A Body at Bunco : Myrtle Clover #8

Chapter Three

Unfortunately, she also apparently needed to do laundry. In her mind she'd pictured herself pulling out a long, yellow and white shirt dress with a belted waist. It didn't seem to be hanging in her closet, though. Nor did the navy funeral dress, which was her go-to sometimes as a fallback. Racking her brain, she remembered that there had been an unprecedented two days in a row last week when she'd had to wear a dress for longer than the four hour limit when she considered a dress to be clean enough to go right back on the hanger.

Myrtle groaned and opened up the hamper. Maybe she could throw one of the dresses into the dryer real quick with a dryer sheet and it would be fresh again. She discovered that the yellow and white shirt dress appeared to have a large coffee stain on it. The navy one had a hem torn out. Was there some diabolical gremlin determined to sabotage the Bonkers game tonight?

She finally settled on a pair of black slacks and a red, long-sleeved top made out of some sort of blousy material.

"Myrtle?" Miles called from the front of the house.

"Yes? What is it?" It better not be another catastrophe.

"You don't seem to have enough wineglasses for Bunco," observed Miles politely.

"What? I have eight glasses," said Myrtle. She looked at her rumpled appearance in her bedroom mirror and made a face at herself.

"Bunco requires twelve players."

"What? Twelve people over here?" This was a vital piece of information that Elaine had apparently forgotten to transmit.

Miles's voice continued from the front. "If you don't have twelve wineglasses, I can bring some from home."

"Of course I don't have twelve wineglasses. Who has twelve wineglasses? We'll be stuffed in here like sardines."

"Okay, I'm off to get my crystal then," said Miles.

Myrtle gave herself a final once-over in the mirror, found she wasn't improved, and decided she was out of time to beautify herself or to bake any more refreshments. There wouldn't be enough cookies to go around, but at least she'd made a stab at it. No wonder there was so much alcohol. Although, under the circumstances, Myrtle might end up making a dent in it herself.

There was a light tap at the door and Elaine came in. She was about as rumpled looking as Myrtle was. "Hope things are going better over here than they are at home. Thanks for this again, Myrtle."

"Oh, it's no problem," said Myrtle automatically. Although, of course, it was. "By the way, who is coming over tonight? Do I know them all?"

"Well, between you and me and Puddin and Miles we make up one of the three tables. I've got Georgia Simpson coming in, you know her from book club," said Elaine.

Myrtle winced. "Glad you told me. Hopefully I can stay far away from Georgia. She wears me out. Big voice, big hair, tattoos."

"That's right. She's a regular. I thought that Tippy Chambers was going to have to cancel at the last minute and I'd have to grab Erma from next door to sub. But luckily, Tippy finished whatever it was that was keeping her," said Elaine. She took a large, furry die out of a plastic grocery bag and placed it as a centerpiece on one of the game tables.

"Luckily," said Myrtle darkly. She'd have found a way to cancel Bonkers if her despised next door neighbor was on the invite list.

"So that leaves the others. There's Mimsy, Poppy, Estelle, Florence, and Alma," ticked off Elaine on her fingers. "I think you might know some of these ladies, although I'm not sure if you know Estelle. She lives in that house with the really modern architecture."