He looked pleased with himself, as if he’d said something clever. Helen heard that routine twenty times a day.
“I hang up on them. Hard,” Ethel said. “I want their ears ringing like my phone.”
Helen wondered why people felt compelled to tell her the ugly things they did to telemarketers. She didn’t tell Fred what she wanted to do to used-car salesmen—especially the one who sold her that hunk of junk she drove to Florida. Nor did she tell Ethel that she thought most IRS agents weren’t smart enough to crunch numbers in the private sector, and that’s why they had government jobs. She kept her mouth politely shut. But telemarketers were such pariahs, even usedcar salesmen didn’t have to be polite to them.
“What do you do when a telemarketer wakes you up?”
Fred asked.
“I don’t have a phone,” Helen said.
“Huh,” Ethel said. “You bother people all day, but no one can bother you.”
Helen was not about to tell Ethel the reason she didn’t have a phone. “Nice meeting you,” she lied. “It’s getting late.
I’d better head home.”
“Me, too,” Peggy said.
Helen felt mean and petty. Five minutes with the new neighbors, and she hated them. Fred and Ethel had attacked her job and her integrity. They didn’t even know her. Was that what nice, down-to-earth people did? She’d been living in South Florida so long, she didn’t know.
On the way to her room, Helen walked through the perpetual marijuana fog outside of Phil the invisible pothead’s apartment. In some ways, he was the perfect neighbor. He was quiet and considerate. He was supposed to be a Clapton fan, although he never bothered her with loud music. But he drove her crazy. She’d never seen him in the year she’d lived at the Coronado, not even when he’d saved her life.
There had been a fire in her apartment and Phil had pulled her free. All she saw then was his CLAPTON IS GOD T-shirt, and felt his powerful hands pulling her out of the smoke and flames.
She’d give a lot to know what he looked like.
Gator Bill’s was the tackiest restaurant in South Florida—and that was no small claim. As she stepped inside, Helen was nearly blinded by the decor. The walls were slashed with strips of orange and blue neon, the Gators’ colors. The neon blinked on and off, making Helen’s eyes cross.
The lobby fountain had a ferocious twenty-foot blue gator with orange teeth. Brightly painted wood fruit and vegetables spilled from its open jaws, cornucopia style. It looked as if the gator was barfing bushels of corn, carrots, strawberries and oranges. Helen wondered if this said something about the food.
Gators were everywhere. Small gators slithered up the walls. Large gators lurked under plastic palm trees. Gator tracks crossed the ceiling.
Orange televisions hung in every corner. When there were no live Gators games, taped games featured Gator Bill’s exploits. In between, there were tapes of Mr. Two Bits leading his famous Gator cheer: “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar. Gator fans, stand up and holler.” Naturally, all the Gator fans in the restaurant did that every time he went into his chant.
No opportunity to honor the Gators was overlooked. Even the bathroom was Gator country. When Helen closed the orange stall door, she saw “Go, Gators!” on the inside door.
The rest room had an attendant, a dignified older AfricanAmerican woman in an orange uniform. She had the usual tray of hair spray, mouthwash and perfume. But instead of hand towels, the attendant took two pulls on the towel dispenser and handed Helen a strip of brown paper. Helen tipped her a dollar. This woman had an even worse job than she did.
Helen found the hostess stand, which was shaped like the state of Florida. It was crawling with blue gators.
“Is Debbie working tonight?”
“Sure is,” the perky hostess said. She was dressed as a Gators cheerleader. “I can seat you in her section.”
She showed Helen to a tiny table under a huge stuffed alligator. It was so lifelike, Helen felt like gator bait. The hostess handed her a leather-bound menu the size of a law book, decorated with heavy gold tassels.
“Can I bring you some Gator Bites while you wait?” she said.
Helen stared at the gleaming gator teeth over her head.
“Er, no thanks.”
She read the menu, which featured wildly overpriced meat. Thirty bucks for prime rib. Fifty for filet mignon. Five bucks for a baked potato. She’d rather starve. She might, if Debbie didn’t show up soon.
Then she saw the middle-aged man at the next table put down his salad fork and stare. His teenaged son blushed until his ears turned red. A waitress in a cheerleader uniform was putting steaks on their table. Her platinum blond hair fell below her waist. Her white bosom nearly popped out of her orange top. The older guy almost had a coronary.
This must be Debbie. Helen didn’t think she was drop-dead gorgeous. Debbie’s features were small and regular but without character. Helen doubted the men noticed. They could not take their eyes off her gorgeous platinum hair, which was rippling past her cheerleader’s skirt. That gleaming silver waterfall caught every man’s eye.
Helen expected Debbie would ignore a mere woman, but she was fast and efficient. She took Helen’s order for the crab-cake appetizer and a small salad. In less than fifteen minutes, she plunked down the plates.
“Anything else I can get you?”
“Debbie, do you know another waitress who works here?
Her name is Laredo.”
“Laredo, sure. But she’s not here anymore. She took off a week or so ago. Got restless, packed up her car and headed out. That’s what I’d like to do.” Debbie’s smile did not reach her pale blue eyes.
“Do you know where she went? I owe her some money.”
“No, she took off real sudden.” Debbie flipped her shimmering hair away from her face and every man in sight practically sat up and begged. Helen was not so easily distracted.
She noticed Debbie would not look her in the eye.
“That’s odd,” Helen said. “I didn’t think she’d leave town without her money.”
“Well, she did,” Debbie said sharply, her good nature gone. “Anything else I can bring you?”
“The check,” Helen said.
Interesting, she thought. Debbie’s attitude did a one-eighty when her story was questioned.
Helen counted out half a day’s pay for her meal and went to the bar. The bartender’s name tag said TAMMY. She was another eye-catching blonde surrounded by a gaggle of gaga males. Tammy’s hair was shorter and brassier than Debbie’s, but her bosom was bigger. Helen knew it was unfair to judge a woman by those attributes, but Tammy didn’t seem to have any others.
When a fat, red-faced man got up to go to the john, Helen took his seat. She figured she was doing him a favor, saving his liver. She ordered a club soda. Tammy brought her a tall glass garnished with lime.
“I’m trying to find Laredo,” Helen said. “I need to give her some money. Do you know where I can reach her?”
“Took off for greener pastures, the way I heard it.”
Tammy poured something blue into a blender, added ice, and switched it on. Over the noise she shouted, “I don’t think she’ll need your money.”
“Did she strike it rich?”
Tammy poured the drink into a margarita glass, added a plastic gator and an orange slice, and set it on a tray for a server. She started washing glasses while she talked.
“All I know is she was flashing lots of cash before she left, and it was more than tip money. One night, she came in and wanted change for five one-hundred-dollar bills. The next night, she had another five hundred. Then it was a thousand. That was cash, too.”
“Where’d she get that kind of money?”
“Some charity gig. She wanted me to work it, but I said no thanks. I’m not giving up a job with health insurance, no matter how much it pays in cash under the table. But Laredo was too young to worry about medical
