Page 64 of Just a Client

The memory of dancing in the moonlight with Cameron lanced through me, accompanied by a pang of longing that made me crave the oblivion that the next shot of whiskey might afford me. How pathetic I’d become, falling apart over a woman I’d known only a few weeks.

I reached for my bag of free VFW hall popcorn; it helped to soak up the whiskey floating in my otherwise empty belly. Not like a plate of cheese fries, but a penitent couldn’t be choosy. I shoved a handful of unnaturally orange-colored popcorn in my mouth and reminded myself this would all be worth it when I owned Blue Star and became a member of the Elmer community. My liver could heal then.

Around the bite, I asked the table, “Are we still losing?” I tried to minimize the popcorn spray as best I could. Wisely, no one let me keep score.

“Not entirely sure! Wanda, what’s the tally?” The mayor held up her personal flask and filled a shot glass. She tossed back the amber liquid like it was nothing. I flinched. Damn. When I grow up, I want to be as hardcore as Mayor Amaryllis Graves.

“Sadly, you are moving on. Time to rotate tables.” Wanda, who sold Cameron and me BBQ at the Art and Oddities Fest over the weekend, blew me a kiss farewell. The rhinestones in her glasses winked like diamonds under the fluorescent lights.

“Giddy up, losers, you’re in someone else’s chairs!” Red shirt had less compassion than Wanda. But she also didn’t look at me like she was imagining me naked. So, I liked her best. I’d miss this pair.

“Mayor, do all your con-con-constituents talk to you like that?” It took me three tries to get the multi-syllable word past my floppy lips. I wiped my mouth, unsurprised to find a nice layer of spittle. So classy. I totally owned my suave out-of-towner billionaire status today.

“At bunco, the trash talk is grade A and expected. It’s not just for men on the ball field, you know.” The mayor stood and pointed across the large room at the next table in our rotation.

The industrial lighting and concrete floors of the VFW Hall reminded me of a cross between a warehouse and a gymnasium decorated with a go-USA theme. The crowd was a different story; it was an all-female Silver Seas cruise ship dry docked in the Texas Hill Country.

I wrapped an arm around the mayor for two key reasons. One to stay upright. And two, because I hoped to deter some of the groping. We bumbled our way through the scattering of tables. My plan to save my butt by holding on to the mayor failed. At least three bunco ladies, all over the age of seventy, pinched my ass as we passed.

That I was the only man in the room suddenly felt ominous. If I passed out, what would this rabid herd of grandmas do to me--to my person? I could picture it perfectly: me spread eagle buck naked on the hard floor, a circle of ladies peering down at me through their bifocals. A crocheted doily covering my penis like Adam’s fig leaf, put there by none other than a gleeful Wanda.

My sloppy snort laugh turned heads.

“What ya laughing at, boy?” The mayor steered me between tables.

“Thoughts of pornographic handcrafts.”

“California is a weird place.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Why are you here?” the mayor asked, her eyes sharp despite her fireball consumption.

“Ennui.” I rolled my eyes at my ridiculous answer.

“That’s a fancy way to say midlife crisis. In my day, men like you bought a fast car or had an affair.”

“I already own a couple of fast cars, and I’m not married.”

“Why is that?” She stopped walking and turned to face me. Hard eyes and a gnarled finger to the center of my chest skewered me to the spot. The question hurt more than the nail digging into my sternum.

“I don’t trust women.” The stark truth slipped out of my well-lubricated lips before my sense of self-preservation could stop it.

“Women in general, or specific ones?”

“Is there a difference?” I slumped into a seat at the empty table, not caring if it was the next stop in our rotation.

“I’d say in your case there was one that did it to you.” She pondered me from a standing position. Her image swam, going double in my bleary vision. “College girlfriend?” The mayor scooted a chair over and sat, our heads close enough to keep the conversation private.

I shook my head and chuckled. Not a college girlfriend; I’d been in the lab—in college, grad school, and through my PhD program. No time for women or any lasting relationships.

She took one of my hands in both of hers. The smell of her lilies of the valley perfume was stronger than even the cinnamon whiskey. She cocked her head and studied me, looking for a way in. A chink in my armor. “Humm, then who?”

“We don’t talk about Veronica.” I freed my hand from her grasp and pretended to lock my lips with an invisible key.

Before she could continue the interrogation, two new bunco players interrupted. The mayor gave up her seat next to me and shifted to one across the folding card table. The weight of her pitying gaze felt oppressive. I tugged at the collar of my suddenly tight shirt.

I shouldn’t have mentioned Veronica. Thinking about her sucked. The dark thoughts didn’t mix well with the whiskey. I’d already said more to the mayor about my relationship status, or lack thereof, than I had to almost anyone other than a lawyer in years. There had to be truth serum in the damned fireball.

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