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curls swept forward in a sexy do, ignored Ted Vikarios as she giggled and nuzzled John Richard’s ear. Smiling, John Richard pulled away, ran his fingers through his long hair, and winked knowingly at Sandee. I wondered if he was technically old enough to be her father.
Marla and I met Sandee two weeks before, when we’d delivered Arch to John Richard’s house prior to a golf lesson. Clad in a bikini (to the best of my knowledge, the Jerk had not installed an indoor pool in his country-club rental house), she’d opened the heavy door, looked us up and down, and introduced herself.
“I’m Sandee Blue. That’s Sandee with two es.”
Arch had done his best not to gawk. I’d shuddered and, for once, been tongue-tied.
Confused, Sandee had asked, “Are you here with money?”
Without missing a beat, Marla had said, “No, but we’d be blue too, if we didn’t have any.” Sandee had retreated, looking even more perplexed. Then we’d heard the Jerk yelling at her from inside the house, and finally he’d appeared and wordlessly taken Arch. What was that French saying — plus ça change? Well, anyway, stuff doesn’t change and neither do jerks.
According to Marla, Sandee worked in the country-club golf shop, and that was where John Richard had decided he had to have her. Also according to Marla, once John Richard met Sandee, he’d dumped his willowy, wealthy, gorgeous, brunette girlfriend, Courtney MacEwan. Courtney was a highly competitive tennis-playing socialite. She was known for throwing her racket and her fluorescent pink tennis balls at opponents who beat her — and hitting them. This was not the kind of woman I’d want to have as an enemy, but John Richard was an expert in — Marla’s term— the Art of Bedding Dangerously.
Now, watching John Richard lean over and whisper in Sandee’s ear, my gaze traveled over to lovely, brown-haired Courtney MacEwan, standing on the far side of the French doors. unlike Ginger Vikarios’s orange gown, Courtney’s dress was black, but it was so low cut and tight — showing muscles I wasn’t even sure I had — that it made Ginger’s pouffery look tame. I racked my gray cells to figure out why Courtney was here, and then remembered that her former husband — he had died of a heart attack when Courtney had surprised him in bed with a flight attendant — had been a top executive at
Southwest
Hospital
.
Courtney had been John Richard’s squeeze in — what, April, the beginning of May? Then the Jerk had moved on to the greener Sandee pasture, and they’d split. Now Courtney stared in his direction. The bitterness of her expression shrieked, If I can’t have this man, no one will! I wondered if her copious Louis Vuitton bag held a couple of tennis balls.
The crowd scooped up the last of their cake and ice cream, glanced at their watches, and rustled in their seats. Oblivious, Ted Vikarios rumbled on about the good deeds Albert Kerr had done. Albert had sold his possessions and taken Holly to England, where he’d gone to seminary. He’d accepted a call to a small Christian mission in Qatar — he really hadn’t liked the old English weather — and served there for twelve years. He’d fought valiantly against the disease that had finally claimed him, etc., etc.
Again waves of fatigue and pain washed over me. The places where my attacker had hit were killing me. When I’d signaled to Julian and Liz to stop clearing. I’d had no idea Ted Vikarios would talk until mold drew on cheese. On and on he went, about how the Lord had done this in Albert’s life and the Lord had done that. The agnostics among the country-club set were stirring in their seats. To them, a conversion experience was changing dollars into euros.
When a couple of people scraped back their chairs and got up to leave, Dr. V. cleared his throat into the mike. It came out like a thunderclap, and a spontaneous titter swept through the Roundhouse dining room. More people began to stand up and move about.