I decided to probe gently but
deftly. Willard would surely be aware
his spouse required a hefty investment, that she would need sprucing up before
she glided out on that runway of broken dreams.
A few more teeth, at least. Some extra
hair on top would help, plus a new “do,” and more than just a shave and a
haircut down at Pete’s. Also, a beauty
contest is probably the wrong event to be obvious about always presenting only
one side of her face as she does around the neighborhood, often walking
backward to do so. Gladys is still sensitive
to the missing ear lobe O’Reilly’s dog tore off, although the red scar down the neck could be disguised
with makeup. The earlobe itself would
need professional plastic surgery. Willard’s attempts with chewing gum never
really worked. O’Reilly has never
offered to help with any expense. He
just complains about Gladys’
sleepwalking.
Willard can be sensitive, so I did
not want to be obvious with my concerns.
“I suppose,” I said, “getting
ready for a beauty contest can entail some cost.”
“How do you figure?” Willard
replied.
“Well, you know … uh … Gladys may
want to get her hair done. And a new dress to wear, instead of that “I
Love My Laxative” sweat shirt.”
“Nah, I don’t think so,” said the
old guy.
“What about a new body brace to
straighten her up, Willard?”
“Oh, I think we can get along by bending
her old brace back into shape on the fence post.”
“What about travel, Willard.? Where’s the big event, Las
Vegas?”
Willard looked sheepish.
“No, in my hometown.”
“That is still a bit of a
distance, Willard.”
“Ain’t goin’,” he said
“Who’s not going,
Willard. You are not going?”.
“No need for either of us to
go. It’s all done with pictures.”
“Huh!” was all I could think to
say for a moment. Then I thought … of course! What better way to conduct a beauty contest of
aging daffodils. Through the mail! Why bother with lost old ladies who can’t
remember why they got on the airplane or their cranky husbands who can’t find
any event but the pole dancing in the bar?
And this was no doubt why I
hadn’t heard Willard complain about the cost of teeth and hair and all the expensive beauty aids that make up supporting a
glamorous woman like his 87 year old wife.
He had no doubt discovered the least expensive solution to making Gladys
glamorous … Trick Photography! The
simplest trick being to get Betty Lou down at the coffee shop to pose as
Willard’s wife for the photo session.
“Still,” I said to Willard without
waiting for him to speak, “incidental expenses can mount up.”
“Sure,” he said, “Any investment
requires an initial outlay.”
Willard’s vocabulary doesn’t
ordinarily include these terms, so I was immediately suspicious about what he’d
been reading.
“Oh, I get it,” I said as I rocked
back in the porch chair. “They come by and take pictures for a fee.”
“Ain’t no new picture taking
needed,” said Willard. “They have all they need from the yearbooks.”
I let that remark hang in the air
for a while.
“Willard,” I said after a moment,
“tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into now.”
He shifted around in his chair and
then said, rather quietly, “Well, you know me and the boys back home get
arguing and bragging on the Internet forum we started, ‘The Big Ones.”
“Uh-huh,” I offered.
“Albert is the town librarian now
… only ‘cause he works for free … and he suggested a … well, a little wager.”
“Wager, Willard?”
“Like a wager. More like a beauty contest, of course.”
“Of course, Willard.”
“Anyway, we all decided to kick in
$500 each for a $10,000 pot.”
“And …” I said, expectantly.
“Bill Boron, the town mayor, was
supposed to look up each of our wives in the 1940’s yearbooks after we paid in our
$500. He’d choose the prettiest.”
“What could possibly go wrong with
that?” I said with the heaviest sarcasm I could muster.
“He went through all the yearbooks
from the 40s and chose Betty Coutant. No one could argue with him. She was dead to rights the prettiest girl of
the decade.”
“But …” I said, with even heavier
sarcasm.
“Yeah, ‘But’ …” said Willard, with
a forlorn face.
“Let me guess, Willard. Betty wasn’t married to any of The Big Ones.”
“She wasn’t married at all,” he
said. “She became a nun.”
“So who got the money, Willard?”
“She did,” said Willard. “She
still runs an orphanage in Toledo,
and she’s pretty persuasive.”
“You must feel blessed your money
went to a good cause.”
“I guess so …”
“But now you’ll have to tell
Gladys she won’t be hobnobbing with the Miss Universe girls.”
“That’s the only good part to this story,” he said. “I never told Gladys nothing about it.”
“That was smart,” I said.
“Nothing?”
“Mostly nothing,” he said. But now
she’s wondering why I straightened out her back brace on the fence post. She thinks I’m taking her out to the movies.”
David Griffin copyright 2016
The Windswept Press
Murrells Inlet, South
Carolina
www.windsweptrpess.com
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