“Un-freaking-believable,” I muttered.
Milly held up a hand mirror and admired her reflection. “Val, if I actually looked like this in real life, I’d never speak to you – or me – ever again!”
I slapped on a worried pout. “What about me?” I asked Cold Cuts.
“We’ve still got three minutes. Let me see what I can do.”
***
Milly and I left Cold Cuts in the RV and traipsed into Fandango’s restaurant. The hostess led us to a small banquet room set up for a dozen people. By the door, a Hispanic woman was busily filling out name-tag stickers and ticking off names on a list. Milly marched confidently over to the woman.
“Hi Carla.”
“Hello. May I help you?”
“It’s me. Milly.”
“Milly who?”
“Milly Halbert. I’m leading the brunch today.”
Carla eyed Milly dubiously. “Huh? No. Is that really you?”
“Yes!” Milly beamed.
“Wow! It’s about time you got a makeover!”
Milly’s smile ticked down a notch. “Thanks.”
Carla glanced my way. “Who’s the lady with you?”
“That’s my friend, Val Fremden.”
I waved. “Hi.”
“No. I mean the other one.”
Carla pointed to a woman walking in the door. She was blonde, busty, and clad in an immaculate, royal-blue business dress. As she passed by a table, her zebra-striped go-go boots came into view. Milly’s face flushed crimson to match her suit.
“Oh. I don’t know –”
The woman strode up and took Carla’s hand. “Name’s Cold Cuts.”
Carla shook her hand enthusiastically. “I love your boots!”
Cold Cuts grinned and looked down. “Yeah. Aren’t they great? No animals were harmed in their making, either. Unless you count naugahydes.”
Carla laughed, scribbled our names on stickers and handed them to us. Milly ushered us along like naughty children. I half expected her to grab us by the ears. When we got to the table, she shot us a stern face and warned us with a whisper.
“Look, this is a business networking meeting, so I’d appreciate it if you two could keep things on a professional level. Don’t mention…you know…last night. And no weird stuff, please!”
“What do you mean by weird stuff?” Cold Cuts asked.
Milly opened her mouth to say something, but never got the chance. Carla approached her with a final head count.
“Everyone’s present and accounted for, Milly. Ready when you are.”
Milly straightened from her hovering position over us. She cleared her throat and plastered on a smiley face. “Good morning, ladies!”
The women around the table gasped. A plus-sized gal with the nametag Terri, spoke without thinking, spoiling Milly’s game face.
“Is that you, Milly?”
“Huh? Oh! Yes, Terri, it’s me.” Milly beamed her best fake smile over the crowd. “So, today we’ll be talking about synergizing our business strengths. We all –”
“Wait a minute,” Terri continued. “You sound like Milly, but you sure don’t look like her. Are you sure that’s who you are?”
Several of the women laughed, and voices began to buzz around the table. Milly’s plaster started to crack.
“Look. It’s really me, okay? Now, let’s get to business. When we all work together, our total skills and talents are greater than the sum of our –”
“Damn, Milly! You look amazing!” said a sharp-dressed black woman with the nametag Sharon. “Where can I get a makeover like that?”
Milly’s jaw grew taught. “Could we please just stick to the program, Sharon?”
Cold Cuts stood up suddenly, causing her chair legs to scrape loudly. “I don’t know about you ladies, but if this is the program, somebody stick an ice pick through my eardrums. I don’t think I can stand to hear another word. Synergy? Please!”
The women’s faces formed a silent choir of O’s. You could have heard a roach fart. Milly turned to Cold Cuts.
“Why are you doing this?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet!” Cold Cuts bent her elbow in a tight V and pointed an index finger toward the ceiling. “Excuse me, ladies. But who wants to talk about synergy when we could be talking about sexergy? When’s the last time any of you got what you really wanted in bed?”
I heard a cockroach fart. The room broke into hoots and hollers and cheers. Milly looked as if she’d been hit in the face with an invisible cream pie.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Cold Cuts encouraged. “Forget all this boring business crap. I think it’s time to get back to the real world. Sex!”
A woman in a pair of librarian’s glasses spoke up. “Excuse me, but who are you?”
“I’m the woman who did Milly’s makeover.”
The women cheered. The mousy lady cracked a grin. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“And I’ll do a makeover for one of you, too. The winner of the ‘Ladies Leadership Worst Date Ever Competition.’ Come on. I bet we’ve got some contenders up in here!”
Milly crumpled into her chair. The ladies went wild.
Sharon stood up and yelled, “I’ve got one!”
“All right, then. Tell us, Sharon!”
“I went out with this fine-looking guy from Our Time. Yeah, I said it. Over-fifty. Our Time. I’m owning it.”
The women around the table banged their coffee cups and cheered like knights at the round table.
“So what happened?” Cold Cuts asked.
“Oh. So, I met him at this park. For a picnic. You know, that man didn’t bring anything with him but a six-pack of beer and his dusty, worn-out old game.”
Commiserative grumbles erupted around the table.
“I thought, okay. The guy doesn’t cook. And he’s got no game. But I’m fair. I’m still willing to give him a chance. So, to make conversation, I ask him how he ended up on Our Time. You know what he said?”
“What?” the ladies shouted.
“He said he liked the name. ‘You know, it’s like, I’ve done my time. Now it’s Our Time. Get it?’ I said, ‘Oh hell yeah, I get it. Then I got my ass up on out of there!”
The women cheered and roared with laughter.
“Very nice, Sharon,” Cold Cuts commentated. “Good story. Who’s next?”
Carla stood up and waved her finger in the air like she didn’t care. “I can beat that! I met this guy on MatchMate.”
At the mention of Milly’s online dating nemesis, I glanced over at her. She was pallid, but still breathing.
“We met up at a restaurant,” Carla continued. “The guy was like, 10 or 50 years older than he said he was online. I mean, he could’a been the father of the guy in his profile picture. Anyway, he wasn’t completely hideous, so I thought, what the hell. You know what I mean?”
The women nodded and hummed.
“So I sit and talk to him for like, two hours. Not great, but better than another night of Netflunks, you know? Anyway, by the end of the meal, he says he likes me and wants to see me again. I thought, man, he’s way too old for me. But he was nice. I’ll give him a chance. I was about to say, ‘okay’ when he leans over the table and says he wants to tell me something.”
Someone yelled, “Uh oh!”
“So, I got close to his wrinkly old face. You know what he says to me?”
“What?” someone cried.
“He says, ‘I just want you to know I’ve got GH – genital herpes. But it’s okay because I’ve discovered flavored condoms!’”
“What the hell!” Sharon yelled. “What did he think you were gonna do? Suck his banana-flavored dick?”
The crowd roared and cheered and hooted with laughter. Finally, Cold Cuts had to beat a spoon on the table to regain control. “That was pretty damn good, Carla. Anybody think they can top that?”
The meek, mousy woman in the librarian glasses raised her hand timidly.
“Nora.”
“Let’s hear it for Nora!”
The women cheered. “Nora! Nora! Nora!” Cold Cuts brought them back to attention with a wave of her hand. Nora began tentatively, her voice wavering like bad cellphone reception.
“I had an affair once. With a married man.” Nora looked around nervously, but pressed on. She must have been desperate for that makeover.
“I didn’t know he was married. Or that men lied about stuff like that all the time.”
The women grumbled in agreement.
“Anyway, we were out one night at a motel, you know, doing it, when his phone beeps, for a text. Well, he ignores it the first time. But it keeps beeping. So finally he stops, you know, doing it, and checks his messages. He seems shocked, so I ask him if something’s wrong. He says, ‘It’s my wife. She must have found out about you.’ Then he just stood there, his red flagpole sticking in the air, and scratched his head like a flea-ridden ape.”
Nora mimicked an ape scratching its head. The women laughed.
“So, all of a sudden, ape-man smiles, all relieved and everything. He looks over at me and says, ‘All right! Whew! I thought my wife’s message meant she knew I was with a girl. But it’s okay. I just figured it out. “It’s a girl” doesn’t mean you. It means the baby is a girl.’”
“What!” voices screamed out.
“That’s what I said! I looked at that creep and said, ‘Are you telling me your wife just had a baby?’ He says, ‘Yeah. Sweet!’ But not sweet like it’s a baby girl. No. Sweet like he didn’t get caught. Then he tries to get back in bed with me. Can you believe that?”
The crowd of women went wild. Cold Cuts smiled and pointed toward Nora.
“I think we have a winner!”
***
Riding home in the RV, I thought the radiator might boil over. But not the one in the RV – the one in my best friend. Cold Cuts seemed oblivious to Milly’s nuclear-level rage.
“That was awesome!” Cold Cuts said as she pulled onto Gulf Boulevard.
I smiled weakly at Cold Cuts. “Yeah.”
Cold Cuts nodded toward Milly in the back. She’d stripped off the red suit and donned my rumpled clothes from yesterday. She’d also torn down her golden hair. It hung in clumpy ringlets around her still made-up face. From the rearview mirror, she looked like a spoiled child pageant loser sent to her room without supper. Little Miss Piss Pants.
“What’s wrong with her?”
I opened my mouth, but Milly’s voice came out.
“You know, I was really feeling it,” she yelled from her seat at the banquette. “With the fancy clothes and all. I felt different. Powerful. I thought, ‘I can do this. I can be a business tycoon.’ Then you go and take over and you ruin everything!”
“Take it easy!” Cold Cuts said.
“Me take it easy? You take it easy. That was my meet-up, Cold Cuts! I was trying to make business connections. You turned the whole thing into a freak show with your Sheena the Destroyer getup or whoever you were today. Now I can never go back.”
“What are you talking about?” Cold Cuts asked. “Why not?”
“They’ll never see me as the old Milly again.”
“And that’s bad?”
I ducked involuntarily, but the only thing Milly hurled was more words.
“You don’t get it. You’re too young. You haven’t worked and scraped to make a name for yourself. No. You just go off on your crazy rants and escapades. You don’t care who you hurt!”
Cold Cuts lifted an eyebrow like Spock and turned into my driveway. Milly bolted out the RV’s side door. She made a run for my backyard, but tripped and fell over a newspaper in the grass. She picked it up and flung it at the RV.
“Looks like someone needs a Valium.”
“Take it easy on Milly. It’s hard for someone our age to change horses midstream. We have a lot more to lose than you.”
Cold Cuts looked confused. “But what are you losing when you give up things you hate?”
“We don’t all hate the same things, Cold Cuts.”
Cold Cuts conceded with a nod. “Point taken. What do you hate, Val?”
“I dunno.” I noticed a picture of Cold Cuts and an older woman clipped to her visor. “Who’s that?”
“My mother. I should call her. It’s Mother’s Day, after all.”
Oh, shit!
Chapter Twenty-Two
The craziness of the last week had caught me up short. I’d completely blanked about it being Mother’s Day. It was nearly 1 p.m. and I hadn’t called Lucille Jolly-Short yet. I was doomed.
Even so, I first had to deal with another crazed woman on a tear. Milly Halbert.
I’d sent Cold Cuts away to avoid a catfight. Milly was still red-hot piping mad when I found her sitting at the tiki bar. But I didn’t have time for her whining. I took her by the arm and yanked her into the house so she could gather her things.
“Look Milly, I know you’re mad. But I don’t have time to talk right now. Tom will be over any minute to take me to lunch. I’ve got to get ready.”
Milly scoffed as she changed into her crumpled clothes from yesterday’s girls’ night. “Excuse me, Miss Perfect. I forgot. You have a fairytale life.”
“What? My life? A fairytale?”
Milly wriggled into her yoga pants and spit her words. “Better than mine.”
“Come on. I can trump your sorry life with two words.”
Milly sneered. “Oh yeah? What?”
“Lucille Jolly.”
Milly’s scowl faded to a pout. “Okay. You win.”
She hugged me reluctantly, then sighed and slipped on her sandals. As she grabbed her purse and headed for the door, her goodbye sounded like an apology. “Have a nice time with Tom, Val. And good luck.”
Through the living room window, I watched her drive off. I padded to the bathroom and turned the tap on for a bath. I scrounged around under the sink for a box of bath salts. I dumped the crumbly blue dregs into the water and watched it foam.
Halcyon, take me away.
***
While I soaked in the flamingo-pink tub, a name popped in my mind like a dirty soap bubble. Capone. Cold Cuts told me she still hadn’t heard back from him. I was itching to find out what he knew. The longer I waited, the bigger the chance he’d have had to sell the piggybank and I’d have lost Glad for good. I made up my mind. I’d ask Tom to take me out to lunch today at Old Northeast Pizza. I could snoop around for Capone, and Tom would never be the wiser. That didn’t qualify as a secret, did it?
I climbed out of the bath, dried off and slipped into a yellow sundress. I was going to need as much sunshine as I could muster to make it through the task ahead. I picked up the phone to call my mother, but my index finger turned to stone. I couldn’t mash the button. I’ll call after I do my hair and makeup.
After I’d combed my hair and put on lipstick and eyeliner, I picked up the phone. Medusa struck again. After I put my shoes on. I reached over to set the phone on the bathroom counter. A sudden sneeze overtook me and I dialed accidently. I listened in hopeless panic as the phone rang once and my mother’s voice filled the air.
“’Bout time you called, Valiant. I was fixin’ to give up on you.”
I raised the phone to my ear. “Sorry, Mom.”
“Yore sister done called three hours ago. What took you so long?”
Angela always was a brownnoser. “Are you having a nice day, Mom?”
“I’ve had better.”
“Did you get the flowers I sent?”
“Yep. They’s right purty for the price you paid. Saw ‘em on sale on Amazon for $25.99.”
“I didn’t know you used Amazon.”
“I’m not that backwoods, Valiant. You comin’ by today?”
“What? Uh…no. I have to work tomorrow.”
“So?”
“It’s a six-hour drive, one way Mom.”
“I see. I’m not worth i
t.”
“Yes you are. I’m coming up to see you during the holidays.”
Dammit, dammit, dammit! Why did I say that? Kill me now!
“Uh huh. So you went and got yourself a job. Finally.”
“Yes, I did.”
“How’d you manage that? Don’t they know how old you are?”
“What?”
“Well, I have been prayin’ for a miracle. I guess that’s it.”
“I’m not that old, Mom.”
“Uh huh. Well, like yore Pa used to say, ‘Idle hands are evil’s workshop.’”
“Mom, he never said that. And it’s the Devil’s.”
“The Devil’s? No. I taught Sunday school, you know. That don’t sound right.”
Of course not. How could I possibly be right?
“Okay, Mom. Listen, I have to go. Happy Mother’s Day!”
“Well, excuse me. Sorry I took up so much of your precious time.”
“Bye, Mom.”
“See you at Christmas. And Valliant, bring that there man you been livin’ in sin with. I need to set him straight.”
Aw, hell!
I clicked off the phone just as Tom drove up in his 4Runner. The tightness in my chest eased a little as I watched him smooth his bangs from his forehead in the side-view mirror. He grabbed a bunch of daisies from the front seat. I opened the front door before he had a chance to knock.
“Hi there, pretty lady. I’m here to sweep you off your feet. How does Caddy’s sound?”
“Caddy’s? I haven’t been there in ages! Come to think of it, I haven’t been to the beach in ages. Why is that?”
Tom looked skyward and scratched his head. “I think it’s called working for a living.”
I punched him playfully on the arm. “Ha ha. But why Caddy’s? I was thinking we could –”
Tom silenced me with a kiss. “Caddy’s is where you met Glad. On Mother’s Day a year ago, if memory serves.”
“Yes. I hadn’t thought about that.” But he had. Wow.
Tom handed me the daisies and wrapped his arms around me protectively. “Speaking of moms, did you do the dirty deed yet?”
Three Dumb: Wheelin' & Dealin' (A Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Book 3) Page 14
