by Amy Korman
“Well, they’ve ruined the firehouse, but at least there’s free-flowing Stoli,” Honey groused to Mariellen as she flagged down a waiter in the candlelight, waving her already empty glass. Just then, the minuscule Maine lobsters made their appearance on the buffet on massive platters, and a small stampede ensued. It seemed that even the wealthiest Philadelphians can get themselves into a lather over free lobster.
“Look at all these vulgar trays of lobster they’re serving—so Caligula,” sniffed Mariellen to her friend, as I finally got to the front of the line and tonged three of the tiny crustacean tails onto a small cocktail plate.
“Let me finish my drink, then I’m ready to hit it. I’ve got to get home for Dancing with the Stars,” growled Honey, who snagged her cocktail from the returning waiter, forked in a quick plate of lobster, and then headed for the door, Mariellen on her heels.
As for the Colketts, they were out on the patio, shakily clutching drinks and sharing a Marlboro Light before coming back into the bar for a refill. Now that the party was under way, music was pumping, and cocktails were being lavished on guests by the apron-wearing waiters; all in all, it was a pretty spectacular scene. Chef Gianni, who had clearly entered the “up” phase of his rapid-cycle manic episode, schmoozed euphorically with his guests, his bald head gleaming and earrings jingling as he did a little shimmy dance around the room. The room was so crowded that I still couldn’t locate Holly and Joe in the crowd. The Colketts seemed to disappear from the patio as well, but who could blame them after the trauma they’d endured at the chef’s hands?
Just as Honey and Mariellen made their exit, I saw through the restaurant’s front windows that Bootsie had arrived. She threw her Range Rover keys to the valet guys and greeted Mariellen and Honey enthusiastically, which Honey ignored, and Mariellen acknowledged with an air kiss that stopped about three feet from Bootsie’s cheek. I wobbled out on my borrowed high heels to the restaurant’s pretty brick patio to watch Honey get in her car. Mariellen rode shotgun, while Honey took the wheel, still drinking her cocktail and munching a handful of baby lamb chops, and steered the car out of Gianni’s driveway.
“Honey Potts took a roadie!” Bootsie shouted over the crowd to me, impressed.
SEVERAL HOURS AND glasses of Barolo later, Joe dropped me off at home, and I let myself in the side gate from my driveway, fumbled for the house key I keep under the flowerpot by the back door, and stumbled into the kitchen. Waffles, who’d been asleep on the couch, got up and ran over to greet me. Then he went to the door, turned around, and looked at me with an expression that said, I gotta go.
“One second!” I told him drunkenly, as I ran upstairs, exchanged the sky-high heels for flip-flops, came back down and searched for several minutes for his leash, which it turned out he’d buried in the couch cushions. It was dark outside, except for a half moon above, a porch light at the house next door, and a few stars. Unfortunately, instead of heading for his usual bathroom area behind a leafy laurel bush near my back fence, Waffles headed for the gate and gave me Sad Eyes.
It was really too late for a walk. I pointed at his favored shrubbery, and suggested he do what he needed to do. Sad Eyes continued. Guilt gripped me through my boozy haze as I looked at his downcast, droopy face.
“Five minutes,” I said, relenting. The dog totally has my number. “Up and down the driveway, maybe a quick trip to the lilacs on the other side of the yard. That’s it.” More Sad Eyes—which it turned out were bullshit, because as soon as I opened it, Waffles tore out of the gate like Seabiscuit, with me hanging on to the leash and running as fast as I could in flip-flops and in my tipsy state. Waffles looks slow, given that he’s short and portly, with huge ears and goofy, freckled legs, but he can haul ass when he wants to.
This was one of those times, and he tore down the driveway, ears flying, tail wagging, and barely slowed at the street. Luckily, since it was now closing in on 11:30 p.m., there was no one passing by, so we didn’t get hit by any cars as we darted onto the grounds of Sanderson. The estate has an old and very pretty entranceway with a limestone archway over the driveway, but there are no gates barring visitors from the property. The front part of the property runs for a full half mile bordering the road, with beautiful old oaks and chestnuts providing screening and shade, and just behind these woods are cow pastures. The Potts family is very big on cows, though I couldn’t see any right now—they must have lumbered inside for the night. We set off on a little path with wind gently rustling the leaves above us, the moon lighting the way, and Waffles chugging along, all excited and breathing like a little Darth Vader.
The Pottses’ cow barn was a quarter mile away, in the direction of the main house, but set off by a paddock and a small wooded area. Like Norman, Mariellen Merriwether’s horse, the cows lived in what I was sure were cushy, upscale accommodations—at least they had a home that wasn’t about to be sold out from under them, I thought sadly. Waffles and I would have to go stay with Holly, who hates dogs, and thinks Waffles is especially useless. In the midst of my self-pity, I noticed Waffles had paused on the trail to wag at something.
“Hey, are you lost?” said a man’s voice from somewhere in the darkened trail in front of me. I screamed and jumped a few feet into the air. Waffles huffed over happily to get petted by the unseen guy, who bent over and scratched the dog’s velvety ears. This seemed like a good sign. Evil killers who lurk on fancy estates don’t usually stop to pet dogs.
“I live across the street,” I said nervously, “and I was just taking my dog for a quick walk, and he ran over here.” Clearly, I was trespassing. But maybe this guy was trespassing, too, which was scary. Or would have been, if I hadn’t had those three glasses of wine.
“Late walk,” he said, sounding amused, and coming closer while Waffles sniffed his knees assiduously and my eyes adjusted enough to the dimness to see some of the man in front of me. While the moon didn’t afford much in the way of lighting, I could see the guy was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and old running shoes, and had dark hair and was maybe five-nine. He was kind of cute. At least, he looked like he was cute from what I could see—he had a scruffy beard, a dark tan, and seemed to be in his late thirties. He smelled very nicely of soap. And like something else. What was that smell? It was earthy, natural, a little funky, but pleasant. I’d smelled it on really hot July days wafting over from Sanderson . . . it smelled like a country road in the summertime . . .
It was eau de cow.
“Do you work here?” I asked, relieved. Honey Potts wouldn’t hire a homicidal maniac, I was pretty sure. She probably inherited her servants, Downton Abbey style. This guy had doubtless been born into the Potts household, the son of the family chambermaid and head gardener.
“I take care of the herd,” the guy answered. “Got a minute?” he added. “You and your dog can walk to the barn with me while I check on the cows.” He smiled. Waffles wagged. I wavered. “Um, okay,” I said, fueled by liquid courage.
Over the next twenty minutes, I admired roughly a hundred cute and sleepy cows in the Potts cow barn. In the brightly lit barn I saw that the guy, who introduced himself as Mike, was in fact very handsome. He proudly conducted a short tour de bovine, explaining patiently that all the Sanderson cows were of the Hereford variety, originally from the British Isles. Mike, much like the cows he tended, was not too skinny, friendly, and kind of scruffy.
This kind of unconventional guy has always been my type, which is why I haven’t found anyone to marry. As my friends like to point out, the men I attract usually disappear to backpack through Thailand soon after our third date, which makes it hard to pursue a relationship. Anyway, after we looked at the cows, Mike walked me back up the path toward the road, and we reached the Potts driveway, where I intended to turn left and head for home.
Unfortunately, Waffles was straining at the leash to turn right, sniffing and wagging in the moonlight in the general direction of a hydrangea bush. He whined and pulled me closer to said flo
wering shrub. A few feet from the bush, Mike grabbed my free hand and paused. I felt a little thrill down my spine, thinking he was about to ask me for my number.
Instead, he said, “There’s something under that bush.”
Mike walked closer to the hydrangea, Waffles and I close on his heels, and all three of us noted what appeared to be a pair of Ferragamo loafers attached to a chubby, motionless man. Mike amended his statement. “Actually, there’s someone under that bush.”
You know the rest—under the shrubbery was Barclay Shields. After a call to the police, Officer Walt arrived, followed by a teenage intern, a pair of EMTs, and at one point Honey Potts—in her nightgown—who drove down her quarter-mile-long driveway in response to the police’s knock on her baronial front door. In all the confusion, I never got to say good-bye to Mike. I did watch the medics hook Barclay up to a drip while the policeman removed the contents of his pockets. Methodically, he carefully packed up Barclay’s wallet, keys, and cell phone. He also found a note, handwritten on expensive-looking, cream-colored notepaper, addressed to Barclay. It was easy to read in the bright headlights of the ambulance, and its large block letters said: “Stop building cheap houses.”
Chapter 3
THE NEXT MORNING, after Sophie Shields bought everything in The Striped Awning and after Bootsie finally left, I packed up every damn thing in the store. This tedious task took a little over seven hours, but I was happy to do it. I bubble-wrapped and carefully placed items in a dozen moving boxes; I carefully folded paper around the crystals adorning the Palm Beach chandelier, wound tarps around the legs of a maple hall table and the vanity in the front window, and polished silver candlesticks and a tea set (leaving a little patina on the tea set, since I figured if Sophie had live-in Pilates help, she had people to polish silver for her).
Luckily, I had a fair amount of furniture and accessories in the back room of The Striped Awning with which I could restock the store once I delivered Sophie’s loot to her. “This is a ton of stuff!” I told Waffles, who wagged back at me.
Between all the silverware and wineglasses, pillows and prints, several pages of the yellow legal pad I was using to keep track of Sophie’s purchases filled up rapidly. There were old glass decanters, a needlepoint stool, and a set of blue-and-white Chinese export dessert plates, all things that I had loved when I’d bought them at flea markets and estate sales, which is important in the antiques business: You have to believe in what you’re selling. I loved them even more at the moment, since they were going to help me pay my mortgage and keep the store open. I even apologized to the chair I’d yelled at the day before.
For packing music, I turned up the country-music station on the radio, and occasionally thought about cute Mike Woodford, distracted by visions of his tan forearms and dark-stubbled jaw. I also thought about Barclay Shields, wondering how he was doing with his head injury, and shuddered at the image of his extra-wide Ferragamos under the bush last night. Then I sternly ordered myself to focus.
Occasionally, I’d pause to calculate the subtotal as I worked my way through the store, singing out, “We just made another four hundred dollars!” and “Mirror: two hundred!” until I finally reached the back of the small store and the grand total: seven thousand, five hundred, and seventy dollars. Minus rent and my AmEx bill, this meant The Striped Awning was in business for at least another few months. At three, I called Mr. Webster to tell him I’d be dropping off a check for this month as soon as Sophie’s Visa payment went through, probably by Tuesday. He sounded like he thought this was bullshit, but accepted my promise of payment.
Finally, at five-thirty, I went into the store’s tiny black-and-white-striped powder room, washed my dusty face and hands, put on new mascara and lipstick, pulled my hair out of its ponytail, and shook it down around my shoulders. I attempted to shake the wrinkles out of my dress (Gap outlet, black cotton, thirty-nine dollars) and spritzed on some of Grandma’s YSL perfume, circa 1970, which sits on a little shelf in the bathroom and, by some miracle, still smells fantastic. I hoped the YSL drowned out some of my current scent, which was a combination of dust, old furniture, silver polish, and basset hound.
Waffles was giving me a significant look at the back door of the store, so we went outside, where he did his daily double in the grass behind the store. I pooper-scooped, went back inside, filled up his water bowl, and threw a handful of kibble into a dish. By the time I’d grabbed my keys to leave, he’d inhaled his dinner and was back on his bed, asleep. That’s one of the great things about Waffles. He sleeps about twenty hours a day, the bulk of them snoring on his bed in the store. The downside of this is that the four hours he’s awake, he’s incredibly energetic and steals all my food. He’d grabbed the chicken salad I’d bought for lunch today, as a matter of fact, while I briefly turned my back to answer the phone. He gave me Sad Eyes and looked convincingly guilty after he ate it, though I’m not sure that was the case.
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes—one quick drink!” I promised the sleeping dog, then locked up and rushed to the club to meet Holly and Joe.
“Seven thousand, five hundred, and seventy dollars. Seven thousand, five hundred, and seventy dollars,” I sang good-humoredly to the tune of “Happy Birthday to You,” as I drove down Lancaster Avenue, the main drag in town, where The Striped Awning sits along with the luncheonette, a few boutiques, a bakery, and the (very popular) liquor store. Then I turned left onto shady Montgomery Lane, and after a quarter mile, into the rosebush-lined entrance of Bryn Mawr Country Club.
The cars in the parking lot were a mix that closely resembled the members—some new and glossy, some old and dusty. My own slightly dented old Subaru looked even seedier than usual, I noticed, parked next to a gleaming Jaguar convertible in a nice, cool, shady spot under a two-hundred-year-old oak.
“Uh-oh,” I said aloud to myself a minute later, peering around the corner of the club’s wide porch from behind a wide pillar. I could see Honey Potts and Mariellen Merriwether at the other end of the porch, seated at one of the wrought-iron dining tables and watching a tennis match on the club’s grass courts. Honey was eating a plate of fried oysters and drinking her trusty Stoli. Mariellen was in her pearls, smoking a Virginia Slim. Just in front of me were Holly and Joe.
Phew—I could sneak up the side steps of the porch to Holly and Joe’s table unnoticed. There were a dozen tables crowded with preppy members between us, and Honey and Mariellen would never see me. I was pretty sure Honey hadn’t taken much notice of me last night in the dark while she’d been talking to the police, but on the off chance that she had, I was intent on avoiding her.
I had noticed her eyeing Waffles, though, last night when she’d been standing there in her white cotton nightshirt—oh, that I could erase the image of Mrs. Potts in her sleep garb from my brain—since his short legs and massive ears make him kind of hard to ignore. In her mind, I was sure, not only had Waffles and I recklessly trespassed on the hallowed grounds of Sanderson last night, we’d been instrumental in discovering a crime scene that had forever tarnished the property. Eventually someone would have found Mr. Shields, but I didn’t think Honey had considered that. I breathed deep yoga breaths for a moment (I don’t do yoga, but I’ve heard the breathing is good), and gazed around at the club grounds to calm myself.
You can’t beat the club for sheer old-fashioned loveliness and stateliness, especially at this time of day, with the late-afternoon sun turning into shade and shadows lengthening around the hulking building. The century-old structure is three stories high, all gables and mullioned windows, with a charming shingled roof above brick walls and the wide wooden porches. Inside is a dining room, rarely used except in the winter, vintage locker rooms with mahogany cabinets for tennis and golf gear, and an incredible old paneled bar, which until the late 1960s had actually been men-only (women had to drink either in the locker rooms, or when seated in the dining room or on the porch, which
seemed a little unfair, though there were some nice comfy couches in the locker rooms). Adjacent to the tennis courts are the golf course and putting greens. The grounds are at their best this time of year, too, with rosebushes exploding with buds, and borders of lilies and peonies in fragrant, massive bloom.
Holly and I had both been coming here since childhood—like her family, my grandparents had been members all their lives, long before younger (and richer) people had started to join in the last ten years. The club had needed new members to survive, and opening up membership had been, to my mind, a great thing. The club now attracted people in their thirties and forties, with glossy hair and adorable children, alongside all the eighty-five-year-olds who wore vintage Lilly Pulitzer not because it was chic again, but because they’d been wearing it for fifty years and their closets were filled with the flowered frocks. The place was like Grey Gardens meets a Tommy Hilfiger ad.
One of the rich new members, as a matter of fact, was Holly’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Howard the Garbage and Trucking Mogul, whom Holly had met outside the locker rooms one afternoon three years ago. Howard’s gazillion-plus trash trucks handle the refuse pickup for pretty much every house along the East Coast from Jersey to Florida, and Howard had just personally paid for the club’s new racquetball courts (called, of course, the Howard Jones Racquetball Courts). He’d been standing there with Ronnie, the head bartender and manager, discussing the club’s waste-removal discount, when he’d spied Holly coming out of the locker room in her tennis outfit. Bingo! They’d been married four months later. It’s a fact that Holly, while she rarely plays tennis, looks awesome in her Lacoste tennis whites. She’s big on wearing them to the club even when she has zero intention of picking up a racket, and accessorizes the sporty outfit with some great Van Cleef Alhambra clover necklaces and earrings.