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MARY-ALICE WASN’T REALLY looking forward to seeing Celia again, after what happened during her last visit. Fortune had tried to give Mary-Alice a break by recruiting Ally, the nice young lady who waited tables at Francine’s and happened to be Celia’s niece. But Ally had come up with one excuse after another, until she finally admitted that she wanted as little to do with her unpleasant aunt as possible.
So while Gertie, Ida Belle, and Fortune worked behind the scenes on the logistics, it was up to Mary-Alice to walk into Celia’s room, take a deep breath, and announce that she had a surprise for Celia.
“Mary-Alice,” Celia had muttered sleepily (apparently the staff had decided that day that it was in everyone’s best interest to keep Celia sedated), “you know very well how I detest surprises.”
A suspiciously muscular orderly wheeled a metal cart into the room. Mary-Alice noticed that the only item on the cart was a boom box and wondered whether Celia noticed it too.
After that, things happened quickly. Trying to recall the events later, Mary-Alice could remember throbbing music, the gyrations of the “orderly’s” tattooed physique, and a crowd of whooping, cheering nurses gathered outside the door. Then Gertie started dancing too. Someone—it couldn’t have been Ida Belle, it was someone else—had shouted something at Gertie, egging her on. Something about aerials class? Rising to the challenge, Gertie had grabbed Celia’s IV pole and attempted to swing around it as if it were a stripper pole.
The second-to-last thing in Mary-Alice’s memory was Gertie’s panicked expression as her momentum set the pole shooting off at an unexpected tangent. The last thing Mary-Alice took note of was a patch of blackened gum stuck to the bottom of Gertie’s tennis shoe. Which was headed straight at her face in slow motion...
Mary-Alice spent the night at the hospital, being watched for signs of concussion. Although she dearly wanted to sleep, someone came by to shake her awake every time she drifted off.
Early the next morning, a sheepish Gertie came to pick Mary-Alice up and drive her home.
“Now don’t you worry about a thing, Miss Gertie,” Mary-Alice reassured her as they drove back to Sinful in the ancient Cadillac. “The doctor said I’m perfectly fine. No concussion, and just as good as new. Although I must admit, I wouldn’t mind a nap.”
Mary-Alice was quiet for a moment, wanting to ask a question but afraid of what the answer might be. Finally she said,
“Miss Gertie, was the mission successful? Did anyone get a look at Celia’s phone?”
Gertie kept staring at the road, but Mary-Alice noticed that she was suppressing a smile.
“They made me promise not to tell you anything until we were all together.”
Mary-Alice must have dozed off after that. She woke to find Gertie pulling up to the dark blue Victorian.