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weekend?”
    She huffs, then starts off again. I follow.  Now it’s as though she’s talking to herself more than me as she mumbles, “Bordering on stalking for crying out loud.”
    “Stalking? I was just--”
    “First Gail, then Mark . . .”
    I recognize Gail’s name as the principal from the school, but . . . Who’s Mark? I wonder. “That the boyfriend?”
    She answers with a short, loud bark of a laugh just as we arrive at her destination. She sets the table down. It’s only now that I’m kicking myself for not taking it from her so she could manage the rest of what she’s carrying.
    That’s rude.
    “Can I…?” I fumble an offer even though it’s too late.
    She answers with a defensive “No.”
    She rings the doorbell with her elbow and things are very suddenly quiet between us, but I refuse to let this get awkward.
    “So, how is the uh . . .?” I wave at her rib cage and Iris lets the card table rest against her hip, freeing up her hand to rub the area, gingerly.
    “Better.”
    I nod, and find myself staring at her fingers then the “V” that her shirt comes to. Then her neck. Her skin is smooth. Like silky smooth. Or at least it looks that way. My hand twitches. It wants to confirm this theory. Iris let’s a noise out, one meant to grab my attention. Then I snap my mouth shut and clear my throat as the door opens.
    “Well, well, well.” The older woman whips her boa around her shoulders. With her carefully applied make up and wavy, red hair, she reminds me of an older Greta Garbo, only spunkier. “Look what Iris brought me.”
    “Oh for the love of God, Cynthia, he’s not for you.”
    Iris makes to pick up the card table again, probably thinking, we’re done here, and that she’s going to be rid of me in a moment’s time. So naturally, I snatch it up quicker than she can, determined to prove I’m not rude nor a stalker, even though, now I kind of am acting like a stalker.
    You’re not a stalker, Carter . You’re simply . . . curious.
    Cynthia closes the door behind me like she’s making sure I won’t leave. I instinctively move a little further into the house like a caged animal.
    “Who’s this strapping young man?” Another woman bellows from the living room.
    She’s not quite as up there in age as Cynthia, or as elegant, but she’s has her own thing going on with the colorful array of clothes she’s wearing. None of which match, by the way. Iris doesn’t bother introducing me. Instead, she makes her way to the kitchen, where she begins unpacking something from one of her bags.
    “Carter Blackwood,” I extend my free hand toward the Greta look-a-like. “I just moved in to the house across from Iris.”
    “Ohhhhh.” The rainbow wearing woman squeals. “The house flipper!”
    I nod. “Tell me where you’d like this and I’ll set her up for ya.” The doorbell rings again as she shakes my hand. Then blushes.
    “I’m Beatrice, that’s Cynthia.” She points to the woman I kind of sort of met at the door, who’s now answering it again so I assume is the owner of the house.  
    I nod again and let the information overload sink in.
    “You can put that right over here,” Beatrice says.
    She shuffles her way to an empty corner of another room and I follow. It seems this is the permanent, designated card table space.  I base this observation on the fact that the foot of each leg to Iris’s card table fit perfectly into the grooves in Cynthia’s carpeting here. Cynthia walks into the room with another, much older woman, who’s struggling with the chairs.
    “Carter, this is Patricia. Patricia, this is Carter.”
    “The house flipper,” Beatrice says.
    I gain a raised eyebrow from Patricia as I take the chairs from her before she hurts herself.
    “Nice to meet you, Patricia. You from Spangler, too?” I smile and set the chairs up around the table as she answers me.
    I’ve missed whatever it is that she’s said because Iris has joined the gang again, with a tray of