“I don’t have all day for some dumb pill. I got things to do. I got no patience for this.”
“If you stop taking pills, I’ll get you a bag of doughnuts and a nice greasy breakfast sandwich.”
“I like the sound of that. And we could get some of them home fries, too.”
“Right. Home fries. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”
“I feel better already,” Lula said.
I drove to Tank’s house first. It was a small yellow-?and-?white Cape Cod. Far from what I would imagine for Tank. It had a tiny front yard and a front porch with a white railing. It was a total little-?old-?lady house.
“You sure this is the right house?” Lula asked. “This don’t look like no Tank house.”
“This is the address you gave me.”
Lula set her bag of cold aids on the floor, got out of the Jeep, and walked to the front door. She rang the bell and looked in the front window. She rang the bell a second time, and Tank opened the door. He was dressed in Range-?man black, ready to go to work. Hard to see his expression from where I sat, but he had to be surprised. Not only was Lula on his doorstep unannounced, she looked like she’d just escaped from the electroshock room of the loony bin.
Lula went into his house, and he closed the door. Minutes later, the door banged open, and Lula stormed out. She had her purse in her hand, and she was wasting no time getting to the Jeep. She ripped the door open and rammed herself into the car.
“I need food,” she said. “A lot of it.”
Hard to tell what that meant. Lula ate when she was pissed off, happy, sad, tired, or bored. Food solved it all for Lula.
“Dunkin’ Donuts okay?” I asked.
“It’s perfect. I love Dunkin’ Donuts.” And then she sneezed and farted. “Excuse me,” she said.
“Well?” I asked her. “Was Tank responsible for that sneeze?”
“He’s got cats! Three of them. Suzy, Miss Kitty, and Applepuff. It’s no wonder I’m dying here. I’m allergic to cats.”
“I thought you said you weren’t allergic to anything.”
“Yeah, except for cats.”
“I didn’t know Tank had cats.”
“He said that’s why he moved. He adopted this family of cats, and he couldn’t keep them at Rangeman. So I told him I was allergic to cats, and he was gonna have to make a choice.”
“And then what happened?”
“He said he couldn’t get rid of the cats on account of they didn’t have any other home. He said I should get allergy shots.”
“And?”
“I’m not getting no allergy shots for a man who chooses a cat over me.”
“What are you going to do? Is the wedding off?”
“I don’t know. I gotta call Miss Gloria. She always said my numbers weren’t so good with Tank’s anyway. And our moons didn’t line up, either. I should have listened to her right from the start.”
I pulled into the Dunkin’ Donuts lot and parked.
“Maybe you should go in and get the stuff,” Lula said. “Tank wasn’t real complimentary about my appearance.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I was scarin’ his cats.”