The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [136]
“Wow,” Beaver said, shaking his head, gazing at Marylou like she was a specimen. “Look at you now!” he said. “So many years later. You’re doing so well! Those experiments weren’t nearly as bad as the press tried to make them seem.”
“Everyone who knew anything knew they were only administering trace amounts,” Wally agreed. “The media just didn’t get that. She’s living proof. And the two of you are friends! Amazing.”
“It is amazing,” Wilson said, and he felt, for the first time, how amazing it was.
Marylou took a deep breath, and Wilson wondered if she was going to launch into her litany of woes, wondered if she was going to tell them the story of Helen’s death. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. Those two bozos deserved to have their bubble burst, at the very least. But, no, she surprised him again.
“What’s really amazing,” Marylou said, “is how boring the three of you are. You’re boring the socks off me right now.”
Wally and Beaver actually glanced down, whether out of embarrassment or to see if she really had lost her socks, he couldn’t tell.
Wilson knew he had a choice. He could stay here and bask in the false but gratifying praise or leave with Marylou, who wasn’t having any of it.
He took Marylou’s hand. “Actually, gentlemen, my friend here is not doing well at all. She hasn’t been doing well for a very long time. Thanks for your kind words. And good luck with whatever you’re doing. I’m sure it’s very important, but in my book you’re like a couple of blisters who’ve shown up after the real work’s been done.”
Marylou allowed him to lead her out the door, down the hall, down to the first floor, and out of the hospital, where they stood under the awning. “I’m ready for a little drinkie poo,” she said. “How about yourself?”
Wilson was momentarily confused. Where was he? He knew he should know. How could he have left the familiar labs and then stepped outside and not known where he was? Where was home now? Where was he supposed to go? How was he supposed to get there? Would Verna Tommy be there waiting for him? Would anyone be expecting him?
“Oh God,” Marylou said, jerking on his hand. “Listen. I’ve got to tell somebody. I did something horrible.”
“You?” Wilson said. “I can’t believe it. You couldn’t even bring yourself to kill me.”
And she told him about Buff.
Rather than going back to her house on Evergreen Street to spend the night, she decided they should splurge and stay at the Peabody Hotel, since she’d never stayed there, and because, for some reason, this was turning into a pleasure trip rather than an abduction. Wilson told her that being kidnapped by her was the best time he’d had since Verna Tommy died—which she was thrilled to hear, even though odds were he couldn’t remember good times even if he’d had them. She herself felt as if, even though she was achy and bleary-eyed from the car ride and disappointed by the hospital visit, the foreign phrase having a good time could be applied to her as well.
Instead of feeling weighed down by her past, as she’d often felt when she was home in Memphis, the fact that she was in the company of the wicked Wilson Spriggs, the last person on earth she’d ever imagined hanging out with, and that the two of them were fixing to shack up at the touristy Peabody Hotel, a place she’d never thought she’d stay, made her practically giddy.
Grinning like imbeciles, she and Wilson reserved room 624. After nine-dollar glasses of wine in the lobby while the Peabody’s famous ducks waddled out of the fountain and over to the elevator to ride up to their penthouse coop, after listening to the player piano play Cole Porter songs and pretending that an invisible black man was at the keys (for a time they called him Topper and they became George and Marion),