“So, do I need to have him killed?” she asked in total seriousness.
“No. Absolutely not. No,” I said. Rena actually had friends with Mafia connections, or so they claimed. Vito and Angelo, two of the sweetest, hairiest, and horniest little sixty-year-old Italian guys I’d ever met. They owned a small coffee shop in the WMNS building, where Rena had hung out for a month trying to become the Sunshine Weather Girl a while back. They made mean white chocolate apricot scones, were obsessed with women’s private parts, and had the reputation of offing people. I was unsure if it was real or just big talk, but I was taking no chances.
“Fine,” she huffed. “Jack wouldn’t let me do it anyway. He likes that douche hole.”
“I like that douche hole too,” I sighed and stuck my finger in the pudding. “I just can’t do the long distance, the ‘I can’t tell you what I do,’ and the ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back’ thing.” I smeared the pudding around the open rim of the beer bottle and took a sip. Holy Jesus, that was disgusting. Hopping up and running to the sink, I had to spit and rinse several times before I could sit back down.
“I could have told you that would be gross,” she informed me.
“Then how come when you eat pudding and beer together, but separately, it tastes good?”
We pondered the question in silence. “I don’t know,” she muttered, “but you make an interesting point.”
“Thanks.”
“So, are you okay?” she asked carefully.
“Not at the moment, no, but I will be. I’m always okay,” I said, pushing the puddinged beer bottle to the far side of the table and swigging off a fresh one.
“Yeah, that’s always worried me about you,” Rena said thoughtfully.
“Look, I liked him and he liked me. It won’t work. Period. I’m a little raw right now, but I’ll live. There are people with much bigger problems than mine.”
“I know,” Rena chimed in, “but everything is relative.”
“Relative is for assmonkeys,” I said, making a very weak joke. “I leave tomorrow anyway. It might even be easier to forget him while trying to fend off the advances of Mrs. C and Edith.”
“Kristy, you really don’t have to go on that trip.”
“Actually, I really do. I’m glad I’m leaving. It was just a meaningless little fling. Maybe he’ll be gone by the time I get back.” All the words I spoke were correct. I suppose if I kept saying them . . . eventually I would believe them.
“Maybe he will,” Rena agreed. “Do you want me to help you pack?” she asked, thankfully not challenging me on any of the lies I’d just told.
“Yes, I do.”
She took my hand in hers and led me back to my bedroom. The sister of my heart proceeded to pack two suitcases for me, tuck me into bed, and kiss me good night . . .
Chapter 14
M
orning came and I was still breathing. I hadn’t died of a broken heart. A man, no matter how hot, could not break me. Although traveling with Mrs. C and Edith . . . might. I had worried that two suitcases might seem excessive. That was nothing compared to the six oversize behemoths that the old ladies arrived with. Nine o’clock in the morning was just too early to deal with the twins.
“Bless your heart,” Edith yelled at Rich. “Could you bring your fat ass over here and get my cases to the van?”
“For God’s sake, Edith,” Mrs. C hissed, “they all have fat asses. You have to be more specific.”
“Fine,” Edith spat. “Hey, you, with the big man-boobs, bless your heart, come get my goddamn cases.”
“See?” Mrs. C nodded approvingly. “How hard was that?”
Rich started across the parking lot to assist the nasty lesbos. I grabbed his beefy arm and stopped him.
“You”—I pointed at the ladies—“will not speak to people like that. Rich has a name and he’s a person,” I said, staring daggers at the pair.
“With man-boobs,” Edith muttered, snickering.
“Enough,” I snapped. “Everyone has, um . . . issues, including you two,” I said, defending Rich and his unusual body. “If you are going to point out things people can’t help, you’d better be prepared to have some ‘bless your heart’ thrown right back at you.”
“Can I break their noses?” Mariah whispered to me.
“Not right now . . . maybe later,” I whispered back. Mariah grinned and gave me a high five. Asscracks, I can’t give Mariah permission to smackdown on the old biddies.
“Bless your heart,” Mrs. C said, waving her claw at me. “My guess is your plastic buppies have addled your tiny brain. You might boss us at the store, but you can’t boss us here.”
Buppies? Where in the hell did she even get that word? I was so going to give Mariah permission. “We will leave my buppies and your unibrows out of this.” They gasped and pulled their matching visors down low. Ahhh, I might have found a chink in the armor . . . “You will apologize to Rich and then you will bring your own cases over.”
“Sorry,” they mumbled insincerely as they dragged their monster bags across the parking lot. What in the hell had they brought?
“Kristy, I don’t mind helping them,” Rich said in an accent that sounded kind of South African today. I really wanted to ask him where he was from, but I had a feeling the accent was fake and he’d been embarrassed enough for one morning. Did he think it made him mysterious? Or, God forbid, sexy?
“No,” I said firmly. “Until they can be civil, they’re on their own.”
I glanced around the empty asphalt parking lot of the Lutheran church where we’d decided to meet before our big adventure. Where in the hell was everyone? It was ten after nine . . . Kim had said we were leaving at nine on the dot. No Kim or Hugh or Aunt Moon-Unit. No slick shiny little producer guys, just me, Boo, Mariah, Rich, and the devil’s spawns.
“Where is everybody?” I asked. “I thought Kim said we were leaving at nine.”
“She did,” Mariah confirmed.
“So?”
“She lied. We leave at ten. She didn’t want anyone to be late.”
“You mean I got up at seven, got ready, and got here when I could have slept another hour?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Yep.” Mariah grinned. Holy Lutheran God, she’d dyed her hair green. Maybe she thought she’d blend in with the trees better. How did I not notice that immediately? Was weird my new normal?
“This bodes well for a great trip,” I muttered as I rolled my suitcases over to the trailer hitched onto the back of the passenger van. “Dang it, it’s locked.”
“Let me see,” Rich said, fiddling with the lock.
“Want me to pick it?” Mariah inquired as if there was nothing unusual or illegal about breaking into things. Her skill set was alarming . . . breaking noses, relocating testicles to chest cavities, popping locks, graffitiing walls with swear words . . . no wonder I couldn’t find her a job. I wasn’t sending her out for the right things. I’d have to research organized crime families when I got back.
“Um, no, but thank you. We’ll just wait till the shiny guys get here.” I sat down on my suitcase and questioned my sanity. I told myself this trip was a good thing. Well, not good in the sense it was good. Good in the sense that it would give me something to do so I could forget about Mitch. Like that was going to happen anytime soon...
“Are you okay?” my buddy with the seriously bad teeth asked. I was going to carve out some time on this trip to talk to him about the wonders of orthodontics. He was batting such a big zero. Between the crotch hair on his head, his body, and his teeth, he was a hot mess.
“No,” I sighed and gave him a smile, “but in time I will be.”
“Man trouble?” he asked, sitting down on my other suitcase. Crapmonkeys, he was huge. I wondered if that was the suitcase with my blow-dryer and vibrator in it. I needed both of those things on this trip. I stared at him for a moment and realized there was no graceful way to tell him to remove his gargantuan ass from my luggage. Whatever. There were stores in Duluth. Blow-dryers and vibrators were replaceable . . .
“Yep,” I told him. “My own fault.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I’m a great listener. I bet I could make you feel better,” he said.
I felt my eyes well up with tears. This poor, sweet, ugly guy wanted to help. I would knock those old lesbians’ heads together if they were mean to him anymore. “No, I’m a little too close to it to talk about it yet, but thanks.” I gave his hand a squeeze.
“Well—” He smiled. I quickly jerked my gaze from his frighteningly toothy smile to his bizarrely mismatched eyes. “Whenever you want one, I’ll be your ear.”
With a sweet pat on my shoulder, he walked away. I watched Mrs. C and Edith grunt and groan and curse at each other as they made their way over. I had a difficult time imagining them being attractive to anyone. They wore identical outfits. Stonewashed blue jean gauchos that should have been burned in the seventies, paired with tight black tank tops that hugged their torpedo tits in a very bad way. Their bravery was astonishing. The most revolting was the footwear . . . white socks and black sandals. I looked down at my own cute little white miniskirt, blue tank, and sparkly flip-flops and thanked the Lutheran Lord Jesus above for good genes and fashion sense.
“Would you like a bible?” Boo asked, startling me.
“A bible?” I eyed the gaily wrapped and bejeweled package she held in her hands.
“Not the religious one,” she giggled. She was adorable, with big soft gray eyes and wavy auburn hair. She was as tiny as her sister Mariah, but without the hard edges or green locks. “The Bigfoot bible,” she added solemnly.
“Um, that’s okay,” I told her, sucking my bottom lip into my mouth to keep from laughing. “You should give it to someone else who would get more, you know . . . more enjoyment out of it.”
“You’re a nonbeliever.” Her eyes clouded with sadness.
Balls, now I just felt bad. She seemed so fragile, but I couldn’t lie to her. Could I? “I wouldn’t say nonbeliever per se. I just think I need a little more um, proof.”
“Do you believe in God, Kristy?” she asked, piercing me with those gray eyes.
“Yes,” I answered, alarmed at the bizarre direction this conversation was taking. What direction? I had no clue.
“Have you ever seen Him?”
“Well, not exactly,” I hedged.
“But you still believe.”
“Yes, but . . .”
She silently held the wrapped Bigfoot bible out to me, cutting off any further religious debate. “You need this more than any of us.”
Never in my twenty-eight years on earth had I equated Bigfoot’s existence with God’s, but clearly she had. For the umpteenth time, I questioned my sanity, but fifty thousand dollars for the shelter was a gift I couldn’t refuse . . . no matter how scary the task to claim the money. I gingerly took the package from Boo and slid it into the side zipper pocket of my suitcase.
“Thanks,” I muttered, hoping our God-Bigfoot conversation was over.
“No,” Boo said, gripping my hands with the strength of a man three times her size. Damn, the Carey family was strong. “Thank you. You are a beautiful person, Kristy. I can see your pain . . . so much hurt. You need love in your life,” she murmured, closing her eyes and squeezing my hands even tighter. “It’s all in front of you,” she whispered. A shiver skittered up my spine and I felt cold despite the eighty-two-degree heat. WTF? “It’s all right here . . . right now. You just have to see through the haze of disbelief. You are worthy.” Boo released her iron-man grip and wandered off in a daze.
She was coo-coo crazy loco and I was never going to hold hands with her again. What the hell was that about? She was kind of spot-on . . . but her assessment could apply to plenty of people. Everyone has pain and wants love. What was that “all in front of you” crap? It was all in front of me last night and I made it leave . . . Oh my God, if Boo kept spouting shit like that the entire trip, I would tear my own head off. Between the lesbians and the tiny wannabe psychic, this was going to be a long two weeks.
At nine forty-five a beat-up aqua minivan roared into the parking lot, followed by a nondescript black sedan. Before the van had stopped, Hugh jumped out, sporting night-vision goggles and red bike shorts. Nothing else. He did cartwheels all the way from where he landed on the pavement to where we were standing. No one reacted. Was this normal behavior? Did they all cartwheel through life in bike shorts? Holy hell, the thought of Rich or the muff divers in bike shorts was enough to make me want to throw up in my mouth. I pushed the image away and waited for instructions from our mentally challenged leader, Hugh.
“Allrightyroo!” Kim yelled, making a much less splashy entrance than her husband. She ambled over wearing a T-shirt that said
Bigfoot or Bust
. Her hair was in a ponytail sprouting out of the top of her head and she had a grin on her face that was contagious. The shiny L.A. guys parked next to the van, got out, and immediately began making calls on their cell phones. I couldn’t for the life of me remember which one was which. I decided to call them Frick and Frack. Kim, barely able to contain her excitement, continued. “We, the talent, will ride in the van, and our producer–film crew will ride in the sedan.”
“Where do we put our goddamn luggage?” Edith yelled.
“The trailer is padlocked,” Mariah added.
Frick quickly ended his call and addressed our concerns. He gave us a big, overly white smile and placed his little hands on his little hips. “The luggage will go with you in the van. There’s a baggage compartment underneath.” He eyed the massive pile of suitcases and his smile disappeared. He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “And whatever doesn’t fit will ride inside the van with you.”
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Boo asked.
“You’re looking at it, baby!” Frick said, giving us the thumbs-up. Frack, finally off the phone, joined his cohort. Frack slapped Frick on the ass and shot us the finger-gun. Were we really going on a trip organized by these morons?
“Fags?” Mrs. C inquired.
“Bags,” Kim yelled before the old gal could add anything more offensive. “That’s right, Mrs. C,” Kim ground out through tight lips. “The bags go in the van.” If looks could kill, Mrs. C would be so dead right now.
Hugh, ever helpful, decided this would be a fine moment to warble a medley of Village People tunes. The irony escaped no one, except for Hugh. I’d bet my savings he thought he was showing solidarity with the gay world. I choked back my laughter by chomping down hard on my lip. Most of our group stared at the pavement. Fortunately, Frick and Frack seemed confused.
“You’re the entire crew?” Rich asked, surprised. He put his hand on Hugh’s shoulder and thankfully Hugh stopped singing. God, Rich had to be burning up in his muumuu and sweatpants. I wondered if he ever wore shorts. The thought made me gag. Literally.
“You okay?” Mariah asked, pounding me on the back.
“Yep, I’m good,” I lied. “Excuse me,” I said, giving the shiny goobs a big smile. “I don’t think all the luggage will fit in the compartment and the van with all of us in it. Is there any way we could put some of it in the trailer?”
“Absolutely not.” Frick gave me an oily grin. Frack examined me for a moment and then went back to his cell phone. “The trailer has very expensive camera equipment and lights in it. Insurance company won’t allow it. Of course, you could always ride in the sedan with us, Kristy.”
Okay, eww freakin’ gross. His pathetic attempt at hitting on me left me feeling dirty. I bet Mitch would have kicked his ass . . . but Mitch wasn’t here. He was busy saving the world from bad guys.
“She rides with us,” Mariah barked. “She happens to be a homo and my girlfriend. If you so much as look at her again, I’ll shove your foot up your ass and pull it out of your mouth.”
“She’s joking,” Kim shrieked. “We have a group of jokesters! It’s going to be a great show. Big ratings,” she bellowed. I guess she figured if she was loud enough, she could distract the little Napoleons from how crazy we all were. I’d used the loud method several times myself and found great success. From the looks of bewilderment on Frick’s and Frack’s faces, it was working for Kim too.
“No problemo,” Frick said, giving us all a big L.A. smile. “Just pile in and follow us.”
“Thanks,” I whispered to Mariah as we got in the van.
“No problemo.” She rolled her eyes, mimicking the douche bags. “This is going to be an interesting two weeks.”
I laughed and returned the eye roll. “My sentiments exactly.”
We piled into the van. Edith and Mrs. C in the back row, Rich and me in the middle, Boo and Mariah in the front row, and an assload of luggage that didn’t fit in the compartment under our feet. Kim drove and Hugh was the radio. We were off. I wasn’t sure if the lead ball in the pit of my stomach was about Mitch or the fact that I was about to hunt down a mythical creature with a bunch of insane people headed up by two smarmy little shiny guys.