“Ha ha. We’re not taking you anywhere. Just put it on.”
I slipped the mask over my eyes. I felt Tom’s strong hand take mine and lead me across the living room. I heard the sliding glass door move and warm air hit my face. Tom led me outside and took off my mask. My jaw dropped to my chest.
My former trash-heaped, weed-infested yard had been transformed into a tropical oasis. A stone walkway wove a path through freshly laid grass to a swing by the water with a canopy top. A hammock hung between two palm trees. And in one corner, a thatch-roofed tiki bar was lit up with Christmas lights. Mr. Fellows was behind the counter. He waved at me and raised his margarita glass.
“Do you like it?” Tom asked, and wrapped his arms around me.
“I love it.”
He took my chin softly in his hand and looked me in the eyes.
“Good. Because I love you, Val.”
Oh my god! Tom had never said the ‘L’ word to me before! But…I wasn’t ready to say it back. I’d made a promise I’d never again force myself to say or be something I wasn’t. I had to keep my word to myself, or I’d be lost…again.
“I…I don’t know what to say, Tom.”
Tom smiled at me tenderly and kissed my nose.
“It’s okay. ‘Thank you’ will do for now.”
Epilogue
After Laverne hobbled home in her high heels and the squeaky old Dodge full of party guests left, I fixed another TNT. I sat at a barstool and studied the funny figurines lined up on the kitchen counter as Tom finished up the dishes.
“So this is my new circle of friends,” I said.
Tom glanced up at me and smiled. “Looks like.”
“They really do look like everyone. Especially yours, Petie the Police Boy.”
Tom laughed. “I think Sassy Sallie has you pegged, too.”
“Ha ha. You know, we’ll have to find one for Mr. Fellows.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”
I picked up Sassy Sally and Petie the Police Boy. I glanced over at Tom to make sure he wasn’t watching, and made the two kiss. I smiled to myself and carried them to the mantle. They and the other figurines were going to take pride of place next to Glad in her piggybank.
As I reached up to put the figurines on the mantle, I realized that Glad wasn’t there. Where had I seen her last? Oh yeah. I wandered out into the beautiful, tropical backyard, then came back into the house.
“Tom, where’s my mom’s RV?”
Tom looked up from the dishes.
“Oh. I sold it. To a scrapper. He hauled it away this morning.”
“No!”
“Val, it was just a piece of junk.”
“Tom, you don’t understand. My mother was in there!”
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Ready for more of Val and her Pals? Turn the page for a sneak peek at Val’s next wild adventure, Three Dumb: Wheelin’ & Dealin’.
Sneak Peek of Three Dumb:
Chapter One:
“How could you do it, Tom?”
I stared into the sea-green eyes of Lieutenant Thomas Foreman, my cop boyfriend. He was in the kitchen drying dishes, as happy as a clam on Prozac. He’d just pulled off a surprise 49th birthday party for me right under my nose, and was swaggering in self-pride about it.
The festivities had ended just a moment ago, when Laverne, my next-door neighbor and former Vegas showgirl, finally took the hint and wobbled back over to her place on those stork legs of hers. It hadn’t been easy to convince her it was time to go. I’d had to change into my pajamas, tidy the couch cushions around her, take the wineglass from her hand, and, when all that failed, I’d resorted to yawning in her face. Laverne never was one for subtlety.
Tom raised a blond eyebrow on his smug, unforgivably handsome face. “Val, with you on my case, keeping it under wraps was no piece of cake.”
He winked and grabbed a glass from the kitchen drain board. His lip curled into a satisfied smile as he wiped the glass dry with a dishcloth, oblivious to my growing rage. I crossed my arms and planted my feet. My mind was made up. I had a right to be pissed, and no one was going to take that away from me.
“I would hope not, Tom,” I hissed, “as it probably involved forgery on your part.”
Tom blanched and looked up, surprised at my anger. “Wait a second. You’re not talking about the party?”
“No! I’m talking about selling my mother’s RV – without even asking me!”
“Oh…that.”
Tom grinned at his own cleverness. He obviously didn’t realize how close he was to being strangled to death with that damned dishtowel.
“Well, that was the tricky part, Val. And you almost caught me. I had to rifle through your silly shoebox filing system to find the title to it. It was still registered in Glad’s name, but I signed it over. Seeing as she’s dead, I didn’t think she’d mind.”
“Arrgh! Tom, I didn’t mean how did you do it logistically. I meant how could you do it at all? The Minnie Winnie was mine. My mother’s. It was….”
Tom dropped the cloth on the counter and folded his arms over his chest, mirroring mine.
“It was a piece of junk, Val. I traded it for the tiki hut. I don’t know why you’re so angry. I think you got the better half of the deal.”
I raised my hands in frustration. “You still don’t get it. It was all I had left of Glad – besides the piggybank with her ashes. And Tom, the piggybank was inside the RV.”
Tom’s face drooped. His arms fell limp to his sides. “Oh. I…I didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do. Why couldn’t you have just asked me first?”
Tom bit his lower lip and scrunched his nose. “I don’t know. It sounds lame now, Val. But it would have spoiled the surprise.”
“And avoided this one.”
Hot, angry tears rimmed my eyes. Tom winced sympathetically and put his arms around me.
“I’m sorry, Val. But how in the world did Glad’s piggybank end up in the RV anyhow?”
I thought back to the drunken night a week and a half ago, when my imagination and half a bottle of gin had convinced me that Tom and my best friend Milly were having an affair. I’d spent a lost night in the old RV, commiserating with my mother’s spirit as she’d stared back at me, wise and all-knowing, through a plastic, holographic monocle….
My face flushed. I jerked away from Tom’s arms.
“Look. I don’t have to explain myself to you, Tom. What I need now is to know where I can find the RV and get Glad back.”
Tom took a step backward and showed me his open palms. “Okay! Take it easy! A buddy at work gave me the name of a junk dealer out in Pinellas Park. I’ve got his card around here somewhere.”
Tom’s eyes scanned the kitchen counter for the card, then his face registered a thought. He reached toward his right butt cheek and pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans.
“Tom, I know you meant well. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I mean, what you did with the backyard…the makeover…it’s beautiful. But I’m so mad at you right now I have half a mind to charge you with grand theft.”
Tom’s tan, clean-shaven face lost the remainder of its usually good-natured, boyish charm.
“So that’s the thanks I get. Nice one, Val. You know, I put up with a lot from you, but tonight takes the cake. I tell you ‘I love you,’ and you return the favor by
telling me you’re going to have me arrested. Not an even swap.”
A pang of remorse hurtled toward my heart. I knocked it away with a baseball bat.
“Well, neither was you’re swapping my mother’s RV for a blasted tiki hut!”
Tom pulled a business card from his wallet and tossed it on the kitchen counter. “I guess it’s true what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.”
Tom glared at me, pursed his lips, shook his head and marched out the front door. He slammed it behind him. I waited until I heard the engine start and his SUV drive away before I picked up the card. Maybe I should have felt guilty. After all, Tom had meant well. But not a single speck of slithering guilt dared crawl close enough to be scalded by my boiling anger. Not this time. I was tired of always paying the tab for others good-intentioned misdeeds.
Why did everything nice have to come with a shit-smeared string attached?
I looked down at the business card. It read, “Lefty’s Hauling: We make your troubles disappear!” The bitter irony forced a puff of jaded air through my pinched lips. It was 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. I took a chance and called the number. No one answered. The card stated the business was closed on Sundays. It seemed I was going to have to wait – something I was definitely no good at.
Chapter Two
I idled away Sunday morning swinging in my new hammock, going back and forth as to whether I should call Tom and apologize or call Tom and rip him a new one. I should have been ecstatic. Tom had just told me he loved me for the very first time. I’d been contemplating whether to say it back to him when I’d been blindsided by the news he’d gone and traded away my mother for a thatch-roofed shack. How could the man have been so insensitive?
I scowled and looked across the freshly landscaped backyard. It was so gorgeous I nearly forgave Tom again. The comfy, macramé hammock I was swaying in was tied between two palm trees and offered a beautiful view of the sparkling Intracoastal Waterway. A set of six floral-cushioned lawn chairs formed a ring around a circular fire pit made of terracotta-hued pavers. Even the traitorous tiki hut was charming, with its shaggy, conical roof of thatched palm leaves. It was all so beautiful – and in need of a lifetime of constant maintenance.
By 9 a.m., the newly installed plants had already begun to wither in the tropical heat of the first day of May. I got out my old garden hose and spent the second half of the morning watering the freshly planted lantana bushes, canna lilies, pygmy date palms and St. Augustine grass. To save work, I took a quick trip to the little Ace Hardware store on Boca Ciega and bought a sprinkler to irrigate the neat swath of newly lain lawn.
When I returned, an itchy irritability crawled across my brain. Sweat dripped off my chin as I stood in the glaring sun and fiddled with the new sprinkler. I tried to set it to the correct angle. I clicked it to 45 degrees and turned on the tap. Before I could say, “Oh shit,” the hose swelled up like a pregnant snake and blew the sprinkler off the end like a bottle rocket. It slammed into my shin, prompting me to scream all the curse words in my repertoire and perform the one-legged hip-hop. While I was dancing around, the hose, like a heckler in the audience, curled itself upward and, with deadly accuracy, shot a stream of cold water into my obscenity-hurling face. Given the horrid heat, it should have cooled me off. But the only thing the cold blast managed to refresh was my seething anger at Tom.
This damn landscaping is the gift that keeps on giving. Giving me more chores and responsibilities and ways to sweat my freaking ass off! Thanks a lot, Tom!
Soaked to my skin, I gave up and lay down in the hammock. I was drying off my clothes and cooling off my temper when that freaking jerk Guilty Conscience showed up and tried to convince me that maybe I had been the insensitive one.
Had I been wrong to grouse about Tom’s beautiful and probably damn-expensive birthday gift? I gave my unwanted visitor an angry glare and a couple of Tanqueray and tonics. The second TNT, along with a Southern dollop of self-righteousness, had just begun to loosen guilt’s whiny stranglehold on me when I heard a familiar voice call my name.
“Val?”
So much for enjoying the tranquility of my new backyard. Geeze! Maybe I really was being an ungrateful sourpuss….
I took a tentative peek out of the hammock at the nosey, long-legged, horse-faced old woman in a gold bikini.
“Hi, Laverne.”
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