by Hearn, Shari
“Gah!” Gertie yelled as frog and underpants hopped out the door and across our little porch before hopping down and disappearing into the shrubbery. “Those were a new pair! Really soft too.”
I glared at Gertie. I hated the cabin. I hated the frogs. I hated that my father’s berating words were present in my mind once again. In fact, I hated everything about this day. Well, except maybe for meeting Millie.
Gertie met my glare with one of her own. “What?” she asked.
“You should have listened to Ida Belle.”
“Ladies!” Starlight called out while walking past our cabin. “Your hour is up. Assemble in the administration hall group room. Time to go from bitter to better!”
Gertie crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “Hmmmppfff. Know anyone who’s bitter?” She turned and stormed out of the room.
* * * * *
Our group of misfits sat cross-legged in a circle on the hard pine floor. After chanting, “I control my emotions, they don’t control me” for ten minutes, we went around the circle and told everyone the infractions that led us to Camp Happy Frog. Gertie was right. A few women should have been in jail. The rest of us had gotten a little hotheaded and chewed someone out. Only one or two of the women were really suited to be sentenced to anger management.
Gertie was right about another thing. Gertrude Roy’s reputation was very much alive, and many of these women believed Gertie and Miss Gertrude were one and the same. Before several of them began sharing their stories of why they were sent here, they had looked at Gertie first, offering to let her go before them. One woman even referred to Gertie as “Miss Gertrude” before slapping a hand over her mouth, her face stricken with fear.
“That’s okay, darlin’,” Gertie had said. “An honest mistake. Try not to do it again, okay?”
Finally it was Gertie’s turn to share her story. While she regaled everyone with a heavily embellished story of our standoff with the corrupt mayor of Sinful in defense of pinball players everywhere, I scanned the area, paying particular attention to the office across the hall. Ida Belle would be meeting us later tonight to break into this building in a hunt for clues suggesting Judge Renaud was on the take. The office would be our ground zero. I’d already made a few mental notes when we entered the building, searching for the best way to break in. The front door had no deadbolts. It appeared easy to unlock, except the light suspended above the door probably came on automatically when the sun set. Too much light for breaking in.
This building was nothing more than an old log cabin and a lock on one of the windows in this room didn’t work. I knew because I’d asked Starlight if I could open all the windows wider as soon as I came into the room, claiming the bleach smell from the entryway was getting to me. The window with the broken hardware would be an excellent entry point after hours. I’d also stuck my head out the windows after I had opened them, relieved to find no lights on this side of the building.
Starlight broke my reverie. I was so deep in surveillance mode I didn’t notice Gertie had finished her story. “I want y’all to give yourselves a hand for sharing your stories with us tonight,” Starlight said, clapping her hands.
She was greeted with stares from the other women. Starlight frowned. “I said, clap, clap, clap.”
I put my hands together and joined the others in a tepid clap.
Starlight squealed with delight. “Now, class, here’s the fun part. Here’s where we say ‘goodbye’ to our anger, and ‘hello’ to a new way of living. We at Camp Happy Frog call this ‘ribbit rage.’” Her pigtails bounced as she laughed. “So when you want to swear and shoot your mouth off, or haul off and stab your boyfriend,” she said, nodding to a woman with an arm full of tattoos, “I want you to substitute the word, ‘ribbit’ instead. And make it sound as much like a frog as you can. By taking a step back and making a little froggy joke out of the situation, this can help you slow down and think before acting. Okay? So, everyone, after me—RIBBIT!”
Silence.
“Let’s try it again. RIBBIT!”
More silence.
“A little reminder,” Starlight said, her smile fading, “those who don’t go along with the program can expect to spend two weeks rotting in a jail cell. Now, RIBBIT!”
The shifting of Starlight’s overly sweet demeanor took me by surprise. I glanced at Gertie. She shrugged.
“Ribbit!” Starlight commanded again, staring at me.
Lucky for me Harrison wasn’t here to witness me ribbitting like a frog. Or Carter! Thank God Carter wasn’t here. There had to be no bigger romantic buzzkill than hearing your potential girlfriend making frog noises.
After five minutes of this nonsense, Starlight held her hand up and quieted the group. Her smile had returned. “Excellent. Now, for ribbit rage to work, you have to say goodbye to your old way of dealing with anger. How do you do that, you ask?”
Starlight stood and strode to the corner where a large box stood. She pulled it across the floor and dumped the contents in the middle of our circle. Foam bats. Various colors. More than a dozen of them. With thick, plastic handles. “These are called batacas. I want y’all to reach into the pile and take one.”
Millie uncrossed her legs to move forward, causing her to grimace. “Oh dear, my foot’s asleep.” She shook her foot trying to shake the numbness away. “Oh, now it’s all tingly. That’s the worst.”
“You sit, Millie, I’ll get a bataca for you,” I said.
“Oh, aren’t you a love.” She reached over and stroked my hair. “I swear you have my mother’s eyes. Why, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were one of my own flesh and blood.”
I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “What color do you want?”
“Green if no one else wants it.”
I reached for the green bataca at the moment Gertie claimed it. “Hey, Gertie, do you mind? Millie wants the green one.”
“Call me Grandma Millie,” Millie said.
Gertie let go of it. “Fine, I’ll take one of those putrid-looking orange ones.”
I chose an orange one as well and handed the green one to Millie.
“Oh, aren’t you a doll,” Millie said, hugging it to her chest. “Isn’t she a doll, Gertie?”
“Hmmm,” Gertie said, her pursed lips forming a sour pucker.
Starlight held one of the batacas and slapped at the carpeting a couple of feet in front of her. “Put on your thinking caps, ladies, and think about what is making you mad right now. Be brave and give it a goodbye whack with your batacas.”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can,” Millie said. “I’m not feeling very brave.”
I turned to her. “Of course you can. You know, Millie, in a way you’re one of the bravest women I know. In fact, I’m kinda glad I was sentenced here so I could have a chance to get to know you.”
Millie held her hand flat to her chest. “That is so touching, dear.” She took my hand and held it between her hands. “Will you sit with me at dinner?”
“Of course.”
Whack!
Gertie slammed her bataca on the side of my head. “Ribbit,” she said, glaring at me.
“What the hell?” I clutched my bataca and clubbed her back, bopping Gertie on her spiky head. “Ribbit back atcha.”
“Girls! Girls!” Starlight yelled. “On the floor. Not at each other! And the ribbit is used instead of violence. Not in addition to.”
* * * * *
After Starlight dismissed us from group therapy, I helped Millie up.
“We’ll be there shortly,” I said as she joined the other women heading to the dining room for dinner. Once Millie left the room I turned to Gertie. “What was that all about?”
“My bat must have slipped.”
“Like hell it did. You slammed me in the side of the head.”
“Well you smashed my hair spikes,” she said, feeling the top of her head.
“You shellacked those things with so much hairspray, nothing could smash them down. Besides, you
hit me first and it was no accident.”
“We were supposed to take a boat and find a restaurant along the bayou. Just the two of us. You know, ‘Gertie and Fortune’s Big Adventure.’”
I’d totally forgotten. “We’ll go tomorrow night.”
“Hm-hm, and then Millie will flash her granny eyes at you and you’ll forget again.”
Millie popped her head back in the room. “Are you girls coming? I just checked. They have peanut butter and jelly. I can make you the best sandwich you ever had, Fortune.”
“Oh, boy, peanut butter and jelly,” Gertie hissed. “Much better than the fried oysters I was looking forward to.”
Chapter Five
After dinner I made Gertie’s happiness my mission. We had a few hours to kill until our rendezvous with Ida Belle, so I suggested we play Monopoly. I hated Monopoly because I sucked at it. She loved it, but could never find anyone to play with. Probably due to her transforming into a ruthless land baron during the game and delighting in slaughtering all who dared challenge her. So it seemed the perfect way to make up for any hurt feelings I caused by forgetting about our dinner adventure. I resisted the urge to invite Millie, and even let Gertie have her favorite game piece without flipping a coin for it. The Scottie dog. I took the shoe, my second-favorite piece. We spread the game board on her bed. An hour into the game I rolled a seven, taking me directly to Reading Railroad. She clapped.
“Since I have all the railroads, you owe me two hundred dollars. Pay up.”
I counted out my money. She snapped her fingers in my face.
“Come on, come on, Fortune. I don’t have all night.”
“Don’t be so greedy.”
“Wait until you’re sent directly to jail and you have to take out a loan from me to get out. That’s when the real fun begins.” She sighed. “I don’t know what it is about Monopoly that brings out the evil in me. I love it,” she said, clapping.
Our game was interrupted by a knock at the door. I instinctively went for my waistband, but stopped, remembering I hadn’t brought a weapon.
“Hello, ladies.”
It was Millie.
I got up and opened the door. Millie stood outside, wiping perspiration from her forehead. I towered over her by a few inches, and she pulled her grandmotherly gaze up at me. I had this weird urge to hug her. Stop it, Fortune.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you two,” she said.
“Well, we are playing a game,” Gertie said from the bed.
“Which we can interrupt, can’t we Gertie? Come in.”
She did, then noticed the game. “Oh, Monopoly. I used to play Monopoly with my grandkids till all hours when they were little. Which game piece are you, Fortune?”
“The shoe.”
She patted my shoulder, brushing a piece of lint off my shirt. “Oh, the shoe’s the best piece. Some say it’s the little dog, but, really, the dog is so overrated.”
“Well, my little overrated Scottie owns all the railroads. And if Fortune doesn’t fork over the two hundred bucks she owes me for landing on Reading Railroad, McDougal here is going to take a bite out of her caboose.”
“Oh, the railroads.” Millie crinkled her nose. “You bought the railroads?” She crinkled her nose again. “Kind of worthless, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t think, Millie,” Gertie said, crinkling her nose to match Millie’s. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have plunked down my hard-earned Monopoly money and bought them. I like to call them the ‘Poverty Express’ because of the effect it has on my opponents.”
“Oh, well, if you say so, dear.”
“Yep, just did… dear.” The way Gertie’s face screwed up on the word, dear, it looked as if a major gas explosion had occurred in her intestines. “What can we do for you, Millie?”
“I overheard some of the girls talking about purchasing cough medicine from you. The way they were giggling it seemed like the medicine helped put them in a good mood, if you know what I mean. I usually don’t partake in cough medicine, but I have been coughing lately, and thought I might benefit from some.”
I opened one of Gertie’s drawers and pulled out a bottle of SLS Cough Syrup.
“Here you go,” I said, handing it to her.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Ten bucks,” Gertie said.
“But, for you…” I caught Gertie’s glare. Millie did too.
“No no, I insist,” Millie said, opening her hand, revealing a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. “I always keep a little ‘mad money’ in my shoe. Lucky me or it would have been locked away in my purse. A habit from my forty-five years of marriage. When Hank would gamble our grocery money away, ‘mad money’ helped put a dinner of Spam on the table.”
Gertie sighed. “No, that’s okay, Millie. Put your money away. It’s on the house. In fact, take two.”
“Oh my, thank you. That’s kind of you. Well… I’ll let you get back to your game, then.” She turned to leave, but stopped and pivoted on her feet and turned back to Gertie. “I hope you don’t mind if I’m being too forward, but I also overheard some girls talking about you. They said you’re that old-time bank robber. I think her name was Gertrude Roy. Is that true?”
Gertie’s face brightened. She took a deep breath, milking the attention for all it was worth. “Weeeellll,” she said in a pronounced drawl, “I’m not saying it isn’t and I’m not saying it is.” She let out the rest of her breath and smiled. “Okay, it is.”
“Oh my,” Millie said, her eyes widening. “I heard you gave up the life of crime.”
Gertie shrugged. “I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.”
“Do you miss it?”
She took a dramatic pause before answering. “Robbing banks was a finely tuned choreographed dance to me, Millie.” She ran her hand through her spiky hair. “In fact, ‘Dance’ was the name of my biography.” I knew she’d ask God’s forgiveness for lying later, but right now she was having way too much fun. “What can I say? These twinkle toes feel best when they’re making tracks toward the getaway car.” Gertie slapped at her bare feet. “Oh, the stories these babies could tell.”
Millie placed her hand over her chest, shaking her head in awe. “I’d love it if you share some of your highlights sometime before we all leave.”
“Oh, I think I can entertain you with a few tales of my most notable heists.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Millie said. “And thank you for the medicine.”
“Enjoy,” Gertie said. “Now remember, not too much cough syrup at once. Just a couple shots should do ya. Miss Gertrude’s orders.”
Millie giggled and gave me a squeeze on my shoulder. “Goodnight, then.”
I shut the door after her and turned to Gertie. “Miss Gertrude has a new fan.”
Gertie shrugged. “If you like, I’ll help you talk to Millie’s ex when this is all over. Now sit back down and give me my two hundred smackers. Wasted property my butt.”
* * * * *
At five minutes till ten Gertie and I changed into our breaking-and-entering clothes. Black shirt, black pants and black tennies. Gertie tossed me one of the black ski masks she kept in her toiletry kit and I slipped it on. She turned off all our lights and we stepped out into the warm, dark night. Slipping between our cabin and the one next door, we made our way to a back path close to the bayou, where we could walk to the administration building out of the glare of porch lights. We’d called Ida Belle earlier and given her instructions on where to meet us. A map of the compound on the company website would help Ida Belle navigate her way around.
The frog noises were damn-near deafening, the volume unlike anything I’d heard in Sinful. And the swamp stench kicked up a notch with that extra froggy smell. We had to be careful not to accidentally step on any of them as they stood frozen like statues waiting for their insect prey.
“Gah!” Gertie held her hands up in front of her face after one frog jumped from a tree branch across our field of vision. “We couldn’
t have been sentenced to a place that had puppies running all around?”
Soon we spotted Ida Belle walking toward us.
“Have any trouble finding your way?”
She shook her head. “I’m parked about a quarter mile down the road. I followed the sound.” She scowled at one frog near her right foot. “Go away.” It did. Even the frogs knew who was boss.
We headed down the path before I asked, “Who’s watching Merlin?”
“My neighbor, Midge. She’s a cat lady. Bent my ear about cats when I dropped him off. She’ll tell you everything you don’t want to know. For example, did you know cats have an average of six to eight nipples?”
I cast my gaze at her.
“It’s true,” she said. “And I thought I had trouble finding a bra.”
“You have trouble because your left boob’s bigger than your right one,” Gertie whispered. “Don’t you think so, Fortune?”
“Can we engage in some other small talk, please?”
We came upon a fork in the path and I stepped around my partners in crime.
“They’re not lopsided,” Ida Belle whispered from behind.
“Yes, they are,” Gertie whispered back. “Always have been. Why else would Flo Ballentine call you Booby Belle in high school?”
“Because I matured before the other girls.”
“Shhhh!” I whispered back at them, hanging a left. “Could we stroll down memory lane later?”
Croak
Ida Belle shined her light down on the path. There, squatting a few feet in front of us, was a large bullfrog, Gertie’s red-hearts-on-black underwear wrapped around one of its legs.
“Is that frog wearing something?” Ida Belle bent down to remove the undies from the frog, but he hopped away.
“Maybe it was an optical illusion,” Gertie said.
“Those looked like the underwear you bought when I went shopping with you last week,” Ida Belle said, following her.
“How the heck would my underwear end up on a frog?”