Ginny Aiken - Priced to Move

“Okay. So that explains the fixed metal bar over the bed. What’s the other one all about?”

“That one’s kinda fun, you know? They used it with the nicest woolly slings to hold my leg up, and now . . . well, I see it like it’s some kinda award. On account of my surviving all the other, you see.”

I see no medal of valor; I see a free-arm chrome rod with a chain that ends in a bar that separates a wicked pair of open-ended, bent metal rectangles. Each thick wire end curls up onto itself, and I can see where something can be hung from the hooks they form. I shudder.

“It’s been rough, hasn’t it?”

Although Aunt Weeby tries to hide it from me, the slight wince tells me more than her words. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad.

It broke and had to be fixed. But let me tell you. Once I get my hands on that farmer boy . . . whoo-ee! I’m fixing to give him a good piece a’ my mind.”

Poor guy. “Maybe stables, pitchforks, and farm hands aren’t your kind of gig. I’d stay away.”

“Pffft!” She crosses her arms. “Enough of that. Now that you’re here, mind telling me about that corroded gut a’ yours?”

I take a second to check in on its current condition. The dumb thing surprises me. “It’s an ulcer. It’s there. But not so bad today.”

“Humph!” The blue eyes never leave my face. “If you say so.”

I rattle my purse. “Never fear. Have pharmacy, will travel. I’ll be fine.”

A dark-haired guy in maybe his mid-twenties, dressed in khakis and a cream polo shirt with the hospital’s logo embroidered on the pocket, walks in right then. “Knock, knock!”

Aunt Weeby preens. “Timmy. Aren’t you just in time? Here’s someone I want you to meet.” She points at me. “Andie, sweetheart, this is Timmy Holtz, my physical therapist— or rather, my torturer and taskmaster.”

I smile and shrug.

My irrepressible aunt continues. “And Timmy, this is my darling unmarried niece, Andrea Adams. She’s a New York gemologist. Poor thing.” Aunt Weeby tsk-tsks better than anyone. “Andie plays with fabulous diamonds all day, but, wouldn’t you know? She’s still looking for the man who’ll put one on her ring finger. I think she needs help”—she winks—“therapy, in a sense.”

Swallow me, earth. “Looks like the pain meds KO’d her loose tongue’s internal editor. Forgive her.”

The therapist laughs. “It doesn’t run in the family, does it?”

“ We are nothing alike.”

Aunt Weeby’s torturer laughs way too much for my comfort.

“That’s not what I hear,” he finally says, winks, and then goes to the broken-leg side of the bed. “Okay, Miss Olivia—”

“What’s that?” I shake my head, pat my ear, gape.

He looks at me as though I’ve grown another head. “I just said Miss Olivia. Isn’t that her name?”

I stare at the too-innocent senior in the bed. “Sure, but no one’s called her Olivia since I began to talk. I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose, but she hasn’t heard that name in—” Ooops! This guy doesn’t need to know about the upcoming three-oh, does he? And I’m no fool—I’m not about to tell him. “I didn’t think she even remembered her real name by now.”

Aunt Weeby blushes, thrashes around, and grabs her trapeze. “Now, don’t you pay her no never mind. She just has this pet name for me, and thinks everyone should use it—” “’Morning, Weeby!” A nurse in a black top with Pink Panthers and pink hearts all over crosses to the wide windows. “How’s the pain? What number are we if zero’s none and ten’s the worst torture you’ve ever endured?”

I grin. “Busted!”

Aunt Weeby groans. “Erin, honey, you sure do choose your moments, don’t you? First you wake me up to give me a sleeping pill this morning, and now you go and blow my cover.”

Erin narrows her clear green eyes. “What cover? What are you talking about, Weeby?”

I howl. “Serves you right!”

The therapist, a very confused-guy look on his face, ping-pongs his gaze from one to the other of us. Finally, he zooms in on me. “Did you really say . . . Weeby?”

“Oh, you know how it is.” I shoot Aunt Weeby a grin. “Toddlers are notorious at making up names. She’s been Weeby instead of Livvy ever since I turned two. Nobody calls her anything else.”

“Okay,” he says in an uncertain voice, then turns to the nurse. “So what’s up, Erin? Does Miss Olivia—er . . . Miss Weeby?”—he gives me a did-I-get-it-right? look—“have something else going right now? I came to start her PT exercises, but if you need her, I can come back later.”

Talk about strategic retreat!

“Well . . .” Erin fills Aunt Weeby’s water pitcher at the sink. “I had planned to give her a sponge bath—”

“Why, Erin honey, that’s just perfect.” Aunt Weeby’s eyes twinkle—uh-oh! Incoming trouble. “Andie? Why don’t you go along and keep Timmy company while Erin here gives me one a’ those nice sponge baths she’s so good at? I’m sure he’d love to hear all about you when you were small. You were such a sweet little peanut.”

“Aunt Weeby!”

She ignores my objection, reaches for and catches her therapist’s hand, then gives it a pat. “You shoulda seen our Andie here growing up. All that red hair and those beautiful gray eyes. Uh-huh. And smart? Whoo-ee! This girl’s always been sharp as a tack.”

Instead of the ubiquitous deer, we have a medical professional in the headlights. “Ah . . . well, you see—” He squares his shoulders. “I’ll go take care of Mr. Warren while you have your sponge bath, Miss Weeby. I’ll be back after we’re all done with what we’re doing . . .”

His voice trails off as he flees the nuthouse. Aunt Weeby can empty a room just by opening her mouth. Which she does with alarming regularity.

“So there you go.” I stand. “Tell you what. I’m going to do you a favor. I’ll pretend you didn’t do what you just did and go to the family waiting room while you two do the sponge thing. Last time I stuck my head in there, the coffee pot was still dripping. A fresh cup would hit the spot.”

“With an ulcer?” Horror doesn’t exactly work with Aunt Weeby’s lovely elderly lady looks. “Why, Andrea Adams. No wonder you’ve got yourself that corroded gut. Like Great-Grandma Willetta use’ta say, you’re just pouring oil on that fire. You oughta go get yourself a nice glass a’ milk instead.” “Actually, Weeby,” Erin says, a thick white towel, fresh linens, and another pillow in her arms, “the milk thing has been discounted. Milk protein does have an initial neutralizing effect on gastric acid, but because of its high calcium content, it’s also a potent accelerator, and stimulates excess acid production.”

My eyes glaze over. I’ve heard it all before. “You guys don’t need me here,” I say. “I’ll be in the family waiting room.”

Once there, I pour my cup of coffee, then plunk my butt down on one of the hard upholstered armchairs. True, coffee isn’t the best beverage for an ulcer patient, but if I only drink a cup or two a day, my torn-up gut doesn’t abuse me too badly. Four welcome sips later, my cell phone rings.

A gruff male says, “Miss Adams?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Al, here, ma’am. With Two Men and a Truck, you know? I . . . umm . . . thought I better call about your stuff.” Visions of an overturned truck kick my pulse up a notch.

“Oh no! What went wrong?”

“Nah, lady. Easy, okay? Nothing’s wrong, just that we can’t find the address you gave us. Can you, like, give us some directions?”

I talk them off the freeway, around Louisville proper, and out to Aunt Weeby’s three-story white colonial. I tell Al—again— that yes, they are to unload everything into the detached garage behind the house; that I left it open so they can do just that; that no, there is no room in that huge house—Aunt Weeby’s a devoted collector—and that I’ll be there shortly.