I smiled. Ida Belle was nothing if not practical.
I was just about to suggest we start a list of potential casualties when the back door flew open and Gertie hurried inside, her face flushed. She flung her enormously large handbag onto the kitchen table and, I swear, the table dipped slightly to one side. I didn’t even want to think about what she might have inside. She pulled out a chair and slumped into it, then panted for a bit. Ida Belle studied her old friend for several seconds, probably trying to figure out if Gertie needed CPR or a defibrillator. Finally, Gertie sucked in a big breath and let it out with a whoosh, then appeared to return to normal. The Gertie sort of normal, that is.
“What the heck is wrong with you?” Ida Belle asked.
“I was running,” Gertie said.
“Was something chasing you?” Ida Belle asked.
“Not this time,” Gertie said.
“What about last time?” I asked, curiosity overriding my general crappy mood.
Gertie waved a hand in dismissal. “Long story, ending with the destruction of a perfectly good pair of polyester pants, and a potential lawsuit. Anyway, that’s not interesting, but what I have to tell you is.”
“Well, get it out before you relapse,” Ida Belle said.
Gertie sat up straight in her chair, her cheeks flushed with excitement…or exertion. Either way, her energy was somewhat infectious and I found myself leaning forward, waiting for her to spit out the news. A distraction was just what I needed.
“Remember when Beulah Latour dyed her hair black and started wearing a bra again, and I told you something was up?” Gertie asked.
“What you told me,” Ida Belle said, “was that she must have a man somewhere, and given that I have known Beulah my entire life, I still contend no man worth his salt would come within fifty yards of her unless he was armed.”
“I don’t think I’ve met her,” I said. “Is she scary?”
“If you’d met her, we would have heard about it, I’m sure,” Ida Belle said. “Beulah is six foot two and looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger in drag. When she opens her mouth, you realize her looks are the pleasant part of her.”
I cringed.
Gertie nodded. “I heard the nail salon uses a sander on her feet, and one time a toenail clipping hit the technician in the eye and scratched her cornea.”
“So what did this bigfoot woman do?” I asked. “Pull the roof off a car? Eat a small child?”
“She got catfished!” Gertie gave us both a triumphant look.
I looked over at Ida Belle, but she didn’t appear any more informed than I was. “Someone hit her with a catfish?” I ventured.
“No,” Gertie said. “She got catfished…you know, like that TV show.”
“Ah,” Ida Belle said, “the one where silly people fall in love with strangers on the Internet, all of whom claim to be a prince or a model, but instead turn out to be some guy in cellblock four, scamming them out of cigarette money.”
“You made me watch an episode of that,” I said. “Those had to be the most obtuse people ever created. Who actually believes that Al Pacino is dating them online?”
Ida Belle raised an eyebrow. “Apparently Beulah Latour.”
“Exactly,” Gertie said. “This hot young stud claiming to be a marine stationed in the Middle East friended her on Facebook. Apparently, he sent her long letters and poetry and even a nude photo.”
“Doesn’t sound like anything worth putting a bra on for,” Ida Belle said.
“Well,” Gertie said, “in all fairness, that photo is probably the closest Beulah will ever get to male plumbing.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “The Internet is full of male plumbing. It’s like the Walmart of man parts.”
Ida Belle and Gertie both stared at me.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t clicked on a search result and gotten a surprise,” I said.
Gertie’s eyes widened. “Just the other day, I was thinking I would bake some pecan pies. I looked up my pecan supplier, Dee’s Nuts, but forgot the apostrophe, and I got the most inappropriate image of a squirrel with oversized…er—”
“Yes, yes.” Ida Belle waved a hand at her. “Enough about squirrel privates. Tell us about Beulah.”
“According to the local gossip,” Gertie said, “Beulah was over the moon for this guy. She even mailed him a pair of her underwear.”
“If he was really a marine,” Ida Belle said, “he could have used them as a parachute.”
“Oh, even if I didn’t know the rest of the story,” Gertie said, “I’d know for sure he wasn’t a marine, at least not one stationed overseas. You see, he had her send the underwear to a PO box in New Orleans.”
“So he catfished her out of underwear,” Ida Belle said, “which, given certain factors, could serve as a reason for lifelong embarrassment—especially if the underwear is still around for Mardi Gras—but what in the world about that story had you running yourself into a heart attack?”