“Your husband keeps weird bottles in the fridge and when I wanted to take a sip he blew his top. And look at this.” She gestured to the pots of mayonnaise taking up precious space. “How much longer is he going to carry on like this?”
“You’re the one who told him to rub mayonnaise on his scalp, Ma,” Marge reminded her. “So if you want him to stop, you need to think of something.”
“Oh, I’ll think of something, all right,” Vesta grumbled, and stormed out of the kitchen then stomped up the stairs. And she’d just shoved open the bathroom door when she happened upon a strange scene: Tex was in the bath, holding his bottle over his head.
“What are you doing? What is in that bottle?” she demanded.
Tex looked up as if caught doing something he shouldn’t. “None of your business,” he said, and quickly screwed the cap back on the bottle and held it to his chest protectively.
Vesta now became aware of a strange odor in the bathroom. As if one of the cats had peed in there. She dove for that bottle, trying to prise it from her son-in-law’s fingers. Only Tex was faster than she was, and successfully managed to hold it out of reach.
“What is that smell?” asked Marge, who’d also come in. Then she caught sight of her husband in the bath, guilt written all over his face. “Tex—what the hell is going on?”
“He won’t let me touch his bottle,” Vesta lamented.
“This is my house,” Tex declared. “Can’t a man expect a minimum of privacy in his own home?”
“Privacy is overrated,” said Vesta, and eyed her son-in-law keenly. “If you won’t tell me what’s in that bottle, I won’t tell you the secret the cats shared with me last night about how not to lose your hair.”
Tex looked wounded.“That’s blackmail!”
“Call it what you will. That’s the deal I’m offering you, and it’s one of those limited-time deals. In fact it’s going to expire in exactly ten-nine-eight-seven…”
“All right, all right! It’s my urine,” said Tex.
Both his wife and his mother-in-law stared at him in utter consternation.
“Your what?” asked Marge, suddenly wide awake.
“I collected it last night and this morning. I’m supposed to rub it into my scalp, but it’s foul.” He wrinkled up his nose. “Also I’m not sure it’s entirely hygienic, but Malcolm swears by it.”
“Malcolm? Who’s Malcolm?” asked Marge.
“Scarlett’s uncle,” said Vesta, who was still staring at the man, her mouth agape.
Tex nodded.“He told me that the men in Tahiti all have full heads of hair deep into their eighties and nineties, and they all contribute it to their custom of bathing themselves in their own urine. Oh, and they also drink a small sip of their morning pee, but I can’t bring myself to do that.” When his wife and her mom both started talking at the same time, he quickly added, “It’s supposed to have plenty of health benefits!”
“Tex, you’re insane!” Marge said.
“Yeah, you’re a doctor, Tex,” said Vesta. “Would you advise your patients to drink their own pee and take a shower in the stuff? Huh? Seriously, dude!”
“I looked it up on the internet, and it’s a thing. People even claim it cures cancer. Oh, and there was an Indian prime minister who drank his own urine every day his whole life and he lived to be a hundred and accredited his great health to his urine-drinking habit!”
“Tex, honey,” said Marge, adopting a more soothing tone and placing a hand on her husband’s heated brow. “I think you’re overwrought. You’ve been working too hard and now you’re feeling the strain. Give me that bottle, will you?”
But Tex was refusing to hand over his treasured bottle.
“I watched a video last night,” he said in a dreamy voice, “of an Indian farmer who takes a shower in his cow’s urine every morning. Says it’s very refreshing.”
“Tex!” said Vesta. “You’re not actually thinking of—”
“No, of course not,” said Tex. “Besides, it’s very hard to find a cow in the Hamptons. Though we do have plenty of ducks,” he added musingly.
“Marge, your husband is out of control!”
“Just kidding!” said Tex, and gave them a toothpaste smile that looked slightly deranged. Vesta now took advantage of a lull in the conversation to snatch that bottle away from him and took a sniff. It was pee all right. Yuck!
“He wasn’t kidding,” she told her daughter.
“Give me that,” said Marge, and proceeded to pour the amber liquid into the sink.
“Hey, it took me all night to collect that!” said Tex.
“Tex, listen to me, honey,” said Marge, adopting the gentle tone of a nurse dealing with a difficult patient. “Your hair is fine. Your health is fine. You don’t have to rub mayonnaise on your scalp. You don’t have to drink your own urine. And you most certainly don’t have to take a shower in cow pee!”
“Yeah, Tex,” said Vesta with a shrug, “I don’t know why you get all hot and bothered about your hair—it looks perfectly fine to me.”
“But you told me that I’d go bald as a billiard ball any day now!”
“I was just kidding! Jeez, can’t you take a joke?”
Tex gave her a dark look.“You told me to go and see Dick.”
“I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“And you still haven’t told me the cats’ secret,” said the doctor now. “A deal is a deal.”
“There is no secret. Cats simply don’t lose their hair the way humans do—end of story. Now better get ready. You’ve got patients waiting. Unless you want to give them a sip of your urine?”
“No!” said Tex, horrified. He might be susceptible to quackery, but luckily in his own practice he was scrupulously academic and adhered to recognized medical procedure.
“So what was all that noise last night?” asked Marge. “I woke up in the middle of the night and saw there were police lights flashing and people traipsing all over that field.”
“Oh, that,” said Vesta with a throwaway gesture. “Some kids had dug up another body and decided it would be fun to put it in Blake Carrington’s field.”
“What do you mean—dug up another body?” asked Tex, who’d stepped out of the bath and was now busily brushing his teeth, presumably since he had taken a small sip of Malcolm’s miracle cure, and the taste lingered.
“Yeah, turns out the same kids that dug up this body also dug up the skeleton they found yesterday. Something about an internet challenge—don’t ask. Kids these days.”
“So that skeleton wasn’t Blake’s son?”
“No, it wasn’t. Just some poor schmuck’s grave they decided to rob.”
“God, I hope they’ll get punished good and proper.”
“Oh, they will. Alec was out here last night, and he was furious. Especially since Blake is a friend of his, and the man is now in hospital because of this nonsense.”
“Will he be all right?”
“Let’s hope so. He took it pretty hard, as you can imagine. Thought it was his boy they’d dug up. But turns out it was just a stupid prank. They didn’t even know the history of the field, and Steven Carrington’s unfortunate accident.”
“What were they hoping to accomplish by digging up a corpse?” asked Tex as he dabbed at his mouth with a towel, then smacked his tongue and went right back to brushing his teeth once more for good measure. Urine—the taste that lingers.
“Well, like I said, they were doing one of those online challenges. You know, if they’re not throwing buckets of ice water on their heads or eating Tide Pods or sniffing glue they’re digging up corpses and taking selfies with them. Pretty gross if you ask me.”
“And criminal,” said Marge, shaking her head. She now studied her roots in the mirror over the sink. “So mayonnaise, huh?”
“Dick Bernstein swears by it,” said Tex as he was now busy brushing his tongue.
“Oh, will you give it a rest,” said Gran. “Dick Bernstein is a fool. I’ll bet the man never rubbed mayonnaise on his scalp. He simply told you what he thought you wanted to hear.”