6 A Cup of Jo

by Sandra Balzo

  'Gotcha.' Now, however, Sarah was looking around uneasily. 'Do you see Kevin with his tape? That mime is heading toward us again.'

  'Is this a phobia of some kind?' I asked. 'Do clowns scare you, too?' I traced an exaggerated smile on my lips and leered. 'Or maybe the evil doll from those Chucky movies?'

  'Stop that,' my friend said, swatting my hand away. 'Go take care of your mime.'

  'For the last time, he's not my mime. Besides, the guy's harmless. He collects a paycheck for pretending he's doing something. Just like a politician.'

  'You call that harmless?' Sarah muttered as we watched the red-and-white striped torso approach.

  Apparently he'd been sent packing by Rebecca and Michael, who now stood on the stage with Art Jenada. Art ran the catering business next to their Penn and Ink shop. JoLynne must have asked them to participate in the dedication. Or maybe they'd just invited themselves, like Sarah and I had.

  'You're not supposed to be back here,' I reminded the pesky performer when he reached us. 'Remember the guy with the muscles?'

  The mime nodded solemnly.

  'You don't want him to come back, do you?' Yes, I was talking as though he were a two-year-old, but it's hard to take seriously someone in a braid, white face-paint and puce suspenders. Even if he is six-feet tall with a schlong in his short pants.

  An 'uh-unh' motion of the head on the issue of Kevin's return.

  'Good.' Sarah was standing behind me, like I was a human shield against the big, bad mime. 'Now, depart, foul spirit!'

  Ignoring her, the performer put the tips of his right index finger and thumb together, raised them to his mouth and let out an air-splitting, nerve-curdling whistle.

  'Isn't that against mime union rules?' Sarah demanded from the far end of the porch's corner, to which she'd bolted at the sound. 'You know: No noise is good noise?'

  The mime shrugged, hands palm up, as the media whose attention he had just commanded, converged on us. Apparently satisfied, the mime waved to them and then oh-so theatrically tipped his head waaay back, toward the cup on the gallows above us.

  'Don't even think about it.' I started toward him. 'You keep your mitts off my cup.'

  Sarah restrained me. 'Relax, Maggy. He's "harmless", remember?'

  Do not mock me. Never mock me.

  The camera operators – including Jerome – had their lenses focused on our wannabe Marcel Marceau, I guessed for want of anything else to film before the train arrived. Maybe I was being short-sighted: Uncommon Grounds could use the publicity.

  Arms stretched wide and knees bent, the mime made like he was hefting our coffee cup balloon. Then, crooking his right little finger, he turned toward the media and pretended to take a sip for the cameras.

  'Yes!' I called to Sarah, pumping my fist. 'We'll be on every TV newscast in southeastern Wisconsin.'

  My last word was still echoing off the depot wall when the wretched mime spit out our make-believe coffee.

  'Damn that rat-bastard.' I started for him again.

  A train whistle sounded. Everyone turned toward the noise. Everyone, that is, except Mr Mime and me.

  I shook my finger at him.

  He shook his.

  I dropped my hand.

  Ditto.

  'Stop that.' I stamped my foot.

  Guess what?

  Sarah sing-songed from the corner, 'He's rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off him and sticks to . . . you.'

  'Yeah? Well, let's see how he likes being pasted.'

  The mime edged away as the train slid to a halt. Since Sarah was on one end of the porch and I the other, he was trapped like a rat at the foot of the gallows framework that held the cup and saucer.

  I advanced on him as he made for the depot door Kevin had used.

  'Not that way,' I said, catching up with him.

  The mime turned back, or at least his head did. One hand held the beret steady so both it and his body were facing away from me.

  'Cool trick,' Sarah said, apparently feeling braver now that we had him boxed. 'How'd you pull that off?'

  The mime winked one very blue eye at Sarah, looked down at his bulging short pants, and then held his hand to his heart, mirroring the beating with his hand. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.

  Sarah giggled, albeit uneasily.

  The mime batted his eyes and did a coy finger-flutter, even as the doors of the first train car slid back and dignitaries began pouring out on to the platform.

  Mime romance. Sweet. But Sarah and I needed to be on stage to bask in the commuter-rail's reflected glory.

  Anita Hampton stepped off the train. She was even thinner and more fashionable than the last time I'd seen her. Her eyes darted around imperiously and then she seemed to catch sight of someone. She gave a little, beckoning head gesture.

  Following her gaze, I saw Kevin Williams at ground level, but sans our caution tape. The props guy abruptly detoured to Anita's edge of the stage, where she crouched down to speak to him.

  The Grand Inquisitor. Oh, Kevin, wouldn't this be better, wouldn't that be better? And, true to form, she didn't seem happy with any of his answers, sweeping her hand disdainfully toward the spare set-up of our Brookhills' celebration.

  Surveying it myself, I didn't see what she was complaining about. The stage-decorations might consist only of a couple clusters of Mylar balloons, tethering ribbons anchored in pots filled with stones, but the true centerpiece of the event was meant to be the commuter-line. The train itself would provide the backdrop for the television cameras.

  With our giant, strikingly photogenic coffee cup and saucer at stage right.

  Whatever Anita's problem might be, it better not have anything to do with my cup. The conversation between the two ended with a prolonged handshake, Anita holding Kevin's hand hostage as she spouted further instructions or criticisms. Finally released, the props man loped off in the direction of his truck.

  'He'd better be getting that tape for us,' I grumbled to Sarah. 'And before he does Her Majesty's bidding. That woman always has to be first. And where is JoLynne? She's the one who's supposed to be in charge here.'

  'Chillax. She'll show,' Sarah said, uncharacteristically mellow all of a sudden.

  Unfortunately for Sarah, Anita never failed to put me in a bad mood. '"Chillax"? What the hell is "chillax"?'

  'The kids use it. It means chill and relax. Chillax, you know?'

  No, I didn't know. Eric was my one lifeline to things current and he now lived three hundred long and, in my case, suffering miles away. So when Sarah exchanged a 'what a dinosaur' look with the mime, it set a match to my already shortened fuse.

  'You!' I said, wheeling on him, 'I don't want to see you here again, is that understood?'

  At my tone, the mime convulsively stepped back, then back again. Because his face was still toward me, he couldn't see where his body was going.

  Whoosh went Kevin's air hose. Down went JoLynne's mime.

  And my giant cup? It shuddered more than shimmied, the jet stream of escaping air itching to topple the balloon off its perch and onto the boarding platform and adjacent stage beneath it.

  I began scrambling up the stairs to the gallows. Halfway there, I made a grab for the edge of the saucer. It seemed to be weighted at the bottom and maybe adding my poundage (no wisecracks) could keep the thing in place.

  'Are you crazy?' Sarah yelled from two steps behind me. 'That Paul Bunyan-size mug will take you with it.' She grabbed the back of my Uncommon Grounds T-shirt to hold me stable, but even as she did, the overall load of the inflatable shifted, sending the top of the imploding cup tipping over the edge like the leading coil of a Slinky.

  Sarah was right. I let go of the saucer.

  The two county execs – Brewster Hampton of Brookhills in a neat dark suit, Wynona Counsel of Milwaukee, a conservative slate-gray dress – came off the train and on to the platform as Anita Hampton moved to meet them.

  'Look out below,' Sarah bellowed.

  Both execs obe
yed her immediately and saw the huge, white balloon sliding over the edge of the gallows like an avalanche down the wintry slope of a mountain.

  Not so, Anita. 'No, no,' she was saying to them. 'Better you pose facing each—'

  Brewster dove to the right, Wynona the left.

  Anita glanced one way, then the other, before finally looking up herself.

  The deflating inflatable missed her nose by maybe eight inches, landing saucer-first with a thud at her feet.

  Anita stared down at the now collapsed coffee cup, seeming dazed. 'Joe?'

  Talk about dinosaurs.

  I might not know what 'chillax' meant, but I was damned if I was going to let my old boss brand my new endeavor a Depression era 'joe-joint.'

  'LaMinita ,' I corrected as I climbed to the top of the newly vacated gallows. 'A delicious brew of hand-roasted beans from Costa Rica.'

  A hundred faces were tilted up as Sarah joined me on the plywood platform and peered over the edge. 'Wow. Shriveled like that, it looks less like Paul Bunyan's coffee cup and more like his used condom.'

  God, what a public relations nightmare. Lynched on our own gallows.

  'Sorry,' I said weakly to the crowd below. 'But –' gesturing toward the fallen cup – 'it's not just "joe".'

  'Oh, but it is.' Anita Hampton ignored the solicitous hand Brewster laid on her shoulder. Delicately, she nudged aside a wall of our collapsed cup with the toes of one impeccably-shod foot.

  A tangle of dark hair was exposed.

  Not joe.

  Jo.

  Chapter Two

  Missing Brookhills event manager JoLynne Penn-Williams was sprawled in the bottom of our cup. The lip of the still-inflated saucer made her look like a rag doll left behind in an empty kiddy pool.

  I felt a full-body shudder, fearing history was repeating itself. Again.

  'JoLynne, damn it!' Rebecca Penn said, marching over to look at her fallen sister. 'Must you always be the center of attention?'

  JoLynne wasn't rising to the bait. In fact, she didn't look like she was rising, period. Not that it stopped Rebecca.

  'Really. Popping out of this cup like it was a giant cake at a bachelor's party?' She leaned down to give her older sister's shoulder a shake. 'Jo, do you have no sense of decorum? No professional pride?'

  'Probably depends on the profession,' Sarah observed.

  'Slut.' Rebecca pivoted to Sarah and me on our perch above the stage. 'I wouldn't blame Uncommon Grounds for suing your butt, besmirching their business like this.'

  'Besmirch?' Sarah blinked. 'I don't feel "besmirched". You?'

  I shrugged. 'Besieged, maybe. And beleaguered, with a little bemused thrown in. But besmirched? Not so much.'

  Unless, of course, Uncommon Grounds could be sued for personal injury or something. I looked down next to the gallows, but there was no sign of the mime. Apparently he hadn't been injured in his tumble. At least, not sufficiently that he couldn't flee the scene he'd destroyed.

  Our Brookhills event manager, on the other hand, wasn't going anywhere for the time being. Could JoLynne be playing possum for some reason? And what in hell had she been doing in my coffee cup, anyway?

  'Is Jo OK?' I called down.

  No answer, at least from Anita Hampton and company. Anita had nudged Brewster and Milwaukee County Executive Wynona Counsel back, probably to keep them out of the way. Or, more likely, beyond the range of probing television cameras.

  Rebecca, though, was still in soliloquy mode. 'Oh, please. Don't give Drama Queen here the satisfaction. Get up, Jo, so we can drag your mess out of the way and get on with the dedication.'

  'She's right,' Sarah agreed from on high. 'JoLynne made her cup, now let her lie in it.'

  Actually, 'Drama Queen's' husband had made the cup. Which reminded me: Kevin had disappeared. I didn't see a sign of him or his Williams Props and Staging truck.

  'Calm down, Becc.' Michael Inkel had crossed the stage to his partner.

  'Don't call me "Becc",' Rebecca snapped. 'You know I hate it. And you, of all people, have no right to tell me to calm down about my sister.'

  'I told you . . .' Michael spread his hands. 'She and I never—'

  'Not relevant,' Art Jenada interrupted, damn him. Not only did he cut Michael off before Rebecca did, but he was standing over JoLynne, effectively blocking our view.

  'Hey, Mr Toad,' Sarah yelled down. 'You make a better door than a window.'

  Art twisted his undeniably toadish body to glare at her, but it was me he addressed. 'Can't you keep her muzzled?'

  'Muzzled?' Sarah sputtered. 'Why, you . . .'

  I held up one hand. Miraculously, it silenced both of them. 'Art, what's wrong? Does JoLynne have the wind knocked out of her?'

  I'd found in the past that the caterer, though he tended to be a bit of a busybody, could also come through in a pinch.

  As to this particular pinch, I was hoping for confirmation that JoLynne was just momentarily stunned. Given the way my life had been going lately, though, I feared betting on it.

  Art turned back to the woman lying motionless. 'Can't tell. Should I . . .?' He reached toward her.

  'Don't touch her!' Brewster Hampton had stepped forward, despite his wife's efforts to stop him. 'Jo might have a neck injury.'

  'Yeah, like it's broken,' Sarah murmured.

  God, I hoped not. 'Don't even think that.'

  'Paramedics are on their way.' Anita stepped up to join her husband, flipping closed the cellphone in her hand.

  'Shouldn't take 'em long.' I gestured toward the red and white Brookhills Fire and Rescue unit I could see parked in front of the depot. Presumably it was out of Anita's line of vision, otherwise she could have just whistled and waved the EMTs over.

  One way or the other, though, her message got through and the lights of the unit started to revolve. A med-tech piled out of each side of the truck and, pausing to grab their cases, trotted around the building to the train platform.

  As they mounted the stairs, Art moved away. Rebecca still stood to the side giving Michael 'what-for' – for what, I wasn't sure. An imagined affair with her sister? Most likely.

  But blood apparently was thicker than water – or other bodily fluids – because the reproachful looks Rebecca had been tossing JoLynne throughout the tirade were increasingly mingled with concern as the EMTs continued to kneel, hunkered over the inert body.

  'Dang it,' Sarah said irritably, 'I can't see with all the Yellow Jackets swarming.'

  Despite the fact that yellow jackets are a kind of wasp, I knew Sarah was talking about the slickers of the firefighters who had joined the group around the cup. EMTs, firefighters and town police officers were always sent out as a team on a Brookhills' call. Two uniformed officers were at the bottom of the steps up to the stage, keeping the crowd and media back.

  Including a pretty ticked-off Kate McNamara. 'What do you mean I can't go up there?' she said, nearly foaming at the mouth. 'I'm a news reporter.'

  'And I'm the king of the world.' Sarah puffed out her chest and threw her arms wide like we were in that scene from Titanic.

  'Hey, watch it,' I said, ducking her flying right hand. To get a better view of our cup on the crowded platform below, we had dropped to the prone position, our heads and shoulders cantilevered over the edge of the gallows.

  Kate continued her harangue. 'My camera operator has every right—'

  'Oh, yeah? What camera operator?' The cop's facial expression implied he dealt with a dozen Kates per day.

  Poor cop.

  She looked around. 'Where the . . .?'

  'Ouch!'

  The cry came from Sarah, so I turned my head to look at her.

  There was a foot on her right hand. Not attached, merely pinning it down.

  'Oops, sorry. Just getting a shot.'

  'Jerome?' I said, as he tried to find a place to stand close enough to the edge to videotape down, but not atop one of our collective body parts.

  'Jerome?' Sarah parroted as she sat up
and rubbed her hand. 'What was the giveaway? The camera on his shoulder?'

  'The feet.' As I recalled, Jerome had huge feet for someone his size. I should have known he was going to grow into them like a golden retriever does its paws. 'They're huge.'

  'Tell me about it.' My friend struggled to hold up her injured wing.

  Jerome activated the light atop his camera, flooding artificial sunshine over the scene below, shaded until then by the depot. Kate shielded her eyes and waved delightedly.

  'Geez, if he's young enough to be your son, he's not old enough to be anything else to you.'

  'You talking to Kate or to yourself?' Sarah needled.

  'Neither,' I retorted, trying to keep my temper. 'I was—'

  'Who's that?' Jerome interrupted.

  Sarah and I followed the direction of his camera lens. With a view blocked by humanity – both in the form of the firefighters and EMTs as well as an innate moral code – Jerome had swung toward the other players on the stage. The one I guessed to be currently in his sights was female and mid-twenties, with a fresh-scrubbed face in direct contrast to the spiky rainbow hair, tattoos and multiple ear-piercings.

  The woman was our barista, Amy Caprese, and her heart was as big as the oversized hoops that swung from each ear. She was standing with Art Jenada, wringing her hands as she watched the paramedics working on JoLynne.

  'Beauty and the beast,' Jerome said as he gazed through the viewfinder.

  'Art's a nice guy.' I stood up and wiped my hands on my jeans. 'He's just an endomorph.'

  'He looks like a russet potato,' Sarah contributed, 'only with just the two eyes.'

  Since I'd always thought Art resembled an amphibian, I didn't have much standing to criticize her tuber-take. I noticed Kate looking back and forth between Amy and Jerome's camera lens, trying to figure out what her videographer was shooting.

  And then succeeding.

  'Jerome,' she yelled, tapping her index finger to her temple. 'Camera eyes on the prize, you got it?'

  'Guess that depends on your definition of "prize",' Jerome muttered, but he did as his boss ordered.

  'Can you see anything?' I asked him.

  'I'm trained on the emergency personnel right now. I don't think it's ethical to shoot a patient while they're receiving medical treatment unless you have their permission.'