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I’d never seen The Music Man, but by intermission, I was already making plans to come back with Maxwell and Georgia. I was so sure of an enthusiastic reception to the tickets I’d bought at the box office on the way back from the ladies’ room that I texted Georgia and told her not to make plans for the following Saturday night.
“Maxwell would have loved this,” I told Jason when I rejoined him in our places in the fifth row.
“I’m sure he would have, but thankfully we’ll all be spared a pint-sized rendition of Ya Got Trouble.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Jason that I was almost certain we would not be spared a pint-sized rendition of Ya Got Trouble; only Maxwell would find some way of making the song not about the fictitious River City but about the sleepy village of Amatista, New Mexico.
I was quite confident that pugs and pot-bellied pigs would become involved.
“I’m glad it got your mind off your troubles,” Jason said.
“Have I got troubles?” I asked.
Jason just raised one eyebrow.
“I don’t have troubles,” I insisted.
I might have a vet bludgeoner and a geriatric conman lurking around the environs, but I wouldn’t classify those as personal troubles.
“How’s it going with selling your screenplay?” Jason asked me.
Now, that was personal. Over a decade ago, in my early twenties, I’d managed to sell the very first screenplay I ever wrote right out of the gate, and it had actually made it onto the big screen. That movie was a big hit, and I’d been labeled a wunderkind. For about three weeks. Unfortunately, since then, all I’d managed to do was get a couple of subsequent scripts optioned.
Up until I’d left LA (and my adulterous husband and his larcenous mistress), I’d gotten by on doing rewrites of other people’s work. Ruining it mostly, if I’m going to be honest, but I was just doing what I was told.
Since inheriting Little Tombstone, I hadn’t had a lot of time on my hands, what with all the daily drama that came with living in a place that was falling down around the heads of the passel of loveable eccentrics that inhabited it. It was always one thing or another, but somehow, against all odds, I’d found time to write something new. My agent was currently shopping it around.
“I don’t know what’s happening with my new screenplay,” I said. “Cybil is still trying to get a studio to bite.”
“Well, I hope you sell it. I thought it was good.”
Jason had seen the script lying on my coffee table and started reading it without even asking, not that I’d minded. He’d taken it home with him when he’d left to finish at his leisure, which was the same night he’d started reading it.
“It’s all a waiting game,” I said. “You never can tell how things are going to turn out.”
“Oh, I believe one can sometimes be absolutely certain of how things will turn out. If one is patient.”
I wanted to ask Jason what he meant by that, but before I got a chance, the lights came down to signal intermission was over. Jason took my hand and held it. I might not know how many of the things that weighed on my mind were going to play out, but at least I knew one thing: Jason and I were finally moving out of the friend zone.
The next morning, Georgia was at my door before I’d even had breakfast. Georgia, who works at an engineering firm in Santa Fe, always leaves Little Tombstone at the crack of dawn on weekdays. Today was Saturday, however, so even though she’d brought a project home to work on over the weekend, Georgia had allowed herself to sleep in until the decadent hour of seven.
On weekdays, Georgia is able to leave for work early because Marsha Ledbetter, who oversees Maxwell’s education while staying in one of the few habitable rooms in the motel, comes over to Georgia and Maxwell’s place as soon as Georgia has departed. Mrs. Ledbetter makes Maxwell eat his breakfast and start on his lessons soon afterward.
Georgia never seems to have a minute to spare in the morning, even on weekends, but this particular morning she seemed in no hurry to get to work on her projects.
“How was it?” she asked as she breezed through the door and into my tiny kitchen without being invited in.
Georgia and Maxwell used to live here with me. I suppose that’s why she acts like she owns the place.
Georgia poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down at the little Formica-topped table I’d inherited along with the rest of the furniture in what used to be my Great Aunt Geraldine’s apartment.
“Well?” Georgia said as she helped herself to a spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl on the table.
“It was nice?” I said.
“Nice?”
“It was very nice.”
“Very nice!” Georgia practically snorted. “I will be requiring more details than that.”
“Well, you won’t be getting any!” I shot back.
“And that’s the thanks I get,” said Georgia.
“Thanks for what?”
“For rooting for you and Jason all this time.”
To be honest, even if Georgia had been rooting for Jason and me to get together all this time, she wouldn’t have had much time to devote to interfering in the evolution of our relationship. Georgia has a lot on her plate.
“Did you hear what happened to Dr. Bagley’s new assistant vet yesterday?” I asked in a transparent attempt to change the subject. If Georgia found out that Jason had come up to my apartment with me when he dropped me off after the musical, she’d dig in her heels and refuse to leave until she’d gotten all the racy details.
The truth was, there weren’t all that many racy details to divulge. Jason had kissed me at the door and gone on his way. My toes may or may not have curled inside my shoes during said kiss, but that was none of Georgia’s business.
I hadn’t expected Georgia to take my diversionary bait, but she did.
“What happened?” she asked as she rummaged in my refrigerator for a bottle of creamer she wasn’t going to find.
“All I have is milk,” I said.
Georgia withdrew her head from the refrigerator and returned to her place at the table without the milk. “What about this vet?”
“Dr. Bagley has a new vet that just joined her practice,“ I said. “A Dr. Reba Vance, formally a Rodeo Queen, and when I took Earp in to get his medication for his mange—”
“Earp has mange?”
“Haven’t you noticed him scratching?”
“I haven’t had time to scratch my own itches, never mind worry about that old pug’s problems,” said Georgia a trifle irritably.
“Then you’d better be getting along,” I said as I made a feint at the coffee cup she’d recklessly relinquished her grip on.
“I’m not done with that,” said Georgia grabbing the handle of the cup before I even made contact. “What happened to Reba the Rodeo Queen?”
“She got bludgeoned in the back of her head with her own trophy,” I said.
I felt bad as soon as the words left my mouth. It sounded like I was making light of Dr. Vance’s misfortunes, and I probably was. I was exploiting Reba’s troubles just to keep Georgia from sticking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
“What!?” said Georgia. “And you found her?”
“I did.”
“Was she—” Georgia hesitated for a second before adding the word, “dead?”
“No, Dr. Vance was semi-conscious.”
“Did she tell you who did it?”
“She wasn’t that coherent.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll track down the perpetrator,” said Georgia. “Or at least you’ll try.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Isn’t that a sort of hobby of yours?”
I rather resented this insinuation of Georgia’s that I treated serious crimes as a pass time.
“I wouldn’t call it a hobby,” I said stiffly.
“Well, call it whatever you want,” said Georgia, “I’m sure you won’t be able to resist mounting an investigation. Now, let’s get back to this date of yours. I want details.”
“Didn’t you say when you came in that you could only stay a minute? I thought you brought home a project to finish. You’ve been here almost thirty already.”
Georgia belatedly looked at the time on her phone and shrieked.
“I was hoping to get in an hour of work before Maxwell got up and started clamoring for breakfast.”
“See,” I said. “That’s what you get for being nosey.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black,” said Georgia as she dumped the remainder of her coffee in the sink and hurriedly rinsed her cup before she added it to the pile of dirty dishes.
I missed living with Georgia and Maxwell. When we’d all shared the apartment, I’d never had to worry about my environment descending into squalor or feeling lonely. Now both were a regular occurrence.
Before darting out the door, Georgia went over to the corner of the kitchen where poor infested Earp was lying asleep with his head on the ample belly of Hercules, his somnambulant porcine companion.
“Mange isn’t contagious, is it?” she asked before reaching down to pat the pug on the head.
“It doesn’t pass easily to humans, I think,” I said.
“Easily? You don’t think?” said Georgia and removed her hand from the pen before it made contact with the slumbering creatures. “Just to be on the safe side, when Maxwell comes over here to get the animals, why don’t you keep them all here and douse him with disinfectant before he leaves.”