4th & Girl

“So, let me get this straight. You’re not Marty, and you don’t own this store?”

“Correct.”

“Yet you’re the one who sent in the work request to my temp agency?”

“Honey, I’m not growing any younger here,” she said and pursed her bright-pink lips. “If it takes you any longer to understand this situation, I might croak before we actually get any shit done.”

She was a feisty old broad, that was for damn sure, but she was also running low on patience. And if she really was my new boss, it’d probably be a good idea to keep said patience from running on empty.

“Mind explaining why you had me meet you here?” I asked, desperate to have at least one unknown answered. “You know, at a shop that isn’t, in fact, your shop?”

She shrugged one bony, neon pink-covered shoulder. “It was the only way after the incident last year.”

“The incident?”

“It wasn’t a big deal, honey.” She tossed one apathetic hand into the air. “A minor confusion if anything, but Mable told me I wasn’t allowed to hire any more of their employees.”

Jesus Christ. What had I gotten myself into? Was it illegal? Did I need to start sharpening my shanks and figuring out ways for Abby to send them to me now?

Part of me was curious as hell and the other part of me was a bit scared, but the largest part of me still wanted the thirty dollars an hour.

I glanced up and down the street then back at Alma. “So, where is your shop?”

“Follow me. I’ll lead the way,” she said and headed in the direction of the side parking lot. When she opened the driver’s-side door of a pearl-white Cadillac, I paused.

“Uh… Your shop isn’t on this street?”

Tell me it’s not in your fucking car…

She shook her head and slid into the driver’s seat. “Just get in your car and follow me.” The engine of her boat-sized Caddy revved to life, and she shut the door before I could say otherwise.

Feisty and demanding, she was a woman on a mission, and not a single person, certainly not me, could stop her.

So I did what any chick needing a paycheck would do; I hopped into my Honda Civic, and I followed her.

Surely, this tiny, bright as the sun woman with enough sarcasm to make Amy Schumer look like a comedic amateur wouldn’t lead me toward danger. Blood was red, and red was obviously not bright enough to be her color. A slaughterhouse seemed unlikely.

And in the event I turned out to be wrong, I felt like the odds were in my favor if I had to outrun her.

The drive was short and sweet, and for a senior citizen, she had a bit of a lead foot.

She cruised at nearly fifty miles per hour through streets with speed limits of thirty-five, and whenever a stop sign got in her way, she rolled through that fucker without hesitation.

Before I knew it, she pulled her big-ass Caddy into a circular driveway on a cute little street in the suburbs of Long Island. Woodmere, I think the town was called.

The house connected to the driveway was surprisingly big.

Two stories with a stately entrance, it appeared that old Alma here had some money.

Or maybe, when she’d bought the house in 1930, it hadn’t been that expensive.

I pulled in behind the Caddy and was out of my Civic and a few feet behind her by the time Alma had shuffled her way up to the porch.

“Uh…is this your house?” I asked, and she nodded as she unlocked the front door.

“You bet your perky tits it is,” she said. “Welcome to my humble abode, Gemma.”

She pushed open the front door, but I stayed on the porch. I’d been big in my talk about thinking this wasn’t a slaughterhouse, but who knew what creepy things lurked inside. None of today had gone as I’d planned.

“I thought we were going to your shop?”

“This is my shop,” she retorted.

What?

“Get with the program, honey,” she said and waved impatiently for me to step inside. “You’re acting like we’re living in the damn Stone Age. Online retail is where it’s at.”

I stepped inside—hesitantly, mind you—and instantly the overwhelming smells of potpourri and one too many lemon-scented Yankee Candles filled my nostrils.

She shut the front door behind me and set her purse and keys down on the top of a midcentury-looking divider that separated the entryway from the living room.

Bright orange carpet. Green floral couches. And plastic coverings snugly placed over every damn seat in the house.

I might as well have taken a time machine back to 1963.

“Follow me,” she said and shuffled down the entryway, through the kitchen where orange appeared to be the theme, and into a back room that had to be the dining room. At least, that was my assumption given the table buried under all sorts of things.