Pretty Revenge (ARC) by Emily Liebert

Author:Emily Liebert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books
Published: 2019-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

20 JORDANA

“Your old man is finally on his way out, huh?” Cathy leaned against the armrest of her sofa and coiled her legs beneath her. I sat across from her in a patchwork chair that still reeked of cat litter, even though their twenty-three-year-old Maine Coon, Dolly, passed away a few months ago. I abhor cats, mostly because my father doted on the ones we had when I was growing up. I never understood how he could display such tenderness for an animal, while being so cruel to his own family. He said it was because they didn’t talk back to him the way we did. They showed him respect. There may have been something to that. Still, I developed a strange fondness for Cathy’s cat, Dolly. She was one serious alpha bitch. “Frightening thing is, he’s not much older than I am.”

“Don’t say that.” I came straight to Cathy’s apartment from my office. I needed to talk to someone about my mother’s efforts to lure me home. Obviously, that person could not be John. And while I briefly considered confiding in Olivia—maybe just that my father was ill and that we’ve been estranged for a long time, nothing more—I knew it wouldn’t have been a prudent decision. The simple fact that she knows my mother is alive hits too close to home.

“What? Aging is a bitch. We’re all going to die at some point.”

“You should write greeting cards, you know that. By the way, you have something green wedged between your front teeth.” I couldn’t look at it dangling there for another second. Death talk or not.

“Kale. I had a great salad for lunch.” She picked it out with her nail. “So how are you feeling about everything?”

“Not good.”

“That’s not a feeling.” Usually, when Cathy puts on her family counselor hat, I find it burdensome. But not today. Today, it’s exactly what I need.

“I don’t know. I feel pissed off. Angry. Resentful. How’s that?”

“Better.” She stood up and walked toward the kitchen. “Something to drink?”

“No thank you.”

“I won’t bother asking if you want something to eat.” She returned with a glass of water for herself and fell back into the threadbare couch. “Are you sad?”

“No.”

“That was a quick reply.”

“You know I hate him.”

“I do, my love.” And I hate it even more when people call me that. I wonder why I’ve never told Cathy that it was my father’s term of endearment for me, which was disorienting because—as far as I could tell—he didn’t love much beyond his whiskey, his rifles, and his dinner on the table at precisely six o’clock or there’d be hell to pay. He used to say, “Jordana, my love, why don’t you find something to busy your pretty little self with in the backyard while your mother and I have a talk?” Then he’d shove me along with a firmly pressed hand to the bottom. As a child, those words paralyzed me, but not for long enough to stay and watch. The thing is, if you witness something with your own two eyes, then you have to admit it’s real.

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