Polkacide Read Free Page B

basis." Mom snorted and shook her
head. She still wore her black dress from the funeral, though the
veil was gone from her face. "It would be torture ."
    " Worse than torture." Baba Tereska
smacked my leg with her withered right hand. Her raspy voice
crackled with raw hatred. "More like going to Hell for all eternity ."
    Mom nodded and scowled.
" Worse than
Hell."
    I couldn't argue with them.
"What was Dad thinking ? Why on Earth would he put me and Peg in charge?"
    "Ask his mother over there." Mom leaned
forward and gestured with her elbow at Baba Tereska. "Ask the woman
who brought his sorry ass into the world."
    "At least I didn't marry him." Baba
snickered and bumped me with her bony shoulder. "If anybody understands his
twisted mind, it's the woman who helped twist it."
    I couldn't help smiling. Mom
and Baba had an unconventional relationship; they were closer than
most ex-wives and mothers-in-law I'd known. They also rode each
other mercilessly, especially when it came to Polish Lou--but the
abuse was always good-natured.
    "Maybe he was trying to be
fair." Mom pushed the glider back and forth on its metal track,
gazing up at the stars. "Instead of just leaving everything to
Peg."
    "If he'd wanted to be fair,
he wouldn't have left his wife and family for that floozy. " Baba banged her knobby knee
against my thigh.
    "Maybe he wanted to force us
to accept her." Mom reached up and patted her dark brown hair,
which was wrapped in a bun at the back. She'd started coloring it
since the last time I'd visited, about a year ago.
    "Forget it." Baba jolted the
glider to a stop. "He knew we'd never accept Miss Peggy." She laughed harshly, then
started moving the glider back and forth again.
    "The heck with Peg." I
fiddled with the black clutch purse on my lap, wishing it were full
of cigarettes. "What about me ? Why would Dad pick me ?"
    Baba Tereska gave me a funny
look out of the corners of her icy blue eyes. "Maybe he thought
you'd be good at
it. Managing a business. "
    "Like the nightclub you and
Luke have in L.A.," said Mom.
    The mention of that place
made my stomach knot up in my belly. There was a lot they didn't
know about my club. A lot I didn't want to think about. "Since
I live in L.A.,
how could Dad expect me to work with Peg back here ?"
    Mom shrugged. "Maybe he was
hoping you'd move back." Her voice trailed off; she'd been after me
for years to give up L.A. and move back to New Krakow.
    "Well, that's not gonna happen." When Mom
and Baba slid the glider forward again, I jumped off, leaving
behind my clutch purse. I felt like I needed some breathing
room.
    "But it won't be forever,"
said Mom. "The will stipulated one week."
    "One week too many." I
muttered the words to myself.
    "It's just until
Polkapourri," said Mom. "Then you can run off again if you want
to."
    Standing at the top of the
front steps, looking out at Baba's scrappy little yard in the
moonlight, I sighed. When it came to using guilt as a weapon, Mom
had no equal.
    She was right about the
will, though. The "co-queen" arrangement wasn't designed to be
permanent. Peg and I had to work together for one week, during the
busiest time of year for Lou's polka empire. Just one week, till
the 25 th Annual Polkapourri Festival was over, at which time we could
go our separate ways. At that point, if we chose, we could pick
someone else to take our jobs and keep things rolling.
    Or we could cash in. We could
liquidate the empire and split the proceeds fifty-fifty.
    That was an outcome that
appealed to me in a big way. Except for the part about working with
Polish Peg for a week.
    "I don't think I can do it."
I said it over my shoulder without looking back at the women on the
glider. "Even if I could stay in town for a week, I don't think I
could take her for that long."
    "You can do anything you put your mind
to," said Mom.
    "If we can go fifteen years without killing Miss Peggy," said
Baba, "I think you can manage one
week ."
    Without thinking, I started
chewing on my