“I still want to take a look at the boat,” I said. “And I’d like to let Beans stretch his legs.”
Felicia turned and looked Beans in the face. “Do you have to poopie?” she asked him.
“It’s too soon,” Rosa said, nosing the Camry into a slot and cutting the engine. “He hasn’t had any prunes yet. And anyway, it doesn’t just go in and out bing, bang, boom. It’s not like it’s sex!”
“It does if you eat enough prunes,” Felicia said. “And you should stop having sex with bing, bang, boom men. That’s married sex. If I was divorced like you, I’d set the egg timer on me first. No bing and bang without a boom.”
“It’s a crap shoot out there,” Rosa said. “You roll the dice and sometimes you get a bing and a bang and sometimes you get a boom. That’s why God gave women shower massage.”
We all got out of the car and walked toward the marina.
“You better watch what you say about God,” Felicia said. “He listens, you know. If I was you, I’d say some Hail Marys tonight just in case.”
Rosa looked sideways at Felicia. “I suppose you never used the shower massage?”
“Well, sure, but I don’t bring God into it. I think shower massage might have been invented by the devil. God invented the missionary position.”
We were on the dock, looking out at the piers. Everything was business as usual, except the Huevo yacht was missing. I walked Beans down to the pier where the yacht used to be tied and approached a guy who was getting ready to shove off on a Hatteras.
“Where’s the Huevo boat?” I asked.
“It just left. It’s going to Fort Lauderdale for repairs. They had a fire in the main salon.”
One less place to look for Hooker.
We went up the steps, past the outdoor bar, and walked around the building to the deli on the street side. I stayed outside with Beans and ten minutes later Felicia and Rosa emerged with two bags of food.
“Wow,” I said. “Is that all for Beans?”
“No,” Rosa said. “The prunes and the gallon-size plastic bags are for Beans. The rubber gloves are for you. The macaroni salad, chocolate cake, meatball subs, and soda are for all of us.”
We sat on a bench outside the store and Felicia opened the box of prunes. “Anybody want a prune?” she asked. “Prunes are good for you. Full of iron.”
We all declined prunes. Saving ourselves for the chocolate cake.
“How about doggie?” Felicia said to Beans. “Does doggy want a prune?”
Beans was sitting straight, eyes bright, ears perked. He sniffed the prune Felicia held in her hand and then very delicately took it from her. He held it in his mouth for a while, drooling, no
t sure what one actually did with a prune. He opened his mouth, and the prune fell out.
“We got him a meatball sub,” Felicia said. “Just in case.” She unwrapped one of the subs, stuffed prunes into the meatballs, and gave the sub to Beans.
Beans wolfed the sub down.
“Now we just have to wait for the poop to come,” Felicia said, handing us our subs, passing plastic forks around for the macaroni.
We ate our lunch, drank our sodas, and Felicia called her nephew for a progress report.
“He reports no progress,” she said. She stuffed the crumpled wrappers and used forks into the bag we’d designated as trash, and she looked around. “Where’s the box of prunes? I had it on the bench next to me.”
All eyes focused on Beans. He was sitting on the grass not far from us. He was drooling, his eyes looked droopy, and there was a piece of the cardboard prune box stuck to his lower lip.
“Oh boy,” Rosa said. “He ate a lot of prunes.”
Beans stood and lifted his tail and there was a sound like air escaping a balloon. We all jumped off the bench and moved away.
“He could peel paint off a building,” Rosa said.