Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,70

We drove in silence for a few minutes, then she said, “Want me to check up on your bees when I get back?”

“You know about them?”

Grams nodded. “But my lips are sealed.”

Twenty-eight

Why minding my own business (or as Holly would say, MYOB) was the best advice Mom ever gave me (even if she never took it herself):• You won’t have to find out about nasty rumors targeted directly at your back because you’ll be too busy with your own life to notice.

• You won’t feel the compulsion to go out of your way to learn who started said rumor.

• Then you won’t have to worry and fret about why that person would tell such a lie (assuming it is a lie, which in this case, it definitely was).

• And you won’t develop a case of extreme paranoia manifesting itself into the belief that everybody in town is against you and that they all believe the rumor.

• Then you won’t feel like crawling in a big hole to hide and you won’t consider wearing a sign that says, “I didn’t do it.”

• Plus you’ll sleep better and wake up less crabby, and you won’t have to apologize for your whacked-out behavior.

“I’m sorry,” I said to P. P. Patti when she walked through the store and we met up in front of the wine rack where I was restocking Wisconsin wines. “I apologize deeply and sincerely for anything and everything I ever did to you or said or implied about you.”

“Okay,” she said, though hesitantly, like she was waiting for the punch line.

“I mean it. I’m sorry—past, present, and future.”

“You’re saying you’re sorry for something you haven’t done yet?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Am I missing something here?”

“I’m with you,” Carrie Ann said to Patti, running her fingers through her choppy yellow hair, a sure tipoff that her nerves were frayed from all her recent lifestyle changes. “Totally confused.” Then she looked at me, not too kindly. Or was I being overly paranoid? “You could apologize to me, too, while you’re at it,” she said.

“For what?”

“You don’t pay me enough, for starters.”

“Nobody else complains about the wages I pay. I never did a thing to you worth apologizing for, Carrie Ann, and you know it.” That was a big lie. I’d propositioned her boyfriend after a funeral, of all things. Had he told her about that? “And besides, shouldn’t you be watching the cash register?”

“I can see it just fine from over here.” She swiveled her head to check out the counter.

“Can we find someplace to talk?” I said to Patti. “Do you have time?”

“You could buy me an Italian ice at the custard shop. I’m allergic to dairy, I get a horrible stomach ache, but the ices are pretty good.”

“Fine. Perfect.”

On the sidewalk, walking to Koon’s Custard Shop, Patti brought me up-to-speed on her most recent problems, of which she had plenty.

“The raccoons are trapped and gone, but now squirrels are chewing through all my power lines. My cable’s out. So is my landline. You haven’t been trying to call me, have you? I better give you my cell number. The doctors are still looking into my shaking problem.” She paused to prove her point. I detected a slight twitch in her hand, but nothing a little anxiety medication wouldn’t fix.

She went on and on, working hard to uphold her Pity-Party Patti title. By the time she ordered her Italian ice and I ordered a dish of vanilla custard, and we parked ourselves at an outside table, I was ready to commit suicide. Or murder.

“Patti, we need to have a serious discussion,” I said around spoonfuls of custard. My stomach was doing flips; I hated confrontations and conflicts and I was about to launch into exactly those things with Patti. “Someone,” I began, “has been spreading rumors, lies that are hurting people, things that are mean and vicious and I’d like to know how to put an end to them.”

“Me, too,” Patti said. “One thing I hate is that kind of mean-spirited behavior.”

I almost swallowed my spoon. “But,” I managed to say, “the person I just described, the one spreading nasty lies is . . .”

I couldn’t say it. Patti was watching me with intense concentration, expecting to get the goods on some mean old gossip. She had no idea I meant her!

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“But you were going to tell me something really juicy!”

“Be right back.”

In the restroom, I washed my hands and stared at myself