Getting Old is to Die For
Page 19
“What are you thinking, Gladdy, dear?”
“Everything. Nothing. Trying to sort out all the crazy things that have happened in so short a time. I thought I had lost you forever.”
“Nonsense, you knew you had me with a ring through my nose from the moment you batted your eyelashes and said, ‘Hi, I’m Gladdy Gold and I live in Phase Two.’ ”
I give him a small punch on the shoulder. “I still can’t get over it. You had the chutzpah to meet my daughter on your own.”
“Ouch, my shoulder is black and blue from all the times you’ve already hit me.”
“And deservedly so.”
I hug him again. I never want to stop hugging him.
The captain announces over the loudspeaker that we are about to land in Fort Lauderdale.
“Jack?”
“Yes, dear. What?”
I inform him. “It’s a package deal; you take me, you get four others.” I glance down the aisle at my little family.
He sighs. “I can live with that,” he says.
The plane touches down at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
I watch as Jack is being driven crazy by the girls as they point out their luggage to him, with Jack lifting one piece of baggage after another off the carousel.
“Jackie, my other one is the powder blue,” says Bella, “with the big white pom-poms.”
“See it,” says “Jackie” patiently.
Sophie grabs his arm. “You missed mine—go run after it. It’s the purple one with the yellow flower stickers.”
“Not a problem, Sophie, it will come around again.”
“I’ve got my own,” says the ever-independent Ida, who will not lean on any man for any reason.
Sophie jumps up and down, pulling on Jack’s arm again. “Here it comes again. Don’t miss it.”
I smile. The patience of a saint. I wonder how long that will last.
As I turn away to hide my laughter, off to one side I see a familiar man’s back, through the jostling crowds. He removes a worn, old- fashioned valise off the moving track. I recognize the tweed jacket with patches on the sleeves. He turns around, and there are the horn-rimmed glasses and the unlit pipe balanced in the side of his mouth. We look at one another. The forever- young man and this elderly woman.
“Jack,” I say in a gasp.
He grins at me. “It’s time,” he says, removing the pipe and tipping it in my direction. “It’s time to move on.”
He lightly swings his bag and heads for the exit as I watch him slowly fade away into memory.
Acknowledgments
About time I acknowledged the wonderful work done by:
Print illustrations by Laura Hartman Maestro
Print book design by Karin Batten
Print cover design by Marietta Anastassatos
Print cover art by Hiro Kimura
My great New York team:
Caitlin Alexander
Nancy Yost
Sharon Propson
My great team on the 580:
Camille Minichino
Jonnie Jacobs
Peggy Lucke
Special extra thanks to Camille for San Gennaro
Special thanks to Rose Stone and Barbara Sutterfield for Fair Lawn, New Jersey
And my family and friends for continuous support, you know who you are.
Discover More by Rita Lakin
Gladdy Gold Mysteries (in order)
Getting Old is Murder
Getting Old is the Best Revenge
Getting Old is Criminal
Getting Old Is to Die For
Getting Old is a Disaster
Getting Old is Tres Dangereux
Getting Old Can Kill You
Memoir
The Only Woman in the Room: Episodes in My Life and Career as a Television Writer
About the Author
Fate (a.k.a., marriage) took Rita Lakin from New York to Los Angeles, where she was seduced by palm trees and movie studios. Over the next twenty years she wrote for television and had every possible job from freelance writer to story editor to staff writer and, finally, producer. She worked on shows such as Dr. Kildare, Peyton Place, The Mod Squad, and Dynasty, and created her own shows, including The Rookies, Flamingo Road, and Nightingales. She wrote many movies- of-the-week and miniseries, such as Death Takes a Holiday, Women in Chains, Strong Medicine, and Voices of the Heart. She has also written the theatrical play No Language but a Cry and is the coauthor of Saturday Night at Grossinger’s, both of which are still being produced across the country. Rita has won awards from the Writers Guild of America, as well as the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award and the coveted Avery Hopwood Award from the University of Michigan. She lives in Marin County, California, where she is currently at work on her next mystery starring the indomitable Gladdy Gold. Visit her on the Web at www.ritalakin.com or e-mail her at ritalakin@aol.com.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading GETTING OLD IS TO DIE FOR as much as I enjoyed writing it. And I hope you were pleased with a change of scenery for Gladdy and her girls.
But they are all back home again for their next adventure, and this time, keep your raincoats and umbrellas close by—there’s going to be a perilous change in the weather.
Storm clouds are gathering, both in the Florida skies and in the lives of all our beloved characters. Gladdy and Jack will have to put aside their future plans when their condo is hit at the height of a hurricane.
A dead body is found that unearths terrors from an earlier era—and Gladdy and her small band of private eyes must uncover some dreadful truths in time to save the life of someone very close to them.
So watch your local bookstore for the arrival of the new and exciting GETTING OLD IS A DISASTER, coming out next spring. Or go to my website, www.ritalakin.com, to get updates about the arrival of the new books in the series, as well as my schedule of book signings. If I turn up in your neighborhood, please drop by and say hello. And keep those wonderful e-mails coming to me at ritalakin@aol.com. I love hearing from you.