Elvis and the Rock-A-Hula Baby Capers

by Webb, Peggy

  “I think Callie’s right about Sally Riker Cunningham being the prime suspect,” Fayrene says. “I know for a fact that her husband left her two years ago and she’s not seeing anybody else, so what’s she doing in baby boot camp?”

  It doesn’t surprise me that Fayrene knows this. The gossip grapevine thrives in Mooreville and the surrounding area, and Gas, Grits and Guts is the root.

  “What else do did you hear, Fayrene?” I ask, and she proceeds to hold forth on Sally, chapter and verse. It seems she got her stomach stapled to lose all that weight and her eyebrows waxed to lose all that facial hair, but she never could do a thing about her temper.

  “Her husband took out a restraining order against her, J. C. Penney’s barred her from the store and her priest held a Virgil over her lack of self control.”

  I hope they were praying, but when Fayrene tells something, you can never be sure.

  “She lives at Magnolia Manor,” Lovie says. She has pulled herself together enough to thumb through the phone book. She gives me such a triumphant grin I don’t want to burst her bubble by telling her I already had the address. “You know what this means, Cal?”

  A woman of Sally’s evil disposition is not going to answer her doorbell at the tacky, low-rent Magnolia Manor and start answering questions from two former classmates she’d view as more successful than she.

  “Breaking and entering is against the law, Lovie.”

  “You’ve never let that stop you.”

  “I’m almost pregnant now. I don’t want my baby to be born to a jailbird.”

  Mama puts down her biscuit and jumps into the middle of my business with both feet.

  “So you are pregnant?”

  “I don’t know, Mama.”

  “But you were exposed!”

  “Holy cow, Mama!” I turn my back on her. “Lovie, what time do you want to break and enter?”

  “Sally has bridge club every Saturday night at seven,” Fayrene says.

  “Are you sure? The last thing I want to do is get caught. With Jack out of town and unable to fix things, I’d have to spend the night in jail.”

  “Charlie can take care of it.” Mama has the utmost confidence in Uncle Charlie, and so do I. He’s the Valentine family’s version of a Mafia godfather. And who knows whether he has mob ties? Before he retired to run the funeral home, Uncle Charlie was a Company man.

  “I know you’re eerie about this, Callie, but she won’t be home,” Fayrene adds. “I swear on my rolodex watch!”

  “Then I guess I’ll see you tonight, Lovie.”

  If Jack knew what I was up to, he’d never leave me home alone again. The question is, what’s he up to?

  *

  The last time I broke and entered at Magnolia Manor, Jack and I were almost-exes and I didn’t have to worry about what I’d say if he caught me in the act. What if he gets back from wherever his job took him and is sitting on my sofa as big as you please when I return wearing a cat burglar suit?

  I whip out my cell phone and give him a call.

  “Jack! How’s it going?”

  “Fine, just fine.” He doesn’t sound fine. He sounds rattled, and that’s so unlike Jack, my nerves start tingling.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. But I’m going to need some more time over here.”

  “Great!”

  “What do you mean, great?”

  Major mistake. I should have told him I was missing him like crazy. I should have asked when he’d be home.

  “I meant it’s great you’re getting to spend some time with your buddy.”

  “Cal, what are you up to?”

  “Shame on you, Jack Jones! Since when is it a crime to go out and have some fun with Lovie?”

  “The last time you and Lovie had fun together, you were kidnapped.”

  “Holy cow. Nobody’s going to kidnap us.” I hope. We might find Sally in her apartment, and she might be in the mood for something bigger than snatching pacifiers and baby blankets.

  “Just try to stay out of trouble till I get home, Cal.”

  “Good grief, Jack. What kind of trouble can I get into? If you’ll care to remember, I’m almost pregnant.”

  “Why does that not reassure me?”

  I make kissing noises into the phone. “Call me when you’re coming home, Jack.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  When I hang up, I realize I didn’t even ask about Jackie Nell. Hopefully, he’s too busy with his case to think about it. Furthermore, I didn’t even ask him how much time he needed and when he’d be home. I picture him catching me red-handed, up to my neck in an investigation after he’s told me a thousand times to leave crime to him. I doubt even black lace would be enough to weasel my way out of that fix.

  I hear Lovie’s van pulling up and I finish stuffing my hair into a black baseball cap. When I get to the front porch, she leans out the window.

  “I brought food!”

  “Good!” Ordinarily I’d ask why in the world we need food for a little evening adventure that will take less than two hours. But I’m starving.

  I climb into Lovie’s van and unwrap a big hunk of chocolate cherry cake before she even backs out of my driveway. I’m into my second bite before I notice that she’s wearing tight short shorts, a v-neck shirt that’s showing everything she’s got and a pair of shoes that look like they belong to a Las Vegas show girl.

  “What’s with the outfit, Lovie?”

  “It’s my persuasion clothes.”

  “Who are you going to persuade?”

  “The manager at Magnolia Manor.”

  My snort is so unladylike I spew chocolate onto the dashboard. The manager at these tacky apartments is as likely to be swayed as King Kong is to dress in a tuxedo and waltz around a ballroom.

  His name is Eric Miller, and he’s the same build and personality of his nickname, Bulldog. He scares the pants off me, but Lovie’s not intimidated by anybody, let alone a man who believes Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon was a hoax, and hasn’t been persuaded of anything since.

  “This, I’ve got to see.” I wipe chocolate off my mouth and Lovie’s dashboard.

  “Maybe you’d rather climb that scrawny tree.”

  The last time Lovie and I broke and entered into Magnolia Manor, that spindly tree nearly got us killed.

  “We’ll try it your way.”

  “Good.” She wheels into the parking lot “Ditch the cap and put this one on.”

  She hands me a cute pink cap stitched with Lovie’s Luscious Eats and two white boxes that smell like melt-in-your mouth brownies and transport-me-to-heaven cheese straws.

  “We’re delivering goodies?”

  “Exactly, Sherlock!”

  “Well then, lead on, Holmes!”

  When Lovie is on a vamping mission, she doesn’t walk. She slithers and undulates and bounces all at the same time. I don’t know how she does it. I couldn’t walk that way even if I wanted to. For one thing, I don’t have her equipment. I wear a 34B which would look great on somebody just over five feet tall, but I’m five nine. I try to carry myself well so I’ll look svelte like George Clooney’s wife, but usually I end up looking like one of those androgynous athletes who just won gold at the Olympics.

  That’s why I hang back when we head toward the door. I don’t want to detract from my cousin. Another reason, of course, is that I never approach this apartment without thinking of the quarrel that led Jack to live here during that painful time when we were apart. I don’t like to think of being in my pretty little cottage surrounded by Elvis and the rest of the menagerie while he was in this really uninviting place. The building is a hideous shade of yellow brick with the ugliest brown shutters you’ll ever see. Where do they get paint that color?

  The door marked Management is on the left, and when Lovie struts through, Eric Miller bites his cigar clean in half.

  “Can I help you? I hope?”

  His leer makes me wish I’d packed a gun, or at least a commode pl
unger. I get the uneasy feeling that we’ve just stepped into a situation that requires us to fight our way out.

  “Of course, you can.”

  Holy cow! Lovie’s doing her breathy Marilyn Monroe imitation. If the manager’s reddening ears are any indication, his temperature just shot up fifty degrees. Lovie leans way over and explains how she’s catering a private party and wouldn’t you know it? Sally’s not home yet, and she forgot to bring the spare key Sally gave her.

  Lovie’s performance makes the manager’s eyes protrude, and even before she does a little jiggle that causes his Adam’s apple to do the jitterbug, he’s whipping out his master key.

  “Follow me. Or better yet, let me follow you!” He hurries around his desk so fast he outruns his toupee. By the time he’s got us on the elevators, most of his false hair has settled over his left eyebrow. Might I add, it’s not a rakish look.

  Still, he prances down the hall and swings open Sally’s door with the gesture of a worldly and exciting man who has just won the jackpot.

  Lovie rewards him with a pat on his cheek and a handful of brownies, and he prances off like a man with a key to Paradise.

  We slide into Sally’s apartment and give each other the high five. Suddenly, I freeze.

  “Did you hear something?” I whisper to Lovie, and she shakes her head then whispers back, “Just nerves, Cal.”

  Probably. Trying to get pregnant is taxing. In addition to keeping track of my temperature and the phases of the moon, I’ve had deep secret consultations with Bobby Huckabee and his psychic eye. If Jack knew, he’d have his own secret meeting with Bobby and tell him to knock it off. And if Mama and Fayrene knew, they’d organize a séance in the back room of Gas, Grits and Guts so Bobby could consult the dead. In fact, if my instincts are right, they did organize a séance.

  Lovie and I listen a while longer, and then we go into sleuth mode. Our motto is to get in and out as quickly and quietly as possible. She heads toward the bedroom, easy to identify because the bedside lamp is burning, while I whip my penlight out of my pocket and case the living room.

  It’s enough to make me nauseated. For one thing, this apartment is a monument to bad taste – Dancing with the Stars posters all over the walls, faux leopard skin pillows all over the sofa and zebra print chairs scattered around. When I see the large shadow in the corner, I cover my mouth to muffle a screech. Finally, I get my nerves back and shine my penlight in that direction. It’s an honest-to-goodness giraffe. Is Sally a big game hunter? Will I discover more pitiful animals killed, bagged, stuffed and displayed in this awful apartment?

  I creep close to the giraffe and discover, much to my relief, that it’s fake, some kind of plaster of Paris with one ear chipped off. I move around the room hoping to find something that ties Sally to the baby boot camp thefts, but there’s not so much as a snapshot here. This hideous apartment feels like somebody dropped in from Mars - probably wearing the skin of an endangered species - and then took up residence among the fake animal carcasses.

  Suddenly there’s screech so awful it would unfertilized eggs. Lovie flies out of the bedroom with her hair standing up like a brush fire.

  “Holy cow.” I’m so upset I don’t even keep my voice down. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a bear in that bedroom!”

  “Hello?” A female voice calls. Lovie and I freeze. Anybody who cared to look would think we’d turned to pillars of salt. “Is anybody out there?”

  I cock my head and determine the voice is coming from behind a closed door down a narrow hallway. Probably the bathroom.

  “I said, IS ANYBODY THERE?”

  It’s Sally Riker Cunningham, still calling from a distance, thank goodness, but she means business. There’s a squeak, followed by a crack of light in a door that will soon widen to show us our doom.

  “Quick,” I whisper. “This way.”

  I grab the boxes I’d left in the entry hall and dive for the coat closet. Lovie is not far behind.

  Major mistake. This closet was not designed to hold a bunch of fur coats, a very tall hair stylist, a very round caterer, two boxes of goodies and something in the scary dark that feels like the head, teeth and mane of a very large lion.

  Furthermore, footsteps are coming this way, and we can’t get the door shut.

  “Shift,” Lovie hisses and I end up with her elbow under my armpit and my left foot in the box I drop. From the feel of gooey stuff squishing through my sandals, it can only be the brownies. Furthermore, the other box has vanished into a jungle of fur.

  Lovie whispers a word that would scar a fetus for life. For once, I’m glad I’m not carrying one.

  The closet door is still not closed all the way. Over the top of the bulk that is Lovie, pressing out my last breath, I see Sally Riker Cunningham moving around her living room turning on lights. I wish she’d left herself in the dark. She’s wrapped in a bath towel that’s too small, and her hair is slicked back in a way that gives her face a wolfish look. If I were the fainting kind, I’d keel over on her politically incorrect fur coats.

  “Is she coming this way?” Lovie whispers, and I say, “Shh.”

  In fact, Sally is not heading toward the closet. She’s carrying two bottles of wine and heading toward her entertainment center, walking sideways as if she’s already polished off one bottle. Furthermore, she’s crying, great big silent tears that streak across a face already grooved with time and hate.

  Suddenly, a scratchy version of The Good Ship Lollipop fills the room, and Sally has plopped onto the couch. To pour wine? To lie quietly and listen? To pass out cold?

  But no. She rises again, her movements jerky and uncertain. Still, there’s no mistaking that sound. She’s tap dancing. In her towel. In tap shoes tied with bright red ribbons.

  “What the devil?” Lovie says. My breath whooshes out as she changes position so she can see what’s going on.

  “Holy cow, Lovie. Shift!”

  Famous last words. There’s a maddening crunch as her foot crushes cardboard and joins mine amongst the mutilated brownies.

  She says a word I’ve never heard and hope never to hear again, and then we wait. And wait. And sweat. And try to breathe.

  Lovie strings together a bunch of words I wish I’d thought of myself. “Is she never going to quit dancing?”

  “I’m praying she will.” I’m also praying her towel doesn’t fall off. I’ve seen enough tacky today to last me a lifetime. I don’t care to be further educated in bad taste by the sight of Sally Riker Cunningham, naked.

  Six years, two broken ribs and a punctured lung later, the tap-dancing fool finally passes out on top of her leopard skin pillows. Lovie and I wait another seven years to make sure she’s asleep.

  Both of us stifle groans as we unpeel ourselves from the smothering furs and the tight confines of our torture chamber. Lovie’s hair is standing up like an eagle’s aerie and mine is sweat-flattened so I feel like my whole head has just been cast in plaster of Paris. We limp out, dragging the brownie box with us.

  Both of us look at it, thinking the same thing. Chocolate footprints.

  “Now what?” she says, as if the brownies are all my fault. In fact, if she’d care to remember, she’s the one who came up with this plan.

  “Lovie, there’s nothing for it but to remove our shoes and leave here barefoot.”

  “Let’s just hope Mr. Hot-to-trot Miller doesn’t see us.”

  My hope is that I can get home and out of my burgling clothes and wash the chocolate off my feet before Jack gets back.

  It takes us another small eternity to get out of our shoes and out of Sally’s apartment. Still, I won’t catch a decent breath until we’ve gone down the stairs and sneaked past Eric Miller. We hunker low so he won’t see us through the glass portion of his office door, and then hot-foot it all the way back to Lovie’s van.

  “Well, that was a bust,” I say.

  “Not exactly.” Lovie holds out a book I’d been too traumatized to notice. “I’v
e got Sally’s diary.”

  “Goodness gracious, Lovie. What if she misses it and calls Eric Miller? Or the cops?”

  “She’s not in any state to call anybody this evening. And I’ll just ask the cooperative Mr. Miller to deliver it to her tomorrow.”

  “Saying what?”

  “That she must have dropped it out of her purse and onto the stairwell.”

  “She keeps a diary in her purse? Who in the world does that?”

  “The same woman who lives with a bunch of fake animals and thinks she’s Shirley Temple.”

  Lovie’s got a point there. She may also have the clue to solve the case of the missing baby baubles.

  Elvis’ Opinion #3 on Futile Missions, Ugly Face and Gorilla Glue

  “Now, explain to me again why you spent all day shopping for a doll.”

  Chip Cunningham is not even trying to keep a straight face when he says this. Jack explains how he’s taking care of Ugly Face just to pamper Callie – and how she just might kill him when she sees the condition of her fake baby.

  By now, Chip is laughing so hard tears are rolling down his cheeks.

  “Well, pal, it seems to me divorce might be your only option.”

  “Been there, almost did that. It’s not even on the table, Chip.”

  I knew my human daddy would say that, but it makes me proud anyway, especially after the day we’ve had. Listen, I’m a modern dog. Though I could never understand how my human mom could shop every shoe sale in town and then go back the next day, still on the hunt for bargains, I’ve never taken a disdainful attitude nor seen it as a weakness. Now, after traipsing with Jack into every store in Hamilton, Alabama, in search of a perfect match to Ugly Face, I have a new respect for women who live to shop.

  It’s a cattle roundup out there. They were having a summer sale at Walmart, and I narrowly missed being trampled by the herds.

  “Then I don’t see that you have any option except to shoot that doll.”

  Chip’s still got his tongue firmly in his cheek, at Jack’s expense, but my human daddy knows how to exercise control over his emotions. He grins and slaps Chip on the back then marches out the door to his Harley.