Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” Greta said.
“And this is Helen. They don’t usually throw things at guests.”
Helen was small but muscular, and when they held out a hand, their grin was feral. Greta got the distinct impression that perhaps they wished they could throw things at guests often.
“You won’t tell, will you?” they said to Greta.
“Uh, no? Tell what?”
“About the deadly glitter,” they whispered.
“Oh. No. Um, what’s king cake?”
“So,” Helen began, leaning in and fixing her with an intent gaze.
But Carys slung an arm over their shoulder and said, “Can we, like, sit down first?”
They made their way to the living room through the kitchen, and Veronica and Helen stripped off their aprons and sat down.
“You know Mardi Gras?” Helen asked.
Greta nodded.
“King cake is sold for Carnival. You bake a little baby inside, and whoever gets the baby in their slice gets luck and good fortune for the year. Or whatever. But the point is that me and Veronica made bank to last, like, six months selling king cakes just for Mardi Gras last year. So we’re just making sure our recipe is still bomb and experimenting with…”
They frowned and looked over at Veronica.
“Pizzazz,” Veronica finished. “That little something that will set Eleventh House King Cakes apart from the rest.”
“Last year, our babies were gators,” Helen said.
“The year before that, we painted our boxes with chalkboard paint so we could write people’s names and addresses on them. It was cute, but, damn.”
“We loaded that first batch in the van, and by the time we got to the first address, the chalk had all rubbed off and we had no fucking idea whose was whose,” Helen finished. “Bad call.”
“This year,” Veronica said, “we’re experimenting with tying a glitter-balloon to each box so when someone opens the door, they see it floating there all pretty-like.”
“Veronica’s afraid they’ll pop and blind people, but really I think it’ll just add a little sparkle to people’s houses.”
Carys just shook her head at her roommates. “If you get glitter all over people’s houses, they will never order from you again. That shit lasts for decades. Seriously, it’s, like, archaeological. PS, please tell me that you didn’t have one explode and that’s what made you worried, Ronnie.”
Veronica and Helen exchanged sidelong looks.
“It’s totally fine. We cleaned it up,” Veronica said finally.
“Just tell me it wasn’t in the kitchen,” Carys said hopefully. After a beat of silence, she tried, “Tell me the cabinets were closed?”
“They were!” Helen said triumphantly.
Carys turned to Greta. “Two years ago, we needed purple glitter for our Mardi Gras costumes. We thought we were brilliant because we got these huge bags of glitter wholesale online. When we slit open the box, we must’ve cut through the bag somehow, so when we opened the box, this mushroom cloud of glitter poofs out onto the floor. It was there for, like, eight months. It got in and on everything, and we were cursing the existence of glitter. Until recently, apparently.”
She raised a stern eyebrow at Veronica and Helen, but there didn’t seem to be ire behind it.
“I’m Black and trans in the South. I’m resilient,” Veronica said with a sniff.
“We were just experimenting,” Helen muttered, winking at Veronica.
“I have total faith that y’all won’t make me clean up glitter no matter what you do,” Carys said, then blew kisses at her housemates and grabbed Greta’s hand. “We’re gonna go hang out in my room. Happy caking.”
“Nice to meet you,” Greta said before following Carys.
Helen saluted her, and Veronica waved elegant fingers with a knowing look.
Carys’ room was painted midnight blue, and mobiles of geometric shapes hung from the ceiling. She had a large window hanging on the wall that she used as a white board—it was scrawled with equations, dates, and symbols Greta couldn’t guess at.
A clothes rack burst with colors, patterns, and textures, and several hats hung on hooks above it. She had a standing desk, and the legs were encrusted with…teeth?
Greta leaned closer to inspect it.
“They’re real,” Carys said. “Things decompose really quickly here because of the heat, so animals that die get stripped to the bone. I think their teeth are so beautiful.”
Never having given the teeth of animals much thought beyond not wanting them to sink into her flesh, Greta was obliged to agree now that she was confronted with them in this context. They were of all different sizes and shapes, some curved, some serrated, and some ground flat.
“It’s like what we were talking about the other day—what’s the difference between animals and plants when a plant has teeth, basically,” Greta said.
Carys nodded and hopped onto her bed, leaning against the headboard. It was a stately affair, with carved posts and diaphanous fabric spilling from the top.
Carys pulled out a glass pipe and some weed. She packed a bowl and held out the pipe and a lighter to Greta. “Want some?”