The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [132]
Back at Marylou’s house Caroline and her kids and the couple sat down in the kitchen, which smelled like old bread and old sponges. The round table took up too much space in the kitchen. The wooden chairs were tall and spindly, their seats hard and too short, the chair cushions thin and hard and lumpy from years of butts pressing into them. Despite the discomfort, it felt like they were having a party. Trevor decided to cast off his vegetarian scruples just for that evening and accepted a sandwich with a sigh. They all dived into the greasy barbecue sandwiches—pulled pork on white bread with a pickle, fries, beans, and slaw—that Caroline had dumped onto Marylou’s thin china plates. Katya asked Suzi what she liked to do, and Suzi told her about soccer and how she couldn’t wait to get started again in the fall, and Caroline felt relieved.
Then Otis started talking about how they should start selling Elvis relics on eBay, and Suzi chimed in with some suggestions about what they could pocket and sell—leaves from the trees on the grounds of Graceland, threads from the carpets inside the mansion. Katya and Trev got into the discussion, proposing that they all go into the Elvis relic business together.
“There are other Elvis sites to harvest from,” Katya said. “Like Lauderdale Courts, where he grew up. Humes High School.”
“We’d have to wear disguises, so they wouldn’t be suspicious of us, coming back to Graceland, over and over again,” Suzi said. She grinned at her mother while slurping up sweet tea through a straw, happier than Caroline had seen her in months.
“They’re used to people hanging out at Graceland every day,” Caroline said, and told them about the people she’d seen in the Meditation Garden.
“I’ll sit by Elvis’s grave and weep and fall out while you guys steal things,” Katya said. “This could be way more lucrative than being a TA.”
“I’ll impersonate a German tourist,” Trev said. “Wear a toupee. Pretend I can’t read any signs.”
“Otis could be an Elvis impersonator,” Suzi suggested. “He’s already got the pigging-out thing down.”
Otis kept stuffing french fries into his mouth. “You could be a Donald Duck impersonator,” he said.
“Or Michael Jackson,” said Suzi.
“Michael Scott!” said Otis.
“I’ll be Kelly Osbourne,” said Caroline.
It was almost like a dinner at home but without the edge.
They had just finished dinner and were helping Trev and Katya pack up endless cartons of books, when Caroline decided to check her messages. There were six from Ava and four from Vic.
She tricked him. She’d told him—and Caroline—that she was taking him out to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast, and he’d had no reason to doubt her and he was dying to get out of that house, but then, before he knew it, the three of them—she and Buster and Wilson—were on the interstate driving toward Panama City, and she told him where they were really going. It stunned him at first, that she could be so audacious, so bold, as to think she could get away with such a stunt.
“Why are we going there?” he asked her. Pine trees went whizzing past in the rain—he was way too old to jump out of her car, even if it were barely moving.
“I’m taking you back,” she said. “Where we met. Where I got the radioactive cocktail. To jog your memory.”
“I remember all I need to remember.”
“Not in my opinion.”
“And yours is the only one that counts, I guess.”
“You got that right.”
Why hadn’t he allowed himself to be talked into getting a cell phone? Caroline and Vic and the kids wouldn’t have any idea where he was. They’d be worried sick. He voiced this worry to Marylou.
“I’ll call and let them know you’re safe in an hour or two. Or three. After we’ve gotten a good head start.”
“So you changed your mind again? You are going to kill me?”
“This is just a little outing. I need to know for sure that you remember who I am and what