Magnolia sat on a big gold throne in the middle of a big gold room. Mini Me, her personal assistant, bodyguard, liveried servant, who fought all her fights and lied all her lies, stood at the ready to the right and just behind the throne. We called her Mini Me because (she’s a foot shorter than Magnolia, but just as wide) the two of them were always together and permanently dressed in old lady tennis clothes, including color coordinated visors. No telling what their helmet hair looked like under them. All I could see on both heads were short, stiff, putty-colored curls fighting for freedom. They were both shaped like pears: small on the top, huge on the bottom. Mini Me looked her age, dinosaurish, and Magnolia matched, but only to her chin.
The disparity between Magnolia’s neck and chin was at least three decades. I know I’ll get to facelift age myself, so I don’t want to be too critical, never say never, but I hope if I ever ask a doctor to cut my face off and sew it back on, advancements in the overall process will have been made to include the clock rolling back on the rest of me—hands, butt, knees—so it won’t just be my face that’s tight as a tick. Everything on Magnolia and Mini Me was racing toward their thick ankles. Except Magnolia’s rock-hard face.
“I feel certain, Mrs. Thibodeaux, this is what you’ve been looking for in my home.”
Her hand shot up. “Oh no.” She wagged a thick finger. “No, no, young lady. That is my home. Those are my things. And this is mine.” She displayed the platinum coin, then put it where the sun don’t shine, inside whatever manner of industrial bra she was wearing beneath her Lily Pulitzer yellow palm polo. “You are just an interloper.”
“Interloper.” (Mini Me, who lunged with every word.)
“I’m here to save you some time, Magnolia,” I said. “I found the platinum you’ve been looking for, and it’s fake.” I watched the blood drain from her facelift. “Check it out.” I waggled a finger at her industrial breasts. “Fake. Every single bit of it. So you can stop looking.”
“I don’t know how in the hell you think that’s saving me time.”
“How the hell is that saving us time?” (Mini Me.)
“And I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She reached in, pulled out the platinum coin, and passed it to Mini Me. “See if this is fake.” Mini Me took the coin, cocked her head, opened her mouth, and bit down on it. “Is it fake?”
Mini Me moved it to the other side of her mouth, as if those teeth were better at detecting genuine precious metal.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It sure tastes real.”
“Is this what you’ve been looking for, Magnolia?”
“I’m not looking for anything from you, young lady.”
“Not looking.” (Mini Me, who was trying to tuck the platinum back in Magnolia’s industrial bra until she was slapped off.)
Fantasy, who had no intention of putting her dog in this fight—she had problems of her own—polished off her mint julep, then placed her empty silver cup on the tray.
“Say,” she said. “Not that this isn’t fascinating, but do you mind if I use the ladies’ room?”
Magnolia, her sights set on me, waved permission.
Mini Me waved too.
“Talk to me, Magnolia.” I crossed my legs and leaned in, just me and this dingbat, getting real. “If this is what you’ve been looking for, you can stop, because I found it and it’s fake. Every bit of it.”
Her hand rose to her mouth and she began to violently chew the side of her thumb. I could hear her teeth clacking.
Mini Me stared intently, her own fist slowly rising to her face, and her teeth snapping in imitation. Magnolia wasn’t about to confess she’d been looking for the platinum, but I needed to keep her busy while Fantasy snooped around upstairs.
“Or are you looking for something else?” I asked. “Jewelry? Family heirlooms? Photographs?” I hoped she wouldn’t gnaw off her own thumb with me as witness. “Trinkets? Knickknacks? Art?”
Chomp, chomp.
I waited a beat, then softened my delivery.
“Did you leave memories there, Magnolia?”
Her eyes, ice cubes, met mine.
“Ha.”
“Ha!” (Mini Me.)
“Cash?”
She shifted her substantial weight so fast, she almost toppled off her throne. So she was looking for money too. Her husband hid platinum and cash in my home, didn’t, or couldn’t, take it with him, and hasn’t, or can’t, come back for it.
There was a stash of cash in my home too, and Magnolia was after it.
I. Am. Moving.
Fantasy sliced through the tension when she reclaimed her seat, then reached for my mint julep. I looked at her.
“What? I’m not driving.”
“If you’re finished hurling accusations at me, and your friend here is finished day drinking, get the hell out of my house,” Magnolia said. “I’m very busy.”
“Very. Busy.” (Mini Me may have found a love bug.) (Her arms shot out in quick succession and she snatched at thin air, her head rolling around as she tracked something the rest of us couldn’t see.)
Fantasy held up a finger, knocked back the julep, and stood. “Thank you for your hospitality, ladies.”
“You’re both crazy.”
“You’re crazy.” (Mini Me.) (Still looking for the love bug.)
“I’ve said what I came to say, Magnolia.” I stood, she stood, Mini Me tried to stand until she realized she was already standing. “Next time you want to chase your tail around my house, Davis, you call first.”
“Call first.” (Mini Me.)
“And let me save you a trip. I won’t be in.”
“Not in.” (Mini Me.)
I turned at the door.
“Like you call me before you come to my house?”
“You know?” Magnolia was gathering the ire she’d lost. “I’m calling Jeremy about you.”
“I’ll dial the number for you, Magnolia.”
Fantasy won the race to the front door, I was two steps behind, and Magnolia lumbered along. Mini Me, closer to the ground, still had a little pep in her step and threatened to overtake her fearless leader, so she was two steps forward, one step back.
“I don’t appreciate you coming here accusing me of breaking into your house, calling me a thief and a liar.”
“Thief! Liar!” (Mini Me.)
“It isn’t even a house. It’s a casino, young lady.” She opened the front door, hoping to usher me out of it quickly. “A casino.”
“A casino.” (Mini Me.)
“And let me tell you something else.” Her beady gray eyes bore into mine. “If you care anything about your marriage, you’ll get your husband out of there while the gettin’s good. There’s too much temptation for a man in that place, especially married to a little wimp like you.”
“Little wimp!” (Mini Me.)
A chill passed through me, straight to wind chimes somewhere, because just then, a heavenly tinkle tune rode in on a blanket of sun. It hit Magnolia square in the face and she squinted, tugging her visor down. She held out her hand to Mini Me, presumably for sunglasses, and Mini Me shot off.
I had a foot out of the house and Fantasy had a hand on the car door at the street. It was just me and Mrs. Mardi Gras.
“Where is Christopher Hall?”
Her eyes narrowed to snake slits and she spoke through clenched teeth. “Even if I knew, I’d never tell you.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out one of the hundred-dollar bills Fantasy and I found in a bathtub. She snatched it from me. “Take it to any bank, Magnolia, and they’ll tell you it’s counterfeit.”
The money shook in her hand.
“It’s over, Magnolia. Done. I found the platinum and I found the money. All fake. So stop looking.” Her knees buckled w
ith the (lies) news. She grabbed for the door to hold herself up, and the hundred-dollar bill, slipping from her hand and surfing a wave of July sun, blew away. “Set foot on Bellissimo property one more time, and you’re going down.”
“Don’t come back here.”
“Don’t make me.”
Seventeen
“What was that about?” Fantasy, knowing I’d held back to say something to Magnolia privately, wanted to catch me off my game. When it comes to work, Fantasy and I don’t do private, but these weren’t the best of times. She waited to ask until I was in a terrible fight with the car to stay in only two lanes, while taking a right onto Earhart Expressway. “You were right behind me, then you stopped to whisper something to Dingbat.”
I let go of the steering wheel with my left hand long enough to swipe the space between my eyebrows, what I do when I lie. “I told her the next time I catch her in my house, I’m calling the police.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, but nowhere near the whole truth. “How’d you do?”
“I didn’t find Holder Darby or Christopher Hall tied up in the attic,” Fantasy said. “But I did find Ty.”
“What kind of shape is he in?”
“Well, I don’t know, Davis. Maybe I’ll just keep it to myself.”
The mood in the car went dark. Very dark. Instead of taking the interstate ramp to I-10, I pulled into a fast-food parking lot and threw the big nasty Cadillac boat in park. We sat there, tugging on gloves. Getting ready to duke it out in the cheating ring.
“Who eats Burger King?” Fantasy leaned back and closed her eyes. She wasn’t quite ready to fight. “How are they still in business?”
“I don’t know.”
I have a husband, parents, a sister, and I have a partner. My relationship with Fantasy is unlike any of the others, because Fantasy and I trusted each other with our lives. It’s not like we’re in the trenches, walking a beat in West Chicago, but we counted on each other nonetheless. And we have our West Chicago moments.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” she said.
“I already knew.”
“Well, I shouldn’t have admitted it.”
I bounced the side of my fist off her knee. “How can I help you get it together, Fantasy? You need to take care of this, because I need you.”
She turned to me with bright eyes.
Fantasy doesn’t do bright eyes, because Fantasy isn’t a crier. But when her chin began quivering, I changed my mind. Maybe she is a crier. A tear spilled and sparkled down her dark cheek, and now I was two-for-two. I’d made Bianca, who doesn’t cry, cry, and now I’ve made Fantasy, who doesn’t cry, cry. I’m the crier. I cry when we’re watching “The Price is Right” and a player spins a dollar on the wheel. I cry every time No Hair leaves for Tunica. At times, with my husband, when out of absolutely nowhere, and crying is the very last thing I should be doing, I collapse in a heart-too-full puddle, and he thinks he’s hurt me.
I reached out for my friend, and her head hit my shoulder. “Oh, Davis. Holy shit.”
I held her until the waterworks stopped.
* * *
One thing’s for sure: People don’t go to Burger King for the coffee. Sludge. Mulch-based. Delicate nuances of swamp. One rancid sip and Fantasy was her old self.
“I burned the whole roof of my mouth on this nasty coffee, it ruined the julep thing I had going, and do you think if we put the top down on this car, it would stink less?” She had an arm out the open window, catching the wind. “It’s our secret, Davis.”
It took her five miles to catch enough wind to start talking.
“I have no intention of leaving Reggie, so I can’t tell him. He’ll want a divorce, then I’ll have to go through six months of groveling, and I don’t have six months of grovel in me. I don’t have six minutes. Can you imagine?”
I couldn’t.
“Once we agreed to stay together, which would be when he got his shattered ego in check, he’d cheat on me so we’d be even. And there’s another six months down the drain while I chase down some random whore and yank out her hair.” I noticed her looking at her coffee cup like she might give it another go. She changed her mind. “If I confess, it will take a year for us to get back on track. If not longer.”
“Clearly, you don’t like the track you’re on, Fantasy.”
“I do,” she said. “It’s my track. My life. My world. And I don’t want to disrupt it.”
I stayed quiet.
“It was one hundred percent personal,” she said, “what happened with Miles.”
There she went again, singing his name.
“It was my deal, my thing, my moment, all for me, and I’m better for it. My batteries are charged. I needed it and Reggie and I will be better for it.”
I couldn’t wait to hear this.
“I honestly don’t think it’s any of Reggie’s business.”
I turned to her. “And you wonder why I hesitate to talk to you about work right now? Have you lost your marbles?”
A truck lost its tire. Not just then. Sometime earlier. The tire was on the shoulder, just barely over the white line, but I didn’t have my eyes anywhere near the road. I was looking at Fantasy, who said having sex with a total stranger, repeatedly, six times yesterday, six, (s-i-x), was none of her husband’s business. I didn’t see the logic and I certainly didn’t see the tire. I couldn’t swerve the boat in time to miss it.
I clipped the edge just right, the tire arced through the air to the median, and the Cadillac, after a full donut spanning two lanes, followed. We came to a stop in the grassy median with the tire rolling in front of us. The tire rolled one more time, then gave up.
“Jesus! Shit! I hate this car!”
I thought it best we sit a minute.
“It’s that Burger King coffee,” I said.
“No doubt.”
We sat quietly while the officer who’d roared in behind us did his thing.
“Is your gun loaded?” she asked.
“Why? Do you want me to shoot this guy?”
“No. I’m just wondering how much trouble we’re in.”
“I have my permit.”
“I don’t have mine.”
Great.
“What’s taking him so long?”
The answer came from all sides. The officer had called for backup. Now we were surrounded. They came at us slowly, weapons drawn. We knew the drill; we let them see our hands. We slowly exited the vehicle when they said slowly exit the vehicle. We turned, laced our fingers on top of our heads when they said turn and lace our fingers on top of our heads. Finally, they told us what we’d done wrong, other than reckless chasing of a rolling tire into the median. We were driving a stolen car.
One of them popped the trunk. All of us jumped back ten feet. It was full of fresh raccoon skins and a million dollars of counterfeit money. Baylor had better hit his knees and confess all his sins, call his grandmothers and say bye-bye, because he was going down. Hard.
“Did something happen at home, Fantasy?” We were in the backseat of a sheriff’s deputy car, cuffed and on our way to jail.
“Not a thing. Not a damn thing. Nothing happened at home. Nothing ever happens at home.”
Quiet mouse.
“And it’s not that I don’t love Reggie, Davis. I do. Of course, I do. He’s the father of my children.”
No squeaks from me.
“I’m not looking for a way out of my marriage. Reggie and I are a machine. It takes both of us to keep it running. I’ll get over myself. I’m already over myself. It’s done. I did it. One stupid night. One stupid day and one stupid night. And a little of the next day. No looking back. No regrets.”
Worse things have happened post Pine Apple moonshine.
Still.
There mu
st be thirty Waffle Houses between where we’d been taken into custody and the St. Tammany Parish jail, where we were headed. Fantasy blurted out bulletins every time we passed a Waffle House.
“It’s not the end of the world.”
(True.)
“There’s not a doubt in my mind Reggie has cheated on me once or twice.”
(I didn’t know about that.)
“I think Magnolia is doping ol’ Ty. That old man is totally out of it. I found him in the last bedroom in a hospital bed.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Davis,” she rattled her handcuffs, “the man was drooling.”
We sat quietly. Two more Waffle Houses.
“It was an apology for the chandelier almost killing him that got all the way to naked. So, really, it’s your fault.”
(Six apologies? I’ve never been that sorry in my life.) (And this is my fault?)
“Ty Thibodeaux has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.”
(Banana peels. Banana milkshakes. I’ll call Calinda and get her to bust us out.)
“I don’t want to go home.”
(I wonder why.)
“You’re not going home anytime soon, lady.”
“Hey!” She lunged at the cage separating us from Deputy Barney Fife. “Mind your own business.”
We turned down a two-lane that looked Waffle House free.
“You were right about Magnolia, Davis. All day long, you were right.”
“I’m right about Paragon too.”
We pulled to a stop at the St. Tammary Parish Sherriff’s office.
“Now that,” the car doors flew open and we were assisted out, “you’re not right about.”
“How was he?” I asked over the hood.
“Oh, dear God,” she said.
And then we went to jail.
Eighteen
One phone call is never enough.
“I had a small errand to run and what did I find in my parking place? Eddie the Idiot’s mobile taxidermy. I swear, No Hair, I will never be the same after driving around with dead raccoons.”
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