Runny03 - Loose Lips (4 page)

“You’re so cute when you’re mad.”

He opened the door, reached in, and cut the ignition. “If you’ve burned out my clutch on top of everything else, Louise, I will lock you inside the house until you learn how to behave.”

Juts said nothing. Chessy stood outside her door, his arms folded across his forty-two-inch chest. She smiled sheepishly, opened the door, and handed him a doughnut. Even though he’d eaten a hamburger with all the trimmings he could always eat more.

“Cake. Your favorite.”

“What have you two been up to?”

“Nothing.” Juts innocently ate another glazed doughnut.

“Louise, get out from behind that wheel,” Pearlie said.

“I have to drive my sister home.”

“No, you don’t. Chessy’s car is right over there.”

Louise slid next to her sister, drawing comfort from her nearness. Juts didn’t get out of the car, even though Pearlie thumped down behind the steering wheel.

“Come on, Juts,” Chessy politely suggested.

“Wait a minute. We feel terrible.” Juts hung her head. She did feel terrible but not that terrible. Louise jabbed her lightly with her elbow. Juts snapped her head up. “We don’t want you two working at night. It’s not just Rife Munitions. You both work so hard, we hardly see you now.”

Chessy leaned against the open passenger door of the car. “Well, honey, you girls get together and you can’t behave. Somebody’s got to pay the bills.”

“We were silly. It was over a stupid hat.” Louise sounded convincingly contrite.

“We’re going to share it,” Juts volunteered, then wished she’d kept her big mouth shut, for Louise beamed.

“That isn’t going to pay off Cadwalder.” Pearlie was resigned to his fate: working at night and living with an irrational woman—but then he’d heard they were all irrational.

“I’ll sell the hat back to Bear’s department store,” Louise said with no conviction.

“We’ve decided,” Julia announced in a surprisingly commanding tone of voice. “We are the culprits and we’re the ones who must pay back the debt. We’re going into business.”

“What?” Pearlie appeared stricken.

“Yes, we are.” Louise had no idea what Julia was talking about, but at this moment she was better off aligned with her sister than with her husband.

“We’re going to open a beauty salon.” Juts held up her hand as the men sputtered. “The start-up costs are low—we already have the curlers—and our only competition, Junior McGrail, is blind in one eye—”

“—and can’t see out of the other.” Louise liltingly finished the sentence for her, describing the daughter of Idabelle McGrail the First, who had gone to her reward in heaven last year, unlamented by the Hunsenmeir sisters.

Pearlie dropped his forehead on the steering wheel. “God help me.”

—I
heard it from the horse’s mouth.” Juts put her palms on the dash as Louise popped the clutch, hurtling her forward. “Why don’t you let me drive?”

“You—you? You were the one who smashed into Mother’s front porch and sent my piano rolling down and—”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Nineteen twenty-six.”

“Nineteen twenty-five.”

“Summer of twenty-six, Julia.”

“I wasn’t married until June of twenty-seven and I know when I had that small mishap—”

“Small, ha!” Louise’s voice rose.

“Chessy didn’t complain.”

“He was courting you. I can tell you that new radiator cost plenty.”

“My point.”

“What’s your point?” Louise grew impatient.

“We weren’t married for two more years so it had to be the summer of 1925.”

“Have it your way.”

“It’s not my way. It’s a fact, pure and simple. Dammit, now you made me forget what I was going to say.”

“You were talking about Lillian Yost.”

“Oh yeah, I went in to return my mug. Did you return yours?”

“Yes,” Louise said smugly.

“Oh, when did you do that?”

“The very next day, Julia, as you should have done.”

“I would have.” Juts wriggled in her seat. “But I had to—” She sat bolt upright. “Slow down, Wheezie!”

“I see the dog. I’m not blind.”

“Where was I?”

“Lillian Yost.”

“Oh yeah, Lillian said that Barnhart’s on Frederick Street is up for rent.”

“That’s been up for rent for a couple of months.”

“No sign’s been in the window.”

“You have to know who to talk to,” Louise purred.

“I do! That’s why I talked to Lillian Yost.” Julia’s face reddened. “She’s a Barnhart.”

“I know that.”

“I could crown you. Will you please let me finish my story.”

“All right. All right.” Louise raised her gloved right hand off the wheel as if waving her off.

“I returned my mug. I asked Lillian what was going to happen to the shoe-repair shop now that her dad’s retired. She said they were anxious to rent it to the right people. We’re the right people.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Of course.”

“And—”

“She smiled.”

“Did she tell you the rent?”

“Yes. Forty-five dollars a month and we have to pay for electricity and heat. She says we’ll use a lot of electricity. She said this would be a big undertaking and we would have to cooperate. Then she wanted to know if our husbands approved.”

“What did you say?”

“I said they were ready for us to make some money.”

“Well—” Louise’s brow furrowed. “That’s not an outright lie. Paul swears he isn’t lifting a finger. I said, ‘Fine with me. I’ve saved my pin money.’ Little does he know how much.”

“How much?” Juts’s eyes had an eagle glare.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’d think we had a safety net and we don’t. It’s my money, not yours.”

“Did I say it was mine?”

“No, but I know how you think and money burns a hole in your pocket. It always has, Julia.”

“Look who’s talking … the big spender at Bear’s department store.”

“That reminds me. I want that hat for Easter,” Louise stated.

“I get it for Easter. I said we’d share but I’m running the schedule or you’re going back on the roof.”

The clouds out of the west darkened and the temperature dropped.

“Feels like snow.”

Juts opened the window and sniffed. “Smells like it. Won’t be much. Gives me the blues, though.”

“Yeah. How much work do you think we’d have to do to Barnhart’s?”

“A lot. There’s a nice little place on the alleyway behind the bank, if Barnhart’s doesn’t work out.”

“We have to face the street and Barnhart’s is right behind the movie house on the square. I wish we could get a place on the square—even if it’s on the Mason side of the line …”

“Then we’d have Pennsylvania laws to contend with and Maryland’s are bad enough. I hate politicians. Bunch of windbags.”

“I’d like them better if they smoked better cigars.”

This made Juts giggle because Louise was unintentionally funny. “Say, how did you get the car again?”

“I asked for it. Went right in the front door and said, ‘Paul, I need the car.’”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I added that Celeste needed me to use it.”

“Why not use Celeste’s car?”

“It’s too big. I couldn’t drive it.”

“You can’t drive this one, either. I wish you’d let me drive.”

“You’re too impulsive.”

“I didn’t flick frappé on you. You started it and you can come on over and get the strawberry stain out of my dress, too.”

“Chocolate is worse.”

“Self-defense.” Juts twirled her wedding ring around her finger. “Why is Celeste sending you to talk to her niece, anyway? I always thought Diddy Van Dusen’s elevator didn’t go to the top. She came by it honestly, though. Her mother was crazy as a bedbug.”

Louise clamped down, making her lips a thin red line. “I worshiped Carlotta Van Dusen. She brought me to the true faith.”

“Oh, that.” Juts airily dismissed what would have turned into a rapturous report of conversion. “You might as well tell me because I’ll ask Mom. If she doesn’t tell me I’ll ask Celeste.”

“Isn’t that something about Francis Chalfonte getting a big job in Washington with FDR and hiring Rillma Ryan?” Louise referred to Celeste’s handsome nephew, in his forties. Rillma had graduated from South Runnymede High the previous year. Celeste was overrun with nieces and nephews.

“Big beans. Tell me.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Not if I punch you in the mouth, they aren’t.”

“Don’t be childish. Some things are best left unsaid. Besides, you’d blab it all over town and then what?”

“You really want your ass kicked, don’t you?”

“Don’t be vulgar, Julia, it’s unbecoming.” She sniffed, then said, “Give me the hat back.”

“I will not.”

“Then stop pestering me.”

“I volunteered to share the hat. That’s more than you ever did.”

“You only volunteered so you’d look good in front of your husband. You never would have done it otherwise. You can be very selfish sometimes.” She held up her gloved hand again. “But when the chips are down you’re the best.”

“A Hunsenmeir trait.” Juts was determined to weasel Louise’s mission out of her. “I don’t remember McSherrystown being this far. I’m going to sleep.”

“We’re almost there.”

“A five-minute nap is better than nothing.”

“Are you giving me back my hat?”

“You don’t want me to take a nap?”

“I want my hat back. After all, my arrangement with Celeste could affect
you.”

“You can tell me if you’re successful with Diddy. If you aren’t then I won’t know what I’ve missed.” Julia cleverly shut her eyes.

A slight twinge of worry rose in Louise’s breast. She had thought she had Julia where she wanted her. “It’s really a good deal.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Celeste wants us to succeed.”

“Good. She can be our first customer.”

“Ramelle dresses her hair.”

“And everything else.” Juts opened her eyes. “Think people make love when they get old? Those two are pretty old.”

“Women don’t really make love that way. They’re companions who kiss now and then.”

“And a bear doesn’t shit in the woods.”

“Will you stop being so
vulgar.
I’ve got to get in the right frame of mind to visit Diddy.”

Juts warbled “Abide with Me” and then broke into “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

“You’re a big help.”

“I’m so glad.” Juts smiled like the Cheshire cat. “I hope Diddy isn’t even there—physically, I mean. She’s never been there mentally.”

“Elizabeth’s scattered, I grant you that, but she’s smart where it counts. She’s taken over the academy now that Carlotta has gone to her reward. You can’t be but so dumb to do that, you know.”

“I’d like my reward right here on earth.”

“A camel will slip through the eye of a needle before a rich man will get into heaven.”

“Written by some poor sod, I guarantee it.”

“That is in the Bible!”

“You aren’t the only person in the family who has read the Bible. I just don’t
believe
all of it, that’s the difference, and furthermore, I don’t want to get stuck with Diddy Van Dusen. She bores the living shit out of me.”

“You’ll do as you are told.”

“Oh, and who is telling me?”

“Celeste.”

“Wait a minute, Sister, this is your mission, not mine.”

“I need you.”

“I’m not doing one single thing. I’m here to keep you company. You and Celeste can cook up whatever you want. Leave me out of it.”

“But you’ll benefit.”

“I’m not listening to that horseface blabber on about the building program and the exercise program and the music program. Uh-uh.” She shook her head.

“If I can convince Diddy to keep her stock shares in the Chalfonte business, Celeste promised to pay our store rent for one solid year. Now you have to help.”

“What’s Diddy’s shares got to do with us?”

Louise checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror, not a good idea as she ran off the road. “Whoops.” Confession of a confidence affirmed her importance. She was loath to indulge too much, however.

“Whoops, shit—you ought to let me drive.”

“You can’t drive Pearlie’s car.”

“You can’t either.” Juts smirked.

“You know, you think I don’t know what you’re doing—but I do. You think I’ll let down my guard and tell you everything that Celeste told me, but I won’t. Furthermore, I’m tired of your constant harping on my driving. You repeat yourself. I’m sick of it.”

“Well, Wheezer, I’m not as dumb as you think, so there.” Juts ignored her sister’s driving comments. “The Chalfontes are planning some kind of merger or fishing for a big government contract and Diddy will throw a spanner in the works because it will be for war stuff. Diddy is a pure pacifist. Chalfontes manufacture ball bearings, so …”

“You keep your mouth shut.”

“I am.” Juts sighed heavily. “Doesn’t it make you wonder how Major Chalfonte did it? Our grandpa came home after the war and didn’t do squat.”

“Mmm.” Louise slowed to take a nasty curve up ahead. “Major Chalfonte used to say, ‘The war taught me that machines are the future.’ So he started making ball bearings.”

“He died before you were born.”