“Oh yes we can. You call up the UT police and you tell them someone slashed your tires and that you want to see the footage. College campuses don’t like that shit going on. You should have filed an incident report the second you saw it.”
“And told them what?” she asked, disbelieving. “That rival bikers rode onto campus? Are we so desperate we’re going to sicUTPDon them?”
Maggie frowned. “I don’t like it. Schools are supposed to be safe. And,” she added, “if we turned this into a school issue” – she twirled a finger through the air – “then it stops being a gang war and starts being a case of the Carpathians terrorizing civilians. Stephens looks bad, the cops crack down, the Dogs aren’t Public Enemy Number One anymore.”
Ava grinned reluctantly. “Always working an angle, huh?”
“An angle that keeps you safe!”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“This time!”
Ava made acalm downgesture and earned the mother stink-eye for it.
“I’m half-convinced Dad did it himself,” Ava said. “Trying to keep me at school and away from…here.”
Maggie sat back with a satisfied smile. “I think your dad’s about to come to terms withhere. He’s starting to put things in perspective.”
“I’m guessing he had a little help with that.”
“He might have.”
Ava felt a flutter in her chest, something akin to hope that frightened and thrilled her. She hadn’t hoped for anything in five years. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, meaning it.
Maggie shrugged. “It’s the least I can do after getting your arch nemesis to write your recommendation letter.”
“Nothing like convincing my dad to accept my thirty-five-year-old as a fix for deceit.”
They locked eyes.
They burst into deranged giggles.
They laughed until Ava’s ribs ached. “God, Mom,” she gasped as she caught her breath. “How did life get so messed up?”
Maggie dabbed at the corners of her eyes and exhaled, quieting, gathering her composure. “Baby, it’s not messed up,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Just a little bumpy.”
Ava let her head fall back against the chair. “I don’t think I’m supposed to want to be back home.”
Maggie’s lips pursed, telling her what she thought of that New Age sentiment. “But do you?”
Ava nodded. “So much.”
Maggie nodded.
“I’m the first loser to ever leave college the exact same person who went into it.”
Maggie grinned. “Whoever said that was a bad thing?”
The clip of high heels alerted them to someone’s approach. Bonita brought the smell of bottled jasmine into the office with her, the perfume lifting off her cotton dress and black cardigan. She was in all black, her spike-heel above-the-knee boots gleaming in the sunlight, the big square frames of her sunglasses setting her face off in elegant contrast.
“Girls,” she said brightly, in her beautiful, accented English. “I didn’t think I’d find you both here.Buenas tardes.”
“Buenas tardes,”Ava and Maggie echoed.
Maggie said, grinning, “You’re awful dressed up.”
“I was supposed to have lunch with Carol” – James’s sister, who Bonita would rather die than risk offending with anything less than obvious style – “and we were going to have our hair done, but Stephanie at the salon, she turned me away! Can you believe that?” She crossed in front of Ava and settled into the other extra chair, hands clasped on one leather-covered knee. “Ten years I go there to have my hair styled, and she can’t take me anymore. I’m not on the client list, she says, and she has to cut back on her customers because of her back.”
