first. They were open and serving a lovely Easter brunch, but Maggie wasn’t interested in food. As she sat in the booth waiting for Babs, she was scared to death that she wouldn’t show up and that any second now, men in white coats would be coming through the door to cart her off. But to her relief, a few minutes later, Babs walked in and plopped down across from her. Maggie was a nervous wreck and when the waiter came over, she said, “I’ll have a Pink Squirrel, and make it a double.”
Babs looked at her and made a face. “A Pink Squirrel? Is that a joke? What’s a Pink Squirrel?”
“I don’t know, but it’s good.”
The waiter said, “It’s like a Grasshopper, only it’s pink.”
“All right, whatever,” said Babs. “Bring me one, too.”
After the waiter left, Maggie thought about telling Babs Hazel’s joke about a grasshopper named Harold to try to lighten the mood a bit, but she decided against it and started with “First of all, Babs, thank you so much for coming. I know it’s a big imposition, but before I say anything else, I want you to know that the letter you found doesn’t mean a thing. I wrote it at a time when… well, anyhow, I just didn’t expect anyone to find it.”
“What was it doing there, if you didn’t expect anybody to find it?”
“I had planned to go to the office this afternoon and shred it. It never occurred to me anyone would be coming to the house on Easter. Anyhow, I know it was very upsetting for you, and I’m sorry.”
Their drinks arrived, and Maggie slugged hers down in two gulps, then motioned to the waiter for another one and continued.
“When I wrote that letter, I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I may have been having some sort of a little mini-breakdown or something. I’ve had an awful lot of disappointments lately.”
“Oh, boo hoo, who hasn’t?” said Babs. “Are you sure you’re not just some nut job? That letter sounds wacko to me.”
Maggie had no good quick comeback to that.
“I think you need to go and have your head examined.”
“Well, you may be perfectly right about that, but in the meantime, I can assure you I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
Babs took a long sip of her drink and made a face. “God, this is
“Oh… well, if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll tell you.”
When Maggie had finished telling her the entire plan from start to finish, Babs nodded and said, “Pretty good, but you forgot one thing.”
“What?”
“The raft. They have serial numbers. Somebody could have found it and traced it right back to you.”
Oh, dear… Babs was right. She hadn’t thought about that, but she didn’t want Babs to know it, so she leaned back and smiled. “Very true… however… there was absolutely no way that anybody would ever find that raft,” she said, while trying to quickly come up with a reason why not.
Thankfully, just then the waiter walked over with two more drinks and announced that they were from the nice man in the brown gabardine suit at the bar. Maggie smiled at him, pleasantly but not too friendly; she didn’t want to encourage him.
Babs said, “Well? How were you going to get rid of the raft?”
“Oh…” Maggie said, making it up as she went along. “Well… okay… so after I got out to the middle of the river, I was going to tie myself to the raft with a piece of clothesline.”
Babs frowned. “A clothesline?”
“That’s right. Then I would puncture a hole in the raft, and when all the air was out, instead of me going down with the ship, the ship would go down with me.” Maggie couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with herself for coming up with something so fast.
Despite herself, Babs looked impressed. “Well, you’re either crazier than I thought you were or smarter. I don’t know which.”
“Well, thank you, Babs. Anyhow, I’m sorry that you of all people had to be the one to find the letter; I know you don’t particularly like me.”
Babs agreed. “No, I don’t,” she said. “Even if you had done yourself in, it wouldn’t have mattered to me one way or another.”
“Then why were you so upset?”
“I didn’t want you to mess up my sale of the unit in your complex before we closed escrow. After that, you can go jump in the river for all I care.”
Maggie looked at her. “Oh, Babs… surely you don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. Look, I feel the same way about you as you feel about me.”
“What do you mean? I don’t dislike you.”
“Oh, come on, who’s kidding who here? I know you and every other realtor in town hates my guts.”
Maggie tried to protest. “Oh no, we don’t hate you, Babs… My heavens.” But then the three double Pink Squirrels on an empty stomach started taking effect, and she said, “Well, yes… I guess we all kinda do.”
“Of course you do, but the difference between me and all of you is that I couldn’t care less what you think about me.”
“But Babs, how can you not care what people think of you?”
“Easy. I just don’t care.”
“You really don’t?”
“No, I really don’t.”
Maggie sat back in the booth and mulled it over, then leaned in and said, “Well, Babs, and I don’t mean this in an ugly way, but considering that you obviously don’t have a conscience or any ethics whatsoever or even one ounce of human decency… I think it’s much easier for you not to care.”
Babs thought about it a second, then nodded. “I guess that’s true.”
Maggie continued on with a pleasant smile. “In fact, you’re probably the meanest, most despicable and evil person I’ve ever met.”
Babs looked at her. “Is that so?”
“Yes. You are without a doubt the most perfectly horrible person I’ve ever encountered in my entire life.” Maggie put her finger up in the air to make a point. “And, I might add, a thoroughly rotten human being, rotten to the core. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody didn’t wind up running you over with a car someday.”
Babs, now on her third Pink Squirrel as well, started to laugh. She suddenly thought everything Maggie said was hilarious.
“Really, Babs. I don’t see how you can live with yourself. You are a vicious fiend, a two-faced vampire-bat snake-in-the-grass bully. And by the way, those shoes you have on went out of style in the seventies and, Babs, garnet earrings? Nobody wears garnets anymore, much less in the daytime. You have absolutely no morals. You’re rude, hateful, and thoroughly unpleasant, a liar and a cheat and a criminal.”
By this time, Babs was almost doubled over, she was laughing so hard.
“In fact, you probably should be in jail right now.” Maggie stopped and looked at her. “Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t a complete sociopath!”
Babs screamed with laughter at the word “sociopath,” and so did Maggie!
A woman sitting in the corner of the dining room, wearing a pretty pastel green dress with a lace collar, scowled at them, then punched her husband on the arm. “Look, Curtis, both of them drunk as lords, and on Easter, too!”
After they finally were able to control themselves, Babs reached into her purse and handed Maggie a Kleenex and sighed. Then she said, “But what do you really think about me?” And they both started
