Sandy Gingras - Lola Polenta 01 - Swamped

by Sandy Gingras

  I don’t know what to say. “No couch,” I tell them. “Nothing decorative. Nothing that’s not essential.”

  “Semantics,” Miss Tilney says dismissively, and we take off simultaneously in slightly different directions like we’ve just started up on the bumper car ride.

  I hover around in the same area as them for a little bit, and in the first ten minutes, they manage to fill a cart. Even Mean Muumuu is pointing out things. I guess she’s revisiting the whole idea of earthly possessions. They are all talking at once. Even Mean Muumuu, it seems, once watched HGTV. She’s throwing around words like “focal point” and “architectural element” and “accent piece” like it’s nobody’s business. I don’t even try to say anything. I know I’ll be over-run.

  “I’m going to look for a bed,” I announce.

  “Good riddance,” Miss Tilney says. I look at her. “You’re no fun,” she shrugs.

  I find a simple wooden headboard, kind of sleek and modern with a platform frame that has storage drawers under it. I bounce on a few mattresses. Some guy in the bed department recommends that I buy the bungee mattress kit for carrying my bed home on the top of the car. IKEA conveniently makes one for $21.99. It’s four bungee cords and a plastic tarp. It’s highway robbery. Some guy helps me load the mattresses on the top of the car. The rest of the bed is in one large box.

  Then I go back in. I wait around for a while near the cash register, but there’s no sign of them. I wheel around the store again. It all seems overwhelming. I guess I’m just used to nothingness. I buy a set of white sheets and a white summer quilt and a couple pillows. I feel virtuous. Then I go buy a coffee and sit down by the cash registers.

  An hour later, they show up. I was going to have them paged, but I didn’t think they would even hear it over their own voices. All three of their buggies have things in them. “I don’t want any of this,” I say, picking up a set of wine glasses on the top of the pile.

  “Hey,” Miss Tilney says, “that’s mine.”

  “Sorry,” I tell her. “Those are nice.”

  “Let me just get you a couple things,” my mother says, taking out her credit card.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t want anything. You can’t pay.”

  “Your father insists,” she tells me.

  That always gets to me. Even if it isn’t true. I back away. I eye the carts suspiciously.

  We somehow squeeze everything into the cargo area and we’re off. “Next time, we’ll stop for lunch at Sookies,” Miss Tilney says.

  “Is that good?” Mean Muumuu asks.

  “Their shrimp are luscious. On Simply Shrimply Tuesdays, it’s all you can eat,” Miss Tilney announces.

  “But we don’t have time today,” my mother says. “We’re on a mission.”

  “I’ll call for pizza delivery when we get back, so we can get right to work,” Miss Tilney volunteers.

  “Work?” I ask.

  “I can’t eat meat,” Mean Muumuu says.

  “We’ll get the pineapple pizza then. Can you have that?”

  Mean Muumuu nods.

  “I like that with onion and green pepper and a little sausage myself,” Miss Tilney says.

  “Only get half with sausage then,” my mother says.

  Everyone nods. “I have to go to work,” I say, but they don’t even notice me. They’re talking about curtain rods.

  The mattress bounces along on the roof. It makes the ride home seem almost buoyant.

  Chapter 40

  At 1:30 I call Mrs. Black, “What are you doing?” I ask her.

  “Painting my toenails,” she says in a gloomy voice.

  “What color?”

  “Dreamboat,” she says wispily.

  “Is that a blue?”

  “More purple-y,” she says.

  “Is your husband gone yet?”

  “What do you think?” she says, as if it’s my fault he’s left her.

  “I’m coming to pick you up. Be ready in fifteen minutes,” I tell her.

  “What? Why?”

  “Just be ready,” I tell her. I really don’t know what that means, but it sounds good. I clear the passenger seat of stuff and throw it in the back.

  I pull up in front of her house and the door opens right up. She must have been standing there waiting with her pocketbook hooked over her arm like a girl guide. She’s got a safari-tan dress on with a million pockets. She looks likes she’s ready to shoot some big game. It takes her a little oomphing to climb into the SUV, but when I ask if I can help her, she glares at me.

  I take off. She doesn’t say anything, just stares straight ahead. Her hands are folded over her pocketbook on her lap. “That’s a large dog,” Mrs. Black says as Dreamer puts her head between the seats and rests her chin on the console.

  “She likes the vibration on her chin,” I tell Mrs. Black.

  Dreamer hums when she gets in this position. It’s a mix between a growl and a moan and it goes on and on, up and down in tone, “MMmmmmmMMmmmMM.”

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Black says. She kind of smiles.

  “I followed your husband, and I know where he goes,” I say.

  She looks over at me. “I knew it,” she says and smartly snaps her bag open and shut, open and shut.

  I say, “The truth is not always…” Where am I going here, I think? “…an answer. Sometimes it’s just more questions.”

  “That’s so obvious,” she says in her valley girl voice.

  “All righty then,” I say. I tell her the whole story. I remember what I learned in my P.I. class—Lesson 2. “It’s against human nature,” it stated, “but you have to learn to turn in the direction of the skid. When you get the urge to turn away from something in an investigation because it’s too emotional, or raw, or scary, turn into it. That’s where the truth is. What comes of that is not your business. It’s your business to turn into the truth and reveal it.”

  Every sentence I say to Mrs. Black, I try to keep factual. I try not to defend or explain. It’s easier because I’m not looking at her.

  “I knew it,” she keeps saying. “I knew it.” When I’m finished with the facts, she says, “He always carried a torch for her in his secret heart of hearts.” Her voice sounds brittle. She keeps nodding like CLICK the last ugly piece of the puzzle she’s been fearing forever has gone and dropped into place.

  I pull up to the cul de sac. I park a couple houses away. I point out the house, but there’s really no need. Mr. Black’s car is in the driveway. It’s very quiet in my car. I glance over to see if Mrs. Black passed out or died or something, but no, she’s just sitting there with a worrisome little slackness in her jaw. Please don’t have a stroke, I think. I don’t know what to expect out of her.

  “Come on,” she says and opens her door.

  Now that we’re walking up the driveway, I realize how much I wanted her to say, “Oh, never mind…” or “drive on…” or something less turn-in-the-direction-of-the-skid-ish than this. How did such a chicken as me end up in a job like this?

  Dreamer follows us happily. Mrs. Black actually takes my hand when we get to the door. Her hand is all boney and knobby and crinkly, and she holds onto mine firmly like a school teacher would. I squeeze her hand. God, please help her not to make a scene, I pray. I ring the bell, BINGBONG! and we stand there holding hands like two kooks.

  The daughter answers the door. She looks at me and then at Mrs. Black. “This is Mrs. Black,” I tell her. “Mrs. Black, this is Ceil, Mrs. Devon’s daughter.” And just to cut the tension a little, I say, “and this is Dreamer.”

  “Hello dear,” Mrs. Black says in her grandma voice. Mrs. Black can be many things, I’m learning. If she doesn’t turn into the Wicked Witch of the West, we’ll be good.

  “Come in.” Ceil opens the door and steps back. We file in. Dreamer trots along. We stand in the hall. We can hear Mr. Black reading in the next room.

  Mrs. Black walks toward his voice like a zombie. Dreamer follows her into the bedroom. Ceil and I stand t
here frowning at each other. I have to admit, I’m cringing. I want to apologize, but then again, I don’t want to apologize. I don’t think this is what being a P.I. is supposed to be like.

  “Oh,” we hear Mrs. Devon say. “Come here, Wagon. Come, Wagon.”

  “Wagon was our old dog,” Ceil whispers to me.

  “Sit nice, Wagon,” Mrs. Devon says.

  Nothing else happens. I hear a chair creak.

  “She’s delusional now most of the time. She’s on a lot of morphine,” Ceil tells me after a pause.

  There’s a rustle of newspaper, and Mr. Black continues reading.

  “He’s reading her The Daily News,” Ceil says. “She likes the horoscopes in that paper.”

  Where did Mrs. Black go? I keep wondering. I peek in. She’s sitting in an upright chair near the doorway. She’s sitting all prim, like she’s at church.

  Mr. Black is reading Mrs. Devon a story about some deep-sea fisherman who caught a giant squid—the biggest one ever recorded.

  “Did they let it go?” Mrs. Devon asks all quavery.

  “Of course not. They killed it,” Mrs. Black pipes up. Little Miss Reality.

  There’s a rumpling of folding newspaper as Mr. Black evidently shows them the picture of the dead squid.

  “Gross,” Mrs. Black says.

  “They should have let it go,” Mrs. Devon insists.

  “Fat chance of that,” Mrs. Black says.

  Mr. Black reads on. “If they had made calamari out of this creature, the O’s would have been the size of car tires.”

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Devon says.

  Mrs. Black says, “They’re tough when they’re that big.” As if she eats tires of squid every day.

  I sneak another look in the door. Ceil looks too. Mrs. Devon is sitting in her wheelchair nodding droopily. Dreamer is sitting politely next to Mrs. Devon. Cozy, I think.

  “I make a good marinara sauce,” Mrs. Devon says. “If you use grape tomatoes, it doesn’t have that acidic taste.”

  “I’ll have to try that,” Mrs. Black says.

  “And not too much garlic. Most people overpower their sauce with garlic.”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Black says firmly as if she can’t wait to make some giant squid sauce.

  Mrs. Devon says to Dreamer, “I like this nurse, don’t you, Wagon?” Mrs. Devon is almost asleep in her chair. “I gotta get me one of those Louie-Louies…,” she says wistfully.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Black says as he helps her into the bed.

  Ceil helps settle her in, props her up, and tucks the blankets in around her. I stand in the doorway watching. It’s a big cheery room with a window that looks out on the side yard garden. The sun comes through the bottlebrush trees in lemon streams.

  “This is nice,” Mrs. Devon says looking around. Everyone looks at each other.

  “Not bad,” Mr. Black says.

  You can see death written all over Mrs. Devon’s face. Her skin is almost blue it’s so translucent. The sun touches one of her shoulders and a bit of her cheek. A second later, she’s asleep.

  “Well,” Mr. Black says. He nods at me. “We’ll be off now,” he says looking at his wife.

  Mrs. Black nods at me. I watch them walk stiffly to their car. Then I leave too. I nod at Ceil. She nods back and closes the door gently.

  I watch the Blacks pull away slowly in their car. I can see Mrs. Black’s determined forward pose. I wonder what’s in store for them.

  This is what I’ve found so far being a P.I.: Whenever you expect something huge to happen, it doesn’t. So many things just deflate when you poke around at them.

  Chapter 41

  First thing I notice when I go in the office is a big jar of dog biscuits next to the jar of tootsie rolls. Dreamer goes right up to Squirt. Squirt says, “Sit,” and Dreamer does. Then she puts her hand up and says, “High five,” and Dreamer bats her hand with her paw. “Good,” Squirt says and gives her a biscuit from the jar.

  “Wow,” I say, “I didn’t know she could do that.”

  “She’s very smart. You’re only utilizing a small percentage of her brain power.”

  “I’m only utilizing a small percentage of MY brain power.”

  Squirt nods at me. “I made myself an appointment at 4:00 with Ivan Newton, the tarot master.”

  “I thought we were both going. That’s in twenty minutes,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “But you would’ve gone without me.”

  “I can’t wait for you forever,” she says straightening her desk.

  “But we need a strategy,” I insist.

  “You drive,” she tells me, “and I’ll handle the rest.”

  “You’re going to waltz right in there and do what?”

  “I have a plan,” she tells me as she locks up the office and we head to the car.

  “Let’s try to get some information out of him,” I say worriedly.

  “Fine,” she says shrugging. Her hair is shining like a helmet.

  As we’re driving along, she informs me, “I’ve got a new pepper spray vehicle just in case.”

  “Vehicle?” I say, imagining Squirt for some reason in a pepper spray tank.

  “The first one I had was aerosol. But that’s kind of wimpy, don’t you think?”

  I nod. I shrug.

  “And it was hard to get my finger on it and really aim, you know?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Now they have all sorts of camouflaged pumps and atomizers. I have a lipstick that is really a pepper spray.”

  “That’s so James Bond. You’re not planning on using your lipstick on the tarot guy, are you?”

  “No, that’s for much closer situations,” she says dismissively.

  I try to think of a close situation in which I would use a lipstick pepper spray. I can’t come up with one right off the bat.

  “My new one shoots pepper juice in a stream. Not one of those fussy little clouds. It’s focused.”She opens her purse and takes the gun out.

  I glance over as I’m driving. I scream. “That looks like a real gun,” I say.

  “That’s the point,” she says.

  She looks down at it. “Let me see.” She turns it over. “Ooh, never mind, this is Zoltan’s gun.”

  “Who’s Zoltan?”

  “He’s my nephew.”

  “His name is Zoltan?”

  “His father’s Hungarian.”

  “Zoltan has a gun?”

  “Zoltan is ten. It’s a Nerf gun.”

  “You don’t even know the difference between a Nerf gun and a pepper spray?”

  “Well, they look a lot alike in this lighting.” I look around. It’s broad daylight. “I wish they did have the pepper gun available in a color other than gun metal gray,” she says longingly. “It’d be cute if it came in like a teal blue, don’t you think?”

  “Yup,” I tell her. I shrug. “Why do you have Zoltan’s Nerf gun in your purse.”

  “He likes to put things in my purse when I’m not looking. He knows I like Nerf guns,” she adds. “We have Nerf battles when he comes to visit.

  “Anyway,” she says, “the pepper gun has a little plastic plug thingie where you put the juice into it. And, of course, it’s heavier than Zoltan’s gun. Oh, turn here,” she says. “Look for number 433. Why don’t people put proper numbers on their houses anymore. I don’t understand that. Look, here are three in a row with no numbers at all.”

  “They should be shot,” I tell her.

  “Here it is. Pull in.”

  “Now wait a second,” I say. “We have no plan about what we’re going to do or say.”

  “It’ll be okay,” she says. She snaps her purse shut. She can’t wait to get in there and put him in his place.

  “But,” I say.

  Squirt is already halfway up the walk. For a big woman, she can really move. It’s a square modular house with beige aluminum siding. The yard is white pebbles with an iron bench plunked right in the middle of the front yard wh
ere nobody would ever sit.

  I tie Dreamer in the shade of the front porch. There’s a sign that says “Office” and “Enter” over the front door. So, in we go. A bell tinkles. There’s a waiting area with three wooden kitchen chairs lined up and a pile of magazines on a low stool. We sit down. We can hear voices rumbling behind a door.

  A woman in a terrycloth sweat suit comes out of the door. She’s heavily made up, and she smiles at us in a stretched way and leaves. The door tinkles shut. We wait. I thumb through People magazine. Squirt stares straight ahead. Just when I think she’s going to storm the door, it opens and Ivan Newton pokes his head out. “Which one of you is the lovely Diamond?” he says.

  Squirt stands up. She’s got about six inches and sixty pounds on Ivan Newton. “We want to see you together,” she tells him.

  “As you wish,” he says and opens the door wide. “I’m Ivan Newton Tarot Master,” he says, like it’s all one word.

  I say, “I’m Lola” as I walk past him.

  “Yes,” he tells me. Like, with his secret powers, he knew that already.

  I don’t know which is eerier, him or his office. The walls are smothered in red paisley wallpaper, and there are red velvet drapes on the windows. A fountain is tinkling in a corner, and the walls are laden with ornate mirrors. For some reason, I get a flashback to fourth grade science class when we watched that movie where the people get shrunk down and swallowed into the human body. “You are now inside the stomach lining…” That movie. Incense and candles are burning in sconces, and the room smells like a mélange of mildew and patchouli and male hormones. “Sit down my friends and welcome,” he says.

  I don’t know about Squirt, but I want to run. We both sit down on the couch across from him. He’s wearing a loose cotton shirt with a Nehru collar. “I didn’t know they still made those,” I say pointing to his shirt.

  “I hab them imborted,” he tells me. His lips are too plump, as if he had a silicone injection that went awry, so he kind of blubbers when he speaks. He looks a lot like a young Alfred Hitchcock. Squirt is staring at him and twitching in her seat. “Will just one ob you be habbing a reading or both?” he asks.

  “Just Diamond,” I say.

  “The fee is one hundred ub front,” he says. Squirt stares at him and doesn’t move.