Page 18 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

Millie and Herb stare at me, but I’m watching Shelby’s reaction to the phone call and I can tell it’s not good news.

“You’re full of surprises, ain’t ya?” Herb says.

“Yes, and I’m going to need your help with a few things,” I say. I hear Shelby make a couple more calls and we stay quiet and sip our drinks, and when she returns, she hands me my phone. She looks small and scared, standing there in Christmas elf socks with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“The electricity isn’t…repairable at the moment,” she says.

“Not even the generator?” Herb asks.

“No,” she says, a bewildered look across her face. “So we’re going to arrange bussing everyone over to the Y. Heather is calling and they’ll set up cots, the same as when we had that tornado damage a few years back.That’s nice of them…” She’s starting to babble. There’s something she’s not telling us.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I say. She smiles weakly and takes my hand.

“Uh, you all can stay here if you like. We have a guest bed and another portable generator heater…”

“We’ll let you rest, Shel.”

“Yeah,” Herb says as we all stand and start to gather our things. “We should be with Mort and Bern anyway. Mort gets scared when this sort of thing happens, even though he won’t admit it, and Bernie is depressed, so this won’t help.”

“Depressed? Bernie? Why do you think that?” Shelby asks.

“He’s different. I can just tell, and then one day I said, Bernie, are you okay, because you seem a little depressed lately, and he said why would you think that, and I said I don’t know, look at you. You’re kinda pale and slouchy, and he said, I’m eighty-seven you dick. And I said fine, you’re not depressed, and we dropped it and made some peanut butter sandwiches and watchedMacGyver, but I think he reallyisdepressed. He didn’t eat his sandwich and he didn’t really watch the show. That’s how he’s been lately. I don’t want them to feel scared, so we’ll head over,” he says, and it sort of touches me—his care for his friend, and I remember why I hang out with the old goat, but I don’t tell him that.

“Give her your phone, Herb,” I say instead. “She can’t be here without a phone.

“You wanna come with us?” I ask.

Shelby shakes her head. “No, I called Clay. He’s on his way back, but I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll be talking to the Y and make sure everyone gets there safe, though. Call if there are any problems.”

I nod, squeeze her hand, and we all wrap our scarves tight and pull on hats and gloves, filing to the door.

“Hey,” Shelby says, stopping us a moment. “Thank you for telling me all this. Please, though. Promise me something.”

“’Course,” I say without thinking.

“Don’t get involved. Please don’t tell anyone else—don’t let this stuff get out there. Someone will get hurt. Please,” she says, desperation in her eyes.

“Of course, dear, if that’s what you want,” Millie says, but I don’t say anything. I kiss her on the cheek and wave from under my bound scarf as I exit, because I plan to get very involved and nail this son of a bitch to the wall.

Back at the YMCA, there are cots set up around the gym floor and each of the Oleander residents has their own spot. “It’s lights-out,” the assistant manager who came in to “handle the crisis” says, like we are children at a lock-in. Most folks are asleep or chatting with flashlights, like we used to do back in my Girl Scout days. Eddie Wallington brought his cap and nose plugs and decided to take a swim in the lap pool, but that guy’s always had a screw loose, and Bob and Heath are shooting hoops in the courts down the hall, but other than that, all the normal folks are exhausted between the ordeal and the late hour. Mort and Bernie join me and Millie and Herb in our own little circle next to the Kidz Korner. So naturally Herb is sitting in a tiny plastic chair at a kids’ table with his knees up to his chin, coloring a Strawberry Shortcake page and chewing on the end of an unlit cigar, and Mort is trying to tell a “classic” ghost story with the flashlight under his chin, but nobody is paying attention.

“Excuse me,” I say, clanging a banana-scented marker onto my water bottle until I have the gang’s attention. When everyone is looking at me and Mort has taken the godforsaken flashlight out from under his chin and gives up on his campfire story, I decide to just say it.

“I think I’d like to find out who killed Otis and who tried to kill Shelby, and I think I should start a podcast,” I say.

“A what now?” Millie says.

“I read about a few crime podcasts that helped catch the killer by getting information out and hunting down clues, and I think I’d be quite good at that. I don’t think we can just sit around and not try to help. I could investigate.”

“Mort has a podcast,” Bernie says.

“Mort does not have a podcast,” I reply with confidence.

“Sure he does, it’s calledMort’s Literary Musings,” Bernie says, and I look to Mort for confirmation I’m certain won’t come, but then it does.

“Right now I’m focusing on classical Greece to the Hellenistic kingdoms, but I cover everything—not to brag,” he says.

“Jesus,” Herb says, pushing away his Strawberry Shortcake coloring book. “What are we even talking about? You wanna talk about Shelby in public? On the air? I’m sure she’ll love that. Way to not get involved.” Herb grabs at a half-colored Snoopy lying on a doghouse and glares at it disapprovingly, then finds another that has not been touched—a Bart Simpson he seems happy enough with.

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