by Becky Clark
“Do not lie. You must know since you did that event with him. Everyone knows he does not do public stuff like that.”
We’d come full circle again in our little corner. He yanked my hair harder, which I didn’t think possible, and his mouth was millimeters from my nose. He’d had garlic recently. I yanked his braid harder and forced him and his breath away from my nose.
“I don’t know anything about Lapaglia. I’m looking for him myself.”
“You tell him Square Face wants to chat with him. Or else.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at me from the weird angle I’d held his head. “Are you shaking him down?”
“Blackmailing Lapaglia? Why would I do that?”
“I bet you write those books. You know what he knows.” His sudden insight made him momentarily relax his grip.
My complete bafflement rendered me unable to take advantage of his loosened grip. Instead, I relaxed my grip on his braid. “I must know what he knows about what?”
“Everything. Me. My boss. The Family.” He didn’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of my relaxed grip. He yanked my hair so far I had to bend sideways at the waist. I watched his peacock blue alligator half-boots slip on the carpet, causing him to yank harder. I shrieked and he covered my mouth with the hand he’d been holding over mine on his braid. “I need to know how you know so much about us and our ... activities. Start with everything you know about my boss.”
“Awf mrt een naw yu kwe fat mrch layth yaw boff!”
He pulled his hand from my mouth. “What?”
“I SAID, I don’t even know YOU, Square Face, much less your boss!”
His eyes bulged and he seemed incapable of blinking. He let go of the handful of my hair completely. He whispered, like there were spies everywhere, “I am not Square Face!”
I took the advantage this time and yanked his braid harder, so he had to bend at the waist and stare at my shoes. “What IS your name then, dillhole?”
He flailed his arms to either grab my hair again or to get me to let go of his, but I used my superior height and weight, and his slick-soled shoes, to keep him off-balance. I saw someone round the corner to exit the library. I awkwardly held the Braid at bay and watched the woman walk toward us. I carefully timed the opening of the automatic door, or hoped I did, anyway.
As soon as the door whooshed open, the woman gaped at us, planting herself directly in the path of the laser beam controlling the door. She tried to make sense of the scene in front of her. Drag queen beating up a tiny old man. I pulled the woman forward out of the way of the continuously opening and closing door and told her to run. As soon as she did, I kneed the Braid in the groin and pushed him inside the library where he sprawled on his back. The door whooshed closed and I ran out the second door.
The woman raised her hand like she was going to take a picture on her phone. I shook my head at her. She made the right decision and lowered her phone. The last thing I needed was to get anyone else involved in whatever this was I was involved in.
“You really need to get out of here,” I said, dragging her away. “That guy? He’s committing a hate crime against me.” I pointed to my wig. “But I have it under control.”
She got a righteously woke look on her face and fist-bumped me. “You are the best drag queen I’ve seen in a long time. You go ... girl!” She hurried away from the library with her fist raised over her head, Angela Davis-style.
I was glad nobody else had witnessed anything. The last thing I needed was a curious crowd.
I hugged the side of the building, picking my way around blooming potentilla bushes that scratched my legs, peering carefully into the library windows as I went. I’d expected the Braid to race right out of the double doors after me, but he hadn’t. What was he doing in there?
I got all the way to the end of the building with only a couple of people on the sidewalk staring at the drag queen sneaking through the bushes. Nobody inside seemed to have noticed me. I went to the very last window and cupped my hands so I could see inside better. The story time kids were even wilder than before, gobbling cookies and having juice squirting contests. I wondered where Lakshmi was.
My heart vaulted into my throat when I saw her talking to the Braid away from the story time area. Lakshmi had her arms wrapped protectively around herself. He stood much too close, but didn’t seem to be touching her. The Braid must be involved in Lapaglia’s disappearance, despite his earlier questions of me. It must have been a ruse, some sort of scheme I didn’t yet understand. Clearly, the Braid had more information than he let on, if he was talking to Lakshmi.
I emerged from the potentillas, brushing off their tiny yellow flowers clinging to my jean skirt. I zipped away from the library, scared that the Braid would come after me again and now more worried about Lapaglia. If there was foul play and the Braid was after Lapaglia, I had to redouble my efforts to find him. I simply wanted to get him to pay me back, but it seemed the Braid had more drastic, perhaps permanent, ideas for him.
As I hurried back toward my car, I pulled out Martina McCarthy’s business card and called her. She had to be at the center of this. Voice mail. I decided not to leave a message she could easily ignore, instead veering toward the Pandora’s Mail Box.
Eeyore Regina was working behind the counter again, but I didn’t care since I didn’t need her assistance today. I felt sorry for the line of customers who did need her assistance, though. I wanted to shout, “Run! Save yourselves!” but refrained. Instead, I pulled a small notebook and pen from my bag and with a shaky hand, scribbled a note. Please call me. I’m the woman you met at the train station. I signed it and added my number. I folded it in half and rechecked the address on Martina’s business card.
I was attempting to shove it in her mailbox when the woman I saw unlocking the door earlier slapped my hand aside.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m ... uh ... leaving this note for one of your ... mailboxees.”
“You can’t just shove mail in without a stamp.”
“Then I’ll buy a stamp.” I glanced at the door, fully expecting the Braid to find me here. My heart raced, thumping so hard I couldn’t believe this woman didn’t hear it.
“You’ll need an envelope, too.”
I caught on to the manager’s upselling game. She was going to nickel and dime me to death. Maybe literally. Normally I would be happy to play Thwart a Power-Hungry Employee, but I was in a bit of a hurry. “Then I’ll also buy an envelope.”
“You can’t just buy one envelope.”
“Then I’ll buy a box of envelopes.”
She pointed to a display. “Five hundred or a thousand?”
“I just need one!”
She shrugged.
I walked to the display of stationary I’d perused when I was here with Ozzi on Sunday and plucked off the package closest to me, a mod hippie design with the ironic message Thinking of You. I tore it open, placed my note in one of the matching envelopes, and handed the stationary package back to her. “This and a postage stamp, please.”
“We don’t sell individual stamps. Smallest I have is a book of twenty.”
“Fine. Ring up this stationary and a book of stamps.”
She went to the register. “Cash or credit?”
“Credit.” I handed her my card, glancing nervously at the door. At least she didn’t make me wait at the end of Eeyore Regina’s line.
She swiped it through her credit card reader, frowned, swiped it again.
I gulped. Had they locked my account since I was over my limit? Was I over my limit? Had all those event charges gone through?
She wiped the magnetic strip with her finger and tried again. She shook her head and handed my card back. “Isn’t working.”
Blushing, I pulled my last thirty dollars from my wallet. Why was it when your credit card didn’t work—through no fault of your own—you’re made to feel like a criminal?
She finished with the transaction and handed
me back a measly amount of change. I thanked her, trying to keep the sarcasm from my voice. Returning to Martina’s mailbox with my note inside an officially stamped and licked envelope, I again attempted to shove it in. The manager reappeared next to me. I pulled my hand back before she could slap it.
“You can’t do that.”
“You told me I needed an envelope and a stamp. Which, you might remember, I just bought.” My voice veered into shrill range.
“And now it needs to be mailed.” She gestured toward the letter drop nearby.
“How long will that take?”
“Two days. You’re not special.”
“Let me get this straight. I need to drop this”—I waved the envelope at her—“into that letter drop and you’ll collect it out of there, send it off to some processing center, and then it will come right back here, where you’ll put it in this”—I banged on it for effect—“mailbox?”
“You need to address it first. Otherwise it’ll come back Undeliverable.”
I had the feeling Eeyore Regina wouldn’t have been as strict as this lady. I took a deep breath and tried not to let frustration and panic overwhelm me. Pasting a fake, Miss Congeniality smile on my face, I said, “Can I give you five bucks to drop this into Miss McCarthy’s mailbox without going through this rigmarole? It’s important she gets it soon.”
“Are you bribing a postal employee?”
Defeated by bureaucracy, I wrote Martina’s address on the envelope and dropped it in the letter drop under the withering scrutiny of the manager.
“Two days?”
“Give or take,” she said.
“But you said—”
“Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
I wanted to say she hadn’t helped me at all. But I didn’t. “No, nothing else. I’m good. Thanks.” I turned toward the door in time to see what I’d been dreading through this entire transaction—the Braid heading this way. I pivoted and wrenched open the door with the Employees Only sign. I’d seen an alley behind this block of buildings so I knew there had to be a back door.
“You can’t go through there!”
“Lady, I’m going through this door and out your back door,” I called over my shoulder. “You can watch me do it, if you like, but that’s what I’ll be doing.”
She followed me through and chased me all the way down the corridor to the back door. I started running down the alley, sandals slapping the pavement, and she took a few steps after me. I heard the door bang shut, then an angry, “Dammit!” I turned and saw her tugging on the handle to get back in.
I hated to revel in the schadenfreude of the moment, but I kinda did. If she’d only let me shove my note in Martina’s mailbox in the first place, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have to walk all the way around the block to get back to work, and I wouldn’t have to hoof it down this disgusting alley. It was probably best that she would be delayed getting back to work. The Braid might even be gone before she did so. I wondered if he was looking for me or if he was there to ask questions about Martina like I had. If so, I hoped he waited in Eeyore Regina’s line and didn’t speak to the manager about me. All he’d have to do is ask, “Seen a lady in a huge orange wig come in here?”
I hurried toward my car, hoping they weren’t going to have that conversation. Or, frankly, any conversation.
All I wanted to do was go home, dive under my covers, and stay there for a thousand years. But I knew I couldn’t. Lakshmi was in danger, perhaps because of me. I was certainly in danger and maybe Lapaglia was too. Until I figured out what was going on, I couldn’t be sure. I was almost to my car, but I changed direction and headed to the costume shop.
I race-walked while trying to unattach my wig from my head. Easier said than done. I didn’t know if it would have been better or worse for the Braid to have yanked it off as I was leaving the library. Maybe then I would have been able to run away immediately. Unless keeping me at the library in our hair-pulling contest kept me safe. Perhaps it was better not to know.
Even though people on the street didn’t really react to me properly wearing a tangerine drag wig, they did tend to gape at me wearing a tangerine drag wig sliding down the side of my head. I couldn’t quite get all the pins out. Darn that costume guy and his excellent instructions.
I gave up about half a block from the shop, knowing I would be demanding immediate help from the first employee I saw. The wig bounced just over my ear as I hurried along. I couldn’t even imagine what I looked like. Wait. Yes, I could. I looked like an arrow on one of those neon signs along a country highway, my hair pointing the way to a roadside honky tonk or a diner serving all-you-can-eat biscuits and gravy.
I had to get to the store before the Braid saw me and before my beehive poked out someone’s eye.
Nine
Bursting into the costume shop, I didn’t even wait for my eyes to adjust to the darker interior. Just barreled toward the stairs where I knew the costumes were. I only stopped when I ran into the concave chest of the employee who helped us on Sunday.
“Hey, hey, hey. What happened here?” He gestured to my collapsing hair.
“Get me out of this thing. Please.”
He marched me toward his desk tucked in the far corner and sat me in his swivel chair. He began plucking out pins. It felt like I was being attacked by crows.
“You didn’t answer me. What happened to you?”
“I thought it would be easier to get off than it was so I started on it as I was walking.”
“Why didn’t you wait until you got home?” Pluck, peck, pluck.
I knew I couldn’t tell him the complete truth, so I told him a different truth. “Because I’m an idiot.”
He swung my chair around and squatted so he was right in my face. “You are NOT an idiot. Now, quit talking nonsense.”
I knew he was simply worried about my self-esteem, but it was hard to explain to people that I really didn’t think I was an idiot when I called myself an idiot. It was just shorthand for when I did something stupid. Although, really, was it technically stupid that I was trying to un-disguise myself?
“You’re absolutely right. I’m not an idiot. But I probably could have thought this through a little bit better.”
He peck-pluck-pecked me until I was finally freed. I rolled my neck, which felt a thousand pounds lighter.
“Thanks ... I don’t even know your name and I feel like we’ve just had an intimate moment.”
He laughed. “Harland.”
“I’m Charlee. Happy to officially meet my new best friend.” I ran my fingers through my temples until they met in the back and massaged my scalp. Practically orgasmic. I stopped before I embarrassed myself. “But now, Harland, I need another disguise.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Disguise?”
“Costume,” I corrected, even though we both knew I hadn’t misspoken.
“What about all those you bought the other day?”
“They’re locked in my boyfriend’s car and he’s at work—”
“And you’re running from someone.”
I didn’t want to confirm the obvious. “Don’t be silly. I’m going to a ... costume party.”
“On a Monday afternoon.” I must have made a face because he added, “Not that I don’t believe you. But no matter. It’s none of my beeswax.” He walked over to the six-foot-tall rack of costumes and started flipping through them. I liked a stylish carnation pink flight attendant outfit that reminded me of one my Barbie had. It matched her sporty pink convertible.
“Can I change into it now?”
“Sure. I’ll ring it up so you can skeedaddle on your way.”
The top was a little too small and the bottom a little too big, but so was I, so who was I to complain?
I handed Harland my credit card and kept my fingers crossed behind my back. My hopes sank as he pulled it out of the reader and tried to swipe it. He rubbed it on his shirt and tried to swipe it again. He gave me a weak smile and
spoke gently. “Sorry. Declined. Do you have another card?” He handed it back.
“I have a library card and a loyalty card from the hot dog place on Colfax. Will you take either one of them?” I slid the useless card back in my wallet then dug in my cash pocket. I glanced at the register, then rifled through my bills. “Not enough.” I sighed, then went back to change out of the Barbie outfit.
When I came out in my t-shirt and jean skirt, I handed him the suit neatly draped on the hanger. He handed me a flowing caftan on a hanger and a puddle of multi-colored fabric I assumed might be some kind of hat. “Try this,” he said.
I stuck my hand in the puddle of soft fabric and a turban with a huge bow on the front sprung to life. I wondered how many people had been treated for lice either before or after wearing this. “I don’t think I can afford it.”
“Yes, you can. This was a rental that came back to us in pretty bad shape. I never even put it back on the rack. Try it.” He must have seen the revulsion on my face because he added, “Don’t be a ninny. It’s been washed. Perfectly clean.”
With only a small shudder that I tried to keep hidden, I tucked my hair up into the turban and threw the roomy caftan on over my clothes. “Ugly, but it might do. How much?”
“How much you got?”
I fanned my bills in my hand. “Eight dollars.”
Harland plucked out the three ones, leaving the five with me.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s three more bucks than we ever would have gotten for this.” He pointed out stains and tears in the caftan. “And that turban is butt-ugly. I never liked having it in the store.”
“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Harland. I’ll send everyone here for their costuming needs.”
“Thanks. Wear it in good health.” He cocked his head. “Be careful out there, Charlee.”
“I will.” I felt better knowing I still had work to do and the Braid would be looking for a towering head of tangerine hair—if the Braid was looking for me at all. I hoped that wasn’t the case, but I felt more confident in my ugly turban and stained caftan.