The Gossip Girls
The waiter placed their wine glasses on the table. “Ladies, your lunch should be out shortly.” Carol smiled. “Thank you.” When the waiter was out of earshot Eunice said, “I need to borrow your granddaughter’s dog.” Carol crinkled her brows. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You mean Barney?”
“Is that the big one I see on the Facebook?”
“I guess. He’s 120 pounds.”
“Perfect, I need him.”
“Why do you need a 120-pound dog?”
“It’s a long story.”
Carol waived a hand. “We’re seventy-five years old. We’ve got all day.” Eunice glanced around at the other tables and lowered her voice. “Well, you know that Jeannette who moved in a couple months ago?”
“Yes.”
“She walks her little rat past my house every day, and everyday that thing shits on my lawn.”
“Her rat? You mean her chihuahua, Pedro?”
“You can call it a chihuahua, I prefer rat. Anyway. she refuses to pick it up! She looks around and acts like it’s not even happening. I watch her from my window. I would yell at her, but the window’s stuck, and I can’t get it open. And with this hip, I can’t run out the door to chase her.” She patted the offending body part.
“So why do you need Barney?”
Eunice leaned closer. “Because I’m gonna walk him down to her house, and I’m gonna let him shit all over her lawn. And I figure, since he’s so big, his shit will be huge.” She sat back and sipped her wine. “If I could find a horse, I’d walk that on her lawn. Ha! Let her try to pick that up.”
“You know dogs don’t poop on command.”
“I don’t care. I’ll keep walking him until he does. And at the next association meeting, I need your Ted to tell her to pick up after her damn dog! He’s the president,” she said with an emphatic point, “and he needs to do something.”
“He won’t single her out. You know that. The best he’ll do is make some vague comment about everyone cleaning up after their dogs.”
Eunice cocked a brow. “You know she’s had work done.”
“She has?”
“Oh yeah. Her face doesn’t move when you talk to her.” She proceeded to stretch the skin on her face back and hinge her jaw up and down like a marionette. “It’s like talking to a robot.”
“I never noticed.”
“Well, I have. And those tits of hers have to be fake. They’re,” she cupped under her own breasts and lifted them, “up here.”
“I’ve seen her in a bathing suit at the pool. They don’t look fake. They sag just like ours.”
“Pfft.” She rolled her eyes. “And I think she had her ass done. No seventy-year-old has an ass like that.”
“Can you get your ass done?”
“Oh, they can do anything now.”
Carol pursed her lips. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Jeanette is over at Bill Weber’s house all the time, does it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Eunice?”
She huffed and brushed a crumb from the table. “I haven’t noticed that.”
“Eunice?” Carol stared at her best friend.
“What?” A muscle twitched in her jaw before a reddish hue appeared in her cheeks. “I’ve been after Bill for six months now! He’s the only eligible bachelor in the whole development.” She began counting on her fingers. “I’ve cooked him dinners. I’ve made him lunch. I’ve cleaned his damn kitchen. And she just waltzes in here with her fake cheek bones, her fake tits, and her fake ass and steals my man.” She slapped the table and folded her arms. After a few seconds, her shoulders sagged. “He doesn’t even call me anymore.”
“I heard they’re getting married.”
“What?”
Carol set her lips in a grim line and nodded.
“I need to find a horse.”
