Carl Hiaasen Read Free Page A

articulated not in Shreave’s friendly-neighbor telephone voice but in a corrosive snarl, emitted so loudly that both Sacco and Eugenie Fonda sprang up in their cubicles and stared at Shreave over the padded partitions as if he’d wigged out.
    On the other end, Mrs. Santana sounded more wounded than angry. “What an awful thing to say, Mr. Eisenhower,” she said quietly. “Please connect me with Mr. Truman or Miss Lincoln right this minute.”
    Boyd Shreave chuckled acidly and plucked off his headset, thinking: No wonder they’re moving all the call centers to India—the poor saps there don’t know enough English to insult the customers.
    Eugenie passed him a note that said “Are you fucking crazy?”
    “Only for you,” Shreave scribbled back.
    But as he sat there sipping his latte, he reflected upon the exchange with Mrs. Santana and conceded he had been harsh, considering that she hadn’t called him anything worse than a pest.
    Maybe I
am
losing it, Shreave thought. Jesus, I need a vacation.

    Honey Santana stared at the phone in her hand.
    “What’d he say?” Fry asked.
    Honey shook her head. “Never mind.”
    “You know, there’s a do-not-call list. Why don’t you put our number on it? Then we won’t have to deal with these turds anymore.”
    “Could you please not use that word?”
    Honey already paid extra for a service that rejected calls from blocked phone numbers. To get around it, many telemarketing firms used rotating 800 exchanges, which is what Honey found when she pressed the caller ID button. She jotted the number down next to the name Boyd Eisenhower.
    Fry said, “Thanks for the soup. It was good.”
    “Welcome.”
    “What are you doing now?”
    “I’m calling the company to complain.”
    “Like they care,” Fry said. “Mom, please, not tonight.”
    The line was busy. Honey put down the phone and popped a Tic Tac. “I wouldn’t mind speaking to that guy again. He called me a truly awful name.”
    “So, let’s hear it.”
    “You’re only twelve and a half, Fry.”
    “Hey, you let me watch
The Sopranos.
”
    “Once,” Honey said ruefully. “I thought it was about opera, honest to God.”
    “Was it b-i-t-c-h? That’s what he called you, right?”
    Honey said no and dialed again. Still busy.
    “You shouldn’t have brought up his mom,” Fry remarked.
    “Why not?” Honey said. “You think she bled and suffered to bring him into this world, nursed him at her breast, bathed him when he was soiled, held him when he was sick—all so he could grow up and nag people in the middle of their suppers!” Honey shook a finger at her son. “You ever take a lame-ass job like that, I’m writing you out of my will.”
    Fry glanced around the double-wide as if taking inventory. “There goes the trust fund,” he said.
    Honey ignored him and dialed again. Another busy signal.
    “Maybe his mom’s a pest, too. Ever thought of that?” Fry said. “Maybe he was raised by pests and he just can’t help the way he is.”
    Honey slammed the phone on the kitchen table. “For your information, he called me a shriveled-up old skank.”
    “Ha!” Fry said.
    “That’s funny to you?”
    “Sort of.” Fry had never mentioned that his friends considered her the hottest mom in town. He said, “Come on—you’re not old, and definitely not skank material.”
    Honey Santana got up and started banging dishes around the sink. Fry wondered when she was going to wind down—sometimes it took hours.
    “What is it with men?” she said. “First Mr. Piejack wants to jump my bones and now this person I don’t even know tells me to go screw myself. My day starts with dumb animal lust and ends with rabid hostility—and you wonder why I don’t date.”
    Fry said, “Hey, did Aunt Rachel ever get another dog?”
    “Don’t you dare change the subject.” Again, Honey snatched up the phone and started punching the buttons.
    “Mom, you’re wasting your time. You’ll never get through to that