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“I’ll just take Earp around the back to Georgia’s,” I told Jason.
“I’ll get us a table. I don’t think there’s any need to rush getting back down here. It looks like there will be a wait.”
It certainly looked like that to me, as well, which was a good thing because, in addition to seeing to the hand-off of Earp and Hercules and getting gussied up in the new dress I’d bought specifically for the unprecedented event of having a date with Amatista’s most eligible bachelor, I had just added another item to my do-before-dinner list.
I was dying to see what Hank had added to his inventory at the Curio Shop that had the place suddenly hopping with customers and what in the world this mysterious piece of merchandise had to do with the Crown Jewels of Ireland.
I hurriedly dropped off Earp at Georgia’s, then rushed upstairs to collect the pot-bellied piglet, Hercules, from her pen in the corner of my kitchen. I deposited Hercules on Georgia’s doorstep and waited for the pig to waddle inside.
Normally, I’d have lingered and had a chat with Georgia. I had a lot to say, what with finding Dr. Vance laid out cold from being bludgeoned with her own rodeo trophy.
“I’ll come over bright and early in the morning for the critters,” I told Georgia.
Georgia smirked.
“It’s not going to be an overnight date—” I protested. “I just might get back late."
Georgia kept right on smirking.
“I’m not even sure it’s a real date,” I protested.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Georgia said.
“Where are you going?” Maxwell said from the middle of the living room rug where he was currently underneath a pile of pugs and potbellied piglets who were both attempting to lick what looked like an avalanche of chocolate sauce that had ended up down the front of his little t-shirt. Maxwell’s shirt featured a joke I’d had to have explained to me by a ten-year-old (Maxwell) before I got it.
Q: What did the duck say to the subatomic particle?
A: Quark
“Quark! Quark!” I said in my best duck voice as I stepped inside the cottage to greet Maxwell.
“What?” said Georgia, which surprised me because I was quite sure she hadn’t had to have the joke explained to her. She was probably the one who’d bought Maxwell that t-shirt in the first place.
“Ha! Ha!” said Maxwell. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Santa Fe this evening to see The Music Man with Mr. Wendell,” I told him.
“Who?”
“Mr. Wendell.”
“No, I mean, who is this music man?” Maxwell asked. “I know who Mr. Wendell is.”
“The Music Man isn’t a person; it’s a play,” said Georgia.
“Like The Christmas Carol,” I added.
Maxwell is very big on all things theatrical. When Georgia and I had taken him to see The Christmas Carol back in December, Maxwell had afterward attempted to recreate the experience at home with himself in all the starring roles augmented by his canine and porcine companions as the supporting cast.
“The Music Man is sort of like The Christmas Carol,” said Georgia, “but with lots of singing. And a different plot, obviously.”
“I like plays with singing,” said Maxwell. “Can I come with you?”
“You can’t,” said his mother. “Mr. Wendell and Emma are going on a date.”
“What’s a date?”
Maxwell is a kid who can recite the periodic table of elements backward, but there are considerable gaps in his knowledge of social norms. Georgia doesn’t allow television in the house, and, to my knowledge, the only man in Georgia’s life left her pregnant with Maxwell and hasn’t darkened the same zip code since.
“A date is when two people who like each other spend time together to get to know each other better,” Georgia said.
“Like kissy things?” said Maxwell, leading me to believe that his haziness on what a date consisted of might be partially feigned. You never know with Maxwell.
“Possibly,” I said.
“Probably,” said Georgia, smirking once more over the top of Maxwell’s head as she pulled Hercules off him.
The piglet had moved on from simply licking off the chocolate sauce to chewing a hole in the word “Quark,” and as everyone knows, a joke with the punchline missing is just a silly question.
Maxwell made a face that expressed his distaste for kissing and related activities, of which I’m sure he had only the haziest conception. I had no doubt that Georgia had done her parental due diligence by explaining in the most clinical terms possible how humans reproduced. I was equally sure that Maxwell made no connection between distasteful acts such as kissing and the act of procreation.
That was probably for the best. It had been bad enough when the previous winter Maxwell had gone through a phase where he’d relate in great detail to anyone who’d listen about the supposed feeding—and breeding—habits of the Chupacabra.
That had been Hank’s doing. Fortunately for Georgia’s sanity, Maxwell’s single-minded interest in the mythical beasts had somewhat waned after an unsanctioned and solo nocturnal excursion through the saguaros and sage brush that surrounded Little Tombstone in search of Chupacabras in the wild. During the outing in question, Maxwell claimed to have witnessed a whole passel of the elusive creatures, although everyone but he and Hank put the sighting down to a combination of Maxwell’s feverish imagination and a fleeting encounter with a skulk of foxes or possibly a band of coyotes.
Georgia still hadn’t quite forgiven the old man for feeding Maxwell’s overactive imagination with tall tales. Not that Hank didn’t believe every word of what he said himself.
“There will be no kissing,” I said firmly, partly to put a damper on Georgia’s smirking and partly to remind me to keep my hopes realistic. There might very well be no kissing.
“Can I go then?” Maxwell said.
“No, you cannot,” said Georgia. “Now get going, Emma, and do something with your hair.”
I put my hand to my head and tried to draw my fingers through my hair to no avail. During my multiple cross-town treks, the wind had whipped it into a rat’s nest of tangles.
“You have some dirt on your face,” Maxwell added as if a person who relied on pigs and pugs to do his pre-laundry stain removal was in any position to offer grooming and hygiene advice.
The dirt was probably from touching my face after I’d wrested the dirty and discarded hamburger wrapper from the abandoned sandwich I’d let Earp finish off on the way over to Dr. Bagley’s. I would do something about my hair and my face, but first, I was going to make a brief stop off at the Museum of the Unexplained.
As I climbed the steps up to the Curio Shop, there was a couple coming out, and when I got inside, there was a small cluster of tourists standing around the recent addition to Hank’s not-so-carefully-curated collection.
The wheelbarrow of pyrite had been shoved over into the corner, the case which contained the fossils had been wedged up against the jumble of old mining implements, and even the centerpiece of Hank’s collection, the Chupacabras in their roomy glass case, had been shifted to one side to make way for an event entirely unprecedented since 1998.
Hank had a brand new exhibit.
“Oh, Emma,” Hank said, coming across the room to meet me. “I’d like you to meet Rex Popov.”
I detested Rex on sight. He was nearly as old as Hank but much better groomed if you consider coal-black hair-dye, citrus pomade, and gallons of cologne attractive. Rex was wearing a pale yellow circa 1973 three-piece polyester suit despite the heat of summer and the lack of air-conditioning. He’d accessorized his ensemble with white suede loafers and a grin so lacking in sincerity that it would put the devil on notice.
I mentally acknowledged that it was unfair of me to judge a man on sight based solely on his physical appearance, but Rex struck me as the worst sort of grifter: the type who’d try to cheat sweet old ladies out of their life savings by selling them fake government bonds or get starving orphans to sign over their inheritance checks to him for “safe keeping.”
“Old friend of yours?” I asked Hank as Rex extended his hand.
I’d expected Rex to shake my proffered paw, but instead, he raised my hand to his lips. I managed to snatch it away just before he made contact.
“Just met,” said Hank. “Rex has let me in on a terrific business opportunity.”
Just to be clear, the Curio Shop and the Museum of the Unexplained are not money-making enterprises. They don’t have to be. According to the conditions set forth in my Great Aunt Geraldine’s will, Hank pays a purely symbolic rent of ten dollars a month in perpetuity for the privilege of occupying the premises at Little Tombstone. There’s a complicated but valid reason why my Aunt Geraldine left things the way she did, and I’ve never considered raising Hank’s rent.
Hank’s new wife, Phyllis—who is considerably better off than Hank—occasionally slips me a little extra to help offset the expense of constructing the apartment the newlyweds occupy in the attic over the Curio Shop.
I don’t tell Hank about Phyllis’s little contributions, and it had never occurred to me before now that Hank might be bothered by his lack of financial stability.
So far, he’d been able to keep a roof over his head and the heads of his beloved Chupacabras, as well as provide himself with an ample supply of bacon, whiskey, and cigars.
I’d always believed that was enough to keep Hank happy, or at least in a perpetual state of contented disgruntlement, but perhaps I’d been wrong.
Whatever disordered thinking might be at the root of Hank's feelings of inferiority—or at the very least, greed—it appeared the Rex had quickly and easily exploited it.
“What’s this all about?” I asked Hank as I backed out of range of Rex and his sweaty palms and pointed at the new exhibit occupying the center of the crowded room that comprised the entirety of the Museum of the Unexplained.