When Good Bras Go Bad (Myrtle Crumb Series) (4 page)

             
He turned on the radio
.
“This station rocks.”  He started bobbing his head to the music.

             
“Have you heard of a new girl named Alicia or Al?” I asked
.
“She goes over to the middle school.”

             
“Alicia Granger?  Yeah, she’s hot…uh…I mean—
”

             
“No, that’s okay,” I said
.
“I saw her at the school today
.
I can see where her appearance might make a young man’s temperature rise.”

             
Lenny didn’t say anything and turned to look out the window.

             
“How do you know this Alicia?”

             
“She goes out with Chase
.
He’s a friend of mine.”  He cleared his throat
.
“How…uh…how’d you know Al?”

             
“She and Sunny have hit it off
.
I don’t think Sunny’s friend Claire likes her, though.”

             
“Why not?”

             
“I don’t know.”  I stopped at a red light and looked over at Lenny
.
“Claire seems to think Alicia is loose.”

             
Lenny scrunched up his face.

             
“Wild,” I said.

             
He got an “ah” look on his face, nodded, and looked back out the window.

             
The light changed, and I drove on
.
“Is she?”

             
“What?” Lenny asked.

             
“Is she wild?”

             
“I don’t know
.
She’s Chase’s girlfriend
.
I don’t know that much about her.”

             
“Let me put it this way.”  I turned into the
Wiggly
Pig parking lot
.
“If you had a sister, would you want her hanging around with this Alicia Granger?”

             
He let out a big long breath.

             
I wheeled into a parking space and turned to look at him.
“Well?”

             
“Probably not,” he said
.
“But whatcha gonna do?”

             
“Good question.”

             
I was glad he’d volunteered to come to the store with me
.
You should’ve seen the weird looks we got when we strolled up to the checkout counter with our two buggies filled with eight packages of butter, fourteen packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips, eleven dozen eggs, three bottles of vanilla, plus a combined weight of thirty-nine pounds of sugar and twenty-two pounds of flour
.
When I looked at all that, it made me wonder if I was doing the right thing giving all that chocolate and sugar and butter to hormonal teenagers
.
Then I decided, yeah, it was the right thing
.
Everybody needs a good brownie every once in a while
.
But the poor Buick. After me and Lenny got everything loaded into the trunk,
its
old
butt was
practically draggin’ the pavement.

DIVIDER HERE

             
That night Matlock and I decided to turn in early
.
“It Happened One Night” was coming on, and I had to get up before daylight to get to the school and make brownies. We’d left everything but the butter and eggs in the trunk, so that’d help me as far as getting the stuff from the house
.
Getting it into the lunchroom was gonna be a whole other ballgame
.
But I’d worry about that in the morning.

             
I patted the bed, and Matlock jumped up and stepped over me to get to his side of the bed
.
I turned on the television
.

             
“This is a good movie,” I told him
.
“I’ve seen it at least half a dozen times
.
So if you fall asleep, don’t worry
.
I’ll tell you how it ends.”

             
Matlock wagged his tail
.

             
The phone rang
.
Does it ever fail?  I started not to answer it because I was afraid it was Faye calling to see if I’d found out anything
from
Sunny or from snooping around the school
.
I figure that with Sunny being aggravated at me, she told her mother on me.
Faye don’t like me bein’ a detective.

             
Then I got afraid
not
to answer it because I was afraid it was Faye and that if I didn’t answer the phone, she’d think I’d fell down and broke my hip. I’m a very young sixty-
five
, mind you, and my bones are as stout as a mule’s; but if it’s past eight o’clock and Faye tries to call and I don’t answer, she thinks I’ve broke a hip and am laying in the floor hollering, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”  Never mind that I have a social life
.
And it ain’t just me
.
The women at the
Senior
Center
say their daughters are the same way
.
Of course, the ones that have boys say their sons wouldn’t find them even if they were laying in the floor with a broke hip until the
hungry
things
showed up
for Sunday dinner
.
Oh, well.

             
Where was I?  Oh, yeah, the phone call. I answered it just before the answering machine got it
.
I needn’t have worried about it being Faye
.
It was Cooper Norville.

             
Remember him?  He’s the sheriff I went ‘round and ‘round with on that Flora Adams case a few weeks ago
.
After I solved that case for him, he asked me out to dinner
.
I politely turned him down the first time—played hard to get—but when he asked me for the next weekend, I went
.
We ate at the steakhouse, and I had a nice time
.
We’ve not been out since, but he’s called a time or two.

             
“I hope it’s not too late to call,” Cooper said.

             
“Not at all,” I said, “but I can’t talk too awfully long
.
I’m undercover on a case and have to get up at five-thirty in the morning.”

             
Coop coughed a little bit like he was strangled
.
“You…you say you’re working undercover?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“Wh-where at?”

             
“Over at the middle school.”

             
Now, Coop doesn’t usually stutter
.
He must’ve been worried about me.

             
“At…uh…at the middle school, you say?”

             
“That’s right
.
I’m working in the lunch room.”

“I see
.
What seems to be the trouble at the middle school?”

“A string of burglaries
.
Has Officer Brody not been keeping you apprised of this situation?”  I asked
.
“If he hasn’t, I’ll be
givin’ him a stern talkin’
to in the morning.”

“No!  P-please don’t do that
.
I’m…I’m sure Wilbur feels he has the situation under control
.
He’ll bring me in on it, if necessary.”

I clucked my tongue
.
“Don’t you worry
.
Now that I’m on the case, I’m sure we’ll get it solved.”

“I…I wish you’d let Wilbur handle it,” Coop said
.
“He’s trained in this stuff and—
”

“I already told you not to worry,” I said, giving him a throaty Lauren Bacall kind of chuckle
.
“I’m too smart to let some little punk sneak up and whack me in the back of the head.”

Coop didn’t say anything for so long I had to ask if he was still there.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m here.”

“I know you didn’t call me to talk shop
.
Or did you?  Is there a case you need my opinion on?”

“No!  I mean, I’m calling to ask if you’d go with me to the theater Sunday afternoon
.
They’re puttin’ on ‘Mousetrap.’”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” I said. “I’d love to go.”

“All right
.
I’ll call you on Saturday to work out all the details, okay?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“And, Myrtle, please stay out of trouble.”

“Oh, you.”  I went with another Lauren Bacall laugh
.
I figured it’d give Coop something to dream about
.
Just for kicks, I added, “In the meantime, if you need me, just whistle
.
You know how to whistle, don’t you?”

“Yep. You just put your lips together and blow.”

I laughed again, but
he’d caught me off guard and
this time I sounded like me
.
That Coop was a man after my heart.

DIVIDER HERE

When the alarm clock went off at five-thirty, me and Matlock found out the true meaning of the phrase “rude awakening.”  In fact,
that clock
made Matlock so mad he barked at it
.
I’m not sure he knew what it was
.
I don’t usually have to set the alarm clock
.
In fact, I don’t reckon I’d had to get up early since before I got Matlock.

Let me tell you, his big deep bark and that alarm clock blaring was enough to wake the dead
.
I hurried and shut the clock off, and Matlock hushed.

“Calm down,” I told him, petting his head
.
“It’s just the clock.”  I took his face in my hands
.
“Did you watch something scary on television last night after I dozed off?” 

His eyes shifted, and I took that as a guilty yes
.
I’d woke up about midnight and cut the television off, but I hadn’t paid attention to what was on
.
You know how it is in October, though
.
They’re always showing them monster movies.

I kissed Matlock’s head
.
“It’s all right, baby
.
You didn’t know any better
.
But the next time somethin’ scary comes on like that, you wake me up and I’ll cut it off
.
I don’t want my baby havin’ no bad dreams.”

On the way downstairs
, I told Matlock about the time me and my late husband Crandall had watched “Psycho.”

“It scared the daylights outta me!  And that Anthony Perkins had always seemed like such a nice boy
.
Now, I know he wasn’t really a deranged killer, but I wouldn’t have thought such a nice boy could’ve even pretended to be a killer as all-fired good as he did!”  I shuddered
.
“And that poor
Jane
t Leigh never
could
take another shower after making that movie. It must’ve been awfully hard for her to wash her hair
.
I guess she had to wash it in the sink or something. Of course, she probably had a hairdresser, but—
”

Matlock went to stand by the back door.

“Oh, yeah
.
You need to go pee, don’t you?” I opened the door and he raced into the yard
.
I filled his food and water bowls and told him “bye.”  Then I ate me a quick bite of breakfast, finished loading up the car, and headed for the school
.
It wasn’t even daylight yet.

DIVIDER HERE

Five minutes after I got those brownies in the oven, the whole front of the school smelled wonderful. I imagined young ‘uns gettin’ off the school bus thinking, “I smell brownies!  Homemade brownies!  Hallelujah!  I can’t wait until lunch!”  I even imagined Sunny sniffin’ the air and saying to her friend
s
—maybe even this Alicia, “I smell Mimi’s brownies!  Mimi makes the best brownies in the world!”