way off kilter, it’s always better to mind your own business. And I am absolutely certain.”
“Well, you’ve given me a lot to consider,” he said.
This entire conversation was all in one ear and out the other.
“Archie, I’ve known you since the day the boys were born. We’ve never had a serious difference of opinion.”
“Are we having one now?” he said and had the audacity to smile at me.
“Yeah, we are. You may think this is a joke, but no, sir, it is not. We’re having a huge difference of opinion.”
I walked down his steps, across the road to my house, and went inside. I sat down at the kitchen table and had a long-overdue cry. After about thirty minutes, I lifted my head to see my bees, bearded on the window screen over the sink.
Suzanne said, “Do you know there are about a thousand people living underground in Las Vegas? They’re in tunnels.”
“No way,” I said.
“Way,” Charlie said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Leslie, the QB, and Vegas
There would be no grass growing under our feet. Momma and I didn’t waste a moment in getting down to business. In the first few days we were in Las Vegas, we found a fabric store and bought a bolt of muslin, shears, thread, tailor’s chalk, and everything else she would need to get started. There were sketches of costumes taped all over the walls of Charlie’s dining room, which was now transformed into a pattern and sewing room. Momma measured and remeasured Charlie from one end to the other, noting everything on a legal pad.
“I love your apartment, Charlie,” Momma said, while hooking up the back of a bustier we’d bought to give Charlie a bit of cleavage.
“Why, thank you. It’s just for now, but the view of the desert is quite nice. Especially the sunsets.”
“You’re getting too skinny,” Momma said to him. “There’s not enough meat on your bones to achieve the desired effect.”
“I have to be svelte for this plan to work,” he said. “Ow! That’s too tight!”
“Pride knoweth no pain, Charlie boy,” Momma said. “Suck it up! I still can’t believe I’m doing this.”
He was caught somewhere in between strangulation and suffocation.
Charlie looked at me and said, “She’s trying to kill me. You know that, don’t you?”
I knew no such thing.
I laughed and said, “Oh, Charlie. I’m afraid Momma’s right.”
And did we shop? We found fabulous women’s shoes in Charlie’s size and so many wigs we couldn’t decide, so we bought them all, and we had an appointment with an award-winning cosmetic artist who was going to give Charlie a distinctive look. And at Momma’s insistence, he hired a personal coach to work on his dramatic presentations of Cher, Judy Garland, Beyoncé, and anybody else he felt he might like to lip-sync to. He was good, but he’d have to be drop-dead amazing to break into the really big time as he wanted to.
Momma and Charlie were out shopping again, so I called Holly to see how she was holding up. She told me about Hunter’s accident and the words she’d had with Archie. I was flabbergasted.
“This makes me absolutely sick inside,” I said to her.
“Me, too,” she said. “It’s like something really terrible is going to have to happen before Archie will wake up.”
“Don’t say that,” I said.
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” she said. “Hunter’s accident would’ve been the perfect moment for her to take this banged-up little boy in her arms and say she was so sorry. It could’ve been a turning point for them instead of a hundred more nails in the coffin. But that’s not what she did. This is what happens to people who can’t ever be wrong.”
“You’re right, of course. They always blame the problem on somebody else.”
We were quiet for a moment.
Then Holly said, “Something awful is going to happen. I just know it.”
“You and your premonitions,” I said. “Let’s hope you’re wrong for once.”
“I’d love to be wrong.”
“On a lighter note,” I said, “Charlie is beside himself with all the attention he’s getting from Momma and this army of people they’re calling in to help him literally get his act together.”
“Is she having fun, too?”
“Are you kidding? She’s the stage mother for him that she never was for us,” I said. “She made me laugh so hard yesterday when we were shopping. She said to him, ‘Now, Charlie, remember, the higher the heel, the more flattering it is to your calf muscle.’ I thought I’d lose my mind. Can you believe she even thinks of things