Shop Talk (7 page)

Mona put down the manuscript. “There’s something you have to understand, Lucille.” Mona felt the words pulse in her throat, little arrows of rage. It took a lot of effort to make them leave her mouth in a controlled fashion. “We don’t discuss our personal lives. Not at all. Not our parents’ names, not our uncles who raise hogs, not anything at all about our personal lives.”

Lucille blinked. “Why not?”

Mona lifted one eyebrow. “First, because the members of WOMB decided it would be that way. We don’t want anything personal interfering.” She leaned forward. “Second, because writers are cannibalistic.” She pointed her fork at Lucille. “You’d make a lovely chapter on uses for Red Devil Lye.”

Another cracker disappeared in Lucille’s mouth. “I don’t get your meaning.” She chewed and swallowed. “If we meet at the shop, you’ll have to know my brother. That’s a really stupid rule.”

Mona went completely still. “Maybe it is a stupid rule. Maybe it is.” She signaled the waiter. “I think I’d really like to hear more about Uncle Peter Hare. After we see the shop.”

When the bell over the shop door jangled, Bo looked up from a 1973 Sylvania he had disemboweled. Radical surgery was required, and he was Mandy Pitinkin from the first season of
Chicago Hope.
The very best surgeon. Maybe a little arrogant, a lot crazy, but the best at a delicate procedure where the patient’s life hung in the balance. Wires and the tiny chip boards that showed his patient’s age were jumbled in his hands.

He ignored the second jangle of the bell and wished that Iris was beside him, assisting him. Iris loved the
Chicago Hope
scenario. They could both relate to a character who had relatives in mental institutions.

At the third jingle of the bell Bo gave up his fantasy and the television and went to tend to the customer. His annoyance turned to interest at the silhouetted figure that walked toward him. The woman had good looking legs, and she was wearing a short skirt and some kind of military hat. Behind her was a tall, slender woman in high heels, and then … Lucille. An image of Shelley Winters going down in the engine room of the Poseidon blanked out everything else. When his vision cleared, he saw Lucille was wearing a plaid suit that looked like something a demented Easter bunny would put on, or worse, a Junior Leaguer on acid.

“Bo, these are my new friends, Ms. d’la Quirt and Ms. Frappé.” Lucille stood behind Mona’s shoulder.

Bo cleared his throat. “Ladies.” It wasn’t the right thing to say, but there was no other salutation that served better.

Mona stepped forward and held out her hand and captured Bo’s, giving it a firm squeeze. “My, that Y chromosome can make a difference.”

The big metal door in the back of the shop opened and Iris rushed into the shop waving a newspaper. “Bo, our local celebrity, Dr. Beaudreaux, has mysteriously vanished. The newspaper says he disappeared with an old black and white television.” Iris stopped when she saw Lucille and the two strange women, one holding her husband’s hand.

“That’s my sister-in-law, Iris,” Lucille said.

Mona gave Bo’s hand a little squeeze before she dropped it. Lucille was an idiot, but her brother was a hunk. And the shop was the perfect place to meet. Perfect. It had an air about it, an energy. It would be the ideal place for a lot of things.

Iris eased to Bo’s side and put her hand on his shoulder. “Your sister has the most interesting friends, baby.”

Mona ignored Iris and let her gaze linger on Bo. “We’ve come to make sure it’s okay if we hold our writers’ meetings in the shop.” Mona decided to take the moment in hand. She didn’t have the rest of the day to fool around. “Lucille said you wouldn’t care if we met up here once a week on Wednesday night. To go over our manuscripts.”

Iris flicked her lighter and started a cigarette in the silence that followed Mona’s announcement.

“Is that what Lucille said?” Bo gave his sister a long look.

“Bo, I didn’t get a chance to talk with you, but what would it hurt? The shop is empty. You and Iris are in the back. We wouldn’t hurt a thing. We’d just need a table and some chairs.”

A long, thin stream of smoke reached out from Iris to Lucille, almost a touch. “Wednesday night. Sort of like prayer meeting. I don’t suppose y’all sing and handle snakes, do you?”

“Iris!” Lucille turned a pleading look on her sister-in-law. “We’re writers. We’re professionals. We aren’t kooks.”

Iris blew another puff of smoke. She saw the tall, thin woman take up a sleepy-eyed position in front of a soundless television, watching the images flicker back and forth as if she were hypnotized. Or a lip reader. Iris ruled her as harmless. It was the whip lady who bore scrutiny.

Aware of Iris’ surveillance, Mona wasn’t put off. She visually measured the distance between Bo’s shoulder blades, an infallible indication of the size of his endowment. Yes, indeed, he was a full grown man. His butt was a little flat, but put him on bottom, let him work those gluteus maximus in a mutually satisfying exercise, and he’d round out.

“Lucille, I don’t think this writers’ meeting is such a good idea.” Bo picked up his screwdriver. He didn’t want a bunch of flaky writers running amok in his shop, not even one night a week. Driskell was bad enough. It was like having a large rodent in the shop at night. A talented rodent, to be sure. The man could repair televisions and VCRs, averaging ten a night. He was the best help Bo had found in the seven years he’d owned the business. Good enough so that he and Iris were thinking about taking a vacation. A real trip. Iris had been talking for years about the wax museum down in St. Augustine, Florida. There were figures from history
and
television personalities. And they might even make a swing by Universal Studios in Orlando and see some of the sets. But the entire trip hinged on whether Driskell LaMont stayed on to work. The one thing Bo didn’t want was Lucille and her crazy friends making life uncomfortable for Driskell.

“Bo, this is important to me.” Lucille put her hand on his arm. “Really important.”

Bo could feel her trembling. Lucille, who didn’t bat an eye at being fired or thrown out of her apartment. Lucille, who thought nothing about driving without a license or forgetting to buy a new car tag. Hell, Lucille didn’t worry about insurance. The last time she got fired from a job as a receptionist at a home health care group, she’d lost not only her paycheck, but her medical coverage. She had been totally unfazed. Why was it that she wanted this instead of something sensible?

“Bo.” Her voice trembled and her lip quivered. “Bo, this is the most important thing in the world to me. I’m begging you. Remember the day Daddy died, when he called you in the room and made you promise that you’d look after me? He said that we were special, the two of us. That you were my big brother, and that no one could take care of one Hare the way another Hare could.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “That you should take care of me and Mama.”

Bo refused to close his eyes, but even with them wide open and focused on Mona d’la Quirt’s robustly rounded backside, he couldn’t shut out the scene Lucille described. Happy Hare had called him into the bedroom, a big room with three windows where the sun slanted in through the venetian blinds creating a pattern of black and white across the dark green bedspread, a zebra pattern across Happy Hare’s pale face. Even at the time, Bo had thought it significant. Happy was a man of sharp contrasts. So good natured, always ready with a laugh, until he went into one of his dark spells. So alive and vital, until the collapse.

It had been no secret that Happy was dying. The doctors said it was his heart, but there was some confusion. It wasn’t a stroke or a heart attack or a clogged aorta or a weak ventricle, it was something else. Something that not even the doctors fully understood. Just one of those strange things that happened to the human body. But it had been one of Happy’s last acts to extract the promise out of Bo to care for Lucille and Ethel.

“We Hares are a special breed,” Happy had said, his voice reedy and thin because his heart was not pumping properly. “You and Lucille, you’re the last. The best.” He had made a face. “It’s up to you, Bo, to look out after your mother and your sister. There are some things I need to tell you,” he’d sighed then, big and long, “but I haven’t the heart.” He’d chuckled weakly at his own pun. “Besides, you’ve done fine not knowing, and sometimes a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Just promise me you’ll look out for Mama Hare and your sister.”

And Bo had promised. Because that was what a good Hare did.

“Bo, if you don’t let us meet up here, they won’t let me be part of the group. They’re real writers, Bo. They might be able to help me get an agent, or find a publisher.”

Bo tried to ignore her. His own stomach was doing a St. Vitus dance at the thought of those women in his work space. He connected with Iris’ gaze, but she gave him no help. She claimed to be part Indian, and Bo had an image of her standing in front of his shop with a fistful of cigars. Her expression was wooden–until she whipped the axe from behind her back.

“Bo!” Lucille stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “Please. Just give it a try. If we make a mess, you can tell us not to come back. If you say yes, I promise I’ll go to work on time. I won’t give Mr. Johnson any reason to fire me.”

“Let me talk it over with Driskell.” Bo hated himself. “You’ll have to make sure you don’t disturb him.”

Lucille’s smile was one of victory. “Driskell won’t mind. I can assure you of that.”

Iris put her cigarette out in the ashtray at Bo’s elbow. “Don’t blame me if we come in here one Thursday morning and find them all stacked in a corner, drained of their blood.” Iris cut her eyes at Coco, who had bent over to fluff the pompon on her right shoe. “All except that one. He’d have to get a hydraulic suction pump to get anything out of her.”

“Oh, thank you, Bo.” Lucille leaned over and kissed his cheek, leaving a dark lipstick stain. She turned to Mona. “Bo says if we don’t bother Driskell we can meet here.”

Mona looked at Coco, who was watching the contestants on
Jeopardy
soundlessly gesture and clap. “We’ll put it to a vote and let you know.”

“How many others are there?” Lucille asked. “I didn’t make but three copies of my book. There’s one more in the car.”

“Three more.” Mona rattled her keys. “Let’s go, Coco.”

“When can I see what you’re working on?” Lucille twisted her hands together. “I can’t wait. I can’t believe this is actually happening to me, Lucille Hare. I’m going to be part of Writers of Mississippi Books!”

“Wednesday night.” Mona said. “Six-thirty, exactly. Come on, Coco.” The bell jangled their departure.

“Captain Bligh and her greyhound,” Iris said. “Where did you find those two, Lucille?”

“I have to get back to the bank.” Lucille edged toward the door. The one thing she didn’t want to do was answer questions about Mona or Coco.

“Lucille, if Driskell says no, you’ll have to call them up and cancel.” Bo tried hard to sound firm.

“He won’t say no.” Lucille knew he wouldn’t. He’d been the one who encouraged her. “Bye now.” Lucille pushed open the door and ran into the April afternoon, which had begun to cloud.

Iris watched as Lucille slammed herself into her car. “Jesus, baby, that scene was like a wreck between
Mad Max
and that cartoon character, Skeletor.” She shook her head. “I wonder what the others look like.” There was a certain amount of interest in her voice.

Bo still held his screw driver, but he no longer felt like the doctor on
Chicago Hope.
Now he was Tom Selleck,
Magnum,
in a bad episode. Most episodes were bad for poor Tom. He was always getting it in the eye whenever he tried to do his duty or just be a regular nice guy. Bo sighed and wished some reasonable inner voice would speak to him and make it all better.

Iris heard the sigh and saw the droop of his shoulders. The idea of Lucille and her weird friends in the shop every week was both infuriating and intriguing. She’d never known Lucille to meet anyone on a regular basis. “Maybe those women have brothers, or cousins, male relatives that Lucille can date.”

“You mean male relatives who aren’t in prison?” Bo made a face. “Forget it, baby. I want Lucille to marry someone who’ll take her off my hands. I don’t want her dragging some other poor jerk into the family so I have to support two of them.”

“Right.” Iris looked up as the front door bell jingled aggressively. “Holy shit,” she said. “This is ‘Day from Hell'.”

Bo said nothing as the tall, burly man walked toward them. His step was measured, his gaze holding Bo’s, disregarding Iris completely. As he drew nearer, Bo could see that his eyes were laced with red veins and a pulse throbbed at his left temple, clearly visible beneath the short, gray hair.

“No house calls, Mr. Gavin.” Iris spoke first. Tensed and coiled, she waited by Bo’s side.

“My television is broken. It’s too big to fit in my trunk. I want it repaired.” His tone was commanding.

“You have to bring it in.” Iris walked to the counter and took up her position.

“My business is with Bo.” Abe Gavin dismissed Iris with a sneer. “This is between us men.”

“Bo doesn’t make house calls.”

“What kind of repairman is he?” Abe Gavin clenched his hands at his side. “I’ll pay him triple.”

“No,” Iris said. “No amount of money. No house calls.”

“But he always comes to our house. My wife is expecting him. She’s baked a fresh apple cake just for him.”

Iris saw the sympathy in her husband’s eyes. “Absolutely not. Remember the pitiful woman who trapped you in the bathroom? Remember the elderly man who had no family, only his TV? Remember the fat girl who nearly sterilized you by grabbing you?” Iris turned back to Mr. Gavin. “No house calls. Not now; not ever.”

“It’s not the set. It isn’t even broken. It’s just that Gladys, my wife, says that Bo reminds her of Gerald, our boy. He lives out in Oregon. Gladys just misses him a lot. If Bo came by to check the set, it would be like having Gerald home for a visit. Just for a piece of cake and a cup of coffee. Fresh apple is Gerald’s favorite.”

Iris shook her head. “Mr. Gavin, Bo can’t leave the shop because he’s been ordered by the courts not to leave the premises.” She nodded at her own ingenuity as she took the older man’s arm and led him to the door. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. As much for Bo as the Gavins. When she turned back to her husband, she saw the horror on his face.

“Their desperation has crawled up under my skin and it’s running around like the alien. Pretty soon it’s going to burst out of my chest and devour everything in sight.”

“Bo, honey,” Iris sighed and kissed his cheek. “You can’t make Gerald be a good enough son to remember to give his mama some attention. You can’t take care of everyone and make it right for them.”

“It eats at me.” Bo eased the wires down to his work table. “You think hell bring the set in?”

“No. It’s not broken. He told the truth–Mrs. Gavin just wanted to pretend for half an hour that her son, Gerald, was home and that he was nice enough to drink some coffee and eat some cake she baked especially for him.”