by Lee Hollis
Rhonda hardly blinked. Without missing a beat, she turned and stared at Mona. “What about you, honey? Would you like to have dinner with me?”
“You mean just the two of us? I don’t even know you. God knows I don’t watch your show. What would we talk about?”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find some common ground if we give it the old college try.”
“I didn’t go to college.”
“It was just a figure of speech, Mona,” Hayley said, smiling.
“Guess I’d be a fool to turn down a free meal. You did say you are paying, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. You’re the rich TV star!”
Rhonda erupted in a fit of giggles, so charmed by Mona’s gruffness she could barely contain herself.
“My husband is home with the kids tonight, so I would love an excuse to stay out late for once,” Mona said, suddenly wrapping her mind around this impromptu dinner date and starting to really warm to the idea.
“I’ll do my best to keep you out as late as you want,” Rhonda cooed. “As long as your husband doesn’t mind.”
“Who cares what he thinks? I deserve a night out! I call him ‘the Slug’ because he barely moves. You married, Rhonda?”
“No. I’m just a carefree single girl open to all possibilities.”
“Smart choice! I hate men. All they know how to do is burp and fart and complain about everything. World would be a better place if it was just us girls, am I right?”
“You are so right, Mona!” Rhonda said. “Hayley, where have you been hiding this one?”
Hayley suppressed a smile. “Oh, there’s no hiding Mona.”
“So what fancy pants place are you taking me to tonight, Ron? You mind me calling you Ron?”
Rhonda Franklin shook her head vigorously. “You can call me whatever you want.”
Chapter 21
The shrieking pierced the air with such intensity Hayley thought she had just punctured an eardrum.
The blond, curly haired, mop-topped toddler in pink corduroy coveralls ran across the room, clutching an iPhone in her tiny, pudgy fingers that were sticky from the maple syrup Hayley had served with the pancakes she had prepared for the kids’ dinner.
On her heels was her exasperated older brother, around eight years old, yelling at her. “Give it back, Celia! Now!”
He chased her around the coffee table as she giggled and screamed before she stopped and dropped the phone in the glass of Pinot Grigio Liddy had just set down. Wine splashed on Liddy’s lap and she jumped up with a start.
“For the love of God, look at what you’ve done, you obnoxious little rug rat!” Liddy barked at the precocious girl who wasn’t the least bit affected by her stern and threatening demeanor. She just clapped her hands, amused at herself for soaking her brother’s smart phone.
The discombobulated boy was on the verge of tears as he reached into Liddy’s glass with his grubby, dirty little hands and carefully extracted his phone, wiping it off with his Spiderman T-shirt. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Hayley, please, you have to do something to wrangle these brats!” Liddy wailed as she marched into the kitchen to dump the rest of her wine into the sink and refill her glass.
Hayley had been trying to load Mona’s dishwasher with the dirty dinner plates. Mona had asked her to come over and keep an eye on her kids while she was out to dinner with Rhonda Franklin since her deadbeat, couch potato husband, Dennis, would surely be parked in his usual man cave recliner watching TV and typically unengaged and uninterested in any required child rearing.
She had miraculously managed to talk Liddy into coming with her and keeping her company because sure enough, there was Dennis when they arrived, glued to one of those Vin Diesel Fast and Furious movies on cable. He’d barely acknowledged their presence.
“He’s here in the room but basically an inanimate object,” Liddy said.
Hayley valiantly tried to keep the kids entertained by whipping up batch after batch of blueberry pancakes, banana pancakes, pancakes with strawberry ice cream and whipped topping. The sugar rush was an unexpected side effect and she was now paying dearly for it. The older kids were upstairs locked in their rooms doing God only knew what, but the little ones demanded constant attention and were at present gleefully tearing the house apart. Probably like they did every night, which was why Mona rarely bothered cleaning.
Hayley knew she had to do something fast to get the situation under control.
A game. That would be fun.
“How about we play hide-and-seek? You go hide and then Aunt Liddy and I will try to find you!”
The blond moppet clapped her hands again and then scooted out of the room followed by her older brother and another six-year-old whose name Hayley could never remember. “You have two minutes and then I’m going to start looking for you!”
The room finally became quiet except for Vin Diesel’s deep voice giving orders to his sexy team of race car drivers.
“This whole evening has been a nightmare!” Liddy said, gulping down her wine.
“Hey, I just bought us a few minutes of peace before they realize I’m never going to try and find them.”
“Seriously, Dennis, are they like this every night?” Liddy asked.
His eyes were glazed over and he just stared at the flat screen TV as if in a trance.
“Did I ever tell you what a huge crush I had on you in high school, Dennis? I thought you were the sexiest man alive. I still do, in fact. If I didn’t think Mona was going to walk through that door at any moment, I would rock your world,” Liddy said.
Still nothing.
“I think if we set the house on fire, he wouldn’t notice,” Liddy said, shaking her head. “And for the record, Dennis, I was just trying to get a reaction out of you. I think you are the most disgusting, laziest human being in the whole world. How about that?”
His eyes didn’t even blink. He just stared at the moving images on the screen.
“I’ve seen more life in a coma patient,” Liddy said before noticing a pair of headlights outside the living room window as a car pulled into the driveway. “Mona’s home!”
Hayley and Liddy ran to stare out the window at the car.
“They’re just sitting there. What do you suppose they’re saying?”
“Probably good night.”
An agonizingly long three minutes passed before Mona finally got out of the car and Rhonda Franklin drove away.
Mona trudged through the door and shook off her coat.
“Well, how did it go?” Hayley asked, running over to greet her.
“Okay, I guess. She spent the whole night telling me how attractive I was, how charming I was, how interesting I was. I have to say, it was nice hearing some compliments for a change. Dennis hasn’t said anything nice about me since . . . Scratch that. Dennis has never said anything nice to me. Even when he proposed to me, he just said, ‘I might as well make an honest woman out of you because nobody else will likely man up and do it.’ That’s a direct quote!”
“I’m sure Dennis shows you how he feels just by loving you,” Hayley said.
“Yeah. And I wish he’d stop it. I’m tired of getting pregnant all the time.”
“So Rhonda Franklin has a crush on you. That is so sweet,” Hayley said, smiling.
“Pretty much. Which is kind of weird. Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered. But why would she automatically think I’m a lesbian?”
Hayley kept her lips sealed.
The polite thing to do was just to avoid answering the question.
Liddy had just finished a bottle of Pinot Grigio, so she wasn’t so concerned with proper social etiquette. “You can’t be serious.”
“No, I’m being very serious. Do I come off as gay?”
“Mona, at the risk of sounding blunt . . .”
“Here we go . . .” Hayley sighed.
“You are the walking picture of a card-carrying lesbian.”
“I am?�
��
“Oh, honey, your lack of self-awareness is adorable; am I right, Hayley?”
“I am so not getting involved in this conversation,” Hayley said.
Neither was Dennis.
He actually moved. He reached for the TV remote and turned up the volume in an attempt to drown their voices out.
“But I’ve been married to Dennis for twenty years,” Mona said, confused.
“A lot of lesbians are trapped in loveless marriages. Now that society is more accepting, they are finally able to ditch the deadweight—and yes, I’m looking at you, Dennis—and finally become who they really are.”
“But you’re forgetting one thing. If George Clooney was to walk in this room right now I’d jump his bones faster than a fruit fly on a skirt steak,” Mona said.
She certainly could paint a picture.
“I’m not saying you’re actually gay, Mona. You just look the part. Right, Hayley?”
“Stop trying to drag me into this. I’m not participating in your offensive stereotyping,” Hayley said, picking up a few plastic toys that had been strewn around the room by Mona’s high energy brood.
“Well, I for one think it’s cute that Rhonda is a little infatuated with our Mona.”
“I think she’s a little more than just infatuated. She told me she loved me,” Mona said, crossing to the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of Bud Light out of the fridge.
“She said what?” Hayley screamed, no longer able to refrain from the conversation.
“She loves me,” Mona said, popping the cap off and guzzling down half the bottle. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, that’s just . . . how could she . . . I mean . . .” Liddy sputtered, a disbelieving look on her face. “That’s just . . . insulting. It’s downright insulting.”
“What do you mean insulting?” Hayley wanted to know.
“Being infatuated with Mona’s, how shall I say, unique personality is one thing, but love her? That’s ridiculous. Rhonda Franklin is rich and famous and can have anyone she wants, and if she is going to come to Bar Harbor and fall in love, well, it should be with someone like me!”
“You?” Hayley asked, floored.
“Yes, me. We met in New York briefly after the show taping. I’m a successful businesswoman. I dress well. I can engage in scintillating conversation. I’m the real deal. A true catch. It would make much more sense for Rhonda to fall for someone like me!”
“You’re bananas, you know that?” Hayley said, mouth agape. “You’re not even remotely gay.”
“That may be true. But I’m a woman of many tastes. I’ve traveled. I’m worldly. I could be mistaken for gay. A lip gloss lesbian.”
“Lipstick lesbian,” Hayley said, laughing.
“Whatever. I think Rhonda just needs to spend time with me and then she’ll see that I’m much more cultured and worthy of her love than Mona.”
“Liddy, would you please stop? You’re acting crazy and you’re starting to scare me. Now, Mona, did she mention Olivia at all during your dinner?”
“Yeah. A few times. She was saying the right things. How she missed her. How they were very close. But I had the feeling she was hiding something.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. She mentioned at one point they had a fight, but then she quickly changed the subject. And at another point, around the time dessert came, she slipped and said something about how guilty she felt.”
“Guilty? Why would Rhonda feel guilty?”
“I don’t know. But I got the distinct feeling something bad went down between them.”
“Did she give any indication what it was?”
“No. She seemed to catch herself, like she clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and then she went right on to something else. I think it was how the flame from the candle on the table made my eyes dance.”
“Oh brother!” Liddy howled.
Rhonda’s recent press conference was obviously a way for her to promote the idea that she and Olivia had been the best of friends. But if in reality there had been a wedge between them, then Hayley was going to find out what it was that had driven them apart.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
It’s been unusually busy at the Island Times newspaper office with everyone gearing up for what appears to be another tourist season. As office manager, I’ve been inundated with phone calls from summer businesses placing ads, press releases about upcoming events, and out of state customers requesting address changes to their summer residences on our beautiful island. These high maintenance readers hit the roof if they miss one issue of the paper because it was sent to the wrong address. This is serious business as far as they are concerned, and it’s my job to make sure the switch over goes smoothly and irate calls to complain are kept to a minimum.
After an exhausting day fielding an avalanche of calls, I was nearly home free. It was three minutes to five. Almost quitting time. Since I think about food about 90 percent of the time, I was focused on going home and whipping up a simple supper of my Apple Bacon Egg Bake. After calming my nerves with a cocktail or two, of course. I knew in my gut I had been indulging in bacon a little too much lately, but with both my kids out of town, it was easy to make a package last longer without a pair of ravenous teens in the house. I didn’t have to share any, which is a bonus for me but not my waistline.
I was halfway out the door when the phone rang. Part of me desperately wanted to ignore it and just breeze out the door to freedom. But the responsible voice inside me argued I should answer it. I sighed, turned around, and walked back to the desk, scooping up the receiver.
“Good afternoon, Island Times. This is—”
That’s all I managed to get out.
I just heard screaming.
It was a woman. That much I could make out. But I had no idea what she was saying. Her voice was high and shrill and unintelligible.
And angry.
Boy, was she angry.
I tried several times to interject and attempt to calm her down, but she was having none of it.
After a few minutes, once my ears had adjusted to the screaming voice, I was able to make out the gist of what had riled her up so much.
Apparently this poor woman recently had a run-in with our local law enforcement and her name appeared in our Police Beat column, a weekly feature that is read religiously by everyone because it meticulously details all the recent arrests and does not withhold any names. It’s like our small town version of TMZ, a must-read for gossip lovers.
Well, this woman was appalled that her name was highlighted in bold for a crime she swore she did not commit. Something about being arrested for indecent exposure after drinking too much red wine and wandering out into the street naked looking for her dog, who got out the back door. She continued without taking a breath, ranting about being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and how the paper printing this filthy piece of trash would sully her good name in town!
I tried to explain that our editor, Sal Moretti, was out of the office, and I would be happy to take a message and have him call her back, but she wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. She preferred to rail against muckraking journalism and her besmirched reputation and the lawsuit she would certainly file against the Island Times for this abhorrent breach of journalistic ethics.
Apple Bacon Egg Bake.
Apple Bacon Egg Bake.
I tried focusing on something to look forward to once this phone conversation was mercifully at an end.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, but was only around six minutes, she stopped talking, took a long breath, and then started in again. She was demanding a correction since our reporters were obvious morons incapable of getting any facts right.
In fact, she told me, they didn’t even spell her name correctly.
“My name is Suzette Smith!” she howled. “You idiots said I was Susan Smith!”
She then demanded that we fix the mistake immediately
and said she wanted to see the correction in the next issue of the newspaper or she would take serious action against us.
I just stood there slack jawed, the phone pressed to my ear. This woman was so mad she didn’t even realize what she was doing. There were dozens of Smiths on the island. I tried to explain that our mistake might work in her favor, but if we corrected it, then everyone would know exactly who the naked drunk woman was. But she cut me off in midsentence and said she had heard enough from me.
“Just make the correction!”
So in the sweetest voice I could muster, I told her not to worry. I would type it up myself and personally make sure it was in the next edition of the Island Times newspaper.
Suzette Smith.
Then she slammed the phone down in my ear.
After triple checking the exact spelling of her name, with a smile I e-mailed it off to the Police Beat editor. It was all about customer satisfaction. I figured once she calmed down and reviewed our conversation over again in her mind, she might realize she should have left the matter well enough alone. But by then, I would be home chowing down on my delicious Apple Bacon Egg Bake.
I love having breakfast for dinner, especially since I’m always running late in the morning and only have time for a dry piece of toast, so this is a decadent indulgence that has to be accompanied by a Bloody Mary, with a crisp bacon garnish, of course!
Bloody Mary with a Bacon Garnish
Ingredients
1½ ounce vodka
3 ounces tomato juice
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 teaspoons or more (if you like hot) Tabasco sauce
½ teaspoon celery salt
½ tablespoon horseradish sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cooked crispy slice of bacon for garnish (optional)
Fill a glass with ice. Stir together all of the ingredients in another glass, except the bacon. Pour stirred ingredients into the glass filled with ice, garnish with bacon, and enjoy!