Chapter 7
“I
t’s going to be fine, and the damage wasn’t too bad,” Louise said, emerging from under a pile of donated clothes. “Hell, Mariah causes more destruction than this on her own—even without teenage hooligans ransacking the place.”
“I know,” I agreed. “I’m just glad she’s okay, and I’m glad there were no weapons.”
“Her knee and her fists seem to be fairly lethal,” Louise chuckled.
“I wasn’t talking about Mariah.”
“I know,” she sighed. “This just stinks. We lost the lobby computer, a couple of tables and chairs. Oh, and Mariah destroyed the TV two weeks ago.”
I blew out a long breath and looked around. “I’d have her come in and work the TV off if I didn’t think she’d demolish the entire shelter in the process.”
Louise laughed and began sorting clothes. Sitting down next to her, I started making lists. Lists made me feel sane, not that I followed them. But in the tsunami that was my life, I was grasping at anything.
“I suppose I could call around and see if anyone would donate a computer and television,” I said wearily. “I’ll bring my old laptop over and set it up so we can still help these gals learn to use the Internet. I got it last year, so of course, it’s almost obsolete.” I rolled my eyes.
“You’re supposed to be on vacation,” Louise chided. “You should be going out on romantic dates with Ethan.”
“Nathan.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Ethan’s name is Nathan,” I said, leveling her with a look.
“Back up,” she groaned, “that jack-off gave you the wrong name?”
“Nope. Apparently he was too polite to correct my faux pas.”
“Creepy.” She shuddered and stopped folding. “Are you still . . .”
“Nope.” I cut her off. “Turns out Ethan/Nathan was married, also dating the mayor’s wife, and a devoted Dallas Cowboys fan. Jack knocked his lights out and dumped him for me.”
Louise was speechless.
“Oh, and I never poked him,” I added before she asked.
“Well, thank baby Moses in a basket for that,” she said, shaking her head in shock. “I think you need to pick another profession for your dating pool.”
Mitch flitted through my mind and I firmly grabbed his shapely man-butt and shoved him to the very, very back. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I never liked that guy. He was so damn polite and well . . . creepy.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I was dating him?” I demanded.
Louise burst out laughing and shook her head. “
Creepy
is a kill-the-messenger word. I don’t get into your private business, young lady.”
“Well, next time I would greatly appreciate it if you would,” I huffed, trying not to grin. “If I show up with someone creepy, psychotic, or, god forbid, polite, I want you to smack some sense into me. Deal?”
“Deal. Just don’t show up here with another cop. Now get your bad self out of here. I have about ten volunteers coming in to get this place all spick-and-span. You are officially on vacation . . . starting now. Go.”
“I’m gone,” I said, ducking to avoid the wad of clothes she tossed at me. “Hey, Louise . . .”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie.”
Today was the day of “I don’t want to do it, but I have to.” As I pulled up to A Stitch in Time, I thought about what Louise had said. She was right. No. More. Cops. Mitch was trouble. He was another in a long line of stupidly hot cops who were going to either break my heart or destroy every bit of self-confidence I owned . . . and I needed my confidence. I had to deal with the vicious sisters.
I laid my head on the steering wheel and blew out a frustrated breath. Suck it up, baby. Grandma had left me a beautiful building with three thriving businesses inside. The responsibility was overwhelming, but clearly Grandma thought I could do it . . . and I could. I would deal with Mrs. C and Edith. I would make sure the icky accountants and the wonderful Steves were happy renting from me. My God, I didn’t have any real problems. I had a great life, great friends, a business that made a difference . . . and shitty taste in men. That, too, I could change—and I would. I pasted a smile on my face, got out of my car, and was greeted with hysterical squawking. Crapitty-crapcrap . . .
“Thank the gay Lord above,” Short Fat Steve yelled, running out of the salon and straight at me. “It’s just awful,” he shrieked. “My Steve is going to get his pepper spray and blind them. If he does that, he’ll go to jail and we’re going to the Bahamas tomorrow. I’ve never been to the Bahamas! Do you hear me, Kristy? Never. Been. To. The. Bahamas. I will not let those swamp-ass lesbians send my man to jail. I’m all pasty and I need to get some Caribbean sun. I mean, my God, they’re crying.”
He dropped to the ground in front of me and buried his face in my stomach. I was so confused, I was dizzy. “Mrs. C. and Edith are crying?” I tried to peel Short Fat Steve off me, but he was clamped on tight. Although, I must admit, an evil joy flitted through my mind as I pictured Big Tall Steve shooting pepper spray into the old hags’ eyes. I definitely had a suite in hell waiting for me when I died.
“No, they’re not crying,” he said into my tummy, tickling me. “They made the big burly construction guys cry.”
“What big burly . . .” I turned my head and saw them . . . three huge men, standing in front of A Stitch in Time, sobbing. Holding each other and sobbing. WTF? “What did they do?”
“It was just awful, like Taylor Swift singing live. Awful,” he whimpered, detaching himself from my body and pacing the sidewalk in front of me. I sucked my lower lip into my mouth to keep from giggling. When Short Fat Steve got going, he looked like a tattooed, pierced Weeble. “The poor guy had a wandering eye and they just kept screaming ‘look at me’ . . . over and over.”
“Wait . . . what? They were hitting on Mrs. C and Edith?” I had entered an alternate universe and I wanted out. Why in the hell would big hunky construction guys hit on those two?
“Oh God, no,” he gasped, wringing his hands. “The poor guy’s eyeball doesn’t shoot straight, and instead of ignoring it, like any polite human being would do, those rug munchers made him cry.”
“Holy hell,” I muttered, grabbing Short Steve by the shoulders so he would quit moving. His flair for the dramatic was killing me. “Why were construction workers in a knitting shop?”
“Kristy,” Steve hissed, “that’s sexist. There is no reason big boys can’t knit.”
“Or cry,” I mumbled because I couldn’t help myself.
“This is not the time for random pop-culture references to obscure songs.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” I said, glancing over at the blubbering men. “So they’re . . . um, customers?”
“No, they’re not customers,” he shouted. “They’re construction guys.”
“Now who’s being sexist?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.
“I am not sexist,” he informed me. “I’m gay. Homosexual people cannot be sexist. Sexy? Yes. Sexist? No.”
“I’m not going to touch that, but I’d like to point out that you got the word
sex
into that sentence five times.”
“Well, color me impressed with myself,” he giggled.
“Oookay, they’re not customers. They didn’t hit on the lesbians, yet they’re sobbing on the sidewalk in front of my store . . . What gives?”
“They start work tomorrow and they were checking out the premises,” he said, smoothing out my shirt, which he had wrinkled when he was buried in it.
“Work on what?”
“Ohh, snookie bottom, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said as his own eyes filled with tears. I knew this had something to do with my grandma. Every time either Steve brought her up, they cried.
“Steve, I’ve had a really long and horrific week, so could you get to the point of all this? Quickly?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, wiping his eyes on my shirt, the shirt he’d just de-wrinkled. “Before your grandma died, Lutheran God bless her soul, she scheduled work on the building. New roof, new electric, some plumbing issues . . . So we all knew the building would be closed for two weeks and that’s why Steve and I are going to the Bahamas. And now those nasty bitches made the guys cry and the boys said they wouldn’t go back in there until the dykes left.”
“Did they actually say
dykes
?” I asked.
“Um, no,” Steve admitted. “I just added that because I thought it sounded good.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I sighed and pulled on my hair. “Could I ask you a question you might not know the answer to?”
“Absolutely. And if I don’t know the answer, I’ll make one up.”
“Okay, um . . . great. Are Mrs. C and Edith, um, girlfriends?”
“Oh, sweet Jesus in heaven up above, I think you’ve made me permanently lose
my
appetite,” he groaned. “And I like to eat.” He demonstrated his love of food by lifting his shirt and gracing me with a view of his ample, hairy tummy. I was fairly sure he’d made me lose my appetite . . . at least till I was able to block out the visual he’d just gifted me.
“Well, are they?”
“Hell no, those old geezers have different gal pals every other week,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Did you make that up?” I asked, feeling nauseous.
“Shockingly enough, no. I couldn’t make something like that up. Even thinking about it makes my manhood shrivel.” He shuddered.
“You did not just use the word
manhood
in place of
penis
,” I groaned.
“I most certainly did. Steve and I are having a contest to see who can use more penis slang in public and get away with it,” he said, grinning like a twelve-year-old.
“Have you tried pork sword, divine rod, man-tool, or skin flute?” I asked, leaving my short rotund buddy almost speechless.
“Kristy, those are fabulous,” he squealed, hopping up and down like a Mexican jumping bean. “Where did you learn such dirty lingo?”
“Rena.”
“Of course.” He slapped his head and laughed. “She has a mouth like a sailor after my own heart. I have to run inside and write those down so I don’t forget them. Can you handle this clusterfuck?”
I nodded mutely and he laid a big wet one on my cheek. As he skipped back into the salon, he gushed, “I’m gonna kick Steve’s ass in the penis game.”
“Glad I could help,” I muttered as I made my way over to the weeping husky guys. “Hi, um . . . I’m Kristy, the owner. I understand that there was a . . .” Holy shit on a stick. Wandering eyeball, my butt. That eyeball didn’t just wander, it raced around in the socket like a pinball. It was all I could do to look at the stationary eye. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from shouting “look at me.” Stopping myself was difficult, but I was better at it than the two nasty women peeking out the window at us had been.
“How can eye help you?” I bit down hard on my lip, praying they hadn’t noticed my homonym.
“Well, ma’am, these working conditions are unacceptable and unless those women are removed from the area . . . we won’t be able to honor our contract.”
I barely heard a word. Something about unacceptable, removed . . . contract. Focus, damn it. He couldn’t help it that the Indianapolis 500 was taking place in his ocular cavity.
“Eye will take care of that,” I whispered, racking my brain for a replacement word for first-person singular. Slowly, I backed away. I prayed to Brett Favre and all the quarterbacks in the NFL for strength. I would not make a grown man cry. I am a good person and God knows there’s plenty in my own life to poke fun at . . . it just wasn’t as obvious to the naked eye. Son of a bitch, even my inner thoughts were trying to bring me down.
I’m pretty sure I heard them say “thank you” as I turned and ran into the shop. I slammed the door behind me and slid to the floor. Sweating . . . profusely.
“You wanted to yell ‘look at me,’ didn’t you?” Edith barked, scaring the hell out of me.
“No, I did not,” I lied, getting to my feet and putting my back against the wall so neither one of them could sneak up on me. Holy hell, Mrs. C and Edith were dressed up. They’d traded their sweatpants for tight polyester leggings paired with house slippers and sequined stretch tops. It was hard to look away, kind of like a train wreck. The house slippers were hurting me bad. I closed my eyes to block out the horror, but alas, their new look had embedded itself on my brain. Shitcrapballs. Flushed with anger that I would never be able to forget these outfits, I decided to let them have it. “That was hateful and mean, what you did to those men.”
“God bless him,” Mrs. C chimed in, “but I wouldn’t let some wild-peepered freak work on my electric or my roof or my plumbing.”
“Or my hooha,” Edith added.
I ignored her and threw up in my mouth a little bit. I refused to have a conversation with them about vaginas. I grabbed a bottle of water from my purse and took a huge swig.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my shirt. It was already wrinkled and had Steve’s tears all over it, so what the hell. “The building will be closed for two weeks and you two can’t be here—at all.”
“I call bullshit,” Edith snapped. “We can be here whenever we want and you can’t tell us what to do,” she smirked.
“That’s right, you little hussy,” Mrs. C cackled. “I’m guessing all the silicone in your hooters ate your brain. We run this place and you answer to us.”
“First of all”—I smiled sweetly—“my hooters are real, and if I didn’t think it would excite you so much, I’d show you.”
They gasped and tried to speak. “Quiet,” I bellowed. The volume thing was a great tool with these gals. I decided shouting the rest of my conversation would be fun. “It’s true I may not be able to fire you, but I can absofuckinglutely tell you what to do. I can cut your hours, make you clean toilets, or have you work from ten p.m. till five a.m. . . . counting buttons.”