“I know her type. Never met a woman she wouldn’t throw under the bus,” Milly said.
“Yeah. Exactly,” I agreed.
“I used to have a friend kind of like Tammy,” Milly explained. “Her name was Karen. She was always ditching me for some new man she’d just met. It took me a while, but one day I finally realized I wasn’t her friend. I was just ‘Plan B’ until someone with a penis came along.”
“That sounds like Tammy all right,” I agreed. “But unlike Karen, Tammy doesn’t like to wait. If no man comes along quick enough, she takes yours. Or she’ll try to, at least.”
“Come on, Val. Don’t make her out to be worse than she already is.”
“It’s true! I forgot to tell you. The woman tried to steal Winky away from Winnie. And I’m pretty darn sure she took my fruitcake. I was making it for the holidays, you know.”
“That’s awful. And weird.” Milly drummed her nails on her desk. “Winky? I guess maybe he’s got his redneck charms. But a fruitcake?” Milly bit her lip. “Maybe she needed something to nibble on, on her way back to Hooterville.”
Milly had renamed Greenville “Hooterville” after our brief visit there together last year. She did it to tease me. But to be honest, it was a more accurate moniker.
“I guess,” I replied. “If Tammy did take my fruitcake, she won’t have to worry about it going bad in the car. That cake has enough rum in it to preserve it into the next millennium.”
Milly laughed. “Okay. Break’s over. Back to work.”
I took a step toward Milly’s office door, but another thought turned me back around. “Oh. Speaking of food, Laverne’s having a dinner party on Friday night. You and Vance are invited.”
“Friday?” Milly put on her thinking cap. “I think we have the night free. Should I bring something?”
“Only if you want to eat actual food. Laverne’s culinary skills are legendary...and I don’t mean that in a good way.”
Milly crinkled her nose. “Got ‘cha. Will Cold Cuts be there?”
“I don’t know. I need to call her. Last time we spoke she was up near Tallahassee shooting a commercial for some politician, I think.”
“It’d be great to see her. She’s the only person I know who’s more abnormal than you.”
I shot Milly a smirk. “Gee, thanks.”
Milly knitted her eyebrows together, tapped an index finger on her cheek and muttered to herself. “Abnormal...abnormal. Hmmm. That’s ringing a bell....” Suddenly her face lit up with a devious grin. She pointed her tapping finger at me like a gun. “Ah yes! Your vacation days have been approved. You’re free to visit your dear old mom. With our blessings, of course.”
I sneered. “How can I ever thank you?”
Milly smirked like a she-devil. “Hope you have a nice trip, Val. Wish I could come along. Not.”
“Milly, I hope all you get for Christmas is a lump of coal in your stocking.”
Milly laughed. “If I did, I’d still come out way ahead of you.”
WHEN I GOT HOME, THREE sweaty elves were working underneath the hood of Winnie’s van at the end of Laverne’s driveway. I shifted Maggie into park and went over to investigate.
“What’s up?” I asked the trio of male backsides bent over the engine.
Three overgrown dwarves turned around to face me. Greasy, Oily and Sweaty.
“Think it’s the timing belt,” Winky said. “Ain’t got the parts here to fix it.”
“Looks like we’re stranded,” Jorge shrugged.
“You guys need a lift back home?” I asked.
“That’d be right good a you,” Winky said.
“Okay. But no Snow White jokes along the way. And no singing, Hi Ho.”
“Oh, drat,” Goober deadpanned. “You spoiled all my plans.”
AS I PULLED INTO JORGE’S driveway with the Three X-migos on board, I realized I’d only been there once before. That had been five months ago, shortly after Jorge’s mother had gotten married and given him the family homestead. Relocating hadn’t been a big move for Jorge. He’d been living in his mother’s garage for years. But after she remarried and left, Winky, Goober and Winnie had moved in to keep Jorge company – and to keep him sober. Jorge had remained, for the most part, drunk as a skunk since his wife and kids were killed in an auto accident years ago.
My only prior visit to Jorge’s place was back in June. It was a party to celebrate his’s 40th day of sobriety. Since then, with the help of his buddies, Jorge had made it past the six-month mark without a drink. I guess that’s why I was surprised to walk in and find the place littered with beer bottles. I picked one up off the floor.
“This can’t be helpful,” I said, and shot Winky and Goober a stern look.
“It’s okay, Val,” Jorge said. He shrugged. “It’s like if I was fat. They couldn’t give up eating. Booze is everywhere. I have to get used to it.”
Winky shot me a told-you-so sneer and picked up the phone on the kitchen wall and began dialing.
“How do you manage it, Jorge?” I asked.
“It’s not so bad. I took up some other hobbies. Like cooking. And drawing. And drinking coffee.”
I glanced around the kitchen. There must have been fifty empty coffee cans stacked up around the counter tops. “That’s a lot of coffee.” I picked up a tin and shook it. It rattled. Coffee doesn’t rattle.
“Winnie saves them up for us from Davie’s,” Goober explained. “I’m starving, Jorge. What’s for supper?”
Jorge smiled like a loving mother. “Leftover chicken and rice. You want to stay, Val? We got plenty.”
“It’s actually pretty good,” Goober confessed. “This guy can cook like a pro.” Goober put a basketball-player-sized hand on Jorge’s shoulder and shook him like guys do.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not.”
Jorge grinned and hugged me. “Bueno!” He dove into the fridge and pulled out three beat-up metal pots. He banged them onto the heating coils on the stove top, then turned on the knobs with an artful flick of his wrist. “I got a system,” he said as he beamed at me with pride.
“Can I help?” I asked.
“Sure!” Jorge pulled open a cabinet door. “We’ll use the good stuff tonight.”
The melamine plates Jorge handed me were warped and worn at the edges. I recognized the golden wheat pattern from visits to my grandma’s as a child. If this was the “good stuff,” I didn’t want to see the bad stuff.
“Okay, I’ll set the table.” I carried the dishes to the dining room and hit a snag. The table was already set – with last night’s dirty dinner dishes.
“Parts is ordered,” Winky said behind me as he hung up the phone. “Oops. Good golly. I think it was my turn to do the dishes last night. My bad.” Winky circled the table, stacking up the dirty paper plates and brushing food crumbs onto the stack. “There you go, Val.”
I stifled a cringe and set the table with the good stuff.
While Jorge heated up dinner, I took a quick tour of the place. It was a small ranch house like mine, built in the 1950s. But it had a master suite on one end, two bedrooms and a bath on the other. The kitchen and living room were located in the center of the house. I snuck a peek in the master bedroom. Above the bed, high up on the wall, hung a life-sized velvet picture of Rambo shooting a machine gun. A chest of drawers on the opposite wall was covered in a jumble of cheap costume jewelry. I smiled. Jorge had given Winnie and Winky the master suite.
At the other end of the house, one of the bedroom doors was ajar. I stuck my head in and was shocked to see a floral bedspread covering a full-sized bed. Bottles of perfume and family portraits lined the tops of the dresser and chest of drawers. Anyone could have been forgiven for mistaking this for a woman’s bedroom. But a closer inspection of the subjects in the pictures told a different tale.
Half of the photos were of Jorge and his buddies during his former glory days on the police force. I recognized a younger-looking Tom in several of them. The other half of the fr
amed photos were Jorge’s mother and his wife and kids. They smiled back at me eerily, frozen in time. A twinge pricked my heart. All of a sudden I felt like a voyeur. I backed out Jorge’s room and closed the door. Across the hall, the door to the remaining bedroom was shut. A sign tacked to it instructed potential nosy visitors to “Keep Out.”
I heeded Goober’s warning and wandered into the living room. A somewhat new, overstuffed lounge chair looked radiant as the sun compared to the worn-out, plaid sofa beside it. A peek out the backdoor caught me by surprise. The lawn was neatly trimmed, and flowerbeds lined the wooden privacy fence. A shiny, round Weber barbeque grill took pride of place on the concrete patio. I smiled. The guys are doing okay.
When I returned to the kitchen. Jorge had not only heated up dinner – he’d brewed a batch of tea. He poured the hot, brown liquid into red plastic glasses filled with ice.
“You ready to eat?” he asked.
“Sure. Let me carry a couple of those.” I grabbed two glasses.
Jorge hollered down the hall past me, “Dinnertime!”
“Okay!” came the voices of Winky and Goober.
A nostalgic feeling fell over me like warm, soft netting. As the four of us sat down to eat, my eyes brimmed with unexpected tears. Goober heaped my plate with chicken and rice and looked at me with the curiosity of a captive primate.
“Come on, Val. Like I said, Jorge’s cooking’s not that bad.”
“What? Oh. It’s not the food, Goober.” I turned to Jorge and batted back my tears. “This looks absolutely delicious.”
“Then what is it?” Goober asked.
I stared down at my plate of chicken and rice. I could feel their eyes on me. “I don’t know. It reminds me of...home, I guess.”
I looked up and tears spilled down my cheeks. All three men smiled back at me. Winky reached across the table and handed me a paper towel.
“None of that, now,” he said in a sweet tone I’d never heard before.
I wiped my eyes, sniffed and took a big bite of chicken and rice. It was scrumptious. I gave Jorge a thumbs up and took another mouthful as the guys stared at me like proud parents. I was searching my mind for something stupid to say to ruin the moment when the doorbell rang, shifting the attention off me. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’ll get it,” Goober said. He stood up and headed toward the door.
I took a sip of tea to wash down the food and noticed the ice had melted. “Anybody want more ice?” I asked. Jorge and Winky shook their heads, their mouths full of collard greens and yellow rice.
I padded toward the kitchen, but stopped midway. From this vantage point, I could see Goober as he talked to a mangy-looking guy standing outside the front door. The scrawny, long-haired man handed Goober a black garbage bag. Some money changed hands. Goober gave the fellow a couple of coffee cans. The guy nodded. “Be back in a couple of days,” he said.
“Good doing business with you,” Goober replied, then shut the door. As he walked toward the dining room, I ambushed him and dragged him into the kitchen.
“Are you dealing drugs, Goober?”
Goober looked aghast. “What? No!”
I exhaled with relief, but kept my eyes locked on Goober. “So what were you doing with that man, then?”
I opened the freezer door and reached inside to get some ice for my tea.
“Legitimate, bonafide business,” Goober said.
My hand fell on something unidentifiable in the freezer. I shifted my eyes from Goober to the inside the fridge. My hand was resting on a clear plastic bag lying next to the ice bag. When I lifted my hand, the frozen face of a rat stared back at me with a goofy grin. An involuntary, high-pitched squeal shot out of my mouth.
“Ahhhh!” I slammed the freezer door. My knees buckled beneath me. If Goober hadn’t grabbed me I’d have hit the floor.
“What’s going on here, Goober? Why are there rats in your freezer?”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Val,” Goober said. “Their gerbils. Not rats.”
Winky and Jorge came barreling into the kitchen. Winky tried to stop in his stocking feet and ended up crashing into the cabinets. I wrestled myself from Goober’s supportive arms.
“What in blue blazes is going on here?” Winky hollered.
“She saw the gerbils,” Goober said casually, and shrugged.
“Oh,” said Jorge. “The way you screamed, we thought you went and looked in the bathroom or something.”
“What?” I stared at the men, stunned and incredulous. “Who...who killed all those gerbils?” My eyes fell on the pot full of chicken and rice. “You’re not...eating them are you?”
“Gross!” Winky said. “Even we got our standards, Val!”
“Get ahold of yourself,” Goober said to me. “No pets were harmed in the making of your dinner. But I have to say, that’s a pretty hypocritical point of view you’re taking. Whether it’s a chicken from on a farm or a rat from a pet shop, something died to make your dinner. What’s the difference?”
“There’s a big difference!” I argued.
“Yeah? What?” Goober asked.
I fumbled for an answer. “Chickens don’t have...personalities, okay?”
“Tell that to my Aunt Carla,” Jorge said. “She has chickens. She gave all of them names.”
“Like what?” Winky asked.
“Fried, Boiled and Fricasseed,” Jorge smirked. The men fell about the place laughing.
“You guys are impossible!” I yelled. “Is anyone going to tell me why you have dead rats in your freezer?”
“I already told you, Val. They’re not rats,” Goober said. He smoothed his bushy moustache with a thumb and forefinger. “Not all of them, anyway. There’s also a couple of gerbils in there.” He winked at me. “Not to mention a stew-sized guinea pig named Fred.”
Anger finally eclipsed my horror. “For the third time, why are there members of the rodent family in your freezer?”
“Economics, Val,” Goober said. He pursed his lips and shook his head at me. “It’s implausible to rely on hanging holiday lights for ample remuneration year round. It’s purely seasonal work. Therefore, we’ve found gainful, steady employment in the groundbreaking field of pet cremation.”
“Ground breakin’!” Goober hollered. “That’s a good ‘un, Goober!” The men grinned and nodded at each other.
“What are you talking about?” I screeched.
“I thought I’d just made that clear,” Goober said. “Pet cremation. Jason, the guy who was here? His brother owns a pet store. His clients kept bringing in dead pets. They didn’t know what to do with them. Jason looked into it and found a way to take care of the remains. For a reasonable fee, of course. Look. This explains it all.”
Goober handed me a folded piece of yellow paper. It was a cheap, copied flyer entitled, “Ha-Pet-Ly Ever After.” Being a former copy writer, I groaned when I read it. Below the hideous headline was a list of funerary services and fees, ranging from two bucks for lizard “deposition” to $40 for cremation of dogs under 40 lbs. An asterisk after this last entry invited people to, “Ask about our per-pound savings plan.”
“As you can see, members of the genus Rattus – mice, gerbils and the like – only fetch $3.50 a head,” Goober explained with the calm demeanor of someone reading a fast-food restaurant menu. “So I save them up until I’ve got enough to make it worth the charcoal. In captivity, rodents can have exceptionally short lifespans. You’d be surprised. It doesn’t take long to get a grill full.”
My skin crawled like a bucket of fishing worms. “This is...disgusting! It’s got to be illegal somehow!”
“It’s better than burying Fido in the backyard,” Goober argued. “Dead bodies carry disease. As the brochure says, people need an effective alternative. Someone’s got to do this important work, Val.”
“It pays cash money, too,” Winky chimed in brightly.
“The start-up costs were minimal,” Goober added. “Jason bought us the Weber out back. We pa
y him twenty bucks every week and a percentage of the profits. When you deduct the cost of charcoal and lighter fluid, and in a good week we can bring in $400.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, suddenly desperate to wash my hands.
“Nope, he’s not,” Jorge said. “There’s plenty of work, too. You interested?”
“Not on your life! That guy. Jason. He delivers the...bodies?”
Goober nodded. “Yeah. In the garbage bags.”
I looked over at the bag by the front door. “So, that’s what’s in the bag he gave you?”
“Affirmative.” Goober walked over, picked up the bag and glanced inside. “Looks like about fifty bucks worth. Wanna see?”
“No!” I screeched. I caught myself and softened my tone. “I’ll take your word for it.”
I grabbed my purse and backed down the hallway, past Goober, toward the front door. I smiled sheepishly at the guys. For a split second, that strange, clashing, pride-and-shame feeling raced through my heart again.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I said, and waved as I felt for the door handle behind me.
Goober, Jorge and Winky waved back, a blend of confusion and amusement on their faces. I found the knob, yanked the door open and escaped. As I drove away, my mind swirled in a confusing cloud of conflicted feelings. But there was one thing I knew for sure.
I would never be able to enjoy the smell of a backyard barbeque again.
Chapter Ten
A SOUND LIKE GUNFIRE made me spew the last sip of my morning cappuccino all over the kitchen sink. I set my cup down and scrambled to the front window. A peek through the blinds at the culprit calmed my thumping heart. It was Jorge’s rusty, old Buick.
I watched as Jorge steered the twenty-foot long, gunmetal-grey battle cruiser into my driveway. He cut the ignition. The Buick backfired again. The doors flew open and three guys piled out like Mafia hitmen – but instead of machine guns and suits they had Santa hats and bright-green vests.
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