Glad One: Starting Over is a %$#@&! (Val & Pals Book 2)

by Margaret Lashley

  “Anyway, I saw Tony’s obituary about a week ago. I came down for the memorial service. Were you there?”

  “Briefly. I was the one in the bloody white sundress.”

  “What?” Jacob asked, incredulous. “I must have missed that. What happened?”

  “I got punched out by Tony’s ex, Thelma Goldrich. Haven’t you noticed my big schnoz?”

  “I have, young lady. But I’ve learned not to comment on such things. I got to say, her taking a swing at you also doesn’t surprise me much. I guess nothing does anymore. I saw her myself, you know. Thelma Goodrich, I mean. At Tony’s memorial. She’s changed on the outside, for sure. Almost unrecognizable except for that string of sausages she calls a ponytail. But from what you say, she’s still as rotten as ever on the inside.”

  “Wait a minute! You know her?”

  “No, not personally. But I know of her. From Tony.”

  I pulled Maggie into the parking lot of the low-slung, 1950s Bon Aire Motel. Jacob continued sharing what he knew as we walked along a sidewalk that skirted two-story, blue-grey walls that formed a horseshoe-shaped, open-air courtyard punctuated by tall palms and colorful, tropical foliage.

  “Tony and I were pretty good buddies in high school. The best, really. He was kind of shy back then. Always was. No ladies’ man, that’s for sure.” Jacob laughed as if sharing a joke with the ghosts of his past.

  “Then he met Gladys – or should I say Glad? It was spring break. Middle of May, I think, 1962…three…something like that. Anyway, Tony and me were cruising for girls. That’s what we did back then before this blasted online dating and texting stuff. Anyway, we were feeling hungry and stopped at Duffy’s Burgers. It was a kind of drive-in place you just don’t see nowadays. Except maybe for Sonics.”

  The sidewalk led us to a knee-high concrete wall butted up to the sugar-white sand of St. Pete Beach. A row of unpretentious concrete picnic tables embedded with smooth, pastel-colored tiles offered uncomfortable but scenic places to sit and enjoy the stunning views of the Gulf from under the cool shade of beach umbrellas sponsored by Corona beer.

  “A cold one?” I asked Jacob.

  “Just an iced tea will do me,” he said and forced a smile. His face was tired and sad. Exactly how I felt, myself.

  “Okay then.”

  Jacob chose a table while I walked over to the half-circle countertop ringed by barstools known as Bill’s Sand Bar. I ordered the smoked fish spread and an iced tea for Jacob. Despite the overt advertising attempt, I chose Fosters over Corona. The day was blistering hot. But a nice breeze off the water and the shade of the umbrella made it pleasant weather for Florida, considering it was approaching mid-July’s triple-digit meltdown temperatures. I handed Jacob his tea and set the fish spread on the table between us.

  “Thank you, Miss…uh, I don’t mean to be impolite, but I don’t know your name.”

  “Oh! Sorry, I’m Val Fremden.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Fremden. Are you a relative of Glad’s?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. I just thought…well…I didn’t see her at Tony’s memorial.”

  “You don’t know, then.”

  “Know what?”

  “Glad is dead.”

  “What?” said Jacob, choking on a sip of tea. “I didn’t see her obituary. I thought she was still…. What happened?”

  I thought about explaining that the reason there was no obit was because Glad died with no ID, and how I’d falsified her name to claim her from the morgue, but then I remembered what I’d done was probably a crime. I wasn’t sure I could trust Jacob. Besides, I just wasn’t in the mood to think about Glad being dead. “It’s a long story. But she’s at peace now. Ashes sprinkled in the Gulf. Same place as Tony’s.”

  Jacob shook his head. “That’s unbelievable. When did she die?”

  “The last day of June.”

  I felt a familiar tightening in my throat. I needed a change of topic. “How about a toast?” I held up my beer.

  “Sure,” Jacob said, clinking his plastic cup against mine. “To what?”

  “To what’s to come.”

  Jacob looked at me sharply. “Sure. To what’s to come.”

  “But for now, let’s get back to what has already come and gone, if you don’t mind.”

  Jacob nodded and took a big sip of tea.

  I felt a sweet, nostalgic longing wash over me. “Please, Jacob, tell me how Glad and Tony met.”

  “Let’s see,” Jacob began, then cleared his throat. “We were at Duffy’s. Yeah, we were at Duffy’s eating burgers one day when this hot number walked by in a pink sweater and pants cut to her knees. What did they call them? Ah yeah. Pedal pushers. Flowery ones. I remember because she was a sight pretty hard for a man to forget. Blonde, beautiful smile, big bazong… uh. Nice figure, you know? Hourglass.” Jacob grimaced and glanced my way.

  I grinned. “I think I get it.”

  He smiled and his face relaxed. “Okay. So I looked over at Tony and he was just staring, open mouthed, like he’d just been hit over the head or something. Guys being guys, I couldn’t let it go. I laughed and grabbed his arm and started waving it like a gorilla. I yelled, ‘You want a hamburger to go with that shake?’ Then I let go of Tony’s arm real quick. Glad turned around and saw Tony with his hand still in the air, staring at her like a deer in the headlights. Ha ha! I’ll never forget it! Glad started walking toward him. I thought Tony was gonna faint! She marched right up to him and said something like, ‘So, handsome, are you going to give me a bite of that burger?’ I know it sounds pretty tame nowadays, but back then that was pretty suggestive talk, if you know what I mean.”

  He stopped talking, waiting for me to respond. I nodded and he continued.

  “That Tony…he was smitten like a kitten in a mitten. Ha ha! They started dating. Those two together was truly something to see. Glad was like Miracle Grow for Tony. He opened up and bloomed like a rose in summer. I never saw him so happy. He came from a kind of tough family, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Bunch of high-falootin’ bastards if you ask me.”

  Something dark flashed over Jacob’s face, then faded. He shook his head and picked up a Saltine cracker from the plate of fish spread.

  “Glad got pregnant. But if you read that letter, you already know that part. And you know Tony got shipped off to private school. But what you probably don’t know is that Tony wasn’t just a student at that place. He was a prisoner. I know because I was hired to be his guard.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and held it as Jacob absently ground the cracker to dust between his fingers. “His father paid my tuition. I sold my soul for an education. I got one, too. But not the one I’d planned on. Kids today with their hundred-grand student loan payments. God, if only my debt had been just money. I’d trade with one of them in a heartbeat.”

  Jacob looked surprised at the pile of cracker dust on the table. He wiped it away and stared out at the Gulf. “I was on the payroll as Tony’s enemy. Reporting back to his father for my next meal ticket.” Jacob blew out a breath and swallowed hard. He looked at me with eyes full of anger and regret, then pursed his lips and pressed on with his confession.

  “Tony wrote Glad every day. He counted on me to mail the letters, but I only mailed the first one. The one you read. I also stole all the letters Glad wrote Tony. It was easy. Tony never suspected me. When he didn’t hear nothing back from her, I watched Tony wither away, wild with guilt and pain and sorrow. His bastard father kept telling me it was for the best. That Tony would get over it.

  “When that took too long, the bastard told me to do whatever it took to make Tony get over it. I didn’t know what to do. When Mr. Goldrich realized I didn’t have any natural talent for making people miserable, he gave me some from his ample supply. God shit on me, I tried pretty near all his suggestions. I told Tony that Glad had another beau. I told him that when her parents died, Glad confessed to somebody that the baby wasn�
�t his. When Glad hooked up with that traveling preacher, I told Tony the kid was really that guy’s. That Glad had been seeing him for months and was using Tony to cover her sins and get a big payoff, because she knew Tony’s family was loaded. Then I told him one thing that wasn’t a lie. I told him Glad had taken her baby and run off with that same preacher. A shyster named Bobby Munch.”

  “Wait a minute,” I interjected. “You’re saying Glad had her baby with her when she left with Bobby?”

  “Yes. She couldn’t bear to give it up.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  “Okay, Jacob. But tell me now, I’m dying to know. Was it a boy or a girl?”

  Jacob coughed out a cynical laugh. “As bad as I was to Tony back then, I just had to know, too. So I pretended to get chummy with Tony’s father. I asked him if Gladys’ ‘bastard kid’ had been a boy or a girl. I honestly didn’t think he’d tell me. But I guess up in his golden palace, Glad was nothing to him. A flea. I remember that bastard Goldrich laughed like a demon and told me that Glad had a girl. I remember his words exactly. He said, ‘The bitch named the little shit Thelma, after her own whore of a mother.’ His pompous, jackass voice still rings in my ears whenever I think about it.”

  Jacob shook his head as if to clear away the lingering remains of that noxious memory. He wiped his eyes with a napkin and took a deep breath. He sipped his tea and then looked me straight in the eyes. What he said next set my own ears to ringing.

  “Tony and Glad’s baby girl. Thelma. She’s the one named in the will. I’d bet on it.”

  A surge of excitement caused my heart to thump. “So where is she, Jacob?”

  His face deflated. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  My heart sank. Jacob didn’t know any more than I did about the whereabouts of Glad and Tony’s daughter. He couldn’t even tell me if she was still alive.

  “Do you know any more?” he asked.

  “I’ve only got some theories, a few documents and some sketchy clues,” I said. “What do you know, Jacob?” I reached for a cracker and smeared some fish spread on it.

  “What kind of documents?” Jacob asked.

  “Birth notice. A marriage license. Stuff like that.” I could tell Jacob wanted to know more. But so did I, and I was buying. “How in the world did Tony end up marrying that ponytailed witch?” I asked, then popped the cracker into my mouth so Jacob had to fill the silence.

  Jacob eyed me carefully. “Well, I’m not saying I’m innocent in all this, but all my lies about Glad failed to break Tony’s love for her. It was the truth that finally did. When I told Tony about the baby being a girl, and that Glad had named her a combination of his, her, and her mom’s name – Thelma Gladys Goldrich – he got all excited. He told me he was going to escape that prison of a school and get himself back home and marry her. But I had to tell him it was too late. Glad had already up and married Bobby. I’ve never seen anybody shatter like that. Hope I never do again.

  “After I told Tony about the marriage, it was like something just broke inside him. He started drinking and got busy making some big-ass mistakes of his own. Marrying Thelma Cornish – the one that punched you in the nose – was by far his biggest one. Believe it or not, Thelma kind of looked like Glad back then. Blonde hair, big boobs…uh. And her name…Thelma…Tony said he took it to be some kind of sign. He should have read the fine print. Thelma had a nose for money – and a vagina that didn’t mind taking one for the cause, if you know what I mean.”

  My mind tried to go there but I slammed on the brakes and thought about kittens playing with yarn balls instead. “I think I get the picture.”

  “Okay. Enough said on that,” Jacob nodded. “At any rate, Thelma acted the part real good. She pretended to love Tony and – here’s the genius part – she pretended to hate Tony’s father. It was a double-whammy combo that swept Tony right off his feet. She fooled Tony into marrying her and signing up for law school, just like his daddy wanted. Funny, the same day Tony told me he was gonna be a lawyer was the same day my tuition money dried up. Heh. I’d been replaced. My services were no longer needed. Tony went off to law school. I went home and got a job selling stoves and TVs. Their sham marriage didn’t last a year. Just long enough for Thelma to get a BMW and a monthly living allowance. Conniving bitch.”

  Jacob’s eyes met mine, then he hung his head. “Who am I to talk? I was no better than her. The only saving grace to this whole mess is that back in the day, Tony never figured out that he was surrounded by his father’s henchmen – me being the main one of them. It would have killed him for sure. He was just too trusting. Too pure of heart to realize what a heel I was.”

  Jacob’s glass was empty and so was mine. I needed another beer. I thought maybe he could use one, too. I smiled at him sympathetically and picked up his glass.

  “Wanna upgrade to a beer? My treat.”

  “Thanks, Miss. But these days I’m a teetotaler. After going back to Hawesville, I hit the bottle hard. Johnny Walker became my best and only friend. The secrets I’d kept from Tony twisted in my guts like maggots. Nothing I could chase or screw or drink ever came close to making me feel okay about selling out my best friend. Long, boring story short, I hit bottom and went through AA’s Twelve Step Program. My last confession was to Tony. In 1980. Back then, he was just about as hollowed out a shell as I was.”

  I reached over and touched Jacob’s hand. He winced and turned away.

  “Jacob, you don’t have to explain….”

  “Let me,” Jacob cut in. “I’ll just get it out quick. I called Tony up and asked if we could meet. He sounded happy to hear from me. Happy! I don’t think I ever felt so low in my life. He invited me over to his place. I took him up on the invitation. I sat on his couch and spilled my guts like a slaughtered pig. I asked him to forgive me. He sat there, still as a statue. Didn’t say a word. I begged him to punch me. Kick me. Anything he needed to get it out. But he was too much a gentleman. Honest to god I don’t think he had any anger or love or anything left in him by the time I found him. He just crumpled to the floor and cried. I got on the floor and cried with him. When we both couldn’t cry no more, he just said, ‘Help me find her.’ I vowed I would. It didn’t matter to him that what I found wasn’t pretty.”

  “What do you mean, wasn’t pretty?”

  “What Glad had suffered at the hands of Bobby Munch makes my sorry, self-pitying life look like a fairytale.”

  ***

  My clock ran out just when it was getting good. I was desperate to know more, but I had promises to keep – to Jamie and to myself. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said to Jacob as I dropped him off at his car in the Water Loo’s parking lot.

  “See you back here, 8:30 sharp,” he replied, climbing into his white Prius. The car matched his white t-shirt, belt and tennis shoes. All white. A play for penance – or purity, perhaps?

  I waved as he pulled out of the lot and I glanced at my phone. Shit. It was already 4:30. I had to get my butt home, write four-hundred and ninety-eight words and email them to Jamie before our phone call at six. I had sweated through my clothes. I needed a shower, but that was going to have to remain an option for the moment. I hit the gas and Maggie’s mufflers belched out a grey, smoky roar.

  The lights on Central Avenue were kind and I made good time. It was five minutes to 5 p.m. when I pulled into my alley parking spot. I bolted up the stairs and as I fumbled with the key, my phone started buzzing. It was Tom. Shit. Shit. Shit. I don’t have time for this!

  “Hi Tom!” I said sweetly into the phone, then changed my tune. “Make it quick. I’m a woman on a mission.”

  “Woah, there, tiger lady. What’s the hurry?”

  “I can’t explain right now. What’s up?”

  “I got the DMV lowdown on the three Thelma G’s. Got time for that?”

  “No. But sure. Let me have it.”

  “Turns out one lives in Ch
icago. She’s African American. Another is local. Hispanic. The other one Caucasian –”

  “It can only be her, the third one,” I said, cutting Tom off.

  “Why?”

  “Like I said, I can’t explain right now. Where is she?”

  “Well…”

  “What, Tom? I’m begging you, I’m in a hurry!”

  “Slow down, sister! She’s in a hospital for the criminally insane. Chattahoochee State Mental Hospital in North Florida.”

  “Fuck off!”

  “I’m serious!”

  Time slowed down as my mind sped forward. “Didn’t you say Bobby was incarcerated nearby up there – at Apalachicola Correctional?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t he go missing or something?”

  “Yep. Right after he was released.”

  “Tom, the hospital and correctional facility are in the same town.”

  “Yeah. Interesting, huh?”

  “I really don’t have time for this right now.”

  “Hot date?”

  I smiled despite myself. “Something like that. Meet you for lunch tomorrow? Ming Ming’s?”

  “Roger that.”

  I clicked off. Roger that. Great. Now he’s stealing my romantic lines. I sat down at the computer and opened the file named Double Booty. I forced myself to type despite the fact that my hands were shaking like a woman on the lam.

  ***

  I took a bite of fish taco and listened to Jamie over the phone as she read through my story synopsis. From her vantage point in New York, she couldn’t see that I was at the Taco Bus on Central Avenue. She also couldn’t see the dozen or so people standing in line to place their orders. For the uninitiated, the Taco Bus really was a bus. It was also painted the same hideous orange as the local Pinellas County school buses. Originally a food truck, it was now permanently parked on Central Avenue in front of a plain-Jane, single-story concrete block building painted the same scholastic shade of rusted dreams.

  After it caught on with locals and tourists alike, the Taco Bus moved its main kitchen to the ugly building behind the bus. Customers ate their tacos and burritos on dark-green, metal-mesh tables under the shade of big, beach-style umbrellas. Or they opted for dining in a carport-like area tacked onto the right side of the building. Like a lot of hole-in-the-wall places, the Taco Bus put out some seriously good food. It even earned a spot on that TV show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, though I’m not sure which of the three categories best described it.