Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [60]
And worse, based on what I think she’d just been saying to Mindie—would she be filming it all?
“Um…Ms. Waboombas,” I said.
“Wendy.”
“Em…Ms. Waboombas. By ‘movies’ you meant…” I hesitated, feeling as if someone had just pulled my underwear up over my head and lit them on fire, “…you meant ‘pornography’ didn’t you?”
She looked at me like my face was flat and had shrubbery growing out of it.
“What’d you think—I’m working with Spielberg?”
No, but Mindie clearly did.
As we waited for whatever was taking its own sweet time working its way out of Mindie, gravel crunched on the driveway again and I turned to see my Aunt Helena’s Duesenberg racing in through my outer gates, heading like a rocket straight for me.
She was actually driving—Biddleby, the chauffer, was nowhere to be seen. I leaped to one side as the car hurtled toward me and swerved in my direction. I dove again to the other side, and it swerved my way once more. I was trying to figure out what I had done to offend Aunt Helena so much that she felt the urgent need to grease her axles with my blood, when suddenly she braked late and skidded to a stop on the loose rocks, nearly pinning Ms. Waboombas and myself against the Beemer. Wendy seemed to take it all in stride. I felt my legs go weak and collapsed on the hood of Helena’s car.
“Sweet ride,” Waboombas said admiringly.
Aunt Helena jumped out of the driver’s side carrying a hammer and ran at me with a fierce look in her eye. I recoiled, fearing she intended to ventilate my skull. Maybe she’d come to the conclusion I was possessed and felt a ball-pien was the perfect surgical tool required to release whatever demons now controlled me. She had that look.
My mind raced through the last twenty-four hours trying desperately to remember what I’d done wrong. Had she reconsidered her feelings toward me and decided I was a sexist, model-groping pig who needed to be taken out? Had Grandfather convinced her that I really was useless? Did she stand to inherit anything from my sudden demise? If it was Woodruff, she’d more likely be trying to elongate my life, not shorten it. Perhaps the answer was as simple as she had just been watching some documentary on Roman surgery techniques and felt an urgent need to try them out. She was a fan of the History Channel.
“Corky! I’m so glad I caught you before you left!”
“You are?” I said, my voice high and terrified. “Why?” “Because I want to talk to you.”
“Just talk?”
“Of course. What else?” She noticed Ms. Waboombas and nodded
quickly. “Hello.”
“Hi,” Ms. Waboombas said. “Nice car.”
“Thank you.”
It really was. A Duesenberg model J 1934 convertible club sedan
with the top down. I had admired it often, and had been looking for one myself, but they were exceedingly rare—especially the threeseater. But if I was going to live a sexless existence, I had decided I deserved one, and would really look good while driving off my frustrations. Unfortunately, like the perfect woman, ‘my’ Duesy was nowhere to be found. Instead I had settled for a Beemer. And Mindie.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Helena said, flushed and out of breath—as if she’d had to peddle the Duesenberg over. “Can you take it in and have it repaired for me, please?”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Fine,” she gasped. “Never better. I was just afraid I’d miss you before you left, so I rushed.”
I stepped closer to the Duesenberg, and Helena moved with me. Ms. Waboombas opened the rear door and climbed in with cooing appreciation.
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“Ooooh,” Helena said dismissively. “I had a little accident— broke the light. See?”
She pointed to a headlamp at the front, and I could see it was pretty badly damaged. Fortunately the surrounding area wasn’t disturbed; only the headlamp itself, and the injury seemed minimal.
I leaned in and inspected it more closely.
“What happened?”
She fidgeted nervously and gestured absently with the hammer. “I’m not entirely sure. I just came out this morning, and noticed it was like that.”
“It looks as if…” I said, speaking earnestly, as