Henry and Helen Hackett from Houston sat facing each other bare-ass naked in a booth.
"I thought Whispering Pines didn't open until Monday," Tina Lambert whispered.
"Beginning to think we were going to have to serve ourselves," Helen Hackett squawked.
"Sorry, Helen," Maribeth said. "I was showing the new girls around."
Maribeth slipped an empty pot under the coffee brewer.
"Helen and Henry are special," she said.
The girls looked at the couple. They were on the losing side of middle-aged. Henry was pallid, scrawny and balding and gazed glumly at Helen's pendulous breasts which had lost the battle with gravity and now rested on the tapletop staring defiantly back at him. Helen wore a Clairol-red helmet and horn-rimmed glasses that swept up malignantly at the outer corners.
"They don't look special," Tina said.
"Well, they are. They're loaded. Word is they own a piece of the operation. They spend their summers going from one resort to another -- here, Whispering Seabreezes, Whispering Chaparral in the desert."
"How about Whispering Wildfires out west?" Margie said.
"Forty cases! Forty fucking cases!"
The girls jumped as Laci Roosevelt's voice thundered from the office. Her massive legs were stretched across the desk, visible through the partly opened door.
"I said four cases, dickwad! Not forty fucking cases! Yeah, well, I don't give a shit, asshole!" Laci bellowed.
"Now that's something you don't hear everyday at Mickey Dees," Margie said.
"Look, you brainless, ball-less moron. I ordered four cases and that's all I'm gonna pay for -- yeah, well that's not my problem. I tell you what, jism-jockey, you get your fat honkey ass over here and I'll show you what you can do with four hundred and thirty two bottles of ketchup! Bring a rubber mallet!"
Laci slammed the phone down.
"How about that coffee?" Helen Hackett crackled.
"On it's way!" Maribeth chirped.
"Okay, Tina -- you serve," Maribeth said and placed the couple's drinks on a tray. "Remember, Helen takes her coffee strong and Henry always takes club soda with a lemon twist -- no ice."
"Why do I have to serve them?" Tina pouted.
"They're big tippers."
"Okay."
She took the tray and smiled smugly at Margie.
"Of course, you have to earn the tip," Maribeth said.
"Not a problem! I've waited lots of tables -- piece of cake!" Tina chirped.
"Not cake, sweetie -- not cake." Maribeth said.
They watched Tina's perky bottomcheeks carry the tray to the Hacketts.
"...so if you mutiply that ten cents by a hundred gallons, that adds up to -- oh, here are the drinks. It's about time!" Helen Hackett said.
"Sorry for the delay, folks -- at least the coffee's fresh!" Tina said sweetly.
"We'll see about that. Anyway, Henry, as I was saying, if you hadn't insisted on..."
"Anything else I can get you folks?"
Tina stood smiling with her hands behind her back. Helen Hackett looked at her, scanned the bare body, then her face creviced into a grin that reminded Tina of the Grinch when he decided what to do to the Whos in Who-ville.
"My, you're a pretty girl," Helen Hackett said. "You're new here. What's your name?"
"Tina, ma'am."
"Tina. That's nice. It sounds so -- juvenile. Don't you think she's a pretty girl, Henry?"
Henry Hackett forefeited his gloomy stare-down with his wife's nipples and looked up at Tina. His thin mouth crinkled into something vaguely resembling a smile.
"I think Tina wants her tip, Henry," Helen Hackett said.
Henry Hackett seemed perplexed for a moment, then reached behind himself, grabbing only a handful of withered buttock.
"Henry! Did you forget your wallet again! I swear, the man would forget his little prick if it wasn't screwed on!"
She rummaged in her monstrous straw bag, pulled out a fat wallet, and fished out a crisp one hundred dollar bill. Tina's eyes lit up and she reached for it, but Helen Hackett slid the bill under her saucer.
"Why don't you sit down by Henry and let's talk awhile," she said through the grinch grin.
Tina looked over to Maribeth and Margie. Maribeth raised one eyebrow and nodded. Tina slid in cautiously beside Henry Hackett.
"Woo-hoo!" she yelped.
