One Door From Heaven

brag, but my chocolate-almond cookies are quite wonderful." "Do you have any?" "Six dozen."
        "More than enough, thank you." Geneva brought a plate of the treats to the table. Leilani sampled a cookie. "Phenomenal. And they go with vanilla Cokes just fine. But these aren't almonds. They're pecans."
        "Yes, I know. I don't particularly care for almonds, so when I make chocolate-almond cookies, I use pecans instead."
        "There's something I'm dying to ask, Mrs. D, but I don't want you to think I'm being disrespectful."
        Geneva's eyes widened. "You couldn't be if you tried. You're an absolute, no-doubt-about-it…" Geneva frowned. "What is the term?"
        "Absolute, no-doubt-about-it, fine young mutant."
        "If you say so, dear."
        "I ask this with great affection, Mrs. D, but do you work at being a charming screwball, or does it just come naturally?"
        Delighted, Geneva said, "Am I a charming screwball?"
        "In my estimation, yes."
        "Why, you sweet child, I can't imagine anything better to be! As to your question… let me think. Well, if I am a charming screwball, I'm not sure whether I always was, or maybe only since being shot in the head. Either way, no, I don't work at it. I wouldn't know how."
        Munching, Leilani said, "Dr. Doom is going to haul us to Idaho."
        A quiver of alarm rang the smile off Geneva's face. "Idaho? When?"
        "I don't know. When the mechanic's finished with the motor home. Next week sometime, I guess."
        "Why Idaho? I mean, I'm sure they're nice people in Idaho, with all their potatoes, but that's an awful long way from here."
        "Some guy lives near Nun's Lake, Idaho, claims he was taken aboard an alien spacecraft and healed."
        "Healed of what?"
        "Of the desire to live in Nun's Lake. That's my guess. The guy probably figures a really wild story will get him a book deal, a TV movie, and enough money to move to Malibu."
        "We can't let you go to Idaho."
        "Heck, Mrs. D, I've been to North Dakota."
        "We'll keep you here, hide you in Micky's room."
        "That's kidnapping."
        "Not if you're agreeable to it."
        "Yeah, even if I'm agreeable to it. That's the law."
        "Then the law's silly."
        "The silly-law defense never works in court, Mrs. D. You'll wind up sucking down all the free lethal gas you want, courtesy of the state of California. May I have a second cookie?"
        "Of course, dear. But this Idaho thing is so distressing."
        "Eat, eat," Leilani advised. "Your cookies are so good, they'd make prisoners tap dance in the torture chambers of Torquemada."
        "Then I should bake up a batch and we'll send them some."
        "Torquemada lived during the Spanish Inquisition, Mrs. D, back in the fourteen hundreds."
        "I wasn't baking cookies then. But it's always given me so much pleasure that people enjoy my cooking. And even back when I had the restaurant, the baked goods drew the most compliments." "You had a restaurant?"
        "I was a waitress, then I owned my own restaurant, and in fact it developed into a prosperous little chain. Oh, and I met this lovely man, Zachary Scott. Success, passion… Everything would've been wonderful, except my own daughter began coming on to him." "I didn't know you had a daughter, Mrs. D." Geneva nibbled thoughtfully at her cookie. "Actually, she was Joan Crawford's daughter."
        "Joan Crawford's daughter came on to your boyfriend?" "In fact, the restaurants belonged to Joan Crawford, too. I guess this stuff happened in Mildred Pierce, not in my life at all-but that doesn't change the fact that Zachary Scott was a lovely man."
        "Maybe tomorrow I could come over, and we could bake a bunch of cookies for Torquemada's prisoners, after all."
        Geneva laughed. "And I'll bet George Washington and the boys at Valley Forge would enjoy a batch, too. You're a peach, a pip, and a corker, Leilani. Can't wait to see what you'll be like all grown up."
        "For one thing, I'll have boobs, one way or the other. Not that having them is the be-all and end-all of my existence."
        "I particularly liked my breasts when I was Sophia Loren." "You're pretty funny yourself, Mrs. D, and you're already all grown up. In my experience, not too many grown-up people are funny."
        "Why don't you call me Aunt Gen, like Micky does."
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