four

I was putting away our groceries when Mom called to say she was on her way over. I’d barely put away a loaf of bread when the doorbell rang. Greg was in the living room playing with Muffin. We’d picked up a new stick aerial toy to help get her mind off of hunting Dumpster. She was loving it, attacking the feather on the end like a lion picking off an antelope. Wainwright was supervising, his head following the up-and-down and side-to-side swing of the stick. As soon as he heard the doorbell, he got to his feet, letting loose with the bark he reserved for friends and family. The old dog moved slower these days, but his enthusiasm was still intact.

“I’ll get it,” I told Greg as I passed by him. “It’s my mother.”

I nudged the dog aside and opened the door. Sure enough, my mother, Grace Littlejohn, was on the landing, looking cool and collected in a summer denim skirt and floral print blouse. On her feet were hot pink sneakers. Mom was of average height, slim, and on the brink of turning eighty. She was also still pretty spry. Wainwright’s tail wagged happily as she opened the screen door and quickly came inside. I just as quickly shut the front door so we would not lose the cool air being kicked out by our AC. Before greeting me, Mom bent down and said hello to Wainwright. The grand-doggy and grand-kitty always came first.

“Were you parked in front of our house when you called?” I asked her.

“Maybe,” she replied without looking at me.

Finished greeting the dog and cat, Mom stood straight, her big purse hooked over her right arm. Her eyes shifted between Greg and me with disapproval. “How come you two always have the most fun without me?” she snapped. Before I could tick off several reasons, she added, “I swear, you do it on purpose.”

“What are you talking about, Grace?” Greg asked her.

“That smashed car window,” Mom replied with her usual impatience. “The dog rescue. At the grocery store. You knew you were being videoed, didn’t you?”

In a flash of memory, I recalled all the phones held aloft during the rescue of Maurice, and it wasn’t just Charlie Cowart’s. “Yes, Mom, we did,” I answered. “But that happened less than two hours ago. How do you know about it already?”

“Already?” Greg parroted with surprise. “Where?”

“It’s on YouTube,” Mom explained. She put her purse down on the coffee table and pulled out her iPad. My mother was an ace with her iPad. She even had her own blog called An Old Broad’s Perspective, which was surprisingly popular, and not just with the AARP crowd. Sometimes I wished she’d just sit and knit or get addicted to playing bridge.

“There are a couple, but this one is the best. It’s even gone viral!” She made the announcement like we’d just won Powerball.

In no time, my mother was showing us a video of what had gone down in the parking lot of the grocery store. It began just as Greg raised the crowbar and took his first swing. There was a lot of background chatter and cheering. The video zoomed in on Greg’s face, then pulled back as he took another crack at the window. There was another close-up at the final swing. The taker of the video seemed to be standing several yards back because the wider shots got the entire car, including Burt and me near the back trying to entice Maurice away from the front. Then the camera scanned the crowd briefly, showing its enthusiastic support and several others also taking photos and videos. In the front of the crowd was Charlie Cowart taking his own video, the one the police watched. The clip then went back to the action and recorded Burt helping Greg open the door to the car to free the dog. A loud cheer went up from the crowd when the animal was safe in Greg’s arms, and another went up when I produced the doggie water dish.

Mom paused the video and tapped the screen. Specifically, she tapped the image of me bending over to present the water to the dehydrated animal. “Not your best side,” she said without ceremony. “That outfit makes you look like one of those black-and-white cookies.”

I looked down at what I was wearing. I still had on the same outfit, a white boxy camp shirt and black capris. I thought I looked passable, considering it was Saturday and a thousand degrees outside.

“You know the ones,” my annoying mother continued. “Round cookies with half white icing, half chocolate.”

“I know what a black-and-white cookie is, Mom,” I said, barely keeping the snarkiness out of my voice.

I glanced at Greg. He was looking anywhere but at me and Mom, but there was a trace of a suppressed smile on his face. “What do you think, honey?” I said to him. He wasn’t getting off that easy.

He shrugged and still didn’t look at me. I was positive that if he did, he would break into laughter. He knew how my mother got under my skin, especially her barbs about my weight. “I think you look nice, sweetheart.” Finally, he glanced up and tossed me a wink. “You always look nice.”

I shot my mother a smug smile.

“He has to say that if he wants to keep getting nookie,” she said, delivering the line with her usual deadpan zing.

“Give up, sweetheart,” Greg said to me with a little pat on my ample behind, which only underlined my mother’s comment. “You can’t win this, although I do think black-and-white cookies are delicious.” I smacked his hand away.

“Is that why you came over, Mom,” I asked in a tense voice, “to insult me and whine about you not being in the video?”

She shrugged. “Insults comes naturally. It’s a gift.” She pointed at the iPad. “But I sure wish I had been there. I’d love to see Marla Kingston in person. I’ll bet she’s had a lot of nips and tucks over the years.” She started the video again, and the three of us watched it until shortly after the cops showed up.

“Who took this video, Grace?” Greg asked when it was over. “Can you tell?”

“It’s someone called the Human Stain,” Mom answered.

“Like the Philip Roth novel?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mom responded with a nod. “At least that’s the name of her YouTube channel. Her real name is Holly. She goes all over Southern California filming people and stuff she finds interesting or newsworthy. Sometimes she travels too. Sometimes it’s fun stuff and sometimes it’s serious, but it’s always interesting.

I moved the iPad closer to me. With a few taps I was at the profile page for the Human Stain. There was a headshot of a young woman with long straight dark hair. Her face was mostly obscured by the back of a large cell phone turned sideways so that all you could see was her mouth and forehead. The profile read: Female voyeur located in Southern California. People fascinate me from afar, not so much up close. Name’s Holly, as in the poisonous plant. I read the profile out loud.

“That’s kind of cynical,” Greg noted. “I’ll bet she’s pretty young.”

“Young or not,” Mom said, “she’s been doing this for a couple of years and has well over twenty thousand subscribers.”

“That’s pretty impressive,” I agreed. I got up and headed for the kitchen. “Mom, Greg and I were about to have a cold beer. What can I get you?” My mother and my half brother Clark were both recovering alcoholics with many years of sobriety behind them, so I knew she wasn’t going for the beer. She usually went for hot coffee. “I even have some freshly brewed iced coffee in the fridge.”

Mom and Greg both had their heads bent toward the iPad, watching a replay of the video. Mom glanced up. “Iced coffee sounds good, Odelia. It’s hotter than Satan’s ass out there today.”

Was Satan’s ass hot? I pictured the Devil posing naked for a cheesecake calendar. He looked strangely like Ryan Gosling. I shook my head hard to clear the image.

When I returned with the two beers and a tall glass of iced coffee, Mom was gone. A few minutes later she emerged from the hallway that led to the guest bathroom.

“Do you know there’s a duck in your tub?” Mom asked calmly as she took her place back on the sofa. “Cute little bugger.”

“I won him in a poker game,” Greg said without taking his eyes off of the iPad. Mom didn’t ask anything else about Dumpster and Greg didn’t offer. It was as if winning a duckling in a card game happened every day.

As I put my mother’s beverage down on a coaster on the coffee table, Mom glanced up with a smirk. “Better be careful, Greg, or Odelia might get jealous.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I stood next to Greg and looked at the screen over his shoulder. Instinctively, he put an arm around my waist and drew me close. Just as naturally, one of my arms went around his shoulders.

“Just watch,” Mom said as she replayed the video, stopping it shortly after Greg took his first swing at the window. At this point the camera had zoomed in on Greg’s face, beaded sweat and all. It hung there nearly a full minute, then went wide as he took another swing with the crowbar.

“So?” I asked. “We saw this before.”

“Hold your horses,” Mom said. She started the video again for a bit, then paused it again. “And here.” Once again the camera zoomed in on Greg’s face. It was the last swing. The video zoomed in again soon after, showing Greg’s head bent down slightly as he comforted the dog. The camera stayed on Greg and the dog a pretty long time, then again went wide and took in more of the activity, including the part where Marla Kingston came screaming onto the scene. “And again here,” Mom noted as she paused the video again. Once again the camera zoomed in on Greg. This time the camera caught him dressing Marla down over her treatment of the animal.

“I think this Holly person has a little crush on your man,” Mom said before taking a drink of her iced coffee.

Greg and I both laughed, then I said with another chuckle, “Greg’s pretty cute, Mom. Why shouldn’t she?” I squeezed Greg’s shoulders. My hubs was good looking, with slightly wavy brown hair and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke beard. The thin strands of gray now showing in each only added to his rakish good looks. To top it off, he possessed a killer smile that radiated a hint of mischief. In spite of the wheelchair, many a time I saw female heads turn to watch him with appreciation when we were out in public.

“I’m just saying,” Mom continued, “that she seems rather taken with him. You don’t see her zooming in on anyone else, do you? Not even that Marla monster, and she’s famous.”

“Grace,” Greg said after shaking his head, “I’m sure some of the others involved got close-ups too. Maybe she edited them out.” He paused, then tacked on for good measure, “Then again, I was kind of the superhero of the day.”

“Superhero?” I asked. I rolled my eyes at him, but only in jest. Greg Stevens was my superhero and had been almost from the day we’d met. He laughed and gave my bottom another friendly pat.

I could tell my mother wasn’t buying it. “I’m just saying that I’ve looked at a lot of the videos from today that have posted already, and none of them have close-ups of anyone.”

“Well,” I said, “she can have all the close-ups she wants. I have the real thing.” I bent down and kissed the top of Greg’s head.

While we sipped our beverages, Mom showed us several of the other videos on YouTube. It was shocking how fast these had been posted and even more shocking how many views they’d already received. Greg’s heroics had indeed gone viral. The videos had popped up online faster than weeds in a neglected lawn.

Once we’d seen several, I moved away from the iPad and stretched. “Mom, do you want to stick around for an early dinner? Greg is grilling salmon.” It was sometime between lunch and dinner, but we’d not had any lunch because of our large breakfast and all the hullabaloo. “We’ll probably start the grill in about an hour.”

“Nah, but thanks,” Mom said as she stuffed her iPad back into her bag. “I have to finish packing for my trip.” She looked up at me. “You didn’t forget I was leaving town tomorrow, did you? I need you to water my plants while I’m gone since Art will be on the trip too.”

Seaside, the 55+ community where Mom owned a condo, isn’t far from us. We live in Seal Beach, and Seaside is in Long Beach, almost spitting distance from where we’d had our encounter with Marla Kingston today. Several of the residents of Seaside, including Mom’s good friend Art Franklin and his lady friend, had signed up for a one-week trip to Branson, Missouri, an entertainment mecca, particularly for older adults. The trip wasn’t sponsored by Seaside but by a travel group specializing in trips for seniors.

“No, Mom, I didn’t forget,” I told her with attitude. Actually, I had forgotten she was leaving tomorrow. For some reason I thought her trip started next weekend, but I wasn’t going to admit it. “I’ll make sure your plants survive.”

“Do you need a lift to the airport, Grace?” Greg asked.

“Nah,” she told him with a wave of her hand. “Since so many of us from Seaside are going, they’re shuttling us to the airport together.”

After saying goodbye to us and our animals, Mom started for the door. “You two stay out of trouble while I’m gone,” she admonished, wagging a finger between Greg and me.

“It’s not like we plan this stuff, Mom,” I told her as I walked her to the front door and gave her a kiss on her cheek.

“Yeah, Grace,” Greg added. “Trouble hits Odelia like a tornado, striking with little to no warning.”

I watched as Mom climbed into her car and drove off, then I turned on my husband, hands on my hips. “Really, Greg? Trouble hits me like a tornado? I don’t recall the crowbar being in my hands today.” I wasn’t angry, just trying to make a point.

“You forgot about your mother’s trip, didn’t you?” he said, trying to deflect the issue.

“So did you,” I accused.

“Guilty.” He rolled over to me and flashed that bad boy smile of his. “Now—about that nookie. We have time to kill before I fire up the grill for dinner.”