by Susan Kandel
I nodded. “I had a daughter, Annie. She’s a little older than you are now.”
“Where does she live?”
“In L.A.”
“Do you see her much?”
“I do.”
“Did you name her after a fictional character?”
I laughed. “No, though I will admit to being obsessed with Annie Oakley. But I never mentioned it to her father. He would’ve been horrified. He wanted to name her after one of the Brontë sisters.”
“Emily was an anorexic.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Charlotte was a masochist.”
“Good thing we stuck with Annie.”
“There was an Anne Brontë.”
“Bet nobody called her Annie.”
“Probably not.” She smiled and I saw her tongue piercing glisten. She stuffed her cigarettes into a tiny fringed purse.
“I’ve got to go help my mother. She’ll go ballistic if everything’s not perfect. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I went back inside, too, to rescue Lael and find Bridget. Clarissa was furiously scooping up conference programs from the chairs she’d laid them on earlier. She beckoned me over with a long red fingernail. I thought of her daughter’s green ones, bitten to the quick.
“Cece, I have news I forgot to mention. We’re switching things around a bit. The scavenger hunt will now begin at eleven, and we’re going to start your speech a little later than planned because we have a surprise guest coming.”
Oh, great. I’d been preempted. “Who is it?”
“Edgar Edwards, the collector from L.A.”
“Edgar Edwards?”
“I talked to him this morning. I wouldn’t have let him horn in on our event, but he says he’s got something to show us that’ll knock our socks off. Sounds pretty thrilling. Anyway, I’m thrilled,” she said, tucking the now-defunct programs under her arm. “I’ll have to redo these tonight, of course.”
I knew the man couldn’t have vanished into thin air. So much for Mitchell Honey’s hysterics. But what was Edgar’s big surprise?
Oh, no.
The painting of naked Nancy Drew. What else could it be? And it was all my fault. I shouldn’t have looked so interested. Man, oh, man. That painting was not going to fly with this group—except maybe for Big Bad Sebastien, who’d be licking his chops. Poor Clarissa. Between the lesbians and the painting she was going to commit hara-kiri right here in the Oak Salon. Not to mention the fact that Edgar’s bombshell was guaranteed to scoop my keynote address.
Which reminded me of something. I’d forgotten to ask Nancy what she was doing with a slide of Edgar’s painting. Actually, I think I forgot on purpose because I didn’t want to have to mention the fact that I only knew about the slide because I’d broken into her car and pawed through her things. But there was no way around it now.
I scanned the room, rehearsing my mea culpas. I didn’t mean to sneak into your car. I did mean to sneak into your car, but I only did it out of concern for you, a person I’d never met. I did mean to sneak into your car, but I did it out of concern for your mother, another person I’d never met. I snuck into your car because I’m a sucker. Because I suffer from Catholic guilt. Because I’ve got a savior complex. Because I’m easily bored.
I was making myself dizzy and it looked like Nancy had already left anyway. I poured myself some cranberry juice and downed it in a single gulp. It was just as well. Soon enough everything was going to come out in the wash. Maybe even the juice I’d just dribbled onto my Aerosmith T-shirt.
THE MOON WAS OUT, though the sun hadn’t set. We drove straight toward snowcapped Mount San Jacinto, a jagged wall of gray stone that seemed to have crashed down on the center of town, like a gargantuan space rock.
At least we knew where we were going. The valet at the hotel, Norman, had sketched us a map on a cocktail napkin. It was pretty simple. To the west was the neighborhood of Las Palmas with its Spanish-style houses, the epitome of old money luxe. To the north was the Movie Colony, named for the influx of Hollywood stars in the 1920s and 1930s who’d come to get away from it all. (So said Norman, who’d also informed us that when he was five years old, he’d seen all four Gabor sisters slurping down oysters at a well-known French restaurant in town.) Farther north was Little Tuscany, where famous, once-isolated modernist houses were being crowded out by newer subdivisions. Edgar Edwards’s desert hideaway was somewhere in there.
The shadows shifted. The date palms swayed. The breeze caressed my cheeks. This was paradise. Apparently, I was not alone in this opinion. I turned up a steep hill thronged with houses. Many of the newer places had a watered-down, generically Mediterranean feel indistinguishable from that of your average So-Cal up-scale chain restaurant. Elsewhere, kitsch abounded. There were several statues of impudent cupids peeing in plaster fountains. A lone cactus stood guard over a house with a golf ball–shaped mailbox. We passed another place with a butterfly roof so exaggerated it looked ready for liftoff. Another had a mirrored front door and a Rolls-Royce golf cart parked out front.
Edgar Edwards’s glass and steel house was impossible to miss. Perched on a jagged outcropping, it was pure drama—just the way the man liked things. Why else would he keep a loon like Mitchell Honey around? I drove to the end of the long pebbled drive, then cut the engine. It was dark now, and I should have been exhausted, but I’ve always been something of a contrarian.
Lael got out of the car and stretched like a cat after a marathon nap. “I feel amazing!”
“Me, too,” I said, taking a deep breath. “There must be something in the air.”
“My armpits,” said Bridget. “So who’s going to help me with all this shit?”
We hauled everything out of the car. I put up the top and locked the doors. For a moment I was surprised to see lights on inside. Then I remembered our host was in town. Given the change in circumstances, I had no idea what to expect. After all, I barely knew him. Probably more drama. Would he slam the door in our faces? If he’d decided upon an impromptu tryst with skinny Jake, that was a good possibility. Still, the place looked huge, and I was broke—both mitigating factors.
We’d stay out of their way. We weren’t going to be home all that much anyway. And in the evenings, we could all hang out around the pool doing cannonballs while Lael made s’mores and Bridget mooned over her boyfriend. It’d be just like summer camp.
Bridget started to drag the first of her steamer trunks up the narrow flagstone path, which was flanked by huge boulders, the kind you couldn’t haul up a hill just for atmosphere. “I like this place. It’s unyielding, but tranquil.”
Lael looked dubious.
“Talk about unyielding, what did you put in this thing?” I asked, kicking the other trunk up the walk. “A body?”
“What do they say about people who live in glass houses?” Lael asked.
“They should shower in their swimsuits,” I replied.
“You’re such a prude,” said Bridget, smiling.
“At least my boyfriend’s of age.”
“Oh, are we going there again, honey?”
“Cut it out, you two,” said Lael.
I rang the bell.
“Didn’t he give you a key?” she asked.
I pulled it out of my purse. “But I think he’s in there. I don’t want to walk in unannounced.”
I rang again, but there was no answer.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” said Bridget.
“Good idea.” I opened the door, hoping we weren’t intruding on anything.
“Holy smoking Josephine!” Bridget exclaimed.
She did have a way of putting things. The place was right out of the pages of Architectural Digest: textbook midcentury modern, with a Barcelona lounger and Eames chairs and birch built-ins and sleek aluminum shutters and thick walls of glass. So unlike Edgar’s sepulchral mansion on Carroll Avenue. But I had the same feeling of not being able to breathe.
>
“Hello,” I called out. “Is anybody here?”
“Nobody here but us freeloaders,” said Bridget.
“Then why are the lights on?”
“We are not freeloaders,” Lael said briskly. “We are going to leave a carrot cake as thanks. And some perfumed soaps.” She frowned at Bridget disapprovingly, then went to nose around. Bridget and I plopped down on a long, low black leather sofa, which offered little in the way of comfort.
“Hmm,” said Bridget.
“Beverages might help matters,” I said.
“I can fix that.” She grabbed a bag and headed into the kitchen. We’d picked up provisions at the liquor store at the bottom of the hill.
“You should see these towels,” called Lael from the bathroom. “They’re folded like origami flowers.”
I heard the sound of glass breaking in the kitchen. “Sorry,” called Bridget. “It’s slippery in here. I like my floors to have a little grit on ’em.”
It was kind of eerie how pristine the house was. I got up to look around, thinking about the white gloves Edgar had asked me to put on before touching his books. The man obviously had a hygiene fetish. A lily pond ran the length of the breezeway leading from the living room to the bedrooms. The water was smooth and glassy. I couldn’t resist sticking my finger in it, and immediately felt like a criminal. Crimes against hygiene. Guilty as charged.
The door to the master bedroom was open. The bed looked like it had been carved out of rock. Everything else was glass and mirrors. There wasn’t a fingerprint, a smudge, or a speck of dust anywhere. Not an item out of place—not a book, a newspaper, an ashtray, sunglasses, keys, nothing. I looked inside the closet. Empty. Hmm. Maybe Edgar was still on the road.
I slid open the glass doors. The elliptical pool was pushed right up to the edge of the house. Again with the drama. I hoped Edgar didn’t walk in his sleep.
Outside, the full moon looked like a glowing beach ball. I heard the popping of a cork. Bridget and Lael appeared, holding crystal glasses and champagne. There was no place to sit so we propped the bottle against a bush and stretched out on the grass, which was clipped low, like carpeting. We lay there for hours, talking, until Bridget and Lael staggered off to bed. I hugged them good night, then grabbed a blanket from the hall closet and went back outside with the romantic idea of finding the Big Dipper. I’d never been much of a stargazer. I was always too busy. But that night I felt like I had all the time in the world.
The next thing I remembered was the sun coming up and the sprinklers going on.
I decided to skip my shower.
9
We spent the morning at a number of thrift stores, trying on various abominations (including a purple python–print caftan and an orange-and-white polka-dot jumpsuit with rhinestone trim) and convincing ourselves they would make fabulous conversation pieces, until we came to our senses and remembered that no one actually wants to look like a conversation piece. Bridget declared the whole morning a bust, though we did earn the undying friendship of one fellow shopper, a biker sporting Doc Martens and a handlebar mustache, who was set on a well-priced peach mother-of-the-bride dress until we convinced him it was just too short in the torso. We found him a lovely striped shift instead.
It was about eleven-thirty when I headed over to the hotel. I wasn’t on for another couple of hours, but Edgar—wherever he might be—was scheduled for noon and I didn’t want to miss a minute. The girls had finally decided on seaweed body wraps and video poker (Bridget’s idea) at the Spa Hotel and Casino down the street. They’d promised to be back at the Oak Salon by two.
Norman was out front parking cars. “Let’s hear it for Satur Daze! Today’s event needs a warning tag—not for the faint of heart!”
I looked at him. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“They told me to say that,” he said, embarrassed. “Don’t forget your validation.”
The crowd in the lobby had reached epic proportions. It looked like the set of an all-girl Cecil B. DeMille movie. Somebody stepped on my little toe, an errant margarita almost ended up in my handbag, and I got stuck for a while between two shrieking women in Mardi Gras beads who hadn’t seen each other since 1973, but I finally made it across the room. It was too early for the hard stuff, so I decided on a cup of coffee. I needed to stall anyway. The last thing I wanted to do was interrupt the scavenger hunt in progress.
The Bugle Bar was tucked into a dark alcove. The music was silky R&B, but the decor was colonial raj, lots of rattan.
The bartender was polishing glasses.
“Excuse me?” No answer. “Excuse me, barkeep?”
“‘Barkeep!’” echoed a woman sipping something blue. She was wearing a Stars-and-Stripes visor. “I love that!” She turned to the woman sitting next to her. “Did you hear what she said? ‘Barkeep’! That is so cute.”
“You’re so cute,” the second woman murmured.
I caught a glimpse of her. “Victoria? Is that you?”
“Cece Caruso!” she said, leaning over her friend to grab my hand. “How delightful to find you here!”
“How delightful to find you here! And without your twin sister.”
“How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“I’m wonderful.” She paused for a second. “And you are here for…?”
“The convention, of course.”
“Which convention?”
“The Nancy Drew fan convention.”
“I am so relieved to hear you say that,” she said. “I mean, you and my cousin Peter and everything.”
“Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
“Oh, no,” she said, wrinkling her freckled nose. “I’m on holiday.”
“Oh.” I did a little drumroll on the bar. “That’s great.”
“What’s great?”
“That you’re out—I mean out and about, not out out, because that’s none of my business, of course.” I felt my cheeks getting hot.
“But I am out. And it’s totally fine.”
“I’m just happy to see you so happy.”
She smiled. “Thanks. This is my partner, Celeste, by the way.”
“Pleased to meet you, Celeste.”
“You, too. ‘Barkeep,’ I love that,” she said, chuckling. “What are you having, Cece?”
“Just coffee.”
This time the bartender heard me. A steaming mug materialized as if by magic.
“So,” asked Victoria, “have you talked to Peter lately?”
I tore open a packet of sugar and spilled the white crystals into my cup. Then I poured in some cream and watched it swirl into nothingness. “Not since he left for Buffalo, no.”
“Is everything okay with you two?”
I looked up into her kind eyes. They ran in the family. “Not really.”
“What is it?”
I sighed. “I’ve made so many mistakes with men that I’m not sure I can trust my own instincts anymore. And I’m ruining everything.”
“You’re not ruining anything.”
“I should say not,” added Celeste.
“Peter is crazy about you,” Victoria continued. “He told me so himself. And he’s a straight arrow.”
“Do you mean straight shooter, hon?” asked Celeste.
“That, too. I mean, someone a person can count on. When we were kids he used to beat up anybody who was mean to me.”
“Even Dena?” I asked.
“I see you know Victoria’s evil twin,” said Celeste.
Victoria laughed. “Peter did once steal all of Dena’s Halloween candy, which about killed her. He ate all the Sweet Tarts and gave me everything else.”
“He still likes Sweet Tarts,” I said. “The candy.”
“I know. Listen, we’ve got to go.” She took my hand and gave it a squeeze.
Celeste finished her drink and the two of them walked away, arm in arm. Some people seemed to have things all figured out. Then again, I’d always been a late bloomer. Maybe
there was still hope.
Upstairs, it should have been business as usual. But Clarissa, an ice bucket in each hand, accosted me as I got off the elevator.
“You’re riding down with me,” she said, pushing me back in.
“I am?”
“The ice machine on this floor is broken and we need to talk.”
“That sounds ominous,” I said, pressing the button for the lobby.
She shoved the ice buckets at me, then bent down and pulled off a red high-heeled pump.
“Blisters?”
“Pebbles.” Once her shoe was back on her foot, she directed the full intensity of her gaze on me. “So. Cece. If I have learned anything I have learned that one must be flexible. The winning individual must be able to turn on a dime, roll with the punches, sway with the breeze, do you read me?”
“I read you.”
“You are on in five minutes. Edgar Edwards is history.”
“What do you mean, ‘Edgar Edwards is history’?”
“That’s precisely what I mean. I trust you speak English?”
“Clarissa, take it easy.”
“I’m getting upset. Don’t get me upset, Cece. That’s a very bad idea.”
I could see that. So. The ladies weren’t going to see the nude portrait of Grace Horton after all. Did that mean I was supposed to go back to my previous comments? Or was I going to plow ahead and tell them about a painting they weren’t going to see and that was likely to make them crazy if and when they did see it? Probably not a great idea. I’d save it for a less squeamish audience. It’d be perfect for my book. I was sure I could get Edgar to give me permission to reproduce the painting. I could give it a whole chapter, even. I took a deep breath. That was settled. As for today, well, the winning individual rolls with the punches and sways with the breeze. If Nancy Drew—while bound and gagged by villains—could tap out HELP in Morse code, I could handle Clarissa and the Chums.
“You will be speaking directly after the scavenger hunt, and the ladies should be on their last clue by now.” She pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of her red blazer. “This last one is from The Mystery of the Fire Dragon. ‘Aunt Eloise treats everyone to dinner at a Chinese restaurant,’” Clarissa read, “‘but ends up taking the food to go after a flowerpot falls from a balcony and knocks Nancy Drew unconscious.’”