Thirty-Six

Sara

“Are you sure you’re all right?” I ask Dorothy yet again as we tidy up the children’s area at Between the Covers post–story time.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Her voice is steady, and her smile appears real. But there’s an odd sort of energy coming off her.

“Well, he did lie about pretty much everything. Even if he pretended to be different people while he was doing it. The same person who sat with you over coffees and pretended to bare his soul is the same person who spent a week in Mexico with Meena. And is coming here today to meet Annell.”

“I’m well aware of that. But perhaps Annell should have just ghosted him. I’m not sure why we’re going to all this trouble when we should just be glad to be done with him.”

I consider my mother-in-law. “He hurt you and Meena. And if we do nothing, he’ll just keep lying and attempting to mooch off other women.”

“Perhaps it’s our own fault for being so naïve. To want so badly to be loved that we open ourselves up to the wrong people.” She says this quietly, but her eyes are cloudy with pain. Caused not only by this stranger but by her own son.

“Maybe we do need to pay more attention and stand up for ourselves sooner, but it’s never right to blame the victims.” I squeeze her hand, then head up to the front desk, where we receive jangly hugs from the rest of the book club as they arrive. Soon the store reverberates with nervous chatter.

“I’m so angry at this fraudster, I’m not sure how I’m going to be polite when he gets here,” Annell says.

“Maybe we should just hit him over the head as soon as he walks in and stuff him in the potting shed,” Meena suggests.

“I wouldn’t mind laying a little whoop-ass on the man,” Carlotta agrees.

“I still like the putting green idea.” Nancy twirls, showing off the golf skort Carlotta designed for her. “My clubs are in the car.”

Jazmine and Angela laugh. “It is tempting, isn’t it?”

“Okay, everybody!” Phoebe and Wesley raise their hands for quiet. “The video camera is set up and tucked out of sight in the carriage house. It’s voice activated, but we want to be careful not to block its view from between the open shelves in the kitchenette. We’ll be using our cell phones to stream audio and video. Is everybody clear on what’s happening?”

There are nods and nervous smiles.

“What’s the signal?” Wesley asks.

“I say, ‘Right this way’!” Annell calls out.

“Then I do the nose thing.” Judith demonstrates. “And once Annell and ‘the mark’ are in the breezeway, we fall in and walk as quietly as possible into the carriage house.”

“That’s right,” Phoebe confirms. “Don’t be nervous. He may have multiple fictional personalities, but we still outnumber him.”

Chaz steps forward. “Everyone needs to stay calm and remember our objective. I do have an off-duty cop friend standing by just in case, but we will not go into Thelma and Louise territory. Everybody clear on that?”

We respond with a resounding “Clear!” but I don’t think any of us are anywhere close to calm.

At exactly four p.m., Meena glances out the front window. “There’s his car,” she stage-whispers. “He’s here.”

“All right, everybody.” Annell’s smile is tight. “Let’s take our places. It’s showtime.”

Dorothy swallows a large gulp of air and clasps hands with Meena. After a last look over their shoulders, they retreat to the carriage house, where they’ll keep out of sight until it’s time to reveal themselves. The rest of the book club scatters around the store to pose as customers, which is fortunately not a stretch of anyone’s acting abilities.

I move behind the counter and glance out the store window. Beside me, Annell takes a yoga-size breath, then releases it quietly.

My heart races as I watch a trim brown-haired man dressed in khakis and a short-sleeved black polo emerge from a silver sedan. He smooths a hand over a stubbled face and slips on a pair of rectangular dark-framed glasses, then walks confidently through the parking lot. Just outside the building he glances up at the living quarters. A small smile plays on his lips.

I drop my eyes, pretending to look something up on the computer for Carlotta. I only glance up as the bell jangles and “Howard” walks in, his gaze taking in the store and the crowd of customers. He does a brief double take when Carlotta shifts her weight, hiking her short skirt higher, revealing the legs of a WNBA player.

“Howard?” Annell walks out from behind the counter. An eager smile lights her face. “Is that you?”

“At your service.” He smiles a friendly, everyday guy kind of smile, and I have to remind myself that this man has proven himself to be a consummate actor. “It’s hard to tell from people’s profile pictures sometimes. But you look exactly as advertised.” It’s clear he means this as a compliment.

“Why, thank you. I think it’s terrible how some people use old pictures or try to pretend they’re someone or something they’re not,” Annell says. “It’s so silly. I mean, it’s not as if people don’t figure out the truth once they meet you.”

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he replies, ignoring Annell’s “arrow of truth.”

“Thank you.” Annell’s smile gets bigger. “I’m fortunate to have a large base of loyal customers.”

His gaze strays back to Carlotta, who is a good half foot taller than he is and considerably more muscular. Chaz stands in a nearby aisle, an open book in his hands. Wesley and Phoebe are on opposite sides of the store, glancing down at their phones and, I assume, recording this initial exchange.

“So, you live above the store?” Howard asks.

“Oh yes. The whole upstairs is private living quarters. It’s so convenient.”

He doesn’t comment, but he looks very pleased.

“I have to say I was shocked at how much we have in common,” Annell observes as she shows him around the store. “It’s almost as if I’d ordered you up. What did you do in publishing?”

“I ran a medium-size educational publishing house for a time. When it got swallowed up during all the mergers that took place in the industry, I founded a small press and ultimately sold it to a strategic buyer.” His voice is affable, his tone self-deprecating. “I still do some consulting, but I’m mostly retired.”

They come to a halt in the children’s section, which he compliments profusely.

“Thank you,” Annell says again. I know her well enough to see how hard she’s working to approximate her usual warmth, but so far she’s managed to speak only the truth.

“Every now and then I almost start writing a novel that’s been in the back of my mind for some time.” He chuckles. “What can I say? Even those of us who should know better believe we have a book in us.” His laugh is low and companionable. I can see why Meena and Dorothy were so excited by his attention.

“I’d love to see that garden of yours.”

“Of course.” Annell takes a quick breath, then adds more loudly, “It’s right this way.”

We aren’t exactly a well-oiled machine, but Judith nods in acknowledgment of our verbal signal, then flicks her index finger over the bridge of her nose. The others quietly fall in behind her while I put the closed sign out and lock the front door, so we won’t be interrupted.

Annell and “Howard” are in the carriage house before the rest of us enter the breezeway. As we tiptoe through it, I hear him exclaiming over the carriage house and its historic charm. Then he praises her camellia and magnolia bushes. His words stutter to a stop as we move into place at the same time that Dorothy and Meena emerge from the opposite direction.

Annell steps away from our “mark” and comes to join us, her face harder than I’ve ever seen it.

He falls back a step as we assemble. Then he glances over his shoulder as if considering making a run for it, but the garden is surrounded by a brick wall on three sides. His eyes widen as Meena and Dorothy walk forward and take their places on either side of Annell. Worried about the way my mother-in-law is trembling, I step up to flank her other side.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he blusters. “What’s going on here?”

“Hello, Frank,” Meena says in a clipped matter-of-fact tone. “You’ve been awfully busy, haven’t you? Does your ex-wife know what you’ve been up to?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, quite earnestly.

“I’d ask about your children, Dean.” Dorothy’s tone is seething, and I realize that her trembling is not from fear but from fury. “Only it turns out you don’t have any.”

“I’m sorry. But you obviously have me confused with someone else.”

“You are looking a little pale, Howard. Some might even say worn-out,” Annell adds, her voice amazingly calm. “It’s probably all the house hunting and woman juggling. All those disguises and personalities. All those lies.” She shakes her head. “Maybe you should write that book. You’ve got quite the imagination.”

“What in the hell is this? Who are these people?” His eyes dart about like the cornered animal he is.

“This,” Meena says, “is our book club, though really we’re much more than that. You have unfortunately, and I would think against great odds, targeted three women who belong to it. You then pretended to be three different men, all of whom seem to have been looking for a woman to move in with and presumably live off.”

“That’s preposterous. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You girls are crazy.” He scans the crowd, still looking for someone who might take his side.

Dorothy straightens further beside me. “We’re not girls. We are women. And we’re not stupid. Or helpless,” she states with a strength I’ve never heard from her.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he sneers.

“We know more than we ever wanted to.” Dorothy’s tone is sharp and biting, her anger no doubt stoked by Mitchell’s betrayal and all that she’s been through. “We know your real name is Frank Anderson. And we know you deserve to be punished.”

“You can’t do anything to me,” he sputters.

“You probably won’t get locked up like you deserve,” Meena agrees. “But we’ve reported you to all the dating sites. And we’re putting the word out about you.”

“Right. Like you know so many people,” he scoffs, his expression turning ugly. “I have clearly been scraping the bottom of the dating barrel.”

“Well, we are streaming live right now,” Wesley says, holding up his phone. “And we’ve been recording video just so we don’t miss anything. Would you like to wave to your audience?” He turns to his twin. “How many do we have watching right now, Phoebe?”

“We’re still building, but we’ve got a good six thousand eyeballs already. We’re also sharing every profile photo and alias we’ve discovered . . . so far. We’ve reached out to some influencers we know. Plus several local TV and radio stations and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution have expressed interest in our group’s personal experience with fraud in the online dating world.” Phoebe grins. “You’re going to be an even bigger name than you ever imagined, Frank.”

“This is bullshit!”

“When did you first come up with this scam?” Wesley asks. “Just out of curiosity.”

“There is no scam. And I really have no idea what you’re talking about!” He glares at us even as he ducks his head in an attempt to hide his face from a camera he can’t see.

We glare back.

“I . . . I think I’m having a heart attack!” He clutches at his chest and goes down on one knee, but he sounds more hopeful than frightened.

“No, you’re not,” Chaz says with confidence, from out of camera range. “But if that should change, you won’t need to call 911 to get a trained medical professional to the scene. Lucky for you, I happened to be browsing in the bookstore.”

“What do you think?” Meena asks the group. “Anyone besides Chaz want to offer CPR?”

“Hell, no.” Carlotta moves in closer, legs wide, fists on her hips. She looks a lot like a taller, more muscular Wonder Woman. “What do you think, Dorothy? You think we should do a Bobbitt on him?” She smirks at the reference to Lorena Bobbitt, who severed her husband’s penis while he was sleeping.

“I know it’s not nice to kiss and tell,” Meena says. “But it’s not all that big, so I’m not sure how satisfying that would be.”

“I don’t think we’d even need a knife.” Dorothy gives Frank Anderson a murderous look. “It would be far more satisfying to rip him apart with our bare hands.” She breaks away and charges toward him, her outstretched hands reaching for his neck.

In that moment, I believe my mother-in-law is capable of anything. So, apparently, does Frank Anderson.

“Oh no, you don’t! Don’t you dare come near me!” He gets to his feet and stumbles toward us as Carlotta reaches out and plucks my mother-in-law out of his path. Is it wrong that I’m happy to see a wet patch spreading across the front of his khakis?

“You are crazy people! You are completely out of your minds!”

At a nod from Annell, we part, kind of like the Red Sea.

He skids through the opening we’ve created, then turns and races out of the carriage house, through the breezeway, and into the store. We follow, grinning like the crazy people he accused us of being, while he fumbles with the front door. We break into applause and laughter as he finally yanks it open and flings himself outside.