“Yes, Ted?” she asked, having trouble suppressing a smile.
He noisily cleared his throat.“Well, see, the thing is, Marge…”
“The thing is that you’ve been putting your empties in my recycle bin instead of your own,” she said, starting to feel sorry for the guy. “As to the reason, I can only guess.” Though it probably had something to do with the fact that he was trying to hide his drinking habit from his wife,which his next words confirmed.
“Please don’t tell Marcie,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to stop, but this stuff is just so good—too good to be believed. I got it from this wine merchant on Frampton Street. He told me it’s the goods, and he wasn’t lying. I keep them in the garden house, under the bags of manure, soRufus won’t root them out. And rat me out.” He was perking up as he began to expound on the quality of his hidden stash. “I’ll pay you, if you want,” he offered. “As long as this can stay between us, please?” He gave her a pleading that would have melted anyone’s heart.
“You do realize that because of you I sent my husband and my mother to the AA meetings?” she said, feeling a little bad now about that particular decision.
“I know. Tex told me all about it,” said Ted. “And frankly I’ve been thinking about doing the same thing. But first I need to finish these last couple of bottles.”
“How many have you got left?”
“Only three,” he said with a touch of regret. “And then they’re gone. And I’ll be gone, I promise. No more midnight sneaking around in your garage, I swear.”
“Hand over one bottle and we won’t mention it again,” she said, figuring both Tex and her mother deserved a little treat after what she put them through.
“Deal!” said Ted, looking much relieved.
He took his leave, then, and Marge went to bed.
“Were you talking to someone just now?” asked Tex sleepily.
“Ted was in the garage, putting his empty bottles in our recycle bin.”
“Oh,” said Tex. Then, moments later, “Did you just say that Ted puts his empties in our recycle bin?”
“Yep. But don’t tell Marcie, or she’ll be upset and send him to the AA.”
Silence. Then:“Of course I won’t tell Marcie.” Though somehow Marge had the impression that he just might. At least if that big grin on his face was anything to go by.
57. PURRFECT HOME
1
I was gently dozing on the patio, as one does, when the sound of strange mutterings reached my sensitive ears. The mutterings seemed to come from somewhere nearby, and were accompanied by the occasional grinding of teeth. And since humans are the first species that comes to mind when the topic of teeth grinding is broached, I immediately assumed that one of our own humans was expressing a beef with something or someone.
As it happens, this human was Gran, and she was reading the newspaper.
Now I could have told her that no good ever came from reading a newspaper, since they’re mostly filled with bad news that is designed to frustrate and annoy—except perhaps the comics section—but since our human Odelia works for a newspaper, I wisely kept my tongue.
After all, if Odelia were to stop writing for the Hampton Cove Gazette, and getting paid for the privilege, she wouldn’t be in a position to buy us sustenance on a daily basis in the form of kibble and wet food, or provide a nice roof over our heads.
And so I decided to take a wait-and-see approach to these mutterings.
“Why is Gran acting so strange, Max?” asked Dooley, who’d noticed the same phenomenon and only too rightly asked himself questions about Gran’s mental health. “And why is she making those funny sounds with her teeth?”
“She’s reading the newspaper,” I explained. “And when humans read the newspaper, this is how they often react.”
“Oh,” said Dooley, and lapsed into thought. He came out of this after a couple of moments, to ask a follow-up question. “So why is she looking so angry?”
“She must have read something in the paper that made her angry,” I said with a shrug.
Dooley cleared his throat. He was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.“Gran? Why are you muttering and looking as if you want to strangle someone?”
He was right. Gran did look as if she was ready to strangle whoever had written the article she was reading. You could see it from the way she was holding the paper: in a tight grip, her knuckles white, and about to strangle the paper in lieu of the person she really wanted to strangle, even though the poor paper wasn’t to blame.
“It’s these darn retirement homes,” Gran said darkly. “They’re death traps, every single one of them. Once they get you, you never get out of them alive!”
“What’s a retirement home?” asked Dooley, always keen to improve his general knowledge.
“It’s a place where retired people go,” I said. “But only when they feel they’re too old to live alone and need some assistance in their day-to-day existence.”