The Lemon Sisters (Wildstone #3)(77)

“Yes, you are,” Brooke whispered back. “We’re the Lemon sisters. We survive everything and keep on ticking. There are tons of people here. Surely we can find someone to gossip about and take your mind off the silly decorations. And hey, bonus, I only see one actual clown.”

Carefully averting her gaze from said clown, Mindy eyed the crowd. “Everyone’s skinny and beautiful.”

“Yeah, so feel sorry for them because of all the Taco Tuesdays they’ve clearly missed.”

Mindy choked out a half laugh, half sob. “God, I love you.”

“Hey, look,” Brooke said. “Brit’s here.” She pointed to their nanny, standing by an ice cream bar with a beautiful young woman about her age.

“Brit’s a Capriotti,” Mindy said, locking her gaze on their nanny and her girlfriend instead of the clown. They were holding hands and smiling, and when they both reached to lick their shared ice cream at the same time, they laughed and kissed. Mindy sighed in envy. Tonight. Tonight she’d get Linc back where he belonged, she vowed. In her damn arms.

“Inappropriate,” a nearby mom said disapprovingly, eyes locked on Brittney and her girlfriend.

Mindy looked over at her in surprise. “What?”

“It’s entirely inappropriate.”

“Really?” Mindy asked. “Which part—the genuine young love, or that they’re sharing what looks to be mint chocolate chip ice cream? Because let’s be honest, mint in ice cream is entirely inappropriate. And disgusting.”

“Bite your tongue, Min,” Brooke said. “Mint ice cream is the bomb.”

“My daughter’s four,” the woman said. “I’m not prepared to explain a gay couple to her.”

“Sure.” Mindy nodded. “Because you’d rather tell her about an immortal fat guy in a red suit who lives at the North Pole and travels around the world one night a year in a sleigh driven by flying reindeer than tell her about two people in love. Makes a lot of sense.”

The woman rolled her eyes and walked off.

“Nicely done, Lemon,” Brooke said, but Mindy let out a breath and shook her head.

“That was the room mother from Millie’s class. I need wine, stat.”

“On it,” Brooke said, and walked off in search of wine.

The clown walked by Mindy and then stopped and did a double take. And then pantomimed something that Mindy didn’t quite get because her heart was suddenly pounding in her ears. “Go on,” she said, and gave a “shoo” gesture. “Nothing to see here.”

The clown gave her a slow smile, a creepy-ass smile, and came a little closer.

“No, seriously. Back off.”

The clown took another step toward her.

“Listen,” Mindy said. “Don’t mess with me, okay? Take one more step and you’ll be sorry.”

So of course the clown took one more step, just as Brooke reappeared with Mindy’s wine. “Hey, jackass,” Brooke said, stepping in front of Mindy, blocking her from the clown. “Leave her the fuck alone.”

The clown flipped Brooke off and then made an even cruder gesture toward Mindy.

“Are you kidding me?” Brooke asked, handing Mindy her wine. “You think just because you’re behind the questionable protection of a stupid clown suit that you can just blindly come on to a woman? Stop being a big fat bag of dicks and back up out of our space.”

The clown took a step into Brooke and chest-bumped her.

And Brooke punched him in his big red nose.

The clown fell backward on his ass, his nose fell off, and . . .

It was a woman, Mindy realized in shock. It was Michelle Avery, her high school mortal enemy. Michelle had been more popular than Mindy, prettier than her and smarter than her. And yet Michelle had made it her personal mission to make Mindy’s life at school a personal hell. She’d stolen Mindy’s iPod, she’d told teachers that Mindy had cheated off her, she’d tried to steal Linc on numerous occasions, and during their junior year, when Mindy and Linc had been on a break from each other, Michelle had kissed him.

Mindy hated her.

“You bitch!” Michelle screeched, and flew at Brooke, taking her by surprise.

They both hit the dirt, hard, Brooke on the bottom, appearing momentarily stunned by the clown sitting on her chest. “Get your fat ass off me!”

“Fat? How dare you!” Michelle screamed, and then they were rolling, vying for top position. Michelle pulled Brooke’s hair and swung a punch that only grazed Brooke’s jaw because Brooke managed to get an elbow in Michelle’s gut. But then Michelle pulled back her fist for another go, and from somewhere far away, Mindy heard, “Get the fuck off my sister, you bitch!”

It was her. Mindy was the one yelling, she realized, as she threw herself into the mix, trying to get between Michelle and Brooke to break things up. Instead, she took a punch meant for her sister, straight to her right eye. Stars burst in her head, and then it was lights-out.

She came to what could have been a year later, but turned out to have been only a few seconds. She was on the bottom now, drowning in a sea of bad polyester clown suit and what felt like cotton shoved down her throat.

Michelle’s clown wig had come loose, and now Mindy was going to die down here, but then suddenly they were doused in icy-cold water.