Trotting in three quarters time (a novel), Part 11

by A.J. Lencroy

Chapter 1 is here.

Chapter 2 is here.

Chapter 3 is here.

Chapter 4 ishere.

Chapter 5 is here.

Chapter 6 is here.

Chapter 7 is here.

Chapter 8 is here.

Chapter 9 is here.

Chapter 10 is here.

CHAPTER 11

Tea Time

Martha Conklin opened the front door of her historic, white clapboard home. She was wearing a white long-sleeved blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and what Hooley would describe as navy-blue harem pants. Her red wig looked much more realistic today. She gave a Downton Abbey curtsy and waved Hooley inside.

“Let’s sit in my husband’s office, first room on the right. I’ve set out some iced tea on the coffee table between the wingback chairs.”

They entered and sat. Hooley said, “Sorry if I smell a little rustic; I got your text on my way back to the station after taking a ride behind a horse.”

“How exciting.”

“Yeah, I enjoyed it.”

“Are you considering getting involved in racing?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. A week ago, harness racing wasn’t even on my radar. Then Alex used your husband’s interest in the racetrack as a sneaky way to meet you. He steals your money to bankroll buying a racehorse, the ladies from Topeka buy a horse, and today, I take a ride behind a horse.”

She smiled, “Not to mention my near nervous breakdown and almost blinding my best friend at the racetrack.”

Hooley chuckled and said, “Been a hell of a week.’

“Been a hell of a year for me.”

“It seems like everything has calmed down.”

Martha took a pause, breathed in and out, then said softly, “The best part has been meeting you.”

Hooley thought he had misheard her. His brain fluttered like trapped birds trying to escape his ears. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

Her words came out in a flood. “I know you met a lunatic who buried her first husband, rashly married a con man, poked people’s eyes out, made wild accusations, and collapsed into sobs. I want you to know that’s not the normal me.”

Hooley moved his open mouth enough to ask, “So, you want to be like… friends?”

“Yes.”

He paused. “I can do friends. In fact, I’m sort of in the friend market at this point in my life.”

“You see this wig?”

“Umm, sure.”

“I’m bald. I had chemo almost 20 years ago, and my hair never grew back. You probably wonder why red and why the wig is often so shoddy.”

“Umm, maybe.”

“The red fright wig is sort of my middle finger to the disease.”

“Sort of like a pink ribbon?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Hooley was still flustered. “So, what are we going to do, like hug or something?”

“Well, I never thought of that, but why not?”

After several false starts, the couple rose and met beside the coffee table, shared an awkward hug, and both began to laugh at the absurdity of, well, everything.

A few minutes later, a relaxed Martha asked, “Can we talk about the horse racing case now? Is it unethical?”

“Well, honestly, it was not much of a case. I’m retiring in two hours. You are officially divorced from the con man. The four owners are locked into the racehorse’s ownership, and Alex will continue to stick his nose into ratholes. But that is not a crime.”

She said, “He never lived here, in my house.”

“Really?”

“Neither of us wanted to. We are both loners. It was more of a companionship situation for me, and of course, all business for him. Alex rents a townhouse near the rec center. He still owes money to people, but that is no longer my problem.”

Hooley nodded. They were silent for a few moments. She pinched the bridge of her nose and said, “I know, I know. How did this woman get involved with a man like that?”

Hooley shrugged and said, “Stuff happens. Water under the bridge. Que sera, sera. We all do dumb things.”

She took a sip of iced tea and asked coyly. “Tell me one foolish thing you have done that remotely compares to mine.”

Hooley took his own sip of tea, set the glass down, and said, “I bought a boat at an estate sale, more like the hulk of a wooden boat, sort of like the one Washington used to cross the Delaware. Of course, if he used the tub I bought, we would be speaking British.”

“To restore?”

“Something like that. I had an idea of pristine wood gleaming under clear lacquer and a white flapping sail. I had to hire a trucking company to haul it to an abandoned barn that I rented from a guy I knew.”

“That sounds challenging.”

“Oh, this boat renovation scheme flew past challenging toward downright insane. The trucking company left it in the barn with the bottom up so I could start my work with the keel. It sat there looking like the world’s biggest turtle. Bones, my partner, was there for the delivery. He shook up his beer bottle, sprayed the front of the thing with foam, and christened it the SS Stupid.”

“What a wonderful, whimsical story! But you would need to go a good bit further to match a marriage to fraud.”

Hooley took another gulp from his glass and leaned forward. “I’m going to tell you something that I have never told anyone.”

She crossed her arms on her chest. “I’m honored, and we have only officially been friends for seven minutes.”

“The first night I go to the barn to start the boat project, I have miles of heavy-duty extension cords for the lights and a power sander. I also put on a hazmat suit and a respirator. I set up the lights, gear up, test the hand sander that gives off a screaming whine, lay out plastic tarps like an operating center, and use a ladder to climb up the beast.”

“That’s hardly embarrassing.”

“I get on my knees, turn on the sander, and lean forward. In like five seconds, all hell breaks loose. The sander and my arm go right through the rotten hull up to my shoulder, and my arm gets wedged in the hole.”

“And you are alone.”

“Yep, stuck like Ahab on the whale, while the sander is whining and dancing around below me like a wild animal in a cage, so I take my foot and try to pull the plug out on the sander. The lights go out. The sander gets louder.”

Martha covered her mouth. Hooley couldn’t tell whether she was horrified or trying not to laugh.

“The broken wood that is holding my arm is like one of those Chinese puzzles you try to pull your fingers out of, but the more I pull, the more I tear up my arm.”

“Could you reach your phone?”

“No phone, it’s in my jacket.”

“What did you do?”

“Somehow, I got my boot off with my free hand. It took about five minutes, but I managed to get one boot off and jam it into the hole to take some pressure off my arm. I got free. slid off the beast, tore off the right leg of my hazmat suit, wrapped my arm in my jacket, and drove to the ER.”

Martha tried not to laugh. She failed. Between bouts of laughing, she asked, “What did you tell the ER?”

“Not the truth. I mean, was I going to say that Noah’s ark attacked me?”

They clinked glasses of iced tea, and she said, “I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”

“You have a nice laugh, not forced.”

“Thank you, by the way. Now that we are officially friends, what should I call you? Hooley? Gerald? Jerry?”

“Hooley is fine; some of my coworkers tried to shorten it for a while, but the station sounded like a squadron of owls.”

She gave another burp of laughter. “How is the racehorse doing?”

“Peter says she’s doing great. She’s got one big race this weekend, then she’s done for the year. If she’s as good at 3 as she might be, there could be serious money involved.”

She rolled her eyes. “So, Alex gets away unscathed with a payday from a talented horse down the road. It just seems so unfair.”

“You could put the lawyers on the case and claw back the frozen account he used for the horse.”

“Never! I never want to see him again. I’m hoping for selective amnesia for the past year.”

She sighed and paused.

“Can I share a secret?”

“Sure, you owe me one.”

“My friend, Frieda.”

“Your parrot friend with the eye patch?”

“She’s a dear. Frieda was the one who encouraged me to text you today.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and she wants me to ask you what the marital status is of your skinny, bald partner.”