Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping (4 page)

“Perhaps you don’t know who I am,” the customer said haughtily, while placing her hands on her hips in an attempt to show her superiority.

“Perhaps I don’t care who you are,” Emily said, without flinching or even raising her voice. “You could be Mother Teresa and your husband the Pope, and you would have still been assigned the same site.”

“Humph! I don’t appreciate your smart aleck comments, lady. I happen to be Fanny Mae Finch, the renowned author. I’m practically a household name,” the surly woman replied.

“Not in my household! Sorry, never heard of you.” Emily spoke as I echoed the same words in my mind.

Perfect retort, I thought. I wanted to applaud, and say, “Campground owner one, pompous ass zero.”

“Well, you must be illiterate, then. My new novel is currently on the
New York Times
Best Seller list,” the egotistical woman stated, with obvious pride in her self-proclaimed awesomeness.

“How nice for you, Ms. Finch. Do you want the site or not? You’re holding up the line. There are plenty of people who would love to have your site if you’d like to take your business elsewhere.”

“I do not appreciate your attitude at all. Have you not heard the mantra of most professional business owners, that the customer is always right?”

“Well, Ms. Finch, you are
about
to be right! Right out the exit gate of this campground, that is!”

“You know, I could write an article about how rude and unprofessional the staff is in this so-called RV Park.
Cozy
Camping?
Really? What fantasy world are you living in, lady? Even the man on the golf cart outside had the gall to tell me I needed to pull up because I was blocking the driveway. As you just suggested, I sincerely do have half a mind to take my business elsewhere.”

“Please do, because I have more than half a mind to give you a refund and send you on your way so you can enjoy looking for a site in a town that’s been booked up for months. The closest RV Park where you have a prayer of finding an open site in is probably forty-five minutes south of here in Fort Collins, Colorado. Otherwise, you can rent a dry-camping site in an overflow field up the street. That way you can also write a book about how much you enjoyed parking in a field full of rutted, dusty roads, anthills, and prairie dog mounds, with no electric, water or sewer hookups and no shower house to use. You might even be gifted with an antelope’s calling card at the bottom of your doorsteps some morning. And don’t look around for a laundromat, a café and coffee shop, or a bus to transport you downtown or to the rodeo grounds, either. We offer those amenities, but for use by our paying guests only. Guests not staying in our park are not allowed on the premises to take advantage of any of our facilities. Hey, maybe that book will hit the best-seller’s list too!”

I had to admire this businesswoman’s composure. Wendy and Veronica were now standing behind me and had only heard the last response by Emily. Having not heard the entire conversation, they were probably thinking she didn’t have the social graces necessary to deal with the public. I would fill them in on the entire exchange later. I’d become very fond of both of the Harringtons when they’d been guests at our inn just before Christmas. Emily was a kind woman, but like me, she was not the type to take undeserved crap from anybody.

I watched Fanny brush an imaginary object off the sleeve of her jacket as if it were spittle that had shot out of Emily’s mouth. The white fur coat she wore, even though it was in the lower seventies, was obviously an attempt to flaunt her success and appear classy. A t-shirt and shorts would be more comfortable and appropriate for the situation. In my opinion, the novelist didn’t have an ounce of class in her entire body.

Fanny Mae Finch must have been weighing her options and found her other choices to be unappealing, because she snatched her receipt and a park map off the counter and stomped out of the office.

“Bravo,” I said, as I approached the counter. “You could not have handled that self-absorbed witch any better than you just did, my friend. Obviously you’ve dealt with customers like her before.”

“Not too often, fortunately,” Emily replied with a smile. “But when this place fills to overflowing during Frontier Days, occasionally some of the nastiest creatures come out of the woodwork. I particularly dislike those with no room to complain because they failed to make a reservation in advance and I’m forced to turn them away. But the vast majority of them are as polite and understanding as they could possibly be.”

“Thank God for small favors,” I said, as I handed Emily my reservation slip.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Lexie. I spoke to Stone a few weeks ago, and I’m so happy we were able to accommodate you all. After he told me of his desire to surprise you for your anniversary, I was praying for cancellations. When a woman called to cancel four sites her family had reserved due to an unexpected death in their family, I tried very hard not to sound pleased with her family’s misfortune.”

“Emily! That’s just awful!” I chuckled, as I signed my credit card slip and told her I didn’t want to hold up the line. Ms. Fanny Finch already had people backed out the door because of her long-winded tirade.

“I’m just pulling your leg about the last-minute cancellation. Actually, the entire group decided to bypass the festivities this year to be present for the imminent birth of a new family member. So it was a joyous reason, not a death, and I was happy for them. But I was happier still that I could call Stone and tell him we could accommodate your three rigs. Oh, by the way, Lexie,” Emily said, as Wendy, Veronica and I turned to leave. “I apologize in advance, but unfortunately her royal highness is parked right next to one of your three sites. I made the mistake of giving her the fourth site that opened up due to the last-minute cancellation.”

“No worries,” I responded. “Even though I may not be able to display the patience you did, I’m sure I can hold my own with the esteemed Ms. Finch. I’m afraid I would have sent her packing the second after she walked in and slammed her reservation form down on the counter in front of me.”

As we walked back to the rigs, two men in golf carts prepared to lead us to our assigned sites. I told the one parked in front of our motorhome to put us right next to the last camper he had parked, which would have been the Finches. I didn’t want to saddle either of the younger couples with an unpleasant neighbor.

As we pulled into our site, I spotted Fanny Finch yelling and gesturing wildly at a man I assumed was her husband as they stood outside their Fifth Wheel. He was attaching his cord to the electrical pedestal, ignoring his spouse as if she were nothing more than a fruit fly buzzing around a rotting cantaloupe on the picnic table. I was sure he’d learned to tune her out many moons ago—to maintain his sanity, if nothing else.

It was at that moment I had a fleeting feeling of uneasiness. That niggling premonition in the back of my mind when we pulled into the campground had come back in full force, and I feared I hadn’t seen or heard the last of the disagreeable author. To my chagrin, in most cases, I had found that my premonitions were almost always spot on.

Chapter 3

As I had expected, Stanley Harrington had to be called upon to give the men a refresher course in connecting all the utilities to the motorhomes. Somewhere between the thingybobber and the doohickey was a whatchamacallit that Stone didn’t know what to do with. Stanley explained that it was a regulator, designed to keep the water pressure at an optimal level.

It was a Friday night in late July, and the opening night of the rodeo festivities. We didn’t have tickets to the concert that evening, so the six of us sat in lawn chairs on the patio next to our site. The campground was a beehive of activity, and it was fun just watching the other campers coming and going. We saw a bus pull up in front of the office and a swarm of excited people rush to board it for a ride to the fairgrounds where Toby Keith would be entertaining the crowd in concert that evening.

At an elevation of over six thousand feet, it was remarkably cool for a mid-summer evening. I was wearing my Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt, and relishing the fact that all my friends back home in Kansas and Missouri were probably sweating like an ice-cold glass of lemonade on a hot Midwestern night.

For a late supper, the six of us had purchased barbecued pork sandwiches and fries from the little restaurant on the premises. I had remembered Emily and Stanley talking about it being a new addition to their campground one evening as we gathered in the parlor of the Alexandria Inn for an after-supper cup of coffee.

The food was delicious and we devoured it as we visited and relaxed in our lawn chairs. I had my ever-present cup of coffee in my hand as I listened to a lively debate between Andy and Wyatt about which political party was most apt to put us in a deep depression and ruin our country the fastest. In the end, it was a six-of-one and half-a-dozen of the other consensus. We all agreed, no matter which party was in power, our country was destined to go down the toilet faster than we could holler, “Impeach him!”

To veer the conversation toward a less depressing subject, I said, “I wonder if our owl was rescued and how it’s doing tonight.”

“I’m betting he’s being well taken care of,” Stone replied. “The gentleman on the phone assured me that if the owl’s injuries were limited to a broken wing, or something of that nature, it would be rehabilitated and allowed to recover at the wildlife center. It would then be set free once it was completely healed. If the owl’s injuries were too severe for it to ever be able to return to the wild, then the bird would make its permanent home at the center, where children often take field trips to learn more about wildlife indigenous to their area.”

“That would be kind of like being condemned to the Shady Acres Nursing Home for birds of prey,” I said. “I sure hope the owl can be set free eventually so it can live out its life in its natural environment.”

“I’m sure they do all they can to make their habitat as close to what they’re accustomed to as possible,” Wyatt said. “Occasionally, while we’re on patrol, we find an injured animal and transport it to a rehab center outside of St. Joseph. Just a couple of weeks ago, I took a red fox there that had gotten tangled up in a metal snare and was attempting to gnaw off its leg to get free.”

“Oh, my goodness! How disturbing. Those traps should be illegal,” Wendy said, taking the words right out of my mouth, and probably the others in our group.

Veronica turned to Wyatt and asked, “Isn’t that the one you went to check on at the rehab center last week?”

“Yes, I was worried about the little critter and wanted to see how he was faring. I’m happy to say the vet told me that other than that injured leg, it looked pretty healthy. He felt confident he’d be able to return to the wild after he’d had some time to heal.”

“What wonderful news,” I said. I wasn’t surprised at all that Wyatt would make a special trip to check on the animal’s welfare. He was a kind, compassionate man with a heart of gold. “Sounds like a great rehab facility.”

“It is, Lexie, as most of them tend to be. The center I took the injured fox to is a protected wildlife sanctuary that appears to be a really well-kept—”

Before the detective could finish his comment, a piercing scream filled the air and startled us all. I spilled coffee all over my sweatshirt when I jumped in reaction to the sound, which was immediately followed by the sound of something hitting the inside wall of the Jayco Fifth Wheel just a matter of feet from where we were sitting. We heard the shattering of glass and a male voice shouting out a very graphic obscenity. There was a loud commotion inside of the RV where very descriptive name-calling was being exchanged and a scuffle appeared to be taking place.

Since I knew Fanny Finch was in the site next to us, it was apparent she was in a lively tussle with her husband and it was his voice we’d heard cussing in anger. Detective Johnston was often called out to investigate domestic disputes, and had told me they were often the most dangerous calls to respond to. I looked at him and raised my eyebrows in question. I felt we needed to do something to prevent the quarrel from escalating, but didn’t know what the best course of action would be.

“Wyatt, what should we do?” I asked, always willing to butt in to other people’s business, particularly when their business appeared to me to be in dire need of butting into.

“By
we
, I assume you mean me. I can’t just push my way into their RV and arrest anyone, Lexie. I am out of my jurisdiction, obviously, and am nothing more than a regular citizen here. However, if it sounds like their squabble is getting to the point someone could get seriously injured, I’ll call 9-1-1 and go knock on the door to try to intervene until the officers arrive.”