in the profits, and not get knocked for a conflict of interest.”
“Sidney mentioned something about a medical supply company, too,” I tell him. “Though he said he doesn’t know much about it because he wasn’t involved.” And then a light-bulb goes on in my brain. “And there’s something else. Something I forgot about.” I tell him about my visit to David’s office and the business card I found inside the tobacco pouch. “Maybe I should check the place out,” I suggest. “Poke around and see what turns up.”
“Can’t hurt,” Izzy says.
A waiter comes by carrying a plate of hors d’oeuvres—little weenies wrapped in phyllo dough. That damned Stewart woman is everywhere these days, but while I harbor some philosophical differences with the woman, it isn’t enough to overcome my incessant appetite. I grab a cocktail napkin and pile several of the hors d’oeuvres on top of it. As I pop one in my mouth, several others roll off my napkin onto the floor.
Izzy clucks his disapproval. “You are such a klutz.”
“I am not.”
“You are too. You’re always dropping stuff, bumping into things, and stumbling about.”
“I only stumble when I have to wear heels because I’m not used to them,” I snap back. “And for your information, I didn’t drop those wieners by accident. I was tossing them down so that bottom feeders like you won’t go hungry.”
“Very funny,” Izzy says. “Short humor. Now I
I bend down to pick up the wieners and feel something shift along my backside. Thinking it’s the waistband of my panty hose slipping down the last few inches and that they will be pooled around my ankles soon if I don’t act, I abandon the wiener grab, wrap the ones I already have in my napkin and shove them at Izzy. “I need to hit the ladies’ room,” I tell him. “Be right back.”
Several steps later I hear Izzy call to me in a hoarse whisper. I ignore him, wanting to get to the ladies’ room before my panty hose turn into knee-highs, but he calls again, louder this time. Irritated, I turn to look back at him and realize that most of the other heads in the room are doing the same. Then, as Izzy gestures for me to stop and wait, the heads all turn toward me.
I don’t know what Izzy is up to but I’m not about to be deterred from my mission. I wave at him and continue toward the rest room. Seconds later I hear the first snigger and some sixth sense, some internal antenna, tells me I am the cause. Paranoid, I glance over my shoulder and see Izzy waving frantically now, moving toward me as fast as his stubby legs can carry him. Along the periphery of my vision I sense several people watching me with bemused expressions on their faces, but when I turn to look at them, they quickly turn away.
An instant later I become aware of a cool breeze on my cheeks—and not the ones on my face. I reach back tentatively with one hand and gasp when I realize that the seam in the back of my dress has pulled itself apart. I turn and slowly back into the nearest wall while everyone in the room giggles and pretends not to see what I’m doing.
Izzy finally catches up to me, breathless and red-faced from his exertion. “Your dress,” he mutters. He squeezes his lips together hard.
“If you laugh, Izzy, so help me, I’ll pummel you.”
“I’m sorry.” His mouth twitches and spasms as I stick my hand between me and the wall and examine the damage. At least eight inches of seam is open, maybe more. The waistband of my panty hose is halfway down my cheeks, cutting across them so that they bulge through the seam opening like a four-pack.
“Damn Olga and that stupid bow,” I mutter.
“What bow?”
“There was a bow on the back of this dress and I made Olga take it off. I don’t think she sewed things back up as well as she should have.” I keep glancing around the room, seeing heads huddle, hearing whispers and giggles. I have a bad feeling I’m going to be the joke du jour come Monday and silently wish for a bolt of lightning to pop out of the sky and strike me dead. Then I nearly jump out of my skin when all the windows in the room light up bright for a second and a rumble of thunder shakes the building. Of all the times for God to finally start listening to me.
“Get me out of here, Izzy,” I say, my voice low and thick. “Get behind me, stay close, and follow me out to the car.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, working to suppress a giggle. I want to pop him one but I need him to get me out of the room first and away from all these laughing, watching eyes. Thank goodness the rip is down low in the dress. Otherwise, Izzy wouldn’t be tall enough to cover the damage.
He moves in and stands as close to me as possible, close enough that I can feel the heat of his breath through the sleeve of my dress. “Ready,” he announces.
I turn slowly, Izzy following my every move as if we are practicing some sophisticated dance step. We walk out of the room together, moving our legs in synch, Izzy sticking so close to my backside he looks like a tumor on my ass.
When we reach the parking lot, I see that my hope for a lightning strike is becoming more viable with each passing minute. Streaks of it flit across the sky off in the distance and thunder booms all around us. It isn’t raining here yet, but the air has that thick, ozone smell to it that says a deluge is on its way.
I hurry toward Izzy’s car, no longer worried about him keeping up. I am still a good ten feet away when the sky opens up and releases sheets of icy cold rain that slake down my back into the dress. Belatedly I realize that I’ve left behind my shawl, which would have covered up my gaping seam nicely. Ah, the wisdom of hindsight, so to speak.
By the time I squeeze myself into the front seat of Izzy’s car, I feel and figure I look like a drowned rat. Izzy climbs in, glances over at me, and snorts a laugh.
I give him my best glare. “A little heat would be nice,” I say through clenched teeth. “And don’t you dare say one word about the dress, or the rain, or anything else. Just take me home. And don’t tell Dom about this either. Understand?”
“I understand.” It’s a token answer. We both know he’ll tell Dom the entire story the minute he gets home. But for now, I need my delusions.
Izzy starts the car, pulls out, and, moments later, cold air is blowing in my face. The heater in the car takes forever to warm up and Izzy is convinced that running the blower on high helps to speed the process along. I start to complain but suddenly a horribly loud sound, like rocks hitting the car, make speech nearly impossible.
“Hail,” Izzy yells over the noise. “Damn it. It will ruin my car.”
I am less concerned about Izzy’s car than I am the hail. Wisconsin is no stranger to killer tornadoes and, all too often, hail is the precursor. I stretch my neck out as far as I can and peer through the windshield at the dark sky. A streak of lightning flashes, blinding me, but my ears still work and I can hear the wind howling outside the car, screeching and screaming that it wants in.
“Izzy?” I holler. “Do you hear that wind?”
Izzy nods but he doesn’t try to speak. He white-knuckles the steering wheel, his speed down to a crawl as the hail continues to pummel us. I don’t know how he can see where the road is because no matter how hard I look, I can’t see it at all. Finally, he makes a turn, eases the car over to one side, and stops.
“I can’t see well enough to drive in this,” he says. “Let’s wait here a bit.”
I nod, thinking it’s a good idea, but then another flash of lightning streaks down from the sky and I see where Izzy has parked. Panic fills my throat.
“Izzy?”
“What?”
“You just pulled into Whispering Pines.”
“So?”
“So what is Whispering Pines, Izzy? I’ll tell you what it is,” I say quickly, not giving him time to breathe, much less answer. “It’s a freaking trailer park. You pulled into a trailer park in the middle of a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm that could easily be spawning a tornado as we speak.”
I stare at him, waiting for him to shift the car back into gear and hightail it out of there. Instead he stares back at me, a look of confusion on his face.
“For heaven’s sake, Izzy. Don’t you get it? This is a trailer park! You might as well hang a sign outside that says, TORNADOS WELCOME HERE. Everyone knows that trailer parks are the first to go in any tornado. Hell, they’re tornado magnets.”
