Page 62 of Nash Falls

He knocked on the door. “Angie, it’s Et.”

The door was whisked open, and Angie stood there dressed in purple pajamas with pink bunny slippers.

“Et!”

She motioned him into the room and over to a table set up with teacups and a large pot. There were four chairs around the table, and three of them were occupied by large stuffed animals, including a zebra.

She had him sit down in the fourth chair and poured Rhett out a cup of cold tea, tapping the pot four times in front of him and mouthing words that he knew were part of her ritualistic incanting. He drank the cold tea and bit into a cookie from a plate offered him. Then he watched as she poured out cups of cold tea for her friends and fed the zebra a cookie.

“Why you here?” she asked her stepbrother.

“To see Dad.”

Her smile faded.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

She pointed to the door and shook her head fiercely. The expression on her face was so bitter and potentially explosive that Rhett thought she might be about to have a traumatic episode.

Didn’t they give Angie her meds today?

“What is it?”

She pointed and shook her head again.

Then it hit him. “Are you saying Dad doesn’t come to see you?”

She nodded and said, “And I hate Indy too. She abitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch.”

“Yeah, Mindy is a piece of work.”

Angie put the plate of cookies down, picked up a sketch pad and pencil, and began drawing stick figures on it. Her features relaxed and she hummed away, seemingly forgetting that he was even there.

Rhett slowly got up and left. Outside Angie’s room he watched as his stepmother sauntered down the hall. She was wearing the tiniest of string bikinis and carried a beach bag in one hand and a magazine in the other. Her body was long and lean and fit and quite tanned.

“What are you doing here?” Mindy Temple said in an unfriendly tone.

“The commander ordered me up. Heading to the pool to get over the jet lag?”

“No, I’m going to go mow the grass.”

He glanced at her small bits of clothing. “Lucky grounds crew.”

Mindy passed so close by him that her scent cascaded over him.

“In your dreams, Rhett. In yourwetdreams.”

“I don’t actually dream much anymore. How was Cannes? Win anything?”

“I won your daddy’s affections. And who knows, you might have competition in the heir department soon.” She made a rounding motion over her flat belly.

“I always enjoy a good game,” he replied. “Keeps me on my toes.”

She drew closer. “I bet you’d like to keep me onmytoes, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re off the market, Mindy. Even by my standards.”

Her expression became far less flippant and far more strategic. “The thing is, I don’t want to have a kid. It screws up your body and I don’t want to blimp up. It’s why I’m on the pill. But that’s not the point.”