by Lizz Lund
“Mike Green.”
“Oh, a pleasure I’m sure.” Trixie pumped his hands with both of hers, face beaming, as she held them momentarily captive between her breasts.
“And this here, is, uh,” Vito began.
“Annie McMay,” Red said.
Trixie turned all slitty-eyed again and glared from Annie to Mike, and then turned the Death Stun Stare on Vito. Vito knew better. “Annie’s my, uh…”
“Niece,” Annie said, extending a hand toward Trixie. Trixie did all but snarl. She looked like a Doberman with lipstick.
Vito tried again. “And, uh, Mike… he’s Annie’s, uh…”
“Co-worker!” Mike Green exclaimed a la K., his wrist immediately going limp. Trixie winced. She shot a rocket glare at Vito.
“Nice to meet you,” she lied to Mike and Annie. “Catch you on the flip side, Vito. Gotta get Mina inside.” And with that she hastily flounced back to the Jeep.
I cringed for Trixie. Clearly she hadn’t encountered the crush-on-the-gay-guy thing too often. She swung open her door, threw herself in the seat and rummaged around for a cigarette. “Stupid queers,” she muttered, finding a half crushed butt in the ashtray, and shoved the lighter on.
“K.‘s gay,” I responded automatically.
“K. doesn’t count. K. never tried to date me,” Trixie said.
“You just met the guy! How does that qualify as trying to date you?”
“Well he might have. If he hadn’t tried to fool me.”
“How did he fool you?”
“He’s wearing straight wear.”
“Huh?”
“Two mismatched socks, tie has barbeque and/or chili stains on it, should have had a haircut a week and a half ago, and definitely does not have his nails done,” Trixie snipped while puffing her cigarette stub and rearranging her boobs back into their June Cleaver position.
“Geez. You got all that from a handshake?”
“Sure. Appletree was good for something.”
I gulped and made a vow not to become neurotic about the kind of information Trixie gleaned from me on a day to day basis. Yeeshkabiddle.
“C’mon. We really should get you inside,” she said. “You don’t look so good.”
I stared ahead at Ma’s and Auntie’s cars, and turned and stuck my tongue out at Trixie.
“Back at you. But I’m going in with you anyway. Besides, I want to find out why maybe-not-so-gay Mike Green and Annie McMay are still gawking at you.”
I looked up. She was right. But then again, what with my skull embolisms, skunk stinky smells and forehead hickeys, getting gawked at was hardly a surprise.
Trixie had me up and out of her Jeep almost as quick as she’d rearranged her boobs. She hauled me out the passenger side door, suspending me by my right arm. While she partially dislocated my armpit I thought Trixie might be taking her kick-boxing classes a tad too seriously. Which was probably why I held her nose and yelled, “OWWW!” at her, which got me dropped like a sack of potatoes. That was how I ended up sprawled on my keester in the middle of my driveway. I looked up and saw Mike Green, pseudo gay guy, transfixed by Trixie’s boobs, while Red and Vito looked at me with long suffering looks usually worn by pictures of patron saints in museums.
“OH-MY-GOD-THERE-HER-IS! IS-HER-ALRIGHT??!” K. creened as he came bounding out my front door toward me, with ever a backward glance or three toward Mike Green. Clearly, K. hadn’t missed any of Vito’s introductions from my living room windows. I heard Trixie begin to snarl.
And so began my not-so-comfy public humiliation session, as a goodly portion of my tribe thundered out of my abode: Ma, Aunt Muriel, Bauser, Bauser’s three-legged dog Jim, Norman, and – lo and behold – my sister Ethel, her husband Ike and their two Yorkies, Hansel and Gretel. While my sister’s peers were into their kids, Ethel married into a canine version of the Von Trapp family. When she and Ike talked about having a big family, it was in reference to adopting canine brothers and sisters for Hansel and Gretel. Go figure.
While these thoughts oozed along, Bauser’s dog Jim decided to nurse my face back to health while Hansel and Gretel fought over which of my sandals to gnaw. In the midst of all this, I lay writhing like a tortured bug in my driveway.
I shooed Jim away from my face and made it to a sitting position. I patted Jim on the head, said, “Good doggie” and then shouted, “Look, Jim, RATS!” and pointed at Hansel and Gretel. Jim gave out a, “WOOF!” and went after the Yorkies. Or the Ratties, as I call them. They took off in a pack down the front yard and circled back, onto my front porch then over to Vito’s in a collective bounding leap. Well, at least Jim and Gretel did. Hansel got stuck in between the porch railings. Apparently he’d been consuming too many doggie Gingerbread Houses.
“OH, SWEETIEEE!! HOW ARE YOU??” K. screamed.
“I’M NOT DEAF YET,” I screamed back.
“Oh, sorry,” K. said. But he didn’t look at me: his eyes focused on Green the whole time. Which, to my thinking, made Green look green. Maybe Trixie was right? But why?
Then Norman trudged over and held out his towel to me to help me up. What a bud. “Do you think you should go get an x-ray?” he asked.
Trixie shook her head. “I don’t think she’s concussed. She was strapped in, for Pete’s sake.”
“It’s not like I was wearing a helmet, you know,” I answered.
“Here, wait a minute.” She raced to her Jeep and rummaged in the glove compartment. When she came back she was brandishing a pen-size flashlight. “Look up here.” Then she shone a light into my left eye. “You’re eyes aren’t dilated. You’re fine,” she said, shutting off the pen light and clipping it into her cleavage. I sighed. I wondered how Trixie’s ER patients fared. I made a mental note to avoid needing emergency medical services during one of Trixie’s shifts.
I got hauled inside by the tribe, minus Vito, Red and Green. I hugged Ethel and Ike. “Sorry, I forgot all about your visit, and Ma’s,” I said.
Ethel shrugged. “We’re just passing through for a few days. We thought it would be fun to catch up with you and Ma together, before we visit Ike’s family in Connecticut,” she said.
I looked out the door and saw Gretel pulling at Hansel’s tail while he lay stuck between the spindles. “We better get your fatties inside,” I said.
Ethel mumbled, “Only Hansel’s fat. He’s on a diet. He can’t help it. He eats Gretel’s cookies.”
I got washed and realigned on my sofa in a clean T-shirt and shorts, complete with a shiny red and purple face. Meanwhile, Vinnie ate pepperoni slices from Aunt Muriel, along with Jim and Hansel and Gretel. Which made me pretty relieved that Bauser would eventually be taking Jim home. I wasn’t sure where my sister and Ike were sleeping that night, but I was glad there was no room in my house for multiple pet pepperoni poots. Pew.
Ma came back from upstairs. “She must get lonesome being upstairs alone all day, so I installed a small TV and DVD player for her,” she said. I reminded her that normally Marie’s in the kitchen until lunchtime, while Vinnie lounges in the basement. “The basement? Oh no; not for our dear boy,” Ma and Aunt Muriel cooed in tandem. Vinnie looked up while Ma stroked his head. He grinned conspiratorially, bestowing a smile full of pearly white corn teeth, studded with pepperoni bits. I furrowed.
“Well, just so long as Marie doesn’t have any more eggs,” I said.
“You mean she’s had eggs?” Aunt Muriel asked.
“Yup.”
“But where are all the babies?” she asked.
We all kind of looked away. Especially Bauser. “She had eggs by herself, Aunt Muriel,” I said. “There was no, umm… Mr. Marie.”
“But if she already had the eggs…”
I shook my head. Apparently, biology – other than your own – wasn’t exactly a school requisite back in the day.
Norman cleared his throat. “It’s like, umm… ya know… chicken eggs. If there’s no rooster to, um… ya kno
w… then, um… they’re just eggs. Like you buy in the store.”
“Oh,” said Aunt Muriel. “Can we eat them?”
We all cringed. Thankfully, Ma dove in. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Marie’s perfectly fine up there, and Vinnie’s much happier not being locked in the basement,” she said, snuggling her forehead up against Vinnie’s. Vinnie responded by purring louder and schlurping Ma’s nose. “Besides, she seems to really like musicals; especially Fred Astaire,” she went on. We all looked at each other blankly and shrugged. Who knew?
After some altercations about going to the hospital vs. ordering pizza, we settled down with a cool drink and some hot debriefing. And a very, very cold ice pack on my head. I gave some not so Lancaster-polite snippets about How-weird, flaming feces, opportunistic muggers and incompetent fire police.
“But I don’t understand about Red and Green,” Trixie whined. “What were U.S. Marshals doing at EEJIT?”
“Something about Red being from around here, and seeing the flaming feces trouble with EEJIT and Buy-A-Lots, yada yada,” I said. “Has anyone actually ordered a pizza? Or something for a cluster headache?”
“But why did you think Green was a dry cleaning salesman?” Bauser asked.
“I told you. Red was subbing for Mrs. Phang because she said Mrs. Phang was out on a vacation day,” I began. “So when Green and Red showed up at EEJIT, right after the fire, I figured they were selling some kind of fire and smoke dry cleaning package.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Aunt Muriel chanted. “You mean to tell me that when you come back with Vito’s dry cleaning, that Red was subbing for Mrs. Phang?”
“Uh, well, um, yeah. So what?”
Ma and Aunt Muriel clapped hands to their foreheads. “Oh boy,” Aunt Muriel said, and headed for the kitchen and the Wodka.
We all took the hint and indulged in a makeshift happy hour. Then we chatted about my Girl Scout good deeds re: Vito and his dry cleaning fetish and the burning Buy-A-Lots.
“There’s more,” said Bauser. Norman nodded, and draped his towel around his shoulders. Then the doorbell rang; the pizza man cometh.
I knew that K. placed the pizza order when it came from Frederique’s instead of PizzaNow!, and cost three times more. We all attempted to pay for the pizza, but Ma and Aunt Muriel won the stand-off while the delivery kid grew a beard. Aunt Muriel pulled out a credit card and handed it to the kid, trumping Ma’s cash. “Not your credit card!” Ma shrieked.
“It’s alright. It’s Max’s.” Aunt Muriel smiled. “Part of our agreement. Emergency funds,” she said. Ma shrugged. I nodded. It smelt like emergency pizza to me.
The delivery kid left with a big smile and a huge tip, thanks to Uncle Max. K. served up our pizza buffet amongst draped clean linens, bottles of red and white wine, individual bottles of sparkling water, candles, Mediterranean olives and a multitude of nice glasses I knew I didn’t own.
Answering my quizzical expression, K. said, “Your mom called and said you were having a crowd.”
I looked at Ma. She sucked on an olive.
“Well, I know how busy you’d be, ordinarily,” K. offered. “And after all this – pew!” he said, waving his hand and lighting a match.
Pew was right. But this time at least it wasn’t me. Jim lay sprawled in the middle of the dining room floor, gazing lovingly up at the largesse, and pooting pepperoni.
After opening up the screen doors, turning up the AC, and lecturing Aunt Muriel about the vices of pepperoni and pets, we figured we were defumagated enough to eat. We divvied ourselves up amongst the meal when the front door opened. It was Vito.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry, Toots,” he said, apologetically holding palms toward us. “I don’t mean to interrupt your plans here. I just wanted to see how yous was doing.”
“I’m okay.”
“Well just so longs as you’re not knocked out no more.”
Aunt Muriel leaped into the foyer. “Oh, Vito, we’re so glad you’re here!”
Vito flinched backward an inch at her brightness. “Huh? You are?”
“Why yes, aren’t we, Louise?”
Ma brought up the flanks. “Yes, of course. Please come in, Vito,” Ma said, and closed and locked the door behind him. And stood in front of it.
“Oh, well, if you ladies insist.” Vito looked around, not sure what he’d stumbled into. He looked at me. I shrugged. Damned if I knew.
“Certainly, Vito,” Aunt Muriel said. “Please, come in and do help yourself.”
Vito stared at the gourmet pizza meal. “Hey, well now, don’t mind if I dos.” He smiled and waddled the rest of the way in.
We grazed the buffet, fed and coddled pets, and sipped. It was quite a spread: white pizza with ricotta and spinach; pink pizza with buffalo mozzarella, portabella mushrooms, sundried tomatoes and shrimp; summer pizza with artichokes, zucchini, tomatoes, green onions and fresh basil; a bow tie pasta salad with grape tomatoes, yellow tomatoes and tomatillos, au vinaigrette; an antipasto platter with prosciutto, salami, roast beef, smoked turkey, parmesan chunks and seafood salad; and a large tossed Mediterranean salad. And, for dessert, what appeared to be individual cheesecakes, along with some kind of raspberry brownie sandwiches. Only Trixie longed for pretzels. “What’s a party without pretzels?” she whined. K. hung his head while I waved off Ma and Aunt Muriel. They would never understand the fetish thingy most of Lancaster – hell, most of PA – has for pretzels. Even I don’t get it, and I live here. But I learned long ago not to refute it. The path of least resistance is best met by serving pretzels.
K. gave Trixie a breadstick and a salt shaker and told her it was an artisan pretzel. Trixie furrowed but dutifully dipped her breadstick in her beer and salted it. We finished the bountiful repast and sighed in blissful waist expanded stupors.
Norman cleared his throat. “Listen, I’ve got to get going. Janice is going to kill me. Unless she thinks I’m working,” he said. Bauser patted him on the back of his towel. “But listen, the thing is, I really need to get online to check my runs,” he said. “Actually, I need to check who’s checking my runs.”
“No problem, dude. I’ve got packet sniffers out,” Bauser said.
Norman almost smiled. “Really? Wow, that’s great!”
We stared at Norman and Bauser much the same way someone stares at their first plate of seaweed salad. “In that case, I guess I can have a beer after all,” Norman sighed. Then frowned. “Someone’s got breath mints, right? It would be a long story for me if she smelt beer on me.”
“Who could tell with all this garlic?” Vito asked. K. shot Vito a look that screamed ‘Puh-lease’.
K. brought Norman a bottle of beer and a glass and set them down before him. Norman tried to unscrew the twist top – except he failed, because it wasn’t a twist top. Then Norman not only needed a bottle opener but some Band-Aids and a tourniquet. Ma got some Band-Aids and a supply of dish towels while Vito opened Norman’s beer bottle with his teeth. We all winced.
Norman raised his bottle to Vito in thanks, and took a swig. He choked a little, but after another swig he seemed almost not unhappy. Then he began.
“Awhile ago, before all the news coverage, I was wondering about the coincidence of the Buy-A-Lots’ fires. You see, not all the other fires made national press coverage like the coincidence of Buy-A-Lots’ Lancaster location with EEJIT’s Lancaster location, which any idiot could have seen. I mean, I recognized others before.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“There seems to be a pattern of burning Buy-A-Lots’ with new store openings.”
“How’d you notice that?” I asked. Everyone leaned in.
“Well, because I had a discussion about the data that How-weird used to sell Buy-A-Lots on renewing. And convincing them to open up an umpteenth new store in Lancaster County.”
“You had words with How-weird?”
“Because he’d hawked sample data. It was bogus. And he knew it,” No
rman said, and he took another swig – bigger this time – of his beer. And coughed. He got attacked by a group of well meaning slaps on the back from Vito.
“Data, schmata. I don’t get it,” K. whined.
“Garbage in, garbage out,” Ma said, and chewed another olive.
Norman continued. “The data that’s used to test new algorithms is a fairly steady, representative sample. No outliers, no data surprises. That way we can see how the algorithm is working without having data quality issues to muddy up the works.”
“Algorithm?” Aunt Muriel and Vito asked. They looked at each other. Vito beamed. Muriel scowled.
“An algorithm is a mathematical equation that provides the statistics we’re looking for,” said Norman, coddling his new friend between his hands. “EEJIT’s applications use various algorithms to determine various outcomes, using various sets of data. The data is varied – always contains some kind of minor flaws – because it’s refreshed periodically, and from various sources. So we need to ensure the algorithm’s stability before using it against actual data.”
“Oh. Sos it’s kinda like testing a recipe but making sure all the food is good, and not rotten. Or making sure you’re not testing a chocolate cake recipe using brussel sprouts,” Vito said.
“I like brussel sprouts,” Ethel interjected.
“Hey, me too!” Vito beamed. He was followed by a chorus of, “Shh!”
“Anyway, the recipe analogy is pretty good,” said Norman easily. A little too easily. I wasn’t sure if Norman had ever had a whole beer before. I was beginning to hope he would make his excuses to Janice and stay nappily at Bauser’s place. “Anyway, Howard insisted on using the test data for presentation to Buy-A-Lots. I warned him it would present like a Buy-A-Lots Utopia. I also warned him about using a disclaimer about the sample data. He didn’t. ”
“So?” asked K.
Norman sighed. “We sold them the actual package using virtual data, before the actual data was incorporated. So Buy-A-Lots ran their marketing programs – and budgets – with the test data. Which is bad, because the actual data we sent them, to replace the virtual data, was almost a year old. Either way, the test data predicted plenty of future Buy-A-Lots all over.”