Smokin Seventeen

THIRTY-NINE

IT WAS A GLORIOUS MORNING. The sun was shining. The air quality was in the breathable range. And I was alive. The emergency vehicles, cops, reporters, coroners, and gawkers were gone from my parking lot. The pimple had disappeared from my forehead. And the vordo was back with a vengeance. I felt like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I wanted to throw my head back, and sing, and twirl around with my arms stretched wide.

Alpha had shot and killed Dave. And Regina was in jail, charged with vehicular homicide, in the death of Alpha. Off-hand I couldn’t think of anyone who was alive and free and wanted to kill me.

I’d showered, done the whole blow-dry thing with my hair, and gotten dressed in my favorite T-shirt and jeans. My cupboards were bare, and I was ravishingly hungry, so I drove to my parents’ house where there would be eggs, bacon, coffee, juice, and Danish pastries.

I parked at the curb, and saw Grandma come to the door before I reached the porch.

“He seemed like such a nice young man,” Grandma said, opening the door to me. “We heard first thing this morning, and we couldn’t believe it. Your mother went straight to the ironing basket.”

I followed Grandma to the kitchen, said hello to my mom, and poured myself a cup of coffee.

“Are you hungry?” Grandma asked me. “Do you need breakfast?”

“I’m famished!”

Grandma pulled eggs and bacon out of the refrigerator. “We got coffee cake on the table, and I’ll get an omelet started for you.”

My mother’s eyes were glazed, her face registering complete disbelief, her arm mechanically moving the iron over the sleeve of my father’s dress shirt. “He seemed like such a nice young man,” she said. “I was sure he was the one. He came from such a good family.”

“Captain of the football team,” Grandma said, laying the bacon out in the big fry pan.

Bang, bang, bang on the front door. “Yoohoo!”

It was Lula.

“I was on my way to your apartment, and you drove right past,” Lula said to me. “So I hooked a U-turn. When it turned out you didn’t go to the office, I figured you were headed here.” She looked over at the kitchen table. “Coffee cake!”

“Help yourself,” Grandma said. “We got bacon and eggs coming up.”

Lula sat at the table and cut a piece of cake. “I heard all about last night. It was on the morning news. And I have to tell you it was a shocker. Dave seemed like such a nice guy. Who would have thought a demented killer could make pork chops like that. And now he’s dead, and there’s no more pork chops.”

“It’s a cryin’ shame,” Grandma said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Lula said. “Oops, ’scuse my language, but the news was real upsetting.”

I sat opposite Lula at the little table and sipped my coffee.

“You don’t look too disturbed,” Lula said to me. “I would have thought you’d have a eye twitch, or something.”

“Nope. I woke up feeling terrific.”

“Huh,” Lula said. “Now that I’m paying attention, you got a glow to you. I bet you got some last night.”

“Nope again. I just feel relieved.”

“It had to be scary when you were with Dave,” Lula said.

I nodded. “He threatened to kill me if I didn’t go to Thailand with him.”

“I saw a show on the travel channel about Thailand,” Grandma said. “It’s a vacation destination.”

Lula cut herself another piece of cake. “It’s supposed to be real nice there. I wouldn’t mind going to Thailand. ’Course I wouldn’t go with a man who gave me a ultimatum like that. That baloney don’t work with me.”

My mother sighed and shook her head. “He was so polite. And he had such good table manners.”

“He killed at least seven people in Trenton!” I said. “God knows how many he killed in Atlanta.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t get to fly,” Lula said. “You would have had to go through one of them body scanners and show some stranger your business.”

We all did an involuntary shiver at the thought.

“Maybe Dave was going to take you on a private jet,” Grandma said. “Richard Gere did that for Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”

Dave had given me an envelope that presumably held the plane tickets. I’d stuffed the envelope into my bag and not given it another thought.

“I think I’ve still got the tickets,” I said, digging through the jumble of junk in my bag.

I found the envelope and spilled the contents onto the table. There was a one-way ticket to Thailand with Dave’s name on it, and eight American Airlines gift cards addressed to me. They were worth $1,500 a piece. Dave had been leaving his options open.

“Girl, you could use those gift cards!” Lula said. “You could go on a vacation with the man of your dreams … if only you knew who that was.”

I looked at the gift cards. “I know exactly what I’m going to do with them,” I told Lula. “And I know who I’m taking with me.”

Lula leaned forward, hands flat to the table. “Are you telling me your brain and your lady parts decided on a love fest bake-off winner?”

“I’m saying I know who’s doing the body scan with me, and it has nothing to do with my brain. This vacation is going to be all about lady parts.”