susie sneered and I stared again since I couldn’t believe after that scene that she still had a sneer left in her.

“Nope, just not gonna pull her off you next time,” Joe replied.

“Whatever,” Susie muttered and started to turn away.

“Why?” Joe asked and Susie stopped.

“What?” she asked back.

“Why are you such a fuckin’ bitch? Honest to God, I don’t get it. You have everything and you always had.”

Susie’s face twisted briefly, a flash of pain then gone.

Then she snapped, “Not everything, Cal. Didn’t have a Mom.”

I almost felt sorry for her before Cal replied, “No excuse, woman, I didn’t either.”

They locked eyes and I was acutely aware that I was enduring their staring contest while standing in the wind and rain with a possible tornado approaching.

“Joe,” I whispered and Joe’s arms tensed around me.

“Learn from today, Susie,” Joe advised.

She rolled her eyes, flicked out a hand and repeated, “Whatever.”

“She won’t learn from today,” Joe muttered, let me go, took my hand and turned us toward the Mustang.

I noticed Vinnie and Gary’s cars were gone. We’d had to take three to fit everyone in what with Dad coming along, we were one over. This turned into a good thing as they had plenty of room to get everyone in and they’d all disappeared.

Joe moved me to the passenger side, bleeping the locks as he went.

He had the door open and I was about to fold in when we heard Susie call.

“Cal!”

We both looked at her.

“Don’t piss me off, Susie,” Joe warned.

She pulled her wet hair from her face and held it at the back of her head. Her eyes moved to me then back to Joe.

“I can make a man happy,” she announced.

“Seriously?” I whispered, my body getting tense and Joe put pressure on my back to push me in the car.

“I don’t mean you!” she shouted and her head jerked to the side and back to the front swiftly, reflexively, making her look like she’d suffered an invisible blow and something about that made me get even tenser but not with anger, with surprising compassion.

She was struggling with something and whatever it was, it was big.

“Why can’t I –” she started but Joe interrupted her.

“Jesus Christ, it’s rainin’, Susie. What the fuck?” Joe asked.

“Joe, listen to her,” I whispered urgently, my eyes glued to Susie.

But at Joe’s impatience she’d lost it. Her face closed down and she turned away.

“Forget it,” she shouted over the wind. Lifting a hand and dropping it in a weirdly defeated way, she jogged away, her ruined-sandaled feet making splashes in the puddles as she ran until she was under the awning that came out over most of the sidewalk in front of the strip mall and then she kept running until I lost sight of her because Joe pressed me into the car.

He slammed the door behind me, jogged around the hood as I wiped wet off my face ineffectually since my hands were just as wet and he folded in beside me.

“We’re goin’ to Florida, buddy, first fuckin’ chance we get,” Joe declared the minute he slammed his door. He hadn’t even put the key in the ignition and we were both dripping rainwater into the seats and carpet.