AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think.
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Andrea nudged Carol, pushing her forward a fraction of an inch. Carol rocked on the balls of her feet to compensate for the gentle push.
Andrea was insisting that she be the one to conduct the business for them. After all, she was the Vice President's old lady and, as such, she would be responsible, sometimes, for handling club business. Andrea insisted that, especially with a baby on the way, there would be times when she simply wouldn't be able to handle every single task that Merle asked her to do. It was time, she insisted, that Carol's duties for the MC went beyond the answering of phones for the body shop and the serving of food—two activities which truly kept her pretty removed from the MC itself.
At least, Carol thought, she had Andrea standing right behind her for support and to stop her if she were to really mess anything up.
The man she had to talk to, Sal, seemed like a nice enough man, though. He was older, short, round, and sported a truly terrible comb-over to try to mask the fact that he was mostly bald. He was eating an orange lollipop while he looked over some files in his computer and talked to Carol across the counter of his print shop.
"How many did you say you wanted, Sugar?" He asked.
"Twenty," Carol said, confidently. She'd said it twice before, but Sal had been distracted by the fact that the images wouldn't load at first and, then, by the phone ringing and demanding his attention.
"Now that's twenty of the scales?" He asked.
"Twenty of all of them," Carol said.
"Twenty of the three rockers?" He asked. Sal looked right over Carol this time—even though he'd been somewhat trying to conduct his business with her—and his eyes landed on Andrea. It was clear that Sal had been doing business with Andrea for some time. She was familiar. Carol and Sadie—both of which had come with Andrea to handle this specific task—were not familiar. He removed the sucker from his mouth and held it in his hand, rather than talk around the candy for a moment. "Honey—where the Judges gettin' twenty new members?"
"Do you have cotton in your ears, Sal?" Andrea asked. She nudged Carol again. It was clearly a sign for Carol to repeat herself since Sal seemed to be ready to listen instead of giving into the dozens of other distractions that he was able to find in his shop.
"We want to design a three-patch design like the MC design, but different," Carol said. She held up the piece of paper, again, that she had resting on the bar in front of her. It separated her from Sal. "Sadie sketched this for us so that you'll know where the pieces go. She designed all the pieces and sent them through to Andrea."
"That's what you've got," Andrea said. "Mandy already digitized them. They're ready to go."
Sal studied the image for a moment while he gave a little consideration to the orange sucker.
"So, you want that top rocker to say Judges," Sal said. "Like usual."
"But instead of Liberty on the bottom patch," Carol said. She stopped when Andrea leaned close to her and whispered "rocker" into her ear. "Instead of Liberty on the bottom rocker, we want it to say Old Ladies. Keep the scales."
Sal looked back at his computer where Mandy's digitized files were loaded. He looked them over, clearly satisfied, now that he'd bothered to really take in what they wanted, that he had all the components he needed.
"Twenty?" He asked.
"To start," Carol said.
"We're gonna want them sewn on for us, too," Andrea said. "We've got our vests here. We pinned names inside, so please leave those in. Most people don't care which one they get back, but I'm sort of attached to mine, Sal."
She touched Sadie's shoulder and the woman took the cue to pass Sal the heavy box of leather vests that they'd collected.
"This ain't nowhere near twenty, Sugar," Sal said, this time directing his words to Carol.
"That's five," Carol said. "The others will drop them off."
"Fine," Sal said. "Mandy can sew them patches on. Ain't no problem."
"She does good work," Andrea offered. Sal seemed pleased with that amount of praise, and Carol quickly deduced that Mandy was either a wife or a daughter. She was, clearly, someone that Sal cared about. He wanted to hear her and her abilities praised. Andrea, of course, would know that because she'd evidently done work with them before.
Sal held up the very well-worn vest that belonged to Andrea. He hummed at it.
"Finally gonna stop bein' property, huh?" He mused. Carol didn't feel any negativity in the statement, and Andrea smiled at it and laughed softly. It was clear that she took no offense to the words.
"Gotta be identifiable," Andrea said, "for safety reasons, Sal. But—there's no need we can't make it our own."
"You ain't asked me my opinion," Sal mused, still looking at the old vest in his hands. "But I'ma give it to you anyway."
"I always appreciate your opinion," Andrea said. "Unless you're going to tell me to get a new vest and then I'm going to tell you to go to hell. That vest has been through a lot with me. I'm too attached to let it go."
Sal laughed to himself.
"Was gonna say that it might look good to put you a patch here, on the front. Like I do for the MC's officers. I could put you one right here. President. Wouldn't nobody mix up theirs with yours—not that there's a one in here than looks quite like yours—but you could also call yourself out as Merle's old lady."
"And wife now, Sal."
Sal laughed.
"And wife," Sal said. "Whatta you say? President? Maybe we could even get it to say President's and put Old Lady below it. I could probably get Mandy to digitize somethin' for you. Wouldn't be that big of a deal. Probably take her half an hour to digitize once she whipped it up. Could say President's Old Lady right there on the front."
"Only if you can get one for the rest of the Officer's old ladies," Andrea said.
"And for them that don't hold office?" Sal asked.
"Just something that says Old Lady printed up nice on the front," Andrea said. "Keep things balanced."
"Whatever the lady wants, the lady gets," Sal said. He laughed to himself. "Merle made that shit clear a long damn time ago." Sal returned his orange sucker to his mouth before he went burrowing around in a nearby drawer and came up with a pen. He brought over the yellow legal pad he kept by his computer and started scratching notes for himself on the paper. "Andrea's Merle's old lady," he recited for himself. "But everybody in the whole damn state of Georgia knows that."
Andrea laughed along with Sal, and Carol laughed too. She was relaxing in the company of the man as she got to know him more and slowly settled into the comfort of identifying him as a friendly person who was familiar with the MC and accepting of it.
"OK—so everybody gets an old lady tag," Sal mused. "But who else I oughta put somethin' special for?"
"Nellie's vest is in there," Andrea said. "You can call her, but I don't see her giving a shit about being tagged as the Treasurer's old lady."
Sal thought that was funny, as well, and he laughed heartily at it.
"Might as well put her as Road Captain herself," he mused.
"Old lady will do," Andrea said. "But Sadie, here, you can tag as Sergeant-at-Arms' Old Lady."
Sal smiled to himself and looked at Sadie. Carol could tell that Sadie had been daydreaming and not attempting in the least to follow along with the conversation because, when all eyes turned toward her, she looked a little panicked and a great deal wide-eyed.
"What?" She asked, letting her eyes dart back and forth over all of them.
"We said you're the Sergeant-At-Arms' old lady," Andrea said, getting Sadie's attention. Sadie stared at her, nodded without too much dedication behind the gesture and shrugged her shoulders."
"Yeah," Sadie said. "Why?"
"Tags," Andrea said, dragging her finger across her chest where the tag would likely land if she were wearing a vest. "For identification. A little more—charm. Would you like that?"
Sadie considered it, made a face to say that she was thinking about it, and then shrugged her shoulders again.
"Yeah," she said. "OK. That sounds good to me."
Andrea smiled at her and Sadie mirrored the smile.
"So—is that a confirmation that you're really planning on sticking around?" Andrea asked. Sadie furrowed her brow in question. It was all she offered to ask Andrea to clarify what she'd said. It was all that Andrea needed, though. Carol and Andrea both were beginning to understand that Sadie seemed to speak an entire silent language—beyond that which she spoke with her fingers—if they only paid attention to her varied and complex facial expressions. "People run out on Al," Andrea said. "A lot. That's all I meant."
"You can put on the tag," Sadie said, matter-of-factly and without the need to add any other information.
"And you, Sugar?" Sal asked.
Carol realized he was looking straight at her. He was still working on the sucker, but he'd made it to the point where he was very clearly trying to tear the last bits of the candy free from the paper stick with his teeth.
"I'm…the Vice President's old lady," Carol said.
Sal stared at her and then he smiled. He paused a moment to flick the paper stick away—presumably into a trash can hidden somewhere below the counter that separated the two of them and then he laughed to himself.
"Vice President's old lady?" He mused.
Carol nodded her head.
Sal looked toward Andrea for confirmation—the same as he'd done with everything so far. Andrea nodded her head.
"Someone stepped into the VP's role?" Sal asked, "Or is Lil' Brother still the VP?"
Andrea laughed.
"Stop calling him that, Sal," Andrea warned. "Daryl's still the VP. And this is Carol."
Sal straightened up. He'd accepted Carol when she walked in with Andrea as an old lady. He'd accepted Sadie just as easily. He'd asked no questions and he'd required no explanations. Now, though, he seemed to have an entirely different interest in the exchange that was taking place.
"Carol, huh?" He mused. "Vice President's old lady. Daryl's old lady."
Carol couldn't help but smile to herself. He seemed genuinely pleased by this, but entirely taken aback. He didn't even hide the fact that he leaned, a little, over the dividing counter to fully examine Carol. For once, she wasn't at all bothered by an obvious head-to-toe inspection, though it still made her cheeks run a little warm.
"More than that, Sal," Andrea said. "And you'd've noticed it if you weren't so damn distracted all the time."
Andrea reached and caught Carol's left hand. She held it high enough that Sal could see the ring that glittered on Carol's finger. The man reached for her hand and his large hand swallowed her hand entirely as he pulled her finger closer to him to examine the diamond at his leisure. He smiled at her with no less enthusiasm than before.
"Engaged, huh? Gonna marry Lil' Brother?"
"As soon as I can," Carol offered.
"Within a couple of weeks," Andrea said. "Quiet thing. Private ceremony. Just family out at Hershel's."
"You'll give him my congratulations," Sal said. It was neither a question nor a reply.
"Certainly," Andrea offered.
"Of course," Carol said, smiling at him when he turned his eyes back to her.
"And congratulations to you," Sal said, directing the words at Carol before he turned back to Andrea for a second. "Tell him she's prettier than that other one. You're prettier than that other one."
"Sal…" Andrea offered.
"It's OK," Carol said. "I know about Livvy."
"Then you know there's nothing to know," Andrea said. "She wasn't Daryl's old lady. She wasn't even a self-respecting tart. She wasn't a damn thing except someone who came in wanting to use Daryl—wanting to use the whole MC—to have some kind of story to tell her Country Club cunt friends."
Sal let go of Carol's hand and laughed to himself as he returned to scratching information he needed on the legal pad.
"Didn't mean to stir you up, Honey," Sal offered.
"She's fine," Carol said. "We're all fine." She realized that she meant it, at least for herself.
"I can have these ready in about two weeks," Sal said.
"Too long," Andrea said.
Sal laughed.
"When the hell'd you have in mind, Andrea?" He asked.
"Yesterday would be best," Andrea said, leaning on the bar. Sal laughed, but Andrea stared at him to let him know she was serious.
"Twenty full sets?" Sal asked. "Sewn, too? That's gonna take time."
"What about the three of us and Nellie's?" Andrea asked. "Do the rest when you have time, but how fast can you get them out?"
"If I don't do anything else," Sal said, "and bump a couple other jobs? Two days."
"Tomorrow?" Andrea asked.
"That's pushin' it," Sal said.
"Then push it, Sal," Andrea said. "We need them for safety's sake. And the sooner the better. Everyone else can wait, but they're going to want us working on a few things."
"I saw a buncha patches in town this morning that weren't Judges. This got somethin' to do with all that chrome?"
"Get used to seeing Saviors again," Andrea said. "That's all I'm going to say about that, Sal. And—get us those vests by tomorrow?" She smiled sweetly and shrugged her shoulders. "Call it a favor to the club or whatever. Consider the request coming all the way down from Merle."
"Because you've got his proxy?" Sal asked with a laugh.
"Because I've got everything that matters to him," Andrea said with a wink.
Sal thought her teasing was amusing and he hummed to himself.
"I'll have you three done by tomorrow. Lunchtime," Sal said. "Nellie's out as soon as I can. The rest can get 'em as they get done."
"Sounds good," Carol said, laughing to herself when Andrea nudged her. "How much?"
"We don't discuss prices," Andrea said. "Sal deals directly with Wren. And we wouldn't deprive him of such a joy."
They thanked Sal for his assistance with the patches and then they left the little hole-in-the-wall printing shop where they'd found him. Walking out to Andrea's car, though, Carol felt a bit perkier that she'd felt in days. She was introducing herself around town as Daryl's old lady, and she was getting a positive reception. She was showing off her ring instead of just leaving it up to people to see it by chance. She would soon have a vest that she wouldn't mind wearing in the presence of the Saviors that would soon be somewhat invading Liberty as they settled in and made themselves comfortable. She was helping to conduct some business for the club like she imagined that the Vice President's old lady should—even if she wasn't quite to the place of acting entirely alone.
And it actually felt better than she had ever really thought it might.