Several of Charli’s neighbors were gathered in Sue Parnell’s yard gawking and pointing. I gave them a cheerful wave and a big smile. Most of them grinned at me and Sue Parnell shot me thumbs up. I was still waving when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Well, crap. In all of the excitement I’d completely forgotten about Kyle, Giselle, and Robby. Giselle and Robby were set up in the middle of the street, and, using Charli’s house as a back-drop, were doing a stand-up. Needless to say, I was not amused.
“Miss Sheffield,” Giselle called to me, “would you care to comment on the appalling behavior that we just witnessed from you and your sister?”
I trotted out and posed next to Giselle, honoring her with a semi-sweet smile. "But of course,” I said in my loudest ‘DJ’ voice to make sure everyone in Sue’s yard could hear me. “I’d be happy to. Boob tube. Booby hatch. Booby prize. Booby trap. Boob job.”
That last one got her. She stamped her foot and cursed. “Damn you, Marty Sheffield, you are a total and complete b-i-t-c-h!” Giselle sputtered so hard that she could barely spell bitch. Frankly, I was shocked that she could spell it at all.
“Takes one to know one,” I said. Okay, I’ll admit that was immature, but Giselle brings out the worst in me.
Robby doubled over with laughter.
“Shut up, Robby!” Giselle shrieked. “It’s not funny.”
She stomped over to Kyle, waving her arms around and yelling about how mean and stupid I was. Kyle put his arm around her shoulder and led her inside his house. But not without a backward glance, complete with smile and wave, in my direction.
Sue and the other neighbors applauded me. I bowed and curtsied, then jogged back to Charli’s front porch. Mom tossed me a wet towel and I rubbed at the splotch on my shirt. Charli was vainly trying to get the worst of the crud off of her head with a much larger towel.
“What was that all about?” she asked.
“Tim told me the other day that Robby told him that Giselle is thinking about getting breast implants. I figured if I made her mad enough she’d back off and leave us alone.”
“Brilliant!” Charli said. “Great thinking, Marty.”
Mom didn’t think I was so brilliant. “Marty, that was not a very nice thing to do. Giselle has feelings just like you do. Besides, she was just doing her job.”
Yeah, right. Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one Giselle had been hounding for the past umpteen years. “Let’s go inside,” I said, hopefully changing the subject.
We all started inside but Mom stopped Charli. “Charlene, dear, I really think you should go in through the basement. I’m sure you don’t want to get that, uh, that stuff all over your house, do you?”
Once inside, I ransacked Charli’s dresser and found one of John’s old tee shirts and a pair of gym shorts. A little soap and water, and ten minutes later I was spit-shined and polished, almost completely back to normal. I went into the family room where Mom was sitting on the sofa, drinking a glass of iced tea and watching Channel 42.
Evidently, it was a slow news day. By the time the early news show, ‘Live at Five’, came on Charli had declared war on Frank Billingham eight times on the news promos.
“Welcome to ‘Live at Five’,” the unnaturally perky anchor girl, who could have been a female clone of the equally perky male anchor, said. (Both of them were just way too pretty.) “Our coverage tonight includes reports on the dramatic rise in gas prices, all the latest scores, and your five day Storm Squad forecast. But first, a special Channel 42 exclusive from Giselle St. James on a wild riot that broke out in Glenvar’s upscale Oaks of Stableford Manor neighborhood this afternoon. Giselle.”
They cut to Giselle sitting in the newsroom at a desk. She was wearing her ‘serious’ clothes, a red Channel 42 blazer over a crisp white blouse. The blouse, of course, was cut so low she might as well have just not worn it at all. She showed off her fangs and picked up a sheaf of papers.
“Thank you, Lori,” she said. The way she pitched her voice made it sound like she was offering to get naked instead of reading ‘news’. “Today I was the witness to an appalling incident involving local DJ Marty Sheffield, who as you might remember, was recently fired from her job at country music station WRRR, and who was unceremoniously dumped by country music super star and local legend, Ricky Ray Riley, mere minutes before their wedding.”
“It was not minutes,” I shouted at the television. “It was three whole days. And I wasn’t fired!”
“Shh!” Mom said. “Sticks and stones, Marty. Sticks and stones.”
I clammed up but I was not thrilled about it. I was getting dad gum sick and tired of Giselle and her constant presence in my life. She droned on, telling about the incident and showing her video, which she and Robby had edited so that it looked like Charli and I were the ones doing the bullying, not Frank. The part where I tackled Frank was repeated three times during the clip.
“Officer Tim Unser of the Glenvar police department responded to the incident and, as I understand it, poor Mr. Billingham kindly, and quite remarkably, if you ask me, declined to press charges against the Sheffield sisters. Back to you, Lori,” Giselle finished up.
Lori asked her a couple of inane questions that basically showed she hadn’t even listened to Giselle’s report, made a frowny face, then tossed to her co-anchor by saying, “What is this city coming to when an elderly man can’t even work in his yard without being assaulted?”
I smacked the ‘off’ button. “At least there’s a couple of bright spots to the whole thing,” I said. “Channel 42’s news coverage is so bad that only about fifteen people watch it, and, for the most part, they aren’t folks that I’m likely to run into. At least I hope not.”
“I just can’t believe this,” Mom said. “Martina, you shouldn’t have provoked Giselle. She probably wouldn’t have put it on the air if you’d kept quiet.”
“Geez, Mom. You think I like this? Besides, you know Giselle. She hates me. If I so much as accidentally say a cuss word, she slaps it all over the air.
Mom hugged me. “Oh, honey, I know. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was blaming you. It’s just that your sister must be devastated. And with John halfway across the world! What on earth are we going to do?”
I didn’t have any ideas. At least any that didn’t involve wringing the necks of sleazy reporters and over-inflated blowhards. “Don’t ask me. You know I don’t have a clue about how to handle Charli.”
“Handle Charli? Charli doesn’t need handling,” my sister said as she came out of her bedroom where she’d been holed up since the fifth airing of her little conflagration. She was back to her version of ‘normal’: a perfectly tailored outfit, perfect makeup, and not a sleek blonde hair out of place. “I’m fine. Really. Well, I will be if you all help me.”
“Of course we’ll help you, dear,” Mom said without missing a beat.
I waited to hear just what it was Charli wanted help with. No way was I about to agree to any plot of Charli’s without hearing the details first. And make no mistake, judging from the look on her face, Charli had a whopper of a scheme cooked up.
“When I was in the shower it occurred to me that my beef isn’t just with Frank, but with almost the whole darn executive board of ONAG. Frank may be the president, but Sam English and Art Danner are just as bad. Art stood right there and egged Frank on that day when he went off about the begonia. I suspect it was Art’s idea for the line in the mulch. Frank doesn’t have that much imagination.”
“Art!” I said, “I’ll bet that’s who Frank had tow my car. Mom, will you take me over there to get it?”
Mom waved her hand to shush me. “Of course, dear But don’t interrupt your sister. I want to hear what she has to say about Frank, Sam, and Art.”
Charli paced back and forth in front of her big stone fireplace. “Thanks, Mom. As I was saying, my problem is with all of them, not just Frank so I’ve decided that I’m going to take over ONAG. I pulled out the bylaws and if I can get fifty-one p
ercent of the people in the neighborhood to sign a petition calling for a vote of confidence, I can force a new election.”
“That’s a splendid idea, honey,” Mom said. “I can write a story and help with publicity. Your sister will be happy to help you any way she can. She can go door-to-door and baby-sit. She’s not doing anything anyway. This will be good for her, give her an excuse to get up in the mornings. Right, Martina?”
Mom gave me a look that told me flat out that I didn’t have any choice in the matter.
“Yes,” I said, glumly, “good old Marty, always ready to help.” Okay, so maybe glum is a teensy bit of an understatement. After all, I am my mother’s daughter. (But don’t tell her I said that.)
The anniversary clock on Charli’s mantel chimed five-thirty. “Art closes at six. If I’m going to get my car out of hock we better scoot,” I said.
Mom decided that she’d stay with the kids and let Charli take me over to Danner’s to pick up my Mustang.
“Why don’t I pick up pizza and then I can tell y’all about this great idea I have for the ONAG takeover,” Charli said.
We agreed, and while Charli was calling in the pizza order Mom took me aside and presented me with a fifty. “I really appreciate you watching the kids. I know it did Charli a world of good to get out for a while. Even with all of the excitement, she looks much less stressed.”
I stuffed the fifty in my pocket. “Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it. More than you can know.”
Normally, when money is tight I pull a few nights tending bar down at Pilazzo’s, the pizza place/bar that a few of my high school pals own. Lately, though, things had been pretty slow for them and I hadn’t been needed much.
I patted my pocket. “This will go a long way toward stocking my refrigerator.”
You’d think that I’d have learned the first time about those famous last words, wouldn’t you?
5
Charli and I reached Art Danner’s “Towing and Hoeing” (He does backhoe work as a sideline.) on East Turtleback Street at ten ‘til six. I breathed a sigh of relief when I spied my Mustang huddled next to a busted up Harley in the very back of the lot.
“Thank God. I hope it’s not messed up from where he dragged it,” I said.
“I’m sure it’s gonna be just fine,” Charli said. “Do you want me to wait?”
“No. You go on ahead and pick up the pizza. I’ll see you back at your place in a jiff.”
As Charli pulled out of the parking lot, I hurried inside the tiny office. It smelled like bad coffee and sweaty feet, and judging from the grease-caked, grimy walls, interior decorating wasn’t Art’s claim to fame. He was seated at a gray industrial-type office desk bug-eyed over the swimsuit issue of one of those sports magazines. He took his time closing the dog-eared magazine and ambling to the counter.
Art was one of those guys who give southerners a bad name. He was as redneck as they come and proud as peaches of it. You know the stereotype of a ‘Bubba’? The image of the guy spitting tobacco juice out the window of his Chevy truck, a deer rifle hanging in the back window, a stars and bars bumper sticker on the tailgate? The one where he’s swigging down Budweiser while he listens to NASCAR on the radio? That was Art.
Thinning and wiry, his hair looked like a bucket of axle grease fell on it. Either that or he’d rubbed up against his walls. On thing for sure, it was definitely not a color that you'd find in actual, real-life nature. The style was what I’d describe as James Dean-meets-Conway Twitty, with maybe a touch of Loretta Lynn mixed in for good measure. His fingers were webbed with grease-filled cracks, he wore a short-sleeved uniform shirt that said ‘Art’ on the pocket, and the left sleeve was rolled up around a pack of Luckies. The effect was of being trapped in some sort of fifties time warp.
“Hey, Art, I’ve come to get my car,” I said.
He scanned me from tip to toe, evidently comparing me to the girls in his magazine. I’m not sure how I stacked up, but he scowled when he reached my chest, so I gathered that I didn’t exactly measure up to his obviously high standards.
“Got here just in time,” he said. “I was fixing to close up.”
“I’m glad I made it,” I said. “Just unlock the gate and I’ll be out of your hair in no time.” As long as I didn’t touch it, that is.
He stroked his skinny, shoe-polish mustache with his left hand while shuffling through a stack of papers with the right. “Here we go,” he said pulling out a chicken-scratched ticket. “That’ll be fifty bucks.”
“Fifty dollars! But that’s outrageous! Frank had it towed. He’s the one that ought to pay. Send the bill to him.”
Art shot me a slimy grin. “Marty, I don’t give a rat’s patootie who had your car towed. You want it, it’s fifty bucks. You wait ‘til Monday to pick it up, that’s another thirty. Storage fees. Ever day I gotta add on ten extra for storage fees. I don’t got all night, so’s you best be making up your mind.”
I thought about it, and about how maybe I should open up my own towing company if people were making that sort of dough on a regular basis. Then I pictured myself hooking up a car during a blizzard with the temperature a “balmy” fourteen below, and came to my senses.
“Well, what’s it gonna be?” Art asked. “I told ya, I got places to go, people to see.”
I hugged my pretty little fifty-dollar bill and mourned the loss of all the much-needed food I could have bought with it. “Here,” I finally said, reluctantly handing it over. “Now give me my car.”
Art led me out back through a maze of rusty, dusty automobiles and unlocked the back gate. Except for the right fender, which bore a new foot-long scratch, my poor Mustang didn’t seem too much worse from the ordeal. She started right up for me and I high-tailed it out of there, afraid that if I didn’t hurry Art would slap on another few bucks. Besides, since I was out of money, I wanted to make sure I got back to Charli’s before they ate up all the pizza. At the rate things were going in my life, there was no telling when I’d be able to afford to buy food of my very own.
For the next hour and a half, over low-fat veggie pizza (Whoever heard of pizza without pepperoni? Or sausage?) and caffeine-free root beer floats made with fat-free ‘ice cream’, we plotted out Charli’s strategy for taking over ONAG, then Mom watched the kids while Charli and I hit every big-box store in a thirty-mile radius.
Since it was so late when we finished, and because we were planning an early start Saturday morning, we decided that I’d just stay at Charli’s for the night. She scooted by my apartment and I picked up some clothes and my toothbrush.
Delbert was madder than heck at me and wouldn’t even let me rub his ears. I opened a can of foul smelling -- but according to the label delicious and nutritious -- Kitty Glop and dumped it in his bowl. He turned his nose up at it and stalked off into the bedroom. I couldn’t exactly blame him. It smelled almost as bad as Charli had when all that compost was smeared on her head.
“Will he be all right?” Charli asked.
“Of course. He’s just ticked because, since I’ve lost my job, I had to start buying this real cheapo brand instead of Gourmet Deluxe. He’ll eat when he gets hungry enough.”
Back at Charli’s, Mom, who evidently hadn’t had enough martyrdom yet, decided that she’d take the two boys home to spend the night with her. Charli put Jaelyn to bed and we worked on getting everything ready for Saturday morning. At midnight I fell into Adam’s bed and instantly crashed.
Charli woke me at eight-thirty Saturday morning and, after a cup of Hazelnut decaf and a pesto bagel smeared with a dollop of fat-free (and taste-free) cream cheese, ‘Operation ONAG’ was in full swing. First on Charli’s list was Dicey Ward. Charli had spoken to Dicey on the phone after we returned from our shopping tour and Dicey was eager to help. I wasn’t so sure about signing up Dicey, but Charli calmed my fears.
“Even though she’s the ONAG treasurer, she’s never been in step with the other three board members,” Charli said as we headed over to Dicey’s Saturday m
orning, Charli pushing Jaelyn’s stroller and me pulling the kid’s wagon.
“In fact, she pretty much told me at lunch yesterday that she was fed up with all of them, especially Frank. He’s been on her case for months now over her mulberry tree. He says it attracts birds and they leave their droppings all over his patio. Anyway, if we can get Frank and his cronies kicked out, Dicey will be the perfect person to be president.”
I stopped to pick up Jaelyn’s stuffed rat for the fifteenth time. “I can’t help it, but I worry about her. Dicey can be so brassy and in-your-face. Plus, all her sex talk turns people off. I know she’s just going for shock value, but still…. Besides, I thought we were doing this ‘cause you wanted to be the president.
“Heavens no! I don’t have that sort of time. I have kids, Dicey doesn’t. I’ll do vice president or something easy like that. I know what you’re saying about the brassiness and the sex stuff, but Dicey’s got a good heart. She means well and when it comes down to loyalty, there’s no one better. I think everybody will overlook that other stuff and vote for her.”
We carefully skirted around Frank Billingham’s and rang the doorbell of Dicey’s ‘Deluxe Presidential Model’ colonial. After a couple of ‘bing-bongs’ an extremely surly Robby Pluck swung the front door open. Other than a pair of skimpy bikini-style red undies that barely covered his, uh, assets, he was buck nekkid. I blushed all the way down to my roots and attempted to keep my eyes from straying below belly button level.
“Is Dicey in?” Charli asked once she’d managed to swallow her own obvious embarrassment.
He turned toward the front stairs. “Yo, Dice, door.”
Dicey’s whiskey-and-cigarette tinged voice drifted down to us. “Is it Charli?”
He yawned and stretched. “Yup,” he hollered. “And Marty.”
“Invite them in,” Dicey called out. “I’ll be down as soon as I get my face on.”
The Doom Diva Mysteries Books 1 Page 25
