Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

“Oh, I dunno,” drawled another deputy. “Did a fair enough job of shooting up this here underpass.”

They all examined the erratic line of scoring in the cement over their heads.

“Can’t believe no one was killed!” exclaimed a young officer, his Adam’s apple rebounding with each word.

Mickey faced Luci and got the full force of her reproachful look over the shoulder of the EMT applying first aid to her scratches. In her lap was a fragment of pig snout. That’s when he knew for sure that twinge behind his eyes was a headache in the making.

“The press boys are asking if it’s a terrorist attack,” the young deputy added.

“It would be a mistake for any of us to jump to conclusions,” Mickey said, speaking with pain-induced passion. He rubbed his temples and scowled at the media hounds hovering avidly on the fringes of their much-too-public crime scene.

Somewhere just out of his reach, he knew something was bothering him about the attack. He groped towards it, but his subconscious refused to cough it up.

“Well, whatever the motive was, you were all damn lucky,” the cop said.

“So were they,” Mickey pointed out, looking down this time—at the jagged line of bullets scores in the roadway, marks that traced a path perilously close to the Yugo’s tire skid marks.

An airline official provided Luci with several plastic sacks that urged her to “fly with us” and a couple of large gray bins used to contain luggage that couldn’t maintain structural integrity through the loading and unloading process. She felt Mickey watching her as she examined each item of clothing for damage, then assigned it a bin or bag. He was frowning again. She sighed. It was possible she’d never see his smile again, which was a pity but not a surprise. Being a Seymour did have its serious downside.

Which brought her mother to mind. One of the family peculiarities—among a host of them—was that Seymour women didn’t marry. Luci’s mother hadn’t married, but she did get knocked up. It was a curious fact that when spineless, uninteresting Seymour men married their sturdy, plain, no nonsense—except in their choice of husband—wives, the coupling failed to dilute the family peculiarities by even a jot. There was no family history on female couplings, since Lila was the first to try it out, so Luci pretty much had to wing it in the theory department of her own peculiarities. She did know she was the only Seymour who seemed to be aware that the world couldn’t see through Seymour eyes. It was as if her mother’s genes had been unable to wholly combine with her father’s, leaving Luci forever fractured inside.

Until this week, Luci hadn’t given much thought to the man who had fathered her. Why should she when he was never mentioned? In some dim recess of her mind, she’d just assumed she was the result of a semi-immaculate conception and got on with her life. It was hard for non-Seymours to imagine their parents having sex, so she didn’t feel she’d been unreasonable to avoid pondering the question for most of her twenty-seven years. Yes, other people had two parents, but Seymours weren’t other people. There were times when she wasn’t sure they even were people.

She’d probably have gone on not thinking about her sperm donor if Lila hadn’t brought it up. When Lila made her twice-yearly call, Luci had mentioned the wedding invitation. With an uncharacteristic intensity, Lila had urged her not to attend, sounding almost motherly in her concern. Luci had probed this strange behavior further, causing Lila to make a fatal slip of the tongue and admit, “Your father is there and he doesn’t know about you.”

Since she refused to slip further details, including a name, for fear of what said father would do if he found out Lila had kept something as important as a daughter from him, Luci was forced to proceed to New Orleans without passing “Go” or collecting any more information.

Her aunts had to know who the sperm donor was and if approached right might spill what they knew. Getting useful information out of Seymour women was not like squeezing blood out of rock—it was harder. Useless information spilled forth in an endless fountain that couldn’t be turned off. Luci hadn’t counted on the non-Seymour Mickey being sent to collect her, though she wasn’t surprised her aunts had lost track of a few years of her life and assigned her the role of flower girl. Attention to detail was not a Seymour trait.

Now, Mickey paced towards her, his expression as wary as if he approached a bomb. He learned fast. She watched through her lashes as she thrust her fingers through several bullet holes in a pair of jeans and waggled her fingers at him.

“How do you suppose the airline knew this was the perfect moment not to lose my luggage?”

Mickey grinned. “It’s a gift, like knowing when to park in the garage instead of a no parking zone.”

Luci basked in the unexpected approval of the grin. “Too bad about your car.”

“Too bad about your luggage.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I’m afraid Blossom’s a goner.”

“Blossom?” Mickey reached for his tie, but it was gone. “You name your luggage?”

Luci nodded. “Though he—”

“Blossom’s a he?”

“Yes—though he didn’t start out as a he or I wouldn’t have called him Blossom. A few years ago I took him, or rather her, to visit my cousin George. He used to be a she, too. And when I got home, well, I could tell he wasn’t a she anymore.” She gave an elegant shrug. “This is the nineties. Her sexual orientation is his business, not mine.”

Mickey opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and asked, “And—your other piece of luggage?”

Luci arched her brows. “Samsonite.”

“Oh.” It seemed inadequate, but a woman in a short, sexy dress passed by, providing a well-needed distraction.

Luci followed his appreciative gaze, noting the quick smile he exchanged with the woman. It passed a lot of voltage in a very