by Alex Wellen
As we reach the doors to the private outdoor Science Park, Paige and I are pummeled by a sweet, sickly odor. I follow the scent to Exhibit Hall B, where I see a group of kids gathered inside a giant papier-mâché nose. Following a loud blast, the children are gently expelled out one nostril.
The fruity fragrance is overwhelming.
“What is this?” I blurt out with disgust. “It smells like a boiling vat of Jell-O.”
“It’s an exhibit on the human senses,” Sheila says.
Sheila points to the far wall intended to simulate human skin. Small children use cantaloupe-sized protrusions to climb it.
“That one concentrates on the sense of touch,” she says.
The enormous nose sneezes again.
“This one explores the sense of smell,” Sheila explains. “It was supposed to smell like peanut butter and jelly, but because some children are allergic to peanuts, we kept it just jelly.”
“You can have an allergic reaction to the scent of peanuts?” I ask.
“We weren’t about to take any chances,” Sheila says, walking us outside.
Not the scientific answer I was expecting.
The Science Park has a beautiful sprawling lawn with abstract sculptures, a man-made rock garden and small creek, picnic tables, and some strategically planted telescopes around the perimeter.
If we rent the museum, our guests will have exclusive use of the entire building and all the exhibits, Sheila tells us. For dramatic effect, she conducts the entire transaction with her back to the magnificent Bay Area backdrop. Sheila’s coy with figures, but she tells us the most reasonable rates are in the offseason, November through March, and if we’re willing to do a Sunday evening, she might even be able to knock off a thousand dollars.
“Over the next year, the museum doesn’t plan on sponsoring any other aroma-themed exhibits, does it?” I ask.
Sheila needs to check and leaves.
I sneeze a couple of times.
“I think you’re allergic to the smell of jelly, if that’s possible,” Paige says, handing me a tissue from her bag.
I tell her I’m considering suing.
Paige and I walk back inside and stroll through the museum. Opposite the “Nose-Aroma” exhibit is “The Real Astronomy Experience,” where students can learn how to measure the size of a planet and track the trajectory of an asteroid. Outside the planetarium, there is a massive bronze head-and-shoulders sculpture of the hall’s namesake, Ernest “the Atom Smasher” Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron—a device used to create the original atom bomb.
“When protons collide,” I say, reading the steel plaque to Paige, “just prior to a nuclear blast, there is a massive inrush of air known as ‘the quiet implosion.’”
“Nuclear proliferation, sounds like a good wedding theme to me,” she suggests.
“It would be quite ‘the blowout,’” I say, elbowing her lightly in the rib.
“We’re being silly. We totally can’t afford this.”
“You only get married once,” I tell her.
I love seeing her this happy.
“I could sew my own dress,” she suggests, “and maybe we could skip dinner and just do cocktails and appetizers, right out here.”
Sheila waves us over. She has good news.
“There was a message on my voice mail.” Yeah right. “We literally just had a cancellation for Sunday, August 12th,” she says, excitedly.
“August twelfth of what year?” Paige cries.
“Seven weeks from yesterday,” I calculate quickly.
“Are you serious?”
“How much?” I ask Sheila.
“I’d need to get a sign-off from my supervisor, but given the short notice, I could probably give it to you for $4,000.”
Is she going to give it to us or does she want $4,000?
Sheila reminds us that this figure doesn’t include the cost for the preferred caterer.
“Do we have to rent the entire museum? Couldn’t we just rent this patch of grass over here?” I ask her.
“Oh, but that would be such a waste,” she says. “I suppose I can ask about just the Science Park, but I’m telling you now, they’re never going to dip below $3,000.”
“Seven weeks is too soon,” Paige says, not even considering the price.
“I completely understand,” Sheila says.
“A shotgun wedding,” I conclude.
“I’m not pregnant,” Paige quickly reassures Sheila.
“Of course you’re not, darling.”
Both Sheila and I study Paige, who studies the tile floor.
“Can you give us twenty-four hours to think about it?” Paige asks.
“Take your time, but I can’t guarantee the date, or rate,” she replies kindly.
So you can’t give us twenty-four hours? Say what you mean, woman.
“If you’re going to just rent the garden, given the short notice, I can do $3,000.” All of sudden Sheila has all this authority. What’s it going to take to put your wedding in this children’s museum today?
For $3,000, we can have our dream wedding.
Help Paige realize her fantasy, Sid told me. Paige wants this.
“Oh, to your other question,” Sheila adds, “the ‘Nose-Aroma’ exhibit leaves next week. So you’re safe. Next up is ‘Legos.’”
Legos! Who doesn’t love Legos? I tell Paige with my eyes.
But Paige can’t take her eyes off the view.
“I don’t think we need twenty-four hours,” I tell Sheila.
Paige pretends to be stunned.
I pull out my wallet, and right before I hand Sheila my new VISA, I covertly pull off the validation sticker and quickly stuff it in my pocket. Mental note: Use the men’s room before we leave. Activate this card. We pay the $500 deposit now, and the balance is due the day before the wedding. Eighty percent of the deposit is refundable if we cancel within nine weeks of the event, but we’re getting married in seven. Sheila makes an imprint of my credit card using a pencil across carbon paper. I sign the contract. Then Paige does.
We’ll be fine, I tell myself. You just bought your fiancée the ultimate wedding. We’ll sell more toothpaste. We’ll eat more Top Ra men. We’ll shake down more seniors. The money will come from somewhere. When you owe seventy-five grand, what’s seventy-eight?
CHAPTER 20
Euraka!
THE garage door is partially open. I duck underneath and spot my best friend, planted on a stool, bent over his workbench. Sid is staring into a swing-arm magnifying glass not so unlike the one we inspected diamonds with in Igor Petrov’s office.
I take a step closer and he slowly spins toward me. His batlike hearing compensates for poor eyesight. Sid doesn’t look like himself without the dark wraparound shades, but he is as upbeat as ever.
“Wait ’til you lay your peepers on this,” he cries with delight. “I’ve just about got it flush!”
He and I haven’t lost a step. I want to give him a big bear hug, but I softly put one hand on his back and lean into the lens. It’s too dark in here. I remind Sid that this magnifying glass has a built-in lamp.
His cloudy green eyes widen. “Much better,” he affirms.
Sid has gutted his sacred pinky ring of its blue topaz gemstone and replaced it with a clear, loose-fitting plastic top.
“See right there … that’s where you store the nitroglycerin tablet,” he explains, nudging the lid delicately with a pair of tweezers. “The first sign of a heart attack and BAM! You pop that little puppy.”
In pharmacy school they teach you that a small dose of nitroglycerin dissolved underneath the tongue can sometimes be used to increase blood flow to the heart and preempt angina. The inspiration behind Sid’s idea isn’t lost on me.
“You could also store a little breath mint in there,” I gently hint, taking the tweezers from him to study the prototype.
The façade crudely fits over the opening.
“Sidney!” Cookie screams, nearly causing
both of us to pop nitro glycerin.
Cookie is standing in the doorway separating the kitchen from the garage. She has on a wide-brimmed gardening hat and blue jean overalls.
“I’m going to kill you!” she shouts, ready to leap through the air and tackle him to the ground.
But instead, cane in hand, she gingerly descends the two steps to the concrete garage floor. Then she hobbles toward us with a small brown package tucked under her arm.
“I thought we had an agreement,” she demands.
Cookie tosses the package onto the table, causing Sid’s blue topaz gemstone to disappear into oblivion.
“No more eBay! No more online! You promised!” Cookie cries.
“Where’d you find that?” Sid wonders.
“In your bottom dresser drawer.”
“Well, aren’t you the nosey parker? Can’t a man have some privacy? That’s not mine,” he insists like a teen busted for weed. “It’s Andy’s.”
“Yeah, and I’m Ava Gardner,” she says, leaning her cane against the workbench. Cookie rips off the small piece of Scotch tape holding the package closed. She’s already rummaged through the contents. Tossing the packing on the floor, she pulls out a ream of personalized stationery.
“This letterhead has our address and our phone number on it,” she yells at Sid. “Plus the invoice has your credit card number. How is this Andy’s?”
“Are you positive that’s my credit card number?” Sid bluffs.
That’s when Cookie notices Sid’s disassembled pinky ring on the countertop.
“For crying out loud!” Cookie hollers. She picks up the empty gold setting. “I gave this to you for your sixtieth birthday. Where’s the goddam gemstone?”
Sid begins frantically looking around for the blue topaz.
“Why would you do such a thing?” she pleads.
Realizing this is my big chance, I casually reach inside my breast pocket and squeeze the record button on the handheld device.
“It was my idea,” I jump in. “I wanted to see if we could stick a pill in there for emergency’s sake.”
I show her how the little lid barely fits over the top.
“You are a dumb person,” she says, pointing at me with both hands like an air traffic controller. “You ruined a perfectly good piece of jewelry for what? Nothing. And besides, there is no way that idiotic lid will ever stay on. Where is the original stone?” Cookie demands. “Show it to me now!”
She snaps up her cane and takes a step closer to Sid.
I block her path to protect him.
“Move!” she yells, inches from my face.
“Come again?”
We dance to the right, and then to the left.
“What part of ‘get the hell out of the way’ don’t you understand?” she cries.
“I think you need a time-out,” I tell her.
“Listen, buster, I’ve had just about enough of you.” She eyes me up and down. I’m at least a foot and half taller than her. “You think just because I’m two thousand years old that I can’t take you?”
We stare some more. She throws up her hands in defeat.
“This is why you have no friends your own age,” Cookie concludes.
Cookie does an about-face and heads inside, addressing Sid once more before slamming the door in our faces: “If that stone is missing or I learn that you bought that stationery on the Inter-web, I will beat that computer of yours senseless with this cane.”
I reach into my shirt pocket and shut the tape recorder. Sid is already on his hands and knees looking for his missing topaz. It’s gone. I help him to his feet.
“Cookie’s got a point,” he says, dusting off his bare knees, and then grabbing his back in pain. “That lid is never going to stay on the ring. I thought maybe a screw top, but that might be tough to disengage.”
“That would be bad,” I say. “There you are, having a heart attack and all, millimeters from the very pill that will save your life, and you can’t get the blasted thing open.”
I yank a sheet of personalized letterhead from the paper ream. On the backside, tucked in the lower right-hand corner, is a tiny advertisement.
“What do you think? Nifty, huh? Totally free if you agree to let them include that ad,” he says.
“But the invoice here says you paid thirty bucks in postage and handling.”
“Rush ordered them. Had to. We need to get serious.”
I hold the letterhead underneath Sid’s magnifying glass to inspect it.
“Do you like the company name and slogan?” he asks.
It reads: “Euraka Productions: Why Didn’t I Think of That?”
“I do. But I think you spell ‘eureka’ with two e’s, not two a’s,” I tell him.
“You’re kidding!”
I show him.
“Crappity, crappity crud!”
The business card also has the company’s online address.
“You actually registered eurakaproductions.com?” I’m impressed.
“How can you go wrong for $25?” the future mogul says.
“Well, for starters, Cookie could stab you in the neck. You heard her.”
“The Web address came with lots of free storage space and up to twenty free e-mail accounts,” he boasts. “I’m going to do the Web site myself. Signed up for a Beginners Web class at the Community Center. First session is Monday.”
“Haven’t you been the busy beaver,” I tell him.
I don’t care about the tacky advertisement on the back or the typos on the front, I want this letterhead. I’ve never had my own stationery. Sid carefully deals me ten sheets, licking his pointer finger with every page.
“This gives us the legitimacy we need when I send out all those query letters,” Sid says. “Between the bladeless wind shield wipers, adjustable heels, dog umbrella, and tactile timepiece, someone will bite. Maybe one day we’ll even have enough dough to buy ourselves a real patent.”
“I think you’re going to love my next invention,” I say, patting the tiny tape recorder in my breast pocket. “But it’s not ready for prime time yet.”
Sid raises a curious eyebrow. “Can’t wait,” he says, lowering himself from his stool.
We walk out of the garage to the driveway. It’s another exquisite summer afternoon in sunny northern California.
“Thanks for getting this stuff,” I say, shaking my share of letterhead.
“Didn’t do it for you. Did it for me,” he says, pointing over at Gregory’s house. “Can’t have you selling that place and some unruly new neighbors ruining this neck of the woods. We’ll figure something out … something we all can live with.”
“I owe you an answer about the other night,” I begin.
“Hold that thought,” Sid commands, whipping out a cell phone.
When did he get that?
“Free,” he brags, wiggling the shiny silver phone.
He has yet to peel off the thin protective plastic that covers the display screen, and I highly doubt the cell phone service that accompanies this “free” phone is free. Sid excuses himself and walks over to the side of the garage to speak privately. In three days, he’s gone from homebody to Hollywood agent.
My pants start vibrating. It’s my cell phone. Sid’s calling me, I assume, until I realize the caller ID says “Paige Home.”
“So lemme guess. You’re having ‘buyer’s remorse.’ Stop worrying. The hall is beautiful,” I tell her. “The money’s spent.”
“What money’s spent?” Lara asks curiously.
“Oh, hey.”
“What money?”
“What money?” I repeat.
“You just said ‘the money’s spent’ … oh, Jesus, forget it.”
This is when I realize that the Vomit Mobile isn’t even in the driveway.
“Can I please speak with Paige?” she insists.
I tell Lara to look out her living room window. She does and I wave. I inform her Paige dropped me off a half-hour ago and left for wor
k.
“Have you tried Paige’s cell?”
“Don’t you think I thought of that?” Lara says, frustrated to the max. “I called, and what happens? Her cell phone starts ringing ten feet away from me.”
“I wonder if Paige realizes her cell phone is wireless,” I tell Lara.
This is the first time I’ve made Lara really laugh. She gets as frustrated as I do about Paige’s forgetful habits.
“Well, I might as well tell you,” she decides. “I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to sell the pharmacy. Apparently Walgreens and Longs Drugs made competing offers on Dad’s place about two years ago, and both times, my father passed. I haven’t heard back from Longs yet, but the Walgreens offer is definitely withdrawn.” Lara sounds worried. “Paige’ll probably be thrilled.”
Man, I always figured the pharmacy would cover at least forty grand of Gregory’s debt. Plus now we’ve got this ridiculous wedding hall to pay for.
“Just tell Paige to call me,” Lara says, interrupting my revised computations.
I tell her I will, and we hang up.
Sid eventually returns from his fictional phone call.
“Someone drown your puppy?” Sid asks me.
“I don’t have a puppy,” I say distantly.
“I know. You okay, small fry?”
“I’m not sure.”
Sid tries a different topic. “You wanted to know how many people there are on the Gregory Day Co-Pay?” I nod. “I’ve been asking around, compiling a list, checking it twice. An educated guess? About fifty.”
I now make it a practice to keep Lara’s Most Wanted list in my wallet just in case I run into a deadbeat. I unfold the sheet of paper and hand it to him.
“Uh-huh,” he says, ticking through the names. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. This looks awfully similar to my list,” Sid concludes, shaking his head.
“So you’re saying Lara’s hit list and Gregory’s Co-Pay match?” I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.
“Like father, like daughter,” he says, mildly entertained. “Listen, Andy, a lot of folks on these lists haven’t got a bedpan to piss in. We’re not talking about dipping into someone’s retirement nest egg; we’re talking about real people, with real money problems. You get me?”
