“Tell you what, Sherwood. My last activities director resigned after several years of employment because her husband relocated. Before she left, she put together a bus tour to Myrtle Beach. We have about forty so far but we’re still taking signups because the bus can hold forty-eight. They’re leaving this Tuesday for South Carolina’s Grand Strand. They’ll be gone a week. They will need a group leader and I simply don’t have the time to go myself.”
“A trip to Myrtle Beach? On a chartered bus? Wow.”
“All you have to do is get them to all the activities on time, handle any problems, study up on Myrtle Beach so you can tell them a little bit about the area, and make sure you don’t lose anyone. Basically. Think you can handle it?”
“Are you offering me a job?”
“Let’s call it a week-long trial period. Your trip will be paid for including the hotel and meals and I’ll give you a hundred dollars for spending money. If you accept my offer, and make it through the week, and still want the job, and the residents like you—the job is yours. Starting salary of twenty-six thousand a year plus standard benefits. Opportunity for a raise after six months.”
A possible job. And a paid week at the beach? It would be like a vacation, Sherwood figured, except with a busload of grandparents tagging along.
“Yes, I accept.” A rush of adrenaline shot through her belly and she felt a little dizzy. But it was a happy sort of dizzy.
“Good, it’s settled then, pending a background check. Come in tomorrow to do your paperwork and we’ll go over the trip details.” Jane Sullivan stood, offered her hand to the stunned girl.
Two
Great Wings Recreation Center
Norfolk, Virginia
“I just don’t think I want to go,” Smith announced to no one in particular. Smith was known only as ‘Smith’ and none of his neighbors knew his first name. Seventy-something and good-looking in a rugged way, he stood nearly six feet tall and had a head of stark white curly hair to compliment a confident stride. His demeanor suggested that he was a star athlete in college and may have been the president or CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation before retirement. But he rarely smiled and usually never spoke except to denounce something or someone. Which was quite often.
“You’ve got to go, Smith,” countered Mrs. Storrey, the resident Red Hatter. “If people drop out and we don’t have enough to qualify for our discounted group rates, then none of us go! And I want to hit the outlet stores to shop. Besides, you old grouch, you’ve already paid your deposit.” Scolding eyes studied him from beneath thick black lashes. Coming from her it was almost flirty.
Like Smith, Mrs. Storrey went only by ‘Mrs. Storrey’ and her first name was not known. At one point, Jack Sloan attempted to break into the Great Wings office to search the resident files for both first names, an endeavor that was prompted by a collective thirty-six dollar and fifty-five cent reward. Unfortunately, he set off the motion detector’s alarm and woke up residents in four buildings before a maintenance man was summoned to silence the ear-splitting siren. The much sought after names were never obtained and the thirty-six dollars and fifty-five cents, after a day of deliberation, was used to purchase a community croquet set. It rested on a shelf in the center, never having been removed from its original box.
Smith shot a frown at Mrs. Storrey. “You shop too much. That’s probably why you’ve been through three husbands. You shopped ‘em to death.”
Mrs. Storrey dismissed the comment with a wave of a diamond-laden hand. “That’s no way to speak to a grieving widow.” She flipped her long silver hair over a shoulder and shook her head to arrange the wispy bangs. Long ago, Smith decided that the hairstyle looked as good on her as the same cut in blond would have looked on a twenty-year-old. But he’d never let her know that. The woman was already conceited, in his opinion. Besides, complimenting her would encourage her to get more plastic surgeries. The woman treated an eye tuck with no more significance than a six-month dental cleaning—like general maintenance. God had given her a face and body that was fabulous to begin with, Smith thought. She didn’t need all the cosmetic work.
“You quit grieving for your last husband years ago, when you went on that junket to Las Vegas, if the rumors are true,” Smith said.
“Apparently what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas,” somebody quipped.
Mrs. Storrey stretched, her limbs moving fluidly. Eventually she settled both bare legs in the chair with her, to one side, and produced a condescending look for Smith’s benefit. “For your information, Smith, I grieve for all my past husbands. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have fun.”
“Oh, go get your hair frothed, or whatever it is you have done to it.” Smith was doing his best to ignore the finest legs at Great Wings. “And seriously, you really don’t need to shop. You’re already using closet space in Ethyl’s unit.” Her skin was a natural golden-olive color and she always looked suntanned. Her legs always had a sheen to them, as though she’d just applied lotion.
“Frosted.”
“What?”
“It’s frosted. Not frothed, you fool. I get my hair frosted.”
“Regardless, you probably shouldn’t go on this bus trip, either. You need to save for your golden years.”
Jack Sloan let out a belly laugh, long legs dangling from the pool table that was his chair. Each foot sported a brand new Reebok—athletic shoes that were a birthday present from his wife, Nell. “Why don’t you two lovebirds just go ahead and tie the knot? You act like you’re already married, the way you bicker.” Nell always told him that Smith and Mrs. Storrey would make the perfect couple. A dashing couple, in her words.
“Are you insane?” Smith said. “Man’s got to have a death wish to hook up with her. She’s like one of those damn spiders that eats her mates. Hell, she gets a group discount on cemetery plots.”
Everyone thought about that for a beat, wondering if it were true.
Jack slid off the table and bounced a few times on his new, springy shoes. “It will be a great trip and Nell and I are ready to go.”
“Good,” Smith said. “Then maybe you should put those new Redboks of yours to good use. Go knock on doors and get the old farts off their sagging butts. ‘Wheel of Fortune’ is showing reruns lately. They need something to do.”
“Reeboks,” Mrs. Storrey said, shifting her legs to the other side of the chair. She always sat with her legs up in the chair with her, or casually slung over the side of the arm. Any other seventy-plus year-old woman would look foolish putting themselves in such a position. Not to mention they’d probably sprain something. But Mrs. Storrey looked fresh and young, Smith thought. And shockingly, comfortable.
“What?” he said.
“It’s Reeboks, Smith.” Mrs. Storrey examined a gleaming nail that was the same shade of red as her massive hat collection. “He’s wearing Reeboks, not Redboks.”
“Redboks, roadblocks, whatever.”
“Greedy bastard deserves a life sentence,” Gretta Rafferty announced before Mrs. Storrey had a chance to throw another verbal barb at Smith. Oblivious to the conversation around her, Gretta watched a podcast on her Apple iPhone. News and weather were her favorites. “He only got twenty years for stealing all that money. Pfffh. CEO ought to stand for Cleaning Everyone Out.” Bifocals were perched low on the end of her nose and a Bluetooth wireless headset was stuck in the ear that didn’t house a hearing aid.
Gretta’s housemate poked her in the shoulder with an outstretched finger. “Turn that stupid thing off and pay attention,” Mabel said.
“Fine. Just let me watch the attorney’s comments first. Fool lost and he still can’t wait for a reporter to aim a camera his--”
Gus O’Malley burst into the room and all conversation stopped. Gus was talking and walking and motioning with a putter. A pink handled one.
“--believe you didn’t call me for this meeting! What am I, chopped liver?” he exclaimed, making a laborious show of pulling up a chair to join the group.<
br />
Everyone acknowledged him—it was impossible not to—but nobody said anything.
“Well, someone could have at least called me.” Gus positioned the pink putter by his side. “I’m a part of this bus trip, too.”
Gus was never without the golf club that doubled as a walking cane and pointer. He spoke an octave or two higher than what his normal voice should have been. Some considered him the resident grump but everyone put up with him because Gus had lived at Great Wings longer than anyone else.
Muttering, he lowered himself into the chair and smoothed a bright Hawaiian shirt over a thick beer gut.
“Sheez, he’ll be eligible for parole in ten,” Gretta told the group, as if somebody was actually paying attention to her.
Mrs. Storrey’s seventy-two year-old legs re-situated themselves once again, and everyone was quiet for a few seconds, probably trying to remember the purpose of their gathering. She turned on her sales-pitch-voice.
“Look, we all want to go on this Myrtle Beach trip. We just need to make sure nobody backs out. And to be on the safe side, we should get a few more sign-ups. Our chartered motorcoach will hold fifty-two.” She plucked a piece of non-existent fuzz off of a white cashmere sweater that covered full breasts.
Smith blinked at the surgically enhanced breasts while her words sank in. He wondered if they would feel as good as they looked. “Motorcoach?” he said.
“Yes, Smith. Motorcoach. It means bus. And when you are paying what we are paying per person for this trip, I believe we’d all like to think of our transportation method as a luxury motorcoach rather than a plain ol’ bus.” She dropped the piece of invisible fuzz from an outstretched arm. Smith imagined it floating to the carpeted floor, like a feather, even though he couldn’t see anything.
“The price of grain is going up again!” Gretta shouted. “Everybody said it had stabilized, but I knew better.”
Knowing her hearing aid battery was going out, the Great Wings seniors ignored her like they always did. Except for when she was watching ESPN, in which case a few of the guys could actually follow a football game by listening to Gretta’s commentary.
Jack clapped his hands like a coach motivating a team. If someone didn’t get this group going, they’d be there another hour, listening to Gretta. He could follow stock market news in the privacy of his own unit. “Okay, Nell and I are going to make confirmation calls to everyone who’s already signed up. The rest of you can knock on some doors to drum up few additional people. Everyone agreed?”
Gus mumbled something about being the last one to know everything, Smith grunted, and Mrs. Storrey flashed a victorious smile. Spouting words of encouragement, Jack ushered his neighbors outside. Groomed foliage surrounded the Great Wings recreation center and the delicate scent of blooming magnolias filled the air. It was a gorgeous day in Norfolk. The squad of ten dispersed to fulfill their mission.
Jack grabbed his wife’s hand and raised it in the air. “Myrtle Beach, here we come!”
Three
Heading South on Interstate 95
Somewhere in Virginia
Wednesday morning
Dazed, Sherwood sat numbly in the front row seat of the Luxury Lines motorcoach. In front of her, two steps down, sat its driver, Freddy, the last person in the world she expected to see in Virginia. Behind them sat forty-six seniors from the Great Wings Retirement Community, and below all of them rested nearly a hundred pieces of luggage—enough to clothe forty-six people for an entire summer. The cargo bays of the coach were nearly jammed full and became Sherwood’s first concern. She wondered where they were going to put the goodies and souvenirs that her group would surely purchase during their week-long escapade. She also wondered if more important matters would soon press out this concern.
***
It was not yet six o’clock in the morning and still dark when everyone had gathered at the Great Wings rec center to be picked up. When the bus rolled in, Sherwood immediately noticed its young driver. Even from a distance and viewed through the giant tinted windshield, something about him seemed vaguely familiar. When he parked and stepped down through the hydraulic door, she’d realized why.
“Freddy?”
“Sherwood?” His heart thudded to a brief stop and for a moment he thought he’d been mistaken. He blinked a few times. Maybe road hypnosis was already setting in and he was hallucinating. That had been a question on his commercial driver’s license test—the one about zoning out on the road from driving too long.
“Yes!” she confirmed. Hundreds of miles away from anywhere familiar and she knew the bus driver. She had, in fact, gone to school with him. “What are you doing here?”
“Driving the bus,” he deadpanned. Then he grinned and the familiar expression warmed Sherwood’s jittery insides. She’d been nervous all night about facing the Great Wings seniors and had hardly slept. Now, she was overjoyed to have a friend nearby. She and Freddy were in several classes together during their college tenure, and they both had worked as resident assistants in adjacent dorms. Plus, he’d tutored her through world politics and business calculus. She wouldn’t have made her high grade point average without him.
“What are you doing here?” Freddy asked, head cocked.
“Long story. But the short of it is, I’m their group leader for a week.” Sherwood decided it was the uniform that made him look so handsome—much more so than she remembered. He wore navy blue slacks with a starched white shirt and a yellow silk tie. The shirt had an epaulet on each shoulder, reminding her of an airplane pilot. A gold nametag declared him to be ‘Frederick’ and beneath that, it read ‘Luxury Lines’. He wasn’t wearing the wire-rimmed glasses any longer and she couldn’t stop staring at his eyes. Short-cut sandy blond hair coupled with a dark tan and the deep set blue eyes gave him a military look. Masculine. Strong. Capable. And who knew he could drive a giant bus?
“You like the spiffy uniform?” he said. “My dad made me wear it. Company policy.”
“Uh, sure,” she said. Were her thoughts that obvious? “I’m just so surprised to see someone I know. Here, of all places. In a retirement community, I mean. Not to mention, uh, Virginia.” She was rambling and took a deep breath to collect her thoughts. Assembled in the rec room, the seniors were staring at her and Freddy through the window. Her cheeks and ears grew hot. Maybe she was just thrilled to see someone she knew, and that’s why the unexpected appearance of Freddy was making her blush. He was, after all, a library rat. A nerd. He’d been a member of the band—the geekiest of the nerds. A great friend, but not her type. Her girlfriends would’ve laughed their heads off had she told them she was dating Freddy. On the other hand, those same friends thought it was totally hot that she’d snagged the philosophy professor. And that relationship was a total bust.
“I just moved to Norfolk to live with my sister,” Sherwood told Freddy. “And I may have a job here as activity director.”
One eyebrow went up. “You’re not sure if you’re employed or not?”
“This week is a trial period. If all goes well, I’ll get the job offer.”
“No kidding! That’s great. But didn’t you get married after graduation?” he said, noticing the absence of a ring on her finger. A long, slim, perfectly formed finger.
Her engagement announcement had seared itself into Freddy’s memory. It was six months before graduation. He’d been cooling down after a three-mile run and casually flipping through the Sunday newspaper—not really reading, but skimming the headlines to see if anything interesting caught his eye—when her beautiful face smiled up at him from a posed portrait photograph. The picture was centrally placed in the weddings section. He’d been startled. And disappointed. Nearly depressed. Although he’d asked Sherwood out many times and been turned down just as many, to see her engagement announcement in black and white was like a slap in the face. Up until then, he still held hope that someday she’d give in and go on a date with him. He may have even tried to be glad for Sherwood if that sleazy pro
fessor hadn’t been the lucky groom.
“I was getting married,” she said. “But the wedding’s off. That’s why I moved here.”
Upon hearing the news, he mentally danced a happy jig. He waited for more, but she didn’t offer additional details. Like who broke up with who. Not that it mattered. Sherwood was single. And she’d soon be on the bus with him. Life was good.
The sky had begun to lighten and the sun would soon climb above the horizon. Residents had begun to mill around in the parking lot, eager to get on the road.
Freddy couldn’t stop staring at Sherwood. “Well, I’m here because I moved to Richmond after graduation to take over the family business,” Freddy said. “The driver scheduled for this trip fell off his roof yesterday and broke his leg. I’m filling in.” He waved an arm at the bus. “Hope I don’t wreck this baby. Dad would definitely dock my pay.”
“You have a family business here?” It was a small world, indeed. She’d never heard Freddy mention a family business. Not that she’d ever paid him much attention, other than as a study partner. She’d been too absorbed with the professor. Come to think of it, she really didn’t know much personal information about Freddy at all.
“We have a tour company and a fleet of twelve busses. Dad made me get my commercial driver’s license, and I worked during the summers learning the financial side. I’ve also driven solo twice but they were overnighters for sports teams. Yours will be my first senior group. This coach can actually hold fifty-two passengers. It’s like driving your apartment down the highway, full of people sitting in La-Z-Boy recliners.”
Sherwood visualized Freddy, sitting on his sofa clad in only a pair of boxers, with a steering wheel in his hand, ‘driving’ his apartment down the road when Ruth informed her that it was time to load up. Sherwood had momentarily forgotten where she was and looked up with a start. Oh, yeah, she reminded herself. I’m at the Great Wings Retirement Community and I’m about to go on a trip to the beach. And, I really don’t have a clue as to what I’m doing.
Mayhem in Myrtle Beach Page 2