Take It Off the Menu

by Hovland, Christina

  “She said two hours.” Jase pointed a finger at Eli. “She said two hours and that was three hours and thirty minutes ago.”

  Still not anything to be flipped out about. Eli would give Marlee a call, she’d answer, all would be good. He set the tray of empanadas aside, washed his hands, grabbed his cell, and dialed Marlee’s number.

  “Hi, I’m not available right now…” Marlee’s voice said through the speaker. Eli pressed the end button. Shit.

  “Where were they going?” he asked Jase.

  “Officially?” Jase asked, his voice getting high-pitched at the end. “The museum for a delivery.”

  “That’s like thirty minutes away,” Eli pointed out. It would take an hour of driving. Add in any stops along the way and they just got distracted. This was Marlee—she liked to hand out free coffee to the homeless and stop in at Neiman Marcus to window shop.

  “Unofficially? She’s Babushka. Who the hell knows where she’s going to abscond with your wife?” Jase’s voice got faster and faster toward the end.

  “I don’t have a wife tracker on her, what do you want me to do?” Eli asked. He wasn’t worried yet, but he tilted on the precipice of concern.

  “Help me find her.” Jase grabbed his own phone from his pocket and started dialing numbers. “I’ll call Brek and Dean, we’ll get a search party started.”

  Heather breezed through the door. “Any updates?”

  “Not yet.” Jase was still fussing with his phone. “I’m calling the guys. We’ll start looking by zone.”

  “Has anyone called the retirement home?” Eli asked. “Where Babushka lives?”

  Start at the epicenter and then work outward from there.

  Jase and Heather both stared at him a beat.

  “On it,” Heather said first.

  She started dialing numbers, turning her back to them.

  “Man, for a dude who got so pissed off that I stole your wife, you’re remarkably calm about the fact that she’s with Babushka,” Jase said.

  “Well, you stole her from me. Babushka stole her from you. All’s fair when it comes to Marlee,” Eli said, a tiny part of him reveling in the knowledge that Jase lost her, too—even if it was only for the afternoon.

  “Fuck that.” Jase continued texting God-knew-who. “She’s the best florist I’ve ever had. Do you know she has her own clients now? They won’t even let me touch their arrangements, it has to be Marlee. She can’t get stolen by my grandmother, arrested, and tossed into the middle of Babushka’s latest bullshit. She’ll quit and I’ll have to do it all myself again.”

  “She’s at the retirement home,” Heather said, clearly relieved.

  “What the fuck is she doing there?” Jase scowled.

  Being stolen by his Babushka, if Eli had to chance a guess.

  “Arts and crafts,” Heather added. “They said she’s in the arts and crafts room.”

  “She’s supposed to be at work.” Jase marched out the door. “Not doing arts and crafts at the senior home.”

  “Maybe it is work.” Eli followed him, locking the door behind them.

  Jase harrumphed.

  The retirement community was only a block away, so they were hoofing it. Heather hurried to keep up with Jase. Eli lagged behind, enjoying the franticness of Jase about to lose his best floral designer to Babushka and the arts and crafts room of the senior center.

  “You”—Jase pointed at him—“are being way too calm about this.”

  “It’s because he doesn’t know the damage Babushka can cause.” Heather kept her pace up, the retirement community building in sight. “He’s only been on the sidelines. Never in the middle.”

  Eli moved past them, holding the door for Heather. Letting it close before Jase came in.

  “The art room is this way.” Heather led the way, waving at the front desk lady as they passed.

  An old man sat sentry at the door. He’d flipped his walker around, using it as a stool. “Sorry, you can’t go in. They’re busy.”

  “Harry, you have to let me through.” Heather started to go in straight past him.

  Harry stood, wobbling a tad on the way up. “Nope.”

  The two of them started arguing. Eli took that as an opportunity to slip around Harry and go through the door.

  Jase was already in the room, a stunned expression on his face.

  “How’d you get in here…?”

  A dozen elderly women—and Marlee—were threading together what appeared to be decently large orange silicone penises with some kind of fishing line.

  Eli’s expression must’ve mirrored Jase’s.

  “I’m not even sure what to do with this,” he said to no one in particular and everyone all at once.

  “Hey, honey.” Marlee held one up to Eli, gripping the shaft so the tip pointed toward the ceiling. “It’s arts and crafts at the senior center.”

  “You’re supposed to be at work.” Jase glowered. “We have customers.”

  “Looks like she is at work.” Eli avoided looking at the way Marlee held the shaft of the orange penis. His dick was starting to get a little jealous.

  “You told me to watch your grandmother and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. This is me doing my job.” Marlee clipped off the end of the thick fishing line she’d run through the rubber balls. She handed the dick to the woman on her left. The white-haired woman grabbed hold of the shaft and spun it over her head like a pair of dildo nunchucks.

  “These are good.” She dropped them into a box at the end of the table.

  “Whoa.” Heather finally got through Harry at the door. “Why didn’t anyone call me?”

  “Ven you give me great-grandbabies, I vill tell you things.” Babushka didn’t use scissors to cut the thread on her own penis nunchucks. She bit it off with her teeth. “Also, you vould have told this one.” She shoved her thumb toward Jase.

  “Well, now he knows. What are we making?” Heather sat next to Marlee, grabbing a penis by its orange shaft and ignoring the grandbabies comment.

  “Tree decorations,” Marlee said.

  “Marlee tells us vat her fiancé does. Ve vill decorate his trees,” Babushka said like this was a totally normal thing to do. “Two days and he calls off the vedding? He is bad man. Bad men get their trees decorated.”

  “It was all Babushka’s idea.” Marlee tilted her head toward Jase’s grandmother.

  “Mar.” Eli shook his head. “I really don’t want to bail you out of jail today.”

  “Technically, they’re my trees, too. And they can’t arrest me for hanging dildos from my own trees. I’m pretty sure there’s a law about that.”

  “Tell me you got legal advice before you jumped in on this.” Eli rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

  “Sadie said not to get caught.” Marlee did the one-shoulder-shrug thing she did right before she made bad decisions. Pole dancing, marrying him, hanging dildos from her ex’s trees. “But she said if we do get caught, they’re my trees, so we won’t get in trouble. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want the ladies to go rogue without me. I’m their get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  “For fuck’s sake.” Jase sat next to his grandmother. “Don’t do this. Can’t you go back to that game you ladies play with the flyswatters and the balloons?”

  “No.” Babushka bopped him on the nose with an orange penis.

  Eli had seen some weird shit in his years on this planet. But he’d never, never expected to see Babushka bop his buddy on the nose with a giant orange dick. The laugh bubbled up his throat; he only wished he’d caught it on video.

  “Holy crap.” Heather’s mouth was open wide. “Your grandmother just whacked you with a dildo.”

  Jase turned pale, then pink. He stood, knocking over the metal folding chair so it collapsed. Stumbling to pick it up—but struggling as it fell open, then closed—Jase finally laid it against the table edge. His chest heaved.

  “Eli, looks like you’ve got this under control. I’m going back to work.” Jase beat
it to the exit, knocking over another chair in his hurry.

  Eli had nothing under control in this situation, but it was fucking funny, so he wasn’t going to go back to his empanadas just yet.

  “You’re still paying me for this,” Marlee yelled after Jase. “I’m still at work.”

  Jase didn’t respond.

  “He’s still paying me,” Marlee said to the room, her gaze landing on Eli.

  “Of course, he is.” Babushka stood to examine the handiwork of her minions. “You are vorking. He pays you for vork.”

  “Are you going to help?” Marlee asked Eli, grabbing another set of dildos from the box at the end of the white folding table. She set them out, giving him a pointed glance.

  Well, he couldn’t let her get arrested on her own, could he? And really, Scotty deserved to have to figure out how to get dildo nunchucks out of his tree.

  “Show me how it’s done, Mar.” He pulled a chair beside her, ready to go full dildo on Scotty’s trees.

  * * *

  There was probably something in the guidelines of the homeowner’s association about tossing fake penises on the trees at her house. Marlee didn’t care. Scotty’s face when he woke up would make any HOA issues minute.

  She punched in her after-hours security code for the gate, pulled her SUV through, and waited for Eli to follow in his Jeep. Right on cue, the night security guard stepped out of the gatehouse.

  “Ms. Medford,” he said. “Welcome home.”

  The security guards said the same thing every time she entered the gate. This time, she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from correcting him. This was most definitely not her home.

  Her home was now her temporary digs at Eli’s.

  The temporary part made her throat go thick. So she did what she always did—ignored it and rolled with the life that was handed to her. This was the latest step in her if-life-would-just-go-back-to-normal-that-would-be-fab plan. Who knew which step she was on at this point? She’d stopped counting.

  “The Jeep is with me.” She glanced into her rearview mirror. Eli was still there. Not that he could’ve gone anywhere in the short amount of time she’d spoken with the guard. Lately, she found that she checked to ensure he was there more and more. Like he would, poof, disappear and she’d be all alone.

  Heather sat in the passenger seat of Marlee’s SUV with two of Babushka’s friends in the backseat. Eli had Babushka and two more with him.

  Eli also had the dildo contraband in a box under a black tarp in the backseat.

  Marlee pulled down the private tree-lined street toward her old house. She waited for the sadness she’d expected when she’d decided to come back tonight.

  There was no heavy feeling tonight, though. She felt light. Happy. Ready to do this thing.

  “Are we doing the front or the back?” Heather asked, staring out the window. She’d tried to convince Jase to tag along. Insisted that he had a special skillset that would be helpful. What that skillset was, Marlee wasn’t entirely certain.

  He declined with colorful language about hard limits and his grandmother whacking him with sex toys.

  “We’re doing the backyard,” Marlee replied. If they did the front, they’d definitely get caught by the night guards. Which meant they were stuck decorating the two aspen trees and the oak tree in the back.

  Scotty slept hard. By this time of night, he’d probably downed two Unisom, passed out on the sofa, and wouldn’t move until around seven a.m.—if every evening they’d spent together over the past two years was any indication. They only had to cover the security cameras in the back—Babushka had plans for those—and avoid the motion sensors for the light on the back door.

  Marlee turned on to the street where she’d lived. The driveway at her house was full, and the street was lined with cars as well.

  All the lights were on.

  She took a sharp breath.

  Either Scotty didn’t take his Unisom or he was sleeping through quite the party. Her stomach twisted, bile starting to rise up in her throat. She was pretty sure he hadn’t taken the Unisom.

  The french fries with dinner were suddenly a horrible idea.

  “This isn’t possible,” she whispered.

  Scotty never liked it when she entertained. Hated it when she had too many friends over. Threw a fit when things got too loud or went too late.

  “Looks like Scotty isn’t asleep,” Heather murmured.

  No, it didn’t look that way. Scotty was having a party.

  Marlee’s heart fell. She loved parties. Loved having friends over. She itched all over to pop inside, make herself, well…at home…and enjoy the company.

  “He’s always asleep by now.” Marlee crept her car toward their house.

  Her Scotty was always asleep, yet here he was, living it up in her house. Officially, it was their house, but he was supposed to be mourning the demise of their relationship, not throwing the party he’d never let her have without loads of guilt and a ton of compromise.

  Her breath skipped over the pale blue Mercedes parked nearest to the door. Her former friend Brittney’s car.

  There was Toby’s. And Madison’s.

  Jeffrey’s.

  Holy shit. They were all here. The ones who had avoided her for weeks.

  Numbness settled over her breastbone, down her spine. She wasn’t an idiot. She totally understood that they were just putting her off all this time. She totally got that they didn’t want to spend time with someone who had no money to pay for things. But having it tossed in her face this way made her really want to throw some orange Halloween dicks at them.

  When Marlee had asked Brittney to hang out, Brittney told her she was in Tahiti for the month. Toby was in Ireland. Jeff worked late every night at his chain of bath salt stores.

  Apparently, Brittney and Toby could catch a flight home for Scotty’s party. And Jeff didn’t need to sell salt scrubs at midnight anymore.

  “Are you okay?” Heather asked.

  Marlee’s recommitment to dildoing the trees was strong. “Fine. The fact that my ex-fiancé dumped me and then took all my friends means nothing.”

  Heather squeezed Marlee’s arm. “You have better friends now.”

  Deep down, Marlee knew that, but up at the surface? Tonight? Betrayal wasn’t a strong enough word.

  She drove along the road, parking in front of Mrs. Morris’s place. The lights in that house were off. Mrs. Morris had either had her own sleeping pill or she was over at Marlee’s house.

  Car in park, Marlee swallowed her feelings like a good girl. Eli pulled in behind her and got out of the Jeep. His reflection in her rearview mirror acted as a reassurance that Scotty may have gotten everything that didn’t matter when they broke up, but she’d found someone who really did.

  The thought made her pause.

  Shit.

  Was she falling for Eli Howard? She could not be falling for Eli Howard.

  Eli who never made commitments. Eli who had divorce papers drawn up and ready within days of their marriage. Eli who would break her heart when their ninety days were up if she wasn’t careful.

  Her stomach turned over on itself again. She pushed open the car door to step outside.

  She couldn’t be falling in love with Eli, she hadn’t even had a rebound fling yet.

  “Marlee?” Heather asked, eyes soft, voice gentle. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” She was only falling in love with the guy who had the power to totally decimate the remains of her tattered heart.

  “She’s got man trouble,” Dottie announced, extracting herself from the backseat. “I can see it in her eyes.”

  “Who has man trouble?” Babushka stage-whispered from directly beside Marlee.

  Marlee about jumped out of her Christian Louboutin black leather ankle boots. Where the hell had the woman come from?

  “No one,” Heather whispered back a touch too quickly.

  “It’s never no von.” Babushka pulled a ski mask over her face. “Is
it Etta again? I vill talk to her.”

  They’d all dressed in black. The old women all brought along ski masks, which Marlee found hysterical and frightening at the same time. Frightening because of the fact that they had them already, and it was pretty clear that none of them were skiers, what with the canes and the walkers.

  “Do we need ski masks?” Heather asked.

  “You should’ve brought them if you need them,” Babushka replied.

  “I’ve got a box of dicks I’d like to unload.” Eli strode beside Babushka. “You think we can move this party along?”

  “Everybody shush,” Heather insisted.

  Not that it mattered, Scotty’s party was in full swing. As long as he and his friends didn’t go on the back patio, Operation Dicks in Trees could still happen.

  “It vill be fine.” Babushka patted Marlee’s shoulder before she marched up the street to Marlee’s old house without waiting for a reply.

  “What will be fine?” Eli asked.

  “Nothing.” Marlee clicked the lock button on the key fob and stuffed it in her bra. She scurried to keep up with Heather. They’d left Lothario at home this time, not wanting to risk his barking or attack-straddling any of Scotty’s sweaters. She unlatched the gate, checking that Scotty’s party was of the inside variety.

  It was.

  The back patio was totally silent. Babushka and Etta made quick work of covering the cameras. Then they motioned for everyone else to come through the gate.

  Babushka grabbed a set of nunchucks from Eli’s box, swung it over her head, and let it rip. It landed perfectly over one of the top branches of Marlee’s favorite aspen tree.

  “It’s almost like they’ve done this before,” Heather whispered.

  Marlee wasn’t sure that made her feel better. But it was like her shenanigans with Sadie, Becca, and Kellie, so it felt like coming home. And not because she’d actually lived here for years.

  The rest of the elderly women grabbed their own dicks and followed Babushka’s lead unloading the decorations. Dottie went to work shoving them in the soft earth where Marlee used to plant flowers in the spring. Instead of mums, snapdragons, and petunias, there were now bright orange penises lining the edge of the walkway.