Love in a Nutshell - Janet Evanovich [30]
“It’s become the favored competitive sport in Keene’s Harbor. See those chairs?” Ella pointed to three chairs lined up at the far edge of the dance floor in front of the stage. “Judges. Olympic scoring. The whole thing. Now, come on.”
Kate looked around. “Isn’t there an arm-wrestling or kielbasa-eating challenge I could do instead?”
“Just get on up there,” Ella said.
“What, alone? You’re going to make me do this and you’re not singing?”
“I still can’t carry a tune, but you can. Do this, Kate. I’m telling you it will help.”
When she’d asked Ella for help in being accepted as one of the locals, she’d been thinking of something that might have taken a bit less effort and potential for humiliation on her part. But she trusted Ella. And what had dignity ever gotten her, anyway?
“Okay, then. Just stick by my side until I get a song under my belt.”
“I’ll be your personal assistant, I promise,” Ella said. “Let me hold your drink for you.”
They joined the field of karaoke Olympians.
“No cuts,” said a woman at the back of the line.
Kate blew out a sigh. “No problem.”
Ella drew Kate back a few steps, her voice lowered. “That’s Deena Bowen. She’s about five years older than us, so you missed out on her when we were kids. She’s also the town’s undisputed karaoke queen, among a couple of other less perky titles.”
“Such as?”
“Psycho revenge queen. She’s always verbally gunning for Matt, and from what I’ve heard, they only had one date. Though I guess she lobbied long and hard even for that one.”
“She’s a little spooky. Do you think she’d ever do more than just bad-mouth him?” Kate asked Ella.
“I don’t know. She’s bitter, for sure, but I think she’s just acting out over a whole lot of bad stuff in her life.” Ella paused long enough to give her a teasing smile. “Why? Are you worried about being in the line of fire if you date him?”
“You don’t have to be dating a guy to want to see him stay in one piece.” She inclined her head toward Deena. “And you have to admit she’s somewhere south of hostile. It rolls off her in waves.”
Ahead of Deena, Junior was pacing back and forth, shaking his arms and repeating “ma, me, mi, mo, mu” as his apparent warm-up exercise. Deena hissed at him to shut up before she had him sedated. Junior picked up his cooler and walked away from Deena to practice next to Kate.
“How’s it going, Junior?” Kate asked.
Junior glanced at Kate and hugged his cooler. “Fine.”
“Don’t you want to know how things are going for me?”
Junior hugged the cooler even tighter. “I guess so.”
“Well, I’m glad you asked. I’ve been trying to call you for two days. The ‘improvements’ you made to my toilet and shower leaked all over my entire house. The contractor was there today. Do you know what he found when he pulled up the floor?”
Junior looked a little ashamed. Kate suspected it wasn’t his first plumbing disaster. “Dooky.”
“That’s right. Lots of dirty dooky and mold. There were guys in hazmat suits in my house for eight hours containing the ‘affected’ area with plastic sheeting and setting up negative air blowers to suction all the mold outdoors.”
Junior bit his lower lip and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I heard they can be a little noisy.”
Kate’s eyes were as big as dinner plates. “It sounds like a hurricane is blowing through my house.”
“Everyone, come line up back here,” Marcie said from the stage, rescuing Junior and gathering the group behind a white wooden latticework screen that had been decorated with plastic ivy.
Not the most attractive ivy Kate had ever seen, but she was glad for whatever cover from the audience she could find. She needed to get her stuff together before facing them.
“For the benefit of the new entrant, I’m going to repeat our standing rules,” Marcie announced.
Kate gave a quick wave in acknowledgment to the other contestants now scoping her out. Happily, only Deena looked like she meant to inflict bodily harm. Everyone else nodded or waved back.
“There are six of you singing. We will determine the order of competition in the first round by pulling