Fat Assassins (The Fat Adventure Series) Page 15

  “Nah. You go ahead. I’ll get my clothes ready.” I decided to wear my favorite jeans and pink cashmere sweater. I was dressing for the races, not dinner. I knew we could never be together, but I still hoped Eric would be there, so I could adore him from a distance. I was debating between my sexy calf high boots and comfortable black flats when I heard Ulyssa finish in the bathroom. Sexy boots it is.

  Here’s to hoping we have an action-free evening.

  The heat from the shower worked magic on my sore muscles and I emerged from the bathroom completely rejuvenated. Ulyssa must have been wishing for a fun, yet uneventful, night too, because she was wearing high heels.

  “It feels like my pants are getting looser,” I said, sticking my thumb under the fly button and pulling forward, so Ulyssa could see the extra space.

  “Wow. Maybe it’s all the exercise running from crazies and explosions,” she laughed. “We should do an assassin aerobics video when this is all over.”

  Ulyssa offered to drive since she’d roped me into the dinner. Her parents lived two blocks back from the Best Little Hairhouse, where her mom works part time as a hair dresser. She’s only good at the older hairstyles, so it’s usually the middle aged women who are her regular customers. Which meant she was a steady and reliable supply of town gossip.

  The Grant front yard was an interesting mixture of Catholic and Civil War memorabilia. The center piece for the schizophrenic decorations was an old half-bathtub grotto of Mary, flanked by two life size civil war cannons. The God versus Guns design continued into the interior of the small ranch style house, where a confederate flag hung on the living room wall opposite a giant mirror with an etched Biblical scene.

  A tiny flash of fur came flying out of the kitchen and started attacking my leg.

  “Git down, you damned rat!” a graveled voice demanded, from an old blue recliner.

  The dog turned to growl at the voice, then went back to attacking my ankle. Ulyssa reached down to grab the over aggressive Chihuahua.

  “Jesus! Stop it! You know Shasta!” she scolded, tossing the dog on the couch while walking over to the recliner. “Hi, daddy!”

  “Boy am I glad to see you two! Now maybe your mom will stop her yapping about not getting to see you anymore,” he said, pushing himself out of the recliner. “I thought working at the factory was tough, but between you and me, listening to her prattle on for endless hours is a lot more exhausting.”

  “Whatever dad! You wouldn’t know what to do if it was quiet around here!”

  He chuckled as he led us into the kitchen.

  “Ah. There’s my baby!” Maria Grant wiped her hands on her apron and gave Ulyssa a big bear hug like she hadn’t seen her in years. She grabbed me in a big hug next and I could hear Jesus growling at me from the couch. “Shasta! You haven’t been eating! Look at you! Skin and bones!” she exclaimed, pinching my hip for emphasis. “Sit. Sit. Dinner’s almost done.”

  A giant bowl of caesar salad and a plate of bruschetta was already on the table. We all sat down at the dinner table while Maria slid the last of the calzones onto a giant plate in the center of the table. The air was laden with the aroma of tomatoes, garlic, cheese and fresh bread, making my stomach rumble in anticipation.

  “See, you don’t eat enough,” she said, filling my plate with the biggest calzone and put it down in front of me. She repeated this for Ulyssa and Gerald before sitting down to cross herself, while the rest of us started passing the salad, bread and bruschetta.

  “Shasta, how’ve you been?”

  “Good, sir,” I replied.

  “Dag-nabit. How many times have I told you to call me Gerald?”

  “Dad, got any interesting meetings coming up?” Ulyssa interrupted. Her dad was a Civil War buff and spent countless hours participating in Civil War re-enactments.

  “Just finished up one this past weekend at Scary Creek. We lost fourteen men.” Her dad was a captain in the Federal re-enactors group. “I was in charge of one of the ground artillery pieces so I got to shoot at Meryl in his aluminum fishing boat. He was supposed to be the steamer Julia Maffitt, but the water is too shallow for anything but a rowboat these days.”

  “There was a battle at Scary Creek? I didn’t know that. Did the troops continue to fight on to Charleston?”

  “Shoot no. This battle took place in July. The first civil war casualty of Charleston didn’t happen til the fall. If you can even really call it a casualty. All because a storekeeper refused to sell liquor to soldiers.”

  “No way.”

  “Yup. I reckon the shopkeeper’s son was trying to protect his dad and accidentally shot one of the soldiers.”

  “Oh.”

  “He only shot him in the leg, but they still insisted on hanging the young boy. He was the first life lost in Charleston during the war.”

  “Oh. That poor family!”

  “War is a sad business.” From the pain on his face, you would have thought he’d been there. I guess he’s kinda like a method actor. “On a different note, Meryl brought some Ketchum grenades out this weekend. So, that was a treat.”

  “They had grenades during the Civil War?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have to pull a pin before you drop, um I mean, throw it?” I asked, looking at Ulyssa remembering her grenade expertise.

  “Nope. They ain’t like these new fangled grenades. They only blow up if they land square on the nose. They were real popular with the Union Army until the Confederates started catching ‘em with blankets and throwing them back,” he chuckled. “Meryl found ‘em in the woods between here and Charleston. He was out with his metal detector looking for treasure. He’s found a couple good ammo stores around town with that detector. I’m thinking about getting me one.”

  “Pah. You spend too much time in the 1860s and not enough time here! If you got one of them detectors, I’d never see you,” Maria interjected. That’s a pretty true statement. Anyone who names their daughter after a Civil War General is a little too involved in history. I’d never asked Ulyssa if it bothered her, being named after Ulysses S. Grant. She seemed to take it in stride and sometimes she even seemed to emulate the General with her bossy attitude.

  “Hmmm. Maybe I will git me one then,” he teased, earning him a smacked on the arm. “The next big reenactment is at Valley Park over in Hurricane in a few days. If y’all are interested I could get you tickets.”

  “Yeah. That would be cool!” I answered. “I’ve never been to a reenactment before.”

  Ulyssa groaned. Apparently she’d been to plenty.

  “Shasta! So, how are your parents?” Maria asked, steering the conversation away from the Civil War and back to my parents.

  “They’re doing good, Mrs. Grant.”

  “They have the best produce in town. These tomatoes are from their fruit stand and they’re perfecto,” she exaggerated, gesturing towards the stray tomatoes left on the bruschetta plate.

  “Thanks. I’ll pass the compliment along.” Since Wicans commune with nature, it seemed a natural fit that my parents would run the Nitro fruit stand. I was just glad that most folks didn’t know about some of the new age ceremonies they held in the back yard to make the produce so good.

  “So how’s work going?” Gerald asked Ulyssa.

  “Um. Work is good. Things aren’t so good for Rick, the boss though.” Nice deflection! This got their attention.

  “Really? What’s wrong? Did that big government contract fall through?” he asked.

  “Not so much. His wife found out he was cheating on her and the big reveal happened at Buck’s.”

  “Dios Mios! An adulterer! You must find somewhere else to work before he tries to snare you in his devil’s net!” Maria said, making me inhale soda up the back of my nose.

  “You’ll never guess who he was sleeping with...” Ulyssa asked, pausing for dramatic effect, “Emma Cutweiler!”

  “JMJ! Does Salvo know?” Maria asked, totally captivated now.

 
“Yup. He found out at the same time Sheila did.” Ulyssa spent the rest of dinner explaining the details of last night’s big reveal. Gerald just shook his head not understanding this younger generation, while Maria seemed to be making mental notes, so she could recount the story at the hair salon.

  “How have things been at the salon, mom?”

  “Oh, you know. Drama, drama, drama. Peggy wants to change the name.”

  “Why? I think it’s a cute name!”

  “She wants something more professional. The Best Little Hair House wasn’t drawing the right kind of clientele. Too many men came in asking for happy endings. So, she’s gonna change it.”

  “Does she have a new name yet?”

  “Not yet. She has a few ideas. She wants something French to draw a more sophisticated customer.”

  “She could name it Le Petite Salon or Les Dames!” Ulyssa offered. She took French in high school, while I struggled through Spanish.

  “Ohh. Those sound nice. What do they mean?”

  “Le Petite Salon means the Little Salon and Les Dames is the Ladies.”

  “That would make a good name. You are such a good child! I’ll tell her!” She grabbed a pen and piece of paper asking, “Can you write it down for me?”

  “Sure.” Ulyssa scribbled the phrase down and handed the paper back to her mom. “It’s been fun, but we should probably get going. We’re supposed to meet some friends at the races tonight,” Ulyssa said.

  Maria looked at me and asked, “You meeting your date again?”

  “Um, it wasn’t really a date.”

  “Really? He just make a-booty call? You’re a good girl.”

  “No. It wasn’t a booty call. We just borrowed a movie from him. He’s just a friend. We could never date.”

  “Why not?”

  I immediately realized my mistake and why Ulyssa was so good at conversation diversion. I had given her too much information and now it was inquisition time.

  “Lordy-mercy, Maria. Give the girl a break. You weren’t no innocent when we started dating,” he said, giving Ulyssa and I a wink.

  This made Maria blush, “Oh. Hush up!”

  “This is interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard any stories about mom when she was a young, wild woman.”

  “She used to wear this one little, black mini skirt,” he started, standing up with his hand making a saw motion at mid-thigh. “Wawow is all I can say. I had to fight the guys off with a stick so I could date her.”

  Maria’s face turned redder and redder until she jumped up from the table saying, “You should hurry if you gotta meet your friends. Traffic might be bad.”

  “And she wore these big high heels. A lot higher than you’ve got on Ulyssa. They made her almost as tall as me.” Gerald continued, standing on his tippy-toes and wobbling around the kitchen.

  Maria practically jerked the chairs out from underneath me to shove us from the kitchen.

  I was still laughing at Gerald prancing around the kitchen looking like a make believe drag queen in overalls when Jesus attacked my other ankle. I kept shaking my leg as Maria pushed us closer to the door, but Jesus wouldn’t relent.

  “Thank Saint Rita for your visit. Don’t wait so long before you visit again. I love you,” she said, shove-hugging Ulyssa out the front door. “You too Shasta!”

  She ripped Jesus off my leg, taking a chunk of my pants with him. Jesus sat in her arms grinning maniacally at me with a chunk of black polyblend hanging from his mouth.

  “But we want to hear more about your wild years, mom!” Ulyssa taunted.

  Maria slammed the screen door waving at us, “Bye-bye.”

  Gerald came prancing up behind her still in imaginary drag. “A-bye girls. You watch out for those a-bad, a-bad boys!” he said, in his best Italian accent. Maria slammed the main door muffling the rest of his warning.

  “You’re parents are so funny!”

  “You should trying living with them! It’s a wonder I turned out a normal as I did.”

  “Aren’t you carrying a Desert Eagle under your armpit trying to kill someone?”

  “Yeah, well...”

  “And didn’t you help blow up a bunker yesterday?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think that’s normal?”

  “Hmmpph!”

  Like most things in Nitro, the racetrack wasn’t exactly legal. Beaver, with the help of Cornnut and Ronnie, had carved an oblong dirt track on a parcel of his land and put a makeshift crash wall around the track. It was originally used for them to test cars and practice racing. But as more folks requested to use the track, Beaver realized the income potential and started charging for track time. Cornnut started organizing races with all the folks in town and it grew from there. Beaver even added bleachers two years ago and started charging for parking last year. It was a cheap evening out and had become a big event to go watch the races on Sundays to cheer on the local boys racing their stock cars. This was the first time we’d been to the races this fall and I was surprised to see a couple of food and beer stands near the bleachers. Ulyssa turned left into the gravel parking lot and stopped at the folding chair where Tater was sitting taking money.

  “Hey cuz! Save me a seat. I’ll be in at halftime. We stop charging for parking then,” he said, taking our two dollars before waving us into the parking lot.

  “Okay. See ya in there.”

  We parked at end of the row and stopped by the port-a-potties on the way to the ticket booth. It was much smarter to use them before the race, when they were still clean. It was tough trying to balance on my sexy boots while trying not to touch any part of the plastic outhouse. Ulyssa didn’t sound as lucky because I heard some thuds and a dammit before she finally opened the door. She was standing on one foot with her other foot in the air and a shoe in her hand.

  “Do you have any hand sanitizer?”

  I dug in my purse and dragged out a clean-wipe from KFC. “This is all I’ve got.”

  “That’ll do.”

  I opened the wipe and handed it to her. She started wiping the bottom of her foot with it.

  “My high heel got stuck in one of the floor grates and my foot came right out of it. I lost my balance and had to put my foot down on that nasty floor. I want to at least try to clean it off before I try to put my shoe back on,” she explained, using both sides of the wipe to clean her foot. I waited patiently while she held her foot in the air for a few minutes so it could dry before putting it back into her shoe.

  Beaver gave us a toothy grin as we approached the ticket booth and handed him a ten dollar bill. “Heyth! Welcome to the Dirty Beaver Racetrack!” he said, laughing at his clever name choice. “I finally named the track thees year, but theth signs haven’th come in yet.” His oversized front teeth making it difficult for him to say H words.

  “Great name!” I said, grabbing our tickets.

  “Good idea adding the food and beer stands!” Ulyssa added.

  The compliments made his grin stretch even wider. “Have fun. Gonna be a good race tonighth!”

  “Thanks, Beav!”

  We made our way around the front of the bleachers and started looking for seating. We were thirty minutes early thanks to Ulyssa’s dad, so there were still some good spots open. We picked the third row from the front on the end. I preferred to sit on the very end of the row, so I wouldn’t have to climb over people if I needed to leave. We put enough space between us for Mitsy, Sam and Tater and laid our jackets out to save the seats. I hoped they showed up soon or we’d have a fight on our hands trying to save seats. People get kinda crazy about that kind of stuff around here.

  I looked over to see who Beaver had working the concession stands. Tamera and Jennifer were working the food stand, but I couldn’t see who was serving beer. Tamera and Jennifer had a lot of side jobs. How’d they get a job from Beaver? They didn’t seem to run in the same circles.

  Bubba sat two rows behind us so I gave him a wave. I’d never seen him at another race before. I guess
he was finally immersing himself into the redneck culture.

  Cornnut’s wife, Betty, sat down in front of us without even a hello. In his line of business, that was probably a safe approach. We were getting hassled about saving seats when Mitsy and Sam finally showed up. We spread out enough that we could save a spot for Tater without it being so obvious. We could hear some of the cars getting warmed up in the pit area. The rumble of the engines vibrated the bleachers and made it difficult to talk. It was even worse once the races started. The first race was all the new racers from the surrounding counties and I didn’t recognize any of the names. It looked like this was turning into a full fledged racetrack. Beaver should be careful about extending his customer base outside locals. He could get into a lot of trouble running an illegal track. The car tires kicked up heavy dust and the thunder of the engines created a mob excitement in the stands that continued to build until the final race which had most of the Nitro racers. The races took so long because each racer did a lap on the course while an anonymous voice provided name and stats for the driver over a loud speaker.

  “A grand welcome to Rob Taylor, who took first place in the amateur league last year earning him his first shot in the veteran league this year. Can’t wait to see what this newcomer can do!”

  Rob wasn’t a crowd favorite, so Tamera was his most vocal fan, screaming from the concession stand, accidentally slinging nachos all over one of the customers. He did his lap and pulled the car into the pit area to idle, waiting for everyone else to finish their intro lap.

  “This is the second year of veteran racing for young Nitro local, Mitchell Foster. His unique racing technique has earned him a couple of second place wins, but he hasn’t been able to grab the first place trophy yet.”

  We stood up and cheered as he finished his lap and the next car came onto the track. Tater shoved his way up to the third row making us scoot down so he could sit on the other side of Sam.

  “Next up is a Nitro first - a female driver. Help me welcome Becky Bodine from Charleston. Her five-and-oh record at the Rocky Mountain Racetrack automatically qualified her for the final race of the night.”