Page 29 of The Man Next Door
“How about ifwe ring the door bell and leave a bag of crap on his step,” Izzie suggested.
“No way. I’m not going anywhere near dog crap,” I argued. “Last time we did that, I was the one who had to put the crap in the bag.”
We were deep in conversation about Jimmy McNaughton, who had made the grave mistake of calling Izzie fat. Anyone who knew Izzie knew that if you pissed her off, you might as well kill yourself because she’d come for you. And in my opinion, Jimmy deserved everything that was coming to him. Yes, Izzie was definitely curvy, but she wasn’t fat. How dare he say that.
“Let’s try to be original,” Izzie said. “If his mother sees us, she’ll run after us with a broom and one of us could end up paralyzed like that kid.” Izzie had started this rumor that Mrs. McNaughton had hit a boy with her broom and had paralyzed him from the waist down. Yet she could never tell anyone who the boy was because it was apparently a secret. No one believed her of course. She always made up stories. There was the one where Stephen King was her uncle. And the one where her little brother, Abe, had seven toes on one foot. Poor little guy had kids pulling his shoes and socks off for a week. There were always stories.
Izzie leaned back on the lounge chair, and closed her eyes. I took the opportunity to study her, not because I was secretly in love with her or anything, just because she was what I wished I was, all curves and flawless skin under her skimpy pink bikini. I was all chubbiness and freckles. My Irish mom had blessed me with those.
I pulled my gaze away, and stared out into the distance, toward the front of the yard. Izzie’s dad often parked his transport truck on the front yard. Most trailers had broken down pickups, quads, dirt bikes, BMX, pick-up trucks, campers, mosquito tents and kids’ toys scampered about, and Izzie’s place was no exception. It was a mess.
I spotted Pete coming toward us, and I let out an audible sigh. “Your uncle is here again.”
Pete was annoying as hell, always coming around and hanging around us. I wondered why he wasn’t hanging out with adults his own age. He was twenty-two for crying out loud. Did he not have a life? A James Dean wannabe, he always wore torn jeans and t-shirts, and a cigarette was permanently affixed to his bottom lip. And he usually carried a can of beer. Budweizer was his drink of choice.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he cheered. “What’s up?”
That’s what he called his niece…gorgeous.I thought it was completely inappropriate. But that was Pete. He was a weirdo. He and Izzie were good pals, often played video games together and fished at the lake nearby. I personally thought he was a jerk, but I would have never admitted that to Izzie.
Her eyes popped open and she smiled up at him. “Hey, loser.”
He grinned, shoved her legs out of the way and sat next to her without apology. “What are you girls up to?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Izzie told him. “Well, not nothing. We were trying to think of a way to get back at Jimmy McNaughton.”
“Why? What did he do? He didn’t try to get into your pants, did he?”
“He called her fat,” I chimed in.
Pete laughed. “The kid probably just has a crush on you, Izzie.”
“Well, if that’s the case, he’s an idiot.”
“So listen,” he said. “I saw you two at Foster’s place the other day. I don’t want you there, Izzie.”
Izzie sat up straighter, her breasts practically spilling out of her top. “What? Why not?”
“He’s bad news.”
I spotted a hint of a smile on her mouth when she whispered, “How?”
“Well, you know Simon’s little sister… how she got killed by a drunk driver. That was him… Gavin Foster.”
Izzie’s mouth stretched into an O, and my heart sank at Pete’s words. I had a hard time believing them. How could Gavin do that? How could he drive drunk and kill someone?
Izzie and I were both speechless.
“So you stay away from him, all right?”
She didn’t make any promises. She just smiled.
Pete slapped Izzie’s thigh and stood. “I’m gonna go grab a beer from your dad’s fridge.”
I was shaken. Izzie leaned back, carefree. She didn’t seem to care at all about Simon’s little sister. “So… about Jimmy…” she said.
I could practically see the gears in her little evil cunning mind turning.
She sat up straighter. “I’ve got an idea.”
“What?” I asked, curious.
An impish grin traced her lips. “You’ll see.”
That was Izzie Reed for you, always making you wait for the good stuff, making you wonder.
She was such a tease.
