“Know what?”
“That one of your eyes was higher than the other,” I said. “A thirty-second of a centimeter would be hard to detect. Humans are bilaterally symmetrical.”
“What are you talking about, David?”
“I’m talking about the fact that one side of our bodies approximately mirrors the other side. Not exactly.”
“David?” She tipped the bottle back again. “Whose shide are you on?”
“Yours,” I said. “I’m just asking if after your surgery, you looked in the mirror and said, ‘I have a wonky eye,’ or if the doctor walked in and said, ‘Ooops, Bianca, I put your eye in the wrong place.’”
Which, for a moment, in spite of our circumstances, struck us as almost funny until Bianca, oh so ominously, said, “It was Shara Z.”
Good ole Shara Z.
“It was Shara who caught the horrible mistake, and right away, I should add,” Bianca said. “It was Shara who brought in specialists, and it was Shara who encouraged me to have it corrected.”
“Ah.”
We opened another bottle, because the first one went down so easy. We drank.
“Of coursh, Dr. Von Krügerschitt denied everything,” she said. “We are in litigashion.”
We drank to litigashion.
“And I see now, David, that was a rushe. A ploy. A trick to keep ush apart.”
“Ush, who, Bianca?”
“Ush me and you, David.”
Not entirely out of the realm of possibilities, because Shara knew I was onto her going all the way back to our exchange the day before Thanksgiving. But encouraging or going as far as consorting with medical professionals to create circumstances in which Bianca was that far off the grid probably had more to do with Shara helping herself to Bianca’s money than risking a reconciliation between us. Either way, for sure, Shara was the shyster storm-chasing opportunist I pegged her for from the start.
I took no pleashure in being right.
Trying to change the subject, because there wasn’t a thing we could do about Shara until we escaped the saferoom, I asked, “Where were you between shurgeries?”
“Obvioushly, I went into hiding.” She drank to hiding, patted her red lips with the back of her hand, then passed the bottle back to me.
“Obvioushly,” I sipped. And by sipped, I meant poured half of the bottle straight down my throat.
“Where was Mr. Shanders this whole time?”
“Who?”
“Your hushband.”
“What about him?” She tried to cross her perfectly symmetrical legs the other way and completely missed. I caught her. I propped her up. We opened a third bottle so we could drink to the near miss. Half of that bottle later, she said, “Where wash I?”
“You were hiding.”
“I most certainly was, Davith, and it was unbearable. I couldn’t look in the mirror. In fact,” she said, “I went sho far as to have the mirrors of my temporary residensh removed.”
“Where wash your temporary residensh?” I asked.
“The Eifel Tower Suite at Four Sheasons in Parish,” she said. “I do love Parish.”
“Who doesn’t love Parish?”
We drank to Parish.
“I spenth the next three monshs in Ishaly with Dr. Cesario Giordano, a geniush—” she tipped her chin my way, she tilted her face this way, then that, “—who put Humfthy Dumpthy back together again.”
We passed the bottle in Humpty Dumpty’s honor.
“You know what I gave him forth inshructionshs, Davith?”
“What?”
“You,” she said.
“Me?” Aiming for my chest and missing, I stabbed myself in the neck with my finger. I choked a little. Bianca tried to help me by rearranging my spine with her fist. When I finally came around, we drank to my recovery.
Where were we?
“Me?” That time, my finger hit closer to its mark.
“Youth, Davith. I turned to the years of youth on shocial meshia for him to use as baselineth critheria for my faith.” She tried to touch the tip of a finger to the nose on her faith and just about poked her own eyes out before she gave up. “Thish.” She framed her face with her hands. “My faith.”
We drank to her faith. Her faith with eyes where they were supposed to be.
“And whath didth I find on shoshial meshia before I could finth youth?” she asked. “That womanth.”
Cloneth.
I meant Clone.
I eyed the empty wine bottle. I felt like I was thinking slurred words. I hoped I wasn’t talking slurred words. Like she wash.
“And Davith, she looked worsh than me!”
It was the true. Clone, bottom line, barely looked like Bianca’s second cousin twishe removed. Her represhentation of Bianca was a study in Photoshop. And, I knew through the grapevine, and by grapevine, I meant Instagram, all that Photoshop was after Clone had coshmetic tweaks, and she still barely passed for Bianca. Not only that, I’d heard (I’d devoured every worth in Instagram comments—where the real shory was told) that before Special Events said, “Thash enough,” and stopped booking her for live events, that Clone had dropped the F bomb on live televishion, had, in a single night, slept with three Bellishimio high-rollers from Bakershfield California, and had somehow offended the board of directors at the children’s hoshpital in New Orleans to such an extent, a board on which Bianca sat, a board I’d put in thousands, if not hundreds of hours on, that she’d been removed. Clone losh Bianca’s seat on the hoshpital board!
“Why, Biancath, haventh you fired her? Why?”
“Becaush my name is on the contrash, Davith! I shinged the contrash. I could not, deshpite my besh efforshs, escape the contrash I shinged with Shara! I shinged it. I shinged the contrash!”
“Shinged?” I asked. “As in la-la-la-la-la?” I heard myself shinging.
“No.” Bianca put the bottle of wine down long enough to hold an imaginary pen in the air and sign an imaginary contrash. Then she bent all the way forward and said to the floor, “Oooops! I thropped the pen!”
For whatever reasons—our circumstances? Lack of oxygen? It had been so long since we’d seen each other? Maybe the wine?—it was the funniest thing either of us had ever heard. When we finally stopped laughing, which wasn’t until we found the very bottom of whatever bottle of wine we were on, I looked around, remembered we were locked in the shaferoom, and had been for at least an hour, or shix, and said, “Bianca, leths move this furnishure.”
“Why in the worlth would we do that?”
“Becaush no one’s reshued us yet, and maybe we should shtart looking for another way oush.”
“We will need shmore wine, Davith.” She tipped her head back and yelled, “GARSHON! BRING SHMORE WINE!”
Another bottle later, which in a way, was three or four—I’d lost count—bottles too many for her, and in another way, was—what?—maybe one glash too many for me, because Bianca was drinking way more than I was, taking much larger gulps, probably because it was hard to judge how much she was drinking without a glash—where was I?—furnisher. We were moving the furnisher. By the time we’d finished another bottle of wine, we’d rearranged the furnisher until we were right back where we started except for I wash much clearer-headed and a lot warmer from the physical activity. We didn’t turn up a second satellite phone, a stack of dynamite, a shledgehammer, or another way out I already knew wasn’t there. What I was really doing was waiting for her to shober up a little and looking for a light at the end of the shaferoom tunnel. When we didn’t find a light, or a trap door, her shorbriety, or anything else, we sat side by side on the sleeper shofa again, and at her request, twishing my arm all over the plashe, opened a record-breaking fifth (or shixth) (or sheleventh) bottle of wine before moving onto Plan B, whatever Plan B was, and that was when I came up with Plan B.
“Down,” I said.
“Wash?” she asked.
“Down. It’s our only way outh. We can’t get through the door—” I pointed at the door, “—we can’t go through the ceiling to the rooth—” I pointed again, “—and that leaves down.”
I pointed.
“Wash’s down, Davith?”
“My housh.”
“And how do you shugesh we get to your housh, Davith?”
“The wiring,” I said.
“Wash about it? Are you shuggeshing we lelectrocuthe ourshelves?”
“I’m shuggeshing we find a way to get to the wiring. If we can find it, maybe we can pull it out and crawl through the shpashe where it wash.”
Bianca, sho out of her natural environment, sho out of her element, and sho, sho, sho drunk, also had sho much dirt, grime, and greashe all over her shnow-white Ishabel Maranth shleevelesh jumpshuit from our furnisher rearranging project, plus dush bunnies in her blonde hair, and her nose was sho red and shiny, like Rudolsh, I almost didn’t recognishe her. “When you find the wiring, Davith, could you pleash adjush the air?” She shwept manicured fingertips across her gloshy brow. “I am moish with humidity.”
“You are shweating.”
And it’s Davish.
She took a hard seat on the shaferoom floor. She dropped her head between her knees. Unable to deny that she was, indeed, perspiring, of all fings, she said, “Well, lesh get it over wish.”
“Get what over wish?”
“Our lelethrocution.”
Lelecthrocution.
Oush.
Wouldn’t shwimming be an eashier way to get to my houshe?
“Bianca,” I said, “you’re not going to like thish.”
She patted her moist cheeks, which wash to say she added another layer of shticky dirt to her faith, “Try me.”
“I have a bether idea.”
“You alwaysh have good ideas, Davith.”
“The shaferoom doesn’t have shelf-contained plumbing either.”
“So?”
“The plumbing and the wiring are the only fings that connect to anyfing elshe.” I tried to count the empty wine bottles, because for sure, I think I shlurred a word or thoo in there. “And the plumbing ishn’t in the wall. It’s shtraight down.”
“So you’re shuggesthin we shtand over the powder room shink and shout in hopesh shomeone will hear ush?”
“I’m shuggesting we shtand over the powder room shink and shooth becaushe I know shomeone will hear ush.”
“Shooth what, Davith?”
“My housh.”
“You wanth to ashault your own family?”
“They’re not there.”
“Lesh think abouth thish, Davith.”
I thought about it as hard as my wine-addled brain would allow. The more I thought about it, the more my wine-addled brain convinced me it was a great idea. I would shooth down a pithe. I meant pipe. The minimum damage—I meant the maximum damage—would be to the plumbing shomewhere inside a wall of the guesh wing. Let’s say the bullet escaped the wall and I shoth a guesh wing shink below the shaferoom shink. Sho? Shinks were easy to replashe. And the guesh wing, having not been pigeoned, was empty of carpenters, painters, and cleaners, so they’d be shafe. But they’d hear it. And reshue us!
Precarious sobriety and Bianca followed me three steps to the powsher room, where I took a mental roll call one lash time before I started shooting. My daughters and Baby Oliver were at Shuly’s, nowhere near my housh, my husband was in his office cleaning up the horrific mesh I’d made of things, my mother was busy not baking at Danish in the Bellishimo lobby, the resh of my posshee was in a Magnolia Shuite on the twenty-eighth floor, including the cat—I remembered the shneezing cat—and none of the crew working in my housh was anywhere near the unpigeoned guesh wing. My wine-soaked brain was positive the guesh wing wash empty.
Except it washn’t.
“Geth in the shower, Biancath.”
“Do I shmell?”
I shniffed. “Citrushy,” I said, “with hints of oaky bannila. But that doeshn’t matter. Get in the shower for shafety.”
“I’ve never taken a shafety shower.”
She stepped into the shafety shower while I tried to shtick my eyeball down the shink.
“Davith?” She patted the concrete walls of the shower. “However do I thurn on the wather for my shafety shower?”
I pulled my head out of the shink to see her Ishabel maranth jumpshuit at her feet. “Don’t thake a shafety shower. Jush shtand there for shafety.”
“Before or afther my shower? And where’s the shoap?”
“We don’t have shoap, Biancath.”
“Then however do you eshpect me to take a shafety shower?”
“Nevermind,” I said. “Get dreshed. And cover your earsh.”
“Do you want me to get dreshed or cover my earsh? Could you be more pashific?”
I didn’t really understand her queshion, so I said, “Bosh. Do bosh.”
“Bosh what? What bosh?”
Oh, forgesh it. I took a deep breath, shtuck the barrel of my Glock as far down the shink drain as it would go, stretched my arm to the pointh of pain, turned my head, and let her rip. The last thing we hearth, before we enjoyed a good five minutes of temporary noise-induced hearing losh, was what sounded like an exploshion below.
Had I just blown up my own housh?
Or, worse, had I shomehow launched myself and Bianca into a wine-fueled time continuum shtraight to hell? And managed to drag Beesh Crawfish, who shouldn’t have even been there, and was shwell on her way to hell without my help, with ush? Because as my audio function and very tentative shobriety returned, which blowing up your own housh then landing in hell will do to you, all I could hear was Beesh Crawfish.
“What the fudge?”
I washn’t wrong. A voice was rising through the drain of the small shink, and it was Bea Crawfish’s.
“What the fudgity, fudge, fudge, fudge?”
I tiptoed, Bianca tiptoeing with me, to the shaferoom shink.
“HOLY FUDGE!”
We peered into the darknesh of the drain. I shmelled gunfire. Then I caught the shtrap of a La Perla balconette bra out of the corner of my eye. “Biancath, where are your cloves?”
She blinthed at me as if she couldnth hear me. Then I heard someshing. I lobbed an arm out to hold her back, like my mother ushed to do at Pine Apple’s only shtop sign to keep me from flying out of the car, and the thing wash, she was only driving one mile an hour, and there washn’t any way I’d fly out of the car in the firsh plashe, becaushe she had me shtrapped in like she wash transhporting a deranged menthal paishent already, when I heard wather. I whishpered. “Do you hear wather?”
“WHAT, DAVITH?” she screamed. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”
“HOITY-TOITY?” It was Bea from the shink drain. “IS THAT YOU?”
I stuck my face in the shink. “HELLO? BEA? ISH ME! DAVISH! WE NEED HELPS!”
I could barely hear Bea Crawfish, who thank goodness, was there, when she yelled back, “DAVIS, ARE YOU HAMMERED? YOU SOUND DRUNK AS A SKUNK. IF YOU’RE NOT, YOU BETTER GET THAT WAY BECAUSE YOU JUST BLEW UP A BATHTUB. I THINK YOU HIT A WATERMAIN. THERE’S WATER EVERYWHERE. I’M STANDING IN WATER UP TO WHERE MY ANKLES IS SUPPOSED TO BE. EVERY BIT OF THESE BEDROOMS ARE DROWNED AND THERE’S WATER RUNNING OUT YOUR FRONT DOOR. NOW WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? TEACH MY TOMATOES HOW TO SWIM?”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
It was a man. A man I was married to.
“What the hell?”
It was another man. A man I worked with.
All-but-naked Bianca and I tried to spin around at the same time in the tiny powder room, smacked into each other, went down, wound up in a heap, and there was a chance it wasn’t as funny as we thought it was. Beca
use my husband, and Baylor beside him, weren’t laughing.
NINETEEN
The next thing I knew it was morning.
Thursday morning.
I had no idea what happened to Wednesday. Wednesday was lost to me. A whole day of my life, gone.
I woke up alone in a Penthouse guest room. I was wearing a white oxford shirt of my husband’s. My wedding and Bex and Quinn rings were still on my fingers, so I assumed I was still married. I reached for the house phone, called the nursery, and located my children. The Sanders’ nanny said they’d just finished breakfast and were watching Frozen.
I fell back on the pillows.
I would learn, during the course of three ginormous cups of coffee, two Aleve, and one clipped, cool, curt note from my husband asking me to stay put until we could talk that evening, that my home would be uninhabitable until at least Saturday, and then, only barely. I learned Birdy James had been relieved of her Bellissimo duties, and that her nephew, who’d helped her pack her Zest for Life apartment, delivered her and Mortimer, who’d finally stopped sneezing, to her sister’s in Bossier City, Louisiana. I learned that my mother was still at Danish not baking desserts for the entire resort, and had added strawberries in a cloud, chocolate mint bars, and seasonal berry pudding to her repertoire, and that Bea Crawford, who certainly shouldn’t have been a guest in the Sanders residence, but was, had relocated the tomato buckets to the Penthouse roof, where the combination of the intense sun, heat, and the Black Kow, apparently a miracle drug for tomatoes, had resulted in every plant bearing fruit that went from green to light pink to red, quadrupling in size, all on Wednesday, the day I totally lost. I would learn that after my husband called, Child Services unceremoniously closed Play, our employee childcare center, and in the same sweep, took Baby Oliver into protective custody for six hours, which was how long it took for July’s petition for temporary custody to be granted by Harrison County Youth Court. And I would learn that while Bianca and I were busy emptying the saferoom of wine and everyone in any position of authority at the Bellissimo had their heads turned looking for us, Sara Z. Stone, logging onto the Bellissimo system with Casino Credit cashier Megan Shaw’s credentials and probably with the help of her banker brother, Nathan Z., doubled the stakes, most likely to compensate for all her troubles, to ten million dollars. A ten-million-dollar pension transfer wire from Branch Banking & Trust in Pickford, Michigan, meant for a mutual account at PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., in Sanibel, Florida, landed, by way of transposed digits in the routing number, at the Bellissimo. It was immediately cashed. Which put the Bellissimo in hot water with Gaming, because, according to state gaming laws, ten million in cash out the door put us in violation of state gaming laws, because it left us with too little cash left on hand to pay out jackpots should everyone win everything at once. To temporarily solve the problem, Gaming pulled the plug on the Double Trouble slot tournament to great Elvii dismay, which eventually brought in the riot squad from Biloxi PD—fifty-two arrests, including most of Mississippi Governor Vernon R. Wilson’s reelection campaign committee—and the anarchy didn’t die down until the game was turned back on when emergency cash was delivered by armored cars from sixteen different Biloxi and surrounding area banks.
Double Trouble Page 19