Who would’ve thought Aimee could be related to people who crank the decibels up like that? It’s really quite the production. And the scene inside is fabulous. Mom and Randy, her eBay entrepreneur boyfriend, are both splayed out on the couch with their feet propped up on the coffee table. Mom’s got an egg body with stick arms and legs and wears her hair in a she-mullet. Randy-the-boyfriend’s basically a walrus in sweats that are way too tight. He has a bowl of Cocoa Puffs balanced on his pooch-belly.
“You ever watch CSI?” asks Mom, checking me over like there must be something wrong with me for coming to see her daughter. “We have thirteen episodes recorded. This is a good one. Wild and woolly.”
“They showed a cut-off head,” adds Shane, and I’m like, “Well, I can see you’re a man that enjoys a good decapitation. Maybe someone will get vivisected later. That’d really be something.”
Randy doesn’t say a thing, but lets it be known with a pained squint that all this talk is causing him to concentrate on the show way more than he wants to.
I start to follow up on the grisly maiming topic, but already no one’s paying attention to me anymore.
Finally, Aimee pops out of the back room. She’s wearing the kind of nice white Wal-Mart sweater that people don’t usually lounge around the house in, and her hair is all staticky from a high-speed, sixty-second brushing. Luckily, no lipstick, though.
“Sutter,” she says. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Well, I’ve been really busy preparing for the big alligator rodeo.”
“Really, there’s an alligator rodeo?”
“No.” The girl really does need some help in the humor department. “The thing is, I’ve had a lot going on the last few days. But I just got off work a little while ago and thought, ‘You know what? I don’t care how busy I am. I’m going to see Aimee.’”
“Hey,” Randy calls out. “We’re trying to watch a show in here.”
“We want to talk to your friend,” says Mom, “but let’s wait for the show to end. It’ll just be a few minutes.”
Aimee’s eyes fill with actual dread. She seems to think the prospect of a motherly cross-examination will be enough to send me scrambling back to my car, never to return. But I’m in this thing now, and I’m going to stay in it.
So there we are, loitering in the shadow of the plastic hanging plant, no one but the CSI team uttering a word. A good five minutes pass. Everyone but Aimee seems to have forgotten me. I smile at her. She shrugs. Finally, I’m like, “How about we go get a Coke and some fries or something,” and she’s, “Uh, okay, let me get my coat.”
Picturing the resurrection of the puffy purple monstrosity, I suggest it’s way too nice out for a coat. She tells her mom where we’re headed, and Mom just nods. I’ll bet Aimee could’ve said we were going on a cross-country murder spree and garnered the same result.
No matter. I’m quite the matador, having dodged Mom’s interview, and better yet, the possibility of having to dredge up something to say to Randy-the-Sweat-Suit-Walrus. Freedom awaits in the Mitsubishi, along with the big 7UP.
Chapter 39
Aimee asks where we’re headed and I suggest a place called Marvin’s Diner. Now, just because Marvin’s is no high school hotspot like SONIC, that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed to be seen with her. I’m just not in the mood to have somebody like Jason Doyle wise-assing me right now.
Marvin’s is way over on the southwest edge of town under the radio towers. You can see the red lights blinking on the towers from miles away. “You know what they remind me of?” I ask Aimee. “They remind me of where my dad works—the Chase building downtown in the city. I’ll bet they’re about the same height. My dad works on the very top floor. He’s a business executive.”
“I remember you telling me that before. But, you know, I thought there was, like, a restaurant or a club at the top of that building.”
“Oh, well, yeah. There’s a hoity-toit club at the very top. I’m talking about the highest floor that the offices are on. That’s where the big deals go down.”
At Marvin’s, we grab a booth in the corner. This is one of my favorite places to eat, and believe me, since we almost never have meals together around my house, I’ve tried just about every restaurant in town. Nobody cares who you are in Marvin’s. It’d be a perfect place for adulterers, except it’s such a greasy spoon. We order a big plate of chili fries, and two 7UPs, and in Marvin’s dim lighting, there’s no problem at all spiking our drinks with a little whisky.
Aimee takes a gulp and goes, “Wow, that’s strong!” And I’m like, “You want me to order you another drink?”
“No.” Her eyes are watering a little. “That’s all right. It’s fine.”
The number one best thing about Marvin’s is they have a jukebox with plenty of Dean Martin, so I plug in a few songs and we settle back to talk. Just to get the conversation primed, I start out by making up stories for the other people in there, the waitress, the fat guy sitting behind the front counter where the register is (who may or may not be Marvin), the lonesome traveling sales dude at a table by himself, and best of all, the ugly couple in the booth across the way.
I explain to Aimee how I figure they’re worn out with their relationship. Really, they pretty much hate each other but have to stay together because they murdered her ex-husband for his three-hundred-dollar life insurance policy. Now, when she gets mad at him, she whips him across the shoulder blades with a windshield wiper, and he’s too big of a wimp to fight back, so he’s slowly poisoning her by slipping kitty litter into her morning oatmeal.