Those Plum Girls

by writerchick35

Stephanie has to take in her mother as a skip. Of course, she can never have it easy and unsurprisingly, Helen gives her a run for her money- literally. A Plum family Gen fic, with no pairings, but references and similar relationships to those portrayed in the books. Warning for non-specific alcoholism, slapstick violence and two uses of non-TV appropriate words.

A/N: I just started reading these books about a month ago since my Mom gave me her's to read! I'm in love, obviously, but I've read #'s 2, 4, 10, 11, 18 and 19 and while all the books are standalone/kinda the same, so I didn't think it mattered, this maybe has been a situation that's already happened in the books. Sorry in advance if its a rehash for anyone. I haven't written fanfiction in a few years so I think I might be rusty, but I tried to keep the "voice" of the books going and include a mini-mystery, but all mistakes are obviously mine. Criticism is welcome!

Disclaimer: Well if this made money it sure wouldn't be on fanfiction dot net.

My name is Stephanie Plum. I'm a bond enforcement agent, better known as a bounty hunter, and I work for my rat cousin Vinnie's bail bonds company in Trenton, New Jersey. All in all, the work's not great, not terrible, and I guess the same kind of comfortable drudgery that cubicle work falls into. Most of Vinnie's skips are small-time; some sex feind who's into stealing icing for his pleasure at the bakery, bottom feeders who think they're mobbed up for real, and a whole category of vehicular charges- driving under the influence, driving distracted, driving stolen (car or plates), driving with a goat in shotgun, those types of deals. Most people who fail to appear do it probably because they just forget when they were booked in to court in the first place, on account of life is busy, and even felons have jobs and kids. They usually come pretty peacefully, although there's always a few runners and a couple of trigger-happy psychos in the mix there. I've been shot at, tasered, poisoned, and peed on, but I figure it's not worse that having someone's husband with their hand up my skirt at the office. At least being a bounty hunter gives me a little bit more leverage, and people think I'm a lot tougher and much more put together than I really am.

In reality, I'm in the ballpark of thirty, coming up into the ballpark of thirty-five, and I weigh about that much, plus one hundred. I live in an apartment with one bedroom, one bathroom, and one hamster roommate named Rex, and I'm single, sort of. I grew up in the Chambersburg neighborhood in Trenton, which we all call the Burg. My family still lives there, in a double family home with a tiny square for a backyard that my niece, Mary Alice, who likes to pretend she's a horse, is almost outgrowing being able to gallop around. My family's Mary Alice, her sisters Lisa and Angie, my sister Valerie and her new husband Albert, my parents, and my Grandma Mazur, who recently signed up for a Twitter account as "hungarianhottie24". That's her birth year, in case you were wondering.

Saturday nights are family nights, and we all congregate for dinner at my mother's table, and eat pot roast, mashed potatoes, and pineapple upside down cake for dessert. Grandma, Valerie and Albert usually split a bottle of red, my Dad has a beer, and I share chocolate milk with Mary Alice,much to my mother's chagrin. Usually by the time Mary Alice and I clink our glasses, though, my mother is neck deep in Jack Daniels and at this point passed out on the living room couch. Sane people might think she has a drinking problem, which wouldn't be totally wrong, but we're from Jersey and that's just how things go. A good, Catholic girl grows up to marry a man with a steady job and good benefits, pops out some kids, maybe gets a dog, puts the kids through school and always has a cold beer and hot lingere ready for her man when he comes home at night. If he does at all, but we don't talk about that either in the Burg, at least not to anyone's face.

Tonight, the topic of conversation was Joyce Barnhardt's husband number seven's sister, Alice Reynolds, who had been shacking up with Jack Grosse, a Trenton cop who I'd known growing up. We had been in communion together as kids, and gotten to know each other biblically speaking a couple of decades later. I ran into Jack chasing skips, and while I couldn't count on him to reenact the book of Genesis with me anymore, he had been first on the scene for my tougher brushes with the criminal elements.

"Well, poor Margaret. Only God knows where she went wrong.", my mother tutted. She's a little old fashioned. Okay, maybe more than a little.

"Well now, he was the one who couldn't keep in between himself, just one woman, and the Lord. I never had that problem with your Grandpa Mazur, but boy I don't know what the Lord would have thought of some of the things that man did with his tongue, bless him." Grandma Mazur crossed herself and my mother started in on a Long Island iced tea. Albert's face had redenned to match the tablecloth. My Grandpa Mazur had gone to the big McDonald's in the sky a few years back, ans we assumed he made it to the drive thru line like all the other good souls and wasn't in fry cook hell. A slightly uncomfortable silence settled over the table, but like a true born in-the-blood Burg family, we soldiered through it without so much of a grimace. Mary Alice started telling us a story about her friends at school, and I started drinking my glass of chocolate milk.

"So.", my father began. Instantly, we fell silent. My father usually speaks in one word grunts which might be words, only when completely necessary. Otherwise, he's sacked out on the couch watching TV, and occasionally, he might smile, but usually he's glaring down Grandma Mazur or shaking his head and probably regretting all of ours' existence. Last thing I remember, he's said " I love you." and "I'm sorry.", which are fine by me because those are really the most important things parents say, anyway.

He turned towards my mother, and took a sip from his beer. "How was court?"

Now, that piqued my interest. My mother was the perfect Burg housewife, drowning her sorrows in my lack of a marriage and five children in ironing and alcohol. The only court she'd ever made an appearance in was the Court of Public Opinion, and it was usually to agree that public opinion about her daughter the bounty hunter was generally poor.

"What court? What on earth trouble can you even get into at your age?", Grandma Mazur asked the question we were all dying to, her eyes narrowed at the head of the table.

"Well you get into plenty at yours.", my mother muttered.

"It's nothing, everyone. Just a little misunderstanding.", she told us cheerily, downing her glass.

"Morelli just pulled me over, oh, must have been last week. He thought I was driving drunk, but it was probably just to ask how you were doing, Stephanie. Joe was very understanding. Nothing big, but it's graduation season so the mayor has a quota of-", she paused to hiccup. "Excuse me. Tickets! Morelli has a quota of tickets! See, it's nothing! Just a silly talk...and did I mention you should call him, Stephanie?"

She was slurring, but then again it was eight o'clock, and about high time I headed out, usually. Morelli was another Trenton cop, who hadn't been shacking up with the sister of an ex-husband of Joyce Barnhardt's, on account of he was shacking up with me most weekdays. Morelli men were known sex feinds, and not the kind who liked to steal icing and make crappy porn, either. Luckily, Joe was more the kind of sex feind who knew how to do some incredible things with his fingers and his tongue, and all at once, too. He'd taken my virginity, I'd run him over with my car, he had a house inherited from his Aunt and Police health insurance and pension, so by my mother's calculation, he was my best shot at marrying and ticking off every neat little box on that Burg girl's checklist. Problem was, when Joe wasn't inside me, he was getting under my skin and it wasn't such a sexy feeling. My job was a thorn in his side, since I got by on pure luck and probably divine intervention.

God had to be taking pity on me to bail me out as many times as he has, and I don't mean the guy in the sky holding court over purgatory either. I mean Ranger, Vinnie's other, better, bounty hunter. His job description is to take in skips beyond my capabilities, which is most of them. But that comes with some extras written into the fine print, too, like a little trick he did with his pinky finger to wake me up in the morning, and his penchant to leave things behind, GPS trackers in my pockets and extra cars outside my apartment should I need them, on account of mine keep getting blown up. Ranger's government name was Ricardo Carlos Manoso and he ran a semi-legitemate private security business called Rangeman when he wasn't sneaking into my pants and keeping me safe. His behavior usually ran between creepy and comforting, but then again, he was a solid six feet plus of pure sultry Cuban hotness and I didn't mind it that much.

"A DUI when you put our house up for collateral isn't nothing, Helen.", said my father. "Please tell me you haven't skipped again."

"You skipped?", I couldn't help but screech. Skips were up my alley, and I'd be damned if my mother, of all people was right here under my nose and I was eating her cake and taking it home to feed Morelli on weekends when she had skipped! There was also the matter of her bond supposedly being high enough to pay three straight months of my rent, and all this was going on while I used her laundry machine. The disregard for the law would have had even my friend and sometimes partner Lula, who used to be a 'ho and had a real knack for B & E, gag.

"Again?", Valerie practically squeaked.

"Would you two relax? You act like I'm some kind of felon. I'm not a real failure to appear until tomorrow, since you know the court closes at five and so I go in at six in the morning and book myself again with that nice man at the desk, Johnny. His mother was in my Confirmation class, you know? So Johnny gives me back my receipt and I take that to Vinnie and he just writes me a new check for the month. It's like a credit card. Like you know Macy's, they have a card like that.", she told us, taking sips from one of those airplane bottles of liquor I strongly suspected she had hidden in the pocket of her linen cargo skirt.

"I love Macy's! They have sparkly backpacks! Mom said I can one the next time we go!", Angie announced. I thougt Angie had the right MO for living in the Burg. Absorb the information and deny the consequences.

"Yes. We're getting backpacks for all of you girls.", said Albert, looking pained. Albert is a lawyer who is about as good at his job as I am at mine. Competent, sometimes, but not flashy about it and owing a lot of favors to a whole panthenon of Gods. Albert looks like a naked mole rat, but he saved Valerie from a future of being both fat and unmarried, which my mother hopes Morelli will save me from, too.

"They only made me put up the house because I'm a flight risk. What does that mean, Stephanie? I think my passport is expired. Nope, no flying for me."

I rolled my eyes and silently apologized to God for being rude to my mother. Her eyes rolled back in her head with another sip of the good stuff courtesy of American Airlines.

"That means probably you won't show up for court. I saw on TV. I think it's time you stop drinking, hon. You're at that age where well, gravity's gonna start doing it's work and then, you're also not fun when you're drunk anymore. You're not fun when you're sober, either, but you know times have changed and they have some drugs for that now.", Grandma Mazur said flippantly, as though this was as normal as Valerie having to tell Mary Alice horses went to heaven after they became too big not to trample the flowers in her Grandma's garden. It was normal for us, I guess.

"Sandra Molnar has some of those happy pills. They look like Skittles and I was tasting colors that weren't even in the rainbow when she had them at the last Catholic Women's League mixer. Rumor is she gets them from Liz Mackevic, but you never know. I think it's that Sally Bagocki. She was good at chemistry before women were allowed to get jobs doing that sort of thing and she made moonshine with her daddy when we were in school. Wouldn't surprise me!"

Valerie looked horrified her children's candy might be drugs, and my father shook his head and blew air out between pursed lips.

"That is something.", he said, more I guess to remind himself he was still here breathing in the real world and hadn't been dropped into the next universe over.

"You shut up. I'm fine drinking. Alcohol's a preservative, not drinking is why you're so shriveled up.", my mother deadpanned. It was enough to make me look up from my dessert plate and almost forget that my mother was a skip who nobody, not Vinnie, not Morelli, and not Connie, who put together my files at Vincent Plum Bail Bonds every morning, had bothered to mention. Not even Johnny who signed my body receipts when I brought in FTAs thought it was worth it to inform me my own mother was out putting the house I grew up in up for bond, or my best friend Mary Lou Stankovic, who usually told me these things. Probably they thought I'd try to go after her and why risk another Stephanie Plum disaster on a chronic FTA who brought herself in every month with a smile?

Somehow, my mother had also managed to escape the Burg's rumor mill, which made me wonder what people thought she was doing going to the Trenton Police office every month. Handing out cookies and coffee with the Junior League?

Grandma Mazur clucked her tongue. "Well, if its gonna be one of those nights, Valerie, maybe you and Al should get an early start getting home."

Grandma Mazur cracked her aincient knuckles one by one under the table and fixed my mother with the eye. She just laughed.

"What am I, thirteen? A woman can't drink anymore? I don't know what all of you are on, acting like this. I'll reschedule tomorrow, for goodness sakes."

"Yeah, but until then, you're a felon.", I suddenly blurred out. My mouth has these moments sometimes, when I just can't keep it in.

"Yeah...so Steph's gotta take you in.", Albert told her. Them his mouth caught up to his brain, too. " We could get the girls taken away if people catch on that we have them around felons.", he reasoned.

Valerie shook her head, signalling that was definitely the wrong answer. "I mean, Stephanie stands to make maybe ten grand off your head, so maybe she can drive you in tomorrow?', Albert tried again. Now it was my turn to shake my head furiously in his direction.

Luckily, Grandma had us all covered. "Helen, a woman can drink, but you're a hot mess.", she said. Then, she took Mary Alice's tumbler of chocolate milk and emptied it all over my mother's face.

"No fair! I wanted that!", Mary Alice moaned.

To say all hell broke loose immediately afterwards would be like saying the sun was just the spark at the end of a match. My mother let out an inhuman noise that sounded like rubber on asphalt, which made my father nealy choke on his microwaved cannoli. Mary Alice was still whining after her lost chocolate milk and Valerie, who was normally so forcibly serene and perfectly repressed she resembled the Virgin Mary statues which littered front stoops all over the Burg, was surveying the scene with her face reddening right along with Albert's. They were truly a match made in probably not heaven, but definitely close to there. The girls thought having anything thrown in someone's face was the gold standard of comedy, and I was concerned Lisa, who has athsma, might stop breathing and turn blue with the way she was screaming with laughter. I watched with slack-jawed horror.

My worry for my niece was apparently enough that I barely noticed my mother careen accross the kitchen, take my keys from the center island, and whip herself out the door. I heard my Uncle Sandor's powder blue '53 Buick rev up in the driveway, and my heart plummeted to the floor.

"Oh, my God!"

"Oh man, that's grand theft, plus she's drunk.", Albert muttered. Valerie smacked the back of her hand into his chest. " What? She's really racking up the vehicular offences! I'm pretty sure by the end of tonight even Vinnie won't bond her out. She'll have to go to the other one."

I put up my hand to stop Albert before Valerie became twice-divorced.

"Keys. I need- a- a car.", I sputtered out.

"Take the cab.", my father said, not missing a beat as he tossed me the keys accross the table, and then I was off.

Luckily for me, my mother had probably been tippling since lunch, and so she wasn't doing too hot at speeding away. Instead, she had backed the Buick into Mr. Wozniak's yellow Oldsmobile, and was sitting not two houses away revving it further into the driver's side door on reverse. Mr. Wozniak and his latest twenty-year-old girlfriend luckily were vacationing in Miami and I wouldn't have to deal with him throwing his dentures at my head and cursing my bloodline.

Probably, she would get tired of the car not moving and stagger back in the house announcing Uncle Sandor and his car good-for-nothing's and promptly passing out on the couch. That was how these episodes tended to go. Besides when she was out, I could cuff her and take her in,and have a real good face-to-face with good ol' Johnny about aiding my mother in commiting months worth of bail jumping, evwn if she was nice about it. Plus I'd have a body receipt, which is pretty vile to think about your own mother, but then again, I'd put it right back on the house anyway and go to confession sometime in the year. My soul and conscience were in the clear. I'd call Ranger to see about what we could do about Mr. Wozniak's car. But at least I wouldn't need to use my Dad's cab. I had a bad history with cars and he'd paid a small fortune for the cab medallion on the back.

I ambled over so I could sit on the sidewalk and watch with the same sick fascination I did The Real Housewives. My mother had barely made it through PTA meetings when I was third grade without a glass or three of her Mommy Juice, but she had never gone so far off the rails. Usually, she was expressing her disappointment in me in increasingly verbose ways, and over the years, I'd learned to take it with a smile. You can't be a real laughingstock without laughing at yourself, I suppose. The truth was, half the time she was right, and half the time she didn't know better. It was best to let sleeping dogs lie, I figured. I was mostly a mess, but happy with myself most of the time despite it.

My mother stopped revving the car for a moment, and I thought I would take my chance then, jumping up and knocking on the window. She rolled it down with a huge smile on her face.

"Stephanie!", she huffed out. I nodded.

"Uh huh, that's me. I just need my car, Mom. I'm gonna get some doughnuts and the you know,the bakery.", I said breezily. Usually I tried to keep cool with a skip. The peaceful ones took that well, they liked the effort and they liked me, and I liked being liked. I didn't really think my mother was one of the trigger-happy psychos, so I reached into the window to pull out the key.

"Stephanie, I'll get the door. Get your arm out so I can get on the street proper."

"Oh." I paused to think about it. It sounded reasonable. "Yeah, okay. Just a second."

I snaked my arm out of the car and backed up on to the sidewalk so she could pull out. My mother eased the car into drive and shot forward, before screeching to a stop in front of our house when she slammed her foot on the brake. I jogged to catch up. She was waiting for me, idling the Buick. Just as I caught up, she rolled down the window.

"Sucker!", she shouted, and with that, the Buick sped off into the sunset, leaving me alone on the street with two strips of burnt rubber in front of me.

Our street is about a mile long, emptying into left and right turn-offs which lead to another neighborhood on the left side, and into the heart of the Burg on the right, so it wasn't too hard to figure out where she had gone when I shook myself out of the haze of knwoing my mother wasn't just a skip, but also a runner. I pulled Dad's cab out of our driveway and gunned it up the right side of the street. Probably my mother had heard doughnuts and thought she wanted some, so I cruised by the bakery hoping to spot the Buick. The dinner hour meant most people were inside and their businesses were closed or at least getting to be that way, so I didn't need to worry about my mother running over a kid or an old lady like the commercials about drunk driving on TV. All the Burg's street signs and fire hydrants were fair game, though, so I kept my eyes peeled for water gushing from street corners, too.

I coasted past the hair salon, the dry cleaner's, and two strip malls, before circling back. Probably a cop had stopped my mother and hauled her in already, or she'd just gone back home. I would check both. The Trenton PD was housed out of a brick building a few blocks from the house, so I could look down the street for the Buick and maybe even go by Pino's, which was between them and grab a pizza. Chances were zero that I'd be picking up leftovers tonight, which meant no food unless I hit up Pino's before it closed.

Glancing down my street, the Buick was nowhere to be seen, so I did the half of the Our Father that I still remembered and prayed for the poor cop who had to take her in. Even if it was a jackass like Morelli, I felt like someone else might have needed that divine intervention on their side next to my mother. I hoped whatever supernatural sheild she was under to avoid the whole Burg having a hand in what she was doing kept up, too. My reputation as a bounty hunter was in the gutter enough without everyone knowing my own mother could do the run-around on me even after she'd practically robbed the liquor store. But, I knew it was best for my sanity to take that sort of thing in stride. So what if I'd been outsmarted by my mother? Lots of people had. Probably both Kathy Lee and Hoda had. Probably Tony Soprano had, too. It didn't matter, but it didn't stop me punching my Dad's fare monitor screen in sheer frustration.

The screen made a noise like a sizzle on a skillet and went dark. So I'd be on the hook for that too. But at least it wasn't smoking, so I groaned and turned right on the way to Pino's. At the last stoplight before the narrow stretch of road that housed the bakery, Pino's, and the Macaroni's Kan Klean, there she was.

My mother, her skirt hanging out of the door where she had shut it, her window still down, and her hair windblown above those knockoff Jackie O glasses she had picked up at Kohl's. Ignoring all my better judgement, I pulled my car up beside her and rolled my windows down.

"Hey! I'm Stephanie Plum! Bond Apprehension! Also your daughter! Pull over!", I shouted.

The light had gone green and she was gunning the engine, probably not even realizing she had put it back in park. I rolled my eyes and recited that half of the Our Father again.

"What the-", my mother was laying on the horn, like that was going to turn the engine. " Hey! You! What do you think this is, the drive in movie? Move, you fatass!"

I cringed. It had been a few months since I had a fat day, but if she didn't recognize me and all she could think was I was a fatass, that didn't bode well for my general public image either. I'd been trying hard to improve as a bounty hunter lately. Real hard. I'd even read through the whole Dummies book, and here I was, anyway.

"I'm not even in your lane!", I protested, but it just made her lay harder on the horn.

"Idiot! You shouldn't be on the road.", she wailed. I just sighed. It had been a long day, and the sun dipping over the gray Trenton skyline told me it was going into a long night. I cut the gas and reached for my cell phone in my purse. I wasn't letting my mother get away again, but she was probably going to gun the Buick's engine and honk for a little while more, so I called Eddie Garazza for backup. He was a cop who I'd grown up with, but we had stayed friends rather than muddied up the waters like Morelli and I. He was fun and funny and didn't laugh at me when I was still in earshot, which made him pretty much a saint. That didn't mean I wasn't going to unload on his ass first, though.

"How could you not tell me my mom's been jumping bail for half the year? You're all a bag of dicks.", I seethed with half frustration and what I hoped sounded like rage. I didn't have the money to sue Trenton PD like they sued people on the Real Housewives, but I wanted Garazza to be scared, even if it was only for a second.

"Stephanie? Oh, man. Uh...", he paused, and I liked that I'd rendered him speechless. " We- um...that's Morelli's job, and I guess Mary Lou Stankovic, since she's your best friend and all. Um...we got these patient-doctor confidentiality things now."

"You're the police, Eddie!"

"I know it just-...its not personal Steph, we thought you were in on it. I mean, you're always needing money and all so-"

"What? Eddie, I never got body receipts from her and I'd never sell out my own mother! That's not even funny, you loser!"

"Receipts... Wait Steph, so...you just think this is about her jumping court? You don't know about the- uh, I mean, I didn't mean that. I was just trying to diffuse the situation. Uh, Steph I'm really sorry about all of th-"

"I don't know about the what, Eddie? Tell me right now!"

Eddie sighed. "Well...we...uh...-"

"Eddie!"

"We've been betting on your mother. I mean, half of Trenton's got a drunk mom, me included, but no one does it better than Helen. She's high entertainment. Shirley got a grand filling out the card saying she'd get collared for disorderly at the Macy's. The other choice was in the parking lot which is what I picked but-"

The whole Burg was full of goddamn animals who ate each other alive. I knew what it felt like to be entertainment, but it filled me with a strange sense of pride that at least I hadn't graduated up to having my own card. All the bets that I'd finally quit my job to marry Morelli were done by word of mouth.

"Stephanie, I thought you knew about it. I mean, your mother's talked shit about you all over town since first grade and so maybe we thought you'd want a little back, too. Everybody wouldn't have done it of we didn't think you knew."

"Does my Dad know?"

"No. Well probably not."

"There you go. You're a bastard.", I told Eddie, and then I hung up. I didn't think people respected me enough to care what I thought was funny, but it made me feel a little better, anyway. I liked being nice. It didn't mean you got stepped all over, though I did that sometimes on accident mostly. It was that whole turning the other cheek business. I had lots of people to help me out in a mess, and I wasn't going to mess up my karma trampling all over someone else. I was used to being the family embarrassment, that didn't mean I liked it enough to wish it on anyone else, even if it was my mother.

Thankfully for me, she was set on fulfilling her side of the bargain. I had no sooner tossed my phone back in my bag than she had figured out to put the car in drive and rocketed right into Pino's front window.

I ramped up my dad's cab and put it in park, then I crossed the street, cuffs in hand to survey the damage. On second thought, I circled back to the car, took out my cell phone and called Ranger.

"Babe?", he answered on the third ring.

"I need backup. On the corner of Pino's."

"Yeah, I know."

Three Rangeman SUVs suddenly rounded the corner, blocking my mother and the Buick in. She had shattered the window, but the generations worth of drywall and clay brick stopped the Buick just short of the meat counter. A discount salami was slapped to the engine, and looked disturbingly phallic. The Buick, as always, had barely a dent while my mother was struggling to get the door open.

Marcello Pino stood on the curb, cursing my bloodline and making some creative Italian hand gestures. I shook my head and passed him off as the same loser who nobody would have talked to in high school if his dad hadn't made the best pizza in the world. Ranger was cuffing my mother when I came up beside him.

"You can take her in yourself if you want. I had my guys look her up on the database and her bond's huge.", he said.

"No...I- its only fair that it's your capture. Besides, the money goes straight back to my parents house. She put it up as collateral."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Eddie Garazza says she's high entertainment. I don't think the PD wants her off the streets too bad on account of they'd have to start getting pay-per-view again."

"Babe."

"Who the hell are you? I'm just parked trying to get a salami. I can't even get a goddamn salami without the government getting into my business! Can't drink, can't get a salami, can't get my daughter married, what the f-", my mother was going on, her skin clammy with alcohol sweat. Slvatore Pino was shaking the glass bits from his thick curls with silent laughter not give feet away, leaning over a bakery cart. I wondered if this whole mess was a choice on my mom's card and Salvatore knew he was getting a grand raise on his monthly pay. My cheeks were burning with embarrassment and boiling rage.

"I think you've got your salami, Mrs. Plum.", Ranger told her, his lips pursed in a tight line. Okay, that got me. I chuckled, and pretty soon it turned into a full out belly laugh. There I was, standing in the wreck that used to be Pino's, laughing like a lunatic. Ranger cocked an eyebrow in my direction.

"What?", I gasped, " It looks like a- you know- a-" Scratch that. I was laughing too hard to finish my sentence. Ranger just shook his head as he guided my mother into the backseat of his car. I had a feeling I'd be hearing about this all over town tomorrow, and cringed inwardly. It was enough being a crappy bounty hunter but I swore if a lowlife skip had the nerve to be making money off my mother's card, I'd eat his fingers like people said Connie's Uncle Mad Luca of the Jersey Mob did. Probably I wouldn't because I didn't even like chicken fingers and blood made me puke, but it was a nice thought to have when that busybody Kathy O'Malley rounded the corner.

"Those Plum Girls belong in a nuthouse.", she clucked.

I suddenly felt that bile rise in my stomach and found myself at a crossroads. I could either start a bitch-slapping, hair-pulling, fight in front of the piza oven and prove I was badder and better than thrice-divorced, size 24 Kathy, or I could keep a shred of dignity and get into the car with Ranger and my mother and pretend I hadn't heard a thing. My hearing was maybe shot from all the knocks to the head I took as a bounty hunter. Kathy was maybe a part of our imaginations which told us to cut carbs in case we ended up like her.

That sounded good enough, so gritted my teeth and wheeled around to go back to Ranger's car.

But not before I had pried the salami from the Buick's good and pitched it into Kathy O'Malley's sneering face. I was sure she screamed, and I couldn't help the guiltless grin on my face as I sprinted on to the sidewalk and jumped into Ranger's backseat.

Saturday nights were family nights, and I'd be damned if I let anyone mess with mine.

A/N2: There are a lot of fics where Helen is just a total witch and Stephanie rightfully tells her off, but I just wanted to take a less serious approach to that idea in line with the universe the books are set in, ie: just slapstick-y fun with no major consequences, and Stephanie still being sympathetic to her. Criticism is totally welcome!