P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street (25 page)

Hare looked at Tortoise. “Which war was that? Motherfucker is old.”

“Just let it ride,” Tortoise said. “Who knows what these people talk about? A tip for the future: The parents are always weirder than the women.”

Harold hugged me and fake-sobbed. Topaz’s mom walked over, reached out and touched him on the shoulder. “Oh, it’ll be all right. You’re a good man. And I wish I stood up to them when they made me rehearse. Rehearse? To see my own daughter?”

He looked up, and once he saw Deandra’s smile, his face froze. He had worked up a few tears, and they glimmered in the sunlight. For one moment, I could imagine Harold in his youth, and he must have been a real heartbreaker.

“C’mere,” Deandra said. She wrapped her arms around him, and he relaxed, inadvertently nestling his head in between her bosoms. Deandra didn’t seem to mind.

Topaz, on the other hand, definitely minded. “Mom!” she yelled. “God!”

Deandra said, “You did the right thing…”

Harold kept crying. I got the feeling he was comfortable with Deandra’s chest. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Deandra,” she replied. That smile was dazzling.

“Harold,” he said. Then, he picked up her ringless hand in his and kissed it. “You are solo, I presume.”

“I am,” she giggled, looking at him coyly.

I almost snapped, “Harold! This isn’t a bar!” but instead I said tentatively, “Daddy?”

Harold seemed to wake up, as if he had just emerged from a fragrant fog. “Yes, dear! Yes! We have business! I am here to meet your intended!”

“He’s
my
intended!” Topaz shot back. Her mother pursed her lips, preparing to deliver another lecture about manners. Meanwhile, Andi’s parents were doing sun salutations by the hedge.

Suddenly, Harold started scratching his arm like crazy. Topaz’s mother stroked his hair, an awfully familiar gesture toward a man she just met. “My goodness! Do you have a condition?” she asked, genuinely concerned.

“Oh, Deandra, you are so sweet.” If Topaz and I weren’t in the way, he would be getting Deandra’s digits at that very moment. “It’s just these mosquitoes in Marin. They get me every time.”

Topaz snapped, “Momma, come here. I want to show you something.”

“Just a minute.” Deandra gave the top of Harold’s head one last stroke.

“
Now
, Momma.” Topaz folded her arms across her chest and looked at Tortoise and Hare, who were trying not to laugh.

“Oh, just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t deserve a little male attention? Harold here is a charmer.” Deandra patted him on the shoulder. I was tempted to ask if I should leave them alone. Maybe the producers were missing the possibilities when it came to finding love on reality television.

“He’s related to the competition!” Topaz started thumping her stiletto heel on the ground.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to be Romeo and Juliet.” Deandra shot a wink at Harold and walked away with her daughter.

“The apple fell real far from the tree with that one,” I grumbled. Topaz was still staring at me as she took her mom’s arm and tugged her toward Wolf’s cabana.

Harold returned to scratching his arm, and I was getting worried. “Geez, you’d think you have hives or something. Do you want me to get you some Calamine?” I leaned over, ready to open up his sleeve and take a look. He let me. When I did, I saw some ink on his arm. I tried not to grin when I realized how sneaky he was, and what he wrote confirmed what I had thought the night before:

It’s Sean Morgan in the photos.

Then I sensed Hare coming in behind me. “We really need to wash this off, Dad,” I said. I quickly buttoned up his sleeve and turned to the cameras. “He’s gotta wash off. He’s got bad allergies. Can you give him some space?”

“Whatever the old man wants, the old man gets,” Tortoise said, stepping to the side. “As long as he keeps hitting on Topaz’s mom, I don’t care.”

“Old man,” Harold snorted. “And ‘hitting on’! Sir, in my day we called that ‘romance’!”

Before he got distracted, I led Harold to the bathroom and tried to speak to him in code about the photo of Sean Morgan that turned up in the woods. “What happened to those old family photos?”

Despite his late-onset love, he got what I meant. “You’re not going to believe what I found!” he declared. Hare was lounging outside the bathroom while Harold made a big show of washing his arm. This may have been one of the few times two people could enter the bathroom without the camera barging in, but we left the door cracked to reassure them.

Once we were in the bathroom, Harold rolled up his sleeve, and I read the message that appeared.

Picture dated a few weeks before he died.

Then he pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote on my arm. “
She’s amazing!”

I rolled my eyes. “Stay focused!” I heard Hare rustling, so I added, “Dad!” for good measure.

“You stay focused,” Harold said. “Seems to me that you might be a little distracted yourself, from what I hear.”

I grabbed the pen and went for his arm. “Have you been hanging out in the woods, too?”

He smiled and wrote, “I have sources.” Then he rolled down his sleeve, buttoned it up, and said, “Let’s go see that wonderful woman again!”

Chapter Twenty-Nine:
Fun and Games

W
hen we returned to the back yard, the production crew had set up a game of croquet so the parents could mingle. Patrick walked up to Harold. “Wanna play?” he asked, twirling his mallet.

“I love challenges,” Harold said. Deandra clapped, almost as if Harold were about ready to get into a bar fight for her honor.

“You, too!” Patrick said. He held out his hand toward Deandra, and she took it.

“Oh, I’ve never played…” she said, looking down shyly.

“I’ll show you!” Harold said. “It’s great fun! We’ll be a team!” He took the mallet from Patrick’s hands, put it in hers, and then stepped behind her, as if to guide her stroke.

“What the hell is this?” Topaz asked, immediately coming forward. She had a gin and tonic in each hand. “Get your hands off my mother!”

“Dad, for real, cut it out!” I said. “For. Real.” I repeated, as he pretended he didn’t hear me. When I asked Harold to play my dad, I worried about the difference in our skin color. I worried that he would try to convince the crew to go on strike. I never dreamed that he would go skirt-chasing.

“I think it’s kinda cute,” Patrick laughed. “Go ahead, guys — I might win the game if your parents are distracted!”

A preppy guy arrived on the scene, and he didn’t look happy to be there. Since he had blue eyes and reddish hair, like Lorelai, I figured he was her dad. He kept staring at Andi’s dad, who was swaying back and forth and humming.

Patrick asked them, “Do you guys want to play croquet?”

Andi’s dad attempted to focus. “You have the best woods ever,” he said.

“Huh?” Patrick asked.

“The woods. The experience is magical. The kindness of your people.” His eyes were glassy.

Harold looked angrily at the woods, where I thought I heard the sound of twigs breaking, and then he looked back at me. By that point, I was giving the woods the stinkeye. I sincerely hoped that my little woodland creatures didn’t get Andi’s family too stoned.

“Okay, then.” Patrick twisted his mallet. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He handed Andi’s dad a mallet, and her dad looked at it and held it in both hands, as if he were trying to figure out what it was.

Lorelai’s dad was the exact opposite. He was dressed in a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and khakis. His hair was trimmed short, and his shoes were polished perfectly. He also wasn’t smiling. “I’ll play. To pass the time. What are your intentions toward my daughter? The rest of these parents seem out to lunch.”

“Pardon me?” Harold asked. His arms were still wrapped around Deandra’s body as the mallet swung back and forth. Their posture was too intimate, and I was having trouble looking at them. Topaz was already chugging her way through one of the gin and tonics. I didn’t blame her and was thinking of making one for myself.

“I don’t think you would understand,” Lorelai’s dad huffed.

Wolf started setting out the croquet balls. Andi and her mom were out by the woods, and they were engaged in some sort of rain dance. So it was Patrick, Harold, Deandra, Andi’s dad and Lorelai’s dad. I didn’t see Lorelai or her mom anywhere.

“Know what?” Patrick said. “How about you go first?” He gave Lorelai’s dad the blue ball and a mallet.

Lorelai’s dad set the ball down by the stake and pounded the ball through the first two wickets. He hit the ball so hard that Patrick cringed. I wondered what would happen if Lorelai’s dad had the chance to speak to Patrick in private.

“Next?” Patrick asked.

Andi’s dad stepped up to play red, but his coordination was skewed, and he hit the ball toward the left, well away from the wickets. “I think I got that wrong,” he muttered.

Black was up next, and Harold and Deandra had that mallet, but they were still fussing over each other. Harold let Deandra take the mallet, but she barely tapped it. She giggled. “I’m not on my game!”

“You’ll get better!” Harold cheered.

Patrick took the yellow mallet and hit the ball hard, whacking Lorelai’s dad’s ball out of the way. “Oooh! Bonus!” he said.

“Of course,” Lorelai’s dad muttered.

Andi’s dad started coming down from his high, and he was able to focus his eyes on Lorelai’s dad. Finally knocking the red ball through the wicket, Andi’s dad asked, “Have you ever been to Marfa? Texas?”

Lorelai’s dad folded his thick arms over his chest. “Certainly not,” he said. “We vacation in Aspen, thank you very much.”

Andi’s dad shrugged. “That’s cool. Anyway, you must have a doppelganger, that’s all I’m saying. Hey — what if I got my guitar? I brought it in the limo. Anyone in the mood for Woody Guthrie?”

As we tried to remind Andi’s dad of the croquet game and keep him from channeling his inner folksinger, we were introduced to Lorelai’s mom, or at least the sound of Lorelai’s mom screaming.

“I insist on talking some sense into my child!” she roared, her voice carrying all the way from the kitchen to the yard.

Greg ran out and yelled for Patrick. They conferred briefly, and then Patrick tried to step into the action. “I have only the best intentions, Mrs. Campbell.”

Of course, we all ran into the fray unfolding in the kitchen, with the notable exceptions of Andi and her mother, who were still fused to the boundary of the woods and who were probably tripping their brains out on whatever the woodland creatures gave them. Once I saw Mrs. Campbell, who was wearing a beige sweater draped over her shoulders and a strand of pearls around her neck, I knew good footage was on the way.

“Best intentions? When you’re dating three other women who look like streetwalkers?” Mrs. Campbell retorted.

“I heard that!” Topaz shouted.

Harold darted into the kitchen and got into Mrs. Campbell’s face even faster than Topaz could. He was holding the black mallet, and he didn’t even set it down before he started yelling at her. “I will not have my daughter referred to as a ‘streetwalker’! No woman should be called a streetwalker unless she actually has a pimp!”

“Did you hear him?” Mrs. Campbell gasped. “How dare you threaten me!”

Harold kept wagging the mallet at her. “You might be able to buy nice clothes, but you cannot buy class! End of discussion!”

Lorelai took the opportunity to fly into Patrick’s arms, and he consoled her. Thanks to her mom, who could apparently out-bitch Tina and Topaz any day of the week, Lorelai was earning the sympathy vote.

Mrs. Campbell slapped the countertop with her hands. “I give up! I give up!” She pulled her daughter away from Patrick. “Is this what you want? Really?” Tears were running down her face.

Topaz uttered her favorite words of judgment: “Drama, drama, drama.”

Deandra shook her head. “A mother has a right to worry, you know. And I don’t think that one — ” she pointed at Lorelai “ — can look out for herself as well as you do. Or you, for that matter.” She nodded at me.

Topaz twirled on her heel. “You’re just saying that because her dad is hitting on you!”

“Be respectful!” Deandra protested. Topaz ran out through the patio door and off toward the woods, and Deandra followed her.

“Watch your step over there!” I yelled. I meant it. I didn’t need anyone else taking a tumble down the stairs — not my dire enemy, nor the supposed love of Harold’s life.

Topaz just flapped her arms in response. “What the hell ever!”

“I am talking!” Lorelai’s mom shouted. “Lorelai, young lady, if this is what you want, fine. But I will not be privy to it, and I will not put up with this… this madhouse one moment longer. Where is the driver? Jeffrey! We’re going home!” She began shoving her way past the camera guys and yelled at Hare, “Where are my bags? Get my bags!”

“Get your own damn bags,” Hare protested. “I’m not a bellhop! I get paid to film this!”

“Jeffrey!” Mrs. Campbell screamed as her husband finally materialized.

“I’ll help you. It’s the least I can do.” Patrick ran upstairs and soon emerged, dragging down a heavy Samsonite bag.

The rest of us gathered around to see the Campbells off. Lorelai was crying, but she was holding Patrick’s hand. “Enjoy being in a harem!” Mrs. Campbell sneered on her way out.

Mascara was running down Lorelai’s cheeks, and Patrick was trying to wipe up the mess with a handkerchief. “You wanna talk? Let’s talk,” he murmured.

“In private?” she asked.

Patrick looked to Greg for permission, but Greg shook his head no. “We can keep the crew small,” he said. “Let’s go.” They started up the spiral staircase.

I felt a poke in my side. It was Harold. “Stop staring up there like that.” Since his mic was on, he mouthed, “You’re on a job.”

“What did you just say?” Tortoise asked. He never missed a trick.

Harold thought fast. “What an awful mom!” He then pointed out the open front door, where we could see Fred trying to help the Campbells into the stretch Hummer. He took my arm. “Let’s go outside.”

The camera crew followed us, and then Harold turned to them and started to speak. “You really shouldn’t talk right into the camera,” Hare said. “It looks fake.”