Hotter than Helen (The Bobby's Diner Series)

by Wingate, Susan

  “Georgette. I thought I’d lost you.” His grip tightened around her. She wondered how it was possible but he managed to pull her even closer to him, there on the wet ground by the raging river. “When I saw the water coming, we were still prying open the trunk.”

  “Roberta!” His words broke the stupor she had sunk into.

  “Is she…” Georgette covered her mouth with one hand.

  “She’ll be fine but she’s pretty beat up.”

  “Oh, that’s good, Willy. That’s good.” Pushing off the ground, Willy backed away but only by inches. She brushed her pants and smeared mud across her legs and down her butt. Noticing that mud had soiled her arms up to her elbows, she said, “I need to see her.”

  “Let’s go. Before they take her.”

  He put out a hand to help her off the mound and she stepped down to the pavement. Pulling her hand back, she stopped. “Hawthorne …”

  But Willy shushed her. He stepped back to where she had stopped and led her to the passenger door. She was shivering. “You’re cold.”

  “Funny thing, I don’t feel cold. I’m just shaking like a leaf all of the sudden.”

  “Yeah, George, that’s called shock. Let’s get you inside the car.”

  Inside, he reached across her body and pulled the seatbelt over her, locking the harness into place with a snap. “There.” He patted her mud-caked arm. “How’s that?”

  “Good. Thanks, Willy.” She didn’t quite get why he needed to strap her in, they were only driving around the hotel, but she let him. He needed to help her, so she let him.

  “I’ll kick on the heater. That will help too. I’m sure the EMTs have some thermal blankets.”

  “Oh Lord, Willy. I’m fine.” But as the words came out, her body did a double-step on shivering. “Good gravy. What’s happening to me?”

  “Like I said, Georgie.” He flipped the gear into drive. “It’s called shock.”

  39

  Roberta sat on the bumper of an ambulance. A second ambulance had just carted Tanner into it, closed the doors and had rushed off with its lights blaring and sirens howling.

  One of the EMTs, a big man, a young Pakistani who looked a lot like a doctor, kept busy checking Roberta’s vitals. The other, a blonde, slight young woman with a running weight of no more than one hundred pounds (what Georgette could tell from her puny size), covered Roberta with a thermal wrap. It shone like a silver cape around her shoulders.

  Willy’s car had barely come to a stop when Georgette unbuckled her belt and opened the door. Willy rolled his eyes, stopping short and abruptly for her to exit safely.

  Georgette, in a full pace, ran to Roberta.

  When Roberta saw Georgette coming, she smiled. “George!” She stood and limped, hobbling her way over to Georgette.

  When Georgette reached her, she grabbed her hard and held her tight. “Roberta.” Her voice shattered.

  “George.” Roberta hid her beaten and swollen face in Georgette’s neck.

  She felt Roberta’s body tighten, then relax as she cried openly.

  “It’s okay. You’re safe now.” Roberta buried her head against Georgette’s shoulder and moaned a low, sad sound that reminded Georgette of a dying fawn, a bleak sound.

  “I kept praying, you know, George, to God. Praying hard, like never before.” She paused, breathing in short, choppy breaths and continued. “Then I heard them. You know, the ancients, George. They whispered to me.” Georgette clutched her harder. “At my blackest moment, I heard them calling to me, calling my name.” Her next words quivered out in a whisper. “I swear.”

  “Shh. Shh.”

  The two women stood there in the parking lot together while Willy and the EMTs watched on. Car radios scratched on and off in the background, sending messages to anyone who might be listening, but no one was. Red and white lights whipped around in a constant spin, alternating in color on top of Roberta’s ambulance. It was almost like someone muted the volume on a commercial while everyone waited for action to resume.

  Roberta sniffled first, pulling back and bringing her sleeve up to wipe her nose. “I need a tissue,” she whispered to Georgette, smiling meekly.

  “She needs a tissue.” Georgette turned and spoke.

  Roberta’s nose was bleeding inside and out. Her left eye had swelled to a mere slit where her eyelashes met. The hematoma caused her eye to puff out. It looked raw and pink around a gash over her eyebrow. Her lips had gashes from the upper to the lower that were blue from bruising.

  Someone draped one of the shiny silver thermal blankets over Georgette’s shoulders. She hardly noticed. They appeared like a caped team standing there together.

  “She needs a tissue!” Georgette yelled again, looking around the others at the scene. Everyone jumped to life again, running around and looking in places where they thought they might find tissue. It was Willy, however, who walked up behind them and offered his handkerchief. She took it and wiped, forgetting about the tear on the end of her nose. Roberta winced and daubed lightly after that. “Thank you, Willy.”

  Georgette turned back to Roberta and chuckled silently to her. “You probably could have whatever you want if you asked right now.”

  “You know what I really want?” Her right eye got moist along the inside rim of her lower lid and her left eye seeped out tears.

  “What’s that, honey?” Georgette pulled Roberta’s hands up together in hers.

  “Some of your Folgers.” Her shoulders made tiny jerks as she started to cry. “I kept thinking…”

  “Shh, it’s okay.”

  “… I kept thinking, if I get out of this alive, I would love to sit and have some of Georgette’s coffee with her.”

  “Like I said, anything, sweetie. Anything you want you got.” She pulled Roberta back into a hug. “You know what sounds better than my coffee, Rob?” She pulled out of the clutch again. “Hmm.” As Roberta wiped at the tears in her eyes, Georgette noticed how her hands were shaking and how bruises covered her knuckles too.

  “That cruise.” Georgette let go and lead Roberta back to the bumper for her to sit down. As they walked, she continued, “What do you say, we both take that cruise together.”

  “Sounds wonderful. I wonder if Rick would mind.”

  “He can come too. My treat. We’ll have a ball. Anyway, we could all use a break.”

  “Where is he, George? Does Rick know about any of this? Is he still in Laughlin?”

  “I don’t know, honey.” She looked at Willy. “Do you know?”

  “We’ll contact him as soon as we get statements from you and Tanner.”

  She had somehow forgotten about Tanner. Hearing his name made Georgette growl, “Tanner. I’d nearly forgotten. S’easy how a person can sidestep a piece of crap like him.”

  Roberta reached out with her hand, grabbing Georgette’s arm. “What happened to Hawthorne?”

  Georgette looked down. A sudden lump in her throat caused her to whisper. “He…” She shook her head, turning away toward the road, away from their faces.

  “They were going to kill me, George.”

  “I know.” She turned back. “I know. It just seems so surreal. Like we stepped off a cliff and are still falling. I just can’t believe any of it.”

  “We have to get the mayor to the hospital. That nose looks bad,” the male EMT ordered, his nametag read “SHANN.”

  Georgette turned her head so he couldn’t see her tears, nodding for them to take Roberta. “Willy, can you take me to the hospital too?”

  “Anything, Georgie. Anything for you.”

  Looking up at him, she smiled. Then, turning to Roberta, she winked tears from her eyes, making a joke. “Anything? Well, aren’t I special?” The male EMT helped Roberta up by the elbow and guided her into the back of the ambulance. “I’ll be right behind you,” Georgette reassured her.

  “We’ll be right behind you.” Willy corrected her.

  “We.” Georgette nodded quickly, keeping her eyes on Roberta as the
y closed the door of the ambulance, walking to remain in view until they finally closed and locked the door then she could see Roberta no longer.

  She patted a flat hand on the window and yelled through the doors, “We’ll be right behind you!”

  Georgette heard Roberta’s answer now muffled by the wall between them, as she yelled back, “I love you!”

  40

  As Georgette and Willy watched from a clubhouse window, the excavator with its saw tooth bucket dug up chunk after chunk of soil, starting at hole number one of the golf course. They watched in a sunny spot through the plate glass window. A sky like someone had thrown a bucket of robin’s egg blue paint across it could be seen well past the foothills, well past the rolling green mounds of the golf course.

  Not a cloud was in sight. The days since the flood had played out a more typical fashion for Arizona, with days sunny, warm and with clear skies.

  “You can use the driving range. We’re not doing anything to it.” Jeff, the pro, looked at them as he waited for their decision.

  “Want to just hit some balls?”

  “Sure.” Georgette smiled at Willy. “I don’t know if I could do a whole round of golf anyway.”

  “Okay. We’ll take some tokens and a golf cart.”

  “How many tokens you want?”

  “Enough for five large buckets each.”

  “That’ll be fifty dollars for the tokens and another fifteen for the cart.”

  He fished in his pocket for the money, pulled out a stack of folded bills and flipped through, counting off twenty, forty, then sixty and eighty. “There you go.”

  Jeff gave Willy fifteen dollars back in change and ten tokens. Willy turned to Georgette and counted off five tokens, dropping each in the palm of her hand.

  “I’ll get your cart.” He walked past them and out the door. Georgette and Willy walked a few steps behind Jeff and stopped in the gravel lot where they would receive the golf cart. The scent of freshly dug earth hung heavy in the air.

  “You can use my seven iron.”

  “Okay.” She smiled at him.

  “You okay?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Just not quite used to the thought of you and me. That’s all.”

  “Well, missy,” he faked a John Wayne accent. “Get used to it.”

  She giggled at his impersonation.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Not really, Will. I’m giggling at you.”

  He grabbed her around the waist, swung her around and kissed her. His tongue felt warm and soft. He kissed so nice.

  They heard the buzz of the golf cart and the crunching of its tires on the gravel as it pulled off the paved road and onto the pebbled lot where they stood. Willy pulled back but leaned in quick once more and kissed her soft on the lips.

  “Here. Let me get those for you.” Jeff grabbed Willy’s clubs and put them in the back of the cart. “You know where it is, right, Willy?”

  “I certainly do, Jeff. Thanks.”

  “Have fun you two.” Jeff saluted and turned back to go to the pro shop.

  “Wanna drive?”

  “No! I don’t know how to drive one of these things.”

  “It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

  He pressed the foot pedal and they started off with a jolt, bumping along the cart path toward the driving range some six hundred yards from the clubhouse. Georgette craned her neck to watch the excavator.

  “That’s the hole, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but honey, I don’t see Tanner’s, or whatever the hell his name was, Taggert’s statements as being very credible. He went off the tomato truck after getting his unit fried into a tater tot.”

  “Willy!”

  “Well, what would you call it?”

  “I’d call it a tragedy.” She meant everything that had happened.

  “He went nuts, George.”

  She measured out how she wanted to say the next words. “I know these were bad men and all, Willy, but everything that’s happened is really sad to me.” Georgette paused. “What happened to Roberta, of course, but also what happened to them, to Hawthorne. Tanner, too, I guess...” Her words trailed off. That’s when Willy spoke up.

  “They were stone cold killers. If their plan had worked, your Biggs fellow would’ve married you, then killed you too.”

  From his peripheral vision, he could see she was shaking her head. “It’s so freaky. It seems so impossible.”

  “Well, it’s over now.” They neared the driving range. He depressed the small brake and the little cart came to a stop near the empty driving range. Willy never understood how, on such a beautiful day like this day, people never seemed to get out. “Here we are.”

  “Hey, Willy?”

  “Mm hmm.” He had jumped out and was pulling his golf bag out of the cart and walking over to the first two-man mesh enclosure for the shade shelter.

  “Can we play golf on the cruise ship, you think?”

  “Oh, absolutely!” He turned back and smiled at her. “Does Roberta know how to golf?”

  “I think she has before, but I’m not sure how much.”

  “What day are we leaving again, George? Did you say

  June twelfth?”

  “That’s right. Why? Is that too far into the future for you, Willy? Too much of a commitment?”

  “Come here, you sweet woman and address the ball.” He held out a club for her.

  “This the seven?”

  “Yep.”

  She looked down at the ball. “Ball, I’m going to hit you now.” She looked at Willy and beamed out a smile at him. “How’s that for addressing the ball?”

  “Nice.”

  She wiggled her rear as she stepped into place, angling the club down at the back of golf ball.

  “Nice,” he repeated noticing her rump moving.

  She wiggled again and poked her butt out more, taunting him.

  “I’m gonna bite it if you do that again.”

  “That wouldn’t be very sportsmanlike of you.” She put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “Okay. I’m not foolin’ around now.” She steadied her footing, looked out at the one-hundred-yard marker then back down at the ball. She pulled her arms in a nice even backstroke the way Jeff had taught her and swung down, hitting the ball square on the club’s sweet spot. It soared out past one hundred yards about twenty-five feet or so. She screamed and jumped up and down. “I hit it, Willy! I hit it!”

  “Good lord, George. That was beautiful. Now do it again.”

  “What say we call it good and go home? I mean. It can only go downhill from here.”

  “You’re crazy, you know that?”

  41

  The four of them waved at people below on the boardwalk just like she had seen them do every week as a kid watching The Love Boat on TV.

  Viewing the last few people boarding, walking up the gangplank, everyone looked like they were straight out of a yacht club. All sailor in their own right, playing parts.

  A warm, coastal June air swept up and onto the deck where they stood. Feeling a muggy layer on her skin, she wiped her forearm. It felt cool and warm all at the same time. The sun felt hot on the tender skin of her chest. The dress she wore revealed her cleavage from its low scooping neckline. She had splurged on Saks.com, spending a small fortune on four special dresses, the chocolate-colored polka dot one she wore today and three others she intended to wear for special occasions on their one-week journey to Aruba.

  As the four of them gazed out, Georgette focused on the colors of Port Everglades. Florida was pretty with its pink buildings and squat, feathery palm trees intermixed with tall Queens hovering over the land. She wondered which ones produced dates or if any did.

  She thought how funny it was that the green brackish water she peered down into now had appeared blue from a distance, how the water could draw you closer with that blue oasis, but then how it showed its true identity close up, kind of like people.

  She closed her eyes, soaking in the
warmth. “Georgette! I can’t believe we’re doing this, just leaving the diner high and dry!” Roberta giggled out.

  “Cammy knows what to do. Plus, she just thinks she’s died and gone to heaven since we promoted her to manager.”

  “Yeah, well, she deserves it. She’s a natural.”

  Georgette took in a long draw of fresh air. Ocean air had a smell she missed from when she lived near the west coast. A mix of fish and wet sand, of kelp and campfires that always took her back to the first time she’d ever seen the ocean, as a young woman working in the Bay Area in a crusty little bar. The place she left before heading south to Arizona. It was funny to her how she always thought she could never leave a place near water and now she felt she wouldn’t ever want to leave the desert.

  They stood silently, still waving at people one hundred feet below the liner on the deck, at people waving back, at people they didn’t know.

  “There are lots of stripes down there. Lots of white hats, sandals and stripes.”

  “Beach fashion.” Roberta dropped her hand and turned to Georgette. “By the way. You look smashing in that sundress, George.” She looked straight at her chest, then whispered behind her hand, “Your boobs! They’re huge!” Her eye was still a little swollen but Roberta had done a great job with make-up to hide the residual bruising. Her lips would probably be forever scarred but it sort of looked pretty on her.

  “Shut up!” The guys were in their own little world, not paying too much attention until Georgette screamed and laughed at Roberta.

  “What’s that?” Willy smiled, finally looking over to Georgette.

  “Well, Willy,” Roberta started, “I was just commenting on Georgette’s dress.”

  “Okay. Okay.” She put her hand up to Roberta’s lips. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Girl stuff, Willy.” Rick shrugged his shoulders and walked over to his wife.

  “Honey, what do you say, we go get an adult refreshment?”

  “Lovely, dear. Sounds lovely.” Rick put his hand on his wife’s back and guided her away. “We’ll meet you in the cocktail lounge?”

  “Sure!” Willy chimed in before Georgette, who nodded and smiled.

  The ship bellowed out a long honk of a foghorn, alerting people they were about to shove off.