Maxine rolled her head on her neck, taking a deep breath, then threw her purse over her shoulder to head out and get in her mother’s conservative Kia Rio. They drove in silence to the rec center where Bingo Madness was aglow. Twinkling lights adorned the neatly trimmed bushes, and colorful lantern-shaped globes were strung across the low roofline.
When word had gotten around that Maxine was for hire, her mother’s phone had begun to ring. In the days since she’d walked Jake for Mr. Hodge, she’d acquired four more dog-walking positions and one weekly hair-rolling session with Maude Grandowski, who suffered from tendinitis in her neck and shoulders. Maude made her macaroon cookies and served her milk when Maxine was done washing and setting her hair. Plus, she’d tipped her five bucks.
When she’d gotten the call to replace Midge, she’d been hesitant. A lot hesitant. She’d been to Bingo Madness once with her mother, and to say these women got hinky about their bingo was to diminish their capacity to be ninja quiet when going in for the kill.
Bingo was serious business at Leisure Village. But when Midge told her it was fifty dollars, there’d been no stopping her from greasing her vocal cords and shining up her best hair scrunchie. Fifty bucks on top of her dog-walking money was a windfall.
Truly, she could now be considered a high roller.
Making their way along the decorative stone pavers to the front door, Mona stopped her just before entering. “You listen to your mother, Maxie. You watch that crazy Deloris Griswald. If she hits the same number as someone else, and doesn’t speak up fast enough, things get dicey.”
Maxine’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Dicey?”
Her mother’s nod was solemn. “She throws trolls.”
“The dolls with the crazy hair in different colors?”
Mona’s nod was crisp. “Yep. Damn well nearly took off someone’s head with it, too.”
Oh. With a finger, she made an “X” over her heart. “I promise to watch for flying trolls, Mom.”
“Don’t you mock me, girlie, and see that you do. Louise Clements got hit with one a few months back, and she’s holding a grudge. Who knows what could happen if Louise and Deloris go head to head. It could be an all-out troll war.”
Maxine shook her head and reminded herself, it was fifty bucks. Fifty. Bucks. Opening the door for her mother, she motioned her in.
Rows of tables, lined with good-luck charms like the aforementioned troll dolls and small statues of the Virgin Mary, were almost full to capacity. The low rumble of excited voices turned to total silence upon their entry.
Maybe she should have plucked her eyebrows . . .
What seemed like hundreds of pairs of eyes, hidden behind assorted thick reading glasses, scanned her from head to toe, and not in a friendly milk-and-cookies kinda way.
Weee doggie. Hostile much? The vibe was that she was an interloper. One who was thirty-some years their junior.
Mona’s eyes narrowed. “I told you you should’ve brushed your hair,” she accused.
Maxine leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Oh, hush. If there’s only one thing in the world I know how to do it’s entertain. Watch and learn from the master.”
Maxine dropped her purse on the front table and turned to the still-silent crowd. A sea of silver heads, eyes expectant, focused in on her. She slapped a wide grin across her lips when she picked up the microphone. “Hi, everyone! I’m Maxine Cambridge, and I’m replacing Midge for the night. Well, let me re-phrase that. No one could ever replace Midge. She’s irreplaceable, but I hope you’ll accept my humble efforts to help the show go on. I know you’ll all join me in thinking a good thought for poor Midge and her psoriasis, won’t you?”
Instantly, the tremor of unwanted gatecrasher turned to pity for the ailing Midge, and a gruff welcome for Maxine. “Wonderful,” she placated with a delighted clap of her hands. “Now, if you’ll all just give me a minute to get myself situated, we’ll begin.” She set the microphone back down with a puff of breath.
Her mother nodded a grudging affirmation for her coup. “Nicely played—the ‘humble yourself for the masses’ card. Good choice. I’m going to go find Gail and Mary. They’d better have saved me a seat.” Mona swept past the swarm of seniors who arranged and rearranged their lucky bingo charms, stopping at the edge of the third table from the front, which Maxine suspected housed Deloris Griswald. The narrow-eyed glare her mother shot at the pleasantly padded woman with raven-black hair so stiff with hairspray it had to pack some crunch was the clincher.
From where she stood, there were at least eight small troll dolls with brightly colored hair and two statues of the Virgin Mary lined precisely on top of Deloris’s bingo sheets. In front of each troll were the bulbous colored heads of daubers, the official markers they used to check off numbers called. Each dauber matched the hair color of each doll, making this superstitious ritual nothing short of hardcore.
And she just couldn’t let herself harp on the OCD of it all a second longer.
“Hey, Maxine!” a woman bellowed from the back of the room, making her turn to face forward. “Esther here says you’re the girl who did those car commercials, but I told her no way could you be the same girl. That girl had to be a good ten years younger than you.”
If it was the last thing she did, she was going to blow up every television set in the village. A hard swallow and a warning glare to her mother’s protective stance later, Maxine answered into the microphone, “Actually, that girl was fifteen years younger than I am now—if you’re looking for honesty. So yes, I was that girl. And yes, now I’m much older.” Thank you for voicing your uncanny ability to “name that age” in public.
In front of a hundred or so villagers.
Go, you.
The woman’s cheeks sported two bright spots when she slid down in her chair, bringing Maxine sick satisfaction, be it brief and petty.
Turning to the table, Maxine eyeballed the whir of the numbered balls in the cage and took a deep breath. Watchful eyes heated her back. The air became uncomfortably warm inside the rec center, her mother’s neon yellow sweat suit clinging to her like a second skin.
Out of the clear blue, she wanted to crawl under the table. What had she been thinking when she’d said yes to hosting a roomful of clearly resentful bingo-lovers who wanted Midge and Midge alone to call their numbers? Not some has-been ex-beauty queen who was so pathetic and so without pride, she was snarfing up senior-citizen cash left and right, doing menial work because she couldn’t get a decent job. Poor, sad, helpless Maxine.
The sick feeling that everyone in the room knew how truly pitiful Mona Henderson’s daughter was left her inwardly fighting a good outward cringe. She wasn’t just an embarrassment to herself, but to Connor and her mother. Ridiculous tears stung her eyes.
Her legs began to tremble. Despite the warmth of the room, her fingers were icy, uncooperative talons. The race of her heart, like frantic wings of a hummingbird, battered her chest.
Oh. Good. An anxiety attack.
“Uh, hey!” someone yelled from the back, his words like nails being pounded into her skull. “Could we get this party started, lady? America’s Most Wanted’s on tonight at eleven, and the way you’re going, we’re gonna bleed right into Seinfeld.”
“Hey, Mr. Fishbein! Cut the lady some slack. It’s her first night,” a deep, undeniably sex-on-a-stick voice chided with laughter in its tone.
Okay, when she turned around, if Campbell Barker was standing somewhere in the crowd, it was imperative she and the man upstairs have a good sit-down. But not until she was done ignoring the fact that just the sound of his voice had taken her anxious, unwarranted fear down at least three notches.
Why should it matter if Campbell’s here, Maxine?
Because I look like a bag lady fresh from a long day of Dumpster diving?
Wasn’t it you who just told your mother this wasn’t The Bachelorette ? Who cares that you’re wearing the most unflattering color on Earth and your hair resembles a Texas tumblew
eed? Surely not you . . .
Her shoulders instantly squared. Right. That wasn’t her. She didn’t care. In the interest of not caring, Maxine rounded the table like it owed her money, slapping her ass in the chair, and picking up the microphone as though it were a weapon of mass destruction.
She placed it in front of her lips, a glint of a view to kill in her eyes. “So, ladies and gentlemen, are we ready?”
Buttloads of eyeballs rolled upward. If she were counting right, five people yawned.
Yet Campbell didn’t. Way in the back, sitting near two elderly gentlemen and one lone woman with hair so teased it was stratospheric, he gave her the thumbs-up sign, followed by his deliciously yummy grin.
That grin, one she hadn’t seen in over a week, brought such welcome relief. If she weren’t already sitting down, she’d need to. It was true. Men aged much better than women. Not only had Campbell filled out since high school, he’d acquired a gaunt, chiseled look to him that exuded a hard-edged appeal. The way his shirt stretched at his wide shoulders, the ruddy tone of his skin against it, the planes of his muscular arms, made her face hot. A shiver rolled over her arms in response to something as feeble and nonsexual as a sign of Campbell Barker’s approval.
A mental shift accompanied that notation, prompting her fair-weather pride to rush through her veins in wavy gushes of celebratory return. Confidence securely back in place, Maxine called the first number.
“Bingooooo, bitch!” a coarse voice screeched just seconds behind someone else’s declaration of bingo, lifting Maxine’s eyes to the spot where Deloris Griswald sat.
A petite woman in tailored slacks and a floral shirt rose from her seat one table in front of Deloris’s. Her knobby finger waved in fierce admonishment. “Oh, the hell you say, Deloris! I called it first, and you know it!”
Deloris, an imposing, big-boned girl, clutched one of her beloved troll dolls to her chest, the loud green hair seeping between her fingers. She leaned forward over the flimsy table, her mint green and white housecoat gaping at her breasts. “You did not, Glenda! I beat you fair and square.” She slammed a thick-fingered, liver-spotted hand down on the table to emphasize “square,” making all her poor troll dolls tremble—probably in inanimate-object fear. A plastic Virgin Mary statue toppled over and fell to the ground.
Maxine dropped the microphone to the table in surprise. It let out a piercing screech of protest, making her wince. She jumped up from her chair and pushed her way through the crowd of folks who had also risen from their folding chairs to get a front-row seat to bingo brawl.
Glenda stood on tippy-toe, jamming her face into Deloris’s. “Put your hearing aids in, Deloris. I called it first, you cheater!”
Deloris’s tree-trunk-sized chest expanded before she opened her mouth so wide, Maxine saw her tonsils from all the way across the room. “I don’t need those damn hearing aids to know I called it first—liar!”
Hoo boy. Harsh. She’d used the “L” word. Good gravy. It was just bingo. The top prize was only a hundred bucks. Wait. A hundred bucks . . . In the midst of the beginnings of chaos, an odd thought struck her. A hundred dollars was at one time maybe—maybe—a pair of silk panties. Now it would buy enough food to feed at least two people for a week.
Huh, maybe instead of calling the numbers she should be playing the game.
Heated words flew back and forth between Deloris and Glenda, their wagging fingers and flailing arms becoming a blur as Maxine made her way to the middle of the ruckus.
She slipped into the fray with the idea she’d bring order. Surely Midge didn’t allow this kind of gangsta-esque behavior on her watch. What was the world coming to when a bunch of over-sixty seniors couldn’t play a peaceable game of bingo?
With as gentle a hand as she could, so as not to create the need for some poor soul’s hip replacement or worse, activate brittle bone disease, Maxine parted the gathering crowd, placing herself almost directly between the geriatric reenactment of the Sharks and Jets.
Just as Deloris made the windup that was aimed at Glenda, but missed her by a country mile.
Hitting Maxine instead.
Square in the nose.
How many people could own the fact that they’d been clunked in the face at a game of seemingly harmless bingo with a plastic doll that had bushy green hair?
She’d been trolled.
Atonement was due.
CHAPTER SIX
Note from Maxine Cambridge to all ex-trophy wives: When a knight in shining armor offers you a cold pack and a hot dog, do us each a favor; don’t play like you don’t dig it. You’d only be lying to yourself and the people around you who still have the gift of sight. Better still; keep your new independent, overempowered nuttiness to a minimum. Sometimes, when your nose is gushing blood, help in the name of pity is okay—it’s definitely okay from a hot guy. Just don’t book a chapel in Vegas for the Silver Elvis wedding package, especially if you were considering the fancy fog machine.
Len slid from her car onto the pavement of the parking lot in Leisure Village with silent feet, her fingers clutching the illegal can of mace she carried with her no matter where she went.
Whoever this joker was, popping up everywhere she’d been for the last week, behaving as though he was some cheesy rip-off of James Bond, he was in for a ration of her special brand of shit. She rolled her eyes at the idea that he was delusional enough to think she hadn’t noticed him each time he ducked under a store awning while she grocery shopped or made some half-assed attempt to hide behind a bush when she left her office.
Ridiculous.
She’d spent a week wondering why a man as divine, as tall, as delish in a suit as this one happened to be was dogging her every step. Another question she might ask herself was why, in all of hell, she had the wherewithal to think he was attractive when he could well be a murderer? Hard up was one thing—lonely and in need of male companionship were, too—but to entertain a potential menace’s lickability factor was just plain disturbing.
She’d considered calling the police, but to what point? What would she say? A man who looked remarkably like an advertisement, albeit a decadent one, for the Wall Street Journal was trailing her. And no, officer, he’s never once made a single threat, physical or verbal. They’d label her batshit and order 911 to ignore all calls from her.
Lenore snuck up behind him without a hint of awareness on his part, in heels, no less. He was easy prey, seeing as he really sucked at the covert. She held up the can of mace, finger on the pump, ready to fire, her eyes narrowed, and yelled, “Who the hell are you, and why are you following me?”
When he swung around, the scent of his cologne, by no stretch of the imagination cheap, swished in her nose on the air of the humid evening. He looked as surprised as she was, though her surprise was very different. The distance she’d seen him from since he’d begun stalking her had done him no justice.
His lickability factor, at least in the lanterns’ glow from the rec center, was boatloads bigger than she’d first estimated. Her breath caught in her throat. But then she reminded herself—those who engaged in the act of manslaughter weren’t necessarily heinous to lay one’s eyes upon.
It wasn’t a mandatory prereq that killers have warts and bad teeth. Some were probably equally into hygiene. Just because he wore chichifroufrou cologne didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of band-sawing her legs off and stuffing them in a tub full of muriatic acid.
Just because his hair, the color of the night that surrounded them, was shiny and well-groomed didn’t make him less capable of dumping her somewhere in the woods. The slate gray suit he wore, an expensive label she knew well, didn’t mean he hadn’t spent the better part of his pimply pubescence pulling wings off innocent flies.
“Lenore Erickson?” His delicious lips said her name, warm silk threaded in the asking, totally interrupting her completely out-of-line assessment of him. He took a step closer, making Len take a quick one back.
“Who’s asking? And”—she w
aved her hand in the space between them—“you back up or I’ll take your eyes out. So unless braille was something you planned on taking up, back off!” She flashed the can of mace at him in a threatening arc.
Hands wide like a football player’s, but lean and tan, went up, mimicking a pair of white flags. He grinned, his long legs moving him away from her. “Backing up.”
Len’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, and why are you following me all over town like some bad spy movie?”
His grin grew wider. “Adam Baylor.” Sticking his hand out, he nodded his dark head. “Pleasure. You are Lenore Erickson, aren’t you? Lenore the wedding planner for Belle’s Will Be Ringing?”
Suspicion flared in her eyes. “Maybe, maybe not. What do you want?”
His tongue rolled in his lean cheek, giving her the impression he was a wee bit short on patience. His eyes, gorgeous and chocolaty, were veiled, screaming he had a secret. “A bit of your time.”
Len’s head cocked to the left. Her time? “For?”
“Us to get to know one another.” His answer was seductively evasive, his thickly fringed eyes equally so.
“How the hell do you know my name?”
“It was a rather easy cross-reference to achieve when I looked up the name of your business. You know, that place you go every day called your office with the sign that says ‘Belle’s Will Be Ringing’?”
He was mocking her . . . And then it hit her. This was one of Fin’s lackeys. Probably some two-bit P.I. who’d taken that pig’s money under the table to make a quick buck. He’d sent this Adam to try and get something on Maxine so he’d be able to prove she was Attila the Mother or something.
When Maxine had called last week, more upset than she’d been since this whole mess had started, to tell her that Fin planned to speak to his attorneys about the “conditions” Maxine allowed Connor to live in, her mouth had fallen open in disgust.
It shouldn’t come as a big surprise Finley had decided the gloves were off, and at all costs he was going to get Connor to come back to the mini-mansion, even if it meant trashing Maxine in the process.
You Dropped a Blonde on Me Page 9
