For Crying Out Loud

by Cathie Wayland

  “Shut up,” Bernie commanded under her breath, attempting to put a cork in my prattle since it was obvious I couldn’t. Too late. Once unleashed, and nervous to beat the band, my tongue could wag at both ends for minutes on end. Always chagrined afterwards, of course, but during an episode, I lost all brain function. Bernie winced as I continued. “And then I thought…gee, maybe Bobby and Brenda have some Diet Coke and would be willing to let me have a couple cans…” The hole in the dike widened, no stopping the deluge. “But, darn…it looks like they aren’t home—like you said—though we didn’t know that at the time…” Then, oh, Lord. I giggled. “…We thought we heard them…when we were in our living room…so we dashed up here to see…and…and, well, nobody’s home,” I finished, hands out in the I-give-up gesture. Then I remembered my missing brassiere and wrapped my arms around myself for the umpteenth time, feeling heat flood my face.

  Vicki and Lionel gazed at me as if I had horseshoe crabs crawling from my ears. They glanced at each other, back at me, then threw a curious look Bernie’s way. Bernie just shrugged and shook her head.

  “Bern—”

  “Do not say another word,” Bernie hissed out of the side of her mouth, smiling and waving at Lionel and Vicki. She placed her hands on my shoulders and guided me down the steps to our own level. Vicki and Lionel just stood there and watched, confused and more than a little suspicious, as Bernie and I descended. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, right on cue, darling, doddering Melba arrived in a cloud of talcum and the disturbing aroma of honeysuckle and Ben-Gay.

  “Oh, my,” Melba groped for words, surveying almost half the neighborhood on or beneath her deck. “Oh, dear,” she cooed, noticing that Bernie’s hands were gripping my shoulders as she marched me toward the safety of our quiet little apartment. “Did I miss something?” Melba’s voice was plaintive. “I’m always missing something, it seems. Too early for some things…too late for most things…too addled to know the difference, my dear nephew always says…” Melba’s voice trailed off as she sighed and glanced upstairs at the darkened unit’s deck we’d just vacated.

  Was it my imagination or did Melba make eye contact with Vicki for just a split-second? Had they shared a tiny nod, a fleeting gesture? Or was it just my rabid imagination? Could be the countless murder mysteries I was forever reading; the many re-runs of Murder, She Wrote. On the other hand, it could also be one too many hard lemonades. Whatever the case, my hysteria had me even suspicious of poor, sweet, senile Melba. However, I had more pressing issues at hand. Four sets of eyes focused on me.

  Realizing I had a starring role in this ridiculous melodrama, I no longer needed Bernie’s propulsion toward our door. My discomfiture at being bra-less in front of a gaggle of strangers took every ounce of what good sportsmanship I had left, and I didn’t care that I was leaving Bernie to fend for herself with the neighbors and their confused expressions and silent accusations.

  I mumbled a hasty good-bye and leapt for our door, wishing all the while that I could sprout wings and fly away. Then, as though to reinforce the notion that we were all taking part in a Candid Camera episode, Brenda appeared, stage right—obviously not in Charleston—with little Amanda in tow. Bobby was nowhere to be seen as the impatient and ever-perspiring Brenda hauled little Amanda up the stairs.

  “Let’s go, Amanda.” she tugged on the little arm. “I told you we need to hurry back. Now, come on.” Brenda urged. She pulled the little girl along with one hand, while clutching a small brown bag in the other. “If this ice cream’s all melted, it’s your fault for being so pokey.” Brenda railed.

  Such a small matter for so many reprimands. The tot was no bigger than a minute and Brenda was a domineering giant in comparison. Who wouldn’t balk at going anywhere with the ogress?

  Snatching a quick look at the little girl’s face, I let Bernie shove me inside, close the door, and lock it. She collapsed in her easy chair and I on the sofa. We stared at one another in pregnant silence. After a full minute passed, Bernie exhaled, “Well. Laurel and Hardy meet the Three Stooges in Oz, no less. If that wasn’t a comedy routine, I don’t know what is. Lord, help me.” She narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down. “And you. You never cease to amaze me, Michaela. You’re a phenomenon, actually.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “And that young woman. My God, she is a piece of work.”

  “Well, I, for one, have had enough.”

  “I’m not going to touch that with a twelve-foot pole or Lithuanian.”

  I ignored that and puffed out my cheeks. “Forget witty repartee for once in your life and get serious. Did you or did you not see where the mole was on Amanda’s chin?”

  Bernie’s face clouded. “Lord, no. I’m sorry, but I was so distracted, I didn’t even think to look.”

  “Well, I did. And—you won’t believe this, Bernadette—but the damned mole was on the left side this time. The left.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “Yes.”

  “And I distinctly remember it being on the right the last time…just an hour ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to confess that I haven’t a clue what to do next. I am thunderstruck. I am speechless. I cannot believe you actually were right about something so-so ridiculous and far-fetched and Disneyesque.”

  “Ooohhh. Once and for all, we are going to settle this matter.” I leapt from the couch, stepped over to the window and peered through the blinds. “Bernie,” I hissed. “Come here.”

  “Now what?” she whined.

  “Come here.”

  Bernie leaned over and parted the blinds enough to see what had riled me even more. They were still out there—Melba, Vicki and Lionel—standing on the deck outside Melba’s unit, engaged in what looked like a real conversation. Every once in a while Vicki and Lionel glanced in our direction, nodded their heads, but since they were keeping their voices low, it was impossible to make out what they were saying. But what piqued our curiosity even more was that Melba seemed to be a viable part of the discussion. Melba? True, her back was to us, and she was tottering on tiptoes, looking as though she’d topple over any minute, but from the way her curly head kept bobbing up and down, it looked as if she understood every word Vicki and Lionel were saying. She seemed to be listening while an animated Vicki waved her bare arms in wild gesticulations, and an uncomfortable Lionel kept looking around as though afraid of being overheard.

  “This is like something from a nightmare, or a poorly done 1950s thriller. I half expect Vincent Price to appear,” Bernie muttered, letting the blinds drop into closed folds. “Get away from that window, Mike. They’re bound to see you spying on them, and then what will they think?”

  “It’s suspicious as all hell.”

  “You said it.”

  “Something’s going on here, and you and I are out of the loop.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Two little girls are upstairs but the whole world is supposed to think only one lives there. Is it a kidnapping ring or whatever they call it? Are Lionel and Vicki in on it? And crazy Melba? Impossible.”

  “Uh, huh…something’s fishy about the whole lot of ’em.” Bernie sighed. “Ohh, I don’t know.” She pushed herself out of the chair and stumbled over to the refrigerator. “Time for some cheese dip and Fritos. Maybe a snack will clear my head. Something needs to.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  It was all just too much. All the speculations, all the innuendoes, all the keen observations that could mean something, but probably meant nothing at all. It was all just one big glob of confusion. Two days left of this ‘vacation’, if you could call it that, and we were so caught up in our fantasyland story that we were forgetting that time was hurtling past. Soon we’d be standing once again in the airport terminal, bewildered and befuddled as we said our good-byes, hugged and hugged again, and promised to phone and write and email more often. Then it would be too late to de
termine who did what to whom, and when and where and how and why and the never-ending stream of what-ifs.

  Time for action. Today had to be the day. To reinforce that conviction, I blurted, “Today is the day we solve this mystery.”

  “Well, you’re right. Today just about has to be the day if we’re to salvage what is left of our feeble brains and fleeting vacation. But, sweetie, ‘today’ is clicking away so you’d better get going.”

  “Okay, so help me. Where do we go from here? Call the local police and say we suspect that the kidnapped twins are in the unit upstairs? Can we do something like that? Would they believe us?”

  Bernie shrugged, popped a chip into her mouth and grunted. “Don’t really know. Reality and suspicion have overlapped and intertwined so much that neither you nor I even know where to begin the untangling. I tried taking the direct approach with Jorge and you saw how far that got me.”

  “But we can’t just give up. We have to do something.”

  Bernie offered me a languid look, tossed her fluffy head once, and returned to her dwindling pile of chips. “Don’t know what we can do,” she managed between crunches, carefully collecting each morsel with a practiced maneuver. “Don’t think we can call the police but don’t know what else to do.”

  I paced the small room. “We have to do something. We have all this…this…evidence right under our noses, have seen the mole jump from one side to the other, and if that’s not proof, I don’t know what is. But that isn’t the half of it. We’re drowning in crazy neighbors. Then there’s poor, poor Melba, and the Mexican leaf blower guy who’s probably not a Mexican leaf blower guy, after all, and-and the larger-than-life duo next door who’ve filled their condo with ridiculously expensive items that still may have been stolen—we don’t know for sure—and,” I sucked in a shaky breath. “I never knew this tiny hamlet was so…so darn whacko.”

  Much to my surprise, I got a reaction from Bernie. She sent me a knowing look, a fleeting smile, a shoulder shrug, and then exhaled. “You’re right. I have to be honest. I apologize for toying with your psyche. You know me. But, I’ll say it again. You are right. I do care about what has been going on around here. This place has woven a spell for me. I do want to help put aright anything wrong. I do.”

  Breathing more naturally, I nodded. “Okay. So. Bottom line. I don’t believe that the group upstairs is what they pretend to be. And, for some reason, they are posing two little girls as one.”

  Bernie nodded, picked up the remote, and clicked on the TV. “I agree. And, not to say ‘I told you so’ just remember I was the one who suspected them first, while you, my dear sleuth, had your eyes on ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ next door.”

  A sharp tapping on the glass sliding door startled both of us. We looked up to see Melba place cupped hands on either side of her face, and press her weathered, powdered nose to the window. Melba peered inside, eyes wide in an obvious search for us. Somewhat agitated, Melba pulled away from the window—leaving a large nose smudge on what had been clean glass—and flounced back and forth across our deck, stopping again and again to peer in at us. She appeared to be on the brink of losing it.

  “Oh, Lord, what now?” Bernie moaned, turning the volume up on the TV. Anything was more entertaining than watching Melba’s tripping through the fields of dementia. She waved one hand at me. “Your turn—bra-less or not.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  After my initial shock at this intrusion, and Bernie’s less than chivalrous sending me into battle, I tiptoed to the door, opened it just a crack to peek at Melba, who now seemed disturbed about something.

  My eyes followed Melba as she wandered to and fro across the deck, leaned over the railing, looked skyward as if something alien would soon descend from the heavens. “Are you all right, Melba?” I asked, stepping out onto the deck. Melba, startled by my voice, whirled around to face me. Her hand slipped into the pocket of her aqua terrycloth robe then pulled out what looked like a small caliber pistol. Extending a pale arm, the gun wobbled in her hand.

  My heart leapt to my throat. “Whoa. Melba. Melba, what are you doing? Is that a gun?” I croaked, making a desperate attempt to get Bernie’s attention. No help there. Bernie was engrossed in a Golden Girls rerun, and was oblivious to the impending near-death experience unfolding just outside the front door. Desperate for Bernie’s attention, I twisted my arm behind my back, leaned back against the wall of the condo, and began tapping my knuckles against the siding. It worked. Bernie rose from her chair, eyes never leaving the TV, reached over and slammed the front door.

  Nobody was more surprised than Melba. The stunned look on her face would’ve been comical had she not been holding a wicked looking weapon. She stared in disbelief at the gun in her hand, then at a terrified me, then back to the gun, all the while sporting a vacant expression of bewildered confusion. Like an uncontrollable reflex, Melba’s fingers began to tighten on the trigger. She lifted the gun higher and pointed the barrel toward me, who was now certain that the last sounds I would ever hear would be Sophia’s voice declaring she needed a bathroom. What irony.

  Melba looked as if she was no longer in control of her actions; that her hand had somehow taken on a personality of its own over which she had no control. I was beside myself with fear and frustration. After years of facing obstinate, obnoxious students, traveling around the world and back again, and surviving my own moderately dysfunctional family, was I now to die on the deck of my sister’s vacation condo—gorgeous view of the 16th green, not withstanding? Was I to miss saying good-bye to my best friend, Bernie, just inside the door, and be shot at close range by a weird little old lady named Melba, like the toast?

  A pained expression crossed Melba’s distraught face as she jerked her hand, applying a final squeeze of pressure to the trigger.

  “Don’t.” I screamed at the top of my lungs, just as a thin stream of lukewarm water squirted from the gun, hit me square in the chest, leaving a moist, dark spot on the plum-colored top that makes me look sultry and alluring. Stunned, I clutched my bosom, not entirely sure if the wet spot was water or blood.

  Melba just stood there like a stone statue. Then she dissolved into body-shaking mirth. “Ohhh, my,” she cackled, “th-that was hilarious…s-so funny…so very funny…”

  Before I could assimilate what had occurred, before I could wrap my dizzy mind around what the old lady was saying, from overhead, came a shriek of childish laughter. Shrill, lilting giggles from a small child—no. Make that, two small children. Laughing and howling, just above my head. As I craned my neck to look upward, a chubby hand dangled through the slats of the upstairs deck rail, and a plaintive, tiny voice warbled.

  “I dropped it…my squirt gun. I wan’it. Gif it back t’me.” The words tumbled from her parted lips. “It falled right in her pocket.” She pointed a chubby, dirty little finger at Melba. “Haaahahaha. Funny lady. It falled in her pocket, an’ her tooked it out and squirted you. Hey…you all wet.”

  I confess I was so overcome with conflicting emotions, I couldn’t tell up from down. All I could do was stare in complete disbelief at the round, sweet faces—yes, faces—of two identical little angels, one laughing merrily, the other somewhat frightened; both engrossed in the entertainment just below their deck. Managing to gather a few shards of my shattered wits, I turned away from a still-chuckling Melba and staggered backward. With both hands, I flung open our door and screamed at the top of my lungs.

  “Bernie. Bernie. Now. Right now. Get out here.”

  Through the sliding glass door I watched as Bernie leaped from her seat, stubbed her big toe on the ottoman, expletive deleted, and hobbled to the door. I was frantic, wet, and crawling out of my skin with excitement. I gesticulated and sputtered words and phrases like a woman possessed.

  “Two of them. Look, Bernie, two of them.” I jabbed my finger in the air. “Look. Look at them. Up there. Tell me what you see. Tell me.”

  Glancing upward, Bernie smiled and nodded, shrugged her shoulders, waved, then
turned to glare at me as thought I’d gone stark, raving mad. “Michaela,” she drawled, “have you lost your mind? What is the matter with you?” She sounded more than a little annoyed.

  I looked up. Brenda was holding little Amanda by her chubby paw, staring down at us like a thundercloud ready to burst. The smudged-faced little angel beside her had her head lowered.

  “The kid dropped her squirt gun,” Brenda hollered down. “You seen it?”

  Melba shuffled over to where the small plastic gun was leaking a trickle of water onto the parched deck. Smiling, she bent over to retrieve it. Waving it toward Brenda and Amanda, she chortled, “You have upset Carmen and Iris. I can’t believe it dropped right into my pocket,” she bobbed her head and flip-flopped over to the steps. Brenda met her partway down the stairs, snatched the plastic toy, mumbled her thanks, and disappeared up her steps, and into their unit, dragging little Amanda along with her.

  I turned and stumbled into the condo as though in a trance. It was all clear as mud right now. My head was spinning. My poor heart was beating like Riverdance. My mouth was as dry as the Gobi Desert. If ever I’d needed a drink, this was the time. Yes, sir…right there in front of us, but we were in too much of a frenzy to assimilate any of it. I doubted that Bernie had even seen the two little faces. I doubted that I had even seen the two little faces. The key to the puzzle had been right before our eyes. The question: what was it?

  We flopped down into our designated chairs in the living room. It was all too incredibly weird. We looked at one another in bewilderment. What had just happened? A gun? Two little faces at the rail? Confusion reigning supreme? I twitched and squirmed and tugged at my creeping underwear and shorts, while Bernie raised her eyebrows and sighed. Finally she broke the silence.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “You can’t be serious.” I gasped, sitting bolt upright, forgetting about my demon underwear. “I thought Melba had a gun. A gun, Bernadette. And then, as if that wasn’t enough shock for one day, I looked up and there were two Amandas.” I winced, leaned back against the cushions. “Oh, Lord…and let’s not forget Vicki and Lionel, who appear to know a different Melba than the one who haunts us, or, at least are able to communicate like normal human beings with her. And then there’s Jorge, who probably isn’t Jorge. And what about the ice cream shop?”