KS SS02 - Conspiracy by Dana Stabenow Page B

really hadn’t noticed this until the week before, when Auntie Vi had stopped by to have an ingrown hair removed from her neck. She’d walked into the house instead of the clinic, and the subsequent rant had had lasted ten very long minutes, at a decibel level that had their ears ringing for an hour after she had stamped out in high dudgeon. It did sort of get their attention, though, and they looked around themselves with new eyes.
    “If we clean it up, we’re probably going to have to paint,” Mark said.
    Luke winced. “Maybe we could just hose it down.”
    Peter said bitterly, “If she was so upset about the mess, why didn’t Auntie stay here and do it? Cleaning is women’s work.”
    “That’s what we’re hoping for,” Mark said. “All we have to do is make it look halfway decent. Just so she don’t run screaming as loud as Auntie Vi.”
    Luke and Peter couldn’t argue with that.
    “Come on,” Mark said, squaring heroic shoulders. “I’ll start on the clothes.”
    The scattered jeans and tees went in the washer whether they were dirty or not because at this point everything had been laying on the floor so long it was impossible to distinguish dirty from clean. Dishes and pots and pans were pitched into the sink with such verve that one might be forgiven the suspicion that Mark was hoping they’d break, obviating the necessity of washing them. Nothing wrong with eating off paper plates.
    Upstairs, beds were stripped. At first, Luke was only going to turn Matt’s mattress, on the off chance that his suit with Laurel prospered, and then something got into him and he turned all four. He went so far as to rummage around for sheets without holes in them, and even aired them in the dryer with a Downy sheet for half an hour before he remade the beds. There was no complete set, and he only hoped that if Matt got Laurel as far as the bed that she wouldn’t be too put off by the dull blue flannel bottom sheet, the magenta cotton top sheet, the pillow cases that ranged from Scots plaid to tie-die, and the orange comforter with the pumpkins on it. Their mother had had a thing for pumpkins.
    Peter donned rubber gloves and attacked both bathrooms with a sponge and a bottle of Clorox. For days afterward, just walking into either brought tears to the eye. “Hey, guys,” he said, raising his voice. “Did you know the upstairs bathroom sink is green?”
    They brought brooms in from the garage and swept everything left on the floor into a pile in the center of the living room, from which they cherry-picked stuff they wanted to keep. The rest was bundled into three trash bags and stowed in the garage.
    Three hours later, the three brothers stood regarding the result with not a little pride. “At least we’re not dwarves,” Peter said.
    “Nope,” Luke said.
    “Not that I ever want to do that ever again,” Peter said.
    “Nope,” Luke said.
    “Wow,” Mark said, looking at his watch. “Matt’s been gone three hours.”
    “Geez,” Peter said.
    They stood in uneasy silence for a few moments. Luke said, “Auntie Vi wouldn’t have shot Laurel or anything, would she?”
    They looked at each other, uneasy. Auntie Vi was an acknowledged force with which to be reckoned. There was no telling what she would do.
    “Maybe Matt needs help,” Luke said.
    “Maybe we should go see,” Peter said.
    “Just to be sure,” Mark said.
    The three of them headed as one to the door, disentangled themselves so as to get through it one at a time, and went up the street to the Riverside Café. They started out walking, soon broke into a trot, and were running by the time they got to their destination. They burst in, the door banging back against the wall. The four people at the counter looked up in elaborate surprise.
    “That not a way to come in,” Auntie Vi said severely. “What manners!”
    “Yeah,” Laurel said tartly, “and if you broke that door you’re paying for it.”
    “I would say so,” Matt said, very much