by Maddy Hunter
“Your mother’s offer of help is very generous, Emily, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather elope? I could arrange everything. We could be married on the summit of the Jungfrau, or on the shores of Lake Como.”
The shores of Lake Como sounded a lot more romantic than Arnie Arnoldussen’s auction barn, and yet…“If we elope, does that mean no family present?”
“It can mean anything you want it to mean.”
An alpine lake or a hog barn? The fragrance of Italianate gardens or the masking power of room deodorizer? The choice seemed pretty clear cut. “It wouldn’t feel like a celebration if Nana, and Tilly, and George, and the rest of my family weren’t there. Is that all right with you?”
“I’d prefer it that way, bella. Imagine what lively entertainment our grandmothers will provide when they meet.”
I regarded Nana as she snapped a picture of Jimbob twisting himself into another contortion. If they meet.
“Tell Jackie I’m enjoying her novel, Emily. Do you know how much of it is autobiographical?”
“Probably all of it.”
“Really?” His voice dipped an octave to a soft, throaty whisper. “Her love scenes are quite…stimulating. I didn’t realize you were so…insatiable.”
When had I been around any man long enough to be insatiable? “Are you sure you’re not confusing me with Nana?”
“GET OUT HERE, DICK!” Helen Teig stood on the balcony to my right, pointing at the road. “AND BRING YOUR CAMCORDER!”
“Does the shouting mean you have to go?” asked Etienne.
“Oh, my God. You won’t believe this.” I regarded the spectacle in front of the hotel, wishing my phone could take photos. “We’re being visited by Santa’s reindeer.”
They moved as quietly as a fog bank, their hoofs eerily silent as they poked down the road and into the hotel parking lot in seeming slow motion. Their pelts were gray and mangy, their legs spindle thin, their antlers soaring above their heads like giant wishbones with attached hat racks. They seemed as tame as a herd of house cats, and they continued their unhurried pace across the lawn as the guests in the beer garden flocked down the stairs for a closer view.
“Don’t get too close!” Helen shouted to the onlookers. “They could attack at any moment.”
“There’s a couple of dozen of them,” I said to Etienne, “and they’re huddling like Irish sheep on the lawn right below me.”
Dick Teig stormed outside to join Helen. “I’m standing on my balcony in Finnish Lapland,” he narrated into his camcorder. “Here’s the front lawn of our hotel. Here’s some of the guests on our tour. Here’s the pack of wild reindeer who are gonna attack the stupid shits if they get too close with their cameras.”
Jimbob Barnum leaped off the railing with the grace of a ballet dancer, then cartwheeled across the lawn, collapsing to the ground when he slammed into August Manning’s back.
“What is it with you?” August barked. “You can’t walk on your feet like everyone else? You almost knocked my glasses off my face.”
“Don’t you talk to him like that,” Joleen shouted, running toward Jimbob and wrapping him protectively in her arms. “Who do you think you are? Portia?”
“Neutral corners,” said Vern, flattening his hand against August’s chest. “You two have better things to do than knock each other’s teeth out.”
“That’s what you think,” Jimbob shot back. “There’s nothing I’d enjoy more than taking this guy down a peg or two.”
“You’ve had it in for us ever since we showed up at the security gate,” Joleen lashed out at August. “All of you have.”
“Don’t look at me,” said Reno. “I never laid eyes on either one of you until we had that group meeting about the trip.”
“It might have helped if you’d tried to fit in a little better,” April Peabody advised Joleen.
“You needed to buy a golf cart,” said June. “No one walks anymore. It’s simply too gauche.”
“Things are heating up down there,” Dick Teig said as he shut down his camcorder. “I’m going down for close-ups. Looks like it could get bloody.”
“Is someone bleeding? Emily? Are you there?” Etienne asked.
“Don’t panic,” I soothed him. “That’s just Dick Teig thinking out loud.”
“Those commercials on television are so phony,” Joleen ranted. “‘Come to the Hamlets to find the gold in your golden years.’ What the ad should say is, ‘Come to the Hamlets if you want to be laughed at for being different.’ Intolerant snobs.”
“If you find the Hamlets experience so distasteful, why don’t you move?” suggested June.
Joleen helped Jimbob to his feet. “’Cause we didn’t buy into the Hamlets concept to cut and run at the first sign of trouble. I don’t care who egged our house, or toilet papered our trees, or exploded our barbeque grill. We’re gonna stay the course, no matter what.”
“Stick to your guns,” encouraged Jackie. “Moses stayed the course, and look how well it turned out for him.”
“Curtis and me never heard about the exploding grill,” Lauretta Klick objected. “Did it make the paper?”
All eyes turned to August, who suddenly looked like the guilty guy in a police lineup. “I had a piece all ready to run, but Portia asked me not to print it. She didn’t want to stir up emotions for what was probably a one-time incident.”
“Of course it was one time,” sniped Joleen. “We only had the one grill.”
“Manning was covering up,” alleged Curtis. “Makes you wonder what else went on that Portia didn’t want made public.”
“There wasn’t anything else,” August defended, “so let’s drop the making mountains out of molehills attack.”
“I’m not saying Gus covered up,” said Vern, “but so what if he did? Coverups are part of our national heritage. Then someone gets paid ten million dollars to write the tell-all book. Hell, it keeps the economy booming.”
“Ten million?” Jackie grabbed his arm. “What did they tell?”
“It’s immoral,” Lauretta sermonized. “If you think lying to folks is okay, then you’re all in for a big surprise come Judgment Day.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “And you don’t have long to wait. Isn’t that right, Curtis?”
“That’s gospel, Lauretta.”
“Would someone put a cork in those two?” April yelled. “I didn’t come on this trip to hear it’s going to be my last. Why do they always have to spoil everything? Freaking nut jobs.”
“Blasphemer,” Curtis barked at her.
“Bible banger,” April barked back.
“Heathen.”
“Holy Roller.”
“Hold it!” Nana flipped open her notepad. “I wanna get some a this down.”
“Democrat!” jeered Curtis.
Gasps. Mouth dropping. April staggered backward, all color draining from her face. “What did you call me?”
“You heard me,” Curtis drawled, sounding like John Wayne, only shorter.
“How dare you! I’ve been called names in my life, but this—this goes far beyond the limits of common decency. And you call yourself a Christian? No one has ever stooped so low as to call me a…a—”
“Democrat,” said Nana, reading off her notepad.
“Ohhh! You little—” Windmilling her arm, April flung her handbag at him, looking abashed when it sailed over Curtis’s head straight into Dick Teig’s face.
Eh! I gasped as Dick stopped, tottered in place, and went down like an imploded casino on the Vegas strip.
“Dick!” cried Helen. “She’s killed Dick. Do something, Emily!”
“Etienne? I’ve gotta run.”
“Hardly unexpected, bella.”
I bolted out the door. Chances were April hadn’t killed him, but she’d probably broken his nose.
Old Dick had said things were going to get bloody.
He sure got that right.
“See there?” said Nana. “Them’s Joleen’s clothes hangin’ up. I told you she
was gonna be here. I heard her tell Jimbob when you was tendin’ Dick’s nosebleed.”
We were in the dressing room of the hotel’s sauna, hoping we might catch Joleen alone and in a talkative mood.
“Oky-doky,” said Jackie when she finished reading the instructions posted on the wall. “Everybody get naked.”
“Does it say anything there about old folks bein’ able to keep their bloomers on?” asked Nana.
“Don’t get too hung up on modesty,” I advised as I peeled off my top. “We all have the same body parts.”
“I know, dear, but gravity’s been working on mine a lot longer. I don’t want you to get depressed when you see what’s in store for you.”
Jackie handed each of us a fluffy white towel. “Here you go, girls. Antidepressants.”
The sauna was a little bigger than our hotel room and a whole lot hotter. A small furnace sat in a pit in the center of the room, smoke steaming off the rocks piled around it. Surrounding the pit on four sides was a raised walkway, a protective guard rail, and wooden benches with slatted backs. Joleen sat at the far end of the room, her head and body wrapped in towels as she stared listlessly into the pit.
“Could you use some company?” I asked as we trooped into the room.
“So long as your name isn’t April or June, you’re right welcome,” Joleen said in a down-home twang. “I’m developing a real dislike for the months of the year.”
“Feels like Arizona in here,” said Nana as we parked ourselves on Joleen’s bench.
I peered at her through the haze. “Have you ever been to Arizona?”
“Nope, but I got a good imagination.”
“Arizona’s pretty nice,” Joleen mused. “Mostly because it doesn’t have Florida’s humidity. Jimbob and me toured Arizona once. If we’d been smart, we would have retired there instead of the Hamlets, but Jimbob wanted to end up someplace close to home so we wouldn’t be too far from the grandkids.”
“Where’s home?” I asked as perspiration beaded my upper lip.
“Sarasota. We used to winter there in the off season, but we liked it so much, we decided to set up housekeeping permanently.”
“Where was you the rest of the year?” asked Nana.
“Just about everywhere. The Southern states, New England, Mid-Atlantic states, the Midwest. Anyplace there was a fairground big enough to erect our tents and carnival rides.”
“You’re circus people!” Jackie exclaimed.
“And proud of it,” said Joleen. “Though having a circus background apparently puts you on the outs with the gatekeepers of the upscale retirement communities. Seems we’re not homogenized enough for the ‘normal’ folk.” She sat up straighter on the bench, perking up a little. “Bet you can’t guess what I did.”
“Lion tamer,” I threw out.
“Are you kidding? One false move and you’re the blue plate special. No thank you.”
“Trapeze artist,” said Nana.
“Afraid of heights.”
“I know, I know,” cried Jackie, bouncing with excitement. “Tattooed lady!”
I regarded Joleen’s bare, unblemished skin before glancing at Jackie. “I think being a tattooed lady probably requires tattoos.”
“She might have had them removed, you know. Laser surgery can correct a lot of the dumb things you do when you’re drunk.”
“I’ll give you a clue,” said Joleen, lifting my hand to her face. “Rub your knuckles over my cheek here.”
Scratch, scratch, scratch. It felt as rough as an emery board. “Is that stubble?”
“I got it!” said Nana. “You was the bearded lady.”
Joleen held her head high and preened. “I was the best sideshow act to ever hit the circuit. My beard hung all the way to my waist. I could braid it, set it in banana curls, put it in pigtails. Leo the Lion-Faced Boy was green with envy. He had a terrible time with split ends and breakage. I told him to try a good conditioner, but most men don’t want to fork out the bucks for expensive hair care products. Give ’em a bar of soap, and they’re happy. His pelt got so scruffy, he was forced to retire a decade earlier than he wanted.”
“How was you able to grow a beard?” asked Nana. “I got a little mustache. Should I be frettin’ that it’s gonna spread to the rest a my face?”
Joleen giggled like a teenager. “Not unless you got the same skin condition I got. Hypertrichosis. It’s something you’re born with and it lasts ’til you die. It doesn’t hurt or nothing, but it means I got way too much body hair. On an average day I can look like a shag carpet.”
Aha! That explained the sparkly face powder. She was trying to camouflage a four o’clock shadow. “But you have no hair on your arms and legs. How do you manage your condition? Electrolysis?”
“Full body wax.”
“Euuw.” Jackie grimaced in imagined agony. “Your threshold of pain must be off the chart. My first bikini wax was more excruciating than childbirth.”
I regarded her oddly. “You’ve never been through childbirth.”
“Excuse me, Emily, but Mrs. S. isn’t the only one with a good imagination.”
“Take it from me,” said Joleen, “gettin’ all the hair ripped off your body is worse than childbirth. I gotta take painkillers when I go in there. And not just the over-the-counter stuff. I gotta take the same prescription meds that Vern Grundy takes for his knees. Awful things, with all their side effects, but at least they make the procedure tolerable.
“Not that anyone cares. When they opened the new spa, one of Gus Manning’s cub reporters interviewed me about the pros and cons of professional waxing, but the article never made it into the paper. I figured Portia didn’t want to highlight anything about her resident freak. Bad enough for her that Jimbob and me actually got voted into the community. I tried being nice to her and giving her lots of attention so she’d like me, but I don’t think it worked.”
“You have to be voted into the Hamlets?” I asked.
“Yesiree. You got to appear before the board so they can look you over and make sure you’re Hamlets material. They tell you it’s a friendly meet and greet to discuss your financial disclosure statement, but it’s not. It’s a beauty pageant.”
“So if Portia was so opposed to any kind of diversity, how did you end up being voted in?” I persisted.
“Must have been the other board members who voted their conscience instead of the party line. Probably wanted to avoid bad publicity. A bunch of people who’d been rejected had complained to the local TV stations about discrimination, so media folks started coming around requesting interviews. Portia blew them off, but I think the other board members got nervous. Maintenance fees are high in the Hamlets, but not high enough to cover legal fees in a class action suit.”
“Who’s the other folks on the board?” asked Nana.
“The Peabody sisters, August Manning, Lauretta Klick, and Vern. The whole board’s on this trip.”
I exchanged a meaningful look with Jackie. Gee, what an interesting wrinkle. “What about Reno O’Brien? He seems pretty thick with Vern and Gus. Was he ever a board member?”
“Don’t rightly know, but I expect he wasn’t. He’s too busy traveling the globe for those races of his. And I can see why. I watched him run in one of the Hamlets sports events and he broke some long-standing record. I hear tell his nickname is Roadrunner. Gus ran an article about him in the paper, probably one of the few Portia didn’t object to. Between you, me, and the bedpost, if I was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist like August Manning, I wouldn’t have let Portia Van Cleef bust my chops about anything I wrote. Must have driven him crazy, having her dictate to him like that. Don’t know why he tolerated it.”
Why indeed?
“Would someone grab that ladle and splash more water on those rocks?” asked Joleen. “The instructions say adding humidity to the air makes you sweat, and you gotta sweat to get rid of all the nasty impurities in your body.”
“I’ll do it,” said Nana. “I probably go
t more impurities that need gettin’ rid of on account a I’m old.” She dipped the ladle into the nearby bucket, then, with one hand holding her towel together, stood at the rail and poured water into the pit.
Ssssssssssssst! Steam spewed upward, enveloping us in the kind of fog you see in B horror flicks.
“Doesn’t this remind you of Victorian England?” Joleen whispered in an eerie voice. “Can’t you see it? The gas streetlamps, the men in their stovepipe hats, Jack the Ripper lurking in an alleyway in Spitalfields, ready to eviscerate his next victim?”
“Eviscerate,” Nana repeated, savoring every syllable. “That’s a good word. Emily, dear, remind me to write that down when I get to my room. I might can use it if I’m ever invited to play board games again. Did they ever figure out who that Ripper fella really was?”
“They never did,” said Joleen. “Just like that big case in Boston back in the fifties. The police thought they’d solved the mystery, but looking back now, they’re not so sure they got the right guy. Gus wrote about it in the article he published about Reno. Seems Reno was a beat cop back then and was right in the middle of the case. He even got to testify in court because he claims he saw the killer running from the apartment of one of his victims.”
“Reno’s an ex-cop?” Jackie exclaimed. “You’d think he might have mentioned that to me on the bus. I can see him as a cop.” Her voice turned dreamy. “Cops are so sexy. Cops and paramedics. I think it’s the attitude.”
“I think it’s them wraparound sunglasses,” said Nana.
“What case was Reno involved in?” I asked Joleen. “Anything I might have heard of?”
“It was well before your time, so I’m doubtful. There was no cable news back then to give up-to-the-minute coverage of every cat that gets stuck in a tree. Still, you might have seen the movie. Tony Curtis played the lead.” She looked at me through the fog. “You ever heard of the Boston Strangler?”
