SCABS

Isabella Ornot

Description

Growing up in the shadow of their mother's alcoholism, Angie and Jan witnessed frequent volatile outbursts. They coined the term SCABS (Sudden Crazy Ass Bitch Syndrome) to define it, but they feared that someday they would be like their mother. Together they vowed to walk a different path. Angie emerged as a strong aggressive journalist who strode into the world while Jan was timid and ran from confrontation. Angie's best friend, Gloria, is an award winning investigative reporter who disappears while researching a real estate fraud case. When she fails to show up at her high school class reunion, Angie is determined to find her. As the two sisters embark on an often humorous search, they encounter a violent bondsman, a scam artist, a murderer for hire, and a Meth manufacturer. As Jan has repeated Scab outbursts, she finds she is more like her mother than she realized. As the mystery around Gloria evolves, the bonds that tie the sisters together will either help them or break. Noah is a sexy ex-Navy Seal turned vigilante with a tendency for murder followed by hot sex. After a chance encounter with Jan, he inserts himself into her life. When she wakes up naked in bed with Noah, Jan can't remember what happened. She suddenly finds she is in a fight for her life.

Sujets

• Women Sleuths
• Detective
• Mystery
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 02 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977221919
• Langue: English

Extrait

SCABS Sudden Crazy Ass Bitch Syndrome All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2020 Isabella Ornot v3.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-2191-9
Cover Photo © 2020 www.gettyimages.com .. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 1
If you pick a scab, it bleeds
One of my fears of being raised by a psychotic bitch is that she will somehow slip underneath my skin and come pouring out my mouth at any moment. It has happened to me on only a few occasions but every time it does, it scares the bejesus out of me. I have struggled my whole life to not be like my mother but in moments of extreme stress, she just explodes out of me. I have had at least 2 episodes since his death and cannot seem to control it. Counseling didn’t work, I was interrupting my psychiatrist’s naptime by talking during my sessions. Self -control didn’t work because I have none. Even my cardiologist knows I will be eating soft vanilla ice cream once a week despite that it might kill me. Praying partially worked, when I screamed out Gods’ name in uncontrollable rage, I wet my pants which caused me to be embarrassed instead of angry. Humor can diffuse the situation but it’s hard to find anything funny when I am enraged. A reoccurring thought won’t leave me that because I am Italian and my mother’s daughter, it is very possible I have inherited SCABS -Sudden Crazy Ass Bitch Syndrome.
From all appearances my mother would seem perfectly normal. Her short brown hair was always in a perfect bouffant as she religiously went to the beauty parlor on Tuesday mornings. Bringing me with her, I would sit under the beautician’s table wishing someday I could be as beautiful as my mom. Her tanned skin was smooth and vibrant and her large blue eyes could mesmerize any man. During my parent’s monthly card party, I would watch my mom flirt into winning bridge hand after bridge hand by smiling sweetly and blinking those baby blues.
When I was five, she taught me how to make a Muddled Old Fashion. By the age of six, I had mastered Martini’s, Manhattan’s, and Rob Roy’s, and was promoted to the party bartender. After a successful night of Bridge and after the last of their friends left, my mom would pour herself all over my dad and they would begin kissing passionately. But by the age of seven, I witnessed my mom’s first SCABS episode. I had finished serving all their friends cocktails and was in the kitchen rinsing out glasses and playing with my good friends- the whiskey, vermouth and vodka bottles. We were toasting to a successful evening of bartending. No one mentioned that I couldn’t drink at the party, perhaps a slight oversight on my mom’s part. Just as I finished pouring my extra dry Martini with a three olive garnish, she popped into the kitchen for some fresh ice. Innocently I smiled at her and raised my glass in cheer. It was then that she exploded. In two steps, she crossed the kitchen and slapped me right off of the counter. My glass broke on the way down and cut my hand. I was laying on the floor bleeding and dazed because I had no idea what I had done wrong. Then the screaming began and dishes and glasses were being smashed around me. My dad rushed into the kitchen and was assaulted by a flying coffeepot and broom. Apparently, this was his fault.
She stormed back into the living room crying and begging everyone to leave because I was such an awful child. My dad rinsed my bleeding hand and wrapped a bandage tightly around my palm. After kissing me on the forehead, he sent me to bed before she got back into the kitchen. The tirade restarted as she charged at him screaming in Italian with words I later learned the hard way that I was not allowed to say. I sat on the stairs and peeked into the kitchen to see my dad’s’ arms wrapped around her in a bear hug until she finally succumbed sobbing softly onto his shoulder. My brothers and sister sat in the hallway at the top of the stairs listening like the statues outside our church.
As I sniffled past them holding the bandage on my hand, my brother Tony snickered, "And you thought you were so special."
Later that night in the darkness of our bedroom, my sister whispered to me, "You are special and don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t."
Then she added, "Not even me."
Her words were comforting because I was pretty sure she hated me. Eventually I fell asleep but the feeling of betrayal was burned into me.
CHAPTER 2
At this moment, I am on the way to the airport to pick up my sister for her class reunion in my mom’s old Taurus 4 door as my sister cannot climb into my conversion van. An avid cyclist is sharing my lane of the road, and for the past two miles I have passed him pulling out of my lane and around him back into my lane. But for the past 2 stop lights, I have watched him blow thru them as if they didn’t exist. Of course he has the same right to the road as I do, blah, blah, blah, but he should have to follow the same rules and stop for the lights as well. By the third light, a slight case of road rage was swelling up inside of me and I beeped at him and gave him a glare.
Unfortunately, by the fourth light, he was yelling at me through my passenger window about his right to the road. His curly brown hair and sweaty man face was crammed into a lemon head helmet with a matching leotard and he vaguely resembled Big Bird wearing something I saw a hooker flaunt in the movie "Flash Dance". His spit was spraying all over my passenger seat and while I wasn’t in SCAB mode yet, I could feel her creeping in. I tried my best Rodney King "Can’t we all get along" look but he was ignoring it and somewhere in his heated argument he mistakenly called me an Ugly Bitch.
Incredulous, I asked him, "Did you really call me an ugly bitch?"
Smugly he replied, "Yes."
And there she was! My mother put the car in park and was unbuckling my seat belt from her imaginary spot deep inside of me. My eyes got that nasty, angry, insane look and I repeatedly opened my passenger door knocking the crap out of him until he fell over. I heard someone screaming, "I’ll show you Ugly Bitch," then realized it was me. Cars started beeping since the light had turned green and I snapped back to reality. A few people passed me giving me a thumbs up while lemon head cyclist tried to stand up and get back on his bike. He was shaking so badly that he pushed his bike to the side of the road and sat down on the curb. Meanwhile, I sheepishly put the car back into drive, turned on the radio and slowly drove to the airport.
My name is Jan because, as my mother used to say, she ran out of names she liked so she named me after the month I was born in. If I had been born a week later, my name would have been Feb. I have green eyes and used to be a blond. Since I became a Gramma, I let my hair go gray. Occasionally my husband, Andy, who is 6’1" to my 5’1", looks down at my hair and comments, "You know we can afford for you to get your hair colored." I do know, but I just don’t care to. I am very proud to be a mom and now I am very proud to be a Gramma. Plus the gray hair goes along with the name and the saggy boobs. It is what I am.
I was late to pick up my sister at the airport. Her 35th class reunion is this weekend and she asked me to attend it with her since her husband Tim was working a gala event and she knew I’d be a lot more fun anyways. I wasn’t crazy about attending her class reunion but the fact that it was going to be held at the Seneca Casino and that my two best friends, "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" slot machines would be there, convinced me to go.
My sister and I are total opposites. There is day and night, the sun and the moon and then there is Angie and me. Six years and an eternity separate us. Angela was awakened by the Woman’s Liberation Movement in high school, while I was busy taking applications for my future husband. I loved Gilinda the good witch of the East in the Wizard of Oz while she idolized the Wicked Witch from the West. She’ll tell you she’s a bitch while I try to deceive you that I’m not. But in reality, we are both bitches born from a crazy ass bitch. Our only real similarity is our distinct sense of humor born out of the same twisted DNA and making us the original ‘Twisted Sisters’.
Angie is the oldest of the four of us and stands about 5’5", bright blue eyes and a vocabulary like a hip hop singer. She is never afraid of confrontation. In fact, at times, I think she craves it.
At the age of 18 she left our family home and never looked back. Attending Ball