7 Clues to Winning You (20 page)

I helped the ladies out of their nighties and into the backseat. I laid the blankets over them because I didn’t want them to get pneumonia either, and it was a bit chilly. I folded the wheelchairs and stuffed them in the trunk. I felt like a secret agent. I jumped in the driver’s seat and we sped off around the corner to the nearest seedy-looking convenience store. “Sped off” might be exaggerating a bit, to be honest. I don’t think I got above thirty-five miles per hour. Even so, we got there in less than a minute. It literally was around the corner.

For Ms. Franny and Ms. Eulalie, it might as well have been on the moon. They couldn’t stop grinning and chatting about this or that store or car or person or whatever they happened to notice. They couldn’t get over the smell of the air: the fresh spring breeze mixed with car exhaust and
deep-fried food from a nearby takeout restaurant. The ladies kept sucking it in like they were drinking it. I never thought how good it must be to get out of that stale medicinal smell of impending death back at the nursing home.

I helped them both into their wheelchairs, but before we went in, I crouched down and said, “There’s just one more thing. The adult magazine we have to buy is … oriented … around men.”

Ms. Franny went,
“Psssh!”
and said, “Honey, all of them are for men.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But what I mean is … it’s for men … and it
features
men.”

“Oh, my Lord,” Ms. Eulalie whispered hoarsely.

Ms. Franny, however, got even perkier and said, “Terrific! I can send it to my grandson, Darren, when you’re done with it. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

I couldn’t imagine that anyone would appreciate getting porn from their grandmother, but I agreed anyway. We wheeled into the store and parked ourselves in front of the counter. The pornographic magazines were kept behind the cashier. The pimply redhead at the register didn’t even make eye contact with us. Instead, he stood at the counter flipping through a comic book and chomping a wad of gum.

I stepped forward. “Excuse me. We’re looking for a magazine …”

“Aisle three,” he interrupted without looking up.

Two men entered the store and went over to the coffee station. I leaned over the counter, closer to the cashier. “No, the kind of magazine we want is … behind you.”

The pimply kid looked up. He stopped chewing his gum. He eyed us up and down and looked like he might vomit. “Ohhhhkay,” he said. He reached up toward the rack behind him. “Which one?” He had his hand near the porno mags for women, which would’ve been a logical choice, but I waved him over. His eyes widened as he slid his hand to the typical straight men’s porn magazines. I shook my head and waved even harder. A look of utter shock and horror came over his face as he reached for one of the mags for gay men. I nodded.

He lifted down a magazine and held it out to me. Ms. Franny snatched it out of my reach. She examined it, turning it back and forth. “Nah,” she said. “I don’t like this guy. He looks like he got hit in the face with a sack of ugly. Get me that one up there that was next to it.”

Ms. Eulalie piped up, “Oh, sure, get the one with the
white
man on the cover. There’s three of them up there with beautiful black men looking right out at you, but you go for the skinny white guy. Typical.”

“I happen to like white men,” Ms. Franny said.

“Well, I happen to like vanilla ice cream, but that don’t mean I don’t like a taste of chocolate once in a while.”

The cashier stood there with his mouth open like a dead fish. His eyes were wide as pie plates. His already pale face had turned almost translucent.

“All right, fine,” Ms. Franny said. “Get me one of those black guys up there.” The pimply redhead got a magazine and held it up, as if he wasn’t sure who to give it to. Ms. Franny took it and squinted at the cover. It showed a medium build,
dark-skinned man in his twenties, oiled up, on all fours, and snarling at the camera. Ms. Franny tipped her head from side to side. “Not bad. What do you think, Ukulele?”

“Oh, don’t ask me! I’m not involved!” Ms. Eulalie turned her head and tried not to look, but she couldn’t help glancing at the magazine. She did a double take and peered more closely. She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Oh, no, not that one. His momma didn’t feed him good enough. Looky there, you can see his rib bones poking right out! Poor child.”

Ms. Franny slapped the magazine onto the counter. “No sale.” She pointed her crooked index finger at the shelf. “Try that one with that muscle-y black fellow wearing the dog collar and leash, with the white guy behind him holding a whip. See, Ukulele? Vanilla and chocolate to make us both happy.”

“Don’t throw me in that batch of sin you’re stirring up,” Ms. Eulalie said. Then she added, “But he do look a sight better than the other one. At least this one’s momma loved him, you can tell. Probably turning over in her grave at this picture, though. I know she passed ’cause she sure enough would’a dropped dead when she found out what he was doing for a living. Even if he do look like a young Sidney Poitier. Oh, my Lord. Mmm-hmm.” Ms. Eulalie folded her hands over and over again and started humming a hymn to the fluorescent lights above us.

“Right, this one’ll do fine,” Ms. Franny said, sliding the magazine back on the counter. I pulled out my wallet and handed a ten-dollar bill to the cashier.

Before he took the money, he said, “Um, I need to see some ID.”

“Oh!” I said, realizing that if I was paying, then that meant I was buying. “No. I mean, it’s not mine.” I swung the ten over to Ms. Franny, who snatched it and handed it to the cashier without missing a beat.

His gaze slid over to her. “I still need to see some ID,” he said in the same monotone drone as before.

“ID? Boy, are you blind? Do I look like a minor? I’ve turned eighteen about five times by now!”

“What about her?” He nodded in my direction again. “She’s paying, so I’m guessing the magazine is … for her.”

Ms. Franny gestured dismissively at me. “She’s got nothing to do with nothing. She just drives me around and holds my wallet so I don’t lose it because I’m old and crazy. Last time I checked, this was still a free country where someone could buy themselves a magazine if they wanted, which is what I’m doing. So ring it up, young man.” She thrust the ten-dollar bill at him. Ms. Eulalie hummed louder. The two men with coffee lined up behind us.

The teenage cashier eyed Ms. Franny suspiciously. Examined her wheelchair and blanket. “So you’re telling me that this magazine is for you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“This magazine.”

“Yes.”

“For you.”

“Yes! Are you deaf or something, boy?”

“It’s just … you’re an old lady.”

“Old lady? I’ll have you know that for the past fifty years, I’ve been a fully fledged transvestite. Even
you
couldn’t tell. Now, I’m horny and I want my dirty magazine, so ring the damn thing up!”

Ms. Eulalie’s humming resounded throughout the store. The men behind us shifted their weight and hid their snickering mouths behind their steaming coffee cups. The cashier’s face turned from white to red faster than a chameleon. I didn’t know whether to laugh or run away. Luckily, he rang up the magazine and handed us the change and receipt faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. We were out of the store in a flash. I got the ladies into the car and we took off, laughing hysterically.

We pulled into the parking lot at Shady Acres and I parked over by the garden again. I smuggled the ladies inside and redressed them in their nighties. By the time Darlene poked her nose into the room to check on us, I’d returned the clothes to their drawers and everything appeared as though we’d never left.

“You were in the garden an awfully long time,” she sneered at me as I re-folded the blankets. “They’d better not get sick.”

“Don’t you go talking about us like we’re not even in the room,” Ms. Eulalie said. She had even less tolerance for Darlene’s disrespectfulness than Ms. Franny had. Darlene scowled as she grabbed the blankets out of my hand and left the room.

“If I was thirty years younger,” said Ms. Eulalie, “I’d take her out behind the woodshed. I never met a single soul
needing an introduction to the business end of a hickory switch more than that woman.”

“I’d buy a ticket to see that!” Ms. Franny said, and cackled at the mental image.

I took the magazine and receipt out of my bag and snapped a photo of them with my phone. “Ms. Franny, do you want to write down Darren’s address, and I’ll mail this to him?” I asked.

“Nah, give it here. I decided we should give this to Coleman Watson and see if it lights his cigar. All those years and he never remarried? Sounds to me like he might be fishing in the other pond. What do you think, Ukulele?”

“As long as it’s outta this room, I don’t care,” Ms. Eulalie said. “Else I’m going to have to start calling you Frank.”

I tucked the magazine underneath Ms. Franny’s knitting, at the bottom of the basket. I winked at her. “Let me know what he thinks.”

“It’ll most likely kill him,” said Ms. Eulalie.

“Yeah, it might,” Ms. Franny agreed. “But either way, it’ll make for an interesting dinnertime tonight!”

“Well, I’d better get going,” I said. “I’m going to meet Tara in a little while for coffee.”

“Oh, Tara, yes,” Ms. Eulalie said. I’d mentioned Tara a few million times to the ladies. “Tell me, how does she feel about you going to a different school?”

If I had more time, I would’ve told her that Tara and I were falling out of step a bit. That I was jealous of Melissa. That I was worried that I’d be replaced. But it was already two minutes after four. I’d have just enough time to dash
home, upload the picture, get the next clue, and still make it to the Daily Grind on time to meet Tara. I didn’t like to keep the Senior Scramble pictures on my phone any longer than necessary, and I wanted to know what was up next. So instead of telling Ms. Eulalie everything, I just shrugged and tossed off, “She thinks it stinks, but we’re cool.”

“The two of you have been friends for a long time,” Ms. Franny said, as though she’d read my thoughts. “It’s hard when things suddenly change.”

“That’s how you know if a friend is the best kind,” Ms. Eulalie added. “If time and miles get between you, yet when you come back together, it’s like you was never apart.”

I nodded knowingly, although I really didn’t know anything. “Yep. I’m sure we’ll always be friends.” I was trying to convince myself of it.

I didn’t want to go any farther down this conversation road.

“Well, thanks again,” I said. “You guys are the best. Ms. Franny, you made a totally believable transvestite. Wait, that came out wrong.”

Ms. Eulalie started guffawing so hard she clutched the air like she could grab a breath with her hands. When she finally settled down, Ms. Franny shot her the stink eye but said, “Never you mind, Blythe. I know what you meant. I was happy to help, even if we did have to drag that ol’ bag-o’-Jesus along with us.”

“My Jesus follows me everywhere I go,” sang Ms. Eulalie.

“Just like stalkers,” Ms. Franny added.

“Oh sweet Lord, here we go again.”

I kissed them both and said thank you and goodbye before the quibbling got worse. Outside, I hopped in my Civic and zipped up the street. Instead of going straight through two lights and turning right at a third, I decided to take a shortcut to pick up some time. I veered into the mini-mall and turned down the alley behind the stores, skipping all three traffic lights. I made it home and yanked opened the kitchen door just as Zach was barreling out of it. “Where are you going?” I called after him.

“Jack’s,” he said. “It’s about to go nuclear in there.” In one smooth motion, he lifted his bike by the handlebars, straddled the seat, and pedaled off. I didn’t even get to ask him what he meant by nuclear. When I got inside, I didn’t need to.

Mom and Dad were in the family room bellowing at each other about the offers on the house again. I didn’t have time to get into that “pan o’ hot eels,” as Ms. Eulalie would say, so I sneaked through the kitchen to the hallway and bolted upstairs. I locked the door to my room and signed on to the Revolting Phoenix, noting the irony that Luke Pavel had turned out to be revolting after all. I uploaded the picture of the magazine and receipt, all the while praying that Luke wasn’t minding the site and wouldn’t IM me with more charming lies. Luckily, the only thing that came up on my screen was the next clue.

Dear God, this was going to take a while. It wasn’t like I could just stand by I-95 and snap pictures of license plates as cars whipped by. I was going to have to keep my eyes open and my phone with me all the time. Especially at home. I didn’t want Dad scrolling through on some snooping mission and finding them. Maybe he didn’t know about the Senior Scramble yet, but it might not be long before he got wind of it. He couldn’t know I was involved.

I logged off and deleted the magazine picture from my phone. It sounded like the chaos downstairs had calmed down, so I tiptoed to the kitchen as quickly as I could. I hoped to slip out without them seeing me so I didn’t have any more delays on the way to meet Tara.

Mom was in the kitchen. “Where are you going?” she asked gruffly. There was no sign of Dad anywhere.

“I’m meeting Tara in town for coffee.” Strange. I felt like I was lying even though I wasn’t. For a split second, I panicked and thought I’d slipped up, but I hadn’t. Fifth rule of lying: Never forget which is the lie and which is the truth.

“Be back for dinner,” was all Mom said. She started rifling around in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay. “Six o’clock.”

“No problem,” I said. I heard Dad’s footsteps in the hall. I dashed out the door before he had a chance to corner me.