To Have and to Heist(3)
“Boning.” The word dropped from my lips before I could catch it.
His finger froze on the tablet he was using to record my information. “Boning?”
“Okay. Fine. Sex,” I said quickly. “They were having sex. On the couch. Naked. Curtain ties were involved. And a curtain rod. I also saw a can of whipped cream, which I should really put back in the fridge so it doesn’t spoil.” I leaned in close, lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I didn’t know that position was possible after the age of forty. The dude really knew his stuff. I guess that makes sense if you’ve been doing it for eighty-plus years minus maybe fifteen or so. Of course, I can only guess when he lost his virginity. I didn’t have sex for the first time until I was twenty.”
His eyes glazed over, a telltale sign that I’d overshared.
“Name?” he asked.
“Simi Chopra. Currently single.”
“I meant his name.”
I bit back a grimace. Why couldn’t he have been plain or even average? I could never speak in coherent sentences when a dude was too good-looking. “To be honest, she has so many boyfriends, I can’t keep track of their names. She usually goes for younger men—fifties to seventies and occasionally forties if they’re having an early midlife crisis. She said the octo—and nonagenarians usually have performance issues—although from what I saw, this dude is an exception. I kinda liked the last guy she was seeing. He runs the Lincoln Park 10K Run for the Zoo every year. He’s super fit and has a six-pack, although I did wonder if it might just be his ribs poking out because he only eats raw, especially grass. She liked his stamina, but she got annoyed at meal times because he kept running out to the backyard to graze.”
“Would anyone like tea?” Rose had gone to change when the paramedics arrived and was now wearing a tropical print dress with a giant pink belt cinched around her waist and a pair of matching heels. Rose was in theater and still performed onstage. She loved loud colors and bold prints because they matched her personality.
“Maybe not the best time,” I called out. “What’s this one’s name?”
“Stan,” she said. “I don’t know that much about him. I met him in a bar last week after a show and we’ve been hitting the mattress hard ever since. He’s eighty-eight with the stamina of a man in his fifties. It was nice being with someone mature for a change.”
The paramedic coughed, choked before asking, “How did he wind up on the floor?”
“I walked in and scared him,” I said. “Rose was on the couch. Sort of. She saw me and screamed. Stan jumped off her. Well, it was sort of a slow push away followed by a concomitant drop elsewhere. Not that I was looking, but your eyes have to go somewhere, and mine went there, and then I immediately wished they could be somewhere else.”
“I’m not here to judge,” he said, shaking his head in a way that belied his words.
I could see my chances of getting laid in the back of his ambulance were quickly disappearing. “He lost his balance trying to get up,” I continued. “Then he fell and hit his head on the coffee table. I called 911 and checked to make sure he was breathing with a makeup mirror.” I hesitated, waiting for an acknowledgment of my skill. None was forthcoming.
A rush of air cooled my heated cheeks before I heard the back door slam.
“I’m here,” Chloe called out. “I’ve got bleach and rubber gloves. The tarp’s in the car. Where’s the body? We could probably dump him in the river.” She froze behind the island counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. “You’re not alone.”
“Hello, darling.” Rose gave her a little wave. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any tea. We’re on our way to the hospital.”
“That’s Chloe,” I told the paramedic. “She came to help.”
“Good thing we got here in time.” He jotted something down on his tablet.
Alarmed, I tried to read his screen upside down. “What are you writing?”
“A note to myself never to be alone in a house with you and your friend.” He tucked the tablet away, then held the door while the other paramedics carried Stan out on a gurney. Rose walked beside them, holding Stan’s hand.
“Is that a joke?” I called out. “I hope it’s a joke. Don’t forget I saved him by making sure he was breathing. If it wasn’t for me, he’d be mostly dead.”
Chloe hefted her bag and a Costco-sized container of bleach onto the counter, then ran over to wrap me in her arms. “Are you okay? Should I call your therapist?”
“No.” I shuddered against her. “If you just pour some of that bleach into my eyes, I’ll be fine. The things I had to see . . .”
Everything about Chloe is soft and warm, from her organic cotton sweaters to her fuzzy UGG boots. Her bright blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and long, bouncy blond curls are straight out of the Hallmark Christmas movie universe. I could totally see her moving to a small town to run a bakery and falling for the grumpy firefighter police officer sheriff who plans to spend Christmas alone until they get trapped together in a cabin during a snowstorm.
Instead, despite having a software engineering degree, she was working days on an IT help desk with a side hustle as a community college teacher and an evening side gig / passion project as a white hat hacker. Even then, between rent, bills, and student loan payments, she struggled to make ends meet every month.