by Karen Renee
I heard a mumbled, “Grumpy’s” come from Cal’s vicinity.
My father pulled his coffee mug out from under the Keurig with a wide smile on his face, “That’s my kind of man. Great idea. Get a move on, Mallory. I haven’t been to Grumpy’s in a coon’s age.”
I shook my head, “No. Please, not Grumpy’s. I’ve been there twice in as many weeks. How about Metro diner? It’s just as good and –”
Cal shot me a look, “Give it a rest, you’re out-voted, Firecracker. Now, go get ready.”
My parents both burst out laughing at Cal’s moniker for me, and I left the kitchen in a huff.
* * * * *
I was waving to my parents as they pulled their Subaru Forrester out of my driveway. Just as suddenly as my parents showed up on my doorstep, they just as suddenly decided to head back to Sarasota. It was one-thirty in the afternoon, and I had the house to myself because Cal had left about twenty minutes after we returned from Grumpy’s, at quarter to ten that morning. Breakfast had gone really well, though before we left I had been dreading the entire notion of breakfast with my parents. My dread stemmed from the fact that as I was putting on a light jacket to wear outside, Cal donned his leather cut. My father, never slow on the uptake, said “You ride?”
Turning fully to my father, Cal gave him a chin lift. My father’s gaze, unlike mine the first time I saw Cal’s cut, narrowed on the small 1% diamond-shaped patch. Then his eyes moved to the patch that declared Cal the Sergeant-at-Arms.
“How long have you been the Sergeant for your club?”
How the hell did my father know more about this shit than I did? He rode a motorcycle when I was like four or five, but it was a Honda. He drove it to work and back. There were no other motorcycle riders hanging out at the house or anything like that. It was the kind of bike you see middle-aged people riding who clearly only do it for kicks. Of course back then, my father would have been about Cal’s age now, so maybe he only drove the Honda because money was so tight a Harley had been out the question.
Cal said, “Be eight years in June.”
My father looked at me, and then he gave Cal a nod of respect, saying, “You can handle yourself well, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
To this my father chirped, “Kathy, you ready? Then let’s hit it.”
Now, I was alone for the first time since Friday morning. I walked back inside, musing to myself at how I never would have thought my parents would approve of me dating a biker. Though, as quickly as that thought went through my mind, I remembered a road trip to my grandparent’s house when I was maybe ten. I couldn’t remember if a group of bikers passed us or if we saw them at a rest area, but I made some kind of little kid comment about being scared. My father immediately said, “Mallory Jane, bikers and boaters are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.” I wasn’t so sure Dad would say the same thing if he had met Vamp, but the last twenty-four hours had been chock-full of surprises. I hadn’t had time to shower before or after Grumpy’s, so I decided to get clean and then take a nap.
I woke with a start and I couldn’t tell what time it was. I was almost thinking it was Sunday morning, but something about the room told me it wasn’t morning. I rolled to my side and saw it was three-forty-five. I used the bathroom, and afterward decided it was time to catch up with my girl Natasha. Heaven knew plenty had happened since Tuesday afternoon, when we last texted about the possible‒ or as it happened for Natasha‒ the impossible option of shooting pool.
I sank into the middle of my couch with my house phone and my cell phone in hand. Using the house phone, I dialed my best friend. Natasha picked up on the third ring. “Hey, girl.”
“Hi there. You got some time?”
I heard a door closing, “Sure, what’s up? You go shoot pool by yourself and hustle some poor rednecks out of their beer money?”
I giggled, “No. I did go shoot pool, but I can’t tell you all that’s happened in a linear fashion.”
“Girl, whatchoo talkin’ about? You better spill, Mal”
I launched right in. “Cal and I had sex last night…no, wait”
Those last two words were said over the loud gasp Natasha gave me at my news.
“Before that, my parents showed up, uninvited and unannounced, while Cal and I were making out. Talk about embarrassing.”
Natasha made a disapproving ‘tsch’ sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, “So you did it with your ‘rents in the house? Where is the old Mallory? No, don’t tell me, I like this new Mallory just as well. Was it hot? It had to have been. That man is fine, like yumalicious.”
I sighed, “You don’t know the half of it. I had two orgasms and the second came from penetration! That does. Not. Happen. To. Me. Ever!”
“Oooh. Much as I hate to say this, you gotta cap it right there. Does Jackie know? Was it Cal who took you out to shoot pool? What happened to Ms. D-O-N-E??
“No, Tuesday I asked James to go shoot with me.”
“Say what?”
I inhaled. “You heard me. Then two Leatherneck MC guys hit on me, or were trying to while James went to the bathroom, and suddenly Cal was slinging an arm around my shoulders saying I was his property.”
“Oh, no, he didn’t!”
“But he did, and I got in a snit.”
“Mmm-hmmm. As any modern woman would,” Natasha giggled.
“Then Razor was there.”
“Oooh. Am I gonna need a cigarette? Is this the shoulda-been-a-hot-ass-fireman guy you told me about? Who felt you up when giving you his number?”
“Yeah. And he called me a fireball. As if.”
“So did he and Cal get into a pissing contest right there? And where was James through this?”
I chuckled. “Oh, you know, James has some timing. He showed up just in time to hear Cal tell Razor that as far as any Leathernecks or Riot MC guys were concerned I was his. Razor said, ‘We’ll see about that.’”
Natasha blew out a breath. “My God…I knew you needed to get back out there. You got two hot guys on your hook. Sweet.”
I groaned. “Not sweet, thanks. And when I called James about pool, he said the next time I call him for something, the ‘friend’ business is over. In the truck, he said he wants to see if there’s something between us. I can’t handle all this male attention.”
“Your days of having those boys eating out of your hand might be coming to an end, girl.”
“I never had them eating out of my hand,” I adamantly insisted.
“You did, too. Say I’m right. It won’t go to my head, I promise.”
Next to me, my cell phone dinged to indicate an incoming text. Talk about saved by the bell.
I said, “Got a text from Jackie, she wants to know what we’re doing?”
“‘We?’”
“Yeah, now she says she wants us to come to her place for dinner.”
“I don’t know if –”
I waded in firmly. “No, no, we gotta go. I need to see what her house is like, since she’s the president’s wife.”
“You sure they’re married?”
“Well, I guess not, but she’s wearing a leather vest that says she’s his property…I need to see her pad‒actually no. I need to get the 4-1-1 on the whole property vest, cut business in general. You come with me, so I don’t forget any important questions. I mean seriously, Cal can call me his woman, but I’m not his usual kind of woman. I’m not doing the cut stuff. This is Florida, for God’s sake. I’m not running around in the humid ninety degree weather in May wearing leather, even if it is a damn vest.”
Natasha almost groaned, and then said, “Okay, okay. I know I’m due to get away, just not Southwest style, unfortunately. Let me verify it with Leon. Call Ms. Jackie before she starts blowin’ up my phone.”
I smiled, “Gotcha. Later.”
I called Jackie and she launched in with, “A bunch of birdies told me that you’re Cal’s woman officially now. Were you and Natasha dishing about the gory deta
ils?”
That was such an unexpected greeting, I responded with, “Do say what?”
Jackie cackled, “He claimed you. I don’t know much about church, but what I do know, is that when a brother wants a woman strictly off-limits to the other brothers, he announces or stakes his claim during church. You. Are. His. Mallory. And I love it!!”
I threw my head back on the top of the couch, “Oh God!”
“Don’t sweat it, chick. Now, are you and Tasha comin’ over or what?”
“I think so. She’s got to clear it with Leon, but she’s due for a night out.”
I had to hold the phone away from my ear as Jackie squealed, “Eeee. I can’t wait.”
I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but I said, “It’s just dinner, hon.”
She did a sharp inhale, “No! We’re doing dinner, yes. I got veggie lasagna ready to roll. Volt doesn’t care for it, though he’ll eat it, but he hates having too much of it left over, so now it works out. But after, ha! Have you heard of the Samuelson School?”
“Jackie, I’m a Jax native. Of course I’ve heard of Samuelson. What about it?”
She gave a short giggle. “The club had a lockdown shortly before your first date with lover-boy. Well, for lockdowns, they stock up, which means there was like at least ten packages of jumbo-sized eggs from the warehouse club. The lockdown lifted pretty quickly, and nobody’s eaten seven packages of these eggs, and they’re rotten. Like, whoa-gag-me-with-a-spoon rotten.”
“Oh. ’Kay. So, what’s that got to do with the Samuelson School?”
“Well. We don’t live too far from Samuelson, and I wanna take these eggs and throw them at that horrible billboard that sits on their property but is angled so all southbound traffic has to see it.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed at the same time. “You’re nuts. You know that, right?”
Jackie sighed, “That’s what Volt said, too. C’mon. Did you ever have to deal with their students when you were in high school? Talk about snobby! I’ve been wanting to do this for ages. It’ll be a blast and because I’m queen bee of the club, we won’t get harassed by the po-po.”
My cell phone chirped with a text from Natasha. I told Jackie, “Well, Natasha can make it. I’ll pick her up. What time do you want us to come over? Don’t squeal, please. I don’t think I can handle it!”
Jackie cackled instead, and then said, “Come now. You’ll probably get here round five thirty or quarter to six. It’ll be perfecto. I’ll text you the address.”
I disconnected, sent Natasha a text telling her to wear dark clothing or something she didn’t care about since Jackie had a crazy-ass idea for that night. My text also advised Natasha not to ask about the crazy idea. I went in my bedroom and changed into a black turtleneck. Then I grabbed a bottle of McManus from the case in my laundry room, loaded Jackie’s address into the Waze app on my phone, put my running shoes on my feet, grabbed my purse, and left to get Nat.
We were crossing the Buckman Bridge when I noticed two Harleys coming up on us fast. We were maybe half a mile from the San Jose exit, so I moved into the righthand lane, thinking the two bikers would pass me. They swung into the righthand lane, too, but seemed to slow down. I almost thought they were following me, but that seemed farfetched to me.
I had my phone plugged into the Camry’s hands-free dock and received a call from Gwen. Natasha looked at me when she saw the name on the console display, and I grimaced.
“Hi, Gwen.”
“Mallory. Where are you?”
Natasha raised an eyebrow at me; I replied to Gwen, “Uh, I’m on my way to a girlfriend’s house for dinner. What’s up?”
Gwen hesitated a second or two. “Well, um. I’m still having some problems.”
We were sitting at the off-ramp traffic light to get on to San Jose northbound. The two bikers were behind a white Miata that had cut them off at the last second. I looked at Tasha, and she was shrugging her shoulders at me. No help there.
“Gwen. You got a hefty sum of money from me. If you’re still having problems, then I’m gonna have to see some credit card statements or something, so I can see where the money is going.”
Gwen inhaled sharply. “Excuse me? Greg would never have been so rude.”
The light turned green and I had to keep my temper in check to keep from gunning it up the street and getting a speeding ticket. This was a hell of a fine time to throw my dead husband in my face. Talk about laying on the guilt trip.
“I’ve been more than accommodating. I gave you over fifty grand. You wholeheartedly agreed that it was enough and then some to keep you sitting pretty for a long while. What happened to the money I gave you? That’s more than a fair question at this juncture.”
“I will not be spoken to this way,” she huffed dramatically.
I turned to Tasha to see her rolling her eyes.
“Then consider this well dried up.”
Gwen sighed heavily, “I lost some of the money.”
My face contorted with confusion. I looked slightly left and slightly to the right. When I looked straight at the road again, I asked, “How did you lose some of it? It was a check.”
“I thought I’d turn it into more by visiting the poker room.”
What? Greg and I played cards. We hosted poker games at our house. We visited Las Vegas primarily to plant our asses in cushy chairs in the middle of a lux poker room. Gwen knew this. Gwen also played cards, but to the best of my knowledge she played gin or bridge. I had heard of trick-taking card games being played for cash, but always at low-level stakes, stakes that did not rise as high or as quickly as the stakes could climb in poker. Some of the red flags I’d been sensing where Gwen was concerned were making some sense.
“The poker room. Which poker room, Gwen? There are three in town.”
“The big one in Regency.”
I noticed Natasha was studiously looking out the passenger window. This was a conversation to have at another time, both for Gwen and Natasha’s sake.
“Listen, Gwen, I’m almost to my girlfriend’s house. Let’s discuss this tomorrow morning when I’ve had a chance to sleep on it. But be warned, I don’t have cash on hand to lend to you. I want to see these credit card statements. Get a sense of how bad this really is.”
Gwen sighed, and said, “Fine. Have a good evening, Mallory.”
She hung up before I could reply. I looked into my rearview mirror to see the two bikers were right on my bumper. The strange feeling I had earlier came back. I knew something was not right. I looked to the road again and had to step on the brakes for a yellow light at Beau Claire. The bikers weren’t slowing and I was afraid they were going to rear-end me, but one swerved left while the other swerved right, and they roared around me, splitting the traffic lanes. I saw their cuts had the Leatherneck emblem patched on the back.
Natasha looked at me and said, “I ain’t got a good feeling about this shit, Mal-Mal.”
She wasn’t the only one.
Chapter 15
I turned right off of San Jose as we eased into the Lakewood neighborhood that many considered to be North Mandarin. Jackie and Volt’s place was a sprawling red brick ranch house with a horseshoe driveway that was shaped more like a rainbow than a strict horseshoe. The drive was shaded by a medium-sized oak tree situated about two feet from the street, where a sidewalk would be, if the neighborhood had sidewalks. The house was probably built back in the seventies or early eighties. Rather than a standard front door, the house had two blue-trimmed French doors at the entryway. There were four blue columns holding up the small overhang at the front door.
Natasha whistled, “Every so often, I forget how great these houses in Mandarin really are. Actually, I forget that the money stays in ‘old Mandarin.’ This place is gonna be good, Mal.” I parked the car at the end of the drive so the car was nose to the street, and ready to roll when the time came. I looked at Tasha and said, “Yep. If Greg were still alive, he’d take one look at this house and start trying to ph
ysically kick himself for not buying over here when the house-flipping fad was so hot.”
We both exited my car, and Jackie was standing in the doorway bouncing on the balls of her bare feet. She was wearing black jeans with a grey turtleneck and five silver necklaces of varying lengths around her neck. As we approached, she said, “You have no idea how excited I am that you’re here! We are going to have such a great time. Food’ll be out in about fifteen minutes.”
We stepped inside the house and Natasha and I exchanged a look. ‘Good’ didn’t even begin to describe the opulence of this outwardly staid-appearing house. The foyer, if it could be called such a thing, was a hallway as wide as the two French doors and laid with chocolate hardwood planks. To our left was a living room which was filled with a brown leather sectional and a huge flat screen television. We followed Jackie a few more feet into the foyer and there was an even larger room with more of the chocolate hardwood floors, a fireplace, and a pool table. There were rows of white French doors that opened to the living room.
Jackie led us through the room with the pool table and guided us to the kitchen. Except, it wasn’t the kitchen; it was the kitchen to beat all kitchens! Natasha and I reacted simultaneously; I whispered, “Oh my good God.” and Natasha declared, “Oohh-whee. I just got moist! This kitchen is the fuckin’ shit!” And she was spot-on right.
The kitchen floor was decked out in bronze flagstone tiles; small square mosaic tiles in various shades of brown were on the walls around the ranges and inset microwave. She had two ovens. Not the stacked double-oven contraptions made popular by the Brady Bunch, but two side-by-side independent ovens. There was a five-burner gas stove top above the ovens, every hostess’s Thanksgiving Day wet dream. The microwave was not hanging above the stove top; it was set back into the wall, which might well have been the lone drawback to this culinary paradise. I mean, really, if you were cooking something, and needed to nuke half a stick of butter or whatever, in order to place or retrieve your item you had to lean bodily over not just hot burners , but gas burners at that‒talk about a fire hazard. This told me the previous owners might not have ever used that gas range.
