Clemmie did not recognize the number or area code on the caller ID. But then she didn’t know the grands’ phone numbers by heart, because she just tapped the little conversation balloon next to their names and typed a text without glancing at the number. And here in Sun City, where people came from all over the country and kept their original cell numbers, any area code could actually be somebody in her own pod. Except nobody down the street possessed the number of her family phone; she gave them her local cell number. The landline was for when she had to give out a number and didn’t want to: the newspaper subscription, the plumber. She thought of it as another line of defense.
“Mrs. Lakefield?” asked a male voice she didn’t know.
There was no Mrs. Lakefield, so this had to be somebody selling cruises or gutter guards. She used her stock answer, courteous but firm. “I don’t purchase anything over the phone, thank you. Please take my name off your calling list.”
“I’m not selling anything,” said the man quickly. “It’s my glass you located, and I’m grateful. Can we talk about how I’m going to get it back?”
Clemmie’s eyes felt hollow, as if something had drained away her mind. Bentley had not only posted her photograph; he’d given out her phone number to a total stranger? To a man he knew in advance had, to say the least, a questionable career? Clementine Lakefield never told anybody where she lived, let alone self-proclaimed drug dealers. “I didn’t post anything,” she told him. “My grandnephew did that.”
“And I can’t tell you how thankful I am.” He had good diction, which mattered to Clemmie. And he knew better than to use a WTF out loud, so he wasn’t completely basement quality. “Where are you?” he asked.
“You’re a total stranger. I can’t tell you anything.”
The man’s voice became warm and comforting. “You are so right to be careful. I wouldn’t want my aunt or grandmother handing out her address to just anybody either.”
Makers of drug paraphernalia had grandmothers? Clemmie would never have pictured that.
He said, “I’d like to come and pick up the rig.”
Clemmie had not felt this degree of panic in years. She sidestepped. “Why is it called a rig?”
“Well, in this case, because it’s used for smoking oil. Marijuana oil. So it is an oil rig, just not petroleum-in-Saudi-Arabia-type oil.”
Clemmie had never heard of marijuana being oil. She pictured it as dusty little dried-up mounds. She said faintly, “I thought the glass was just a pretty sculpture. A tree dragon prism. I cannot be involved in this. Please don’t call back.”
He didn’t raise his voice or sound upset but said nicely, “I can see how this is a problem for you, Mrs. Lakefield. Tell you what. I’ll call your nephew back, and we’ll work something out. Don’t you worry about a thing, okay?”
Not worry? When the only way to get the man’s glass was to trespass again through a villa that would shortly contain Dom?
She disconnected without saying goodbye, rudeness very rare for Clemmie, and stared at her snapshot. The gleaming tree dragon gave no clue as to how one smoked it, or where you put the oil, or how it was lit, because you couldn’t smoke without fire, could you?
Her Sun City cell phone rang with the imperious rat-a-tat-tat drum roll she kept meaning to change. Somebody’s grandson at the clubhouse had set it up for her, and she hadn’t wanted to be rude and tell him she hated his choice.
“Five-minute warning, Helen!” caroled Joyce, who often half sang instead of speaking. Joyce was almost always the driver when they went to the clubhouse for cards. Clemmie gave her usual answer, the one they both understood all too well. “Just let me powder my nose.”
There were those who could speak quite graphically about the need to pee frequently, but Clemmie was not among them. She went into the bathroom for her final, never-skipped checkup and found that she was so anxious about the Borobasq call that it was affecting her nether regions. She considered not playing cards after all so she could think about Borobasq and Bentley, but she needed to get out of the house and get fresh air, and since Joyce drove very fast, being her passenger meant serious fresh air.
After some difficulty, Clemmie finished in the bathroom, tidied her wig and reapplied lipstick, located her purse, which sometimes got lost between the door and the kitchen counter where she liked it to live, stepped out her front door, and locked it carefully behind her. They lived in the safest zip code in America, and if anybody wanted to rob a house in Sun City, they wouldn’t creep among the tiny villas; they’d hit the streets with four-thousand-square-foot mansions on three levels, but nevertheless, Clemmie exercised care.
But if the Coglands exercised such care to stay invisible that they created an inner passage, why did they not lock it? Perhaps they were so sure of their exterior locks that they shrugged about their interior locks.
Joyce and Johnny were ardent Panthers fans, and Joyce had stitched Panthers boxer shorts together to make a skirt around the roof of the golf cart. She was just now backing out of her garage, so she had thoughtfully waited ten whole minutes for Clemmie to have her checkup. Like most people, Joyce had had the automatic backup beeper silenced. Otherwise the only sound you’d hear all across Sun City would be that annoying high-pitched repeat.
The golf cart’s top speed was twelve miles an hour, but Joyce hunched excitedly over the wheel as if she were going ninety. Clemmie had never gotten a golf cart. Every year she considered it, and every year, she passed. It was more fun to hitch rides with friends than to go alone, and with her villa so close to the shopping strip, it was a pleasant walk to return a library book or pick up a prescription.
Joyce had her usual massive handbag. She liked to tote her entire life around. The handbag took up so much floor space in the golf cart that Clemmie barely had room for her feet.
Joyce launched into a detailed story of how her pinochle group, with whom Clemmie was only a sub, had met at Myra’s house last week, and Myra had refused to follow the new rule on refreshments, which required the hostess not to tempt women on diets, and nevertheless Myra had gone and offered seven fattening desserts instead of carrot strips and hummus. Furthermore, she cut the desserts into large slabs instead of narrow slices. The whole thing was unforgivable, especially since Joyce had eaten some of each.
They went into the clubhouse, Joyce showing her pass on her cell phone while Clemmie located the little laminated card in her wallet. She realized with a start that she had both cell phones with her, although it was her never-broken rule to leave the family cell phone at home. She silenced each phone and followed Joyce into the card room.
After everybody had hugged and asked after physical woes and updated one another on the betrayals or successes of a child or grandchild, and when it was ascertained that the cards had been adequately shuffled, the game went with amazing speed and Clemmie was so anxious she could hardly keep up. It always seemed to be her turn, and she thought, Maybe I’m having a stroke.