Wes couldn’t help but grin at how serious she looked aboutbingo.
“You ever played bingo before?” sheasked.
“Of course I’ve played bingo. I just didn’t realize I’d be playing with such an intensegroup.”
“We take bingo very seriously,” Frances insisted as she finished her sheet. Wes got to work immediately, coloring in according to the patterns in theprogram.
“Here she comes, here she comes,” Tony said. As Wes turned, he saw a woman with thick gray hair in an updo, her purse clutched close to her chest as she approached, glancing around the room with a spacey expression across herface.
“Who is she?” Wesasked.
“Whisper, whisper, guys,” Art said with a stern yet playfulexpression.
“She’s the attention-seeker,” Frances said, answering Wes’squestion.
“I saidwhisper,” Art iterated. “Doesn’t anyone have an indoorvoice?”
“She knows what she is,” Frances said, throwing a suspicious glance the woman’s way. “Attention-SeekingTammy.”
Gabe leaned closer to Wes and whispered, “The host has to watch her because she’ll pretend she has a bingo and then you’ll find out she doesn’t, but she’ll swear she thought she heard her numbers. Makes this big dramatic show of it everytime.”
“Maybe she hears them wrong,” Wes said, trying to give the stranger the benefit of thedoubt.
“Hears them wrong?” Tony shook his head. “She sits right next to the screen. She can see every damn one as they’re called. She just likes to make a scene out of it. She’s an ex-debutante. And there aren’t a lot of times where she can get the attention, so she takes it where she can get it, if you know what Imean.”
“Was that innuendo?” Wesasked.
“What?” Tony’s expression twisted up. “No. I just meant she takes attention where she getsit.”
“Oh, when you said ‘if you know what I mean,’ Iassumed…”
“I like him,” Gabe said, grinning at hismisunderstanding.
Tony looked between Gabe and Wes before shaking his head. “As if I needed any more guys in this crew to gang up onme.”
“Now that’s innuendo,” Gabesaid.
Frances threw her head back and clapped her hands as she fell into a fit of laughter. “Gabe, you’re twisted!” As she recovered, she said, “No, if you really want to hear about residents who like being ganged upon—”
“Frances!” Art exclaimed,blushing.
“What?” Frances asked, her expression conveying her seeminginnocence.
“I don’t know that the best way to meet the new resident is to say, ‘Hi, would you like to know about the resident…orgies?’” Art whisperedorgiesas though it were somethingobscene.
“Art!” Gabe called out, sounding as shocked as Art had when Frances had been so indiscreet. “I believe the term she was reaching for wasgangbang.”
The group erupted into laughter onceagain.
“Now, as you can imagine, I had my experience with those back in the day,” Gabe said, a sort of dreamy look in his eyes, and all gazes shifted to him. “What? I was in the service. We had to do something with our time. You just never wanted to be the one to draw the short straw,if you know what I mean. That’s how you use that,Tony.”
Wes laughed, but Tony told him, “Don’t encourage him. He’sjoking.”
“Wasn’t a joke when I drew that shortstraw.”
Gabe got everyone cracking up again, but as Wes inspected Gabe’s expression, he could tell he was just pulling theirlegs.
“So now you know I gravitated to a real savory bunch,” Art said, a whimsical smile on his face, showing his true pleasure with hispeople.
