“I thought for a minute you were going to invite me to sleep on your couch.” He smiled. Tranmer’s a smoothie. “But that’s a good idea. I’ll put my bags on Nat’s boat.”
Tranmer whirled me around the dance floor and, whether or not he planned it that way, he concluded our number exactly where we’d started just as the band played the last note of the song. Either he got lucky or he knows some secret dancing voodoo.
“Hey, save a dance for me,” Hagen said once we’d all reconvened at our hay bale headquarters. “Would you like a drink?” he asked and motioned toward the very busy bar area.
“Ginger ale, if you please.” And with that, Hagen’s perfectly shiny, perfectly parted jet-black hair disappeared into the throngs. When he returned, his respite was short lived, and a buzz on his phone, like the bat signal, was his call to action. I held his drink while he took the call.
“Mmhmm… Mmhmm… Really? Ok… I’ll be there in fifteen, no, twenty minutes. I have to change,” he said and returned the phone to the holster on his belt. “Sorry, I have to go. I owe you.”
I nodded. “It’s ok, I understand. I’ll take a handwriting sample for my class.” I smiled, hopeful that maybe his scrawl would reveal in him an imperfection or two I’d find irresistible.
“You’ll get home ok?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll thumb a ride.”
Hagen cocked his head and gave me scolding eyes.
“I mean I’ll get a ride with the gang.”
“Ok,” and with that he was off, practically galloping through the crowd.
Ags nudged me with that bony elbow of hers. “What’s going on?”
I shrugged. “Work, I guess.”
And so, I sat out the next two undanceable songs with Ags. Leaning on the bales of hay, people watching, and guessing how old Granny Fleet’s boyfriend might be. The band struck up another ballad. I recognized the first few notes of “You were Always on my Mind” and watched as the gang seemed to naturally pair up with the Gee Spotters and Ags. I was left standing shoulder to shoulder with Bugsy.
It took me by complete surprise when he reached over and took my hand and, without a word, led me to the dance floor.
CHAPTER 9
“So, did you talk to Tranmer about Bugsy staying on the boat?” Ags asked.
“Not exactly. Last night didn’t seem like the time. But I will,” I said, sort of lying, sort of not. “He’s staying on the boat for a bit. He didn’t want to cramp Jack’s style, what with Lisa around.” Again, sort of lying sort of not, but I didn’t want to get into a whole big thing about everyone’s housing issues in the produce section of Mack’s Foodland.
“Ok, cool. I think Bugsy has until the end of the month, though. Hey, what do you think Russ would like better? Chicken Kiev or Beef Wellington?”
“I think he’d be content with a hotdog.” I smirked as I carried my basket around the impressively large produce section.
Ags peeked into my grocery basket. “Ugh, I can’t believe you eat that stuff.”
“What?” I asked, looking down at the contents of my basket and wondering just what she was judging so harshly—the kale or the whipped cream in a can—which by the way I feed my cat. I reached to squeeze the summit of a mountain of avocados and looked up to find Ags, but instead Lisa Claire caught my eye. Her unmistakably high teased and dyed hair made her easy to catch. She was perusing the cart of discounted vegetables. Little pink stickers are used to let the cashier know it’s marked down 30%. She didn’t see me, and I didn’t let on that I’d seen her either. I strained my peripheral muscles to watch as she daintily peeled pink stickers off wilting heads of lettuce and bananas dying a slow brown death. I’d never seen anyone do that and wondered just what she was up to until my eyes followed her to the meat section. She leaned into the cooler and pulled out a few cuts of meat, and then she proceeded to nonchalantly pull a pink discount sticker from up her sleeve and smooth it onto the meat she placed in her mini cart. It was engrossing, to say the least, and I looked around, wondering if anyone else had seen her do it.
“Ready? I chose chicken,” I heard from behind me.
“Hmmm?” Ags had jolted me from this episode of the Lisa Show. “Sure. Yeah, let’s go.” My words were quick.
“What’s the matter? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I might be. Let’s check out,” I said, and we made a beeline for the shortest check-out line. You can probably guess how that went.
“So? What gives?” Ags asked once we were outside near the cart return.
“I saw Lisa in there,” I said, looking back toward the doors to the store.
“Lisa? Jack’s booty call Lisa?”
“Something like that.”
“Did she talk to you?”
“She didn’t see me. But if I were stealing from the grocery store, I probably wouldn’t wave to all my friends either.”
“What friends?” Ags smirked. “And what do you mean stealing? You saw her stealing? She shove a roast down her pants?”
“Not quite. But there’s no other word for it. She took the pink stickers off the old produce and put them on the meat she put in her cart.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Ags, if I was going to make up a story, it’d be a lot more interesting than that.”
“But—"
“Shhhhh,” I said.
“What ‘shhhh’?”
“There she is. Turn around,” I said and whirred Ags by the arm so her back faced the sticker swapper. When we turned, Lisa was walking away from the store with a little cart.
“Hey,” I said lowly, “you, uh, wanna follow her?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Alex, it’s bad karma.”
“Karma, shmarma. Look, Russ can wait for his dinner.”
Ags pulled her phone from her back pocket and looked at the screen. “Ok, ten minutes.”
“Ok, ten minutes… or so,” I said. “She lives over in Brentwood Court. That’s going to be a long walk with those groceries she’s got,” I said and hopped in Nat’s truck. I’d been daring enough to take it out with a little moral support from my friend.
“Brentwood? Well, hoity toity. Isn’t that where Officer Handsome lives?” Ags asked, buckling up.
“Hagen. Yeah.”
As we moved down Main Street, I was surprised to see Lisa Claire make a left on Mergl. “Where the heck is she going?” I asked my partner.
“If she’s going to Brentwood, she sure is taking the scenic route,” Ags grumbled.
“Odd,” I mumbled, transfixed by her movements.
I parked the truck at the corner of Mergl and Vine and we watched as Lisa walked into the driveway of the Vine Street Inn.
“The Vine?” Ags turned to me with a scrunched-up expression. “Seriously?”
I pulled up on the door handle of the truck.
“You’re going to follow her?”
“Of course not. I’m going in the office. I just want to check this out. If she lied to Jack, I’ll—“
“Cool your jets there, sista. What do you want me to do?”
“Just honk if you see her headed my way,” I said and hoped that the horn actually worked.
“Ten-four. Be careful in there,” Ags said and popped a few grapes from her grocery haul into her mouth.
Even in the brief time I’d lived in Marysville, I’d learned the reputation of the Vine Street Inn. It was somewhere between a cheap tourist motel and a flop house. It had changed hands recently and, while most people in town hoped the thing would be razed, so far the only change was that the grass had been cut. One of the last and most unfortunate examples of 1970s architecture was still intact, barely. When I looked up at the soffits at the entrance to the office, the aluminum flashing was stained grey from spider crap and maintenance put off too long. I cringed when I pulled on the door handle; an unidentified sticky residue was my reward fo
r that lapse in judgement.
Unlike at Aggie’s, where a ringing bell above the door cheerily greets you, upon entering the lobby of the Vine, one must duck with cat-like reflexes to dodge the amber-colored strips of sticky fly paper on each side of the lobby. They were being whirled around by the oscillating fan on the desk straight ahead. I felt the pull on a strand of the hair in my high ponytail and turned to see it waving goodbye to me amid the collection of dusty, decaying carcasses on the flytrap. To the right, there was a small stand of brochures and maps that looked like they hadn’t been touched in ages. I even noticed a few pamphlets for places I was sure had closed down. Behind the paneled desk ahead, there was a man angled toward a television. He glanced up fleetingly. Maybe he thought I was a mirage or someone hopelessly lost who would just go away.
To the left of the entrance on the water-stained wall was what I shall loosely refer to as artwork. It was, however, like a train wreck, and I found that I simply couldn’t look away. There he was, painted on velvet. Elvis. The king of rock and roll, and Jesus was standing beside him like his back-up singer. Each figure had a full-body halo. Elvis was clad in his black leather outfit from the ’68 comeback special—my personal favorite Elvis era by the way—while JC was wearing a white smock with gold trim and over that he wore an orange robe with a lightning bolt emblazoned across it, a nod to Elvis’ taking care of business schtick. I strained to look, but there was no signature in the bottom corner. Apparently, no one was fessing up to creating this monstrosity. There was, however, a little brass plaque attached to the frame. “The King and King of Kings.” Poetic in its own way.
“What do you think of it?” asked the person suddenly beside me. I turned to see the man who had been behind the counter had abandoned whatever was on the tube. To be honest, he wasn’t what I’d have expected to see there. He was a trim man, not quite six feet, wearing a light blue oxford button-down shirt and black jeans with a black leather belt. I’d peg him at sixty or so, and I’d bet he was the cleanest thing in the place. His grey hair was smartly parted to the side, he was tanned, smelled good, and the stubble on his cheeks looked intentionally trendy.
“Hmm?” I asked, still a little mesmerized by EP and JC.
“The picture. It’s something, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it’s something,” I said, smiling the phony smile I normally reserve for the new teller-in-training at the bank.
“You looking for a room?”
“Uh, no. I’m looking for a friend of mine. I think she’s staying here, and I was wondering if you could tell me which room she’s in.”
“I can tell you if she’s registered. What’s the name?”
“Lisa Claire.”
The man gave me a funny look before he met my eyes and answered without checking the reservation system… assuming there was one. “Oh, you’re friends with Lee, huh? I think I just saw her walk up the promenade. She’s got a shift coming up.”
The promenade? I thought, briefly wondering how a dump like the Vine had a promenade, but more importantly… a shift? “Oh, is that today? Damn, I must have forgotten. What time does she get done?”
“Well, she’s got to clean about a dozen rooms and do the laundry before she can go out with her gal pals,” he said and shot me a wink. “If you stick around, though…” He looked me up and down as his words trailed off. “She sometimes brings in donuts.”
“Oh, no thanks,” I said, patting my stomach. “Gotta watch my figure.”
“It’s no trouble. She gets ‘em from some other gig she’s got at the bakery. You really a friend of hers?” He sounded skeptical.
“Oh yeah, we go way back. I guess I’ll try her later,” I said and, as I turned to leave, I was surprised when Aggie pulled on the door. She was supposed to be on getaway car detail.
“Hi. So, Lisa’s got to work. We should come back later,” I said to Ags with pleading eyes, pushing her toward the door, hoping she’d get my drift. She usually does.
“Hey!” the man called to us as we turned to leave.
“Yes?” we said in unison.
“Who should I say stopped by?”
As my eyes met with Aggie’s, I froze. I hadn’t expected to be asked the question for some reason.
Ags spoke up, “Oh yeah. My name is Zelda Fauntleroy and this is Euphegenia Coddlesworth,” she said with all seriousness, and I still wonder to this day how she’d done it.
“Euphenia—“ the man began to say.
“Euphegenia,” Ags clarified while I stared at the floor and held my breath to keep from bursting out laughing.
“You, uh, sure you don’t need a place to stay?”
“Who, us? No, no. Oh, hey, we’d love it if you didn’t mention it to Lisa. We want to surprise her when we see her,” Ags added and pushed herself out the door.
“Yeah, sure. You’re coming back, right?”
I nodded, turned, and dodged the flypaper on my way out like a boxer bobbing and weaving before I hit my getaway stride.
“Thanks a lot, Zelda!” I said, once we were well on our way back to the truck.
“What? I was under pressure. You didn’t want me to give our real names, did you? You said Jack Junior’s head over heels for her, and if she finds out you’re stalking her...”
“I’m not stalking her. We’re stalking her, and you certainly could have come up with a better name for me than frigging Euphegenia!”
“Look, we’re never going to see that guy again,” Ags said, plunking herself down in the passenger seat of the truck and pulling the door closed. “So? What’d you find out?” she asked.
“She works there. Housecleaning.”
Ags nodded. “Technically, she works for the Maxi Maid company.” Ags lobbed the fact at me like we were playing a verbal game of tennis.
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw her while you were in there and she came out with the Maxi Maid pink uniform. You know, with the big M in script on the left.”
“Well, she’s a busy gal. She also cleans the bakery,” I said.
“How’d you figure that out?”
I flitted my eyes. “The new man in my life told me. And I wonder…”
“Wonder what?”
“Well, what do you think the odds are that she also cleans the pharmacy? I mean, just out of curiosity,” I thought out loud and bit my lip.
“Alex.” Ags said my name in an angry schoolteacher tone I rarely hear from her.
“What?”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit of a stretch?”
As my thoughts raced, I struggled to remember the driving lesson Bugsy had given me, and the truck lurched.
“Easy, woman,” Ags griped. “So, you really think she robbed the bakery?”
“I didn’t say that, did I?” I turned the truck into the parking lot on State, parked, and rifled through my all-purpose bag. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. Maybe it was the way the man from the Vine looked at me when I asked about Lisa or maybe I just wanted someone to confirm what Ags had seen.
“What are you doing?”
I found my phone and tapped it once to speak into the microphone. “Get me the number for Maxi Maid’s head office.”
The phone assistant responded, “Getting the number for Max Lawrence.”
I looked at the phone incredulously and let out a heavy sigh and tapped it again, enunciating the next words with the precision of an ESL teacher. “Get me the number for Maxi Maid Cleaners head office.”
“Getting the number for Maxi Maid Cleaners,” came the voice from within the phone. Sometimes I swear she just likes playing games with me.
When the number came up, I hit the call button.
“What are you doing?” Ags asked.
I held up a finger for her to cool her jets.
“Maxi Maid, how may I direct your call?”
“Could I have the HR department, please?” I said and tapped the button to put the phone on speaker.
“One moment.”
“HR department, Nicole speaking,” the voice interrupted the pitch.
“Hi, Nicole. How are you?”
“Um, fine,” came a suspicious response. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yeah, I’m calling from AMM Credit Company and I’d like to do an employment check on one of your cleaners.”
“Hang on, let me log into that part of the system.”
“Thanks.”
There was a brief pause. “Ok, would be nice if they integrated this system one day. It’s not like we don’t spend enough money on IT… Sorry about that. What’s the name?”
“Let’s see here,” I said, pretending to be going over paperwork. “Lisa Claire, resides in Marysville if that helps.”
“How do you spell that last name?”
“Charlie lima alpha indigo Romeo echo. Claire.”
I heard some tapping on the end of the line. “Sorry, we have no one working for us by that name.”
“Are you sure? It says right on her credit app that she works for Maxi Maid.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure. As much as you think that every woman wants to list her career as that of cleaner of all things, I can assure you that we have no Lisa Claire currently employed. We also have no Princess Kate or duchesses on staff. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Nicole said, and I wondered at what precise date she was going to go postal.
“Thank you, Nicole. Take care,” I said and ended the call. I looked at Ags across the bench seat.
“What are you gonna do?” she asked.
“I have no idea.”
CHAPTER 10
When Ags and I arrived back at the marina, Russ Shears—I’ll stick with that name for now—was waiting for her, and Bugsy was with him.
“Now there’s a couple of good lookin’ guys,” Ags said, and she got that dreamy high school girl smile on her face.
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