Daydream Retriever (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 10) Page 26

  “I don’t think anyone else can either. Misheard lyrics are called mondegreens. The term was coined by the author Sylvia Wright after she misheard the lyrics of a Scottish ballad as ‘Lady Mondegreen,’ instead of ‘laid him on the green.’”

  Lisa was starting to understand why Pete had said Jan might be the smartest woman he’d ever met. Trivia didn’t even begin to cover it. The woman was a walking encyclopedia.

  Lisa poured some water from a pitcher on the table into the glass in front of her. “I have trouble with Elton John songs, like the one with the electric boobs and the mole hair suit. I mean, that can’t possibly be what he’s really saying.”

  “In ‘Bennie and the Jets’ he’s talking about boots, not boobs, and it’s mohair.”

  “It sounds like boobs.”

  “I think so too.” Jan pointed at the stage. “Poor Kat. I think Maria is trying to get her to sing.”

  They watched as Maria detached Kat from her grip on the large brown dog and shoved her up onto the stage. Kat was holding a glass and downed the rest of the amber liquid before trading her glass for the microphone.

  Tracy stumbled off the stage and Maria deftly caught the glass and Tracy before she did an undignified face-plant on the floor.

  Kat threw her tiara into the audience like a Frisbee. Maria returned to the stage and turned to the machine. She whispered something to Kat, to which Kat replied into the microphone, “But I only know four words of that song.”

  The microphone picked up Maria saying, “So what? Just make it up.”

  “Don’t Bring Me Down” by Electric Light Orchestra came on and Lisa noted that Kat was right. She managed to get the words in the song title correct, which fortunately accounted for a large percentage of the lyrics. Sadly, Kat couldn’t carry a tune and Lisa was pretty sure the real lyrics weren’t, ‘You’re always talking ‘bout your gravy bites. One of these days you’re gonna get advice.’

  When the song was over, Kat staggered off the stage and returned to her position next to her dog. He gave her a slurp for moral support and she bent down to hug him.

  Lisa nudged Jan. “That’s sweet. At least she has one fan.”

  Maria jumped up onto the stage and said, “Okay, it’s time to rock some eighties now! This one is in honor of my possessed cat, Scarlett and her new kitty boyfriend, Quincy. I blame Kat for my further descent into cat-ladyhood, so this one is for you, girlfriend.”

  Lisa looked at Jan, who responded with an ‘I don’t know’ shrug.

  Maria clutched the microphone and wailed, “The sheep don’t like it. Rock the cat box. Rock the cat box!”

  Lisa said, “I always thought it was ‘rock the cash bar’.”

  “Nope. Casbah,” Jan said.

  Maria announced that after karaoke, party games were next, including Twister and pin the tail on the donkey. She directed a spotlight to a huge poster of a muscular man sporting six-pack abs, a cowboy hat, and nothing else. Lisa was pretty sure that a tail was not going to be what they’d be pinning onto the guy.

  By the time a woman named Robin had mangled Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” with ‘You walked into the potty like you were walking onto a yacht,’ Lisa had decided she’d seen and heard enough.

  After saying goodbye to Jan, she went over to the bar to congratulate, or maybe console, Kat before she left.

  Kat was leaning heavily on the dog, who was now wearing a tiara. She straightened slightly as Lisa walked toward her and raised a glass.

  Harley and Linus sniffed each other while Lisa gave Kat a hug. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  “At least you can say you saw it.” Kat lifted a penis-shaped straw from her drink and pointed it at her. “Because nobody would believe this unless they saw it for themselves.”

  Lisa laughed, “I suppose you’re right. Drink lots of water before you go to bed tonight, okay?”

  “Yeah, Joel will be here in…um…I don’t know how many minutes.” Kat turned her wrist to look at her watch, dumping the ice cubes and the dregs of her drink on the floor. “Oops. Clean up, aisle two!”

  Linus slurped up the ice cubes, made a few crunching noises, and the mess was gone. Harley looked disappointed and sniffed the floor incredulously. Lisa tugged on the leash. “Come on. Let’s go. You missed it.”

  “My consolation for all of this is that soon I’ll be in Hawaii!” Kat held up her empty glass. “I put on my flip-flops. Stepped on a Pop-Tart…blah, blah, something about a heel. But there’s boobs in a blender…and soon it surrenders. And something or other helps me hang on…”

  Lisa gave Kat another hug and led her to a chair. “Have fun in Margaritaville.”

  Sunday morning Lisa methodically walked through the house room by room, taking notes in an effort to assess what needed to be done to finish the house. From her admittedly non-expert perspective, it seemed that most of the destruction phase was complete with the exception of the office, where Pete had stayed. The wallpaper had been removed for the most part, the carpet was gone, and some of the more atrocious moldings and built-ins had also been torn off and hauled away. Now it was time to get the house put back together.

  Maybe she could manage it herself, as Pete had suggested. In addition to new drywall for the dining room wall, all of the rooms needed to be painted and have the new flooring installed. If she pulled the knobs off the kitchen cabinets and repainted them, even the kitchen was probably passable. The flooring had been ordered and was sitting at Lowell’s Hardware waiting to be installed. If she could find a flooring contractor, maybe Luke and Rod could be convinced to help with painting. And she could certainly wield a paintbrush and roller herself, if it came down to it.

  It was also going to be necessary to have a massive yard sale to get rid of the rest of the furniture. She’d been putting it off because of the weather, but maybe she could hold the event inside by leaving the furniture in place and putting price tags on it.

  With a yard sale, people usually dragged all the stuff they wanted to sell into the yard, so valuables in the house wouldn’t be visible to browsers. But in this case, if someone wanted to steal a thirty-year-old ashtray, they’d be doing Lisa a favor. From the sounds of it, Craig Maddox had already stolen the only valuable item that had been in the house. Whatever it was.

  After weeks of going through things with Pete, she wanted to finally get rid of absolutely everything that was left. Selling it all would be less like a yard sale and more like an estate sale, except that no one had died.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. One thing had died. It had been only a matter of hours and she missed Pete terribly. Although she’d never say it to Bev, Lisa felt as if she had lost her best friend. At least she still had Harley to keep her company. He’d followed her on her construction assessment throughout the house like a furry shadow, making sure she was okay.

  “Oh Harley, you’re such a good boy.” She reached down to pat his head. “I think it’s time we make this official. There’s no way I’m going to let anyone else adopt you.”

  Lisa picked up the phone and dialed Larry’s office. Brigid answered in a businesslike tone and asked if she wanted to speak to Larry. Lisa cleared her throat. “Actually, do you have a second? I was hoping to talk to you about Harley.”

  “Is he okay? I didn’t think you were leaving town yet. Larry said the house is still under construction and implied there was a delay, so I wasn’t worried yet.”

  “I suppose he talked to my mother. Ugh. I guess I do need to talk to him about the house.”

  “You shouldn’t have to foster Harley for too much longer, I hope. The article in the newsletter generated a few calls, and I have a family who might be interested in adopting him. They’ve been hemming and hawing that a Labrador is too big, but I’m hoping they’ll come around.”

  “Tell them no. He has a home. I want to adopt Harley.”

  “What? Really? That’s fantastic news! Foster failures make me so happy.”

  “I’m a failure?”

&
nbsp; “A foster failure is someone who fosters a dog but loves him so much they decide to adopt him. Honestly, how could you not fall in love with Harley? He’s such a sweetheart.”

  “Well, it helped that Pete trained him. Harley is so much better behaved now. He sits and lays down on command. They love him at the Alpine Grove Care Center.”

  “You should do therapy work with him. Dogs are so comforting for people in places like that.”

  Lisa looked down at Harley. “I guess I could. I’m not sure what’s involved.”

  “Talk to the folks at the facility. I bet they’d be thrilled.”

  “Harley does seem to like having a job to do.”

  “You could consider search-and-rescue work too. He already rescued one person. How’s the guy he found at Snow Grove doing?”

  “Much better. Pete went back home to Arizona yesterday.”

  “Good for him. I’ll get Harley’s adoption paperwork set up for you.”

  “Is Larry going to be around later today? I should stop by and talk to him about the house issues. Losing my general contractor will change the money arrangements, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, Larry’s schedule is open. See you later. I’m so excited—I’m going to get started on Harley’s paperwork right this second!”

  Lisa hung up and gazed down at the dozing dog at her feet, trying to put the upcoming unpleasant conversation with her brother out of her mind. Harley seemed largely unaffected by the dramatic change in his fortunes. Seeming to sense that Lisa was staring at him, he raised his head and thumped his tail a few times. Lisa reached down to pet him. “Guess what? You’re my dog now. That means you need to help me figure out how to fix the mess I’ve made of this house.”

  Lisa called Luke and Rod and asked them to stop by the house. Because of Craig’s disappearance to the wilds of Los Angeles, both of them were out of work and eager to talk to her about earning some money again.

  Bright and early Monday morning, the two men and Lisa negotiated an hourly rate that was higher than what they had earned subcontracting. By the time she left, Lisa was extremely pleased with herself. She had two people who were enthusiastic about helping her finish the job. Luke and Rod seemed relieved to be working for her directly, instead of having to deal with Craig and his cryptic rules and lists. They went over her notes and Luke suggested a couple of freelance flooring installers who generally worked with the big flooring companies, but probably weren’t busy in late February.

  The rest of the week Lisa spent working on the house. Most of the time she wasn’t working, she was either exhausted or asleep. She successfully lined up a company to lay the new flooring and they claimed they didn’t mind working around the furniture and painting projects.

  The only break she took was to visit Betty at the Alpine Grove Care Center with Harley. When Lisa arrived, Betty was off getting her hair done, so Lisa ended up spending some time talking to Deanna, the nurse she’d talked to before.

  When Lisa asked her about volunteering with Harley, the nurse had laughed and pointed out that because of her many regular visits, Lisa was virtually no different from any other volunteer. The residents knew Harley and constantly asked when he was returning. Deanna gave Lisa some paperwork to fill out, so her status as a volunteer could be made official. When Harley visited Pete the first time, Lisa had been asked to provide his veterinary records, so he already passed muster.

  Before she left, Lisa completed the volunteer forms at the reception desk. “So I guess I’m signing my life away now.”

  Deanna leaned over the counter toward her. “Maybe. On that note, after your questions the other day, I was wondering if you’ve ever thought about working here? Like as a paid job, not as a volunteer.”

  “I have thought about what you said too.” Lisa put down the pen. “But right now, I’m working on fixing up my parents’ house. It’s an all-consuming project at the moment.”

  “What happens when it’s done? Do you already have a job? I got the impression you were looking.”

  “I’m not qualified to do anything, except maybe flip burgers. I have a high school diploma, but that’s it. I did take a couple of classes at the community college back in Gleasonville, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I mean, U.S. history is interesting, but it’s not like I want to become a history teacher, so I felt like it was a waste of time.”

  “There are serious shortages in the health-care field. If you took one of the state-approved courses to become a certified nursing assistant, you’d get a job.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it. We’re short-staffed and it’s worse at the facility we have in Gleasonville.”

  “I did my rehab there years ago after a ski accident. It was before they expanded and long before this one was built.”

  Deanna smiled. “You’re great with the residents and the CNA courses don’t take years, so it might be something worth thinking about.”

  Lisa returned her smile. “I definitely will. Thanks.”

  By the time the weekend rolled around, Lisa had moved beyond exhausted to bone tired. She gave herself the gift of sleeping in late as a small concession to her worn-out muscles. The phone rang and Harley leaped up to bark at it.

  After settling Harley down, she picked up the receiver and smiled at the sound of Pete’s voice. “You’re calling early.”

  “It’s an hour later here. Are you still in bed?”

  “Why would you think that? You know I get up early.”

  “You are in bed. I can tell.”

  Lisa propped her head up on her palm. “How? I thought you had to see people to tell they are lying.”

  “Because I know you. It’s different. So how come you’re still in bed?”

  “I’m tired. So much has happened I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “How about starting when I left?”

  Lisa regaled Pete with everything she could think of about recent events. He laughed at her anecdotes about the bachelorette party, the construction project, Harley, and her various painting misadventures.

  In her excitement to talk to him, she eventually realized that Pete hadn’t said one word about what was going on with him in Phoenix. “So okay, you’ve heard it all now. Everything from drunken parties to questionable rumors and gossip from the geriatric community at the Alpine Grove Care Center. What’s happened with you in the last week?”

  “Not much, really. Went to the PTSD group that I’ve been going to for years. I think they were a little relieved to find out I wasn’t dead.”

  “I suppose that’s a reasonable concern.”

  “My level of personal risk dropped considerably when I left the force.”

  “Good point, but they probably don’t know what a bad skier you are.”

  Pete laughed. “Very true.”

  “How’s rehab going? George already asked me the other day if you were behaving yourself.”

  “It’s all right. I kinda miss George though. He was good at making me work, but it didn’t seem like it, so I didn’t realize that’s what he was doing. In retrospect, it was pretty sneaky and probably helped me a lot.”

  “Is something wrong? You sound sort of…I don’t know…different, I guess.”

  “Not really. Maybe I’m jealous. You did all these amazing, funny, interesting things in only one week. And I sort of sat around in the air conditioning and moped. I can’t believe it’s over eighty degrees already. I’m not ready to deal with hundred-and-ten-degree days again.”

  “Moped? I thought you had all this stuff to do.”

  “I wanted to see my friends and the people at the group. I felt like I had abandoned my life here and things would fall apart. But really, everything is fine. It wasn’t like I didn’t pay my bills.”

  “True. You did call your neighbor and ask him to send your mail.” Lisa rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “As for my week, mostly, I worked my tail off. I don’t know how amazing that is.”

  “Hey,
I’m impressed. I wish I were there to help, but I’d fall off the ladder.”

  “I wish you were here too. Have you given any more thought to visiting?”

  “We’ll see.”

  Lisa didn’t think she was getting the whole story. Something was bothering him. “I still have this huge house, you know, so there’s lots of room. It does smell like paint though. Harley has paint on his tail now too.”

  Pete chuckled. “Given what you told me, it sounds like he’s been really helpful.”

  “He’s provided lots of moral support since you left. I thought he might stage some type of revolt after his favorite person went away, but maybe he knew I was upset and that I’m his permanent mom now, so he has to be nice to me. He actually has been really good. And when I ask him to sit, he sits.”

  “He was doing that before I left, but that’s great to hear.”

  Lisa reached down to pet Harley. The word ‘great’ didn’t match Pete’s tone of voice. “Are you sure nothing is bothering you?”

  “I guess I miss being there more than I thought I would. I’ve always been one of those people who has no problem being alone. I think spending so much time out in the world fighting crime made me desperate for quiet when I was at home. But now the silence is driving me nuts. I miss talking to you.”

  “Well, we could talk more than once a week. And I keep telling you, the invitation is open whenever you want to visit.”

  “I should finish up my rehab here. It would be nice if the next time you saw me, I could walk.”

  “You know I don’t care about that.”

  “I care.”

  “Well, maybe you could plan to visit once I’m back in Gleasonville, then. I’m looking into doing their certified nursing assistant program. It takes less than six months and then I could get a job. Deanna thinks I can get a job at their facility down there or in Alpine Grove because they’re short-staffed.”

  “I had no idea you were interested in that type of work, but I think you’d be an excellent nurse. Why didn’t you say something?”

  “When I was waiting for you to finish physical therapy, I talked to Deanna and it got me thinking. It was the day you got your cane and I was excited about that. Later, you dropped the bomb that you were leaving and I forgot about it.”