9781618857569GettingitAllStorm (2 page)

Brunhilda
Mendle
, well into her 80’s, tiny, trim and svelte,
and the only person in the room who might give Marta
Dalaport
a run for her ’most elegantly maintained’ status, smiled noncommittally at
Christy’s comment.

“Matthew has looked
after my beloved car for many a decade, since he was a stalwart youth. Although
I love that machine inordinately it does seem a pity to squander such
dedication on a mere mechanical object, no matter how classic.”

She adjusted the small
veil on her delicately perched hat. “I’m glad to hear you girls feel our
beloved widower might be nearing the starting gate again…even if skittishly.
Perhaps he just needs, how
shall I
put it, a starting
pistol to get him off and running.”

“Right on,
Brunnie
,” Christy exclaimed, delighted. “Couldn’t have put
it more euphemistically myself, having been referred to as a quite a pistol on
numerous occasions.” She aimed a finger at Dorothy.

“Bang.
Bang.”

“Really?”
Dorothy asked Christy’s reflection. “You sure you’re not just hoping
wishfully?”

“It’s her professional
opinion,” Marta
Dalaport
noted flatly from the
waiting area, not looking up from her magazine. “I doubt if Christy ever has to
‘hope’ for any man. Amelia, you wouldn’t mind if I dropped off a few more
up-to-date copies of these, would you? Styles change so rapidly these
days,
it’s sometimes hard to keep up.”

“Any donations of your
magazines will be more than welcome,” Amelia said. “We appreciate all the help
we can get in keeping customers of The Crowning Glory au courant.”

“Thanks for the
compliment, Marta,” Christy noted, blandly, “but when I have to settle for the
mechanic instead of the mechanic’s boss, I begin to think maybe I’m losing my
touch.”

Dorothy removed the
styling cape and dusted Christy off as her client and close friend stood and
preened in the mirror.

“Maybe it’s time to try
for the boss, again.” The attractive older blonde leaned into the mirror to
check a possibly mussed lip line with a delicately testing small finger.
“Just to see if my man radar is losing its accuracy or not.
I’m looking good, right, everybody?”

“You always look
spectacular, Christy,” Amelia noted, pleased her co-worker had produced another
satisfied customer. “And Marta will soon be giving you a run for your money
when I’m finished with the lovely Lucy here and attack the few wayward strands
that Marta allows.”

The elegant, extremely
well pulled-together middle-aged woman in the waiting area allowed a brief
glance toward her admirers, accompanied by a small, self-satisfied smile.
“Christy and I both like to look good, even if at different ends of the
spectrum.” She produced a dramatic sigh as Christy returned an energetic two
thumbs up.
“Even if there’s little reason, other than
ourselves, to do so.”
With the gesture of an elegant hand she graciously
included the group of ladies.

“Are you serious about
trying for Matt?” Dorothy asked Christy, shaking out the styling cape and
neatly rearranging her work area.

“Could
be.
Why? You interested?”

“No…of course
not…I…well…maybe…”

“I am.” Lucy piped up
loudly from the adjacent chair beneath a cloud of hair spray. “I mean…if we’re
going to make a contest of it, I want in.”

“Why, Lucy, I hadn’t
thought of it that way, but that just might add a bit of spice to these
lack-of-a-decent-date days.” The blonde bombshell turned, hand on hip, a
bemused look on her beautifully made-up face. Marta, I suppose you’ll be
sitting this one out.”

“I’m very happy with
Milton, thank you. With the kids off to college, we’ve had plenty of time to,”
she smiled wryly, “remember how things used to be. Even if he doesn’t exactly
appreciate the amount of effort I put into maintaining myself since those early
romantic days.” She shrugged and tossed the out-of-date fashion magazine aside.
“He makes up for it in other ways. I see to that.” Her hand lovingly caressed
the skirt of the designer suit she was wearing.

“Okay, Dot, are you in
or out? May the best hot dame in this room win,” Christy chortled, pulling her
over to Lucy and encircling them both with a friendly hug. “This is going to be
more fun than I’ve had in a month of dating losers…which would take me back to
around ought-eight.” She whipped her newly styled mane about. “The poor guy
won’t know what hit him, but he’ll have a better time than he’s had in a long
time. What do you say, ladies?
Briefs or boxers?”

“Briefs, of course,”
Marta replied instantly, standing to remove her suit jacket in preparation for
her appointment. “White, I imagine.
On sale at Macy’s.
You can count on Matt Bartholomew to be an upstanding and unsurprising citizen.
That outburst at the board of education meeting startled the rest of us board
members, but I believe that was an anomaly. He was just responding to the
emotion of the moment. Otherwise, he’s a straight down the line kind of guy.”

“Is his underwear like
part of the game?” Lucy asked, slightly puzzled. “I thought all older guys wore
boxers. That’s all they seem to wear in the movies, anyway.”

Dorothy smiled. “Briefs
means held in, honey, boxers, hang free. It’s more of a very unscientific
analogy of how to describe a man’s perceived sexual attitude.
‘Perceived’ being the operative word.
My Beau used to wear
briefs in the winter and boxers in the summer. And his sexual attitude never
changed. He was just Beau.”

Amelia gave her
co-worker a comforting pat. “Beau would be proud of you too, no matter what he
might be wearing now…or not wearing,” she grinned. “They never show us what
those angel types have on under all those fancy robes.”

Christy broke the hug
to pace. “Do Lucy and I get a handicap? Letting a predatory widow like Dorothy
loose against an unsuspecting widow-
er
seems like it
might give the widow a leg up, so to speak, against her competition.” She
laughed.

Dorothy thought how
good it was to see her friends excited by the prospect of a little more action
around town. Action they had made several attempts to stir up before, but had
always been thwarted. Now, if Christy’s observation was correct, they might
have a chance to get their beloved Matt Bartholomew up and running again.

“What do you think,
Dot?” Christy asked.
“Boxers or briefs?
Plain or fancy?”

“I have no idea. Guess
I’ll just have to find out, won’t I?”
She high-fived the
chortling blonde, sealing her participation in the competition.

But she thought she
knew. Matt would be wearing boxer briefs. Maybe colored.
Undecided
which way to go, but beginning to think about it.
She hadn’t been
checked out like Christy the last time she’d had her oil changed, but Matt
seemed a little easier around her, a little more relaxed. She recognized the
signs. She had been there. There might be hope.

And then again, they
might all be wrong.

She had been there too.

* * * *

“What the…”

Staring at the handful
of black gauzy fabric he pulled from the unmarked envelope in the morning’s
mail, Matt Bartholomew, the proprietor of Matt’s Motors, thought briefly it
might be a sample of a new leather wipe, or some kind of fancy polishing cloth.

He started to unfold
the soft goods.

It was not a leather
wipe.

“Hey, boss.
Whatcha
got there?” Buddy
Crawfield
,
his chief mechanic and shop foreman, popped his head in the door of the
cluttered office, his curly head framing a bright morning grin. Surprising
himself, Matt swept the padded brown envelope and its tissue wrapped contents
into the bottom drawer of his battered wooden desk.

“Nothing.
Who knows? I’ll check it out later. Can’t keep up with amount of junk I get.
Especially on Mondays.”
The surprise package had shaken him
up, surprisingly. His face was warm.

Why?
he
admonished himself. He had nothing to be embarrassed about. Even if the filmy
fabric calling to him from the closed drawer was what he thought it might be,
it was certainly nothing worth reddening his cheeks.

On second thought,
maybe that’s what was finally getting under his skin.

After all these months,
Buddy was right. Matt had absolutely nothing going on in his life that might
cause him to blush.

“Buddy,
old buddy.”
Matt quirked an
inquisitive eyebrow at his longtime pal and employee, “Don’t you have work to
do?
I haven’t even had my coffee yet and you know how I am before the
caffeine kicks in.” Suddenly the thought occurred to him. Buddy might be up to
his old tricks. “Wait a minute. You aren’t messing with my head again, are
you?”

The silky black
substance in the drawer shut down its siren call. Damn.

“Buddy, I warned you
the last time…”

Matt’s solidly built
young foreman stepped into the cluttered space, looking genuinely startled.
But, then, Buddy had more than once been able to look genuinely startled when
it turned out he knew better than anyone around what was going on. Matt’s eyes
narrowed. He ran his fingers through his hair. Double damn.

“Why do you say that,
boss?” the young man protested. He glanced out the doorway into the nearby work
bays. “Oh, yeah, well, I promise I’m not gonna rip out old lady
Mendle’s
carburetor, as much as I’d like to bronze it and
give it to her to put on her mantel in memory of that damned Oldsmobile, if
that’s what you mean. She’s back with that antique again. ‘It ‘sounds…tired.
Y’know
, Buddy?’ she says.”

His plaintive
impersonation of one of Matt’s oldest customers and nosiest friends, forced
Matt’s jaws to tighten against an outright guffaw. Buddy’s croak was dead on.

“That’s her
professional diagnosis. ‘Tell Matt it’s
kinda
wheezy
,
Buddy.’ Ha! If I was as old as that
car, I’d be wheezy, too.”

Matt tried not to smile
too broadly. “We’ve kept that car running for her since her old man bought it,
Buddy, and we’ll…keep—”

The young man pulled up
a straight back chair as Matt’s smile slowly faded. “Old man
Mendle’s
been gone ten years, Matt, and
Miz
Mendle’s
still at it, getting around, having as good
a time as she can have.
Moving on.”

“Yes, and she’s doing
it without another husband too.” Matt’s lax jaw clinched.

“We’re not talking
about you getting another husband,” Buddy chuckled. “We’re just suggesting you
might be a little more sociable.
Like
Miz
Mendle’s
got her friends.
She still chauffeurs
them around.” Buddy shook his head. “They’ve got more guts than I have to get
in that boat with her still driving around in high heels. You…” He chewed on
his lip, knowing he was pressing his boss. “Don’t get around much anymore, as
somebody made a fortune putting music to. It’s been—”

“I’ll get around when
I’m ready to get around, Buddy.” Matt’s voice started out as hard as it usually
was when his young friend tried to mess with his life, to drag him back into
action, but the tone quickly softened. “You’re a good friend and I’ve yelled at
you long enough about sticking your nose…no, I mean, about trying to get me to
get my ass back in gear.” He sighed. “You’re right. Alice would’ve wanted me
to.
Eventually.
I know that. We all know that. But…you
were never…” He didn’t want to twist the knife, but had the kid ever really known
true devotion?
Undying…caring…that once ripped from you…left
an empty space that just plain…hurt.

For a long, long time.

The young mechanic’s
pained look as he studied his filthy fingernails caught at Matt.

“Damn, Buddy, I’m
sorry. I forgot. You guys were like brothers.”

A muscular forearm
scrubbed across the young mechanic’s instantly damp eyes. “And they didn’t have
to go, like Alice did,” he muttered grimly. “The cancer didn’t take them. They
just felt like it was the right thing to do for ‘their country.’” He swallowed
his loss and his anger. “Sometimes I wonder if the country’s good enough for
what an awful lot of guys and good-looking, tough-minded gals are doing for
it.”

Clearing his throat,
the young man hoisted his full frame from the chair. “Well, I guess I better
get back to that carburetor, or whatever it is that’s wheezing. Do carburetors
wheeze? We don’t even have carburetors any more! I forget what they told us in
Keeping Dead Cars Alive 101.”

He was back to his
jokey self, the moist eyes dry,
the
grin wide as he
headed for the door.