by Elise Sax
John shook his head. “Sorry, babe,” he said, winked at me, and threw me into a dancer’s dip. He winked at me once more before kissing me right there in the middle of the shop. I was briefly aware of all eyes in the shop watching us, but then I wasn’t aware of anything else except for the reaction of my body to him.
We hadn’t kissed since that first time in the hospital, and here it was happening again. The intoxicating mix of the sexy Remington, along with John, who had loved me for most of my life, was almost too much to bear. Like the new composite man, the kiss was both gentle and hard.
His tongue slipped into my mouth, and I greeted it greedily with my own. My body ignited in a flame of desire, and Lord help me, I pulled him closer to me. In front of everyone. I might have moaned, too. I was pretty sure that my brain was melting, and maybe that’s why I kept kissing him like I couldn’t stop. Maybe that’s why I forgot that I was in the middle of the shop with about fifty people watching me.
Thankfully, John stopped the kiss for me. He lifted me up and straightened my clothes. He threw me a devilish grin and winked at me once more. “Gotta dip, Aggie,” he announced and pointed at me, like he was part of the Rat Pack in Vegas.
The entire female population of the store watched him leave. When he walked through the door and out of sight, there was an audible sucking in of air, as if we had all been holding our breath at the sight of a singularly hot and dashing man.
The door remained open for a second, and Eddie Acid walked in. He stepped in the middle of the store, and he tried to strike a pose, but he was only halfway successful. Normally, his presence drew a lot of oohs and ahhs, but everyone was still in a cloud of Remington, and they didn’t react to the punk rocker.
Eddie frowned in disappointment, but then he recovered quickly. “Announcement!” he shouted. “I’ve got great news for you lazy townspeople. Chris Trist, one of the four Chris’s, is going to be one of the contestants at the taco-eating contest.”
He finished his announcement, and then he managed to do his punk rocker pose, surprising himself and everyone else. My friend Amy Hawthorne, the town’s professional cat walker, stood up and screamed while clutching the sides of her head.
“What?” she screeched loudly, dragging out the word. “Chris Trist? He’s my favorite Chris of the four Chris’s!” She screamed again, and this time she did a little dance with it. “Will I get to meet him?” she asked when she came up for air.
“If you volunteer,” Eddie said. “Volunteers will get to meet Chris.”
Amy ran towards Eddie, pushing aside chairs, tables, and me, like she was going for a touchdown. “Back off, people,” she barked. “I’m going to be the number one volunteer. I’m going to spend the most time with Chris. Nobody’s going to meet him before I do. Chris loves me. I mean, he wants to meet me. I mean…Back away people, or I’ll get my cats to claw your eyes out.”
Despite her threats, half of the diners in the shop filed in behind Amy to sign up to volunteer for the taco-eating contest and to meet one of the four Chris’s. I didn’t know who the four Chris’s were, let alone Chris Trist, but the announcement that he was going to be here had set off a chain reaction. Eddie Acid now had more volunteers than he knew what to do with.
Hopefully, it meant that the taco-eating contest would run without a hitch. I smiled when I thought about it, because it might mean that tomorrow would be a slow soup day, while everyone watched the taco eaters.
A slow soup day. I had been wishing for one of those, and my wish was going to come true. Maybe I did have good news for Frances, after all.
I returned to Frances’s table and sat down across from her. “That was lucky timing,” she said to me.
“What do you mean?”
“The Chris Trist thing. Now no one’s talking about the Remington kiss.”
I could feel my face grow hot, and I was probably the color of our tomato soup. “Oh that. That was nothing.”
Frances smiled. “I could do with a little bit of nothing in my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been nothinged like that before. That was like a movie star, porn movie, Gone With the Wind kind of nothing. It’s probably illegal in thirty states. I was sure you were going to get naked right here. Actually, I was pretty sure I was going to get naked just watching Remington kiss you. You lucky soup shop owner, you.”
I shrugged, as if the kiss wasn’t all that, and I had been kissed like that a million times in my life. My face grew hotter, and I was sure that I was bright red.
Frances stood. “That does it. I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to enter the world of delivery apps. I’m going to blow everyone out of the water. I’m going to make a fortune and be someone important in this town. More important than a Chris. I’ll be like the fifth Chris. And I’ll lose twenty pounds. It’s the genius idea of the world, Agatha. I wish I had thought of this earlier. Thank you for all your help.”
Frances marched out of the shop like a conquering hero. I hope that she was right about the delivery apps, but I had my doubts. I didn’t think the delivery apps were a good thing for anybody.
Chapter 4
“One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.”
–Agatha Christie
The rest of the day went smoothly. Eddie took up a table in the center of the shop as his center of operations for the taco-eating contest. He had a clipboard, and he filled it with names of volunteers who came in and out of the shop until closing time. With all the volunteering going on, people seemed to forget about eating. Even the deliveries seemed to slow down. It was a welcome relief.
At four o’clock, I closed up the shop and walked outside.
The marijuana dispensary was still open, and there was a long line of people waiting to get in. The dispensary was like a new ride at Disneyland. There was an endless line and endless interest in it. But as I walked past it, I heard an argument between a customer and Augustus, the owner of the dispensary.
I couldn’t make out the words, but I gathered the argument had something to do with the marijuana and some kind of effect it had on the customer. Good, I thought. Maybe word would get around, and the dispensary would close. That would be a huge relief. Then all I would have to deal with were my regular customers and the delivery apps.
I walked through town toward Remington’s apartment. John wouldn’t be home for hours, but I was nervous about his first day and I wanted to be there when he got home to see if he was all right. My imagination had run wild for hours, worrying about all of the trouble John could get into on his first day as a detective.
When I got to his apartment, I was surprised when my Auntie Tillie opened the door.
“There you are,” she said. “We’ve got the computer running. We’re using up a lot of electricity.”
Auntie Ida’s head appeared over Auntie Tillie’s shoulder. “And we’re eating Twinkies,” she added, excitedly. “Remington has boxes and boxes of Twinkies. It’s like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
I ran late the next morning and didn’t open the store until five o’clock. Irving and Doris were shivering uncontrollably by the time I got there, since they had been waiting for me for an hour in the cold. I apologized profusely, and gave them free coffee and coffee cake to try to make up for my tardiness.
“We thought you were dead,” Irving said after he took his first sip of the coffee.
“Or pregnant,” Doris said. “We heard that you had sex with the hot cop in the shop yesterday.”
“Uh,” I said.
“You do look a little puffy,” Doris said, looking me up and down.
“I’m not pregnant,” I said. “And I didn’t do that other thing.”
“Pity,” Doris said.
“I’m glad you’re not dead,” Irving said. “I really thought you were dead. Otherwise, why would you make two old geezers die from the cold?”
I couldn’t explain to them why I was so late. How could I explain that I was up all night with my aun
ts trying to learn how to Google an answer to getting Remington back into his body? It turned out that the Internet had information about everything, except for our predicament.
John had returned home to Remington’s apartment at eleven, and he regaled us with stories of his first day out in the workforce after hundreds of years of being dead. He was delighted by everything, even about being chewed out by the desk sergeant for not understanding how to fill out forms.
Every aspect of his new life delighted him, even the public bathrooms in the police station. He told us about Remington’s duties, his caseload, and about giving a ticket to someone who parked illegally by the doughnut shop. It was all an amusement park to him. Every breath of every minute of the day.
As he spoke, he would glance my way, and a ribbon of sexual electricity sparked between us. I was thankful that my aunts were there, so I wouldn’t break my vow not to do anything with John until he figured out what happened to Remington and whether we could get him back.
That might be a long wait. At around midnight, my aunts and I returned home without the computer and without any answers. I didn’t get to sleep until the middle of the night, and that’s why I was late this morning.
It was a gorgeous morning. While the soups simmered in the cauldrons, I opened the shop door and stepped outside to get some fresh air.
Outside, the dispensary line was long, and the scooters were still taking over the sidewalks.
“Get out of my way, or I’ll beat you senseless,” I heard, and turned to see Frances facing off with a scooter driver. She was wearing her suit, and there was a large bag from the doughnut shop clutched in her arms.
“Don’t you see that I’ve got deliveries to make?” she demanded.
“Get out of my way, lady,” the scooter guy yelled back. “You’re on my sidewalk!”
“This isn’t your sidewalk!” she screamed back. “The sidewalk is for pedestrians. Your stupid scooter is supposed to stay on the street!”
He stuck his tongue out at her and gave her a gentle push. Frances stumbled backward and dropped her delivery bag on the ground. The doughnuts spilled out onto the sidewalk, and she stared at them with her mouth open and her face frozen in a horrified expression.
“Look at that!” she yelled. “You made me drop my delivery! You sabotaged me! You and your stupid scooter. Your stupid, illegal scooter on the sidewalk. You’re a terrorist. You’re bin Laden. You’re Hitler. You’re Stalin.”
“I’m not any of those people,” the scooter guy said. “I’m Scott Hillman!”
“You’re a moron!” she yelled at him. “It’s my first day, and a moron’s trying to make me fail. Well, I’m not going to fail, Stalin! Do you hear me, Hitler? I’ve got deliveries to make. I’m the number one delivery person in this town, you know!”
“Your mom must be so proud,” the scooter guy sneered.
Uh-oh. I was across the street from them, but I could see smoke coming out of Frances’s nose. She growled and rammed her shoulder into the scooter guy, knocking him down into the street.
“There!” she yelled at the scooter guy, who was on his back in the street. “That’s where you belong!”
Someone called my name, and I turned to see Amy walking toward me. “Good. You’re open,” she said. She wasn’t walking cats, but she was holding a large clipboard, and she was wearing a T-shirt with Head Volunteer written on it.
“I’ve got to get some coffee in me before I get this show on the road,” she told me. “How does my hair look?”
“Good,” I assured her.
“That’s a relief. You know, Chris’s arriving soon. I’m going to wow him with my efficiency and my hair.”
“You look efficient,” I said, pointing at her clipboard.
“You like it? I think it’ll show him that he can rely on me. And you know that reliance is the way to a man’s heart, Agatha. Take it from me. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump until I’m Mrs. Chris Trist. I’ll invite you to the wedding.”
“Thank you.”
“Today’s soups are tomato, creamy leek, Tuscan white bean, and Irish stew,” I told Bud.
“I was going to go for the Irish stew, but I think I should keep it light because there’s going to be tacos at the taco-eating contest,” Bud said.
“You’re in the contest?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “No, but they’re having a couple taco trucks on the side for the spectators.”
I was delighted by this news. That meant that business would be light this afternoon. The morning had been nonstop, but mainly for volunteers looking for coffee and sweets to fuel their energy. Across the street, they had set up the table on the bandstand for the taco-eating contest. Along with the table, there were signs, decorations, and a huge clock. They also set up a sound system, which was playing punk rock music.
Not everyone enjoyed punk rock, and so volunteers had been spending most of their breaks inside the soup shop with its thick wood walls that blocked out the sound.
“I would order the creamy leek if I were you,” I told Bud. “It’s pretty light.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“Where’s your computer?” I asked him.
“I’ve sort of stopped smoking weed,” he explained. “It just wasn’t settling on me like it used to. I was getting bad dreams about snakes in places in my body where they shouldn’t be, you know?”
I nodded, but I had no idea what he was talking about.
“And if I don’t get high, reviews are just not the same,” he continued sadly. “I might have to find another way to make a living.” He hung his head low, and I patted him on the back.
He was a nice guy, and I was sorry that he would have to change his profession. I knew a lot about that. Up until a few weeks ago, I was a lighthouse caretaker. Now I ran a soup shop. I was getting the hang of it, but career changes are not easy things to handle.
The door opened and Frances stormed in. She had already been in the shop at least a half dozen times since her run-in with the scooter guy. Her hairdo had gone flat, and her suit was stained. There was a large run up one of her pantyhose legs, and she was breathing hard.
She marched up to the counter and slammed her hand on it, making Mouse jump. “Hurry it up, Mouse,” Frances demanded. “The orders are supposed to be ready. Get with the program. You’re not going to make me fail.”
Mouse was sweating, profusely, and where Frances was breathing hard, Mouse was barely breathing at all. “I’m going as fast as I can,” Mouse squeaked. “You’re not the only delivery.”
“What do you mean, I’m not the only delivery?” Frances demanded. “I’m the delivery person in this town. You run all the deliveries through me. Nobody is as fast as I am. You got any water?”
Mouse slammed her hand on the counter. “I don’t have time for water! I’m making bread and filling deliveries. Do you know what kind of hell I’m in?”
“A scooter ran over my foot, little girl,” Frances said, pointing at Mouse. “I’ll trade your health for my health. It’s dog eat dog out there, lady. I don’t have time for your crap, too.”
Oh boy, it was a free-for-all. My once sedate, sweet soup shop, had turned into a battleground. I hoped that Frances would calm down about the deliveries soon. Ditto Mouse.
The two finally stopped yelling long enough for Mouse to fill the deliveries. She handed them to Frances, who stormed out of the shop on the double. Just as she left, the door opened again and Eddie Acid walked in. He was accompanied by a short blond man in designer jeans. The man was small, but he was extremely good-looking, with perfect bone structure.
I suspected that some of his perfect bone structure was given to him by a talented plastic surgeon. And I was pretty sure that he was wearing pancake makeup and just a touch of mascara.
With the man’s entrance, all activity in the shop stopped. There was a chain reaction of whispers. Chris Trist. Chris Trist. Chris Trist. The whispers came from everywhere.
Then Amy scr
eamed. “Chris Trist!” For a little woman, Amy had powerful lungs. She was like the opera diva of screams.
Eddie posed, and the guy next to him, who I assumed was Chris Trist, pointed at Amy and winked. Amy gasped loudly, clutched at her chest, and her knees shook. She started to faint, and Bud, for once not stoned, leapt to his feet and caught her before she fell. He let her down gently onto a chair and fanned her with his hand.
“I’d like to thank you all for taking time out of your day today to volunteer for a worthy cause. MS is a terrible disease,” Chris announced to the shop. Eddie elbowed him and whispered something into his ear. “Ahem, I mean the lifeguard tower is a very worthy cause. We all need lifeguards. Lifeguards are the salt of the earth. Lifeguards know how to swim. Lifeguards are the guards of our lives.”
“Isn’t he wonderful? He’s so smart,” Amy gushed.
“Lifeguards are just fine, but I’d rather you give me mouth-to-mouth any time, Chris!” one of the women in the shop shouted out.
Chris turned on his dazzling smile that he probably bought from an oral surgeon, and there were some more gasps in the shop.
The door opened and seven reporters filed in with their cameramen. They turned on bright lights and pointed them at Chris.
“I was just saying that lifeguards are the guards of our lives,” Chris announced to the cameras and shined his pearly whites at them. The soup shop was now crammed with people, and nobody was eating. The delivery app tablets were beeping nonstop, but Mouse was ignoring them. Instead, she was entirely focused on Chris. Her mouth was open and her eyes were even larger than normal. I squinted my eyes at him to see what everyone else saw. He had good bone structure, but there was no way he could ever compete with Remington. He reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t figure out who.
