Bike Week Blues Read online

  My jaw sagged. That this lecture passed through the lips of Penelope Sue Parker, a fourth generation Georgian who’d been presented by The Atlanta Debutante Club, was beyond belief. This was the woman who’d endlessly chided me for wearing patent leather shoes after five, carrying a straw purse in the fall, wearing white after Labor Day, and on and on ad nauseam.

  In fact, the whole spiel didn’t make sense—the answer was too pat. Though an intelligent woman, there was no way Penny Sue would spout off about the reflection and absorption of light. She’d obviously given this matter a lot of thought.

  “Come on, what’s with the white, really?” I asked.

  She pulled her shoulder length hair to the side and began twirling it with her finger, a nervous gesture I’d seen before. “I want to be different. I figure all the other women will be wearing black. In white, I’ll stand out from the crowd.”

  The twirling intensified. There was something else. “And?”

  Penny Sue twittered, her finger hopelessly tangled in her hair. “It’s from the wedding collection.”

  Ruthie and I did a double take. “Wedding collection?”

  Penny Sue reared back. “An affirmation. Rich is the one, I know it. Like you say, Ruthie, ‘You have to own it before you can have it.’”

  The phrase was one of Ruthie’s favorite New Age adages, and Penny Sue was using it to justify what she already intended to do.

  “The wedding collection. You truly believe Rich is number four?”

  Penny Sue stood up straight with a serious expression, and said, “I do.” It came out the way one might say at a wedding ceremony. At that moment, I decided to help her with Rich—not get, like a possession, but facilitate their relationship. Penny Sue was outrageous and full of herself, but a nicer, kinder person one would never find. Although, I’d only met Rich briefly at dinner the other night, he struck me the same way. For once, it seemed like Penny Sue had found a soul mate, and I would do anything to help her in the quest. DAFFODILS, notwithstanding.

  The doorbell rang before I could voice my support. Penny Sue, anxious to escape from our questioning, ran to the door and threw it open expectantly. There was an audible gasp, then an uncharacteristically weak, “Leigh, it’s for you.”

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  As I entered the hall, Penny Sue whispered, “It’s a monster!”

  I scoffed at the dramatics and brushed by her to the front door. One glance and I broke out laughing. It was a monster, of sorts. “Come on in.” I pushed the screen door, its rusty spring stretched with a loud twang.

  A hulking man entered. He had flowing black hair attached to a ridged prosthesis with bushy eyebrows that covered his forehead. He wore black padded pants, knee high boots with spikes on the toes, and a metallic sash draped across his chest. A large squirt gun-like weapon hung from his shoulder. He was also holding a manila folder.

  Speechless for once, Penny Sue peered from the bedroom doorway, her eyes and mouth in the shape of big O’s.

  “Ruthie, Penny Sue, meet Carl, Fran’s son. He’s a Klingon.”

  The big man struck his chest with his fist and growled, “tlhIngan jIH!”

  Penny Sue drew back, her face twisted with confusion. “Huh?”

  “I said, I am Klingon.” Carl grinned mischievously and extended his hand. She gingerly took it.

  “Sorry, I don’t speak Klingon.” She looked at me. “I thought you said your friend, Fran, was Italian.”

  “Carlo Annina by birth; Klag, son of K’tal, defender of the Klingon Empire by choice,” Carl boomed.

  Penny Sue’s brow furrowed with confusion. “Klingon? Is that one of those former Soviet republics?”

  We all howled. “Star Trek, Penny Sue.” Ruthie said. “You must have heard of Star Trek.”

  Clearly piqued, she squared her shoulders. “Of course, the space show.” Penny Sue waved expansively. “I just didn’t recognize this particular alien. I was always partial to Mork, the spaceman played by Robin Williams.”

  Ruthie twittered. “Mork? You’re thinking of Mork and Mindy; that’s old as the hills and a completely different program.”

  “Old as the hills” got her. Leos pride themselves for being on the cutting edge. To even hint that a Leo may be out of the loop, or God forbid, wrong, is sure to draw a leonine roar.

  “Well, which show is it?” Penny Sue demanded tersely.

  “The one with Captain Jean Luc Picard.”

  “Jean Luc. The sexy, bald guy?”

  I nodded.

  “I remember now.” She turned to Carl, smiling smugly. “You’re pretending to be Woof.”

  “Worf,” I corrected.

  She cut me a look. “Whatever. So, you’re on your way to a masquerade party?”

  “In a manner of speaking. My buddies and I do role-playing games down at the Canaveral Seashore and Merritt Island Refuge. Today we’re fighting the Romulans. This time we’re going to win the Battle of Khitomer. We’ve devised a brilliant battle plan. We’re going to surprise them by going in from the water. Kayaks. In a hundred simulations, we triumphed every time.”

  “Carl is an expert in computers,” I explained.

  Penny Sue stared past him to the black Harley motorcycle he’d arrived on. “Kayak? Where’s your boat?”

  “I’m meeting the team at the shopping center.”

  “Oh,” she said, still suspicious of Carl and his getup. “Is that a stun gun?” She pointed to the contraption hanging from his shoulder.

  “Paintball. Harmless, washes off.” Carl handed me the manila folder. “Mom asked me to drop this off. She has a doctor’s appointment and won’t get to the center until this afternoon. She said you needed these receipts for the monthly reports.” He clicked his heels together. “Got to run—the battle starts at nine. We like to fight before it gets hot.” He struck his fist to his chest again. “Qaplá! See you around.”

  “I hope not,” Penny Sue muttered as she closed the door. “That guy is weird. I sure wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I need a Bloody Mary. He scared me half to death.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Aren’t you picking up your new Harley today?”

  “Right, I’d better stick to coffee. I have to stay sharp.”

  Penny Sue compromised with a Virgin Mary, swearing her nerves were fried after all the commotion. Truth be told, my nerves were pretty frayed, too. I was used to living alone. Though I loved seeing my friends, I found Penny Sue’s histrionics were already wearing thin. I actually thought of having a real Bloody Mary, but didn’t want to be responsible for getting Penny Sue started. Penny Sue on a bike was a scary thought when she was cold sober—regardless of her claim that she’d passed the Harley rider’s course. As far as I could tell, she had a good helmet, gloves, jacket, but no slacks! Lord knows what a real Bloody Mary would bring out in that situation.

  Penny Sue nibbled on a bagel. “Isn’t Carl a little old for such foolishness? What does his mother think? If my child went around dressed like that, I’d have him committed.”

  I sighed with exasperation. “He doesn’t dress like that all the time, for goshsakes. He’s a renowned software engineer. Carl had a hand in the development of global positioning systems—you know, GPS—that they put in cars. It’s a game, Penny Sue. A lot of kids, especially science fiction fans, do role playing.”

  “That big guy’s hardly a kid. How old is he, anyway?”

  “I believe he just turned thirty.”

  “Thirty? I’d been married and divorced twice by then.”

  “Imagine how much heartache you’d have avoided if you had pretended to be a Klingon.” I took a bite of my bagel. Ruthie swallowed hard and buried her face in the newspaper.

  Penny Sue regarded me with narrowed eyes. I glared back, chewing.

  Carl was a nice young man, and I wasn’t about to let her make fun of him. Over the last few months, when I’d been in Florida alone, he and Fran had helped me more times
than I could count. Whenever there was something heavy to carry or furniture to move, Fran and Carl were there. Never a complaint or expectation of anything in return. They were good people.

  Penny Sue—with no children—simply didn’t realize that the new generation was different. They didn’t feel the pressure to be paired off and get married by the time they were out of high school or college. In fact, they were almost androgynous by olden standards. They pursued other interests and took their time in making commitments. A lot healthier, if you ask me.

  Which made me think of my own children. Ann, my younger, was an intern at the American Embassy in London. As far as I could tell, marriage was the farthest thing from her mind. Zack, Jr. was in Vail trying to figure out what to do with a degree in philosophy. Though his girlfriend from Vanderbilt had recently moved in with him, neither seemed in a hurry to tie the knot.

  I wondered if a similar attitude would have been better for Penny Sue. Then again, she wouldn’t be such a wealthy woman today. One thing for sure, rehashing the past was a road to nowhere. “There are no accidents,” as Ruthie always said.

  I finished the bagel and winked at Penny Sue, who was still giving me the evil eye. She stuck out her tongue, but eventually softened enough to resume eating.

  “You referred to Carl’s mother as Fran,” Penny Sue said suddenly. “I thought her name was Frannie May.”

  “It is, Frances May Annina. Her mother gave each daughter a middle name that’s a month. There’s an April, May, and a June.”

  “No December, I hope. Or August. Wouldn’t that be terrible? People would call you Auggie. Isn’t that a type of bull?”

  Ruthie looked up from her newspaper. “You’re thinking of Aggie, slang for an agricultural school. Texas A & M’s football team is called the Aggies.”

  “Same thing,” Penny Sue ran on without missing a beat. “Do people call her Fran or Frannie May?”

  “Both. The Frannie May thing began as a joke. When I first started at the Marine Conservation Center, some of the volunteers kidded me about my Southern accent. Then, you called that time before Christmas and left a message for Becky Leigh to call Penny Sue. That really got the gang going. They kidded me unmercifully until the next day when Fran came in. At the first snicker, Fran reared back, announced her name was Frannie May, that she came from the South, and would anyone like to make something of it? That shut them up. I never heard another snicker. Since then, she’s called herself Frannie May at work.

  “Fran isn’t very tall, but has a formidable presence. If you get her riled, she gives you this absolutely frigid stare.” I shuddered. “Whew, I’ve seen her cower big men with the look.”

  “My grandfather had a look like that. Where’s she from?” Penny Sue asked.

  “South Boston.”

  “Virginia? That’s pretty country.”

  “No, the South Shore of Boston, Massachusetts.”

  Penny Sue chuckled. “That’s a twist.” She raised her glass. “To Frannie May, defender of Southern honor.”

  “And her son, Klag, champion of the Klingon Empire.”

  We didn’t linger over breakfast. Ruthie was attending the final session of her Ayurveda seminar, Penny Sue was scheduled to pick up her motorcycle, and I had to go to work. Since Ruthie was using Penny Sue’s Mercedes and running late, I offered to take Penny Sue to the Harley dealership on my way to work.

  A good thing, too. If Ruthie had waited for Penny Sue, she’d have missed most of the morning lecture. I’d been dressed for close to forty minutes before Her Highness emerged from her boudoir. Thank goodness she had on some slacks! While the outfit was outrageous by Atlanta standards, it was fairly conservative for Bike Week. She wore white jeans, white boots, and the strapless leather bustier. Her leather jacket was artfully draped over one shoulder, while a white leather rucksack hung from the other. She carried the silver helmet.

  She twirled around so I could get the full effect. “What do you think?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Pulling out all the stops, eh? Since you’re wearing the wedding ensemble, I assume you’re going to drop in on Rich after you pick up your bike.”

  She giggled. “Naturally. Bike Week officially starts tomorrow. I intend to make my impression before the competition arrives. In less that twenty-four hours, the whole area will be crawling with hot babes on hot bikes. I plan to have Rich’s full attention before then.”

  The comment stunned me. Under normal circumstances, Ms. Flirt of the South would be itching to mingle with the hot men on hot bikes. Engagements and marriages hadn’t stopped her in the past. While she was completely faithful to all of her husbands, she naturally slipped into a Scarlett O’Hara persona whenever a good-looking man came into view. I’d thought it was an inborn trait, something she couldn’t control like flat feet or schizophrenia. Now, it seemed I’d been wrong. Her need to be the center of attention could be satisfied by the right man. Perhaps Rich was her soul mate.

  We piled—wedged, in Penny Sue’s case—into my new, yellow VW Beetle convertible. For years I’d driven a four-door BMW, obligatory before SUVs for wives of up-and-coming executives and lawyers. Considered a symbol of wealth, stature, and good taste, I traded my Beemer in on my yellow toy the minute I arrived in Florida. I even got some money back on the deal.

  “Lord, this thing is tiny,” Penny Sue groused as she struggled to arrange the rucksack, helmet, and jacket in her lap. “Put the top down,” she ordered, fanning herself. “I’m either having a hot flash or panic attack.”

  “It’s a hot flash,” I said, thinking it was actually asphyxiation. The new leather odor combined with her heavy-handed application of Joy cologne was overwhelming. I flipped the lock and pressed the button to lower the roof. Thankfully, a fish-scented sea breeze blew through—a welcome relief from the perfumed, wet dog smell.

  “What’s your schedule today?” I asked as we started the eight-mile drive from Sea Dunes to the dealership.

  “I’m picking up the bike, then taking it by to show Rich. From there, who knows ...” her voice trailed off into an impish grin. “Don’t expect me for dinner. What about you—any plans?”

  “Ted offered to take Ruthie and me to dinner. You, too, if you want to come. He’ll be working double time for the next ten days.”

  “Ted?!” She gave me a saucy wink. “As in Deputy Ted Moore? I’ve been here two whole days, and this is the first I’ve heard of it?”

  “You haven’t, exactly, been around.”

  “This is important! I’d have made time for this story. What gives?”

  Ted Moore, a deputy with the Volusia County sheriff’s office, was one of the few sympathetic policemen we’d encountered on our last visit. Though the ink was barely dry on my divorce decree then, I was drawn to him in a platonic way. As it turned out, Ted was recently separated, too, and not interested in anything more than a friend and occasional meal companion, which suited me fine. “There’s not much to tell. He’s divorced, and we’ve had lunch and dinner a few times. We’re friends; that’s it.”

  Penny Sue traced the outline of the Harley emblem on the helmet with her index finger. “Try to stay open and give him a chance.”

  I stopped at the light on Mission Road. The dealership was in the next block. “Look—friendship is all he wants. His life is complicated; he has two teenaged sons.”

  Penny Sue shrugged. “They’ll grow up eventually. Never say never.”

  Bike Week preparations were in high gear at the dealership. A temporary chain link fence had been erected around the parking lot for the dealership and Pub. Vendors’ orange tents were already in place and a crowd of people were unloading merchandise and stocking the booths’ shelves. As far as I could tell, most of it was leather, Harley paraphernalia, and hoagie fixings.

  I pulled into an empty space directly in front of the dealership. A young woman—probably mid-twenties—straddled a Harley Sportster in the next space. Penny Sue and I both did a double take. She had on short-shorts that barel
y covered her butt and thigh high boots. Her shirt stopped shy of covering her boobs, which had obviously been enhanced, judging by their incredible size and upswept pertness.

  “Hmph,” Penny Sue muttered, scrutinizing her competition. “That’s an old bike,” she said dryly.

  “I doubt people will look at her bike.”

  Penny Sue ignored my comment. “Look!” She pointed at a gleaming white Fat Boy parked in front of the dealership’s entrance.

  “Isn’t it pretty,” Penny Sue gushed, juggling her paraphernalia. “Help me—I’m stuck,” she said suddenly. Clutching her prodigious load of stuff, she pushed the door open with her foot. I cringed—footprints on my brand new car. “This damn thing is too low. Gawd, how do you get out?” she griped.

  I reached in, grabbed her folded forearms and pulled. She made it halfway up, but fell back. The hot honey next to us in the short shorts and thigh-high boots snickered and rode away. I braced myself for another try. This time Penny Sue made it. “I guess I should have gotten an ejector seat for the passenger side, too,” I said, puffing.

  “Your side has one of those lift chairs like you see on television? The ones that hoist up old people? Neat-o.”

  I shut the door. “I was joking.”

  “Very funny.”

  Fortunately, a tall man strode out of the dealership at that moment. Penny Sue inclined her head toward the white bike. “I think that’s mine.”

  “It is if you’re Penelope Sue Parker.”

  “The same.”

  “I have some papers for you to sign.”

  Penny Sue handed me her helmet and jacket. “Would you hold this, Leigh? I’ll only be a minute.”

  I hoped so—I was already late for work. I put her things on the passenger seat, pulled out my cell phone, and called the office, informing them—as if they hadn’t already noticed—that I would be late. Sandra, the director, answered and assured me there was no problem as long as the billing was completed by the end of the day. Compared to the workload at my last job, a car dealership, the center’s books were a snap and the people a lot more fun. There was also the satisfaction of working for a worthy cause.