Arggh! Why did things always have to get so complicated?
I scowled and snatched a green shopping basket from a stack by the door, right next to a refrigerator case crammed with six-packs of beer and boxes of frozen pizzas. I guess those were the two food groups people couldn’t do without whether they were on vacation or not. I was about to cram a couple of flyers in the basket when I spied a man wearing a crisp white shirt. In this beach town, an ironed shirt with sleeves could only mean one of two things – the guy was a store manager or he was a tourist fresh from the airport. No local resident of the male persuasion appeared to know such shirts existed.
My flyers in hand, I toddled after him toward the produce section, slowed down by my yowling blisters. When I turned a corner stacked with cases of cola and bags of chips, he was gone, proving my theory that waiters and store employees were actually leprechauns. How else could they magically disappear right when you needed them most?
I sighed and glanced around. Across the store, loitering by the cantaloupes, was a tall, skinny old woman dressed in sparkling gold lame. Laverne was wearing that gawd-awful pantsuit of hers again. She appeared to have just beamed down from a 1970s disco party. But she wasn’t dancing, poor thing. From the expression on her face, it looked as if she’d just lost her favorite Bee Gees album.
I walked up and peeked in her shopping cart. All she had in there were three heads of garlic.
“Hey, Laverne. What’s up? Having problems with vampires?”
Laverne looked up at me. Her pencil-thin eyebrows collided in confusion. “Vampires?”
“The garlic?”
“Gosh dang it! I thought garlic kept dwarves away.” She snatched up the garlic heads and tossed them back into their bin by the onions. I was about to laugh, but thought better of it when Laverne burst into tears.
“Geeze! What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I can’t take much more of this,” she said. She sniffed back a tear. “I’m telling you, Val, it’s just too much!”
I had a good idea what she was talking about. I touched her arm. “Hey. What say we go get a coffee? I’ve been dying for one all day.”
Laverne sniffed again. “Can I get a Chai latte instead?”
“Huh?” Laverne wasn’t usually so wishy-washy. “Of course! Geeze, Laverne, J.D.’s really gotten your goat, hasn’t he?”
Laverne focused her red eyes on me. “Val, you know I don’t have a goat. It would ruin my garden.”
“It’s just a figure of speech.”
“Oh.”
I tugged her arm. “Come on,” I said, and led her toward the corner coffee shop inside the store. I ordered our drinks at the counter as Laverne stood, silent and slump-shouldered, beside me.
“So what’s going on?” I asked. I paid for the drinks and led Laverne to a booth.
“I don’t want to go home,” Laverne whimpered. She dabbed at her impressive mascara meltdown with a paper napkin.
I crinkled my nose. I hadn’t seen Laverne this upset since she thought she’d cursed my life with her old sapphire ring. I didn’t know what was going on with her and J.D., but one thing was for sure. I didn’t like to see her cry.
“You know what?” I said, and took her hand. “I don’t want to go home either. What say we pull a Thelma and Louise and just split this town?”
Laverne coughed out a laugh. “Don’t tempt me.”
I gave her a sympathetic smile. “So tell me. Why don’t you wanna go home?”
“J.D.’s taking over the place,” Laverne whined. “Do you have any idea what he did to me last night?”
Before I could stop it, my annoying brain flashed an image of the two of them having sex. Dang it, brain! I tried to look concerned instead of mortified. “No. What did he do?”
“He brought over a dang cuckoo clock he got in Germany.” Laverne pouted and stared at me, as if that was all the explanation required.
I twisted my lips to the right. “So...you don’t like cuckoo clocks?”
“I don’t give a flip about ‘em one way or the other!” Laverne snapped.
A woman sitting alone in the booth across from us gave us the evil eye. Either that, or she’d reached maximum capacity in her baby-blue polyester pants and was about to blow some serious elastic. Laverne bit her lip, leaned in and whispered. “Val, he wants to take down my pair-a-dice clock and hang that blasted thing instead.”
“You mean the red acrylic clock? Where dice spell out the time of day?”
“Yes!” Laverne said, and slammed her palms on the table.
“The monster!”
Laverne’s scowl softened a little. “Exactly. Thanks for getting it, Val. A girl’s space is her sanctuary, right?”
“Absolutely. I’m right with you on that.”
Laverne dried her tears with the napkin and tried to smile. “So, your turn. Why don’t you want to go home?”
I let out a sigh that could extinguish birthday candles at forty paces. “I dunno, Laverne. It’s just, you know...living with someone is for the birds.”
Laverne nodded her horsey head. “Yeah. Cuckoo birds.”
I snickered despite myself. “So is that what made you snap, Laverne?”
“Wadda you mean?”
“What did J.D. do to make you want to ‘garlic’ his ass? This couldn’t just be about a cuckoo clock.”
The lady in the booth shot us another dirty look. Laverne leaned in, her eyes angry slits. “JD did his laundry at my place yesterday.”
“Laundry?” I hissed. “Oh, man. That’s hard core!”
“Right? Men’s dirty underpants all over the place. I thought I was done with all that horse hockey!” Laverne’s jaw tightened, making the tendons in her neck stick out.
“I can do you one better. Tom wants us to get a dog.”
Laverne nearly choked. “A dog? Dang, Val! That’s worse than a whole houseful of dirty underpants!”
“I know, right? Can you imagine having to take care of a dog every day?”
Laverne shook her head. “Every single cotton pickin’ day. You know, Val, it’s those everyday things that get you in the end. And J.D.’s loaded with ‘em.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, he hums all the time. I mean all the time!”
My upper lip snarled involuntarily. “Gawd! That’s gotta be annoying, Laverne. You know, now that you mention it, Tom taps his finger on his beer bottle. Tap, tap, tap. Always tapping! It drives me crazy!”
Laverne leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “I can top that.” Her eyes darted left and right. “J.D. farts in his sleep,” she divulged.
I shrugged. “So? Everybody does.”
Laverne leaned forward. “I mean a lot, Val. Shuttle-craft blasts! I’m telling you, you wouldn’t think a guy his size could hold all that gas.”
“He can’t,” I quipped. “That’s why he lets it go.”
Laverne burst out in a laugh that would have made a cackling hen die of embarrassment. Her outburst was the last straw for the nosy woman in the booth across from us. She hauled herself up and waddled over to our table, her plump face ruddy from either frustration, or the effort it took to get herself out of that booth.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But if those are the only problems you ladies have, you should count your blessings. I caught my husband playing ‘hide the sausage’ with another woman. Now I get to do my clothes at the laundromat.”
“Ugh! The laundromat!” I said. “My condolences. That truly is the absolute worst!”
“I’d rather have no car than no washer and dryer,” Laverne agreed.
“I know, right?” I said. “I mean, the people you meet in a dumpster are of a higher caliber than laundromat people.”
The woman clad in polyester stared at me sourly.
“I mean...of course...present company accepted,” I stuttered.
“Nice save,” the woman deadpanned. “Anyway, here’s my business card. I’m a realtor now. Yay. Lucky me.
If you two really do decide to run away, you might as well get as much for your houses as the current market will bear.”
She laid two cards on the table. “Yeah. You read it right. Name’s Judy Bloomers. Another lovely parting gift from my ex-husband. And, sorry, but I just gotta ask. What’s wrong with you two, anyway? Why don’t you like dogs? Everybody likes dogs!”
Laverne and I both gulped and stared at the woman. She appeared to possess the strength and unpredictability that could lead to us getting our lights punched out. But to our relief, Judy just shook her head and walked away. After she’d reached a safe distance, I turned to Laverne.
“Geeze! Does everybody know how I feel about dogs?”
“Everybody but Tom, apparently,” Laverne said.
“You didn’t seem too keen on the idea either. You hate dogs, too, don’t you, Laverne?” I asked hopefully.
“No. Not usually, I mean,” Laverne answered. “But that dang dog of Milly’s is a little turd. I didn’t want to say anything, but you’ve got to do something about her, Val. That overgrown mole rat’s been digging up my garden. She’s gotta be stopped before she kills my rose bushes!”
“Gee, I’m sorry, Laverne. I didn’t know. But you don’t have to worry about Charmine anymore. I’m done dog sitting for Milly. That’s over for good, thank goodness.”
Laverne cocked her head. “But...I just saw her in your backyard before I drove up here.”
“Oh,” I sighed. “That’s not Charmine. It’s the stray dog Tom found yesterday.” I showed Laverne a flyer. “He wants us to keep it, but I promise, it won’t be here long. I’m handing out these flyers to find the owner. The mangy little pooch should be gone in a day or two, tops.”
Laverne cocked her head, confused. “Then why is Tom in the backyard building a doghouse?”
My jaw nearly hit the table. “What?! You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Nope.”
Something inside me snapped. “That’s it, Laverne. I declare...war! You and me against Tom and J.D. We can’t let them take over our lives like this!”
“I’m in,” Laverne said, setting her pointy jaw. “What are we gonna do?”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and slumped back in the booth. “I have no idea. But I’ll think of something.”
“Well, while you’re thinking about that, you got any ideas on what I can cook for supper? J.D. doesn’t go in for Skinny Dippers.” Laverne shook her head. “I must have a hundred of them frozen dinners in the freezer...all going to waste.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, I say if the man wants a home-cooked dinner, he should fix it himself.”
Laverne looked horrified. “And mess up my kitchen? I can’t have him ruining my Frank Sinatra skillet set!”
I drummed my fingers on the table until an idea popped up. “Well, there’s always tuna casserole surprise.”
Laverne’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “So, what’s the surprise?”
“Well, that’s up to you.”
Laverne stared at me blankly for a moment. Then a look crept over her face that made me shiver. Like Dr. Frankenstein himself, I was pretty darn sure I’d just created a monster.
Chapter Fourteen
As soon as I pulled into my driveway, a switch clicked over in my mind. I forgot to buy blister pads. Great. What good was a memory that only kicked in when it was too late? I shifted into park and realized not only had I forgotten the bandages – I’d forgotten to buy anything. And I’d forgotten to hand out the dad-gum flyers, too! This whole Tom-and-dog situation was scrambling my brain cells, and I really didn’t have that many left I could afford to lose....
I cut the ignition, opened the car door and leaned over to grab my purse from the passenger-side floorboard. It had ricocheted into the far corner during an angry hairpin turn two blocks back. Maggie was about eight feet wide, so it was a struggle to reach it. I was bent in half with my chin rubbing against the red-leatherette passenger seat. Still, my flailing fingertips barely grazed the purse. One final grunt forward and I had the strap in my hand. As I scrabbled on hands and elbows to sit back up, something wet and dirty hit my back. From the corner of my eye, it appeared that someone had just bopped me with a dirty mop!
“What the...!”
I turned my head and got pummeled again. But this time the attacker didn’t go away! I felt its hands circling my throat, tearing at my hair! I gripped my purse by the strap and took a wild swing at whoever was on top of me. My purse wacked the stuffing out of something, then spilled its guts all over the car and driveway. A lipstick landed in the ashtray, and the assault ceased. I swung around to face my attacker, hoping with all my might that my eyeliner pencil was stuck in his eye. To my dismay, there was no one there.
I looked right and left. No one! Was I going crazy? No, because whatever had hit me had left me covered in wet, muddy streaks! I looked up. Could I have just survived an aerial assault by a duck with diarrhea? No. I swung my legs out of the car, looked down and gasped. Sitting on the driveway was a dog. A dog covered from head to toe in mud. And thanks to his stupid antics, so was I.
“Dang it, Buster!”
Apparently, “dang it, Buster” in dog language meant “come jump on me.” Before I could move, Buster sprang into my lap, wriggled all over me and licked my face like I was wearing Milkbone makeup.
“Arrghh!” I shooed him out of the car and looked in the rear-view mirror. It appeared as if I’d recently had a close brush with an exploding mud pie. “Great.” I climbed out of the car, slammed the door and marched over to the side gate. As I fumbled with the latch, Buster jumped up, scratched my leg, and slipped through a freshly dug hole under the gate.
Son of a biscuit eater! Things were definitely not looking good for Buster – or Tom.
I stomped along the side of the house, trying to deep breathe my way out of an impending aneurism. As I turned the corner by the tiki hut, I saw the bare, muscular back of Tom. Swinging a hammer. In the sunshine. His golden skin glistened with sweat.
My infuriation skipped a beat, and I stumbled on my warpath.
Dad blast it! For a Southern gal like me, handyman skills were the unbeatable ace in the redneck game of love. In fact, back in Greenville, fixing somebody’s porch was a bona fide display of serious courtship. A man who knew his way around power tools was hotter to me than Brad Pitt in an EasyBake Oven.
The sight of Tom hefting a hammer got me going faster than a shot of sex pheromones. It took all the strength I had to keep my bad mood intact. But I did have one thing working in my favor. Laverne had been right. Tom was building a doghouse. I set my jaw to self-righteous and stomped over to Tom.
“Is that for you or the dog?” I asked, and pointed at the doghouse.
Tom turned around and looked me up and down. I’d just lost a mud-wrestling match with Buster, but Tom didn’t say a word about it. He knew better. Instead, he grinned sheepishly and said, “Well, Val, I guess that’s up to you.”
“Why don’t I find this amusing?” I muttered to myself as I watched Tom and the dog having a ball, horsing around in the living room. I pulled the tuna casserole surprise out of the oven. The surprise tonight was smoked oysters. I knew Tom hated them. Phase one of my passive-aggressive campaign to lure him away from my house was underway. I sneered at him and the dog and took a step toward the counter. My bare foot landed in something that made me not want to look down.
“Tom!” I screeched. “He’s done it again!” I lifted my toes from the puddle of pee on the kitchen floor. “You have to watch him better. I won’t have the house smelling like a kennel – or a public urinal!”
“Sorry, Val,” Tom said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Sure it won’t,” I scowled. “Could you please take him outside while I set the table?”
“Yeah. I’ll clean that up.”
“No. I’ll do it. Just keep your eye on Buster. Please don’t let him get filthy again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He opened the slid
ing door. “Come on, Buster.”
“And don’t let him wriggle through the hole at the gate. And whatever you do, don’t let him get into Laverne’s yard!”
Tom saluted. “Anything else?” he asked sourly.
“Not that I can think of.”
“Okay then.” He shook his head and slid the door shut.
My stomach churned. I watched the two goofing off in the backyard and felt like a crabby old kill-joy. I hated feeling that way! But someone had to set the rules. I didn’t want to be the one who did, but what choice did I have? That dog was ruining my house! And Tom didn’t seem to be doing much about it...or lifting a finger to help find the owner. That left me to be the adult in the situation. Never a very good idea.
I tapped on the sliding door and motioned to Tom to come inside.
“What’s for dinner?” Tom asked as he and Buster tromped back through the door.
“It’s a surprise,” I answered, and set the noodle casserole on a trivet in the center of the table. I dished a pile of it onto Tom’s plate. He eyed it suspiciously.
“What’s the grey lumps?” he asked.
“Your favorite. Smoked oysters.”
“I hate smoked oysters.”
I feigned surprise. “Oh. Sorry. Well, just eat around them.”
While Tom picked at his food, Buster set up camp just far enough away from the table that he could make eye contact with us. He didn’t whimper or make a sound, but there was no mistaking it. He was begging, all right. Every forkful on its way to my mouth was watched with razor-sharp focus and pleading eyes. After a few mouthfuls I felt like a gluttonous shrew stuffing herself while her children starved.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I “accidently” dropped a forkful on the floor. It disappeared in a flash beneath a fuzzy vacuum cleaner with four legs.
“Well, at least Buster appreciates my cooking,” I said. “That’s one point in his favor.”
Tom looked up from his plate. “I know you haven’t warmed up to the dog yet, Val. But I think it’s because you two got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t you try playing with him? I tell you what. I’ll wash the dishes while you two –”
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