My lip snarled. “Please. Not Carl again.”
“Nope,” Earl said. “Me and her done run him off.”
“Her?” I asked. “Beth-Ann?”
“Who else?” she said, peeking her Goth-painted face in the door.
BETH-ANN WATCHED GRAYSON and Earl leave, then turned to me and giggled.
“Hubba hubba! Is it just me, or did the sexy detectsy just get sexier?”
I smirked. “You noticed.”
“Uh ... yeah. Apparently you did, too.”
I sighed. “Yeah. But Grayson doesn’t see me as girlfriend material. I’m nothing but a number to him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think I’m the one in his folder. You know. Experiment #5. I’m like his fifth partner or something. I’ve seen the way he looks at me. I’m just a lab rat in jeans.”
Beth-Ann glanced up at my shaved scalp. “Well, that hair of yours sure isn’t helping. I gotta hand it to you, Bobbie. You sure know how to hand a hairdresser a challenge.”
“I’m hopeless,” I said. “But forget about me. Can you do something about Earl’s hair? He looks like a Neanderthal Prince Valiant.”
Beth-Ann stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen it. That guy behind the IGA—”
“I cut his hair, Bobbie.”
I gasped. “You did that to him? Why?”
Beth-Ann shrugged coyly. “I have my reasons.”
“Like what?”
“I like him, okay?” she confessed. “I cut Earl’s hair like that to keep the other women away.”
I stared at her, stunned.
“Don’t look at me like that. Pickings are mighty slim in Point Paradise, my dear. Or do I have to remind you about Carl Blanders?”
I winced. “Fine. You can have him. Just don’t—you know—treat him bad, okay?”
“I won’t,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Bobbie, I think I’m in love with him.”
I gasped. “Does Earl love you back?”
“I don’t know. But he will.”
I smiled. “How do you know you’re in love?”
Beth-Ann shrugged. “I guess because the thought of Earl with anyone else drives me nuts.”
I snorted. “That’s not love, Beth-Ann. That’s obsession.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About fifteen to life.”
We laughed together for a moment, then I asked her a question that’d been plaguing me since I woke up from my coma.
“Beth-Ann. Have you heard anything from my mother—the newly married Mrs. Applewhite?”
My best friend smiled at me softly and shook her head. “Nope. But let’s face it, Bobbie. Nobody ever resolves their mommy issues.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
I sat up and fussed with the auburn, shoulder-length bob Beth-Ann had given me from her emergency wig box. Lumpy and a bit square after being stretched over my bandages, I feared I looked about as attractive as ET had when he’d played dress-up in that little girl’s clothes.
Then again, maybe aliens were what Grayson was in to.
A knock sounded on my hospital door. I checked my lipstick in the hand mirror, then tucked it up under my left elbow.
“Come in,” I said.
Grayson appeared carrying a slim, quart-sized pickle jar.
“Hello there,” he said, flashing a fabulous smile.
I couldn’t believe he’d been hiding it all this time beneath that horrid moustache he lost in the explosion.
“I want you to meet Innie,” he said, and held up the jar for my perusal.
“Innie?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s what I named your twin. You know, because it was in your brain.”
“Oh,” I said, staring at the jar. “But aren’t there two things in there?”
“Yes. My Nubbin’s in there with her.”
“Hey. I thought you said that was a Nubian fertility statue.”
Grayson shrugged. “So, I took a little poetic license.”
“But I thought it was in the RV—”
“It was. I got it out when we transferred the phosphorous from BIMBO. It’s the only thing I was able to save, I’m afraid.”
I thought about the cash he had stashed inside the RV’s paneled walls.
“But ... why Nubbin?” I asked.
“I guess because it’s part of me, Drex.” He locked eyes with me. “Is that creepy?”
I shrugged. “Not as creepy as saving toenail clippings.”
Grayson laughed. “How about this? Is this creepy?” He set the jar on my lap. “Look how they fit together.”
I picked up the jar and gasped. Floating side by side, our vestigial twins looked like a pair of macabre salt and pepper shakers.
“That’s uncanny,” I said. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know,” Grayson said. “But I’d say the odds are astronomical.”
Either Grayson and I were destined for each other, or my life was a totally freaky Sci-Fi movie. I mean, identical vestigial twins? Who could make that shit up?
Had we both been infected with the same extraterrestrial spores? Were these things biological alien implants? Were Grayson and I both aliens? Or alien hybrids?
I needed something else to think about, and fast! I nearly fainted with relief when Earl poked his head in the door.
“How’s it goin’?” he asked.
“Come in,” I said. “I want to hear about the showdown with Queen Kristie,” I said. “You bailed out in time, obviously. But is everybody else okay?”
Earl lowered his head. “Sometimes, Bobbie, life just sucks the jelly right outta your donut.”
“What?” I asked, then gasped. “Did something happen to Jimmy and Garth?”
“No,” Grayson said. “They’re fine.”
“Then who?”
“Gizzard,” Earl said.
“Oh my word!” I blurted. “Don’t tell me you ate Gizzard!”
Earl drew back as if I’d stuck him with a cattle prod. “Geez, Bobbie! I’m not an animal!”
“Well, technically you are,” Grayson said. “A mammal, to be specific.”
“Guys!” I said. “What happened to Gizzard?”
“I put her out of the RV before I took off to go rescue y’all,” Earl said. He cringed. “Then I kinda ran over the terrarium when I was backing out.”
I winced. “Oh.”
“Hold on,” Grayson said. “When we got back to the compound, we found the broken terrarium pieces lying on the driveway,” Grayson said. “There was no blood or body parts around. I believe she escaped into the junkyard unharmed.”
“What will happen to her now?” I asked.
“She’s an anole,” Grayson said. “They’re natural ecomorphs. She’ll be able to adapt to her new environment. After all, she’s a native Floridian, just like you two. From what I’ve seen, you all are one tough bunch.”
“Yep. We Floridians know how to survive,” Earl said.
I adjusted my wig. “Yes, we most certainly do.”
Grayson smiled. “Good.
