Loose Screws

by Karen Templeton

  “Damn. I never see end of anything anymore.”

  Her mood improves, however, when I tell her about the party. In fact, her whole face lights up. Funny thing is, Nedra tries to get her out at least once a week, to go out for lunch if nothing else, or do a little shopping, but she almost always declines. From her expression, however, you’d think the poor woman had been imprisoned for years and this was her first reprieve.

  “A party? For Salvatore, you say?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Her mouth gets all flat as she frowns again.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I just remember. Salvatore Petrocelli isa pain in the butt.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed, hopeful. “This mean you don’t want to go?”

  Surprise flickers in her black eyes. “Why would you think that? Of course, I want to go. He thinks I’ma pain in the butt, too.” Then she does this…thing with her shoulders that I’ve never seen her do before. Almost as if she’s…preening? “But only ifa you take me shopping for something new to wear? I want to look—” her eyes drift to mine, full of the devil “—più caldo.”

  Fourteen

  Hot, huh?

  Sure. You try to find clothes for a four-foot-ten, hundred-thirty-pound, hunched-over, eighty-year-old woman whose boobs are intimately acquainted with her navel. But it’s been three hours since we started this shopping trip, and every time I try to steer her toward anything that looks even remotely as though it will fit, let alone not make me want to vomit, she bellows something in Italian and hits me with her pocketbook.

  Remind me later to ask Nedra what on earth I did as a child to warrant this level of punishment.

  “I have closet full of old lady clothes,” Nonna says, pouting. “Now I want to looka like Britney Spears!”

  I’m not making this up, I swear.

  I point out, as diplomatically as I can with a throbbing head, swollen feet and splintered nerves, that most females Britney Spears’s age can’t look like Brittney Spears. And that few over her age would want to.

  She smacks me again and drags me into the next junior department, pawing at some sleazy…thing with spangles and chains. I glance over, notice the chickipoo a few feet away holding up a dress the size of a Kleenex to her nonexistent breasts. Two other chickipoos in hip-hugger mini-skirts, midriff-baring tank tops and way too much makeup—whose combined ages would still make them younger than me—are giggling and snapping gum beside her. My grandmother looks over at their hideous platform shoes.

  “Can I get something like that?”

  “You have something like that,” I say, pointing to her orthopedic Oxfords.

  She glances down. Nods. Continues mauling the sleeze. And I don’t know why it’s taken me this long, but I suddenly get what this is all about. She knows she can’t wear any of this stuff. And I’ll bet my butt when we walk out of here, she’ll let me take her to the right department, get her something that won’t make people gag. Or mistake her for a hooker who didn’t know when to quit. But Nonna never had the chance to be a chickipoo. Raised in a tiny town in Italy by strict, God-fearing parents, even if stuff like this had existed then, she wouldn’t have been allowed to even look at it, let alone wear it.

  She’s just playing, is all. And fighting me the way she never got to fight her own mother. Not my idea of fun, but hey, she’s eighty. Who am I to say?

  Nonna holds up a glittery tank top like the chickipoos are wearing. “What do you think of this?”

  “You can’t wear a bra with that, Nonna.”

  “So?”

  “So your nipples would hang out at the bottom.”

  She glowers at her reflection in the mirror for several seconds. Then, with a sigh, she hangs up the top, looks at me. “Ima being a pain in the ass, sì?”

  “You betcha. Come on. Let’s go up to the third floor.”

  As I suspected, she meekly follows—it’s about damn time the old girl runs out of steam, sheesh—and within fifteen minutes, we pick out a lovely two-piece rayon challis dress in a bright, tropical print. One with which she can wear that marvel of engineering she calls a bra.

  She grins at me in the dressing room mirror. “I looka hot, no?”

  “Nonna, you’re gonna knock ’em dead.”

  “Per Dio—!” She crosses herself, her eyes wide. “You watcha you mouth. Mosta people at this party, they already gotta one foot ina grave.”

  On the way out of the department, she snags my arm, then nods in the direction of the store’s beauty salon. “I think I shoulda get my hair trimmed a little, maybe.”

  I nearly gasp. Nonna’s hair falls to her waist, and always has. To my knowledge, no one’s ever taken scissors to it. “I can do that for you, you know.”

  But she shakes her head. “I have never been inna beauty salon,” she says wistfully, and again, I get it. Only this time, I catch the urgency in a way I hadn’t before. That she is eighty years old. That whatever she hasn’t done and wants to, she better damn sight do now.

  “We’ll see if they have any openings,” I say. “And what the heck, maybe I’ll have them take a couple inches off this rat’s nest, too, while we’re at it.”

  Sometime later, we’re standing at the front of the only coffee shop in a ten-block radius from the store Nonna would deign to set foot in, waiting to be seated. “Let me see your mirror again,” Nonna says, her eyes bright.

  With a smile, I dig in my purse for my hand mirror. Instead of having them take a couple inches off her hair, she ended up with only a couple inches left. And she looks absolutely adorable. Like an Italian elf. Ears and all. Who knew she’d been hiding such wonker ears under all that hair? But really, she doesn’t look a day over seventy-five. And the lady in the salon insisted on plucking her brows a little, dusting her cheeks with a pale blusher. The transformation is truly amazing.

  “I look almost asa sexy as you,” she says.

  Oh, yeah. I had them take all my hair off, too. I still look like a poodle, but a shorn one. With this really great neck.

  “Right this way,” an overly eyelashed hostess says, and we’re led back to a dimly lit booth. And not a moment too soon. I slide into the booth with a huge sigh, letting my eyes drift closed as my legs slowly register that they’re not carting me around anymore. God. I’ve had orgasms that didn’t make me feel this good.

  My hand bumps something; I open one eye, see a folded up Post someone left on the seat. With mild interest, I pick it up, scan the article in front of me.

  “So,” Nonna says, handing me back my mirror. “What are you going to wear to this party?”

  “I have no idea,” I say, distracted, then I let out a gasp. “Oh, my God…” I look up. “The police caught Brice’s murderer.”

  I’m reading the newspaper article out loud to Nonna while she slowly chews her turkey club, unmindful of the blob of mayonnaise stuck to her chin. I have to shout over the restaurant din so Nana can hear me, but even so, I’m not sure how much she’s actually caught.

  “Your boss, he was dealing drugs?”

  “Apparently so.”

  So, after all that, it wasn’t a former lover, or Carole, the disgruntled senior designer (just between you and me, I kinda suspected her). Or even an architect. Just some hit man with very bad karma.

  I’m not sure I understand all the details, nor do I want to. What gets me, though, as I’m reading this, is the sense of satisfaction I feel for Nick. And pride. He’s even quoted somewhere in here, something about thanking the community for their cooperation. You think maybe that includes me?

  After that fades, however, I realize I can let the guilt go. For not feeling worse about what happened to Brice, I mean. Not that I think he deserved to die, exactly. But I’m not sure he deserved to live, either. Sorry, but drugs creep me out. And people who use them—or sell them—creep me out even more. Which is probably why I don’t get asked to a lot of parties.

  Except for ones where the average age of the guests is eighty-five, tha
t is.

  “You should call him,” Nonna is saying, even as she tries to work a piece of something out of her bridgework with her tongue.

  “Who?”

  “Nick. To congratulate him. Per Dio—!” She reaches inside her mouth, pokes around for a minute until she dislodges a piece of turkey large enough to make a whole new sandwich. She waves the mangled piece of turkey at me for a second, saying, “It would be nice, sì?”

  No way am I going there.

  The flowers are waiting for me when I get home. Red roses. Three dozen of them. Which I should find tacky, if not clichéd. Instead, my breath leaves my lungs in a long, “Ooooh…”

  My mother plucks the card from the box, shoves it at me. “Maybe you should see who they’re from before you wet yourself—ohmigod! Where’s your hair?”

  “Somewhere around 34th and Broadway.”

  “And where’s your grandmother? And I hope to hell you don’t give me the same answer.”

  I’m still ogling the roses, nestled so sweetly in their little tissue-paper lined coffin. “Talking to the doorman. She’ll be up later.”

  “You left her on her own?” Nedra flies to the door, opens it, peers out into the hall.

  “For God’s sake,” I say, opening the card, “she can find her way to the elevator by herself.”

  My mother tromps back to me, gives me a disgusted look, presumably because I’m not.

  “I take it from your expression,” I say, “that you already know who they’re from.”

  “So? I put back the card, didn’t I?”

  Of course, they’re from Greg—you didn’t really think this was Nick’s style, did you?—but there’s no note or anything. Which is strange, but also intriguing, in a bizarre kind of way.

  “So the man can pull out a credit card and order a bunch of roses,” Nedra says. “Big hairy deal.”

  I say nothing as I gather them up to go find a vase. Noticing I’m headed for the kitchen, Geoff trots along beside me, ever hopeful.

  “You’re not thinking of resurrecting that relationship, I hope.”

  I pretend I can’t hear her because of the water running. I’m not thinking of anything, really, except that these are very pretty roses and I had no idea I was such a sucker for clichéd romantic gestures. From down the hall, I hear my grandmother’s return, followed by, “Ohmigod! What happened to your hair?”

  My purse, lying innocently on the kitchen table, suddenly rings. Geoff, who apparently has mistaken me for Nonna, barks at me until I answer the phone.

  “Ms. Petrocelli? This is Dana Alsworth from Alsworth Interiors, you interviewed with us a couple weeks ago?”

  You have got to hear this Southern accent to believe it. Dallas-born and bred, Dana Alsworth married a Northerner probably thirty years ago, hauled the accent up north along with the matched Gucci luggage. I swallow down the impulse to drawl, “Yes, ma’am?” into the phone, instead opting for a simple, “Yes?”

  “Well…” An airy, slightly nervous laugh flickers through the phone. “I believe you were working with Annabelle Souter before…when you were with Fanning’s?”

  “Yes, I was. She was one of my best—” as in, spent her husband’s money like there was no tomorrow “—clients.”

  “Well, honey, she brought her project to us a couple weeks ago and since then, she’s chewed up and spit out all my top designers. Now she’s saying she only wants to work with you.”

  This little hum of excitement begins to purr in my veins. “Oh, gee. I’m really flattered, but…I’m working somewhere else.”

  “Where?” comes the duck-on-June-bug reply. I tell her, she gives a dismissive snort, then says, “Name your price.”

  I like the way this woman thinks.

  “Annabelle can be a tad…particular,” I say, which gets a shrill, panicked laugh on the other end.

  “Oh, Lord, sugar, if you’re as talented as you are diplomatic, you’re worth your weight in twenty-four-karat gold. So I repeat—you tell me what you want, and you’ve got it. And by the way, Miz Petrocelli—if you can handle this woman, I’ve got a midtown hotel remodel comin’ up that might be right up your alley.”

  “Which one?”

  She tells me. I start to salivate. I also know how big the Souter project is. Four-thousand-square-foot home out on the Island. Annabelle likes to “freshen up” the place every three years or so. And we’re not talking a couple new throw pillows on the couch.

  “I’ll need my own office. And an assistant.”

  “You got it.”

  “And we discuss partnership in a year.”

  “Well, my, my…you certainly have brass ones, don’t you?”

  “All the better to handle the Annabelle Souters of the world, Ms. Alsworth.”

  That gets a throaty laugh. “Honey, you get this she-devil off my back, you’ll be partner in six months.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a new designer.”

  Dana’s relief was palpable, right through the phone. “I’ll call her right away. If you’ve worked with Mrs. Souter before…”

  “Three times, including her husband’s law offices and her daughter’s Riverside Drive co-op.”

  “And you still sound sane.”

  My mother and Nonna wander into the kitchen. “Believe me, I’ve had lots of experience dealing with crazy women.”

  They both glare at me.

  “So…can I say Monday?”

  Gee…today is Thursday. Is three days notice enough to give the store that I’m quitting? The store where, if a customer does manage to find her way back to the dreary little design studio, a half dozen designers pounce like roaches on a bread crumb. I mull this over for, oh, maybe three seconds, then say, “That will be fine.”

  “Bless you, darlin’. Just be sure to come in a little early so we can fill out that boring paperwork.”

  My phone is making weird sounds, a precursor to cutting off because it needs to be recharged. So I plug the little dear in, then grab my mother and dance around the kitchen with her, Geoff barking at our heels. I’m finally getting my life back! I’m going to have money again! My own apartment again! My own bathroom! A fowl-free environment!

  Except, after I’m done babbling all this for several minutes, I catch the expressions on my mother’s and grandmother’s faces. The “I’m trying to be happy for you because this is what you want but…” look. You know, the one guaranteed to make you feel about two inches tall?

  But you know what’s really weird?

  I don’t think I’m as happy about this as I should be, either.

  I had to call Greg to thank him for the roses. Yes, I did, don’t look at me like that. Not that it was easy. By the time I finally got up the nerve to make the call, my stomach was in a thousand knots. A fact not helped by his abrupt, “’Lo?”

  “Oh! Uh…Greg? Um, hi, it’s me.”

  Stunning example of grace under pressure, don’t you think?

  “Ginger?” A pause. “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t recognize the number on my Caller ID, and I’ve been getting so damn many solicitors recently…”

  “What? Oh, right. It’s the home phone. My mother’s home phone, I mean, since I don’t have one. I had to recharge my cell, so I had to use this one, so that’s why the number’s not right—”

  Jeez. Sound like an idiot, why don’t you?

  “Anyway. I called to thank you for the flowers. They’re really gorgeous.”

  I swear, I do not know how this happened, but…well, within half a minute, we fall right back into the easy camaraderie we used to enjoy, filling each other in on our lives—well, my filling him in on mine, anyway—which in turn leads to my telling him about my new job, which somehow leads to his offering to take me to dinner to celebrate.

  And I’m sitting here on my bed, dog head in lap, rooster making very strange noises down the hall, thinking, mmm, no, I really shouldn’t. A nice phone conversation is one thing. But an actual date?

  “Oh, I don’t know, Greg…�
�

  “It’s just dinner, honey.”

  “I know, I know, but…” I sigh. “I don’t want you to think this means…anything, okay? I mean, I was going to call you before the flowers came, because…I really need to give you back the ring.”

  Then I wince, waiting.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he says, his voice a little tight around the edges.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, I don’t mean that the way it sounds. It’s just, um…” He clears his throat. “Look…even if…things should work out that we get back together—I’m not pushing, I swear, just saying if, okay?—under the circumstances, I don’t think we’d want to use the same ring, would we? So what I’m saying is—”

  Notice how he just zipped right through before I had a chance to say anything?

  “—I don’t expect you to wear that ring again, in any case. But I sure as hell don’t want it back. Do whatever you want with it. Sell it. Bury it. Leave it to charity, I don’t care.”

  I think I just lost my voice.

  “Look, Ginge—I know you spent a lot of money on the wedding, too. Maybe this will make up for it?”

  Damn, he’s making it hard to remain objective.

  “Wow. I’m not sure what to say.”

  “That you’ll go out to dinner with me?”

  After a moment I say, “You play dirty, Munson.”

  He chuckles. “So I’ve been told.” Then, more seriously, “I know I’ve got a lot of making up to do. And that, in the end, you might still tell me to go to hell. I’d certainly deserve it, God knows. But, on the other hand, how can I prove you can trust me if we don’t spend some time together?”

  Okay, conflict time. On the one hand, I’m thinking, oh, why not? Especially since he’s the only person who seems to understand why I’m thrilled about this job. And it’s just dinner, for crying out loud.

  But am I ready for this? To take a second chance on somebody who shredded my heart? I want to believe him. I really do. But now I’m gun-shy and I’m not sure I can.