Free Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz Page B

bar. Moments later Henri discovered the note hiding all that honey:
Here’s a little something toward that fishing pole.

CHAPTER 13
    A ND SO C HARLOTTE CONTINUED to enjoy New Orleans. She had her tarot cards read, and they promised her a long and healthy life, which she knew, of course, was not true. And when she told the old man that he must be wrong, that she’d had a checkup, he hushed her, indignantly saying that the cards don’t lie and she should get another checkup.
    She set her big hips free and rocked to the rhythms of zydeco. She rode a paddleboat up and down the Mississippi, letting the Louisiana sun warm her northern blood. She glutted herself with crawfish until nothing was left but the empty shells of an insatiable hunger.
    There was no doubt about it. Charlotte had fallen for the Big Easy and might even have stayed, but the world was waiting. California was waiting. Tom Selleck was waiting. Tony Bennett was waiting. Blossom might be on her way to heaven, but Charlotte was on her way to Hollywood.
    Charlotte felt free, going down the highway, her fat cheeks pulling back like a bulldog’s in the wind. She felt inordinately good for someone who was dying.
Attitude,
she thought to herself,
it’s all about attitude.
    Who cared if she was fat? She felt good. Hell, Jackie Gleason never worried about it. And wasn’t it Tom Hanks who once fessed up that he thought he had a big ass and fat thighs.
See, nobody’s perfect. The thing is to feel good, and I do. I’m a quarter of the way to Hollywood. So there, MaryAnn.
    Her thick, dark ponytail flew back, and facts floated in and out of her head as she wound her way to her final stop.
    She and MaryAnn had studied game shows religiously. No one was better at
Jeopardy
or
Wheel of Fortune
than they were. No one could guess as accurately the cost of a dinette set or a Maytag washer or an RV equipped with all the modern conveniences on
The Price Is Right.
And
Hollywood Squares
? Forget it. Both MaryAnn and Charlotte were unstoppable. This, after all, was how they were going to make their first fortunes, as game-show contestants.
    “Charlotte, it’s your turn.”
    “Famous Hollywood insults for four hundred, Alex.”
    “Ding, ding, ding. Charlotte, it’s the Daily Double. Are you ready for this?” “Yes, Alex.” “How much are you willing to wager?” “Everything, Alex. Thirty thousand dollars.” “Did you hear that? Thirty thousand dollars. Okay, Charlotte...
    Who said, ‘Not since Attila the Hun swept across Europe, leaving five hundred years of total blackness, has there been a man like Lee Marvin’?”
    “Who is Josh Logan? He directed Lee Marvin in
Paint Your Wagon
in 1969.”
    “You are right. And you walk away a very rich lady once again.”
    Charlotte imagined the prizes she’d win as she sped down the highway toward her new life. But her fantasies ended abruptly with the realization that she couldn’t risk being recognized on TV now. To her surprise, she wasn’t really disappointed. Come to think of it, she didn’t even want to watch game shows anymore. Or soaps. Just overhearing the TV from another room drained her and made her feel lonely, like a light left on in the afternoon. There were just some things, she decided, she would never do again.
    She drove as night settled over the lifeless landscape until she eventually found herself at the King of Hearts Motel. It looked like an oasis blinking on the distant right. It struck Charlotte as somewhat odd that in the middle of a red-dirt road, beneath a flat, starless sky, stood this tacky tribute to neon. There was a naked woman curled up inside a martini glass, her legs wrapped around a flashing cherry. And lastly, there was the king of hearts himself, rocking back and forth in a light southern wind. Except for one other car, Charlotte seemed to be the only guest.
    “Got a room?” she asked. A middle-aged man with teeth like a broken fence, and tattoos climbing out of his blue collar,