“Well, I … I really don’t want you to leave, Tish.” Mona mumbled the words.
“Pardon me?” Tish leaned closer.
Bitch. She’d heard Mona perfectly well. I cringed as Mona repeated her statement, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Tish waved a dramatic hand. “Well, it sure doesn’t seem that way to me.”
“I … I’m sorry, Tish.”
“Sorry or not, I should go anyway. I’m not sure I like it here anymore.”
“Please stay.”
Jesus, it killed me to watch Mona so completely chastised and thoroughly defeated.
Everyone was staring at Mona now.
Mother leaned in to whisper — without a prompting kick beneath the table this time — and I had to strain to hear her. “This I just don’t understand. I’d have her sorry ass packing in a heartbeat if I were Mona.”
“Maybe she’s paying her rent?”
“Mona says she’s not.”
Tish, looking smug and self-satisfied, was about to rain another berating storm down upon Mona. A distraction was needed. Like a titillating Daphne Delicious tale. I was just about to heave a stage sigh and invite them to circle around when another distraction entered the room and I put my porn-primed mind on hold.
The brand new security guard, Dylan Hardy, strode into the room, followed very closely by Big Eddie whose shorter legs scissored to keep up.
Damn, he looked good. Dylan, not Big Eddie. And all over again, thoughts of the night before teased through my mind, causing sensations to tease through other parts.
With put-on awkwardness (“Hello, sir. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”), Dylan was introduced around the room. Apparently, the taker-charger had sneaked out of the room when the kafuffle started to get Dylan, no doubt thinking security might be warranted. Or more likely thinking if anything could break the tension of the Mona/Tish confrontation, the handsome new security guard could.
He was right.
When Dylan’s eyes met mine, there was an incredible, unspoken exchange. A barely-there smile packed with knowing, and not letting let on.
Of course, Beth Mary was the first one over to greet him. She gave him a welcoming hug. A long, drawn out (get your hands off his ass, you dirty old woman!) welcoming hug. Tish apparently forgot about Eddie Baskin as she introduced herself to Dylan. And it was with unmistakable, sad relief that Mona introduced herself. Mrs. P was in the kitchen this time, helping herself to a coffee and searching the cupboards for the sugar. And grinning, of course. She stopped long enough on the way back to the table with coffee in hand to ask Dylan, “Are you any good at crosswords, young man?”
“So what do you think, Mother?” I said still staring at Dylan. “Going to go introduce yourself?”
But there was no answer.
While I’d been watching Dylan at this Mona-rescuing meet and greet, Mother had disappeared.
Chapter 8
Dylan was appropriately fawned over by the ladies and put-’er-there’d by the men folk of the Wildoh community. With one exception — Harriet Appleton’s frown was pulled so tight her forehead looked permanently pleated. She didn’t greet the new security guard warmly. She didn’t shake his offered hand (and gave Wiggie a scathing look when he did). Harriet pointedly looked the other way.
You’d think Harriet would be delighted to learn that there was more security on the premises. After all, she was the latest victim. She should be thrilled to learn that there was someone besides Big Eddie and the ever-ready Deputy Almond to look after their interests.
Not the case.
Having already been introduced to Dylan earlier by Big Eddie, I didn’t rise with the group myself for a second introduction. But that worked well. Very well, in fact. Because from my vantage point (still at the crib table) I could watch everyone gathered in that recreation room and how they interacted with the popular new security guard.
People have no idea how much they communicate through non-verbal cues, and I’m not just talking about tone of voice or gestures. I’m talking about how close or how far they stand from others, their orientation to those in the group, their movements, posture, facial expressions. There’s so much to be learned from a lean. Surmised from a slouch. Grasped from a glance. Observed by an ogle.
And speaking of ogles….
Just as I was about to leave the rec room (it’s not that I was worried worried about my disappearing mother but I did want to know where she’d gone), Lance-a-Lot showed up again, announcing his arrival with that loud, musical truck horn of his.
Dylan was left hanging. Or rather, his hand was left hanging in mid-shake by a blue-haired lady from B Complex who made a mad dash toward the window, damned near taking Dylan out with her walker in her haste. Dylan stood there staring at the horde gathering for the Lance-a-Lot show. He looked a little bit dumbstruck, and maybe even a little bit put out.
What an ill-mannered bunch of biddies to abandon Dylan. If I wasn’t so busy elbowing my way past three grey-haired grannies, I’d have said something to them.
Fact-finding missions can be such a bitch.
Lance was at his usual full-mast attention. He gave his customary half turn with a smile. Flexing his butt cheeks for the onlookers, he made his way to the lake and dove in the water. Just like the last time, the ladies relaxed a little once he’d submerged himself, but they didn’t abandon their vigil at the window. Patiently they (okay, we) waited as he surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove. Finally, ten or twelve minutes later, Lance started making his way toward shore again, and the ladies came to full, vibrating attention. Lance emerged from the lake, the mesh bag of white golf balls he’d retrieved gleaming in the sun.
As if anyone was looking at those.
Lance drove off, giving his horn one more thrust. People then started to filter out of the recreation room, which was my cue to exit. My cue to go find Mother and see what was up.
“I don’t get it. What’s that boy got that I ain’t got?” Apparently, Big Eddie’s joke never got old. At least, not for Eddie.
Mrs. Presley and I passed Dylan on our way out the door. Grinning, she winked at him and he gave her an almost imperceptible little smile back.
“Lance-a-Lot?” He whispered, raising a questioning eyebrow.
I raised sheepish shoulders. “Dives for the balls,” I whispered back.
That eyebrow did not lower.
~*~
“I told you, Dix,” Mother said in her and-I’m-not-going-to-tell-you-again tone. “I was feeling tired. That’s it. I simply left.”
“But I didn’t see you leave. How could you have just….”
I was trying her patience. She looked at me with a hand on her hip and a tilt to her head.
I threw my hands up in resignation. “Okay. You just left.” But I couldn’t resist one long, dramatic sigh. Which of course she chose to ignore.
Katt Dodd was nothing if not mysterious. When Mrs. Presley and I had arrived back from the rec room,
