A Real Head Turner

At 82, Miss Callie Sue Alderwhite saw no value in wasting time to make up her mind; if she was going to do it, she needed to get on with it. Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.      

The years had faded her once glowing skin to the brittle texture of fine old notepaper, like the last few sheets in the stationery box she kept on her nightstand. The pink peony-patterned box was her hiding place for a few special treasures: some beauty creams and cosmetics, a whisky flask, and the gold bangle bracelet she slid onto her arm.      

I can still turn heads, she assured herself, tucking wispy white curls behind her ears to show off gold hoop earrings she wore the year she was named first alternate in the Miss Mississippi Pageant.   

As Callie Sue stepped out of her room at Serenity Grove Assisted Living, the tiresome Horace Gatze rolled up in his wheelchair. What bad timing! Callie Sue muttered a word Miss Mississippi contestants did not say aloud – at least not in public. Not in her day.

Callie Sue had hoped to avoid him, but she’d dallied too long to carefully secure the ribbon on her stationery box after fetching the tube of special lipstick it held. Alas, some things were necessary. A girl never knew when she might need her Pink Peony Express lipstick. 

“Hello, beautiful,” Horace said. “Want to have dinner?”

He reeked of Artemis and looked a few whiskers shy of a full shave. When he used his tongue to wiggle his loose front tooth lasciviously, Callie Sue winced. Had the man no shame?

One swift kick would send Horace rolling backward down the hall, she mused – then remembered she was wearing pink nylon slippers. Kicking anything right now was not a good idea.  

In the years after the pageant, Callie Sue had rarely been out of stiletto heels. She danced, ran, and took the stairs in her heels. Her career had placed her in some precarious situations – and knowing those sharp points on her heels could gouge out eyes in a real emergency made all the heel pain worth it.  

Callie Sue missed her heels.     

“So sorry,” she told Horace, shrugging and gesturing to her ear. “I don’t think this hearing aid is working.”

Horace seemed not to care whether she heard him. He chattered non-stop down the long hallway as they followed the aroma of baked apples and roasted pork into the bright, high-ceilinged dining hall.

There was little that was serene about evening meals at Serenity Grove; the clatter of forks and conversations and loud background music gave it all a slightly desperate undertone, as if each night might be the last party. It was easy enough for one’s mind to skirt that territory, with a few of the more heavily medicated residents snoring or drooling through dinner. Others laughed a little too gaily. The ladies patted their thinning white hair and politely looked past the robes and pajamas and slippers worn to dinner. Callie Sue hated the dinner hour here; she often felt the walls closing in on her.

For just a minute, she let herself think about after. Warm sunshine, a balmy breeze and a white sandy beach. How long had it been since she had relaxed with the soothing sounds of the surf and a good book? What was she waiting on? She was doing it this time, with or without Bill.   

The music was louder than usual tonight. Calliope music, of all things, like a carnival. For the first time in years, Callie Sue thought briefly of the stuffed giraffe Bill had won for her at a carnival when they first began working together. He’d recruited her backstage at the beauty pageant, after she’d aced the evening gown competition and the interview with the judges. “You’re quite the head turner,” Bill had said. “And a smart one, too. We should talk.”

Horace was talking to her now, across the white tablecloth that separated them. Nothing new there. The man seemed never to stop talking, and he talked whether or not she replied.

“…and you may want to get yourself a new parka, too,” Horace was saying. Where did he think they were they going together? Skiing? At their age? Ridiculous! And had he even asked her, or was he just prattling on again, taking it for granted that she’d love to join him at some snowy resort?

She noticed with some dismay that Horace was drooling. A thin stream of saliva slithered down his chin and dripped onto his shirt. Callie Sue blinked and tried to clear her head. This place was terrifying. She needed to get out.         

“And the views! My God!” Horace said. “Did I tell you there’s this quaint little restaurant in the snowy mountains that -- “ He broke off and took the napkin Callie Sue suddenly thrust across the table at him. “Thanks, beautiful!”  

Callie Sue plowed her mashed potatoes with her fork and let the calliope music drown his next words.

“I’m done with this,” she said, suddenly. Horace looked surprised when she pushed back her chair and headed for the dessert table.  

***

“Miss Callie Sue,” said a gravelly voice beside her while she was eying apple pie and banana pudding – anything but the godawful creamy lime Jello this place served night after night. “So good to see you again.”

Callie Sue tilted her head, giving Carlos Gallardo her brightest smile. “What a pleasure,” she drawled. “I was just thinking how much I enjoyed our last conversation.”

And she had, she realized. Unlike most of the gentlemen around her – poor Horace, for example -- Gallardo was still a strikingly handsome man. Age had bleached his thick, wavy hair to a sea of white, and shortened his right leg so that he walked with an expensive cane, but he was still almost a head taller than Callie Sue. Moreover, he was an excellent listener. He stooped slightly to hear her when she linked her arm in his and lowered her voice to invite him to her room for a nightcap.  

Horace’s watchful gaze burned her peripheral vision as she and Gallardo left the dining hall together.  

***

The pink ribbon was still tied in the tell-tale loop on her stationery box, which meant no one had rummaged through her things. Callie Sue pulled out a small, silver flask of whiskey and held it aloft.

“You won’t tell on me for this, will you?” she teased.

 Gallardo grinned. “Not since you’re sharing.”

Callie Sue poured the amber whiskey slowly into two glasses, positioning herself carefully between the nightstand and the loveseat where Gallardo sat. She made certain to twist the tube of Pink Peony Express so that its secret vial was hidden and dropped it back into the stationery box before she joined Gallardo in the cozy seating corner of her room.  

They sipped slowly, in companionable silence, savoring the pungent whiskey. How nice it was to be in the company of a man who did not fill the rooms with empty words. Callie Sue enjoyed the slow burn of the whiskey, finding it much preferable to lime Jello. Gallardo, however, seemed distracted. He shifted this way and that, twisting on the loveseat. His handsome face flushed, then paled.       

“I almost forgot,” Callie Sue said, after a time. “Your business partner sends his regards.”

 Gallardo coughed and tugged at his collar. “What’s that?”

“My colleague and I spoke to him recently,” Callie Sue said. “He’s very sorry to learn about your heart attack. Evidently, it’s been a bit too long coming.” 

Sweat beaded Gallardo’s forehead, and he seemed to gasp for air. His eyes looked wild and fierce to Callie Sue. Then he surprised her by lumbering to his feet and lunging toward her!

In an instant, Callie Sue was on him. Sure, she’d lost some arm strength, but Gallardo was weak now, and these moves were familiar to her. Her elbow locked in position for a lethal snap, the same maneuver she’d had to use quite a few times since Bill showed up at the pageant and wooed her to this line of work.   

“You’re perfect,” Bill had told her that night at the carnival, handing her the giraffe after the shooting game. “Who would suspect a beauty queen?” How handsome she had found Bill in the colorful lights of the midway! Handsome and slightly dangerous. An alluring combination – at least until time and familiarity peeled away the exterior layers and exposed character. Even the most intriguing of men eventually became – well, feeble. She’d had a good look at the ravages of mortality, these past few weeks at Serenity Grove.

She thought of poor Horace, dribbling on himself at dinner, talking about some snowy mountain ski resort, so certain she would be eager to join him that he’d never bothered to ask whether she had the slightest interest in going there. She thought of Bill, young and beautiful and dangerous, waiting on her answer that night at the carnival.  Or had he waited? She couldn’t actually remember that. She could only recall what he had said next, his hand gently touching the small of her back as he guided her down the midway: “If you’re going to put your neck on the line, you’ll need to learn a few tricks – like how to really turn heads.”

He'd moved so fast, startling her. A twist of the neck. A quick snap. Callie Sue had a vivid memory of the stuffed giraffe head dangling.

Gallardo was no giraffe. He wobbled in her arms, his legs collapsing beneath him, and Callie Sue felt relief that she needed to do nothing more. A snapped neck would pose questions at Serenity Grove, but an apparent heart attack would lift no eyebrows.

She lowered Gallardo gently to the loveseat and lifted her gold bracelet to her lips. “It’s done,” she said.

“On my way,” Bill’s voice came from the earpiece inside her gold earring. He was at her door in seconds, grinning up from the wheelchair, wriggling that infernal loose tooth, the one with the hidden comms device. At least he hadn’t short-circuited the thing with all his fake drooling, Callie Sue thought, feeling a fresh wave of annoyance.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said, and stood. Together, Callie Sue and Bill transferred the unconscious Gallardo into the empty wheelchair.

“I’ll get him back to his room,” Bill said. “Decent work, you old head turner.”

He slipped out of his robe and Callie Sue saw he was wearing scrubs beneath. He looked younger, standing upright in the scrubs, more like a nurse now, and less like a resident. But she noticed the bare spots on top of his head, the thin crest of hair that remained, and the way he favored his arthritic knee. Somehow it was still Horace she saw smiling at her -- Horace, with his wild whiskers, Horace, who never listened to her. Horace, who was just the older, stripped-down version of the man who had spent the past sixty years telling her what to do. Had he ever asked her what she wanted?  

“Bill?” she asked, and he paused at the door, looking back at her. “I’ve been thinking about the beach. Something about this job, something about being here… I don’t know. I think I need a break, after this one.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said tonight, at dinner, about our next job? The restaurant owner in the mountains? I knew you weren’t listening. You can relax in the mountains. The ski resort is beautiful. You'll love it."

 Callie Sue made up her mind. She was not getting any younger. It was time to get on with it.     

“Come back for a nightcap, and you can tell me again,” she said, tapping her stationery box with one pink polished nail. She’d just need to reapply a little lipstick while he was gone.