by Lotta Smith
“What? Was that your reason for the procrastination?” Brian snorted and turned to me. “Mandy, give me your ring.” I nodded and handed him the one Rick gave me, and Brian handed it to Rick. “There you go, pal. You can give her the one with a rock later.”
Rick took a deep breath. “Mandy, actually I was going to ask you this particular question with a bigger ring, and at a pretty resort or something, at least at a nice restaurant, but everything I told you previously is what I truly feel about you. I love you, and I want to get older with you.” Then he dropped on one knee and offered his hand to me. “Amanda Vivian Meyer, will you marry me?”
My heart stopped for a second. Then I opened my mouth. “Y-y-yes! I will… I will!” I said, accepting his hand and feeling the ring being slipped back onto my ring finger. I was crying again, but that time, I was deliriously happy. “Yes, Jackie. You can be my maid of honor.”
“Congratulations!” Brian applauded. “By the way, I recommend hiring me for your wedding service, okay? I’m a priest, and I have all the qualifications for conducting a wedding ceremony.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Jackie shrieked. “What am I going to wear?”
New Yorkers are notorious for being blasé to others but that time, passersby applauded and congratulated us. But I didn’t get to answer them with a smile or a wave of my hands. By the time what had just happened sank in my mind, I was holding on to Rick and kissing him passionately.
EPILOGUE
“Oh, Jules, you must have been so scared!” Loretta Fender, one of her classmates from school, exclaimed.
“Not really.” Julie shrugged. About two weeks following her kidnapping, her parents decided to throw a celebration party. “I don’t remember much of anything. It was like having a long, dreamless sleep… and the next thing I knew, I was in a familiar place. I looked around and saw the oh-so-stylish furniture and the gold drapes. I recognized the place as a classic room at the Plaza, and I remembered I wanted to have some ice cream.”
“Oh, you’re so very brave! I’m proud of you!” Eva Margory, another classmate, hugged Julie.
“Why, thank you!” Julie cooed, but her heart wasn’t feeling the excitement she should have at the party to celebrate her survival from a dreadful—which wasn’t her exact word, more like her parents’—kidnapping.
“Isn’t it like… extraordinary?” Eva went on.
Julie wasn’t sure what was so extraordinary, but she didn’t bother asking. Eva had this nasty habit of exaggerating everything so Julie went into autopilot mode, nodding and smiling like she was really enjoying the conversation. Instead, she was recalling the series of events at the time of her rescue.
When she found herself alone in the hotel room, Julie was slightly surprised, for she was in an extra-frilly pink dress like a costume a beauty pageant contestant would wear, but then her mind wandered off about her craving for ice cream. When she noticed her parents weren’t around, her heart was torn between calling room service for an ice cream or her mom’s cell. Before she could decide, the door burst open and a bunch of FBI agents barged in.
Brian Powers was among the agents. While Julie stood frozen in the middle of the hotel room, he approached her, asking, “Are you all right?” When she nodded, Brian told her that she had been kidnapped on the way to her granny’s place, but there was no need to worry because now she was being rescued.
Nodding at his explanation, she asked, “Where’s Rick?”
“Oh Rick? He’s interrogating the culprit who kidnapped you,” he said gently. “Jules, you have no idea how worried he’s been about you. He and Mandy worked really hard to locate you, and finally, we’ve found you.”
“Oh… really,” Julie said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
Following the incident, Julie kept wondering why Rick didn’t come for her. She was so preoccupied with that lingering thought that she couldn’t provide an immediate answer to Stan Goldman, her classmate, about the invitation for a Disney World trip.
As she frowned, regurgitating the bitter memory of Rick’s no-show, her mom called to her from behind. “Julie, darling. How’s the party girl doing?”
“Fabulous, Mom. Thank you!” Since the kidnapping, her parents had been super-protective—too protective for her comfort—and Julie didn’t bother turning back, but then she caught the voice she’d been longing to hear so badly.
“Hey, Jules. How are you?”
“I’m feeling wonderful! Thank you so much, Rick… and thank you so very much for finding me.” Julie turned, smiling, feeling the bliss of meeting the love of her life, but then her smile froze.
“Actually, Jules, Mandy here is the person who did most of the work in finding your location. So you’ll want to thank her,” Rick said breezily. His green eyes were gentle, and his face was sporting a dazzling smile, but his arm was entwined with Mandy’s. On top of all that, Mandy had a rock on her finger.
“Hi, Julie.” Mandy smiled. “You look pretty.”
“Hi, Mandy. Thank you so much for helping me.” Julie forced a smile. She wasn’t all that grateful for Mandy, but she wasn’t keen on looking like an ungrateful brat. “By the way, I like your ring.” She reached for Mandy’s left hand.
“Thanks.” Mandy giggled, letting Julie touch the huge diamond. Her face had a happy glow.
“I’m glad you like the ring, Mandy. It didn’t come cheap,” Rick chimed in. Then he bent his tall frame to meet Julie’s eyes. “So, I know you and Mandy have previously met each other, but I’d like to formally introduce my fiancée to you. This is Mandy, the future Mrs. Rowling.” He then straightened up and looked at his fiancée hanging on his arm. “Mandy, this is Jules, my BFF.”
Julie felt like breaking down and crawling on the floor of the banquet room at the Plaza Athénée, but she was too proud for a temper tantrum. Instead, she looked Rick in the eyes. “Are you sure you love her? As in madly?”
“What? Are you interrogating me?” Rick seemed a little taken aback by Julie’s question.
“Darling, it’s rude to talk like that to a gentleman,” her mother interjected, but Rick brushed her off, saying, “It’s okay, Meredith. We’re BFFs after all.” Then he looked back at Julie without the slightest sign of hesitation. “Yes, I love her, as in madly.”
“Oh… really?” Julie turned to Mandy. “What about you, Mandy? Do you really, really love him?”
“Yes.” Mandy blushed. “As in really, really, really.”
“You hear that?” Rick flashed his perfect set of pearly whites at Meredith. “I should have recorded that,” prompting Mandy to lightly smack his arm.
“Oh,” Julie muttered, pouting. Then she said to Mandy, “In that case, you can call me Jules. Considering your relationship with Rick and that you’ve helped me, now I can regard you as my special friend.”
“Why thank you!” Mandy’s face lit up. “I’m so happy!”
“Me, too.” Julie forced a smile while catching her mom rolling her eyes.
“Hey, Jules, how’re you doing?” Stan Goldman spoke to her as if on cue.
“Hi, Stan. I’m fab!” Julie answered. “By the way, about the trip to Disney World, can I join you?”
“Of course.” Stan’s mouth quirked up into a smile. Then he turned to Julie’s mom. “Dr. Grey, may I invite you and Jules to our family vacation home in Orlando in the coming summer? If schedule allows, I invite the other Dr. Grey—I mean, Jules’s dad—as well. What do you think about this plan?”
“That sounds wonderful.” Meredith smiled. “I’ll talk to your mom and dad, okay?”
“Of course.” Stan nodded.
Julie noticed she wasn’t upset anymore, even when she saw Rick kissing Mandy.
Wicked and Haunted
Paranormal in Manhattan Mystery:
Book 6
By Lotta Smith
PROLOGUE
She was alone, roaming the street around 1:00 a.m.
The stores in the neighborhood were closed as it was
a mostly residential area, and she was the only person walking. She was probably in her seventies, but she might have looked older than her actual age. Her legs were wobbling, her gait was unsteady, and her gray eyes were sparkling with desperation, yet she was looking at nothing. It was odd that she was wandering about the posh uptown Manhattan at this grave hour, practically looking like a zombie.
Her attire was what could have been described as terribly inappropriate. She was clad in pajamas and she wasn’t wearing shoes.
Under normal circumstances, she would have looked homeless, drunk, or like a drug addict, but she wasn’t reeking of alcohol. Considering that she had no shoes, her feet appeared relatively clean. Also, her hair looked like she’d just taken a shower a few hours ago, and her skin didn’t show the telltale sign of accumulated dirt.
The oddest part about her was that she was sporting a fancy ring on her finger, despite the unkempt appearance. Mounted in the center of the ring was a large sapphire the color of the deep ocean.
Like a woman on a mission, she kept on walking—or tried to continue walking, at least.
Her shaky gait got shakier until she stumbled into the boulevard and crumbled to the ground.
Her life was about to end as a man in a black BMW sped toward her. Due to the late hour, the neighborhood was dark without much of traffic, so the old woman was invisible to him. The tires screeched and the car slid, apparently losing the control, but the driver managed to stop the BMW just three inches from the old lady who lay on the ground, passed out cold.
Luckily for the old woman, the driver was neither an ax murderer nor an alien looking for his prey. He was decent enough to call 911 for help.
When the police arrived, one of the officers joked, “You must have super night vision like Batman, huh?”
The driver shook his head, looking confused. “Actually, I saw this young girl standing in the middle of the road,” he said. “She wore a white, frilly dress with a balloon-like skirt.” He was frowning like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said himself.
“Like a Downton Abbey costume?” the officer asked.
“Yes, something like that, I guess.” The driver tilted his head to the side. “One moment, there was no one in front of me, but the next moment, she materialized in the middle of the road like smoke. If she wandered into the road, I should have seen her coming from the sidewalk, but she just popped up from out of nowhere. That’s why I desperately tried to stop. She was looking down at the ground, snickering, as if she were enjoying that very moment. That’s when I noticed the old lady.”
“Sir, are you under the influence of anything?” The officer’s tone turned skeptical.
“No, no.” The driver shook his head. “I was working until well past midnight, and alcohol does nothing for my productivity.”
“Did she wink at you or something?”
“Um… actually, our eyes met,” the driver admitted. “And I’ve never seen such a cold stare. Her blue eyes were literally icy.”
“Oh really? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She disappeared like smoke, just like when she appeared.” His whole body visibly shook.
The officer flashed a grin. “Good thing you’ve managed to avoid killing not just one person but two. By the way, you need to take a sobriety test.”
Neither the driver nor the officer witnessed the sapphire of the ring glowing wickedly as the woman was hoisted into the ambulance.
CHAPTER 1
Here’s the thing about Alice. She was a gorgeous blonde, with the flamboyance only seen among Hollywood’s movie crowd, and knew nothing of subtlety.
“Amanda, you should really wear this! Ribbon motif in front is a real big thing this year,” Alice exclaimed between munching on mushroom salad.
“Well, I’m not sure,” I mumbled ambivalently. Then I thought perhaps I was sounding too unenthusiastic, so I added, “Look, the dress you’re talking about is very pretty, but….” I left some room for assumption.
“But what?” Alice asked, stabbing a piece of mushroom with her chopsticks.
Sticking to the vegetarian diet at Nobu… seriously? I thought, looking at her, but I didn’t share as I had no intention of getting on the nerves of the woman sitting at the same table at downtown’s most cherished restaurant. So instead, I said, “Having a huge ribbon in front of my tummy won’t compliment my figure, I’m afraid.”
I was sounding rather desperate. No way was I going to wear a hideous gown with a huge ribbon in front—not that the gown itself was hideous. Indeed, it would have looked pretty, if only someone willowy thin were wearing it. Unfortunately, I was more on the chubby side than a stick figure, and without trying the dress on I knew I’d look like a sumo wrestler ready to show his power and toughness, sporting only a loincloth. Seriously, ribbon motif in front wasn’t a non-skinny girl’s best friend.
In an attempt to calm my nerves, I took a bite of rock shrimp tempura, which was simply heavenly. It was lunchtime on a beautiful Monday in June, and under normal circumstances, I’d have been thrilled about eating in one of the private dining rooms at Nobu, especially since I was being treated. But noooo, there was this catastrophic factor by the name of Alice Wunderlande, a.k.a. Alice from Wonderland.
Alice was a former actress who used to be married to Dan, and she was the woman who gave birth to Rick, but she walked out of her life as a member of the Rowlings when Rick was just three years old.
“All right then, how do you feel about a Beauty and the Beast-inspired ball gown?” Alice said in the same perky tone, batting her devastatingly long lashes.
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head and looked at Rick Rowling, my fiancé, and then at Dan, Rick’s father who was the CEO of a huge security-based conglomerate called USCAB—United States Cover All Bases—who happened to be paying the bill for the lunch.
“Beauty and the Beast? Does that ball gown come in yellow?” Rick frowned, breaking the silence that had lasted for what seemed like forever.
“Oh yes.” I reached for my phone in my purse. “Let me show you the yellow ball gown….”
“No, Amanda, you can’t show your potential wedding gown to the groom-to-be! That’ll bring bad luck.” Alice blocked the phone screen with the palm of her hand.
“Oh, no need to worry about it. I have a hunch that this gown isn’t the one.” I forced a smile. “You know, yellow isn’t really a wedding color, is it?” Not to mention the balloon skirt of the yellow gown was guaranteed to make me look like an egg yolk, or Gudetama the lazy egg, rolling on the floor, mumbling, “I’ll be eaten anyway.”
“Amanda, if you were as picky about what you eat as what you want to wear, I’m sure you’ll look completely svelte and stunning in a ball gown with a balloon skirt,” Alice said, picking up a piece of seaweed with chopsticks.
I opened my mouth and then shut it. I was compelled to roll my eyes and ask the ultra-thin woman in a short, sleeveless, yellow and black leopard-printed dress, sitting right next to me at the table, if she’d just said I was fat—but I didn’t.
First off, Alice was somewhat on the blunt side and she might actually say the big F-word if asked—and I’m not talking about the profane F-word. Perhaps that had something to do with her background in Hollywood. Secondly, I had a hunch that I wasn’t likely to get away with stabbing her with chopsticks in case she made some not-so-nice comments about my body shape.
I took a glance at Rick, who was focusing on his lunch while I, his fiancée, was being insulted by his biological mother. I was expecting him to stand up for me and tell Alice that my body was perfect the way it is, and that it was the body he loved and cherished, but he was busy savoring bluefin tuna nigiri with his signature hard-to-read facial expression. According to Alicia, my younger sister who was happily married with two daughters, all men are worthless pigs when it comes to their mothers, and I realized she was so right.
“Mandy, if you’re thinking about stabbing Rick’s mom with chopsticks, I suggest you take a
deep breath and forget about it,” Jackie whispered into my ear. “Okay, so she’s annoying, but look at her. She’s wearing a dress that looks like a recycled version of Pikotaro’s costume.” She went on, dancing and singing that viral song about a pen, pineapple, and apple, prompting me to snort out laughing.
“What’s so funny, Amanda?” Alice arched an eyebrow. When she did that, she had a serious resemblance to her son, whom she rarely bothered to meet up with in the past two decades. She wasn’t ugly, despite her excessively West Coast attire. She was built like Carmen Dell’Orefice—the world’s oldest supermodel—back when she was in her late fifties. Each of her facial features was sculpted to perfection—though, I was guessing she’d had the help of plastic surgery, of course—but the most striking thing about Alice was her sparkling violet eyes. Rick didn’t inherit her eyes, as his were an intense green that looked almost blue, a spitting image of his dad’s, but I could tell his resemblance to her.
Finally, Rick opened his mouth. “Alice,” he said in a warning tone of voice. He never called her Mom or Mother, mostly because Alice was never there for him when he was a kid, and he still cherished the memory of Clara Rowling, his late stepmother who raised him. According to Rick, Clara was practically a saint who was always there for him as his mom—until she departed to a better place due to complications of multiple sclerosis.
As I choked, watching Jackie’s performance, Rick looked at me, arching one of his perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Mandy, is everything okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. You know, this rock shrimp dish is sooo divine, and I couldn’t help giggling,” I said nonchalantly. After all, I couldn’t just tell Alice that I found Jackie’s dance routine totally hilarious—especially because she was wearing a rainbow sequin dress that was so much flashier than Pikotaro’s regular costume. Did I mention that Jackie happened to be the ghost of a drag queen, and I was the only person in the room who could see and communicate with her?