Macaroni and Freeze (21 page)

She came back to the car and opened the door. “Oops . . . Trixie, do you have any money?”

I went to reach for my purse, but came up with a handful of air. “Oh, no, I don't.” It was the second time I reached for my purse, which wasn't there. The first was to hand the ER intake worker my insurance card. Luckily, they already had my insurance information from my recent late-in-life tonsillectomy.

“Don't worry, Trixie. I'll get us some takeout. Trust me.” ACB slammed the door.

Yikes. We were headed for jail as sure as snow was falling.

The heat was on full blast in the big, empty van, but I still shivered. I closed my eyes for just a moment, and when I opened them, I saw my friend Antoinette Chloe Brown riding the mechanical bull in the window.

I could hear her yeehaws and laughter over the blasting heat and the highway noise. A couple of street people who were camping next to the highway in boxes and crates came to investigate.

“Someone being stabbed?” I heard one ask the other.

“I think it's that lady in the muumuu riding the bull. She's certainly enjoying herself.”

My friend's orange muumuu with various green palm trees covering it was hiked up almost to her waist. Not a good look for her, or anyone, for that matter. Her rhinestone flip-flops caught the glint of the overhead lights surrounding the bull. I had to get her out of there, or we'd never get home.

I rolled down my window, and gave the horn a little tap. “Excuse me, sir.”

One of the men pointed at himself, and I nodded. He came over to my side of the van.

“I just came from the hospital, and I have a cast, and it's hard to walk. Would you mind going in there and telling my friend”—I pointed to ACB in the window—“to come to the van, please?”

“My apologies, but I'm banned from going in there.”

“What about your friend?”

He looked at the man standing not four inches from the window, looking at ACB. “He is also not welcome.
The owner said that we couldn't stare at the gals in those little . . . ahem . . .
shorty shorts
 . . . because we were making them uncomfortable.” He pointed at ACB, who seemed to be going for another eight seconds. “But that there's a real woman.”

“Would you pound on the window then, and yell to her to that Trixie wants her?”

“Who's Trixie?”

“I am.”

“Oh. Okay.”

They both pounded on the window, got ACB's attention, and pointed to me sitting in the car. Reluctantly, she waved to me and slid down from the bull as her muumuu slid up.

Yikes.

I could hear the crowd hoot and holler, and Antoinette Chloe grinned and waved.

Whatever I was given in the hospital for pain and nausea was beginning to wear off. My body ached, my head was throbbing and my leg felt like I was dragging an anvil. I was hungry enough to search the pockets of my jacket for stray, lint-covered Tic Tacs.

I found only one.

Again, I was feeling sorry for myself. At least I wasn't living in a box by the highway in the middle of winter like my two friends who were staring at a platinum blond woman with a red sequined blouse and “shorty shorts” now riding the bull.

I looked up at the hospital I'd just left. It was sprawled
on top of a hill overlooking Syracuse and glowing like a lighthouse in the crisp, dark night. I was much luckier than most of the people in that hospital, too.

Making a mental note to contribute to the hospital as my Christmas gift, I beeped the horn to my two street guys. My friends came over.

“Yes, Trixie?”

“Um . . . I don't know your name.”

“I'm Jud and that's Dan.”

“This is all the money I have right now.” Pulling out all the change from the ash tray, I handed Jud around sixty-two cents. “Jud, if you and Dan ever get to Sandy Harbor, stop at the Silver Bullet and get yourself a nice meal on me. Okay?”

“We sure will.” He smiled, and I wished I could get him some dental work.

“Merry Christmas, Jud.”

“Merry Christmas, Trixie.”

Finally, ACB shuffled out of the bar, carrying several white bags. She hesitated when she saw Jud and Dan.

Rolling down the window, I shouted, “They're okay.”

She plodded to the car. Dan pulled off the navy fisherman's cap from his head and clutched it to his breast.

“You are my kind of woman,” Dan said. “May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?”

“Antoinette Chloe.”

“Antoinette Chloe,” Dan repeated. “It rolls off the tongue like a song . . . or rather a poem by Emerson.” He cleared his throat. “‘She walks in Beauty, like the
night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes. . . .'”

“‘Climes'?” ACB's eyes grew wide. “Don't you swear at me, mister.”

Jud held his hands up. “It means weather. Climates,” he said. “Dan and I were both professors of literature until we were downsized. Now we are writing a book about living with the homeless.”

“That's got to be sad,” I said.

He looked over his shoulder to the mess of boxes and crates. “It'll be even sadder as Christmas gets closer.”

My heart sank. “I wish I had my pocketbook, but I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Antoinette Chloe was busy searching in her bosom purse. That's what I called the depository in her cleavage, which held just . . . everything. She pulled out a roll of money.

I looked at her in astonishment.

“I won it. Over two hundred bucks. Apparently, no one thought a full-figured woman in a muumuu and flip-flops could ride Cowabunga. That's what they call the electric bull.”

She handed the money to Dan. “I am counting on you to make sure that they get whatever they need for the
clime
—blankets, soup, coffee. . . .”

“You have my word, my lovely Antoinette Chloe.” Dan kissed the back of her hand, and she giggled like a fifth grader.

Jud nodded like a bobblehead. “Darling ladies, the charitable goodness you promulgate is beyond reproach.”

“Who said that?” ACB asked. “Shakespeare?”

“Judson Volonade.”

“Is he famous?”

“Not yet. He is I.”

We waved good-bye to the professors and headed north to Sandy Harbor.

I felt bad for dragging ACB out of the saloon. She had just been having fun and earning us some dinner. And I was cranky from pain.

“So, Antoinette Chloe, do you think that Jud and Dan are legitimate?” I asked, taking a bite of a chicken tender. It was still half-frozen, but I could eat around the frozen part.

She shrugged. “I'd like to think so.”

“I just hope they are really professors doing research and that we didn't just give them a drinking binge that would last until Christmas,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I'm being negative, and I just vowed to stop being negative and not to feel sorry for myself.”

“Trixie, you'll still have a great Christmas, and we'll all help you fill your orders and deliver them.”

Tears stung my eyes. I did have great friends and a great staff at my diner. I knew they'd help, but my Christmas season wasn't going to be the same this year.

Maybe it would be even better!

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