Damsels in Distress

by Joan Hess

  I shook my head and watched him as he headed for the bar. Salvador had deserted Luanne and was now sitting with Lanya on a wicker bench. Julius had found the nerve to join Anderson and Fiona. The Aussie crooked a finger at me, but I ignored him and went over to Luanne, who was attempting to fend off the Japanese visitors. Luckily for her, they were too far gone to do more than make clumsy attempts to fondle her.

  “Shall we go?” I said to her.

  “Not quite yet,” she murmured with a smug smile. “Salvador wants to show me his studio after he’s played host for a few minutes. You can come along to protect my reputation.”

  “Since when have you been worried about your reputation? Your first debutante ball?”

  “What a night that was. One of the girls who had an unfortunate tendency to whinny was escorted by her older brother, who was a midshipman at Annapolis. There’s something about a man in uniform that’s utterly impossible to resist. Regrettably, his sister caught us in the backseat of a Grand Prix and all hell broke loose. I refused to set foot in the country club the rest of the summer, even though it meant I couldn’t defend my title in the tennis tournament. Damned if his sister didn’t win, even with her wobbly serves.”

  “You are such a slut,” I said as I replenished my glass.

  “What were you and the codpiece whispering about in the corner?”

  I dropped an ice cube in my drink. “We were not whispering. We were having a conversation about various things. I’m surprised you noticed anything but Salvador’s meaningful gazes and quasi- erotic blathering. Are you sure you want me to stay? If I leave, you’ll have to ask him to give you a ride after the party’s over. That’s not to imply you’ll make it home before dawn.”

  Luanne glanced at him. “No, I’m going to keep him at arm’s length for awhile. He’s used to women falling all over him, and I suspect some of them are here right now. I’m just not sure who’s sleeping with whom.”

  I brushed away the hand of one of the Japanese boys before he could make contact with my derriere. After he’d retreated a few feet, I continued. “Did Salvador say anything about the group dynamics?”

  “He was uneasy. As soon as he noticed Lanya looking at him, he suggested I try the shrimp rolls and hurried over to rescue her from that Aussie. It could have been a simple act of mercy. I asked him about all three of his houseguests, but he was vague about why they were staying with him. He implied that he met them while he was traveling and offered a generic invitation, not expecting them to actually show up.”

  “Maybe,” I said, not convinced. I noticed the Japanese boys were edging toward us again. “Are you sure you want to hang around, Luanne? Why don’t you tell Salvador that you’ll look at his etchings another time? We can pick up Chinese and go to your place.”

  Before she could answer, Edward joined us. He’d switched from fizzy water to fizzy wine, thus endangering his status as a designated driver. I hoped he was better able to handle it than the Japanese boys. He glanced guiltily at Fiona, who was trapped between Anderson and Julius and might be planning to dive off the deck at any moment.

  Edward seemed to have the same thought. “She’d survive. It’s only a three-foot fall onto the forsythia bushes. Anderson would go leaping after her, while Julius sat down to take off his shoes and jacket before he took the plunge. Then again, milady is too much concerned with her appearance to risk unsightly bruises and scratches. It would liven things up, though, don’t you think?”

  Luanne raised her eyebrows in genteel reproach. “This would amuse you?”

  “You’re the woman with the vintage clothing store,” Edward said. “Are you one of Salvador’s pursuers? You’d better get in line.” He stepped back and retrieved the bottle of wine, then refilled his glass and drank half of it.

  “I beg your pardon,” Luanne said huffily. “I do not pursue men, and the only place I stand in line is at the grocery store. Why don’t you go away and juggle corks or something?”

  I hate to admit that I was finding this highly entertaining. The two were staring at each other as if they were feral cats. I could have intervened, but I decided to find out if Edward could insult Luanne to the point that she stalked out of the party. Which meant I could trail after her. Cocktail parties were now on the list just below meetings and potluck suppers. I had no desire to stand there for another hour or two, hazarding guesses about secret sexual liaisons. I didn’t know these people, nor did I have any inclination to feel kindly toward them.

  Abruptly, Edward looked at me. “I’m going to make an announcement. I could use some support.”

  “Announcement?” Luanne said. “About what?”

  “The identity of my biological father.”

  I gaped most unbecomingly. “Now? Don’t you think you should wait a while longer and reconsider the ramifications?”

  He drained his glass and refilled it. “No, I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Edward, you should do this privately,” I said, alarmed. “It’s nobody else’s business but yours and his. There’s no reason to embarrass a bunch of innocent bystanders.” I was so distressed that I ignored a pinch from behind. “Let’s go inside and talk about this.”

  Luanne was puzzled, and rightfully so. “What is all this about, Claire? Why would you care about the identity of his father unless ...” She stopped and stared at me. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

  “Why should she?” drawled Edward.

  I was desperately trying to come up with a response when the Aussie stood up. “Your attention, mates! Salvador here is too modest to crow, so I reckon I’ll do it for him. Lift your booze and bottom-up to the bugger, winner of this year’s Gryphon Award to be presented in Paris next month! Not only does he get a silver platter, he also gets a big fat check and a worldwide publicity tour. I’m proud to be one of his publishers, and I know you’re all proud to be his friends.”

  Salvador smiled as we all obediently drank. “Thank you, Gudgeon. If I were a modest man, I’d claim that I didn’t deserve the award. Since I am not, shall I open a couple of bottles of champagne?”

  Before anyone could respond, a voice erupted from the dining room. “Bring on the saucy, dizzy-eyed, rump-fed wenches!” howled Benny Stallings as he staggered onto the deck, tripped over a chair, and went sprawling across Glynnis Threet’s lap. “The beslubbering strumpets and the impertinent giglets! A pint of ale and a piece of tail! Sir Kenneth of Gweek is ready to rumble!”

  Chapter Five

  Glynnis began to caterwaul as she tried to shove Benny off her. Her husband grabbed a pillow to defend himself should the assault shift in his direction. Julius blustered incoherently, while Fiona fluttered her hands. Gudgeon began waving his arms. “See here, release that woman at once!” he shouted. “I flogged many a bloke better’n you when I was a warrant officer in the Australian Royal Navy!”

  Benny draped his arms around Glynnis’s neck. “Let’s go waltzing, Matilda! Waltzing on the billabong!”

  William hit him with the pillow. “How dare you speak to my wife like that!”

  “Tie me kangaroo down, boy!” Benny roared. “Tie me kangaroo down!”

  “Do something!” screeched Glynnis. “Get him off me!” The harder she tried to free herself, the more tightly he wrapped himself around her with the tenacity of an octopus. She pounded on his back with her fists. “Anderson! I demand you get him off me this instant! I can’t breathe!”

  This last statement lacked credibility, since she had more than ample lung power and was using it. Unseen dogs barked and howled. Houselights came on beyond the trees. A car alarm went off, although that was likely to be an ill-timed coincidence. I wondered if the neighbors were debating whom to call: the police, an ambulance dispatcher, or a squad of animal control officers armed with tranquilizer guns.

  Lanya went over and grabbed a handful of orange hair. “You are a drunken disgrace, Benny Stallings! Stop this immediately! Anderson, get over here!”

  Luanne glanced at me. “Aren’t yo
u glad we stayed?”

  “It does beat chicken chow mein,” I admitted as Anderson tried to unwrap Benny’s legs from around Glynnis’s waist. The Aussie snared one of Benny’s feet and began to yank on it. This motivated Benny to cling with greater determination as he continued to bellow about Matilda and billabongs, as well as billboards and billy goats gruff. Glynnis’s screeches grew louder despite her claims of suffocation. Salvador reluctantly joined the rescue operation. Behind us, the Japanese boys were shrieking with laughter. Edward, I noticed, had edged into a corner before he was enlisted into duty.

  After several more minutes, Benny was at last disentangled and manhandled into a neutral cornerē William offered Glynnis his handkerchief. She snatched it out of his hand and began to mop her face. Anderson, Salvador, and Gudgeon were panting as they stepped back.

  “What’s gotten into him?” demanded Lanya, glaring at Anderson as if he were the culprit.

  “I guess I’d better take him home,” he said. “Sorry if he ruined your party, Salvador.”

  Salvador smiled coldly. “Not at all, but I do think it would be best if you remove him before he launches another attack.”

  Benny did not look capable of launching anything as Anderson grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Well met, my Lord Duke of Dingleberry.” He waved at Lanya. “And her Ladyship. Thou art a beauteous sight to behold ‘neath the moonlight.”

  “Get him out of here,” Lanya growled.

  “And Lord Zormurd!” Benny shouted, gesturing in Salvador’s direction. “I prayeth thou will not have me thrown to the zombies! I am sorely afeared of their ravenous appetites for mortal morsels such as I, your faithful servant.”

  Julius took Benny’s other arm. “I’ll help you get him to your car.”

  The three staggered past us. Benny gave me a calculating look before he was escorted into the dining room, then lapsed back into inebriated babble. We could hear him singing until at last the front door closed.

  “A peculiar chap, that one,” Gudgeon said as he headed for the bar. Lanya followed him, shaking her head.

  Luanne made a remark under her breath, but I was too puzzled by Benny’s peculiar flicker of sobriety—if that’s what it had been— to answer. If he’d been pretending to be drunk, he’d failed to amuse anyone except the teenagers, who would have been amused by pretty much anything short of a heatstroke. It was more probable that I’d misinterpreted his look.

  William and Glynnis stood up, expressed their gratitude for being invited (although with a marked lack of sincerity), and left. The Japanese boys made it down the steps to the yard without deleterious effects on their anatomies, and began to fence with sticks, all the while jabbering shrilly about Lord Zormurd. Fiona stood at the railing and stared at them, her expression grim.

  “Not quite what I anticipated,” Salvador said as he joined us. “I shouldn’t have left Dazai and Hoshi alone with the liquor all afternoon. As for Benny, I didn’t invite him simply because I was worried he might pull a stunt like this. He’s likable, but so are bears—at a distance. My civilized cocktail party wasn’t all that civilized, was it?” He put his hand on Luanne’s arm. “Promise me you’ll stay so that I can show you my studio. I had to badger the architect in order to get maximum natural light during the day.”

  “You paint by candlelight at night, I suppose,” said Luanne.

  “You’ll have to find out for yourself.” He gave me a faint smile. “And you, too, Claire. Once Anderson and Julius return, everyone will leave except us. Gudgeon will stay out here and keep an eye on Dazai and Hoshi. What happened to Edward?”

  I looked around the deck. “He must have left during the melee,” I said, trying to hide my relief.

  “Understandable. Would you ladies care for another drink? Have you tried the caviar mousse?”

  “I suspect the Japanese lads found it first,” Luanne said as we all regarded the unappetizing red-speckled mush.

  “The idea of eating fish eggs makes me queasy,” said Fiona, who’d come up behind us with the stealth of a cat stalking a chipmunk. “I can’t help thinking of them as tiny fetuses. What could be more precious than the first manifestations of life?”

  “Then you’re a vegetarian?” Luanne asked sweetly.

  “Not precisely. I’m aware of the necessity of the food chain, but I do not condone unnecessary suffering. I refuse to eat veal or lamb, or the flesh of any animal that is not raised in a humane environment.”

  “Nothing better than a kangaroo steak fresh off the barbie,” Gudgeon said with a chuckle. He stuffed a piece of cheese in his mouth and grabbed a bottle of bourbon. “Reckon I’ll go see if our young Japanese friends want to go snake hunting under the deck. I damn near stepped on a real beaut of a copperhead this afternoon, nigh onto six feet long and right proud of his fangs, he was.” He bounded down the steps to the yard.

  “Where did you find these people?” Fiona asked Salvador.

  I waited with interest for his answer, since it was a very good question. Etiquette precluded asking such things. It did not preclude allowing someone else to breach the rules.

  Salvador shifted uneasily. “Gudgeon’s my Australian publisher. I stayed with him for a few weeks last year, and felt obliged to reciprocate. I met Hoshi and Dazai at a fan convention in Osaka.” He hesitated, aware that we were not satisfied. “They’re good boys, both in school. They came with a group this summer to improve their English, and then took off on their own. You know how impulsive kids can be.”

  “A fan convention?” I prodded.

  “Ah, yes, well... I mentioned I was a writer, didn’t I? Hoshi’s father plays golf with a relative of my editor over there. I suppose that’s how the boys found out my address. When they showed up on my doorstep yesterday, I really had no choice ...”

  “What is it you write?” asked Luanne.

  “Nothing you’ve read.”

  Luanne gestured at his house. “But you must do very well to have a house this large and a Lamborghini in the carport. I knew some writers back on the East Coast. They wrote genre fiction and could barely afford wigwams and quart bottles of beer.”

  Salvador tried to stare her down, but it was futile. Finally he shrugged and said, “I really don’t care to discuss my financial situation with anyone. I’ve just finished a project, and now I’d rather forget about it and relax. Surely you can sympathize with that.”

  “Well, I do,” Lanya said from the shadowy niche behind the bar. “Last week I started a batch of cranberry mead for Thanksgiving, as well as a few gallons of sweet raspberry melomel to give as presents at the Feast of St. Stephen. My fingers were so waterlogged I could barely flip through my recipe files. It was such a relief when I finally had all of it fermenting in the cellar.”

  wMelomel?” said Fiona. “That sounds like some kind of disgusting candy.”

  Lanya gave her a pitying smile. “I would have thought someone who claims to be well versed in British history would be familiar with it. Do you remember that rhubarb melomel I made last year, Salvador? I thought it came out well, even though I substituted lemon juice for the pectic enzyme.”

  “It was tasty,” Salvador said reluctantly. “An excellent afterdinner drink.”

  Fiona shrugged. “I don’t care for sweet wines. One might as well drink soda pop.” She smiled at Lanya. “In your case, you might be better off with diet drinks.”

  “And you might be better off with a chastity belt,” countered Lanya. “Don’t forget to have several copies made of the key.”

  Gudgeon was being attacked by stick-wielding Samurai warriors, but Salvador was in greater danger, I decided. His only hope lay in the return of Julius and Anderson. I nudged Luanne and rolled my eyes in the direction of the door.

  “Would you look at the time!” she said, no more eager than I to serve as a referee when the spitting and hair-pulling began. “I have a shipment arriving first thing in the morning. Three steamer trunks from an estate sale in Frederick, Maryland. I can hardly wait
to see what’s in them.”

  We expressed our thanks for being invited, wished everyone well, and fled through the dining to the living room. Luanne caught my arm before I could open the front door. “I’m going to find a bathroom,” she said. “All that excitement is agitating my bladder.”

  “Not to mention all that wine.”

  “That, too. Don’t you dare desert me. Benny may have escaped and be hiding behind a door somewhere—and there are a lot of doors in this place.” She went down a hall, her footsteps hesitant.

  I was idly gazing at Salvador’s art collection when I realized that a woman was seated on the black leather sofa. Her frizzy black hair and black clothes made her nearly invisible. Her face was coated with black and white grease paint, her eyes nearly lost under eyeliner and mascara, her lips a dark magenta. For a somewhat hysterical moment, I wondered if she might be a mannequin left over from a macabre Halloween party.

  To my dismay, she turned her head to look at me. Almost imperceptibly, her lips moved as she whispered, “Wet.”

  “Me?” I squeaked. “No, not at all. I’m waiting for my friend. She went to find a bathroom. It may take her a while. This is such a large house for the neighborhood. Quite elegant, though. There must be a wonderful view from these windows.” I finally stopped myself before I forfeited the last vestiges of any remaining dignity.

  “Wet,” she repeated in the same slithery hiss.

  “What’s wet?”

  “The paint.”

  “Then I won’t poke it with my finger,” I said. “Are you a friend of Salvador’s?”

  “I don’t like it when people ask me that.”

  The conversation was not going well. If I’d had a clue how to find Luanne, I would have barged in and dragged her out the front door, no matter the condition of her bladder. “I’m Claire Malloy.

  My friend and I have been out on the deck with the others. Perhaps you should join what’s left of them.”

  “My name is Serengeti.”