Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t aspire to be Henry David Thoreau, living off the land and all alone—with my easel, acrylics, and laptop—at Walden Pond. I had built a nice little nest in the northern suburbs of Big D, within reach of all the city had to offer but far enough away from my mother to enjoy relative tranquility (translation: at least a twenty-minute trip across town, depending on traffic).
I wasn’t so much granola as Cap’n Crunch with lactose-free skim milk.
Cissy was mimosas and Eggs Benedict.
“Tranquility” was definitely a word that didn’t exist in her vocabulary. Her days revolved around the seasons—the social seasons—her calendar filled with luncheons, sorority alumnae functions, fashion shows, cocktail parties, board meetings, and endless charity fundraisers.
Not exactly my cup of green tea.
I shopped with coupons and had no qualms about buying a bargain brand on sale. Labels didn’t mean much to me.
I couldn’t even recall the last time Mother had set foot in a grocery store, especially since Simon David delivered. I’m not sure she’d ever even seen a coupon; though I’m damned sure she’d never clipped one. (She didn’t even clip her own nails, for Pete’s sake.)
If that wasn’t enough proof for the pudding, there was always our opposing sense of fashion; or rather, my lack of one and her overabundance.
I felt uncomfortable in high heels and designer gowns with price tags that exceeded my monthly mortgage payment. My usual attire consisted of button-down jeans, T-shirts, and a well-worn pair of sneakers.
Conversely, my mother wouldn’t leave the house unless she had on Chanel from head to toe . . . or Escada, Prada, Nicole Miller, whatever suited the occasion; so long as it was something she hadn’t been seen in before, God forbid.
I was the apple that had fallen so far from the tree I’d landed in another orchard entirely.
Still, Cissy was nothing if not persistent. She kept trying to lure me over to the dark side, and tonight was merely another example of her handiwork.
As I said before, sometimes you have no choice.
So I wasn’t at all looking forward to Marilee’s swanky get-together at her new TV studio in Addison, even if it meant all the Dom Perignon I could swig and bruschetta out the wazoo.
Attending the gig was more like a payback, a debt I owed my mother because she’d helped bail an old friend of mine out of a sticky situation a couple months ago. My best pal from prep school, Molly O’Brien—“that scholarship girl,” as Cissy had long ago dubbed her—got herself in a tangle that nearly cost her everything. Thankfully, all was resolved, in no small part due to Mother’s connections, though I thought I’d paid my penance by attending a fancy gig at the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center. I’d even let her drag me to José Eber’s salon for hair and makeup, and I’d put on a pair of Manolo Blahniks that redefined “torture” as far as my feet were concerned (forgive me, Sarah Jessica).
Little did I know that was merely a down payment. I’d hardly had time to recuperate when Cissy had plucked another IOU out of her red Hermès crocodile bag and waved it in front of my face.
Talk about a bad day at Black Rock.
The mere recollection was enough to bring on hives, and, the more I tweaked the details into focus, the itchier I became.
Dateline: Two weeks ago.
The setting: Trinity Hall, a wonderful Irish pub at Mockingbird Station.
The setup: Mother had lured me there for lunch, presumably to spend some quality time together, catching up.
I should’ve known that the choice of location was a Freudian slip on her part. I mean, an Irish pub? That might make some think of “Guinness” right off the bat, or even leprechauns and four-leaf clovers. For me, it conjured up “blarney,” something my mother was so often full of, and that day proved no exception.
We had a nice enough conversation during our meal—a Gaelic club for me and, fittingly, a Blarney Cobb salad for Cissy—and, it wasn’t until we’d finished dessert that she relayed her true intentions.
“There’s a little favor I’d like you to do for me, darlin’,” she drawled, reaching across the table to squeeze my nail-bitten fingers between her perfectly manicured ones.
A little favor?
Right.
Nothing was simple when it was Mother doing the asking.
“What’s that mean, exactly?” I squirmed, feeling the Irish Cake I’d just consumed churn uneasily in my belly.
“I bumped into Marilee at Chanel this morning”—Cissy dropped by the boutique in Highland Park Village as often as I shopped at Tom Thumb for groceries, which was at least twice a week—“and she happened to mention that her latest web designer had quit on her, smack in the midst of redoing her site and setting up a video river to showcase the opening of her studio . . .”
“A video stream?” I suggested.
“River, stream, what does it matter?” She made a moue. “That was her sixth web designer to quit in as many weeks, and Mari was in a state of sheer panic.”
I should’ve made a run for the hills right then, anticipating where Cissy was going with this. But, instead, I sat there in a food-induced stupor. Maybe the whiskey in the cake was to blame, since I wasn’t exactly known for holding my liquor. (One hot rum toddy, and I was snoring like a baby.)
Otherwise, I would have used my head, made up some excuse about dashing off to meet a made-up new client or a just-remembered appointment for a high colonic and bamboo-shoot manicure. If it wasn’t the whiskey in the cake, what else could have so thoroughly impaired my senses?
Didn’t say much for my repeated showings on the Hockaday Headmistress List throughout my prep school years, did it?
“Well, I felt awful for her, simply awful,” Cissy went on, gripping my hand more tightly, further preventing me from flight. “Marilee’s had some bad luck since they finished her new studio a month or so back, a few minor mishaps. Her wardrobe mistress was bitten by a brown recluse spider that had somehow gotten in a box with a pair of Marilee’s shoes. The poor woman’s arm swelled up like a watermelon, and she had to take a medical leave for treatment. Then Mari’s director got bumped on the shoulder by a falling boom microphone during rehearsal before a taping. Nearly dislocated the joint, Mari said, and narrowly missed hitting her in the head.” Mother’s eyes danced with worry.
“Mother, I’m sorry about Marilee’s problems, and the fact that she can’t hold on to a web designer but . . .”
“Yes, the Web site, that’s where you come in, darling,” she ran right over me, patting my hand. “Mari had planned to broadcast the party on the Internet to celebrate the syndication of her morning show, and now she’s afraid it won’t happen. She was near to tears. So what was I to do? I couldn’t leave her in a lurch, not after all the poor dear’s been through.”
Mother flashed a most disarming smile that set off a warning bell in my head, like the Robot on Lost in Space, flailing his arms and screaming, “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”
Though, somehow, I knew it was too late already.
My eyes flickered over the shelves of books in the library area of the restaurant where we’d been seated, usually a calm and secluded place. But that afternoon, it seemed almost menacing, like a trap that had been set. I glanced longingly at the tables filled with other diners who chatted, ate, and laughed, all of them blissfully unaware of what was happening to me. The bribery, the blackmail, and coercion: wrapped up prettily and disguised as a mother-daughter luncheon.
“Help!” I wanted to cry but instead stayed silent, my butt glued to the seat.
Mother had that effect on people.
She would’ve made a brilliant snake charmer.
Or a damned fine secretary of state.
“Of course, I told Marilee not to worry,” she said, honey-smooth, her lips curving coyly. “I reminded her that my darling Andrea was a genius on computers and could have her fixed up in no time flat.”
My gut clenched. “You didn’t?”
/> “Yes, sweetie, I did.”
“Muh-ther. How could you?” I whined like a two-year-old, despite my best intentions. A well-modulated voice was often my best defense. When I sounded like Minnie Mouse with nasal blockage, I knew she had me licked. “Don’t you think you should’ve called and asked me first?”
As soon as I’d said it, I realized how insane that question was.
“She’ll actually pay you, Andrea.”
I tried not to flinch as she took a jab at my penchant for doing so much pro bono web work, mostly for local charities. Often, my only compensation was the satisfaction I got from a job well done. Something I figured she’d have understood, considering the uncountable fundraisers she’d chaired over the years. She should’ve been proud of me, happy to think that, in some way, I’d followed her example.
Sure, Andy, sure. And Ivana Trump shops at Wal-Mart.
It was something I’d mulled over a million times only to reach this conclusion: the difference between my work and hers was that she’d married young and had a child by the time she was my age, and I was still unattached, despite my sparkling personality and the healthy—and mostly untouched—trust fund Daddy had left me. (I tried to use it only for emergencies.)
That had to be the gist of it; why she didn’t accept my career as something I was passionate about, something I took very seriously. If I had a husband, nothing I did would rub Mother quite so wrong as my unforgivable state of singlehood.
“She’ll pay you money,” she enunciated carefully as if I hadn’t understood. As if that was the cause of my pink-cheeked frustration.
“That isn’t the point,” I insisted, knowing it was useless to explain. Because I’d tried more times than I could remember. How I wished she’d stop making decisions for me and realize I was old enough to live my own life.
Ha.
As if that would ever happen.
She’d been ruling my world since I’d emerged from the birth canal, dressing me in Florence Eiseman and enrolling me in Little Miss Manners classes before I’d graduated from kindergarten, so that five-year-old moi would know how to say “please” and “thank you” to well-to-do strangers who doled out extravagant birthday gifts at the lavish parties she’d arranged, ensuring that I’d develop a second nature about what fork to use in posh restaurants, when all I’d ever really wanted was a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.
That I was an adult, sitting on the cusp of thirty, meant nothing.
I fiddled with the napkin in my lap, twisting it into tortured knots, determined to keep my voice under control.
I would not let her get to me.
But I was already grinding my teeth.
“You should have had Marilee call me, Mother, because I’ll just have to phone her and tell her I can’t take the job. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” I told her definitively, meeting her eyes without flinching, as if that would be the end of it. Wishful thinking.
She gently touched the nickel-sized freshwater pearl clip on her right ear, a finely plucked brow rising neatly over a clear blue eye, as she said ever so sweetly, “I’m told that Molly O’Brien’s doing very well over at Terry Costa. They’ve had her cutting patterns, but I believe they’re considering a few of her designs for next summer’s collection.”
Ah, geez.
My chest constricted when she brought up Molly’s name, because it showed me how dead-set she was on bending my will to suit hers, yet again.
“Oh, and here’s some more good news you haven’t heard. Little David’s been enrolled at St. Mark’s this fall. On a full scholarship.” She wiggled her slender fingers dismissively. “Don’t look so stunned. It was nothing, really. I just had to talk to a few people, press a few buttons to put things in motion.”
Talk to a few people? Press a few buttons?
David was Molly’s six-year-old son. And St. Mark’s was a private boy’s prep school with a waiting list a mile long. I wondered whose string my mother had yanked—and yanked hard—in order to pull off such a coup. And to think that she’d done something so unbelievable for the child of “that scholarship girl” showed that Cissy had endless surprises up her silk sleeve.
Too many for me to anticipate.
It was maddening. Infuriating. Discombobulating.
And oh-so typical.
I was tempted to wave my twisted napkin in surrender, because I knew—right then and there—she’d scored a TKO. And the winner is Cissy Blevins Kendricks in the pink Chanel trunks!
“Wow,” I squeaked, surprised that Molly hadn’t told me. That is, if Mother had even informed her of the news before springing it on me (probably not). “That was very”—oh, rats—“generous of you.”
Generous was another talent Mother had honed to perfection. Only she usually expected something in return, particularly when her generosity involved friends of mine. Her good deeds had a way of turning around and smacking me upside the head at the strangest times.
At such moments, I thought of her as a subversive Mother Teresa without the vow of poverty and the ugly outfit.
So what could I do?
I opened my mouth, wanting like hell to say that I wouldn’t be blackmailed, that I wasn’t going to cave. But the only sound that emerged was a sigh of defeat.
“All right, all right,” I moaned. “I’ll fix the Web site for Marilee.”
“And you’ll attend the unveiling of her studio.”
It wasn’t even a question, not the way she said it. “Yes, I’ll go.”
Doomed, I tell you.
“Don’t pout, Andrea sweetie. I’m sure there’ll be eligible men there to make things more bearable for you.” She had a familiar twinkle in her eye, the hopeful glint of a nearly sixty-year-old mother who wanted to live to see grandchildren.
Eligible men?
Good God, not this again, too?
I felt a headache begin its gentle throbbing at my temples.
It didn’t seem to bother her that I’d been seeing someone steadily. A fledgling defense lawyer named Brian Malone who worked for the firm that handled all Mother’s affairs. It was clear we were moving too slowly to suit her. I mean, it had been several months and my third left finger was still bare. Which Mother assumed made me fair game for her insufferable matchmaking.
“I’m not looking for eligible men at the moment,” I reminded her. “Does the name ‘Malone’ ring any bells?”
“Not the kind of bells I’d like to hear,” she said dolefully, and I was surprised she didn’t start humming Wagner’s “Wedding March” to rub it in.
Subtle.
“How fickle can you be?” I asked, knowing the answer already. Very. “I mean, you’re the one who threw us together, remember? And you liked Brian well enough then.”
“Darling, you’ve got it wrong. I like Mr. Malone very much . . .”
“But?” I prodded.
She sighed, giving me a very motherly look of concern. “But I don’t like that he’s taking advantage of you.”
“Taking advantage?” What on earth was she talking about? Brian didn’t borrow money from me. He had his own job, his own apartment, paid his bills on time (so far as I knew), and hadn’t broken the law lately.
She glanced around, before bending nearer the table and lowering her voice. “Penny George tells me she’s seen Mr. Malone’s red car parked in front of your place. Overnight.”
Penny George was one of my elderly neighbors, a busybody who served on one of Mother’s church committees. I rolled my eyes. “Doesn’t she have anything better to do than spy on me? It’s none of her business besides.”
“But it is mine, because you’re my daughter.” Cissy sighed again in that disappointed way of hers. “I thought you were smarter than that, Andrea. Surely you realize that men won’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free.”
“For God’s sake, Mother.” Not that tired old analogy.
“Do you really want to drag God in
to this, sweetie? Because I don’t think he’d approve, either. Nor would your father.” She suddenly became fascinated with her wedding band, doing a little finger wiggle so I wouldn’t miss it, diamonds gleaming. “Your daddy was a gentleman, Andrea, and I was a good girl. He never would have considered dallying with me, not before our engagement.”
Dallying? Is that what she thought Malone was doing? Being ungentlemanly, getting the milk for free, tarnishing my sterling reputation?
Yeesh.
I reminded myself where she was coming from, an era very different from this one, full of traditions that had been trampled in the last few decades. Still, the fact that she was holding me to her impossible standards didn’t sit well with me.
I looked her squarely in the face. “Mother, it’s the twenty-first century. Queen Victoria is dead. My relationship with Brian is mutual. No one’s doing any dallying.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
She smoothed the napkin in her lap, murmuring, “Free milk is free milk, no matter the century.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Let it go, Andy, let it go.
“Can we talk about something else?” I begged, because sex was the last thing I wanted to discuss with my mother.
“Something else? Well, hmm, let me see.” She drummed her French manicure on the table. “All right, how about an interesting item I read this morning in the Park Cities Press?”
Neiman’s at NorthPark was having a sale? A-line skirts were out of style? Collagen had been banned by the FDA? Ralph Lauren had been elected governor of New York?
I could hardly wait to hear.
“There was a rather large announcement on the wedding page,” she began, cocking her head the way she did when she wanted to study my reaction, like a scientist intent on a petrie dish full of staph infection. “Seems your old friend Cinda Lou Mitchell just got remarried. That’s number four, if I’m counting correctly. Amazing how some women can make commitments over and over while others”—she sighed and continued to fiddle with her earring, though her eyes didn’t leave my face—“just keep draggin’ their feet.”
The Good Girl's Guide to Murder: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Page 2