Lexie and Eva exchanged glances.
“I’ll have someone check into it, Aunt Gladys.”
“When?” The old woman’s eyes went wide.
“Soon.”
Aunt Gladys nodded. “I’ll make you some of my special drink if you’d like, Leslie. It keeps me on the straight and narrow.” Aunt Gladys tapped her forehead. “No old-timer’s disease going on in here.”
Except that you can’t remember my name or where you are half the time. “No, thanks.” Lexie went over to her coffee maker and reached into the cupboard above it, producing hazelnut brew and filters. “I just need caffeine.”
“You swill too much of that poison,” Aunt Gladys said. “No wonder you can’t sleep.”
“Caffeine’s not the problem, Aunt Gladys. Besides, whoever heard of eating brownies for breakfast?” She gave her aunt a hard look. But Aunt Gladys didn’t catch on. She was busy cutting up another pan of decadence. And making my life crazier than it already is.
While she drank her coffee, Lexie called the Westonville hospital to check on Elton’s condition. At first they wouldn’t give out any information. Out of desperation, she lied and told them her daughter was secretly engaged to Elton and that the girl was beside herself with worry.
“Why, I’m nearly his mother-in-law,” she pleaded with them. Finally the hospital clerk relented and told her, coldly, Elton was still in intensive care. Lexie put the phone down, a strange numbness flooding her limbs.
“How is he?” Eva asked expectantly.
“Not good, sweetie.”
Eva put down her brownie and her face went white. “I was hoping … I just had a feeling …” She shook her head and her eyes teared. “This is so awful.”
Guilt prickled Lexie like a cactus. She still felt as if Elton’s accident was all her fault. If he hadn’t been at her birthday, stripping for a gaggle of wide-eyed women and a gay man, he might never have been hurt. Lexie felt like the wind had sucked the very breath out of her lungs.
“Just keep hoping, Eva. That’s all we can do. Pray and hope. And stay occupied to keep our mind off things we can’t change.”
“How do we do that?” Eva asked.
Lexie tied on an apron. “We clean house.”
“Ughhh.” Eva got up and walked to the door. “I think I have to get back to school.”
“In a few hours.” Lexie grabbed her daughter’s arm before she escaped, spun her around, and crushed another apron in her hands. “At the moment I could use your help.”
Lexie put all of them to work including Aunt Gladys. It not only kept their minds off poor Elton lying in the hospital, but it kept her charge out of trouble. The three of them scrubbed tables, swept and mopped floors, vacuumed and dusted. All was going well and the place was starting to sparkle, except Aunt Gladys was full of unwanted advice.
“You and Lucy should put your restaurant tables over there,” she said, and proceeded to rearrange everything to her satisfaction.
“Only an owl with a microscope could read that menu,” Aunt Gladys added. “The lettering needs to be bigger.” With arthritic fingers, the eccentric old woman proceeded to rewrite the specials and the prices on the whiteboard with a thick erasable marker. Lexie didn’t think the new menu looked any better than her uneven writing, but whatever.
Upstairs in Lexie’s apartment, the human whirlwind named Aunt Gladys continued to rearrange and suggest new ways of doing things, and generally had her way until Lexie was ready to crawl down a drain and hide.
Aunt Gladys was a terrorist; Lexie, the hostage. Why didn’t Sister Lucy have to suffer through this, too? It wasn’t fair.
For a woman Aunt Gladys’ age, she was amazingly strong and agile. It was a shame Cousin Bruce kept her locked away in retirement homes. She seemed capable and strong-willed enough to take care of herself except for her occasional spells of forgetfulness.
Lexie prayed silently she would be relieved of Aunt Gladys soon. How long could she stand having the old lady around, bossing everything she did and going on about the boy-man? In the end, Lexie would be the one who would wind up having to be put in a home. Though she knew Cousin Bruce couldn’t hear, she muttered a few epithets.
They were cleaning up in Lexie’s apartment when the grandfather clock her father had given to her and Dan for their tenth anniversary bonged out the time.
Aunt Gladys’s feather duster froze in space and she wailed, “Oh, my, didn’t I have something to do today, Leslie? I just don’t remember …”
“That’s right—Winkie’s bridge party is this afternoon,” Lexie told her, temporary freedom looming precipitously.
“Hell’s bells, I’d better go get ready.” Aunt Gladys’s bent form shuffled over to the stairs and up to her room. A short while later she shuffled back down dressed in bright red slacks and a pink silk blouse. Around her wrinkled column of neck she’d tied a tiger-striped scarf and looped five or six strands of colorful beads. She lit a cigarette and puffed smoke into the air, her hoop earrings tinkling. “I’m ready to go, Leslie.”
Lexie wanted to lecture her about smoking, but decided to let it go. She was too excited to get a few minutes to herself. This was pretty bad; the old gal had only been here a couple of days and already Lexie was desperate to pawn her off somewhere.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” she told Eva who was on the floor sorting through a plastic box full of nail polish.
Lexie fished her keys from her purse and Aunt Gladys followed her down to the garage where she helped her aunt into the old Ford, then climbed in on the driver’s side. The ancient truck chugged and clunked its way through the bungalow-lined streets, pitching Aunt Gladys and Lexie to and fro inside the cab.
“What? You can’t afford a decent vehicle?” Aunt Gladys complained as she clutched the seat with arthritic fingers. “Ach, my brains—they’re scrambled like eggs. Where in Satan’s name are you taking me anyway, girl?”
Lexie sighed with impatience and shifted into a lower gear. “To the Sunrise Center to meet Winkie. Remember the bridge party he invited you to?”
Aunt Gladys’ eyes went wide. “That’s right. A card game for old people. What fun I’ll have,” she said dryly. “But I guess it’s better than rearranging furniture.”
The old gal fell silent and watched the passing scenery outside her window. Lexie, glad for the reprieve, glanced outside, too. It was another dry and unusually warm day for autumn. In the distance, the Teton mountain range hulked in shades of sienna. Rocky peaks shot up into the air, unforgiving and barren, except for a thin frosting of snow at the top; too far up to do the thirsty landscape any good.
Wind whipped mercilessly around the truck; it rarely stopped around these parts. People said there were two seasons in Wyoming. Wind and more wind. And if you ever sighted a Jackalope, a rabbit with horns, it meant you would have good luck. Although if you believed in Jackalopes, maybe Santa Claus still climbed down your chimney, too.
Before long, Lexie pulled up to an old cinder-block building that had once been Lubbie’s Gas and Grub and still had an ancient red pump displayed in front. In its former glory days, before the Conoco station took up residence, it had been a hub of the small community. People had come from miles around to have Lubbie fill-‘er-up and discuss the latest wheat prices and cattle ranching problems.
Lubbie’s had still been around when Lexie was a girl and she recalled meeting friends there for sodas and gum. Some of the kids convinced old Lubbie to sell them cigarettes. Lexie recalled huddling with classmates behind the station and puffing away on the contraband smokes. She’d really hated the way it burned her throat, but she’d wanted to fit in. And of course, when she got home, her parents could smell the odor on her clothing and she would be grounded.
Lexie also recalled that a year or so before she’d graduated from high school, the gas conglomerate had bought out Lubbie’s Gas and Grub and built a truck stop outside of town. Lubbie, probably in his seventies or eighties, had retired. In the years since then,
the old gas station had been renovated and turned into a meeting place for Moose Creek Junction’s senior citizens, so Lexie supposed it still served as a meeting place, only in a different capacity.
Today, it was the answer to Lexie’s prayers. The old folks would babysit Aunt Gladys while she got an hour or two of peace and quiet.
“Thank God we’ve finally arrived,” Aunt Gladys exclaimed theatrically, waving a hankie in front of her face as she opened the truck door. “The fumes from this beast were about to suffocate me. Any longer and I would have gotten black lung.”
She slid unsteadily from the truck and shuffled her bent form on pencil-thin black heels past the Sunrise Center sign, a wooden creation with the letters burned on it dramatically sitting in the middle of the winter brown lawn. A stagecoach image had also been burned into the sign along with mountains and a sun.
Lexie got out of the truck and followed her aunt inside; glancing briefly at the vinyl couches and fake potted ferns. A recreation area with pool tables and shuffleboard was off to the right where a large table surrounded by a group of elderly people sat. It sure looked different from when it had been Lubbie’s.
Aunt Gladys and Lexie approached an attendant sitting at a desk by the door, a sturdy looking young man with a head full of closely cropped blond hair. He seemed familiar for some reason, but Lexie couldn’t quite place his looks. It was something about his brown eyes, she decided, which were very closely set and nearly hidden behind thick, round glasses. He didn’t seem quite right, either. “My aunt’s here for the bridge game,” she told him. “Does she need to sign in?”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Is she a thhh-enior thhh-itizen?” he asked in a slurred voice.
Down’s Syndrome, Lexie thought. How wonderful he was able to be so functional. And he had a certain sweet innocence about him. “Yes, she is.”
“Mr. Jack,” the young man called.
A man in a checkered shirt and worn jeans came out of an office and moved up behind the boy, patting his back. His blond hair was shapped into silvery spikes, similar to a military haircut. And though his face had a no-nonsense appearance, he was pleasant enough and even nice looking, Lexie thought. He reached across the desk to shake her hand. “I’m Jack Sturgeon. The director here at Sunrise Center.” He nodded at the young man. “This is Danny. He helps me out here once in a while.”
Danny grinned widely.
Lexie smiled back at Danny, then at Sturgeon. “My name’s Lexie Lightfoot,” she returned, a slight tingle shooting up her arm when his flesh touched hers. “This is my aunt—”
“Mrs. Gladys Maplethorpe,” she told him with a red-lipsticked smile, as if to impress him with her importance.
Jack Sturgeon shook Aunt Gladys’ hand as well.
“Gladys,” Winkie Hightower trilled as he got up from the table and strode in their direction. Dressed all in black again with his golden earring shining, he addressed the director. “Gladys is a dear friend of mine. I invited her for our afternoon bridge game.”
“We’re glad you could join us,” Sturgeon said.
Winkie led Aunt Gladys over to the table and introduced her.
“I’ll be back to pick her up my aunt when the game is over, Mr. Sturgeon,” Lexie said.
“Jack—please call me Jack.” He smiled, his white teeth shining. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy herself. We have a friendly group of seniors here.” He smiled. “Don’t worry; she’s in good hands.”
Oh, but Lexie did worry. However, once she was back in her truck, she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this was going to work. Wouldn’t it be nice to think she could bring Aunt Gladys over here a few times a week and get a break?
Back home, Lexie prepared chicken soup and beef stew and put them in the refrigerator to be reheated for tomorrow’s café menu. Then she went upstairs to her living room and sank into her recliner. Reaching into a basket to retrieve the afghan she’d been crocheting, she glanced at Eva sitting on the floor in front of the boob tube watching MTV, toes separated by cotton balls as she painted the nails shiny black.
“Honestly, Eva. That’s a hideous color.”
“Whatever,” Eva responded.
Lexie sighed and concentrated on her project. She’d started the afghan last summer for Eva before the girl left for college. She was close to finishing and hoped she’d get it completed in time for Eva to take back to her dorm room when she left in the evening. At about age 13, Lexie learned to crochet on her own, after her mother had tried to show her … how many times? She’d always been too impatient to follow directions. One day her mother had given her an afghan kit and suggested if she wanted to learn to crochet, she should do it by following written instructions.
The afghan pattern turned out to be granny squares and Lexie fell in love with the color of the yarn in the kit. Despite her penchant for fidgeting and restlessness, she managed to teach herself the art of “knotting string” as her father called it. She tried to pass the crocheting skill on to her daughter. Eva, having inherited Lexie’s restlessness, preferred mall shopping and talking on the phone. Maybe someday she’d carve out a few domestic skills, but for now, she remained Lexie’s wild child.
Ignoring the MTV blare of what kids these days called music, Lexie managed to complete the final few granny squares, now her favorite pattern. She’d carefully chosen yarn in her daughter’s favorite colors—a deep ocean blue, a sky blue, and a butter yellow to add contrast.
As she stitched the granny squares together, Lexie imagined Eva covering up in the labor of love every night while she was away at school. She was probably making too much of it, but it made her feel good to send her child off with an extension of a mother’s protective spirit. All that energy put into an afghan. Man, what a goony bird she’d become. Sheesh.
Lexie’s eyes suddenly got heavy, and she caught herself falling asleep with her crochet hook held in midair. Leaning back in her chair, she dozed. The next moment the phone rang. Lexie’s eyes popped open.
“You’ll have to get it, Mom,” Eva insisted, her fingers and toes splayed. “I’m all wet.”
Lexie shoved aside yarn and hooks and hustled over to the phone, snatching it from the cradle. “Hullo?”
“Lexie?”
“Yes.”
“This is Jack. You need to come and pick up your aunt right away.”
“Oh, is the bridge game finished so soon?”
“Not exactly.”
Lexie’s heart flip-flopped. She had a really bad feeling. “Is there a problem?”
“I’d prefer to discuss it with you in person.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Good heavens. It had only been a couple of hours since she’d dropped off Aunt Gladys. What kind of trouble could the batty old broad have possibly gotten into in that short amount of time? Lexie put on her shoes and gathered up her purse.
Eva stopped blowing on her glossy black toenails and flipped hair out of her face. “What’s up, Mom? Where are you going?”
Lexie paused at the door. “To rescue the Sunrise Center from Aunt Gladys.”
“Oh-mi-God. What’s she done now?”
“Who knows? And you’d better quit blowing on your toes or you’re going to hyperventilate and pass out.”
“Whatever.” Eva ignored Lexie. Shaking her head, Lexie hurried out to the saggy-roofed garage to climb into the truck. Teenagers. Couldn’t live with ‘em, couldn’t disown ’em. Now she had Aunt Gladys to stew over. Again she wondered what possible kind of mischief the woman could have gotten herself into in two hours.
Plenty, a small voice said.
CHAPTER 11
LEXIE’S TRUCK SPUTTERED AND COMPLAINED all the way to the Sunrise Center. For the millionth time, she prayed the temperamental vehicle would stay spit-glued together for a couple more years until she could get Eva’s car paid off. Please, please, please … It was rotten to be at the mercy of a heap of metal and rubber.
The second Lexie walked inside the senior citizen center, she sens
ed tension rippling through the air. Young Danny stood at the desk, a frightened look on his face, wringing his hands. In the recreation area, the elderly folks groused at each other in loud voices and Jack Sturgeon stood nearby, restraining one woman with short, steel gray hair and equally gray clothes. Winkie Hightower stood not much further away, restraining Aunt Gladys in similar fashion.
Lexie winced. Maybe she should have worn full body armor for the battle. Poor Danny looked pretty upset, muttering to himself and rocking back and forth. Feeling sorry for him, she reached into her purse, searching for the piece of peppermint candy she’d picked up at a restaurant and was saving for a bad-breath emergency. Handing it to him, she said, “Here you go, Danny, don’t worry. It’ll be OK.”
Danny stared at her with wide eyes and shook his head. “No, no, no. I’m not supposed to take candy from strangers. That’s what my mom and Granny said.”
“But I’m not a stranger. You and Jack met me earlier, remember?”
His brows knitted in intense concentration, and he said, “Right!” He eagerly unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth. Despite the piece of sweet comfort, he resumed wringing his hands while watching the frantic geriatric scenario across the room.
Lexie hurried over. “What’s going on?”
“Gladys Maplethorpe is a cheat and a liar,” the lady in gray proclaimed, chin quivering.
Lexie looked at Jack.
He swept his hand toward the group of assorted seniors. “I’m afraid your aunt convinced everyone to switch from Bridge to Poker. Things got a little confused.”
“No confusion here,” Gray Lady spouted. “The old cow straight up cheated!”
“Did not!” Aunt Gladys roared.
“Did to!” Gray Lady shouted.
“Alice, calm down.” Jack gave Gray Lady a stern look. “I’m sure it was all a mistake. Remember your high blood pressure. Don’t upset yourself.”
“He’s right, Alice,” Winkie added. “Gladys didn’t mean to make anyone angry. Did you, dear?”
The Saucy Lucy Murders Page 16
