Part 546

As Howie talked on the phone, Sarah came out of the bathroom, a robe wrapped around her and her hair still dripping. He looked at her as he said, "Let me talk to her and I’ll get back to you…Don’t do anything with it until you hear from me…No, I appreciate you calling. Give Angie a kiss for me….Jesse too."

"Is Jesse there? Let me talk to her," begged Sarah dancing around Howie.

Howie held her back. "I’ll call you back."

As Howie hung up, Sarah wrapped her arms around him and pouted, "’D’, why didn’t you let me talk to Jesse?"

"Jesse was already in school, Sarah," said Howie coolly as he pulled away from her.

"Okay, you called me ‘Sarah’. That means you’re pissed. What did Tom say to upset you?"

"Nothing." Howie started pulling on his jeans.

Confused, Sarah looked at him. "Then what’s wrong? Have I done something?"

Howie reached for his shirt but Sarah was quicker. "Give me my shirt, Sarah."

"Not until you tell me what’s wrong."

"I said NOTHING. Give me my shirt damnit."

Defiantly, "NO! You’re pissed about something and I heard you say you would talk to ‘her’….am I ‘her’?"

Howie stared at his wife as she stood with his shirt just out of his reach. "Fine. Explain the bill for over a thousand dollars to Showalter’s Amusement Company and Confetti Fun, Inc."

Oops! He knows something’s up for sure now. What the hell am I gonna tell him? She thought fast.

"Well?"

"I bought some things for the Youth Center."

"From two places in Vegas?"

"I wanted to make sure it was what I wanted so I’m gonna get it while we’re in Vegas and since it was such a large quantity, it was gonna take them some time to fill the order."

"Why use our personal account? Is the center having financial trouble that you haven’t told us about?"

"No!" and she threw his shirt at him.

He watched her wrapping the sash of her robe around her finger and biting her bottom lip. He’d already figured it had something to do with what she was planning for the last show and he’d tried everything possible to get it out of her but so far, nothing had worked. His last attempt was the angry route.

"I want the truth, Sarah….NOW!"

Snatching her clothes off the bed, Sarah hissed, "I told you the truth."

She dressed quickly and started out the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To find Becca."

Storming out of the room, Sarah practically ran over the hotel clerk about to knock on the door.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

"I’m looking for Howard Dorough."

"That would be HIM." Sarah pointed over her shoulder to Howie following after her.

"Sarah, come back here."

"NO! I’ll be back when I get back!"

The clerk, her eyes wide, looked from Howie to a very angry Sarah who had stormed down the hall. She had been DYING for a chance to meet Sarah but this obviously wasn’t a good time.

"Can I help you?" asked Howie.

"This fax just came for you. Wasn’t that ‘Sweet D’s Angel’?"

"Humph…more like Sweet D’s pain in the ass." Seeing the clerk’s shock, Howie smiled and looked at the nametag. "I’m sorry, Jaime. Marital disagreement. Yeah, that was my wife."

"WOW!! She’s even prettier in person."

"Have you seen her perform?"

"Not yet…just pictures with you. I can’t WAIT to hear her single. They’ve really been pushing it and her CD on TRL."

"Are you coming to tonight’s show?"

"Yeah, but my seats aren’t all that great. I couldn’t afford the good ones."

"Tell you what. Give me a second to find them but I think I might have two tickets here you can have…front row complete with backstage passes."

"Oh WOW!! Thank you!!"

"No problem." Going into the room, Howie quickly found the tickets and returned to give the tickets to Jamie. "Here you go and thanks for bringing me this fax."

Closing the door behind him, Howie looked over the paper and started laughing. Whatever Sarah was up to , it was going to be good. She was going all out on this one.

There was a knock on the door followed by Kevin and AJ coming in.

"Yo, ‘D’! What’s up?"

"My wife!"

"What’s going on? She looked pissed," said Kevin.

"That’s putting it mildly. I found another piece of the puzzle to what she’s doing. Tom called me a little while ago about two credit card bills and I asked him to see if he could fax me an itemized statement from the stores."

Kevin took the paper that Howie handed him, looked it over, and handed it to AJ. Laughing, "She’s going all out! Did you get anything from her before she stormed off?"

"She gave me this story about buying stuff for the Center and when I demanded the truth, she got pissed and stormed out of here."

AJ handed the fax back to Howie. "How are you gonna smooth things over?"

"She’ll calm down and it’ll be okay. I just want to know what she’s planning."

"We need to come up with something of our own," said Kevin.

The three men sat down and began to plot their own practical jokes to pull on Sarah.

Part 547       Index