Recapitulation: Line-waiting tasks even the strongest of us. So too does it task Barry and Jenna, hardly able to count themselves among the lofty ranks of the strong ones. So they wait in line, in order to confront Gertrude Wilborough, and exchange their cheap rings with her expensive ones.
***
“Feels like the MVA, huh?”
Barry didn’t want to turn around. Why interact? But if he didn’t, that could sink them. He turned around, looked down at a man around five feet tall, sporting a genuine handlebar mustache. Blonde as the sun, bushy as a rabbit’s tail. The man would not have been out of place in a barbershop quartet, but for the light hair. The deep whisper that rushed its way out from behind that impressive tuft should have emerged from a man a foot and a half taller.
“We’re not all uptight.” He proferred a stumpy-fingered hand. Barry took it, felt the bones in his hands become better acquainted, much closer. “Hardy Wilborough. Grandnephew.”
Uh oh. “Austin Keppler. My condolences.”
“Thank you.” Hardy breathed deep, his mustache twitching beneath his nose. “How did you know Great-Aunt Gertrude?”
“In her final days, we were visiting my grandparents, she was nearby, we talked briefly.”
Barry’s eyes popped. His hand crunched inward, collapsing under the power of Hardy’s grasp. “We thought she was never going to speak.” Like a winch, he drew Barry down to his nipple level, or closer to Hardy’s eye level. “What did she say?”
“Oh, uh, well, we talked about clouds. I think we did, she was indistinct. All the life support.”
“Did she mention the will?” Like a snake through grass, the words hissed through his mustache. In that moment, Barry experienced a perverse kinship with all these people.
“No, I’m sorry. She sounded happy at least.”
“Damn.” Anger clouded his face as his eyebrows veed inward. He released Barry from the death-grip. Barry blinked, and a genial man reappeared in Hardy’s place. “I’m surprised we managed to get Father Patterson, he’s usually booked at this time of year.”
“I can imagine.” Barry rubbed his hand. Hardy pointed behind him as the line progressed, and Barry stepped backwards. They were a few away. “Did she have a will?” Anything to keep him off-balance, distracted, fuming like a teakettle.
“She had one that left everything to family only. Then, before she died, had some attack of philanthropy.” Hardy peered left, peered right, got on his toes to whisper. “You’re probably the only one in here that didn’t get anything, and if she’d survived a few more days, she probably would’ve wrote you in.” He flat-footed himself, tilted his head. “We always had someone near her. Who was in there when you talked to her?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall. There were so many faces that I can’t remember, so many names that, that.” Barry pursed his lips, looked off and away to the left. “I’m sorry, it was a hard time, I wasn’t in a right state of mind. For all I know, I got mixed up with another elderly lady, and I never met Ms. Wilborough.” Barry scratched his head.
Hardy’s face softened, the wrinkles smoothing themselves away. “Wow. You might be the only person that actually cared about her, and you might’ve never even known her.” Hardy blinked. “You got problems. I feel sorry for you.”
“Thank you.” Hardy pointed, and Barry took another step back. This morbid masquerade would play itself out one way or the other. He just hoped that somehow, his mask wouldn’t fall off before the final curtain.
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