Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [87]
“I am,” Mindie announced.
“Excellent,” Ms. Nuckeby said, her eyes never leaving mine. “How wonderful for you both. How many?” she asked, clapping menus, her voice filling with courteous distance, as if she had never, ever rubbed her breasts against my back or squeezed my whatchamajigger, and I shouldn’t try to convince anyone otherwise, or else.
“Five,” I said. “But some of us are still dressed.” I nodded toward the sign.
“And we are not eating here,” Mindie snarled.
Our hostess turned and looked at her carefully, sizing her up. After a moment’s assessment, she scanned slowly over the rest of my little troupe, and eventually returned her furious attentions to me. She looked at me for so long that I furtively brushed my face to make sure there wasn’t something stuck there, sucking blood.
Abruptly, a smile popped back onto Ms. Nuckeby’s face, and she said, overly cheerily in some kind of bizarre, hick accent: “Yew folks’ve never bin to Nikkid Baw-dums buh-fore, have yew?”
“Yew kin tell?” I asked, smiling. I’d lost the war; I may as well enjoy the final battle.
“Well, I can see some of you are trying to fit in,” she said in her normal speaking voice, looking at Waboombas and Mindie. “But the rest…”
“I am not trying to fit in,” Mindie snarled, interrupting. “This is the last place I’d try to fit in.” She folded her arms and half-lidded her eyes in an attempt at superiority. “We had a clothing accident. I fell in a ditch.”
“I pushed you in a ditch,” Waboombas corrected.
“I tripped.”
“Because I kicked your pasty white ass, you tripped.”
“Really?” Ms. Nuckeby cut in, glaring at Mindie. “I can’t imagine anyone would ever want to kick your pasty white ass.” I’m not sure why she said she couldn’t imagine it. Her voice told us all, distinctly, that she was doing so—repeatedly—right this second.
“So, if you’re not here to eat, then why did you come to our lovely establishment?” Ms. Nuckeby asked me, rather pointedly. And was that a hopeful note in her voice?
Probably not.
“Um…well…” I began. “It’s difficult to explain. The simple answer is: we’re looking for a repair place. A Duesenberg specialty shop.”
“Duesenberg? Is that a car?”
“It is.”
“Foreign?”
“No, it’s American. Old, though. Built in 1934.”
“That is old.”
“Older than me.”
“Older than most people. What was that name again?” “Duesenberg. Sound familiar?”
“No. It’s just a funny word. I wanted to hear it again.” “Duesenberg.”
“That’s enough.”
“I’m done anyway,” I said. “My tongue isn’t what it was this morning.”
“Maybe because you were chewing on fire ants?”
“That’s a distinct possibility.”
“Distinct is a funny word,too,” she said. “It’s sorta got ‘stinked’ in it.”
“Sorta,” I replied. “Hadn’t realized that before. Any reason that’s occurred to you at this particular moment?”
“No. It just did. Sounds German.”
“Distinct?”
“No, the name of the car. I’m back on that.”
“Oh, right. The brothers who made them were German, but they lived in America.”
“They don’t anymore?”
“I believe they’re dead now.”
“How sad,” she said with seeming sincerity. “Got lost somewhere and couldn’t find a repair place?”
“I think I saw their skeletons just outside of town.”
“Were they heading this way? Because we don’t have any Duesenberg repair shops. Or cemeteries.”
“If I see them, I’ll let them know they can’t be buried here. Do you have any car repair places?”
“No,” she said and paused, fighting a grin. “We have a bike shop.”
She smiled slightly, in spite of herself. She was warming to me again, and I had to keep the thaw going. But that required charm, and I wasn’t sure I had any.
“A bike shop? Do they repair cars?” I asked, returning her grin. Her personality was just so damned infectious.
“Just the kind you pedal. For kids.”
“If I buy a Flintstone-mobile, I’ll keep that in mind. How about cars that run on gasoline?”
“Not for kids. What are you thinking?”
“Who said I was thinking? How about gasoline cars for grownups?”
“Do you know any grownups?” she asked, twinkling.
“Only the Duesenberg brothers.”
“And I hear they’re dead.”
“So there’s no Duesenberg