Mattie nodded solemnly and said, "I'd have personally seen to it she had everything she needed to live comfortably no matter how much it cost."
Briefly, I wondered how a young nurse like Mattie could afford to be so generous. Then I shook my head and asked, "Didn't anybody think to check in on the old lady? Jeez Louise! Where I'm from, people watch out for their neighbors a little better than that, especially the ones up there in age. The whole town of Rockdale should be ashamed of themselves."
"I agree, Rapella. We all felt very bad afterward. I didn't know her well at all, but I should have popped in on her now and then anyway. I'd have kept her cupboards full had I taken the initiative to find out how she was faring. I guess hindsight's twenty/twenty, as they say. But back to the business at hand. I'll be inviting all the unrelated guests who'll be checking into the inn today to come to the party too, if they don't already have plans for the evening. I don't anticipate they'll all be joining us, but perhaps one or two might accept our invitation."
"What can I do to be of use to you ladies? Sitting here on my thumbs all day ain't gonna be much help to you." I was already tiring of just sitting around doing nothing. I needed something to do to keep busy. Rip was the same way, and bad hip and all, I could see him through the window limping around the perimeter of a large colorful garden in the center of the circular driveway. He was trimming the edge of the flowerbed with a weed-eater. I'd heard Stone tell Rip he could easily handle all the lawn work by himself, but my husband could be very persuasive—well, actually, he was just plain bull-headed at times.
I listened quietly as Lexie responded to my question. "I was hoping you could meet with the caterer this morning. Georgia Piney's not well educated, but she's really a sweet gal and a great cook. You'll like her."
"I'd be happy to meet with this Georgia."
"I need to pick up the sheet cake at Pete's Pantry. They made our wedding cake last year and it was delicious. I also need to swing by the bank to get some cash, and I have to grab a few items at the grocery store—fruit juice, chips, dip, and some other snacks. My best friend, Sheila Davidson, and her husband, Randy, are coming up from Fairway, Kansas. She's known Wendy since the day she was born, having been in the delivery room with us. Sheila makes a mean spiked punch that contains orange, pineapple, and mango juices, along with a hefty amount of grain alcohol. Her so called 'Citrus Surprise' packs a punch you will never see coming. Or at least not until you try to stand up and walk under your own power, that is."
"Thanks for the warning," I said. "I think Rip and I will stick to our tequila and Crown Royal, if you don't mind. Trust me, you don't want either one of us dancing on the table with a lampshade on our heads. Been there, done that, and believe me, it wasn't a pretty sight."
* * *
Rip had programmed the GPS in our truck to the address Lexie gave me, and the lady's voice took me to a small house on the other side of town. I only hoped I could figure out how to get back to the inn without having to mess with the over-priced electronic device. No telling where I'd end up if I tried to program the inn's address into it. A couple of wrong turns, and I'd be in Iowa before I knew it.
I wasn't totally convinced I'd pulled up to the right place when the gadget informed me I'd reached my destination. I'd expected to end up at some kind of business establishment with a "Catering" sign on the front door. Instead, the only sign on the front of this run-down place was a note on a piece of cardboard paper that read "Bewear of Dog. No Solesiters - No Tresspassen," written sloppily with a green magic marker. I wasn't exactly a wordsmith, but it didn't take Noah Webster to recognize the fact that no word over three letters long was spelled correctly. I was sure now that I'd been directed to the wrong location even though Lexie had mentioned the caterer wasn't well educated.
I heard the low growl of what sounded like a very large canine as I stepped onto the porch. I was praying I wouldn't be mistaken for a solesiter. I was blessed, or possibly cursed, with a "no fear" personality, but there were always exceptions - such as being torn to shreds by large, fang-gnashing dogs that were protecting their territory and their owners. I was too hesitant to knock and had turned around to head back to the truck when I heard the door open behind me.
"Peanut, shut up!" The petite, dark-haired woman with a flawless olive complexion said as she stepped outside and shut the door behind her. "Are you Lexie's friend? She called to say you'd be stopping by."
"Um, yes, I'm Rapella Ripple. Lexie wanted me to discuss a couple of details about the food for the party tonight with you. She has written down a few items to cover on this list." I waved the list in her face as if I thought she doubted my reason for being there.
"Nice to meet you, Rapella. My name's Georgia Piney."
"Nice to meet you too, Georgia. Do you run your catering business out of your home? I wasn't sure I was at the right place."
"Yeah, this is my office for the time being," she said, as she spread her arms out to indicate the entire kitchen. "I can't afford to buy my own shop yet. Maybe some day, I hope. My schedule allows me to do occasional odd jobs during the day to help make ends meet. I take in ironing and do some tailoring work whenever possible. I'm putting a little money away every month, trying to build up a nest egg to put down on a little shop downtown one day."
"Good luck to you, dear. I love to see women with the ambition to be their own boss. I just met you but already I'd bet you'll succeed in accomplishing your dream."
"Thanks! Come on in and we'll talk in the kitchen. Don't pay no attention to Peanut. He's harmless other than possibly licking you to death."
Peanut might have been harmless, but he was huge and intimidating. Not to mention the fact I probably smelled like our cat, which I feared wouldn't bode well for me. I stepped inside tentatively as Peanut looked me over and licked his salivating chops, as if anticipating a tasty meal of fresh tabby-scented flesh. He had the height of a Great Dane and the girth of a Rottweiler. Judging by his unique characteristics, he could have a dozen other breeds in the mix too.
When Peanut leapt up to run his long slobbering tongue up my face he nearly knocked me over. His rope-like tail wagged back and forth like a whip, and I was sure I'd have bruises on my legs by the time I left Georgia's home. You know how one's skin gets thinner as they age. Occasionally, I could blow on Rip's arm and he'd be sporting a hematoma the next morning. As I was closing in on seventy in just a year and a half, my skin was thinning to the same degree as his. It seemed to me it now had the thickness of an onion-peel.
As we sat at the kitchen table discussing the items on Lexie's list, Georgia told me a little bit more about herself. She ran off and married a much older man when she was fifteen, dropping out of school to do so. She inferred that she'd never been much of a student to begin with. Since then, her husband had died of brain cancer, an adverse effect from years of exposure to toxic fumes in the factory where he was employed, and she told me she had only one living child.
Georgia Piney was a very sweet woman, as Lexie had indicated, and I enjoyed conversing with her. She explained how her husband's illness had left them with a lot of medical bills to pay. A lawsuit against the factory had been dismissed for having inconclusive evidence. Georgia told me that when Mr. Piney passed, she'd been forced to go to work, and she was still making payments to the Wheatland Memorial Hospital in St. Joseph, Missouri, for expenses incurred during his cancer treatment. With no high school diploma, it had been hard to find a job that paid much, so she'd taken up catering special jobs out of her house a couple of years ago.
I judged Georgia's age to be about the same as Lexie and my daughter, Regina—early fifties or thereabouts. Georgia told me she and Lexie both attended the Rockdale Baptist Church, and she had joined just a few months before the previous pastor had been murdered. I recalled Lexie telling me she'd been involved in the apprehension of the pastor's killer. After getting acquainted with each other at church events, Lexie had hired Georgia on a number of occasions to cater special events
held at the Alexandria Inn.
It occurred to me then, knowing Lexie and her giving nature, the generous bed and breakfast owner had hired Georgia Piney as a way of helping her out financially. My cousin, Emily Harrington, who owned the campground in Cheyenne where Lexie and I had met, had told me what Lexie had done to help some underprivileged local families the previous holiday season. Hiring this kind-hearted and pretty, but financially-struggling, lady to cater her party would be exactly the kind of thing Lexie would do.
Georgia went over the list of items on the menu for the evening, including ham and turkey subs, potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, cole slaw, and a three-bean salad. She was also providing a decorated cake for the festivities and reminded me that Lexie was picking up an extra one from Pete's Pantry to assure there'd be enough cake for everyone. I could smell savory aromas wafting from the double oven as she spoke and saw large aluminum pans spread out across the kitchen counter.
There was a large metal pan with what appeared to be a warped bottom rocking back and forth on the stove. It was casting out drops of water that were sizzling as they landed on the hot burner. I assumed she was hard-boiling the eggs to be deviled later on. As if reading my mind, Georgia stood up and turned off the fire beneath the pan.
Sitting back down she noticed me studying the array of pots, pans, utensils, and other cooking paraphernalia scattered throughout the kitchen, including the stuff that covered half of the table where the two of us, and Peanut, were sitting. She smiled and said, "There's probably a lot more to catering a large party than you realize."
I shook my head and told her I'd tried the catering business myself when I was in my thirties. When the president of the local Rotary Club nearly choked to death on a small clip-on earring I'd lost in the chicken casserole, I'd decided to give it up before I got embroiled in a negligent homicide lawsuit.
"I was very happy to get the earring back after another Rotary member performed the Heimlich maneuver on the guy," I told Georgia. "The earring was one of my favorites. It was from the best pair of fake diamond earrings I owned. As you can imagine, I was upset while the president was choking, thinking I'd just thrown ten bucks down the toilet. And ten bucks was a lot of money back in those days. But thankfully, the earring came shooting out of the fellow like lava out of a volcano."
Georgia laughed at my remark as if she thought I was joking. Nearly losing one of my favorite earrings, from a ten dollar pair at that, was not something I'd josh about, I wanted to tell her. Oh, and I should probably add that nearly killing a feller really wasn't a joking matter either.
After we'd covered everything on the list, I patted Georgia's hand, told her it had been a pleasure to meet her, and that I'd see her later on in the evening at the surprise birthday party. I wiggled my way off the chair I was sitting on by tenderly removing Peanut's head and paws from where they were draped over my lap. He'd been perched there for half an hour while I'd stroked his head. It wasn't that I was an avid dog-lover. The independence and low maintenance of cats appealed more to Rip and me. It was just that Peanut seemed way too large for me to want to tick off by not letting him lay his head wherever he chose to lay it.
Earlier I'd foolishly waved off Rip's offer to show me how to program the GPS to lead me back to the inn once it had reached it's original destination of the Piney residence. When I walked out the Piney's front door, I wasn't even sure which direction would return me to the Alexandria Inn. I very well might end up in Iowa, I thought to myself. I'd mindlessly followed the female voice's directions to get there instead of paying attention to the route she was taking me so I could retrace the steps without her guidance. The two-mile drive there had taken about five minutes. The drive back took considerably longer.
Unfortunately, my untrustworthy sense of direction was in full swing that morning. It took forty-eight minutes, three convenience-store stops for conflicting directions, seventeen wrong turns, one traffic warning for impeding traffic, two questionable U-turns, and a partridge in a pear tree, for me to get back to the inn. Oh, and did I mention the too-many-to-count rude hand gestures by other drivers?
Perhaps it was time to swallow my pride and have Rip sit me down and patiently explain how to work the damned silly gadget perched on the dashboard. It taunted me with its silence the entire trip back. It would have no doubt been snickering had it had the capability to do so.
* * *
"Lexie! Are you all right?" I asked frantically when I saw her face pale and her expression turn to one of horror. I had put my arm around her in case I needed to catch her if she fainted. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, no!"
"What? What's wrong, girl?" The guests were beginning to arrive and I'd have wondered if she'd just thought of something critical she'd forgotten to do in preparation for the party if not for the extreme panic on her face. Even a forgotten birthday cake wouldn't be that alarming.
"Look over there by the fireplace, Rapella."
"Okay," I scrutinized the young couple across the parlor from where we stood. All I saw was a beautiful woman and an extremely handsome man. If not for the fact that I was married and four decades older than the dapper dude, I might have wanted a piece of him for myself. "What am I looking for? A testosterone overdose victim?"
Before Lexie could respond, Wendy's best friend, Mattie Hill, came up behind us and gasped, "Oh, my God! I can't believe he'd show up at this party."
"You surely didn't invite him, did you?" Lexie asked. I was still staring at the cause of their apparent concern, looking him up and down several times to try to determine what the two women were so up in arms about. Then I looked the fellow up and down a few more times just for the pure pleasure of it.
"Of course not!" Mattie said. "Apparently he came as a guest of Joy White's. I didn't even know Joy was dating that piece of—"
"Crap! What are we going to do?" Lexie asked, cutting Maggie off. "Wendy will be uncomfortable around him, as will I, but we can hardly ask him to leave, can we?"
"I don't know. Joy was one of our closest high school friends, and since he's her date, she'd have to leave the party too. And I know Wendy would want Joy to be present to see her get engaged and all. Maybe she won't be too uncomfortable with Andy here, because you know he'll be right next to her most of the evening. If Trotter says anything lewd, crude, or threatening to Wendy, Andy will lay him out like nobody's business."
I could tell Mattie was trying to convince herself as much as Lexie that whatever was upsetting them would turn out to be a non-issue. "I need to pull Joy aside tonight and warn her about that jerk before he does something similar to her. If she doesn't have something like pepper spray or a stun gun with her, it could get ugly. He's athletic and Joy is too, but she's kind of a girly girl, so to speak."
I couldn't stand it any longer. I had to know what was wrong with the hunk who was now leaning against the grand piano in a pose that could have graced the cover of GQ Magazine. I read old issues of that magazine every time I was in the waiting room at Rip's audiologist's office. The photos in that magazine were definitely candy for the eye, even to an old bird like me. I may be a senior citizen but I wasn't blind. Not yet at least.
"What in heaven's name are you two squawking about? Why wouldn't Wendy want that feller here?" I finally asked.
"Trotter Hayes is the stepson of our chief of police. Right before Andy moved back here from South Carolina, Trotter stopped in at the coroner's office to pick up an autopsy report for Chief Smith. If you hadn't noticed, he's not hard to look at." Lexie was almost whispering as she spoke to me.
"Trust me, I noticed."
"He asked Wendy if she'd go out to supper with him. She thought no harm could come of going out for a meal with an old schoolmate she'd known for years. She had her eye on Andy already, but they weren't officially a couple at the time. Andy still lived in South Carolina while Wendy had an apartment in St. Joseph. So Wendy agreed to the date. No strings attached, Trotter had told her."
"Aha! I'm guessing
there was a 'string' he didn't tell her about," I said.
"Exactly!" Lexie replied with a nod. "When he took her home he tried to press himself on her to the point of ripping her brand new dress and yanking her undies half-way down her thighs. Trotter refused to take 'no' for an answer, saying he'd paid handsomely for her seafood supper, and that he was going to get what he had coming to him. Fortunately, she had always promised me she'd never leave home without a can of pepper spray in her purse. She was able to get to it and sprayed him squarely in the eyes. Then Wendy called 9-1-1 while he was pawing at his face."
"Good for her!" I said. "Sounds to me like he got what he had coming to him after all."
Then Mattie cut in with her opinion. "Well, it was a start, but not even close to what he deserved to get for such an assault. I think Wendy should have kneed him in the nuggets while he was rubbing his eyes. You know, just to make a point."
"I agree!" Lexie and I said in stereo. I glanced back at Trotter Hayes, who was staring at the piano lid as if admiring his own reflection in the luster of the shiny paint. He reached up and adjusted a small tuft of sun-streaked hair draped over his forehead so that it hung seductively over his left eye. I suddenly thought he was the ugliest creature I'd ever laid eyes on. Crazy how one's perspective could change so drastically in a matter of thirty seconds.
"So what happened next?" I asked. I'm ashamed to admit that when it came to juicy stories like this one, I wanted to hear all the gritty, gory, or even x-rated details.
"Our good friend, Detective Wyatt Johnston, recognized Wendy's address when the call came in, and he was the first to respond to it. The police department tossed Trotter in the tank for the night, and Stone took Wendy to the police department to file a complaint. Chief Leonard Smith and I have had disagreements in the past, so we decided it was best if I didn't join them. But as it were, it didn't matter anyway. The chief argued bitterly with the mayor, but the entire incident was ultimately swept under the rug and the jerk was released the next morning."
A Rip Roaring Good Time Page 4