The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

know we suck, but it doesn’t have to matter. You respect the game and the talent, but most importantly you respect the players.”
    “Well shit, you should go give advice on Dr. Phil’s show.”
    “And you should go back to school, Sprout. You still have a great deal to learn.”
    Marty looked ready for a retort, but I stopped as we caught sight of the house. A giant Oldsmobile had docked in the driveway, parked at such an angle that it blocked all other parking spaces and the garage.
    “Mom, who’s that?” Josh had his father’s intuition, and so much strange stuff had been going on lately that any foreign car produced a heightened level of interest.
    I saw the tufts of gray hair caressing a liver-spotted bald patch and had a pretty good idea who had staked out my front door.
    “I think that’s my new cleaning partner.” My voice sounded faint, so I cleared my throat. “Maybe you guys should go in around back while I greet him.” I didn’t want to overwhelm the old guy and see him suffer a coronary on my front porch. “Mr. Coop?” I called out as sweetly as possible, at the same time raising my voice to be heard over the sound of his fists pounding the door.
    “Dag-nabbit, Missy, don’t you sneak up on me like that!” The man put a fist over his plaid-covered chest. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s dangerous to scare the elderly? I could’ve keeled over right into your flower beds!”
    “I’m sorry that I startled you, sir—”
    “Now I won’t be having none of that sir stuff. Stick with plain old Coop, and we’ll get along right nice like.”
    I smiled and took his proffered hand. “Coop, then. I’m sorry, there must have been a miscommunication, because I won’t be ready to leave for a couple more hours.”
    And I was going to spend every minute of that time figuring how to ditch Coop. Cataracts clouded his eyes, which explained the parking job, and while he wasn’t frail, he definitely looked like he’d be hard pressed to lift a mop and bucket. I guessed his age to be somewhere between seventy-five and ninety.
    “I know I’m a might early, but my daughter is staying with me this weekend, and she’s driving me bananas! She’s a well-intentioned girl, but none too bright, and that sonuvabitch she’s married to annoys the hell outta me.”
    I could empathize with the annoying relatives so I asked him to come in. “Would you like something to eat, Coop? We were just about to sit down to lunch.”
    “What are you having?”
    “Turkey soup with wild rice.” I headed into the kitchen and lifted the lid off of the crock pot.
    Coop inspected the contents cagily. “You took all them bones out, right? Someone could choke to death on one of them poultry bones.”
    I nodded to keep from wincing at his horrific grammar. I have a few slips and habits of my own, but Coop was a true connoisseur of American English.
    “Well, all right. Would you mind if I used the john?”
    I pointed him to the bathroom and set about serving the soup along with a plate of cheese and crackers.
    Marty, Kenny, and Josh had changed and now sat at the table with raised eyebrows.
    “He’s my new cleaning assistant.” I put the soup down and made vague circles with my hands.
    “Huh.” Marty placed some cheese on a cracker and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.
    “Does Dad know about him?” Josh managed to stir his soup and enhance my guilt at the same time. I knew Neil wouldn’t be happy about me taking Coop to my cleaning jobs, but all I really needed was a second body. The term lookout applied very thinly to Coop and his cataracts.
    “No, I didn’t have the chance to tell him. Coop is a new addition.”
    “Looks like more of an antique to me.” My brother slurped his soup, and I shuddered.
    “Stop that; you have a few manners, use them. And Coop is a guest, so be polite.”
    Coop shuffled into the dining room and sat at the head of the table. I set his soup down and moved to get my own bowl. “Don’t you have any crackers?”
    I sat down “Here.” I offered him the plate of cheese and Ritz. He moved his face a few centimeters from the plate and sat up abruptly.
    “I need saltines; don’t ‘cha got any saltines?”
    I put the plate down and gave him a wan smile. “Let me check.” I dug through the pantry until I found a box of saltines and returned to the table. “Here you go, Coop.”
    He took the box from me and squinted at it. “Are these the unsalted kind?”
    I hesitated,