“Mike,” she says in greeting.
The four ladies spread out behind her giggle their greeting, whispering to each other as they glance back at him.
“Are we switching the days for the book club?” Mike asks, playing dumb.
Mrs. Richardson’s eyes narrow. “Of course not. Thursdays are strictly reserved for the garden club. You know this, Mike. We’ve had this discussion before.”
Unfortunately, Mike does know this because they have had this conversation before. Mrs. Richardson makes sure he knows their entire schedule on any given day for reasons he’s not quite sure of. He wonders if she does this to everyone in Amorea, or if he’s special.
“Then to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks.
“That’s how you’re going to play it,” she says with a sniff.
He arches an eyebrow at her.
“You need to shave,” she announces, apropos of nothing.
He scowls at her. He’s not going to shave. Yes, maybe he needs to trim his beard a bit, but he’s not going to shave it off. “For?”
Mrs. Richardson sighs the weary sigh of the put-upon. “How you ever managed to get this far, I’ll never know.”
“Wing and a prayer,” Mike says.
“Pray?” she scoffs. “You? If I recall, when I asked you why you didn’t attend mass on Sundays with the rest of Amorea, you told me you didn’t believe in false deities.”
The ladies behind her make the sign of the cross.
“I’m not shaving,” he redirects, not wanting to go down that road again.
“Trim it at least,” she insists. “Clean yourself up. You look positively boorish. You have an impression to make.”
“I do? He already said yes—”
“On the town,” she says.
“I didn’t ask the town to a picnic, what the hell—”
“Language!” she trills. “Honestly, Mike, you’re in much more trouble than I feared. Tell me, what were you planning on making for this so-called picnic.”
“I’m not making anything,” he says. “Sean wants to do it.”
“Because you would have packed something like sandwiches.”
“There’s nothing wrong with sandwiches. It’s a picnic.”
“Sandwiches,” she says, eyes twitching. “Sandwiches.”
“You don’t know—”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, this will not do. I can see now that any decision-making shouldn’t be left up to you, not if you have plans to actually succeed. It’s obvious we will need to intervene. We will see you on Saturday morning, then.”
“Wait a goddamn minute—”
“That kind of foul talk will get you a bar of soap in your mouth, don’t think it won’t. Ladies, we have only two days. We have much to work on. Step to it. Don’t make me say it twice!”
They twirl in a cloud of flowery perfume and determination and are gone out the door before he can get another word out. Mike would chase after them, but it wouldn’t do any good. This is just the kind of place Amorea is. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. And to make things worse, the people of this town seem overly invested in making sure the proprietor of the bookshop and the waiter at the diner eventually get together.
Sean thinks it’s amusing.