The aisles were crowded with patrons looking for a seat. It was only the kindness of a young man, who probably saw his grandma in Frances, helped along by her pretending not to be able to stand straight, that won them the booth. He helped her into it, and while Joan and Irene slid gingerly across the other seat, the young man bussed the table for them.
Frances was enjoying feeling pretty darn good for a change. The terrible headaches and dizziness of yesterday had faded pleasantly into the ether, and this morning, she had an appetite. The waiter brought them coffee, copious amounts of creamer, and tooktheir orders. Frances ordered a “Tennessee Platter” that appeared to have every standard fare item in an American breakfast.
“Goodness,” Joan said. “Someone’s hungry.”
“Someone is,” Frances confirmed.
The waiter collected their menus. “What are you ladies up to today?”
“Nothing much,” Frances said, smiling up at him. He was cute. Muscular. He had that vitality of youth practically rolling off him in waves. “Planning a big heist of art or jewelry. We haven’t decided. And we need a fourth to pull it off. What are you doing later?”
Joan kicked her under the table.
The young man laughed. “Playing some hoops with my friends. Have fun on your heist.” He went off with the menus.
“Do you have to do that?” Joan asked. “Are you trying to call attention to us?”
“I don’t think I could if I tried,” Frances said. “There is no risk here, Joan. No one gives us a second look. That young man sees his grandma and nothing more. No one believes we are capable of anything but a bit of gardening and knitting sweaters for the family. We’re practically invisible.”
“Great. Then think of another invisible person we can recruit instead of messing with the waiter.”
Unfortunately, the only name that came to Frances’s mind was Marjorie. Frances would trust Marjorie with almost anything. But even though her old friend was bored and looking for trouble (so she said), Frances didn’t believe for a moment that she could ever be so bored as to become a criminal. Marjorie had her standards, and they were higher than her own.
And there was still the matter of not having a heist to invite anyone to.
When the waiter brought their food, Irene leaned over to examine Frances’s platter of eggs, ham, sausage, toast, biscuits and gravy, and tomatoes. “I’m happy to see you eating somethingthat’s not a cup of yogurt,” she said. “But that’s going to clog your arteries.”
“Are you monitoring me?” Frances asked.
“Not intentionally. But your eating habits have always been hard to ignore.”
Frances figured she better change the subject before Irene began to interrogate her. “Okay, who else have we got?” she asked.
“I’ve got one,” Joan said, holding up a finger. “Mary Scheinman.”
“Mary Scheinman?” Frances repeated, and searched her memory. When she found Mary, she shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Why?” Joan asked, surprised.
“Because she was a two-bit thief. We were at least six bits, if not a dollar. Way above her.”
“She’s in prison, anyway,” Irene said, earning looks from Frances and Irene. “You didn’t know? She shot her husband a few years back.”
Joan and Frances gaped at Irene in shock. “Oh my goodness,” Frances whispered.
“In the head,” Irene added nonchalantly, and pointed her forefinger right between her eyes. “It was pretty gory. I watched the trial on Court TV, and I swear she looked almost pleased with herself for all that gore. How about Karen Hank?”
“Oh my God,” Frances said, rolling her eyes. “I can’t see her being useful at all. She was impossible to shut up. She’d draw all kinds of unwanted attention because of that.”
“Precisely why I thought of her. There could be some benefit to an old woman running her mouth. She could be a literal Karen and draw all the attention away from us.”
“Good point,” Joan said.
But Frances shook her head. “We need someone who can keep their wits about them, and I remember Karen as being too excitable. Not to mention, we need someone who doesn’t have qualms about thievery in general. By the way … if it’s not the original four, I don’t want to give a newbie a twenty-five percentcut. I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them that much if I have to train them in the art of the heist at the same time.”
“Will you please stop saying that out loud?” Joan insisted.
Frances smiled at her as she forked some eggs. “Heist heist heist heist heist.”
