Royal Opposites (9 page)

“Did you just pay with a credit card?”

He frowned at the question which came out of nowhere.

“Yeah. Why?”

She leaned on the roof of the car. “I’ve been wondering how they found us. I mean, they were at our hotel waiting for us.”

“I know. That bothered me, too. The GPS on my phone is secure. What about you?”

She shook her head. “I took the battery out since I don’t have my charger. It’s been ringing off the hook since…” She trailed off with a shrug. He hadn’t even thought about people who might be missing her. He was sure she had a boyfriend or husband worried sick about her right about now.

“I’ll get you home as soon as possible. I don’t anticipate this mess being hard to straighten out once I put some pressure on the right people from the right position.”

“The right position meaning from Rafferstonia,” she commented.

“Yes.”

“But we have to get there first. If they catch us again, I don’t think they’re going to be so caught off guard. We’ve already been lucky twice.”

Tom topped off the tank despite warnings to the contrary and replaced the nozzle. “We’ve lost them. It’s going to take a while for them to catch up again. We’ll have plenty of time to get to Dallas.”

She studied him a moment longer then nodded. She got back in the car while he pulled his receipt from the machine and climbed in after her.

She gave him directions before he even asked. They were back on the highway and heading out of Phoenix before she spoke again.

“We can’t use your credit card anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” He thought about the paltry five hundred dollars he had in his wallet. That wouldn’t even cover one suite at their next stop, forget about two. Besides, they’d need the card to check in.

“That’s the only thing that makes sense. They tracked us through your card. Why don’t we send up a red flag and yell ‘come get us’? If we want to keep them off our trail, we’ve gotta go to a cash basis.”

“There’s one little problem with a cash basis.” Tom glanced at her in the darkening night. His sleep schedule was going to be all screwed up. “I only have five hundred bucks on me. That’s not going to get us to Dallas.”

She stared at him with an expression he had to describe as disbelief. “You
only
have five hundred dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s enough to get us to New York.” She hesitated. “And I have the eight hundred on me I was going to deposit. We can totally make it to Dallas without using your card.”

“You can’t be serious. There is no way one thousand three hundred dollars can stretch for two whole days. We have to eat, we have to buy gas, we have to sleep.”

“You do know us commoners have to make it on much less than that on a daily basis, right?”

Tom frowned. “Are you calling me a snob?”

“If the shoe fits.” Joan folded her arms across her chest and looked out the window.

He wasn’t a snob. He was very down to earth. His year away had seen to it. He’d learned to live on much less than what he’d been accustomed. He’d taken no jaunts off to Monte Carlo. He hadn’t had dinner in Hong Kong longer than he cared to remember. He’d become downright thrifty.

“The shoe doesn’t fit. In fact,” He twisted to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He slid the bills from the soft leather folds and held them out to her. “Here. Let’s see you get us to Dallas on thirteen hundred dollars. I’m telling you, it can’t be done.”

Joan raised an eyebrow and gave him a lopsided smile.

“What’s in it for me?”

“Besides getting to safety?”

“Yeah.”

“The moment I get home, I will repay your eight hundred dollars with 1000% interest.”

Joan frowned at him. In silence, she pressed a few buttons on his cell phone. She stared at the screen for so long he was beginning to think she wasn’t going to accept the challenge. Maybe she’d finally come to her senses and realized it couldn’t be done. At last, she studied him through a narrowed gaze.

“Eight hundred thousand dollars? That’s what you’re going to give me if I get us to Dallas on less than thirteen hundred dollars.”

“That’s the interest, yes. I’ll also return the eight hundred you invested in this folly, too.”

“What’s the catch?” She was still staring at him with a frown marring her smooth features.

He shrugged. “No catch. There doesn’t need to be.”

She bit her lip. “I have a condition.”

Here it was. “Yes?”

“You have to do exactly what I tell you. No arguments.”

“Can there be I-‐-told-‐-you-‐-so’s?”

“Sure.” She was starting to look a little too smug. He was beginning to rethink his challenge. There was no way she should be this sure of herself over an impossible task. Unless, it were possible and she knew more than he did. What was he thinking? That was crazy.

“Deal.”

“Deal.” She smiled and tucked the money he’d given her into a large binder she pulled out of the canvas bag she was toting.

“Good.” He tilted his nose up in the air. “Just in time, too.

I’m starving.”

“I can eat, too.” She consulted the map on his phone, but the screen blinked off. “Do you have your charger?”

“Sorry. It’s at the apartment.”

She nodded then pulled out her phone which was almost identical to his. She wasn’t so frugal after all, he snickered in his head. He watched her replace the battery and turn it on At once, it began to ring. Again, he thought about the people who had to be missing her. He tried not to notice when she hit the ignore button.

“Don’t not answer on my account.”

She didn’t look at him and he got the impression she was shutting him out for the first time since they met. It was curious. It wasn’t like he was entitled to know everything about her life. She still didn’t know quite a bit about his. That didn’t stop him from wanting to understand who she seemed to be avoiding.

She pulled up a map on her phone and did a search.

Seafood, he hoped. He suddenly had a taste for lobster.

“How much longer are you okay to drive?” The question surprised him. He was beginning to think she’d never do anything he expected.

Tom shrugged. “I’m okay for a couple more hours at least.”

She nodded and went back to her map. “Here we go.” She pointed at the highway. “You’re going to take the third exit coming up.” He nodded and followed her directions to the letter. When they pulled into the parking lot of a major grocery chain, he raised an eyebrow at her. “You can’t be serious. You want to go grocery shopping? Now?”

“It’s cheaper than restaurants and you can get whatever you want.” She pulled twenty dollars out of her binder and held it out to him. “Within reason.”

She pushed the door open and tossed him a smile over her shoulder while stuffing the binder back in her bag. Despite his annoyance, he was immediately turned on. He smirked at the twenty now clenched in his fist then popped out of the car himself.

Feeling snarky, he called after her, “What are you going to use?” She gave him that smile again then continued inside the store. The doors had closed behind her before he could gather his wits enough to stop staring at her backside. He hurried after her.

It didn’t take long to catch up to her. She was standing inside the door reading a paper from the stack on a nearby stand.

“What are you doing?” He asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Planning.”

“Ah. Well, meet you at the car when you’re finished?”

Joan nodded and continued going through the paper almost like she didn’t hear him. She reached for a couple more of the papers then headed off deeper inside the store. Tom shook his head and went in search of dinner. He frowned at the twenty she’d given him and wondered if they would cook the lobster in the store for him.

Chapter Nine

Forty-‐-five minutes later, Joan surveyed her full cart and tried to think of anything she might have missed. Toiletries. Now that she was in control of their finances, they wouldn’t be spending another night in a place quite so upscale like the Ritz Carlton. It would be a good idea to pick up the necessities their next hotel wouldn’t provide. She wished they had time to find a CVS or Walgreens because the items would be much cheaper if not free at those two stores, but she’d found some Catalina deals that should make up the difference.

Joan wheeled the cart down the aisle scanning the prices of toothpaste. Another woman stood in the aisle doing the same. She held a toddler on her hip while two other kids stood nearby. Joan hoped she was unobtrusive while she watched the woman from the corner of her eye. She seemed to be weighing a travel-‐-sized brand name toothpaste against a larger tube of the store brand. Joan took note of her faded dress and her heart went out to the woman.

Joan reached for the brand name toothpaste the woman had replaced on the shelf in the size that was on sale. “This one is free with a coupon.”

The woman gave her a startled look. Had she not heard Joan’s approach? “Excuse me?”

Joan handed the woman the tube with a smile then opened her coupon binder to the dental care section. “Free. With this coupon.” Joan pulled out the stack of coupons for the toothpaste.

She kept one for herself, but handed the woman the other nine.

“This store doubles coupons up to a dollar. Since that tube is on sale for ninety-‐-nine cents, a seventy-‐-five cent coupon will make it free.” The woman stared at her with hope daring to blossom in her eyes. “Really? Because my ex just got mad at me for not having the kids brush regularly. But they do. So they must need different toothpaste. It’s just that it’s so expensive and the checks he sends don’t stretch very far.”

Joan nodded her understanding. “Before I started couponing, I used a particular toothpaste because it was cheaper and ended up needing a root canal. You should try these. And don’t be afraid to stock up. You have enough coupons there to get nine tubes this size.”

“You don’t need them?”

Joan shook her head and put one of the tubes in her cart.

“Nope. Just need the one tube at the moment. And a couple toothbrushes.” She scanned the toothbrush section and picked up two more that would be free with coupons. “Do you need any? I have some extra coupons for these, too.”

The woman bit her lip for a moment. Joan feared she was about to cry. At last, she nodded. Joan handed her those coupons, too. She smiled at the little boy by the woman’s side. “See those baskets over there? Why don’t you go grab one for your mother?”

The boy nodded before rushing off to get a basket. When he returned, Joan helped the woman fill it with toiletries that would work out to be free with the coupons while getting some for her and Tom. Together, they headed toward the check out.

Joan could see how nervous the woman was getting when they neared the cashier. She patted her shoulder and said, “Just check out before me. I’ll make sure it all works out right.”

It was a good thing Joan had made the suggestion. The cashier turned out to be a coupon nazi.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I can only take one coupon per purchase.”

Joan paused in unloading her cart to look at the cashier. She was scowling down her nose at the mother and trying to hand the coupons back. When the woman reached out with a tentative hand to take them, Joan jumped in.

“Excuse me. A ‘purchase’ is defined as an item. She has one item per coupon.”

The cashier held up the small bag of items. “No. This is a purchase. I can only accept one coupon for everything in this purchase.”

“It’s alright. I can just…” The mother gathered her kids toward her and looked like she was going to bolt at any moment.

“If that’s how you want it, ring everything up separately.”

Joan stared down the cashier who puffed out her sizeable chest and glared back.

“It’s not how I want it,
ma’am
, it’s the corporate policy.”

Joan bristled at the insulting emphasis on the word ‘ma’am’

and worked hard to keep it from showing. She forced a smile to her lips and plunked her coupon binder down on the conveyor belt with a thump. She flipped to the back section where she kept the store’s coupon policy. “Hmmm. Let’s see. According to your corporate office, a purchase is defined as an item just like I said at first.” Joan unclipped the page from the binder and held it out for the cashier to read.

“Would you care to re-‐-familiarize yourself with the policy?”

“I don’t know what that is, ma’am, but it has no bearing on anything.”

Joan sucked in a calming breath. She so didn’t need this right now. How could this woman sit here and say that? Even if she couldn’t read, the corporation’s logo was right there on the top of the page.

“I’d like to speak with your manager.”

“He’s busy.”

Joan held up her cell phone. “You can call him over here or I call the corporate office whose phone number I happen to keep on speed dial.”

The cashier bit her lip and stared at Joan a moment longer before picking up the phone. The woman with the kids straightened her spine a little and glanced at Joan.

Since they were starting to draw quite a line, the manager rushed right over. He was a young looking guy with a kind face.

He gave the mother a smile before turning his attention to the cashier.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“This woman is trying to use multiple coupons per purchase.”

“I’m trying to use them in accordance to policy set down by your corporate office. And by the way, one coupon per item is a really basic concept and standard across the board.”

“May I see the coupons?” the man asked. Joan nodded to the mother who then handed them over.

He read the coupons and checked the bag before looking back at the cashier. “Do they scan?”

She appeared taken aback by the question. “Uh…I didn’t try them.” He reached past her and scanned the coupons. They all went through without a single beep. The mother’s twenty-‐-eight dollar total went down to a whopping thirty-‐-one cents. The woman was near tears again when she paid her bill. Holding back tears, she heaped profuse thanks upon Joan before ushering her kids from the store. The cashier sneered at Joan, but the manager saw it. “Why don’t you open up register six? I’ll finish up here.” The cashier huffed and rolled her eyes, but stomped off to the other register.