The place had all the glimmer and ritz of the Las Vegas strip. There was a stage, no higher than the back of the chairs, along the back wall. It had a teak colored base, a sleek black walkway, and shiny silver stripper poles every few feet. Behind it was a backdrop that was electric. It was punctured with small holes that had red and purple lights piped through. The floor was filled with small, round tables each surrounded by three tan-colored leather upholstered, tub chairs that swiveled giving its occupants full view of all the happenings going on. And every inch of that place was crawling with “happenings.” Pendant lamps gave low lighting. And those strobes swept the room on a constant pendulum bouncing to the music and off the gyrating girls.
“Now what do we do?” I asked over the blaring music.
“We mingle,” Miss Vivee said. “Come on, Mac.” She grabbed his arm and escorted him over to the bar. I knew I’d better follow.
Miss Vivee had worn a rose pink, 1920s style flapper dress. I’m sure it wasn’t from the original era, but it looked the part. She had her hair in a bun on top of her head. She had on flats with a strap across her instep. And, of course, her pink lipstick.
Mac slid onto one of the stools, but Miss Vivee, with her short frame and even shorter legs tried as best she could to climb up on a bar stool, but that just wasn’t happening. It was just like when she tried to get into my Jeep.
“You want me to help you?” I offered.
“No,” she said and groaned. Giving up, she straightened out her dress and pointed to a table. “Maybe we should just sit over there.”
As the three of us walked over to the table, our eyes lit up in wonderment as the innuendos of sex swirled around us. I thought about how many of these strip joints we’d have to go into before we’d find the one where Gemma worked.
This was going to be a long night.
“Oooo. I want one of those,” Miss Vivee leaned into me and said. She pointed her bony, gnarled finger at a drink a waitress dressed in a gold sequenced “string bikini” carried on a tray. It was skimpy, sparkly and clung to her like it a second skin – the bikini, not the drink. The drink was pretty and pink.
Miss Vivee tapped the waitress as she walked by. “Come back, Sweetie, after you deliver those.”
The girl nodded. “Be right with ya,” she said.
Didn’t Ms. Sparkly Thang think it strange that a woman clearly over the three quarter century mark was ordering a drink? Or for that matter that a couple, older than dirt, were in a strip bar?
No one had even given us a second glance.
What is the world coming to?
Sparkles came back to the table all smiles, no questioning look in her eye. “What can I get y’all?”
“I want one of those drinks that you took to that lady over there sitting with all those fellows,” Miss Vivee instructed. “What was that?”
“A Pink Paloma.”
“That’s what I’ll have,” she sucked on her bottom lip and made a smacking sound.
“It’s got a shot of tequila in it.” Sparkles seemed to want to make sure Miss Vivee knew what she was ordering.
Finally someone noticing the geriatric customers in the room.
“That’s fine,” Miss Vivee flashed her a sickly sweet smile. Then, “Mac,” she said and elbowed him. “Order a drink.”
He looked up at the waitress, he pursed his lips and squinted his eyes. “Let’s see,” he said and ran his hand over his wiry white hair. She’s having tequila? Then so will I,” he said with decisiveness. “Bring me an El Diablo,”
“Okay. And you?” Sparkles turned to me.
“I’m driving,” I said and waved my hands. It would have been nice to have a drink to help cope with this scene, but I knew I had to stay sober. I was envisioning that I might have to carry both Miss Vivee and Mac to the car after they consumed just a couple of sips.
“You’re not drinking, dear?” Miss Vivee asked me.
I just rolled my eyes and shook my head.
“Okay then, Sweetie,” Miss Vivee said to the waitress. “That’ll be it.”
“What now?” I asked after Sparkles left. “What do we do now?”
“We ask questions.”
“I don’t think people in this kind of place are prone to answering questions from strangers.”
“We’ll just have to try and see,” Miss Vivee said.
Sparkles came back with the drinks.
As she put them down with a napkin, Miss Vivee gently touched her hand. “We’re looking for Gemma Burke. Is she here tonight? We’re her grandparents.” Lies rolled off of Miss Vivee’s tongue just as smooth as silk.
“Gemma?”
“Yes, she goes by the name D’lishus, I believe.”
And Mac was right in there with her. “We’re getting on in age and trying to get all our affairs together. It won’t be long for us,” he said nodding. “And we want to make sure she gets what we leave for her.” He smiled at Ms. Vivee and grabbed her hand as if they were together.
“Oh. Gemma,” Sparkles said. “Yeah. She did go by D’lishus. I remember her. She doesn’t work here anymore. But you’d want to talk to Champagne or Buns. They were real good friends with her. They might know where she is.”
I didn’t know asking “questions” included making up gigantic fibs, but I was thanking the Lord we wouldn’t have to go in another strip bar to find answers for Miss Vivee.
“Buns?” Mac said and looked around the room.
“Uh-huh. Buns Galore. They’re both here. I’ll see if I can’t find one of them.”
“Buns Galore,” Mac leaned into the table and lowered his voice. I swear I saw a spark in that old man’s eye.
“Miss Vivee,” I spoke over the music. “What about if they know that Gemma is dead?”
“Oh, pshaw. How would they know? The girl is barely cold. And who in Yasamee would call up to a strip club to announce that Gemma Burke keeled over dead in a bowl of bouillabaisse.”
“Probably no one,” Mac said fiddling with his drink.
“No one,” she confirmed. “We’ll be fine. You’ll see. Just follow my lead.”
“I’m going to the restroom,” I announced. “Don’t do anything until I get back.”
“Don’t be too long,” Miss Vivee said. “We can’t wait if Buns and Whiskey come over. We’ll have to start in on the interrogation.”
“Champagne,” Mac offered the correction.
“Right. Champagne. We’ve got to play out this storyline.”
“Play out the storyline?” I scrunched up my nose.
Please Lord, give me strength.
I made it to the restroom without having to run into too many scantily clad women and could have sat on that cold stool the entire time Miss Vivee and Mac’s story “played” out. But I knew Miss Vivee needed me, even if she didn’t know it. While I washed my hands, I glanced in the mirror. Shaking some of the water off, I ran my hands over my hair.
I guess I could try to do a little better with my appearance. I hadn’t nearly taken the time or care Miss Vivee had when I was trying to decide what to wear, seeing my choice was very limited. I hadn’t packed much. I turned my body from side to side and looked at my butt, lifted up my breast in my bra, and smoothed my hand down the yellow flower-filled sundress I had on. I ran my hand over my face and licked my lips.
Maybe a little lip gloss.
Digging down in my purse, I found two tubes of gloss. Bobbi Brown Hot Pink or Bellini High Shimmer?
Everyone else out there was glittery and shimmery, so what the heck. I dabbed some of the Bellini on my lips and found a comb. I tried to pull it through my hair. The humidity of the Georgia coast had seemed to put a permanent curl in it. I was starting to look more and more like my mother. Ugh.
I took another look at myself in the mirror and sighed. Trying to look better now, with all those beautiful, alluring women out there made my efforts seem pointless.
I headed back out to the table when a hand grabbed my arm from behind and sta
rtled me. I turned around and my eyes met a man’s chest. But before I even let them trail up to his face I knew who it was.
Bay Colquett.
Oh crap.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bay pulled me close into him, leaning down, he whispered breathily in my ear through my hair. “I like that lipstick,” he said. I could feel the heat from his words on my neck. I didn’t know what he was trying to do, but whatever it was, it was making me nervous.
“T-Thank you,” I said, stumbling over my words.
Then he pushed me back. That stupid smirk of his appearing over his face. “Don’t make me have to arrest you, Dr. Dickerson” he said. “I’d hate to throw you in jail while you’re looking so pretty.”
“Arrest me for what?”
Why is he always picking on me?
“Contributing to the delinquency of the elderly,” he said and pointed over toward Miss Vivee and Mac sitting at the table sipping on their drinks.
I turned and looked. The sight of those two made me chuckle. “It’s more like they’re contributing to the delinquency of me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You think I frequent strip bars? Or even bars for that matter.”
“Until you came to Yasamee my grandmother hadn’t left the house in more than twenty years.”
“So I’ve heard.” I glanced again at the two of them. Miss Vivee was deep in conversation with one of the strippers they had yoked into talking to them. “Trust me when I tell you,” I said. “The world was a safer place when she was inside.”
“C’mon outside with me. I want to have a talk with you.”
“About what?” I said not moving. “Can’t we just talk in here?”
He tugged at my arm. “C’mon.”
“Really. I need to go and check on Miss Vivee,” I tried to yell over the music as he dragged me across the floor and out the door. “Your mother told me to watch her,” I said in a huff.
“My mother doesn’t even know you’re here,” he said after he got me outside. “She thinks you’re in Augusta.”
I took in a sharp breath. “Look. It’s hard to lie to your mother, but it’s much harder to breach my allegiance to your grandmother.”
“I know,” he said.
He was staring at me, his hazel eyes bewitching. I suddenly felt uneasy – shy – embarrassed. And self-conscious.
Did I have something on my nose? Around my mouth.
“How did you know we were here, anyway?” I said and started swiping at my face to remove anything stuck on it.
“Grandmother told me. And I saw that big monstrosity she calls a car parked in front. If you guys were trying to be incognito, you failed miserably.”
“Oh. So. Did you then tell your mother we were in Atlanta? Because when she finds out she is going to hate me.”
“I didn’t tell her. It’s hard to breach my allegiance with my grandmother, too.”
“Then why’d you drag me out here?” I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you were going to fuss at me about bringing Miss Vivee here.”
“No. I’m glad you’re taking time with my grandmother,” he said. “You know, sometimes she feels like she’s losing her independence. We all hover over her, checking on her every second, trying to tell her what she can and can’t do. I know that bothers her.”
“She certainly never lets me question her independence. The way she bosses me around, there’s never any uncertainty of who’s in charge.”
“I think it’s okay to let her do whatever she wants. She’s grown. But my mother, and sometimes Auntie Brie seem to forget that. They act like she’s a child. My grandmother is sharp though, and smart. She doesn’t need coddling. ”
“Don’t I know it?” I said. “She’s one of those people that could squeeze blood from a turnip. Since I’ve been around her, I’ve seen that whatever she sets her mind to accomplish she can do.”
“Listen to you, ‘squeeze blood from a turnip.’ What do you know about those southern sayings?”
I laughed. “My grandparents are from the south. That’s how I know to mind my manners with Miss Vivee. Plus, I see how she manipulates people to get what she wants. I’ve learned to just give in.”
Bay laughed. “I know. She’s like this chameleon. She gets to talking like she’s this down home girl with the ‘ain’t’ and ‘cause’ when she wants to give the impression she’s just regular folk. Then she’s got a different way when she’s passing out her homemade remedies.”
“I know,” I said. “And then sometimes she’s using all these big words like she’s a college professor. But her lies –she can tell some big ones. Wow.”
“She’s not just acting, you know with the big words and all. She went to college.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Got a degree in biology. Wanted to be a doctor.”
“Wow. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. But what I’m trying to say is that my grandmother, sometimes when she’s demanding, and seems, I don’t know, obstinate, or mean, or overbearing, I think it’s because she’s fighting for her right to stay independent. You know? She has to be forceful to keep her personality. To be an ‘adult.’ Not to let people take over her life because they think she’s old and helpless. You understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Yeah. I know,” I said and looked back through the door of Kitty City. When I turned back around, Bay was staring at me. “Your mother explained to me once that as we grow old we still feel the same on the inside,” I said, his staring weirding me out. “I know that Miss Vivee still wants to live her life.” My words seemed to float right past him.
I let my eyes meet his, and his stare locked mine in. There was a twinkle there as if he was smiling at me through them. The moment then suddenly felt intense. I broke my gaze and the lingering silence between us was uncomfortable. I didn’t like the feeling that sprung up in me from somewhere deep inside, out of nowhere. And then I decided I couldn’t stay around Bay any longer.
I didn’t know what he was doing to me.
“I probably should get back,” I said breaking the silence. “I have to keep an eye on those two.”
“So,” he said. “I just came by to warn you to take good care of my grandmother and her boyfriend.”
“That is not her boyfriend,” I chuckled. “She says she is too old to have one of those.” I kept my eyes away from looking into his. “So you came all the way up here to check on us?”
“No. I had to go to Gainesville for work.”
Oh no. I hope that wasn’t work that involved me.
“I-I thought you were on vacation? Your mother said you were going to be in Yasamee for a week, maybe longer,” I said. “She said you were on vacation.”
A smile lit up his face. “You asked my mother about me?”
“No.” I lied and swallowed hard. “Not really. I mean . . . You know . . . It just came up.”
“Oh,” he said. “I am on vacation. But I had some evidence in my car that I needed to turn it in.”
“Oookaay.” I didn’t want to hear what that was about. “I gotta go,” I said and ducked back inside of Kitty City before he could say anything else.
“She did good for herself,” one of the strippers was saying when I sat back down at the table. I’m guessing from the size of her backside she was Buns Galore. “Didn’t she, Champagne?” Buns asked the other girl who was wearing what looked like a gold lamé onesie.
“Yeah, she did. You should be proud of her,” Champagne said. “She only worked here long enough to finish school.”
“Finish school?” Miss Vivee asked. “I remember once she told me she wanted to be a cosmetologist.”
“Oh, no. She did one better. She got herself a college degree.”
“That’s my girl,” Miss Vivee clapped her hands together. “We’re so proud of her, aren’t we Mac?”
She should be on the stage somewhere, I thought. This is definitely the kind of performance that would garner a Tony.
“What did she study while she was in school?” Mac joined the masquerade. He and Miss Vivee were like two peas in a pod.
“She’s a teacher. Up in Powder Springs.”
“What grade does she teach?” Mac asked.
“Second graders,” Buns said.
“Let me think,” Champagne said. “I’ll remember the name of the school. Hold on give me a minute . . .”
“It was Euclid Park Elementary,” Buns spoke up. “Euclid. Like the mathematician.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Powder Springs, Georgia
Thursday Morning, AGD
“She was a wonderful teacher. I really hated to see her go.” Jill Sterba stood before us, her hands clasped in front of her. She spoke in a soft, even voice that was probably reserved for children and meddling nonagenarians. “But other than that, I really can’t say anything.”
Jill Sterba was the bespectacled, blonde-haired principal of Euclid Park Elementary School. She was tall and thin, and had a no nonsense air about her. She stood by the set of glass doors where she’d let us in, but it appeared that’s all the far she was letting us go.
Just like no one thought it strange that Grandma and Grandpa Big Time Liars were in a strip club, no one gave it a second thought that a stripper called Buns Galore knew that Euclid was a Greek mathematician. The school named in his honor was a one-story, tan brick building that housed grades kindergarten through third.
We had spent the night before in a five-star hotel in Atlanta that Miss Vivee paid for on her American Express Blue. Bay had left, thank God, and Miss Vivee insisted that she and I share a room. She also insisted that Mac had to get his own room, which she said he had to pay for, too. Then she spent all evening in his room with him. I stayed in our room and watched a movie and ordered room service. I wasn’t going to let Miss Vivee pick up the charges for my food with the room, though. Although she was throwing money around like she was Oprah, she was still just a little old lady. Plus, I figured that Renmar had to have something to do with payments on that credit card.
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