Don't Make Me Choose Between You and My Shoes (7 page)

Unsmiling, the woman scanned her up and down. “Gee. I would have never guessed.”

“I come from a little town called Salt Lick, where—”

“Can I ask you something?”

Edwina kept grinning. “Sure.”

A frown creased the woman's brow. “Does that Annie Oakley getup work for you?”

Edwina's grin fell.
The nerve!
She hated getting into a tussle before Debbie Sue arrived, but this broad was asking for it. Edwina squared her shoulders and looked down her nose. “Oh, I don't know. Does that ‘I'm a ho' getup work for
you
?”

The woman didn't bat an eye. “Pretty much all the time, though I'm thinking about trying something new.”

Edwina's bluster collapsed and her eyes bugged with shock. “You're a pro? I mean, a real pro?” She clapped a palm against her chest. “And you think
I'm
a pro?”

“Well, aren't you?”

“Oh, hell no. Though I think all women prostitute themselves on some level. Some do it to make a living, some do for a four-carat ring or a new SUV.” Edwina conjured up a laugh. “Or a membership in a country club.”

For the first time, her drinking neighbor smiled and her face grew animated. “I've never heard it put better.” Extending her right hand, she said, “I'm Cherubino Annunziata San Giacomo. My friends call me Cher.”

Edwina looked into her face and blinked. “Well, I'll be damned. I'll just bet they do.” Laughing again, she shook Cher's hand. “I'm Edwina Faye Perkins-Martin. My friends call me on the phone asking for money.”

Just then, a computer version of a pop song Edwina didn't readily recognize started up. “What's that?”

“‘Strangers in the Night,'” Cher said. “It's my cell phone. Cute, huh?” Without waiting for a reply, she turned away and plucked the phone from her purse.

“Yeah, cute,” Edwina answered anyway, liking her newfound friend more all the time.

Two drinks later, Debbie Sue walked up. “I see you've made friends already.”

“Debbie Sue. Cher and I were just talking about business.”

“Cher?” Debbie Sue asked.

“Oops, sorry. Debbie Sue, this is Cher the Prostitute. Cher, this is Debbie Sue Overstreet, my friend and partner. She's a hairdresser, but she used to be a barrel racer.”

“How do you do,” Cher said to Debbie Sue. “A barrel racer?”

“Yep,” Debbie Sue said. “It was a long time ago.”

“So how does that work? I can't get a visual.”

“Well, you see, there's three barrels in this big arena, set up in a triangle. They're usually painted in bright colors. You ride a horse around them as fast as you can. And the one who does it the fastest wins.”

“Uh-huh,” Cher replied. “I still can't get a visual. How fast is the fastest?”

“My best time was fifteen point seven seconds.”

“And where did you do this?”

“Rodeos,” Edwina said. “She used to be a ProRodeo performer.”

“Well, whaddaya know,” Cher said, eyeing Debbie Sue and smiling. “You're a real cowgirl.”

Debbie Sue smiled. “Yep, that's me. I even own a horse. You ever been to a rodeo?”

“Can't say that I have.”

“You should go. They have one every year right here in New York City. Madison Square Garden. I always wanted to be in it, but never was that good.”

“I've heard about it. Maybe now that I've met some”—she leaned back and gave Edwina a head-to-toe again—
cowgirls
, I'll do that.”

“Oh, I'm not a cowgirl,” Edwina said. “The most I know about a cow is when a steak appears on my plate.”

“This is true,” Debbie Sue said with a laugh. “And there's a horse in Texas that'll vouch for that.”

She took a seat on a stool beside Edwina and called to the bartender. “Ma'am? I'll have whatever they're having.”

Several margaritas later, Edwina said, “I'm still starving. Let's go get something to eat.”

“Sounds good to me,” Debbie Sue said. “I haven't eaten since breakfast. Cher, would you like to join us?”

“No, you girls go without me. I'm working. I'll see you later.”

“Mary,” Edwina said to the bartender, “we need to settle our tab.”

The bartender placed a tray holding a receipt in front of her and Edwina grabbed it. “I've got it, girls. Drinking makes me feel generous.”

“Better you than me,” Cher said. “Being generous could put me out of business. And speaking of business, here, let me give you one of my cards.”

Debbie Sue took the card and read aloud, “Cher Giacomo, sex therapist. Have mouth, will travel.” She looked up at Cher and grinned. “Well, it's original.”

Cher gave her a thumbs-up.

From the corner of her eye, Debbie Sue saw Edwina studying the bill. “I must have had more to drink than I thought,”
Edwina muttered. “I can't make these numbers out. Debbie Sue, what does this look like to you?” She thrust the check toward Debbie Sue.

Debbie Sue took it and turned on her stool to hold the small piece of paper in better light. “Oh, my God, Ed. This says two hundred and forty-three dollars.” She waved the bill in the air at the bartender, “Ma'am, can you come here a sec?”

The young woman came to where Debbie Sue sat. “Yes?”

“You must have gotten our tab mixed up with someone else's. We didn't order drinks for the house. This bill is over two hundred dollars.”

“Yes, ma'am. Nine house margaritas. Twenty-seven dollars each.”

Debbie Sue's eyes bugged. “Holy cow!”

“What?” Edwina gasped.

“For that price,” Debbie Sue said, “I could fly to Mexico for a margarita.”

Edwina tried to make a calculation in her head, but tequila had made her mind fuzzy. “You know, if you caught a plane in Midland, I think you could.” She plucked the bill from Debbie Sue's hand. “We'll just put it on the room.”

Cher reached across, took the check and handed it back to the bartender, along with three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills. “My treat ladies. It's a tax write-off for me.”

Debbie Sue sat back on her stool. “Whoa. You file a tax return?”

Edwina, too, stared at Cher. “You mean income taxes, like with the IRS?”

“Why not?” Cher laughed and swung a look from Edwina to Debbie Sue. “I may make a living on my back, but I don't have my head up my ass.”

Just then, “Strangers in the Night” began to play again. Cher put the phone to her ear and strolled toward the bar's doorway, talking.

“What was that song?” Debbie Sue asked, watching her.

“‘Strangers in the Night.' That was her cell phone. Cute, huh?”

“Appropriate, I'd say, considering her job.”

C
elina stretched out on the bed for a while, staring at the dingy ceiling, then decided to move to the chair. She stood with one knee on the chair seat, bracing her hands on the windowsill and peering out like a tragic agoraphobic.

When she had first considered attending the conference, the thought of a few days alone and on her own sounded wonderful, but now she wasn't so sure. The idea of making her first venture onto the busy city streets alone was downright hair-raising, especially with darkness descending. But her stomach thought fear and trepidation were no excuse. It rumbled and grumbled and reminded her that a Snickers bar
and a vending-machine hot dog several hours earlier weren't enough to tide her over until morning.

The young woman who had checked her into the Y told her about a corner eatery, explaining that the family-operated business had been in the same location for more than twenty-five years and served good home-style food. “Cheap food and lots of noise,” the desk clerk had said.

That settled it. On Celina's first evening in New York City, she would dine with working people like herself. Besides, with three hundred dollars of her money gone, she had to eat cheap.

The walk to the corner restaurant took only a few minutes. She was met at the diner's entry by a din of voices. A woman about her age with a row of filled plates balanced on her left arm made eye contact. “Seat yourself,” she shouted above the clamor. All at once, Celina felt at home. The crowded informal diner was just what she needed on her first evening in the Big Apple.

A vacant seat at the back of the room caught her eye. She moved through the crowd, having the distinct impression that people were staring. The waitress who had greeted her at the door came to the table and handed her a menu. Celina perused it quickly and ordered a bacon cheeseburger with a side of fries, a chocolate milkshake and a slice of cheesecake for dessert.

The waitress wrote the order without a word, but before she turned to leave, she smiled and leaned down. “I thought you guys ate like rabbits. I mean, this is enough food for an army. What's your secret?”

“Excuse me?”

“You're a model, right? One of those runway babes?”

Celina couldn't control the smile that traveled all the way across her face. She grabbed the girl's hand and squeezed it between her own. “Oh, my gosh, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Thank you so much.”

The waitress tucked back her chin and frowned. “You're not a model?”

“Heavens, no. I'm a librarian.”

“I gotta read more books,” the waitress muttered as she walked away.

Celina sat in the booth relishing the confetti of dialects all around her. Soon she was served a burger the size of a dinner plate, a separate plate heaped with french fries and a slice of cheesecake as big as her size-ten shoe. Even after she had scarfed down as much as she could eat, she still had enough left for both tomorrow's breakfast and lunch. This bounty was an unexpected blessing. She asked for a doggie bag. The waitress gave her a look, but then grinned when she figured out that Celina wanted to take the leftovers with her.

The restaurant's crowd was thinning out. Celina glanced at her watch and saw that it was nine o'clock in Texas, which meant it was ten o'clock in New York City. She left the diner and strolled back to the Y, fascinated. At ten o'clock, there had to be more people out on the sidewalks all around her than there were citizens in Dime Box.

Back in her room, she prepared for bed, her body acutely aware she had slept sitting upright for almost two days. She picked up her overnight bag and headed for the bathroom at
the end of the hall. Sharing a bathroom with who knew how many others hadn't exactly been a part of her plan.

She returned and settled into the narrow bed. Just extending her long legs should have brought relaxation, but now she felt as if she had swallowed a potent dose of caffeine. Combined with the newness of her surroundings and the unfamiliar bed, the sounds of the city seemed amplified.

She had set the food she had brought from the restaurant on the chair beside the bed. The aroma teased her. Frustrated, she clicked on the reading light clipped to the headboard, threw back the covers and sat up. She reached for the sack of food and, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, indulged herself with cheesecake.

Between bites she reached for her purse. One of the benefits of a really small room, she concluded, was that she could reach almost all four corners and not leave the bed. She pulled the conference information from her purse and read it for the umpteenth time.

Registration and picking up material began at 11
A.M
. Odd that things didn't start earlier, she thought. A luncheon and a welcoming speech by the esteemed forensic pathologist, Dr. William Wray, were scheduled at noon. She couldn't believe she was actually going to see him in person. She had listened to his commentary on highly publicized murder cases on the TV news for years.

Two breakout sessions presented by two detectives from the NYPD were scheduled in the afternoon, then a happy hour at the hotel lounge. In a sudden surge of giddiness she wrapped her arms around her body and grinned.
Happy hour
in the hotel lounge.
She had never been to happy hour
anywhere
. Tomorrow would be a great day and she intended to make the most of it.

 

“You asleep?” Debbie Sue whispered in the dark.

“Yes,” Edwina mumbled.

“No you're not. Listen, since we're both awake, let's go over our presentation. We've got time to put a shine on it. You know, really dazzle 'em.”

“If you want me to dazzle an audience, you'd better let me sleep. I need all the rest I can get. I'm fighting a battle with Mother Nature and she's winning. Have you looked at the skin around my eyes lately? It looks like the Mohave Desert.”

Debbie Sue sat up and switched on the lamp. “No, it doesn't. C'mon. Get the speeches we worked on out of your bag and let's read them again. Or if you don't want to, tell me where they are and I'll go over them by myself.”

Edwina pushed a black satin sleep mask edged with red lace to her forehead and squinted against the light. “They aren't in
my
bag. I thought
you
had them.”

“Don't tease like that, Ed. Look, you don't have to get up. Just tell me where they are and I'll get them.”

Now Edwina sat up, the spaghetti strap of a red-and-black teddy falling off one shoulder. “Honest, I don't have them. Don't you remember the last night we worked on them at the shop? You said you'd take them because I, and I quote you here, ‘can be such a dumbass I'd probably forget them.' End of quote.”

The memory and her own words came back to Debbie Sue. Edwina was right. “Holy shit, Ed, what are we gonna do?”

In a panic, Debbie Sue left the bed and began to pace, shaking her hands as if she were drying a fresh coat of nail polish. “We worked for hours on those speeches. We can't get up in front of all those people without some notes or something.”

Edwina yawned. “Hell, let's just wing it.”

“Wing a ninety-minute program? Ed, your hair curlers are wound too tight.” Debbie Sue sank to the edge of the mattress in despair. “I had slides, I had handouts, forgodsakes.” Tears welled in her eyes. After seeing the insult on the sandwich board in the lobby, she had intended to knock their socks off with their presentation.

Edwina dragged herself out of bed, took a seat beside her on the bed and looped an arm around her shoulder. “Now, now, don't cry. I'm awake now. We'll work on it. I remember pretty much what we were gonna say.”

Debbie Sue sniffled and looked at her best friend, “But Ed, it'll take all night.”

“Yeah, I know.” Edwina picked up a jar from the nightstand and began to slather gooey pink stuff on her face. “Just give me a sec to slap on another layer of this miracle cream. My face might look like Mother Nature tromped across it in golf shoes, but it damn sure won't be because I didn't put up a fight.”

Spurred by a tiny stab of hope, Debbie Sue glanced at the digital clock. “Fuck, Ed. It's twelve fourteen.”

“Piece o' cake,” Edwina said.

“We need paper.” Debbie sprang to her feet and began opening and closing drawers, finding a notepad featuring the hotel's logo. “Yay!”

And they began.

At three thirty, they looked at each other and declared their second effort complete.

“I don't know if this is as good as the first one,” Debbie Sue said, “but it's better than nothing. I saw a business center in the lobby. Their sign said they open at six. I'll go down and type up these notes and use their copier.” Debbie Sue plumped the pile of more than thirty note pages into a neat stack.

“What's a business center?” Edwina said, stretching.

“I read about it in the hotel brochures. It's a complete office for guests only. You can use computers, copiers, printers—”

“Fax machines?” Edwina asked.

“Yeah, fax machines.” Suddenly Debbie Sue stopped and looked at her friend, “Good God almighty, Ed. We wasted the whole night. I could have called Buddy and had him fax our stuff to us. He could have gone to the sheriff's office last night and sent it. We could have picked it up at six.”

“Shit,” Edwina growled, climbing back into bed and plumping her pillow. “Like I said earlier, I'm in a race with that bitch Mother Nature and she's taken the lead again. I've only got four hours of sleep time left.”

 

Debbie Sue sprawled in one of the swivel chairs located in the business center as she read to herself. She had awakened at five, showered and dressed; then she had called Buddy
and asked him to fax the draft of their speech to her. Thank God he was an early riser, and thank God again, he was on vacation this week. She couldn't help but laugh. The speech Buddy had sent was longer than what she and Edwina had thrown together in the wee hours. But, in truth, she thought the second speech was better.

Now she pondered just how many great speeches or literary works throughout time had been authored in the midst of turmoil and haste. She had discovered something profound. “Wow,” she muttered.

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and pressed the single button that connected her to Buddy.

“Did you get them?” he asked without a hello. “Did they all come across okay?”

Debbie Sue cradled the phone against her cheek. “I can't thank you enough for getting up and doing this. Was Billy Don at the office yet?”

Billy Don Roberts was the sitting sheriff of Salt Lick. A few years back, when Buddy was sheriff, Billy Don had been his deputy. When Buddy chose not to run for reelection so he could dedicate his time and energy to becoming a Texas state trooper, Billy Don got the sheriff's job sort of by default. He ran with no opposition. Up until then his only ambition had been to perfect his calf roping skills by practicing on the fire hydrant in front of the sheriff's office.

Debbie Sue heard Buddy's soft chuckle and wished she were home. “No. I called him and he said he'd meet me, but he locked himself out of the county unit. I had to go by his house for the keys. Luckily, the office keys weren't on that ring.”

“Nothing ever changes with Billy Don,” Debbie Sue said.

“Yep, he's still Billy Don.”

After a few more minutes of small talk, she said a reluctant good-bye and gathered up the pages he had faxed to her. There was no point in telling him she and Edwina probably wouldn't use them after all. She wasn't about to let him think he wasn't her knight in shining armor coming to her rescue.

Exiting the elevator Debbie Sue checked her watch. Just two hours before the NAPI-sponsored welcoming breakfast for the conference speakers and special guests. Edwina required a minimum of two hours to get gussied up. Debbie Sue hated to do it, but she had to wake her.

To her relief, when she swiped the key card and opened the door, she could hear Edwina talking and laughing.

“No, no. That's all right, you didn't call too early…. Yes, you're right. It is an hour later here. It's time I got up…. Yes, ma'am, it's pretty exciting for us, too. Okay, you take care, now, and don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

Debbie Sue sat on the edge of the bed. “Who was that?”

“Maudeen. She wants us to bring them a memento of our trip.”

Maudeen Wiley, a resident of the Peaceful Oasis home for senior citizens, was Debbie Sue's favorite octogenarian customer at the Styling Station. “Well, how nice of her to call.”

“She and her roommate have been sitting by the phone for an hour, waiting to call us. They're so excited they can't think straight.”

“A memento, huh? I don't know anyone but Maudeen Wiley who would use that word. What kind of memento do they want?”

“They want some pictures of John Wayne's hand and boot imprints from Grauman's Chinese Theatre,” Edwina said, stretching and scratching her head.

“But isn't that in California?”

“Yeah, Hollywood. But I didn't tell her any different. If I've learned anything from working in beauty shops all these years, it's to not argue with old women. Just agree and go along.”

“But how will we explain coming home without the pictures?”

“Just take her some little something from one of these souvenir shops and it'll tickle her to death. She won't even remember asking for the pictures. Did you get the speech from Buddy?”

Debbie Sue explained that the newer version they had worked on all night was the better of the two.

“Ah, a happy ending,” Edwina said. “I love happy endings. Now, we've got breakfast in less than two hours. I better get started.”

Debbie Sue stretched on the bed and congratulated herself for getting dressed ahead of time. While her friend primped and preened, she would catch a nap. She wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for her introduction to Dr. William Wray. She planned on sitting near him and hanging on his every word. Though they hadn't met, he was no stranger.
He had performed autopsies in her living room, courtesy of HBO. He was practically family.