Toil & Trouble Read online

  Why the fuck is Heather acting like she’s starring in 50 Shades of Frankenstein??

  Meanwhile, Cora just gets to stand up real straight and monologue about science and despair a lot.

  It’s such a drag.

  She’s extra sick of the scenes that she and Heather have together. For some reason, Tasha the director (who Cora has loved for years, and who might now be dead to her) keeps making them clasp each other’s faces with tender intensity and shit. She says it is to convey “the fraught parent-child tension inherent within the relationship.” Whatever. Cora has been plenty tense with her own parents, and never once has that involved tender face-clasping. If Cora bites off Heather’s annoyingly perfect nose one of these days, it’s not going to be her fault.

  Cora doesn’t get what Heather is even doing here. This isn’t high school drama club, where every once in awhile the pretty popular girl from the dance team decides she wants even more attention and hangs out with the nerds so she can show off what a totally adorable Eliza Doolittle she is or whatever.

  In a post-high-school existence, people like Heather Grimsby shouldn’t even exist. At least not in Cora’s orbit.

  And yet.

  “I heard you’re having some big freaky haunted house at your store,” Heather says one evening. Rehearsal’s over and the two of them are in front of the green room mirror. Heather’s touching up her blush.

  Meanwhile, Cora is drawing a spider on her own cheek with eyeliner, mostly just to hog mirror space. At this point, Heather Grimsby needs some thwarting at every turn, god damn it.

  “Yep,” Cora says flatly.

  “I could drop by after rehearsal. It’s the first time we’re practicing with full makeup, so I’ll be hella scary. I’ll totally be a part of your little thing. I bet it will be really cute. Like, gross-cute. Whatever. The kids will love it.”

  “Yeah, uh, hella no thanks,” Cora deadpans.

  Heather starts brushing her hair in silence. Thank God.

  “You know, I think you’re a pretty fierce Dr. Frankenstein,” Heather says. God, what is up with her? “You do such a good job with all those boring monologues and stuff.”

  “You know, I think you’re, like, really good at writhing all over the floor like you’re trying to hump it,” Cora says. Her Heather-mocking cadence is spot on, if she does say so herself. “Like, who cares about an authentic portrayal of human suffering when you can sexualize the shit out of it and show everyone what a total hottie you are, right?”

  Cora glances at Heather’s face in the mirror. Heather looks kind of stricken. Uh oh. Big bad bitchface is gonna throw a tantrum.

  “That is so not what I’m doing,” Heather says frostily.

  “Uh, okay then.”

  “I can’t help it if I have a good body or whatever. I am seriously committed to my yogalates. And I’m sorry that the script calls for me to be mostly naked at first, but that wasn’t my decision—”

  “Please! It’s not that, and your body isn’t that great, Miss Humble.” (Kind of a lie, but an extremely necessary lie considering the circumstances.) “It’s what you’re doing. You’re always all: uhhh-uhh—UHHHH—”

  Amber looks up from where she’s scribbling notes in a script on the other side of the room.

  What, so a girl can’t just nonchalantly make some scornful sex noises of mockery without getting everybody’s attention?

  “Because I haven’t acquired the capacity for speech yet, freak!” Heather cries.

  Cora glares at her. “Don’t even worry about it; I have it on good authority from society that hot naked women are actually at their best without the capacity for speech. Just keep doing what you’re doing— I bet the guys in the audience will be whipping it out at the sight of you—”

  Heather grabs her backpack off the counter. It knocks into Cora’s arm, and the eighth leg of her cheek spider winds up squiggling all the way to her nose.

  “Okay, fine!” Heather spits. “I have tried to be nice to you, but you’re obviously never going to forgive me for doing better at auditions than you and earning this role fair and square, so whatever. Whatever. I give up.”

  Cora laughs shortly. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Cora says airily. “You just suck at being nice, if this has been you being nice.”

  “Oh, God! Jealous much?”

  “Annoying much?”

  “Copying me much?”

  “Fuck you, Frankenbitch,” Cora snarls. “How’s that for original?”

  “Actually, technically, you’re Frankenbitch,” Heather says saccharinely, swooshing right into Cora’s personal space. Cora can smell her peachy lipgloss. “I’m Frankenbitch’s monster. Learn the play.”

  Cora watches her go, her shiny brown hair swishing with every step.

  Fucking fuckity fuck fuck her.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cora mutters. “No wonder Howie fucking forsook the entire female gender after dating that. Like I’d let her come to the haunted house. She is the last person I would ever invite to fucking anything concerning my life outside of this play.” Amber is staring at her. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Amber says. “That was just, I don’t know, very Elizabeth Bennet of you to say.”

  “Did Elizabeth Bennet ever cut a bitch?” Cora asks sweetly.

  “Scholars have argued on the matter,” Amber replies.

  “And I know you did not just call Heather my Mr. Darcy, because you’re not delusional.”

  “At the most, I tastefully implied it.”

  “Yeah, well, your Mr. Darcy is Mitch, and it’s frankly offensive to me that you haven’t ridden that all the way to Pound Town.”

  “We’re platonic friends, and please don’t ever say Pound Town to me again. That’s horrible.”

  “I bet you he literally has a notebook somewhere with your name and a bunch of hearts scribbled in it.”

  “He does not,” Amber says severely, her cheeks reddening.

  Cora cackles.

  “Besides,” Amber adds, “if we did ... get together or whatever—not that I want to!—”

  She so wants to.

  “—wouldn’t it put Howie in a totally awkward position to have his two best friends dating? I don’t want to freak him out.”

  “Howie freaks out exponentially less now that he and Arthur are banging on the regular,” Cora says.

  “That’s true, actually,” Amber reflects. “Honestly, sometimes I kind of want to write Arthur a thank you note, but I don’t think anyone makes a Thanks For Boinking My Bestie card.”

  Cora laughs. “Homemake that shit, girl.”

  “Seriously, though,” Amber says, sobering. “I don’t like Mitch.”

  “And I want to marry Heather and raise a thousand slutty babies with her,” Cora retorts. Then, just to make sure she really hit the point home: “See, we both said completely untrue things just then.”

  “Sluttiness is a fictitious product of the patriarchy used to control women through shame and sexual double standards,” Amber scolds.

  “I know.” Cora groans and covers her face with her hands. “She’s turning me evil. And patriarchy compliant. God, I hate her.”

  Amber mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “I ship it.”

  Cora wisely chooses to ignore that one. Lest she choke a bitch.

  +

  “A chainsaw? Why in the world do you need a chainsaw?”

  It is, Howie understands, a little shady of him to spend like eighty percent of his living time at Arthur’s and only come home when he needs something from his mommy.

  Especially when that something is a big giant murder tool.

  But, well, this is dire.

  This is the serious business.

  “Dad used to chop down trees and shit all the time,” Howie says. “He had a certain Ron Swansonocity.”

  “That’s true,” Mom says. “I suppose there might be one out in the shed. Honestly, Howie, I haven’t thought about chainsaws
in ... possibly ever.”

  Howie scoffs. “You’re such a Tom Haverford.”

  “High praise. What’s with this new interest in chainsaws, exactly?”

  “Uh,” Howie says. “We’re throwing the most hideous haunted house in arts ‘n crafts history, custom designed by a gross-brained ten year old, so that we can get his mom, the queen bee of the local crafting scene, to write a favorable post about us on her super popular blog that is called, I regret to inform you, The Yarn Yarn.”

  “... well, okay,” Mom says, and leaves the room.

  If only everyone involved could walk away so easily.

  +

  Instead, he and Amber and Mitch tromp through the frosty backyard grass to the woodshed.

  “Boom,” Mitch says, pointing at a rusty old contraption at the back of the shed. “Chainsaw.”

  They are going to have to fight their way through so many framed posters from Disney movies and old Nerf guns to make it there.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually even contemplating the idea of bringing a chainsaw to a party full of third graders,” Amber says. Ah, Amber. Forever the voice of reason.

  “It’s no big. We’ll just take the chain saw fluid out,” Howie says, “or turn off the ... activation switch.”

  “You have no idea how a chainsaw works, do you?” Amber says.

  “Do you?” Howie retorts.

  Amber huffs. “I know there are a bunch of sharp edges all over it even if you do take out the ... activation ... fluids ...”

  All three of them stare worriedly at the chainsaw.

  “Who are these kids anyway?” Amber says. “When we were kids, all we needed was The Monster Mash to keep us entertained for, like, all of October.”

  “You. To keep you entertained. I was just doing my bff duty.”

  “You got really good at the zombie twirl. Don’t deny it.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think sweet dance moves are the answer this time,” Howie says.

  “You know,” Mitch says, “it’s really mean for you to keep talking about it and then not show me the dance. When are you going to dance again??”

  “Never,” Howie and Amber say in unison.

  Mitch shakes his head woefully. “That’s messed up.”

  “It’s a messed up world, Mitchy,” Howie says.

  “And we’ve totally wandered from the point,” Amber says.

  “Oh yeah,” Howie says, staring gloomily at the chainsaw.

  “You know,” Mitch says, “I bet we could make a totally realistic chainsaw replica.”

  “Oh yeah?” says Howie.

  “Yeah! How hard can it be? You’re a professional craftsman, basically.”

  True, Howie hasn’t actually ever put his own arts ‘n crafts skills to use – those who can’t do ... sell stuff? – but Mitch is kind of talking some sense right now. Making a ‘chainsaw’ is obviously way better than the deadly alternative.

  “Mitchell,” Amber says with an admiring sigh, “you just saved the lives of scores of children.”

  “Well, ya know,” Mitch says, and shrugs humbly. “I do what I can.”

  +

  The three of them spend all afternoon crafting an imitation chainsaw out of an old Nerf gun, a toy broadsword, and a truly alarming amount of tin foil.

  The end result is, well ...

  Underwhelming.

  “On the plus side,” Mom says diplomatically, upon the unveiling of their hideous creation (now Howie gets how Frankenstein feels), “I bet it will be very convincing in the dark.”

  “I bet it would look scary in a strobe light,” Mitch says. “Everything looks scary in a strobe light.”

  “That’s true,” Amber says. She nudges Howie. “Remember that middle school dance we went to with the strobe light that you said made me look like Wednesday Addams?”

  “No way,” Mitch protests cheerfully. “You’d look pretty in any kind of light.”

  “Shut up, dork,” Amber says, elbowing him lightly in the side. Who knew the elbow could be such a flirtatious body part?

  “Just sayin’, Ambie,” Mitch replies, beaming at her.

  “Don’t call me that,” Amber says, somehow making it into the verbal equivalent of fluttering her eyelashes flirtatiously.

  Mom gives Howie a look that says, When will those two idiots kiss each other? It is a facial contortion that basically everyone in the same vicinity as Amber and Mitch has to don at some point.

  Howie shrugs. The great mystery of all the ages.

  “Um,” Amber says, clearing her throat. Busted. “So ... strobe light.”

  “You might consider,” Mom says, “getting a fog machine too. You know. Just to be thorough.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Howie says. “Okay. Anything looks convincing in the cloak of foggy darkness, right?”

  Mom stares at the ‘chainsaw’ for a moment longer.

  “Convincing-ish,” she says.

  +

  “You spent hours on that?” Arthur says that night, staring at ... well, at what is clearly an old Nerf gun with a plastic sword cunningly fastened onto it and covered in tinfoil.

  “As Amber wisely pointed out,” Howie replies, “the alternative is bringing a giant bladey choppy thing into a room full of children.”

  “That’s fair,” Arthur acknowledges.

  “Anyway, get this,” Howie continues, trying to sound motivational. “We get a strobe light and a fog machine. Everything will look all mysterious and trippy and shit, and no one will be able to fact-check us for accuracy! Not when they’re standing in the dark with a bunch of scary-ass monsters running around.”

  “I just don’t want to incur the wrath of Tyler.”

  “Tyler is ten.”

  “I know,” Arthur says. “It’s complicated.”

  +

  The next day, Arthur calls a staff meeting.

  Once everybody’s seated around the kitchen table, he sets something down with a thunk! Howie leans forward to see—

  A plastic chainsaw.

  Oh. Right. Because those are things that exist.

  “It was twelve dollars at the Halloween shop,” Arthur says.

  “Oh,” Howie says, and tries not to look wounded.

  “I just thought it might be a spot more ... durable,” he adds apologetically.

  “No, no,” Howie says. “Smart move, bro.”

  “All right, good.”

  Howie wonders if it would be a touch too over-the-top to have a ceremony of remembrance for the homemade chainsaw.