Bibi almost said, If that’s his name, why aren’t you Marissa Hoffline-Development? Miss Hoffline, however, had been a world-class mistress of mean, capable of eviscerating you with such finesse that, if you were hurt by her sharp tongue, she could successfully argue that you had misunderstood either her intention or every word she’d said. Better not to get into a pissing contest with her. Instead, Bibi said, “You look…really good.”
“Four years ago, I refreshed myself a little. Nice of you to notice.”
Before she had refreshed herself, Miss Hoffline had been a thirty-five-year-old brunette of the mouse-brown variety with crooked teeth and the chest of a sixteen-year-old boy. This transformation involved industrial plastic surgery, at least a quart of Botox, and more than a little voodoo.
“Of course I don’t teach anymore. Don’t have to. That’s my café-au-lait Bentley over there. But I always tell people,” said Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack, “I was the first to recognize your talent.”
That was a crock and a half. She had focused more criticism on Bibi than she had on any of the other kids in the class, especially when the subject was her writing. Bibi had benefited from many good teachers in high school, but it was for one like this that kids had long ago invented spitballs.
As if Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack saw a flash of resentment in her former student’s eyes, she said, “I was always a little hard on you, dear, just a little, because you needed some prodding now and then to reach your full potential.”
Bibi managed a smile that must have looked like that on a ventriloquist’s dummy. “I appreciate that. Well, nice to have seen you again.”
Leaning closer, so that her heroic bosom seemed about to topple her off balance, the woman said, “May I ask one question?”
Bibi wanted only to be gone from there and off the grid, which would probably happen quicker if she allowed the question. “Sure, of course,” she said, expecting a nasty crack about the ancient Honda.
Instead, Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack asked, “Has your novel made enemies for you? Why are you packing heat?”
For a moment, Bibi blanked on the word heat, but then she said, “A gun? But I’m not.”
“Now, really, Gidget, my Leo gets threats, a man of his position, so he has a concealed-carry license. If you’ve got a trained eye, as I have, a very sharp eye, no tailoring is good enough to entirely conceal the telltale bulge.”
There was no telltale bulge. The shoulder rig held the pistol at Bibi’s side, in the roomiest part of her blazer.
“Well, sorry to say, your eye has misled you this time. I’ve no reason to carry a gun.”
As Bibi started to turn away, the woman gripped her by one arm. With concern that was no more real than her bosom, the refreshed ex-teacher said, “Oh, damn, you don’t have a concealed-carry permit, do you? Bibi, really, you can get in a lot of trouble, you really can. Carrying without a license, you could go to prison.”
The parking lot was busy with shoppers going to and from the store, and Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack had the volume, although not the graceful cadences, of an auctioneer. People were looking at them, curious, frowning.
With through-clenched-teeth intensity, Bibi said, “I have no gun. Now let go of me.”
The woman let go of Bibi’s arm, only to grab her left lapel and pull aside her blazer, revealing the holster and pistol. “You always were a bit of a rule-breaker, girl. Always. But being the first to recognize your talent, I don’t want to see you ruin your career.”
Bibi clawed Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack’s hand off her blazer. “Lady, what is wrong with you? Get away from me.”
“If you don’t have a concealed-carry permit, you should take that off right now, this very minute, and put it in the trunk.”
A few passersby stopped to watch the altercation. They must have been people who never saw TV news. These days, in situations like this, if you didn’t keep moving, you became part of the body count.
“I have a concealed-carry license,” Bibi hissed, and she started around the Honda to the driver’s door.
The former English teacher caught up with her between the headlights. “If you really, truly had one, then why didn’t you say so already? Why didn’t you?”
Turning a withering glare on her assailant, Bibi bit off each word of her reply. “Because. I. Don’t. Want. Every. Idiot. To. Know.”
Mrs. Hoffline-Vorshack’s resistance to withering was equal to that of granite. “Don’t you snap at me, young lady. If you have a license, show it, and I won’t worry you’ll ruin your life. Otherwise, I’ll have to call your parents.”
“I’m twenty-two years old, for God’s sake.”
“Not to me, you’re not.”
As Bibi reached the driver’s door with the former teacher close behind, one of the onlookers stepped forward. Tall, muscular, with a weathered face and a walrus mustache, wearing a bandana around his head and a tank top unsuited to the cool morning, arms and shoulders and neck crawling with tattoos of reptiles and spiders, he looked as if he’d stepped out of a version of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man written in an alternate universe where Bradbury had dropped acid while at the keyboard. “Excuse me, ladies. Maybe I can negotiate a little peace here.”