April had washed her hands and face but otherwise didn't look or smell very good. Her lovely suit and blouse of yesterday were not that clean either, after the long day she'd put in. She raised a hand to her hair, flat as a pancake and definitely in need of a stylist.
Five is a very important number to the Chinese. Five flavors, five elements, five humors. Five times Skinny Dragon called on April's cell phone to yell at her about it. Skinny had seen an earlier news clip of April and Mike on the way to the hospital in Mike's Camaro. The Dragon said all her friends had seen April with blood on her face sitting next to the man Skinny Dragon had already told them was history. Why show up on TV looking so bad? Why cause poor old mother to lose face. Why so thin? Sai's friends had said April look too thin.
And by the way, if worm daughter and Spanish ghost planned to get married, she would hang herself in shame was her final jab.
April was actually pleased with the fourth call. The suicide threat meant the Dragon was in the final stages of resistance. In the fifth call came the bribe. Skinny told April to come home right away. She would make dinner herself. Very good dinner. But April wouldn't go anywhere near it.
The only hunger she was aware of at the moment was for Mike and a quiet place to be alone. Frankly, she didn't think it would be so terrible to sit across the breakfast table from him and hear him try to get out of whatever happened or didn't happen with Carla for the rest of his life. She could bone up on the Chinese cure for excessive heat. Maybe it was something really nasty.
"Home," she agreed.
Leslie Glass
