“You ladies all right?” Ashley’s ponytail preceded her, popping into view at the far end of the weight room before her tiny face did. She looked mightily annoyed.
“We’re fine, Ashley,” Deena hollered. “Just sharing some exercise tips.”
When Ashley disappeared again, Deena grumbled. “Toxic little creature.”
“Who, Ashley?” I shrugged. “She seems okay. Just young.”
Deena sat up and patted the floor beside her, indicating I should move in closer. “Oh, I suppose you’re right. She got on my bad side early on, and I tend to hold a grudge.”
“The calipers?” I guessed, slipping off the weight bench and settling on the floor mat. We were like a couple of schoolgirls sprawled on a bedroom floor. All we needed were a couple of Barbie dolls or some paste and glitter.
“That, too. Actually, before we even got to the calipers, she’d ticked me off. I made the mistake of saying I wanted to get in shape for the trip to Cabo, so I’d look nice on the beach. She asked where Cabo was and did young people go there. I sniped back that, no, it was really more of an adult vacation spot. She said, ‘Oh, so then it doesn’t really matter what you look like, huh?’ ” Deena finished off in a singsongy falsetto, a truly remarkable impression of the perky Ashley.
“She didn’t,” I breathed.
“She did. I wanted to shake her. Just because I’m not stupid enough to starve myself, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to look nice.” She skimmed her hands down the front of her stylish jogging suit. I would never dream of sweating in anything so fancy. It looked as though it might be dry-clean only. “Skinny isn’t the only beautiful.”
“Amen,” I said, leaning out to give Deena a high five.
“I suppose it wouldn’t kill me to lose a few pounds. My daughter, Crystal, is getting married in the spring, and I’ll have to have my picture taken in some hopelessly frumpy mother-of-the-bride dress. But I just can’t bring myself to care too much.”
“You don’t look old enough to have a daughter who’s getting married.” I wasn’t just blowing smoke. It was the God’s honest truth.
“Bless your heart for saying so.” She smiled. “I was a child bride, you know. And my mama always said, you can keep your figure or your face. I chose my face. Anyway, Crystal just graduated from Dickerson last year. She was helping serve at the luau. . . . Maybe you met her?”
“Crystal Silver,” I mused, trying to recall whether our paths had crossed.
Deena laughed. “Heavens, no, I wouldn’t name my child Crystal Silver. Tom Silver is my second husband. We’ll have been married five years next summer. Crystal’s last name is Tompkins.”
“Well, I don’t think I met her that night. But we were so busy, it’s all a blur. I’d love to meet her sometime, though. My niece is a freshman at Dickerson. Maybe Crystal could give her some pointers.”
“We’ll make that happen.” Deena propped herself on her hands and narrowed her eyes, searching my face for something. My face flamed beneath her scrutiny. “So why are you here?”
I patted my saddlebags and struggled to sound nonchalant. “I thought it was about time I got in shape. Been eating too much ice cream lately.”
“Bullshit,” Deena said. “You’ve got a new business and personal problems out the yin-yang. No way you just decided, oh, hey, maybe I’ll test-drive an expensive gym membership. Why are you really here?”
“I got a coupon in the mail for a free week,” I insisted.
“Mmm-hmm. And it’s just a coincidence that Brittanie Brinkman, the dead girl who was sleeping with your husband, was a regular member here. Right.”
The very same straight talk that made me like Deena so much had a downside. She wasn’t about to let me off the hook.
I sighed, then glanced around to be sure we were alone.
“I’m trying to learn what I can about Brittanie. I want to understand why she died, and I think the only way to do that is to understand how she lived.”
Deena’s mouth turned up in a self-congratulatory smirk. “I knew it. That’s fabulous. Very Nancy Drew of you.”
“Don’t get carried away. I’m no girl detective. Just trying to get a handle on whether Brittanie had any enemies, people the police ought to be looking at more closely.”
“Enemies, huh? Well, I can’t imagine you’ll get anyone here to gossip about her. Not to you, anyway. But there are definitely some people at this gym who didn’t like the girl. Heck, I never knew a body who could piss off more people than Brittanie Brinkman.”
“Did you know her well?”
Deena raised her hands in mock surrender. “Thank the Lord, no, I did not. But between my ‘workout sessions’”—she made little quote marks in the air with her fingers—“and all the Zeta luncheons I’ve catered, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to see the girl in action. She’s quite a piece of work.”
“How so?”
“Let me count the ways,” she responded with a laugh.
Suddenly she sobered, and we waited while Trish Paolino, clad in a dove gray jogging bra and yoga pants slung low on impossibly narrow hips, mounted the stairs and sashayed through the weight room on the way to the lockers. As she passed, she glanced at the two of us, lolling on the mats like a couple of slugs, and her lip curled in contempt.
“Busted,” Deena said. “By one of the Furies, no less.”
“The Furies?”
“Trish, Jackie, and JoAnne. They’re here every damned day, from nine to eleven, passing judgment on us lesser mortals.” She made a face. “Do you want to blow this pop stand?” she asked. “There’s a coffee shop two doors down.”
We helped each other up and made our way to the front door. Ashley, chattering away on her hands-free phone, looked at me expectantly as we passed. I mouthed an assurance that I’d be back.
Five minutes later, Deena and I sat cloistered in an upholstered nook of the Java Jive, nursing ceramic mugs of hot chocolate topped with ruffles of whipped cream. A cinnamon scone rested on a napkin on the table between us, and we took turns breaking off little nibbles. It occurred to me that a Mexican chocolate ice cream—perfumed with cinnamon, vanilla, and maybe just a hint of hazelnut—would make a great winter flavor for Remember the A-la-mode, and I made a mental note to start experimenting soon.
“So,” Deena said, pulling my mind back to more pressing matters, “Brittanie Brinkman had catty down to an art form. Take our mutual friend Ashley back there.” Deena waved in the general direction of the Lady Shapers. “About a month ago, I overheard Brittanie telling Ashley about her new suede boots. She said some of the other styles came in special sizes for plus-size girls with chunky calves, so maybe Ashley should check them out.”
“What? Ashley’s not chunky. Just athletic. Poor kid.”
Deena raised her eyebrows as she popped a chunk of scone into her mouth. She swallowed before continuing. “Don’t feel too bad for Ashley. She gave as good as she got.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she hummed. “Ashley made a crack about how at least her breath didn’t stink of sick.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not exactly Oscar Wilde, but it certainly hit the mark.”
“I don’t get it.”
Deena patted my hand. “Bless your heart. Where have you been the last decade?”
“Right here in Dalliance.”
“Yes, well, even right here in Dalliance, some girls throw up to stay skinny.”
“Oh.” Of course. I’d seen the talk shows and made-for-TV movies about bulimia. I’d even seen brochures in my doctor’s waiting room. But I’d never known anyone with bulimia. Or, at least, I’d never known I’d known anyone with bulimia. “Are you sure Brittanie was bulimic?”
“If you’re asking if I ever saw the girl stick her finger down her throat, the answer is no. But she basically never ate anything at the Zeta luncheons, yet I caught her stuffing a piece of cake into her face in the bathroom once. And all that crazy exercising—hours and hours a day—it certainly fits.”
I couldn’t see how Brittanie’s eating disorder could possibly help explain her death, but it made me feel unexpected pity for the woman who all but stole my husband. I couldn’t imagine hating yourself so much that you couldn’t allow yourself the simple pleasure of food.
How empty she must have felt.
And I wondered what sort of mischief she might have done to fill up the hole. I now had at least two women—Ashley and JoAnne—who couldn’t stand Brittanie, and I had the feeling I’d only scratched the surface.
chapter 13
“Hey,Aunt Tally. How was the gym? You all buff now?”
I wanted to smack the smug off Alice’s face but settled for flipping her the most ladylike bird I could manage.
“How was that physiology midterm?” I asked her.
She gave me the one-fingered salute right back. No doubt about it, Bree and I were raising one classy young lady.
I’d spent the afternoon working the counter at the A-la-mode, scooping sundaes while my brain worked over the bits and pieces of information I’d acquired. Now, during the dinner-hour lull, Bree and I had staked out a table to look at paint chips in the hopes of finding something the historic district would find more appealing than the allegedly purple gray I’d chosen over the summer. Alice had picked up burgers at Erma’s Fry by Night and was peeking inside the take-out containers to figure out whose was whose.
“What do you think of this?” I asked Bree, holding out a strip of paper and pointing to one square of color. “Sort of a warm brown.”
Bree sighed and blinked her eyes in exasperation. “Tally, honey, that’s pink.”
“It is not,” I said, pulling the chip back to study it again.
She snatched the chip away from me and read the color name off the back. “Rosy dawn. Sounds like pink to me.”
I shoved the stack of chips across the table. “I give up. You pick. At this point, I honestly don’t care. I just want to make them happy so I can stop paying the fine.”
Alice dipped a French fry in barbecue sauce and popped it in her mouth. “Why don’t you meet with someone from the historic commission,” she said around a mouthful of potato, “and have them help you pick out a color?”
Bree and I exchanged sheepish looks. “That’s actually a good idea,” Bree said.
Alice snorted. “I have good ideas, you know. You just don’t listen to me enough.”
“Don’t push your luck, kiddo,” Bree warned. “Tally, you know who’s on the historic commission? Your new best friend, Honey Jillson.”
“She’s hardly my new best friend. Actually, after lunch yesterday, I’d be surprised if she ever spoke to me again.”
Bree pulled the top bun off her sandwich and rearranged the pickle slices, spreading them out to provide more even burger coverage. “What the heck? You may as well give her a call. It can’t hurt.”
I shrugged. “If it allows me to put off committing to a color for another twelve hours, I’m game. I’ll call Honey in the morning.”
The bell over the front door tinkled softly, and the three of us froze in the act of biting into our burgers. Thankfully, it wasn’t a customer, but Finn.
He waved his hands as I started to get up. “No, don’t mind me. I was just on my way home and thought I would stop in to see how your ill-advised investigation is going.”
I gave him a squint-eyed look. “Is this Finn the reporter or Finn the friend asking?”
He smiled as he pulled a chair around and straddled it backward. “For now, Finn the friend. But if you get a real lead, I’m going to be in an awkward position.”
“Well,” I said, offering him a fry, “since I have nothing but rank speculation, you should be safe.”
“I think it’s more than speculation,” Bree said.
“Maybe,” I conceded.
Finn raised his eyebrows, chewed his French fry, and waited patiently.
I began ticking off the facts I’d learned on my fingers. “Brittanie managed to alienate just about everyone she met. In particular, she pissed off the teenybopper who mans the front desk at the Lady Shapers and who happens to be one of Brit’s sorority sisters. And she maybe fooled around with JoAnne Simms’s husband. JoAnne Simms, who is yet another sorority sister, who belongs to the Lady Shapers, and who thus has access to the sports drink that Brit drank the night she died.”
I picked up my burger, slathered in cheddar cheese, mayo, and ketchup, in both hands. “Oh, and Brit was bulimic. Which doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but it’s sad as heck.” I took a big bite of my sandwich and waited for Finn’s response.
He reached for one of Bree’s fries, but she slapped his hand away. “JoAnne Simms, huh?”
“Yeah, I know it’s a stretch.”
Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. From what I remember, JoAnne Simms was bat-shit crazy and really possessive.”
Bree bobbled her eyebrows and held out her fries as a peace offering. “Bat-shit crazy? Do tell,” she purred.
“Well, it was a long time ago. But my brother, Sonny, was in her class in high school. JoAnne had decided that Sonny was the perfect boyfriend: popular, big-time athlete, good-looking.”
“So the polar opposite of you,” Bree teased.
Finn laughed. “Basically, yeah. Anyway, Sonny wasn’t particularly interested in JoAnne. He always preferred blondes. He had the audacity to ask Miranda Jillson to the junior prom.”
“Ooh,” Alice breathed, a dribble of ketchup on her chin. “Did Mrs. Simms go all ‘Carrie’ on everyone?”
“Not exactly. Miranda Jillson turned Sonny down. She had a boyfriend at the time, and Sonny was being a dork to ask her at all. But word got out that he asked Miranda first, and JoAnne decided that was Miranda’s fault instead of Sonny’s. She launched a massive campaign against Miranda. Told everyone that Miranda was easy and had slept with half the football team. Even tried to convince some of Miranda’s teachers that she had cheated.”
“Wow. That’s hard core,” Alice said.
“No one believed any of the rumors JoAnne spread. But I know when Miranda was hit by that drunk driver, the scuttlebutt in the senior class was that JoAnne was driving and hit her on purpose.”
“Really?” Alice was hooked like a fish on Finn’s story.
He shrugged. “That’s what Sonny told me. Of course, the police caught the guy who actually hit her. Three witnesses gave a description of the car, the guy had spent the whole night getting sauced at the Bar None, and they found Miranda’s blood on his front bumper. But the point is that JoAnne’s classmates thought she was just crazy enough to do something like kill a girl out of jealousy.”
Bree snorted. “Teenagers will believe anything. Bottom line, JoAnne Simms didn’t kill anyone. So she was a little bit of a stalker? Who hasn’t been at one time or another?”
Alice raised her hand. “Me. I have never once been a stalker.”
“Oh, zip it, Saint Alice. You’re young. There’s plenty of time for the crazy to come out. Besides, that was over twenty years ago. JoAnne Simms has led a perfectly respectable life since then.”
Finn looked at his watch. “I gotta run.” He stood up, snagged one last fry from my take-out tray, and began buttoning up his barn coat. “Listen; Bree’s right. I seriously doubt JoAnne Simms is the same sort of psycho-bitch she was in high school. But do me a favor, Tally. Try to keep a little distance between you and JoAnne Simms. Just to be safe.”
I nodded, but even then I was trying to think of how I could actually get closer to JoAnne and get her to talk about her relationship with Brittanie Brinkman.
“Tawny, let’s go to the phones.” The cold glow of the television washed the den in ethereal light, and I pulled the quilt up to my chin, willing myself to fall asleep. “If you’re out there and you’ve experienced the Pocket Barber, give us a call and tell us what you think.”
Tawny stroked the Pocket Barber with perfectly manicured fingers, a manic smile plastered on her face. “Bob, we’ve got Millie
from Little Rock on the line,” she purred.
Bob lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Hi, Millie!”
“Hi, Bob.”
“Millie, have you ordered the Pocket Barber?”
“I bought two! One for my husband, for the hairs he gets in his ears and nose, and one for my son, for neck touch-ups between haircuts.”
“And do you love it?” Tawny asked. She continued caressing the implement, an electric razor the size and shape of a fountain pen.
“Oh, my, yes.” Millie from Little Rock sounded as though she were 106. “The swivel blade gets into all those hard-to-reach spots, and it cuts real close.”
“Well, thanks, Millie.” Bob—in a white turtleneck and red argyle sweater—looked like an extra from a Perry Como Christmas special, and he oozed an unctuous sort of charm.
“Tawny, I’m so excited we can offer the Pocket Barber at such a low price, because this will save people so much money. Touch-ups between haircuts, grooming eyebrows, even removing the pills from sweaters. It’s like having your own personal valet.”
I snuggled down beneath the quilt and closed my eyes, sighing softly. Nearly three in the morning, and sleep eluded me.
Bree said I didn’t experience authentic emotions, and she may have been right about that. Maybe I wasn’t good at feeling angry or sad or happy, but I was the reigning world champion at feeling anxious. All the stresses and strains of daily life followed me to bed, flitting around my brain and conjuring nasty nightmares about tornadoes and algebra tests and public nudity.
In the wee, wee hours of the night, when the stress got too bad to sleep, I dragged my pillow and blanket into the den and curled up on the sofa with the TV on. And that was when I watched home-shopping channels. I needed the chatter of the TV, something to drown out the sound of the nagging voices in my head, but if I put on some sort of show—a made-for-TV movie or a gritty crime drama or even a laugh-track sitcom—I ended up trying to follow the plot instead of drifting off to sleep. The home-shopping patter, though, was the entertainment equivalent of white noise.
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