Love Game (7 page)

“Okay,” I breathed.

“And my name’s Remington.”

“Remington,” I repeated.

Ruth opened her car door. “Oh, what the hell,” she grumbled. “It doesn’t look like much from the outside. Besides, I could go for a cupcake, even though it’s just icing on a dry bit of cake.”

Inside, the shop was warm and inviting, with a roaring fire in the fireplace and candles lit on every surface. It smelled wonderful.

Mavis Jones greeted me with a big smile and a latte. “I saw you walk up the path,” she said, handing the mug to me. “I’m so glad to see you so soon. You smell that? Fresh cinnamon buns. I’ll get you and your friends some, hot out of the oven.”

They were not mashed potatoes, but cinnamon buns were a close second. We sat in the armchairs by the fire and took deep breaths. Cup O’Cake was nothing short of blissful. Even Ruth, who was disdainful of just about everything, looked around with obvious appreciation. She sighed, deflating into the cushy chair. I took a sip of my latte.

“Not as good as yours,” I said to Ruth, trying to appease her.

“Well, what’d you expect?” she said with obvious pleasure.

Mavis appeared with a pot of tea, two mugs, and a plate piled high with iced cinnamon buns. I think I moaned.

“We are so excited to have you here, Ms. Fletcher,” she said. “I hope our tea meets with your approval. I must say we are a bit nervous to have the owner of the best tea shop in the world here.”

It was the right thing to say. “Call me Ruth,” she said. “I’m sure it’s fine. For what it is.”

“And who is this young gentleman?” Mavis asked.

“Remington Cumberbatch,” he said, standing. “I’m the new detective in town.”

“He’s giving us a ride home,” I explained.

Felicia Patel joined us, and my heart skipped a beat.
I had forgotten all about the book she had given me, and now it was lost, somewhere in the canyon behind Uncle Harry’s house.

“Felicia,” I started. “About the book—”

“Didn’t you just love it?” she gushed. “I thought it was hilarious.”

“Well, here’s the thing—”

“You gave a book to this one?” Ruth laughed, pointing at me. “I’ve never seen her read anything more than a menu.”

“That’s not true. I love books,” I said. I liked looking at books. I especially liked books in bookstores attached to coffeehouses. But I wasn’t thrilled about reading books. After all, most good ones are made into movies.

Ruth harrumphed loudly.

“I kind of lost the book,” I told Felicia, looking down into my latte mug. “It sort of fell into a canyon.”

Remington’s eyes slid slowly toward me, and he arched an eyebrow. The man never said much, but he communicated boatloads.

“I was thrown off a balcony,” I explained.

Felicia began to say something, but Ruth stopped her. “It’s better not to ask questions, girlie. Just roll with it. Didn’t you know Gladie is our town’s troublemaker?”

“I wouldn’t say troublemaker,” I said. More like trouble-finder. Since I had arrived in town, I found more trouble than Lindsay Lohan on a bad day. “Felicia, let me pay you for the lost book.”

“Not necessary,” Felicia said, although I could tell
she was troubled by the loss. “I’ll give you another one. What are your feelings on steampunk?”

I had no idea what steampunk was, but I took the book from her, again promising to read it and give her my report the next day. I sighed and took another sip of my coffee. I would do a lot for coffee and cinnamon buns.

“You were thrown off a balcony?” Remington asked me. “Should I arrest someone?”

“For sure,” I said. “Can you do that?”

The door to the shop opened, and Mrs. Arbuthnot walked in like she was Ethel Barrymore on opening night on Broadway.

“Mavis, get me a bear claw and a cup of coffee. I’ve had a day that would try Job,” she said, unwrapping a long shawl from her shoulders and tossing it on a nearby chair. She noticed us and then, deciding we were not important, turned away, sitting delicately. Mavis and Felicia scattered like ants, forgetting us altogether, anxious to do Mrs. Arbuthnot’s bidding. Wow, that old lady had a lot of sway in town. I wondered just how much trouble she could make for Uncle Harry’s development plans.

“Old biddy,” Ruth muttered. “Goes around like she owns the world. Not an ounce of humility.”

I thought Mrs. Arbuthnot was scarily similar to Ruth, but the irony was lost on her. I finished a second cinnamon bun and the last sip of my latte and glanced down at the book Felicia had given me. It was a hardback, thick, at least three hundred pages. No way could I read the whole thing by tomorrow. I opened the first pages, hoping for a really big font size, but it was normal. There was a stamp inside
the front cover saying it belonged to a school in Irvine. I wondered if Felicia had forgotten to return it or if her book collection was really ill-gotten gain. Perhaps sweet Felicia was a notorious international book thief. I shrugged. I didn’t care too much about book thieves.

“Planning to throw it into another canyon?” Remington asked me. He had caught me staring at the book with what had to be a look of dread on my face. He was sipping his tea and had forgone the cinnamon buns. I didn’t understand how he could resist them. I counted his self-control as a strike against him. Then I was surprised that I was counting his attributes.

“It was an accident,” I said.

“It’s always an accident,” Ruth said. “The girl is more trouble than she’s worth.”

“Well, I don’t remember inviting you, Ruth,” I retorted. “You didn’t have to come to the hospital with me.”

“Listen, Gladys Burger,” she said. “If I weren’t homeless, I would be in my bed, watching
Cagney and Lacey
reruns.
If
I weren’t homeless.”

She leaned forward and stared me straight in the eyes. What was it with old ladies in this town? They were all dead ringers for
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

“It wasn’t my fault,” I insisted. “I wasn’t driving. And don’t call me Gladys.”

Ruth put her teacup on the table. “Gladys,” she repeated.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go to Uncle Harry’s house to stay after the accident,” I told Ruth.

“Have you been sniffing glue?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” I said, my voice rising an octave.

“The minute I know what you’re talking about, I’m going to have my head examined.”

“Well, then, get Freud on the phone now, Ruth, because you know exactly what I’m talking about. Uncle Harry. Smooch. Smooch.” I made kissing noises, pursing my lips at the air.

“No-Neck Harry, the mobster?” she asked. “What did Mavis put in your coffee? Are you one of those ketamine freaks? Should I call a doctor? Quick, someone get a net!”

“I know you hired Luanda to fix you up with Harry,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly true. I knew that Luanda was trying to fix them up, but, come to think of it, I couldn’t imagine Ruth hiring anyone to do anything, let alone match her. Suddenly I felt ridiculous. Of course Ruth didn’t hire Luanda.

I leaned back in my chair and lowered my voice. “My foot hurts.”

“Harry Lupino is a good thirty years younger than me, Gladie, but that’s not why you’re ridiculous. You’re ridiculous because Harry is a Republican, anti-union, and he has NO NECK!”

“What mobster are we talking about?” Remington asked softly. I had forgotten he was there.

“He’s not a mobster,” I said.

Mrs. Arbuthnot stood up and stomped over to us. “He is too a mobster, little girl,” she said to me, sounding just like Queen Victoria. “He’s a mobster
and a thief and a crook, and he’s trying to rape this town until it looks like Los Angeles. Los Angeles!”

Ruth pointed at her. “See? Even the old biddy agrees with me.”

“A person would have to be a fool to get in bed with him,” Mrs. Arbuthnot continued. I didn’t know if she meant “bed” literally or figuratively.

“Well, the only bed I want to get in is my own, but that ain’t gonna happen,” Ruth said. “And Harry Lupino ain’t gonna happen, either.”

“But Luanda told Harry—” I started, and then realized how crazy that sounded. Luanda told Harry? Luanda spoke to dead people. Luanda wore feathers. Luanda wasn’t that reliable. Obviously I would have to focus solely on her to stop harassing Harry. Actually, I was relieved not to have to contend with Ruth and her matters of the heart.

“Kid, take us home,” Ruth ordered Remington.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and stood.

He had put his hand out to help me up when the door to the shop opened again, and this time Spencer walked through. He looked around and spotted me. His attention went down to my injured foot and then over to Remington.

“Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed to no one in particular.

“Hello, boss,” Remington said. “Just taking these two ladies home.”

Spencer approached and got in his face. The two men were big, but Remington was bigger, like a tank but muted in his simple clothes and dorky glasses. Besides, he was so calm and cool, he was almost asleep.

“And you stopped for tea?” Spencer asked. His face
was red, and his chest rose and fell like he had just run a mile.

I interrupted them. My foot was starting to hurt, and I wanted to go home to Grandma and eat mashed potatoes. “What are you doing here, Spencer?”

“Your grandmother called me to come pick you up. Something about a fake psychic and a chicken leg.”

“If that lunatic got ahold of my chicken, she really will be talking to the dead,” Ruth grumbled, standing up and going for the door.

GRANDMA WOKE
me at around eleven the next morning. “Are you awake?” she asked, nudging my shoulder.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I opened one eye to see her face inches from mine. I put the pillow over my head.

Grandma sat down at the edge of the bed. “You need to be awake. It’s going to be a long day and colder than the forecast said.”

“Are you sure?”

“That Luanda woman’s got my radar all wonky, but I’ve never been wrong about the weather, dolly. Here.”

She tugged at me, and I sat up in bed. She handed me some clothes—a black velour tracksuit with
BINGO CHAMP 1989
bedazzled on the back of the hoodie in purple neon.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“That woman is matching my matches all wrong. Love hangs in the balance. It’s chaos.”

Her face hung, dejected. My grandmother was usually upbeat and in control. Now she was getting bested by a New Age pseudo-hippie, and my heart went out to her. I put the tracksuit on.

Grandma had spent the entire evening complaining about Luanda. “She’s bad for this town, bad for what’s decent in this world!” she shouted over dinner.

“You mean she’s bad for business,” Ruth said, with her mouth full of fried chicken. “Bad for
your
business.”

“She’s taken my clients, and she’s going to match them with unsuitable matches,” Grandma sputtered. “Unsuitable, do you understand?”

“What can we do?” I asked. I really wanted to know. It was unthinkable that Grandma’s matchmaking business would tank. She was an institution in town.

“You have to spy on her, dolly,” Grandma said. “Spy on her and bring me back proof that she’s a fraud.”

“Spy?”

“She doesn’t need to do that,” Ruth said. “I’ll tell anybody who’ll listen that she’s a fraud, just like I tell everyone you’re a fraud, Zelda.”

“Ruth, if you’re weren’t so old and going to die soon, I would kick your butt,” Grandma snapped.

Ruth swallowed, and her face drained of color. “How soon are you talking about, Zelda?”

Grandma had gone on about Luanda until after midnight, when she finally let us go to bed. My foot wasn’t too bad, but I took a pain pill, anyway, and slept like the dead.

Grandma’s velour tracksuit fit me perfectly. It sucked having spider clothes. No matter what—even if I got a nail in my other foot—I would get them de-spidered today.

“I’ve got bagels downstairs, dolly,” she said. “Come down, and we can talk more about how you’re going to catch the fake psychic.”

Downstairs, Ruth was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper and eating a bagel, her hair in tight hot-pink curlers. I took a step back in shock.

“Ruth, is that what I think that is in front of you?” I asked her.

She self-consciously touched her mug. “No lip from you,” she said.

“But it’s coffee,” I said, sitting next to her.

“What do you expect? I’m living with your grandmother in this lunatic asylum. It was either coffee or I was going to hang myself by the curtain rod. I’m not sure I made the right choice.”