Mother had told me Big Eddie lived in the staff quarters. Had his own tiny bachelor apartment in exchange for bi-weekly golf lessons and generally taking care of a few things around the Wildoh. Not all the employees had apartments on the premises, but Big Eddie was more than a golf instructor. He was kind of a social director at the Wildoh, from what I’d heard. This was Florida, and most staff were young and transient. But Big Eddie had been with the Wildoh for a while now.
“Who’s the little lady?”
I waited for someone to answer.
Oh me.
I extended my hand. Please just shake it. Please just shake it.
He wiped his hands on his pants, depositing the bit of white powder there that had to be from a sugar donut, held my dangling fingers a little too long in his damp grip, then pulled my hand forward and kissed it loudly.
“Dix Dodd,” I said, pulling my hand back and fighting like hell to keep from wiping it on my jeans. It wasn’t an Eddie thing. It was a slobber thing. “Pleased to meet you, Edward.”
“Please call me Big Eddie. Heavy on the big.”
Men in polyester pants shouldn’t say those things.
“Are you moving in to the Wildoh?” he asked. “I know they’ve been renovating the C Complex. Fixing up some cute little places there. Are you looking at one of those apartments?”
Okay, that’s it — I wiped my hand on my pants. He didn’t notice. Crap. I hardly thought I looked old enough for a retirement home. After all, wasn’t forty the new thirty?
Mrs. Presley laughed out loud. “Well, there you go, Dix. Nice little retirement home all ready for you.”
“This is my daughter, Big Eddie. She and Jane,” Mother nodded towards Mrs. P, “are staying with me for a few days.”
“Well, that’s just lovely. But are you sure she’s not your sister, Katt?”
“I’m sure Big Eddie.”
Mother wouldn’t blush in a million years, but she grinned a Cheshire cat grin. I had to admit, Big Eddie was a charmer with the ladies. With the older ladies.
“Good Heavens,” Harriet hmphed again. “Edward, you’re full of yourself again this morning, I see.”
He chuckled, but a little too deeply with just a tad too much time between the ha-ha’s. There was no love lost in either direction.
“Harriet, dear, you’re looking well this morning.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why it is that you think you have to flirt with every woman who comes into the Wildoh is beyond me.” She glared at my mother. “And especially those of … the criminal persuasion.”
What the f —
“Now, just wait a minute,” I said. “My mother is not a criminal. She’d not guilty of anything. From what I hear, there’s nothing but circumstantial evidence and unfounded rumors floating around. That’s hardly a conviction in my books.”
Mother put a cautioning hand on my arm. Or maybe it was an appreciating one.
“Oh, I’m surely not interested in your books, Ms. Dodd.”
It took me a minute to realize she was referring to my erotica. Or my supposed erotica.
“Well, maybe if you’d get the broom handle extracted from you backside, you would be.”
Well, that shut her up. In fact, that shut everyone up. Except for Tish, that is. She snorted a laugh.
Wiggie squirmed in his seat.
“Now, ladies, please,” Big Eddie said. “Let’s not have any more craziness around here. We’re all just under a bit of pressure with the … things going missing and such.” His eyes more than slid to my mother before quickly sliding away. Why the hell was everyone thinking my mother guilty? There had been no trial! There was no evidence against her! It was that damned Frankie Morell. This was all his fault, with that disappearing act he’d pulled.
“Big Eddie’s right,” Mona said. “We’re all just tense and—”
“Some of us more so than others.” I glared at Harriet as I said this.
“Why don’t we all just cool down?” Mona jumped from her seat. “I know! I’ll grab the crib board. Nothing like a good old-fashioned crib game to ease the tension. You know fifteen-two, fifteen-four—”
Her crib talk was interrupted — loudly and strangely musically — by a car horn. One of those musical ones like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard. But this one didn’t play those few notes from Dixieland. The driver of this vehicle played a few unmistakable sounds from a Rod Stewart tune. And if the leaping and squealing of the ladies at the table was any thing to judge by, yes, they did want his body and thought him sexy.
“It’s him!” Beth Mary shouted. She tipped her chair over and left it on the floor as she raced to the picture window, thumbing her teeth back in as she went.
“Who?” Mrs. Presley asked, but she herself was already on her way across the room. “Him who?”
Tish grabbed under her boobs, adjusted them left-right-center in one deft motion. “Lance-a-Lot. Golf lessons were yesterday; ball retrieval today.”
“Oh.”
Mona grabbed Mrs. P by the hand, ‘Come on, you got to get a look at our Lance.”
Even Big Eddie sauntered his way over to the window.
“It’s time for us to go, Wiggie.” Harriet grabbed her husband by the shoulder (and I couldn’t help but wonder what she grabbed him by when they were home).
For all that, Harriet was taking her sweet time leaving. And with each step, she craned rotated her neck around just a little more until I thought she might snap it clear around (and if there was one demon-possessed woman in that room, my money was on her).
“Leaving so soon, Harriet?” Mother asked sweetly.
Harriet stopped short. “I am not going to lower myself to your level of entertainment, Katt.” She spat my mother’s name out as if it spoiled in her mouth. She waved a flustered hand to the window. “And this … this … spectesticle I do not need to see.”
She practically pushed poor Wiggie through the door and it swung firmly shut behind her.
I leaned in to Mom, “Did she say spectesticle? Now there’s a slip of the tongue.”
Mom looked up at me, trying to give me a genuine smile, and it broke my heart that she didn’t quite pull it off.
As if on cue, the doors swung open again. A dozen other women came rushing into the room. Some said hello to Mom, others — very obviously — did not. Chairs began to fill up as the women, and yes, Big Eddie too, took their seats in front of the window. Seven or so more ladies strolled to the front of the building and claimed the lawn chairs there.
“Got a chair right here for you, Katt. Right beside me,” Mona yelled, and I felt the relief flowing off my mother.
Mona Roberts was definitely going on my Christmas card list. Which brought that list to a grand total of … one.
Mom led me along by the arm. “You’ve got to see this, Dix!”
She took her seat beside Mona, and I stood beside my mother’s chair. All eyes were forward focused, looking out the window waiting for this Lance guy to clean the lake. I scanned the crowd of anxious faces.
Okay, like how boring was this place? There they sat, a group of senior woman and Big Eddie looking out the window as if Frank Sinatra himself were going to jump out of that truck. They leaned forward, they grinned widely. Why, you’d never catch me acting like that. No chance in hell. Not in a million years. Not in a —
“Oh my God!” There was a high-pitched squeal.
That was from me.
Lance-a-Lot got out of the truck. He was average height I supposed — just under six feet tall. His black hair looked almost blue with the sunlight on it. He was tanned, muscular, and wearing nothing but the happiest pair of Speedos on the planet. Yes, Speedos. Bursting with happiness, if you get the picture. Overwhelmed with joy — if you know what I mean.