Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [52]
“I’d love that. No lie.”
“Okay! Done! I’ll tell Mark to ship the piano to Folly and I’ll go online and look for a deal on a ticket.”
“Thanks, doll. So what else is happening?”
“Well, tell me about the aunties. Are they still as feisty as ever and are they still picking at each other like a couple of woodpeckers?”
“Did you say peckers?”
“You’re disgusting!”
So we giggled at my locker-room humor, talked for another ten minutes about whether I had seen Russ yet and how’s Sara and how much damage was there to the Subaru? And, of course, who was John Risley?
Patti laughed and said, “So, he’s like Dr. Love, right? I can hear it in your voice.”
“What the EFF is the matter with my voice? Sara heard some funny thing in my voice too. What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. When you get excited, your voice goes up higher. It always has. So gimme the juice on him!”
My voice. Another traitor I needed to watch.
“Patti? I haven’t been here long enough to know where all the light switches are. If I have any juice, even a drop of it, I’ll call you pronto. Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a Girl Scout.”
“Moot point.”
I had decided that my thoughts late last night about John Risley were too premature to have any kind of a sensible or meaningful discussion about them. The potential situations that drove me insane in the middle of the night often disappeared in the morning. I’d wait and see. I might have been exaggerating his appeal in my mind. A couple of fish tacos and some guacamole did not a relationship make, sayeth the soothsayer. But if he so much as touched my arm, I knew I was calling Patti and screaming like a diva. We hung up and I punched in Aunt Daisy’s number.
When I asked her what I could do to help her that day, she didn’t hesitate.
“I’ve got new tenants moving into the Jolly Buddha this Saturday. There was a problem with one of the bathrooms. Some rotten kid stuffed LEGOS in the toilet and flushed it. Thank you! Water everywhere! If you could meet the plumber over there, it would be such a help. He’s supposed to be there at noon sharp. He promised. Just stop over and I’ll give you the keys.”
“I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Just as I was pulling out of my driveway, my cell phone rang again. My caller ID read College of Charleston and I knew it was Risley.
“Hey!” I said. “How are you?” My voice was definitely higher.
“I hate caller ID. Takes the mystery out of everything. I’m fine. You?”
“Good, good! What’s going on?”
“Well, I was thinking that if you’re free, after classes this afternoon we might take a ride out to the body shop and visit your car.”
“You mean, like going to see someone in the hospital? A corporal work of mercy?”
“Yeah, I guess. You know and then we could go get a glass of wine or something?”
This following flash of thought blasted through my brain: I had not expected anything like an invitation to imbibe or to spend any kind of time with him doing something that could be misconstrued to look like a date to rear its head so soon. BUT! If I blew him off I knew he might never ask again. AND! What was the harm in having one glass of wine? BUT! He did have that big boldface M tattooed on his forehead, didn’t he? AND! Hadn’t I taken a vow to myself? SO WHAT? I told myself, this is the twenty-first century and it’s a glass of wine, not room service in a no-tell motel with mirrored ceilings.
“Should we bring my poor Subaru flowers and candy?”
“No, I think just our presence will help her heal, just knowing we cared enough to show up.”
“You’re a little nuts, you know.”
“Uh-uh, I’m not the crazy one, but that’s another story. I’ll pick you up around six? The body shop stays open until nine.”
My cell phone pinged in my ear to tell me that I had another call. This sure was a busy morning. Now, here’s something about my techno-capabilities you may as well know. I don’t know how to use the call-waiting feature on my cell phone. So I hung up on Risley.
“Got another call! Gotta go! See you at six!