Breezy Spoon Diner Box Set Collection Page 17

  “So much for that plan,” I said.

  “Well, why in the hell did you have to scream like a banshee?” Mark chided. “For God's sake, you've been in a war! You've seen a lot worse than that!”

  “No, actually I don't think I have.”

  “Heather, run over across the street and get the Coleman brothers! We're going to have to force the door!” Helen called. “She could be lying in there bleeding to death! Tell them to bring tourniquets and boiling water, maybe some Neosporin. Oh, and chicken broth if they have it. Be quick about it.”

  I raced to the door and pulled it open a crack. “Heather and Helen, how nice of you to stop by!” I said. “I'm perfectly fine and Mark's here with me. I'm sorry I couldn't get to the door sooner, but it's pitch black in here. I didn't mean to alarm you when I screamed, it was just that I had been on the treadmill and it startled me when it stopped. ”

  “But the power went off ten minutes ago,” said Heather. “Why did you scream just now, dear?”

  “Oh, that's what's called a delayed reaction,” said Mark. “It happens a lot when a young, impressionable woman has led a sheltered life and then comes face to face with sudden change. She finds it hard to cope with, so she just buries her feelings until they burst out later. It's sad, but actually tonight I was trying to help her release her pent-up emotions little by little so that she can get over it. Just when I feel I've made some progress she has a relapse, but I can promise you that I'll keep trying. It's such worthy cause.”

  My BS meter was going off the charts and I wanted to introduce a certain area of his anatomy to my knee, but self-control prevailed and instead I said, “Please come in and get out of the rain. You might want to stay for a few minutes until the power comes back on. It shouldn't take long. Can you make your way over to the futon?”'

  “Of course, dear, we have a flashlight,” Heather replied, “and I'll bet you can guess just what's under this tea cozy!”

  I guessed it was a pot of tea. I was right. As they sat down, Helen handed Mark a kerosene lantern and a cigarette lighter. “You're a fireman so I guess you know how to light this thing without setting the house on fire. Heather, start pouring the tea; they could probably use a little pick-me-up.”

  I sat at the end of the futon and Mark pulled up a chair. “I guess you ladies have already called the power company and reported the outage?”

  “Well, no,” said Heather. “They don't like us very much, so I didn't want to talk with them.”

  “Why don't they like you?” I asked.

  “Present company excepted,” said Helen, “but I've never known a public servant that didn't complain, complain, complain. I mean, the power company is a public utility! They're supposed to serve the public, not harass them! Letters, phone calls, honestly, don't they have something better to do like make sure we all have electricity, which I may point out that we don't have right now? And I'm sure they're going to take their time tonight getting it fixed.”

  “Oh, don't worry, Helen,” I said. “The last time a storm took out the power they had it back on in less than an hour.”

  “Well, I doubt that will happen this time. They'll probably make the outage in our neighborhood another excuse to hassle us some more about the tree.”

  “What tree?” asked Mark.

  “The one that my grandfather planted in our front yard right after World War One as a tribute to all the men from East Spoon Creek City who served in the war, all three of them. Such a beautiful big tree. It has a plaque on it with names of each of those soldiers.”

  “I wouldn't worry about it,” I said. “I'm sure they have enough to do getting the lights back on in the neighborhood. They're not going to want to do anything about your tree any time soon.”

  “Well, they might, dear,” said Heather. “It just fell on the power lines.”

  “The tree in your front yard just fell on the power lines?!” Mark cried. “Good Lord, did you see any sparks coming from the wires?”

  “Now that's what comes of being a fireman, doesn't it, Helen,” Heather remarked. “They just seem to know things than the general public wouldn't even think of.” She turned to Mark. “You're very clever to think of that, and, yes, the wires are sparking just like those sparklers that people have on the Fourth of July.”

  Mark hurried to the door. “I'm going to check if they've caught the tree on fire!”

  Helen said, “Well, be careful, not to trip. Some of the branches landed in your driveway. You might want to remove them from the hood of your truck.”

  “Son of a--” he said as he closed the door.

  “Such a nice young man,” said Heather. “And so handsome. I'll pour the tea so he can warm up when he comes back in.”

  I was pretty sure Mark would be hot enough when he came back in. He loves his truck, always keeping it clean and polished and even stopping it at the side of the road to clean the windshield if a bug was thoughtless enough to smash into it. I knew how he felt, too. I have an older Pontiac Firebird like the one Jim Garner drove in The Rockford Files. It has a cream colored top and the lower part is brown and the big-block, eight cylinder engine can go from zero to sixty in a nanosecond; a big heavy, gas-guzzling car that I'm madly in love with it except when I have to fill the tank.

  “Well, I suppose you heard about the terrible situation at the beauty parlor,” Helen said, leaning in close to me. There's never any shortage of gossip or gossipers in East Spook Creek City, but Helen and Heather are the undisputed champions. I get my fill of unsubstantiated rumors from Charlene, so I usually try to avoid getting roped in to the Jameson sisters' gossip-fests, but this time I was interested to hear what they might know.

  “It's terrible,” I said. “I wonder who could have done that to Olivia Quinlan?”

  Heather shook her head. “Everyone's talking about her quarrel with poor Jolene, but from what I heard, she had more than one person that might want her out of the way, if you know what I mean.”

  “It's true,” Helen chimed in. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but it's shameful how Olivia went about her business. If her customers knew...”

  “Or if Chuck Bailey's wife knew,” Heather added with a knowing nod.

  “Chuck Bailey, from Highes Home Improvement?” I asked. “Was he involved with Olivia?”

  Highes Home Improvement was a little hardware store across from the town square that shared a building with a maternity wear shop. Originally it was just named Highes Hardware, but when a Lowes Home Improvement open up in the state capital, Chuck Bailey had gotten the bright idea to change the name to drum up business.

  “Let's just say that he was spending a lot of time at the beauty parlor for a man with more hair on his arms than on his head!” Heather replied, tittering with laughter.

  “Oh Heather! You're terrible!” Helen giggled.

  Just then Mark returned down the stairs.

  “All is well,” he said. “I called the power company and they're on their way over now, so we probably won't be too much longer before the lights are back on. The branches didn't seem to do any damage to the truck, so no worries there either. Do you want me to see you ladies home?”

  “Not at all,” said Heather, handing him a cup of tea. “I don't think we've ever had a chance to have a nice sit-down chat with you since you've moved in, Mark. I'll bet you like to get to know more about the background of Helen and me.”

  I cleared my throat loudly to muffle Mark's groan.

  “Oh, dear, do you have a cold, Danielle?” asked Heather. “I think that air-conditioning causes a lot of illness since it doesn't allow the human body to get used to the natural changes in the weather.”

  “Don't just interrogate her, Heather,” said Helen. “You can tell that she has a scratchy throat. Give her some of that some of that horehound candy to suck.” She turned to Mark. “My sister always carries horehound in her coin purse. It's very soothing to raw throats.”

  “Actually, I ---” I started.

  “Say, I
wonder if we're keeping you too long,” said Mark. “I'll bet you're anxious to check on your dogs to see if they're all right.”

  “Oh, don't worry about them,” said Helen, “we gave them their sleeping pills before we left.”

  “Sleeping pills?” I asked. “Should dogs really be taking sleeping pills, Helen?”

  “We got them from Dr. Josh, the veterinarian,” she replied.

  “I've never heard of giving dogs sleeping pills. Are you sure they're safe?”

  “Well, they're not exactly sleeping pills. Dr. Josh prescribed some pills for something or other that they had last year and it turned out that it made them sleepy. We decided to keep giving them to them when it's bedtime. We all get a good night's sleep that way,” Helen explained.

  “But I wonder if you should check ---” I started to say. Mark leaned over and put his index finger over my lips.

  “Hush, Dani, and suck your horehound,” he said. “We don't want to keep Heather and Helen talking all night.” He yawned and stretched. “Gosh, it's almost ten o'clock, you ladies must be exhausted.”

  “Not at all,” said Heather,” we always take a nice long nap in the afternoon.”

  “Of course you do,” he sighed.

  “This is such a good chance to get to know each other,” she said, handing him a cup of tea. “Now where do we start?”

  “The names would be best,” said Helen. “I'll be you've been wondering how we got our names.”

  “Honestly I must admit that I've been consumed with curiosity about that since I first met you,” he lied as he took a big gulp of tea, presumably to get rid of it. Not the best idea. Almost immediately he was gagging and coughing while tea was running out of his nose.

  “Are you all right, dear?” asked Heather. “I hope I didn't put too much watermelon wine in the tea this time. You're not allergic to tea, are you?”

  I was trying not to laugh and choke on my horehound candy. Mark was wiping his eyes and trying to glare at me at the same time. Fortunately Heather's phone rang.

  “Why isn't it Virginia Mullins,” she said, “Why ever would she be calling at this time of night? Family Feud starts in 10 minutes. I'll put it on speaker so we can all listen. It seems so rude to take a private call when others are around.”

  Virginia's crackling voice said, “I can't talk long, girls. but I wanted to tell you that Jim Drummond's barn is on fire. I guess it got struck by lightning.”

  Mark said, “Ask her if anyone reported it!”

  “Who's that hollering in the background? Do you have the TV on?”

  “No, that's my next door neighbor, Mark Adams. I don't think you've met him. He's a very nice young man and oh, so handsome and, listen to this: he took Danielle O'Shea to the prom!”

  “Danielle O'Shea. I thought she was out of high school by now. Poor girl, was she in the slow class?”

  “Excuse me, but did she report the fire?” Mark repeated.

  “No, Danielle is out of high school, but she went to the prom as a chaperon. She was wearing a lovely purple chiffon dress and they made such a cute couple.”

  Mark had dialed the Fire Chief on his cell. “Have you had a report of a fire at the Drummond farm? No calls? Oh, the Drummonds are out of town? Some lady named Virginia Mullins is on the phone and she said the Drummonds barn is on fire. Okay, I'll wait to hear back from you.”

  By the time Mark hung up Heather was off the phone too. She and Helen were heading towards the door.“I'm sorry but we have to hurry off. We don't like to miss that part at the beginning of Family Feud when Steve Harvey says all those funny things. Carry on with what you were doing before we got here.”

  As the door closed, Mark's phone rang. It was the Fire Chief again. “Well, damn and blast!” Mark said after he hung up. “I've got to go put out that fire at a barn.”

  We did not carry on with what we were doing before the Jameson sisters got here.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning I was having a dream that someone was sending me a message in Morse Code, but I couldn't make it out. They would stop and start and there was never enough time between messages for me to answer back and let them know that I wasn't understanding them. It was getting irritating so I didn't mind when my phone rang and woke me up. It was Mark.

  “Can I come in, Dani? I need a little help with something.”

  “Sure. Be right there,” I said. This wasn't good. I usually braid my hair at night because I don't want it to tangle. Half of it was still braided the other half was all over the place. My night shirt had seen better days and I could only find one slipper but I couldn't let him stand there much longer. Apparently he had been knocking in Morse Code for awhile. Well, knocking anyway, but probably not in Morse Code.

  “I can make you some coffee,” I said as I opened the door. Maybe I could distract him long enough to do something about my appearance.

  “No, thanks. They gave me some at the hospital.”

  I gasped. “The hospital! What's wrong? Why didn't someone call me? Oh, no, your arm's in a sling? What happened?”

  “The police usually let a person sit down during questioning. Do you think you could do the same?” he asked.

  “Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, of course, sit down.”

  I took a good look at him. He was wearing a tee shirt, draw string pajama shorts and moccasin slippers. The side of his face looked scorched, and he was missing an eyebrow. His arm was in a sling, but it wasn't in a cast. He looked tired. With Mark, tired usually meant grouchy.

  “Could I come inside to sit down? There aren't any chairs out here.”

  “Oh right! Come in!”

  I led him to the sofa and once he was comfortable he explained what happened. “It took a while to put out the fire at the barn, because good old Virginia hadn't bothered to call it in when she first saw it; she had to await for a commercial break in Jeopardy. Naturally by time we got there the fire was out of hand. Anyhow, a beam fell and hit me on the shoulder. I had to go to the hospital so they could do a scan and make sure there weren't any muscle tears or broken bones. The X-rays came back clean, so they just gave me some pain pills but it still hurts like heck when I move my arm. I tried to put some Tiger Balm on it myself but when I reach with my left hand over to my right shoulder it feels like someone just stabbed me in the back.”

  “I'm so sorry, I'll do it,” I said, “but why didn't you let me know you were at the hospital? I could have been there in ten minutes.”

  “Pat Duffy took me there and stayed to make sure I was okay to drive myself home,” he said. “Besides, you couldn't have come in. You've been banned from the hospital ever since your were there a few weeks ago.”

  “Banned from the hospital! What on earth are you talking about? You can't ban a person from a hospital! All I did a few weeks ago was stop by to check on a patient; namely you!”

  “I don't know if yelling, running soaking wet and barefoot through a hospital like your hair was on fire and knocking hospital staff arse over tea kettle is considered 'checking on a patient'. Some of them still have bruises from the last time you were there. I'm pretty sure you're banned.”

  “Well, the poor little babies! If they don't know how to deal with concerned visitors they should get another job. Besides, that's ridiculous, they can't ban me. What if I get injured and need to go to the hospital?”

  “I don't know. I guess they'd have to tie you to a chair, give you a shot and proceed to patch you up.” He held out the Tiger Balm. “Speaking of patching up, could you ---- Good Lord, what on earth are you wearing?”

  “It's a night shirt, of course.”

  “It looks like a tent. The neckline's so big is falling off your shoulder on the left side, and I don't want to pry into your past but it says 'World's Best Grandma' on the front. Is there something you'd like to tell me?”

  “It was on the clearance rack at Walmart because it's a size 5X and I guess all the grandmothers in Pumpkin City must be skinny. Their loss; I managed to buy three of th
em for only $10.”

  “You don't need anything with an X behind it, obviously not a 5X.”

  Maybe his eyesight had been damaged in the fire, but who was I to argue?

  “Thank you for your generous but incorrect assessment of my size. I appreciate it.”

  “And I appreciate your generous size. Say, have you ever heard of a little shop called Victoria's Secret? They offer credit cards.”

  “You don't need a credit card for something that costs $3 plus tax. Let me help you get your shirt off so that I can get started with the Tiger Balm. By the way, one of your eyebrows is missing.”

  “Yeah, I know. I'll shave the other one off so it doesn't look weird.”

  “No, you don't need to do that. I'll just draw it in with my eyebrow pencil.”

  “Oh, good. Do you have any mascara and false eyelashes I can borrow, too?”

  “No, but I have some hot wax that I wouldn't mind using on you right about now. I won't tell you where. It'll be a surprise.”

  Mark was sitting sideways on the sofa and I was kneeling behind him applying the ointment when I saw my brother Bob's car pull up in front. A moment later he knocked at the door and I called, “Come on in, Bob!”

  As he came through the door, he grinned and said, “If this is a private moment I can come back later.”

  “No, you're just in time,” said Mark. “I may need police protection. Has your sister ever competed at the Ultimate Fighting Championships? I almost blacked out when she took my shirt off.”

  “No, she hasn't,” said Bob, “but if she does we should pool our money and bet on her. After the first fight we could retire and be sitting on the beach in the Bahamas drinking Mai Tais.”

  “No, it's Mai Tais in Hawaii and Pina Coladas in the Bahamas,” I said. “I learned that on YouTube.”

  “We'll have them flown in from Hawaii,” Bob said. “I hear your neighbor's tree took out the power to about half the houses in town.”

  “Why, yes, it did,” said Mark. “Dani and I were in the basement at the time. I had been working on the doll house and she was on the treadmill. It was totally dark down there and then we saw a light at the window in the door. Dani looked over and screamed so loud I think I lost the hearing in my left ear. Our creepy next door neighbor was peering in the window with a flashlight under her chin so we would recognize her, and her hair was whipping around like the Bride of Frankenstein!”