“We just want you to meet guys,” Wilma continued. “Give love a chance.”
“Why don’t you sign up for the dating app? You might get lucky and meet someone.” There was a section for seniors on that dating service. Granted, most of them were around sixty, seventy, but still. One never knew. The OGs looked young for their age. Mischief was preventing them from growing old.
Her grandma tsked. “Now, Rachel, at our age, getting lucky means walking into a room and remembering what we went there for.”
Rebecca and Greta assented.
There was no winning with them.
Wilma patted Rachel’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find a perfect match for you.”
“Yes,” Greta agreed. “A tall, handsome man. I used to like tall men.”
“And now?” Rachel asked. “You don’t like tall men anymore?”
“Now? Now I like any man who looks at me, honey. And everyone in the universe is taller than me. With age you shrink. The nose grows, though. Go figure.”
Wilma and Rebecca nodded in commiseration. Greta shoved a flowery dress at Rachel.
Rachel sighed and grabbed it. Better to finish with this as quickly as possible. She went to her room and put it on. That and the wavy updo gave her a certain post-Second World War vibe, but it could have been worse.
When she went back to the living room, the OGs were ecstatic. They obviously approved. They frowned at the military boots, but they had tiny feet, so they couldn’t offer Rachel an alternative.
“The final touch.” Greta put a long pendant on Rachel that reached her belly button—a metallic ball that chimed when she moved. An angel-caller pendant, Greta had called it. “This will accentuate the boobies.” Then she took a couple of steps back and gave Rachel a once-over. “I haven’t lost my eye for fashion,” she congratulated herself. “Now the makeup.”
Rebecca had a brush in her hand, Wilma a nail polish bottle in hers, and Greta was already choosing color palettes.
“I’m not sure about this…”
Greta waved at Rachel. “Please, I’ve been putting on makeup longer than you’ve been alive. I’m a pro. I wear makeup even when I sleep.”
“Just in case she dies while sleeping,” Rebecca explained.
“Absolutely, my dear. No one alive except you two have seen me without makeup. Death is no excuse to break the streak.”
“Chop, chop,” her grandmother interrupted, pointing at the chair. “We’re short on time. We need to hurry.”
Great, because getting your makeup done by three octogenarians who were all just about legally blind wasn’t scary enough.
Adrian parked in front of Wilma’s house, right behind the old lady’s kickass red gem from the fifties that Rachel had restored for her. He didn’t understand much about cars, but God damn, this one was a beauty.
He was pondering whether to ring the bell when the door opened and Rachel and the OGs came out. He narrowed his eyes. Was that Rachel? He wasn’t sure. Yeah, it was her. Sort of.
She approached while the OGs stayed by the front door, cheering and waving and giving her the thumbs up.
Before she made it to the car, she turned around to the grandmas. “Behave.”
“We’ll be home,” Wilma replied, “working on the garden. Swear.”
Rachel didn’t seem convinced, but she nodded and jumped in the car.
He looked at her, not sure what to say. That was solved the second Rachel opened her mouth. “Not. A. Word.”
Okay. He turned the engine on, trying not to laugh.
“Drive to the garage first, please.”
“What for?” he managed to ask without bursting into laughter. His tone of voice might have given him away, but what could he do? He had Doris Day meets Grease Barbie in his car. It was a miracle he was being this restrained.
“What do you mean, what for? To get back to the future.”
“Right.” There was a weird chiming noise coming from her, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, and now wasn’t the time for any more questions.
Once they got to the garage, she jumped out of the car and disappeared into the shop. Maybe she was going to change into coveralls?
After five minutes, she came back. That weird pendant was now wrapped three or four times around her neck, and a metal ball rested on the hollow of her collarbone. She’d had so much makeup on that even with her face now freshly washed, she still looked like she wore some. She had the same dress on, and the old-style updo, and the military boots, but those didn’t look bad on her. Just strangely… feminine?
“Now we can go,” Rachel said, buckling up.
“That was…” He was searching for the word but doubted he could find it.
“You have no clue, Sheriff.” She sighed, her smile bright. “But it could have been sooo much worse.”
Probably true. “Why do you humor them?”
She lifted her shoulders. “It’s a small price to pay to see them happy, although I’ve got to admit, they do drive me nuts sometimes.”
He couldn’t relate. Humoring his granddad was impossible. “Why do you live with Wilma?” Living with his granddad would be suicide. Or more exactly, murder-suicide. Living in the same town was as close as he could stomach without breaking the law.
“Honestly? I got tired of running to her place to put out fires. Now that I’m closer, I’ve even managed to stop some shenanigans before they got started. And I love this part of town, with the old houses and the lakeshore.” She sniffed her sleeve. “Do I smell bad? The OGs have almost lost their sense of smell, so they don’t notice much of the oil and grease. And Greta wears so much perfume that it covers everything else.”
Adrian came close and breathed in. “A bit. Not bad, just… garagey.”
She rummaged through her purse, found a small bottle of perfume, and put some behind her ears and on her wrists. “It’s going to be useless, but never say I didn’t try.”
He noticed her nails were painted black, which clashed with her flowery dress but fit with her military boots and covered any grease or paint.
“What’s useless?” he asked. All and all, she looked very cute.
“I’m Grease Barbie. That can’t be disguised with some perfume and nail polish. Those men seem more interested in valley Barbies they can show off for. Me understanding more about mechanics than they do seems to threaten their male status. As if you need a dick to fix an engine.”
He didn’t understand car repair, but he did like his women delicate and sexy and with their hands soft as a baby’s butt. Boobs, ass, curves, and smelling like roses. Valley Barbie was a great description. Accurate.
He didn’t want to say that, though, for the first time feeling uncomfortable about his taste in women. Fortunately he didn’t have to, because she herself changed the subject. “Anyhow, what do you have to do in Boston this afternoon?”
“I have to bring in some paperwork about XL and the others.” He could have sent the report, but he’d rather give it in person. It was too important to be misplaced. Ash and Monti were a bit younger, but XL was a little over a month from turning eighteen, and by God, Adrian was going to keep his sorry ass out of jail and on the straight and narrow. “Where’s that date of yours?”