Frank spouted off another round of obscenity-laced trash talk. The BMW man, who was at least six-two, two hundred pounds of what appeared to be excellent muscle tone, put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. “Frank, if you don’t stop using that kind of language right now, I’ll call the police.”
The bluster drained right out of Frank Billingham. He shook his fist in my direction once more and, without another word, stormed into his house, slamming the front door so hard that it sounded like a cannonball hit it. I sized up the man who’d stopped, admiring those muscles, which were quite apparent underneath the black golf shirt and khaki slacks, and wondering who he was and how the heck he knew my name.
“Thank you,” I said to the stranger. “I really appreciate your help. I think Frank has gone completely bonkers. He had my car towed away for no good reason and then practically attacked us for sitting on the curb in front of his house.”
The man flashed me a dazzling glimpse of his pearly whites. Combined with the prematurely salt and pepper hair, the big brown eyes, and the tantalizing whiff of his cologne, I would almost describe what I felt as ‘love at first sight’. Well, at any rate, lust.
“That’s really unfortunate. I’m sorry that the children had to witness such abusive behavior. About your car? I take it you had it parked next to the curb?”
I waggled my head around like one of those dogs you see in the back window of some cars. “In front of Charli’s. He said it was a violation of the neighborhood charter.”
The man swiped his hands through his hair, leaving a little cowlick on the right side, just above his ear. It made him look even cuter. It was all I could do to keep from throwing myself at him. (Did I mention that I hadn’t even been on a date since the previous summer?)
“Frank’s pretty strident in his viewpoint. As I’ve quickly found out.” He pointed to the house whose yard we were standing in front of, a ranch style that mirror-imaged my sister’s house. “I just moved here about a month ago and I’ve had three run-ins with Frank already. By the way, I’m Kyle Zagle.”
He held out his right hand and we shook. His hand was very soft and strong. And warm in that sexy sort of way. “I’m Marty Sheffield. My sister, Charli Carsky, lives across the street from you.” I gestured toward Charli’s place.
“I know. I’ve heard lots about you.” God, he was good looking. He still had hold of my hand and shock waves were flowing through me. “As soon as your sister found out that I wasn’t married, she started telling me all about you. I think she’s already planning our wedding, to be honest.” His laugh was wonderful, very happy and warm.
I laughed too. “That sure sounds like Charli. She’s in cahoots with my mom. They’re bound and determined to find a husband for me. I guess Mom figures if I’m married off I’ll be less likely to be a burden on her in her old age.”
His eyes twinkled. “You don’t look like you’d be a burden to anyone.”
I was going to come back with some snappy, witty remark designed to show off my sparkling personality and encourage him to keep flirting, but I couldn’t think of one because the kids were squabbling and it distracted me. I stepped back and punted instead, hoping I’d have better field position the next time I met up with Kyle Zagle.
“Well, Mr. Zagle, it was nice to meet you, and again, thanks for saving me from old Frank there. I suppose I’d best be getting these wild ones out of the street and into the house for lunch. I sure do hope we meet again.”
“You can count on it, Miss Sheffield.” Another squeeze of my hand, a flash of teeth, and Kyle Zagle went back up his driveway and slipped into his car. His garage door peeled up and the Beemer disappeared inside.
I couldn’t help wondering what was up with Charli. She’d been telling Kyle Zagle all about me, but hadn’t mentioned a single word to me about her handsome new neighbor. Believe me, that’s not like Charli at all. I hadn’t been kidding when I told Kyle Zagle that Charli and Mom were shopping for a husband for me. Ever since Ricky Ray dumped me, they’ve been trying to fix me up with every eligible man (and some not so eligible ones) they run across.
I spent the rest of the time Charli was gone feeding the kids, cleaning up after them, refereeing arguments, and trying in vain to track down my car. When my sister returned, she changed into one of her perfectly coordinated shorts outfits and fixed us glasses of iced tea. We took the tea and went outside to sit on her porch swing. Little Jaelyn was napping and the boys were playing around the world on the driveway.
After we settled into the swing, I told Charli what had happened with Frank, which totally appalled her, and then mentioned that I’d met Kyle Zagle.
Charli was non-committal. “He seems to be quite nice.”
“Is he married?” I asked.
“No. But he’s seeing someone.”
That still didn’t explain why Charli hadn’t mentioned him to me. It wasn’t something that she’d ever let get in the way of her schemes before.
“Anyone I know?”
Charli grew very concentrated on her iced tea glass, swirling it around, carefully examining it, sipping it, avoiding my eyes.
“Okay, Charli, what gives? Are you having some sort of passionate affair with Kyle Zagle?”
Charli swatted me. “Mar-ty! Of course not. I’m a happily married mother of three. Where on earth would you get such a ridiculous idea?”
“Then why are you being so weird about answering my question? All I asked was who Kyle is dating.”
The music arrived before the car came into view. Ricky Ray Riley’s hit single, “Bye-Bye, Baby, Bye-Bye”, blasted at full volume. As soon as I heard it, I realized why Charli hadn’t mentioned Kyle to me.
“It can’t be,” I said, horrified by the very thought of it.
Charli was properly doleful. “Yeah. Can you believe it? Such a waste too. He’s obviously got something horribly wrong with him if that’s the kind of woman he finds attractive.”
The fire-engine red Corvette with the black bra, spoiler, and ‘2SEXE4U’ license plate whipped around the corner and into Kyle’s driveway. Giselle St. James, (her real name: Jean Eloise James) gossip reporter from hell, brainless wonder, and my archenemy since childhood, slithered out of the car and prissed up the walk to Kyle’s front door. But not before stopping to undo the top two buttons on her blouse and hike up her already too short skirt another inch.
“You can’t buy class,” I said.
“That’s for sure.” Charli took another sip of her tea. “What do you think he sees in her?”
“God only knows.” I felt a little queasy. To think, I’d been flirting with the man. Attempting to, anyway.
Kyle’s front door swung open and Giselle waltzed into his house like she owned it.
Giselle and I have a mutual hatred that goes back to fourth grade. She has it in her head that I stole Ricky Ray from her. The fact that Ricky Ray never went out with her, never really even knew she was alive for that matter, apparently didn’t mean much to Giselle. In her warped mind, she wanted him and I got in the way, therefore I had to pay. To that end, she’s made getting revenge on me her mission in life. You’d think that after Ricky Ray dumped me her motivation would have petered out. But oh no, not Giselle’s.
Instead of letting it go she ramped up her efforts. For the past several months, not only had I been forced to deal with the pain and humiliation of being stranded at the altar, but also with Giselle’s sick lust for vengeance. Every time I did anything the least bit embarrassing, there she was, filming it for her ludicrous gossip show.
While Charli and I contemplated Kyle Zagle’s appalling lack of taste, a Channel 42 news van, the station Giselle works for, squealed around the corner and jerked to a stop behind her Corvette. Giselle’s cameraman, Robby Pluck, bolted out and pounded on Kyle’s door.
We watched with interest as Giselle and Kyle came out of his house and moved around his yard, obviously trying to decide on where to stand to shoot an interview.
They’d just started rolling when Kevin whizzed in front of Charli and me on his bike.
“No!” Charli hollered. “Kevin, don’t ride into Mr. Billingham’s flower bed!”
I lurched off the porch and bounded after Kevin, Charli fast on my trail. Kevin stopped just short of the flowerbed. I skidded to a stop, barely missing it myself. Charli wasn’t quite so lucky. She tripped over a wiffle ball bat the kids had left lying in the yard and went flying head first. She landed sprawled across the flowers, most of her body distinctly on the other side of Frank Billingham’s line in the mulch.
Frank, who was spreading compost and manure on his side of the flowers, went into a frenzy, ranting and raving and spitting with fury. I helped Charli to her feet and tried to brush the mulch off of her. The next thing I knew, Frank dumped a big shovel full of yard crud right on Charli’s head.
Clumps of leaves, dirt, rotten grass, and some other stuff that I would rather not mention clung to her freshly styled hair. Charli appeared to be in shock. She didn’t, or couldn’t, say anything. She just stood there frozen in place, her mouth open in a silent scream, looking like something the cat dragged home and, truth be told, smelling worse.
She blinked at me, her mouth still agape, then turned to Frank, who seemed quite pleased with his prank.
“Consider that a warning, missy” he cackled. “Next time, I’ll call the cops.”
Charli turned ninety shades of red and began to shake. That’s when the worm wriggled out of the mess on her head and slipped off the pile. I knew, as soon as I saw it, that it was going to be the last straw, so to speak.
I laughed anyway.
It slid down inside Charli’s blouse and my sister, who is absolutely, beyond all reason, scared to death of worms and snakes, went totally bananas. She danced around the yard, yanking at her blouse and screaming her head off. When the worm finally flew out of her blouse and lay wriggling on the ground she stopped and turned slowly toward Frank Billingham.
“This,” she shouted, “is WAR!”
4
Charli grabbed two huge handfuls of the glop from Frank’s wheelbarrow and winged them straight at his face. It had to have hurt like the dickens. Charli may be little, but she’s got a doozie of a pitching arm. Especially when she’s mad. And mad doesn’t begin to express what my sister was evidently feeling.
If Charli was mad, Frank Billingham was in outer space. He flung his shovel off to one side and loaded up both of his over-sized paws with the foul-smelling gunk. When he flung the stuff, Charli ducked and the crud hit me square in the face.
That’s when I lost it. I reacted on sheer instinct, lunging at Frank, going low just like my dad taught me, and took his legs out from under him. He went down backwards, smacking the ground hard, the air whooshing out of him.
Charli, who basically took Mom’s ‘southern girls raised right must be a lady at all times’ spiel as gospel, actually ran to Frank to see if he was okay.
She knelt down and checked for a pulse. “Frank, are you okay? Are you hurt?” she asked in her best Florence Nightingale imitation.
Frank pushed up to a sitting position and screamed directly into Charli’s ear. “Of course I’m not all right. I’m going to get you both for this!”
He shoved Charli, knocking her into the flowerbed. Her head cracked against the side of the wheelbarrow. She yelped with pain, rubbed her head and stood back up, tears glistening in her eyes.
I pushed Charli out of the way and grabbed the wheelbarrow handles. “I could kill you for this, Frank Billingham! You are the meanest, most ridiculous excuse for a human being I’ve ever seen!” I lifted up on the wheelbarrow and dumped the whole load onto Frank’s lap.
I don’t know who called the police, maybe Kyle Zagle, maybe one of the other neighbors, but I was just chucking the compost onto Frank when Tim Unser, Glenvar cop and my best friend since, well, forever, drove up.
“What in the tarnation is going on here?” Tim asked.
He’s a tall, gangly redhead. A little gawky, but sort of cute in an Opie Taylor big-brotherish way. It’s funny, but for some reason it always surprises me for a second when I see him in his police uniform. I guess it’s because to my mind he’ll always be ten years old, helping me build a tree fort out in the backyard.
No one answered him.
“Well?” Tim said. His hands were on his hips and he looked plenty ticked off. “Marty? Charli? Anyone want to tell me what this is all about?”
Kevin, bless his heart, blurted it out. “Mom fell over Mr. Frank’s line in the mulch, he dumped poop on her head, a worm went down her shirt, she threw poop back at him, he got mad and threw some more poop, it landed on Aunt Marty, she got mad and tackled him, Mom asked him if he was okay, he pushed her, and she hit her head on the wheelbarrow. Then Aunt Marty dumped the rest of the poop on Mr. Frank.”
“Is that right, Marty? Frank?” Tim asked.
“Pretty much,” I mumbled. It sounded a whole lot worse coming from the mouth of a kid.
Charli and Frank both began talking at once, each trying to out-yell the other one.
“Whoa! One at a time,” Tim said. “You first, Frank.”
Frank’s version was the biggest load of compost in the world. Well, next to the pile that was on Charli.
“She did it on purpose. Her and her kamikaze sister and her brat kids, they’re all out to get me. They’re trying to destroy my property value, I tell you. All I was doing was just minding my own business, working on my yard, when that nut-case come barreling over here and threw a handful of compost in my face.”
“That’s not true!” Charli said. “I was trying to keep Kevin from going over Frank’s property line. I tripped and fell. He started it. He poured the stuff on my head first.”
“She’s right,” I piped in. “Charli’s going into his yard was an accident. Frank threw the mulch first.”
“You all ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Tim said. “Acting like a bunch of idiots. And with the kids watching. Charli, I’m especially surprised at you. Even if it was Frank who started the whole thing, you chose to participate. You could have just walked away, you know. And you, Marty, I should have known you’d be involved. When the heck are you going to grow up?” He threw up his hands and snorted. “I ought to run the whole bunch of you in for disturbing the peace.”
Charli sniveled a little, then went into full-fledged bawling, cranking out some big wailing sobs. That’s when Mom arrived, drop-dead gorgeous as always. Her ‘Mom-radar’ must have been tuned in to the right frequency. How else can you explain her ability to show up whenever Charli manages to get us into trouble?
“My God! What happened?” I think she was about to put her arms around Charli, but evidently one whiff convinced her otherwise. She backed off a couple of steps and clothes-pinned her nose with her fingers.
“Good grief, Charlene, you smell quite unpleasant.” My mom, master of the understatement.
I gave Mom the short version of the day’s events. When I finished, she turned to Tim, who was busy fiddling with the radio microphone he had attached to his shoulder, and gave him her world-famous, ‘you’re the smartest, sexiest, best-looking man ever born and I find you totally fascinating’, smile.
“Timothy, dear,” she said, “you can’t believe that my girls would have started something as sordid as this intentionally.”
Mom is not only drop-dead gorgeous (she looks a lot like Michele Pheiffer), but she also has this whole sweeter-than-molasses thing going for her. She has one of those textbook drawls that’s been known to make grown men act like lovesick little boys. Tim fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Mom didn’t even have to reel him in. His head dutifully swiveled back and forth and his face turned a particularly interesting shade of red that I tease him about. He’s had a crush on my mom since he was eleven.
“No, ma’am. I’m sure you’re right.”
Mom turned her smile on Frank Billingham. “It’s just a big misunderstanding. Isn’t that so, Frank?”<
br />
Frank wasn’t quite as attracted to the bait. He stubbornly avoided meeting her eyes. A little extra oomph, though, and Mom would have him.
She poured it on, lowering her eyelashes just so and deepening the sweetening in her voice. “I can certainly understand how upset you must be over this, Frank. But you’re a reasonable, intelligent man. I know that once you think about it, you’ll realize that I’m right.”
In a moment of weakness I imagine he later regretted, Frank let his eyes stray to Mom’s. He was skinned and in the pan.
“I am a reasonable man. And I guess maybe I might have overreacted just a little. I’m willing to forget the whole thing if that woman,” he pointed to Charli, “and the rest of her bunch promises to keep off my property. That’s all I ask. All in the world I ask.”
“Charlene?” Mom said. “I’m sure you’ll go out of your way to honor Frank’s request, won’t you?”
Charli was no longer crying, but the tears had left streaks down her dirt-encrusted face. “Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
I looked hard at my sister. Her teeth were set and there was a flinty grit to her eyes that I recognized. She’d honor Frank’s request all right. But, before long, he’d be wishing he’d never drawn that damned line in the mulch. As Yogi (Berra. Or was it Bear?) once said, “It ain’t over until it’s over, Boo Boo.” Knowing Charli like I do, this little war wasn’t over. Not by a freaking long shot.
“Okay,” Tim said, his head cocked to the static sounds of his radio. “I’m going to trust you all on this. I don’t want to have to come back out here. Next time I will haul you in. Every single one of you. So don’t y’all forget it.”
He talked really fast, walking backwards toward his cruiser. His radio buzzed and crackled again, he said something into the mic, and then raced to his car, hopped in, and took off, siren blaring and lights flashing. Frank immediately gave us a withering look and then went inside, loudly slamming his back door.
The Doom Diva Mysteries Books 1 Page 24
