by Amy Korman
It’s one of the few club events that fits in my meager budget. Actually, I can’t afford the club at all, and there’s no chance I could pay my annual membership fee, given that I’m behind on rent at the shop and AmEx has been calling my house incessantly about my past due charges. Somehow, though, my club dues are fully up-to-date—Ronnie insists that my grandparents prepaid my fees for several years in advance, but I know it had to have been Holly.
“Where’s Eula?” asked Bootsie, popping up at my elbow. She looked very pretty tonight, I noticed, in her standard party outfit of Talbots cotton shift dress and flat sandals. She’d added some dangly earrings, and even gone for a swipe of pink lipstick.
“I’ve got a plan to get her drunk, then drive her home and search the parts of her house that I couldn’t see when I was in her tree on Thursday,” Bootsie said. “I did a little legwork outside her house today. It’s one story, but there’s an attic, and it looks like she’s got a secret painting studio up there. I aimed my binoculars at her second floor window, and I’m pretty sure I saw an easel!”
Just then, Sophie and Joe showed up, and I quickly told them about Eula’s surprising hobby of selling paintings at Stoltzfus’s. Naturally, Joe agreed with Bootsie that Eula was the mastermind behind the Heifer heist.
“Where’s Gerda?” I asked, hoping she might be skipping the party.
“We just dropped her off at Barclay’s place,” Sophie told me, wriggling nervously in a silk caftan, while Joe headed for the bar. “She’s going to work on figuring out his new e-mail password tonight.”
“Hey, everyone,” shouted Chef Gianni, limping out from his outdoor kitchen area while three waiters followed him bearing trays of delicious-smelling tiny plates of pasta. The chef waved his crutch for emphasis as a crowd of arriving guests paused, gazing admiringly and sniffing the air. “My duck ragout is finally ready! Gianni got stabbed, but he don’t give up!”
Waiters began passing the little plates of pasta to guests, along with tiny silver forks and linen napkins. More servers followed, bearing glasses of some delicious-looking red wine, and Gianni personally helped hand out the snacks to the little crowd of early party guests, doling out kisses to the ladies and doing some greetings of the back-slapping variety to husbands.
I instantly forgot the fact that I don’t eat duck, and dug in. The food was so delicious that the group actually cheered.
“Gianni try to be modest, but I killing it with this pasta!” the chef said.
Then he indicated Skipper’s burrito setup, which did look a little flat next to Gianni’s modern-Italian tour de force. Gianni made a skeptical face as Abby and two other waitresses loading up trays with Skipper’s mini-tacos and tiny shrimp tostados.
“I feel like I’m at, what you call it, Taco Bell!” yelled Gianni to the admiring crowd of club members. “What is this, Skipper, refried beans? Maybe I’m at Chipotle!”
“These are organic black beans sautéed in a chili oil, and we have some heirloom tomatoes and fresh cilantro that we grew ourselves in the club’s veggie garden. Of course, we make our own tortillas, and the meats are free-range chicken and grass-fed beef . . .”
Skipper wiped some sweat from his brow.
Just then, a huge sheepdog ran up to the gas grill where Skipper and his team were basting a hefty piece of beef. Skipper’s signature burrito filling, a flank steak, had floated its smoky, yummy scent out past the sycamores and the laurel hedges, and the sheepdog sat down by the grill, panting and slobbering.
I knew this dog: It was Toby, the Binghams’ free-roaming mutt, who enjoys a fence-free existence, but is luckily quite streetwise. Toby pauses at crosswalks and waits at stop signs, so he makes his way around town without incident.
Toby usually respects sheepdog-a non grata zones such as the club, the cow pastures at Sanderson, and the cemetery. But Skipper’s flank steak had put this well-mannered pooch over the edge.
“Skipper, your steak brought in a new customer, and he got four legs and a tail!” Gianni shouted to the small crowd of guests. “Hey, don’t worry, we all gotta start somewhere!”
“Oh, Toby, you naughty boy,” said Mr. Bingham, wandering over in a yellow sport coat, glass of white zinfandel in hand. He waved a finger at his wayward dog, who merely wagged up at him and kept drooling.
Just then, two yellow Labs showed up, joined Toby grill-side, and commenced whining, while Gianni, earrings gleaming as he leaned on his crutches, kept up a running commentary. “These dogs might hire you for their next party, Skipper! Could be whole new business for you!”
“Bootsie, aren’t those your Labs?” I hissed, giving her a nudge.
“Huh—that is Chewy and Rocky!” she said, seemingly undisturbed by her dogs having galloped a half mile away from home. “I told Will to make sure our fence got repaired this week. I’ll have to call him to come pick them up.”
While Bootsie shrugged and dialed her husband, Gianni made a last dig at the club’s head chef. “Hey, Skipper, maybe you the one stole that painting of the cow yesterday! You probably need the money.”
With this, Skipper had had enough of Gianni. He stalked inside the club and disappeared as the rest of the guests arrived.
“THE PAINTING THAT was returned yesterday is a fake Heifer in Tomato Patch,” Mrs. Potts told us five minutes later. She downed a mini-taco in one bite, and sipped a large vodka.
“It was almost immediately apparent, though the counterfeit painting was a pretty good one at first glance,” confirmed George Fogle, who’d accompanied Honey to the party. The two had spent the day researching forgers of Henry Huntingdon-Mews’s works, of which there had been many back in the painter’s own century, but none that were known in present-day art circles.
“This version of Heifer wasn’t painted all that long ago,” said George. “Probably earlier this year, since oil paint can take months to fully set onto a canvas. Also, it was layered over an existing canvas. It’s a commonly done technique that’s called pentimento, this kind of reuse for an old painting. In this case, the artist found a gilt frame and canvas that’s almost exactly the size of Honey’s original.”
A new painting layered atop an old one? Bootsie and I stared at each other.
Eula was a pentimento painter! At least, according to Annie and Jenny. We needed to call Walt.
“That’s just like The Thomas Crown Affair!” shrieked Sophie. “I love that movie! I mean, when Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo get naked on his staircase, it’s awesome. Although I couldn’t stop thinking that cold marble stairs would really hurt your tush.”
“It’s hard to know if this was supposed to be a joke, or if the artist set out to create a convincing forgery of Heifer,” continued George. “I made some calls today, and Walt took the fake painting in to try to lift any fingerprints that might have been left. Meanwhile, though, the real painting is still missing.”
I told George about Eula’s hobby of re-making old canvases, then wondered if this would be a good time to mention to George and Mrs. Potts that a Vegas restaurateur named Lobster Phil LaMonte was also checking around for her painting. Probably not, I decided. It seemed a little too complicated to explain over a mini-taco.
Plus George can be a bit competitive, plus I had a feeling he and Lobster Phil moved in very different circles. And who knows? Let each of them do their own thing, and maybe somewhere between Vegas, Jersey, and the fancy New York art world, one of the two might actually find the wayward canvas.
“Now that I’m done with this party project and I don’t have to deal with that hideous Eula Morris,” said Holly, “I’m going to devote ninety-three percent of my time to taking you out for cocktails and tracking down your painting, Mrs. P.”
Mrs. Potts gave Holly a smile, cheering up a little. Holly’s the only person who ever convinced the elderly heiress to wear lip gloss and occasionally put on a
tasteful sheath dress instead of her usual Bermuda shorts, and they have an unlikely but firm friendship.
“What are you going to do with the other seven percent of your waking hours?” George asked Holly.
“First, I’m going to get Eula Morris to stop wearing beige, and then I’ll come up with a plan to get her to move at least three states away from here!”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I wondered if Holly would mind if I took off from the tomato fest. Then again, the ticket she’d generously bought me had been close to one hundred dollars, there was an open bar, and I had on the borrowed Trina Turk dress. But the conversations at this soiree were honestly a little strange.
“I talk to my tomato seeds during the winter,” Mrs. Bingham was telling me and Sophie, as her husband gallantly handed her a fresh white zinfandel. I noticed his striped bow tie had slipped to a jaunty angle, and Toby the dog had joined them at the party, still wagging politely at passing guests.
“Uh-huh,” said Sophie. “What kind of stuff do ya tell them?”
“I tell them they’re destined for greatness!” Mrs. Bingham said with a giggle.
“That, or to be sliced up and served with mozzarella and basil,” whispered Tim Colkett.
“Keep talking,” said Jimmy Best, my grouchy next-door neighbor, to Mrs. Bingham. “You drink enough, your plants might start answering you.”
“I think I have a real shot this year at getting first place in the Mighty Sweets,” Mrs. Bingham replied. “I did some new composting, and my babies are the best they’ve ever been!”
“Mummy gave me some great tips,” Bootsie said. “For one, she spritzes everything with vodka. Keeps away the beetles. That, and she uses a ton of Miracle-Gro.”
“You ain’t allowed to use Miracle-Gro on competition veggies,” Jimmy informed her. “No chemicals. I guess vodka’s okay, though.”
“Hey, isn’t that the cute guy you make out with sometimes over there?” Sophie added, giving me a little elbow nudge and nodding in the direction of the tomato display.
Mike Woodford was sipping a vodka drink and inspecting the Early Girl plants alongside his aunt Honey Potts.
“That’s him,” I confirmed, noting that Mike was in his standard party attire of navy blazer and khakis, along with some brown Gucci loafers. To be honest, Mike looks better when he’s in jeans and a T-shirt, but he still looked very cute.
“He’s a hot guy!” Sophie said, giving me a little wink.
“But just look at him with those tomatoes—he’s more interested in them than he is in talking to me,” I told her. Mike was currently bent over what a placard indicated was Eula Morris’s plant, looking absolutely fascinated by the glossy red veggies that hung from the slender green stalks. He and Honey were engaged in whispered conversation over the plant with the intensity most people reserve for juicy gossip, not juicy produce.
I tried not to notice the dark beard scruff I found so irresistible on Mike, as he talked animatedly with his aunt. Also, I ignored his deep tan, dark brown eyes, and long lashes, and suppressed the memory of that time we made out in the back room at The Striped Awning . . .
Wait! I was dating John, I told myself sternly. Who was also tan, handsome, and actually called me, and spent time with me on a regular basis! Well, usually he did, when he wasn’t away at veterinary clinics.
“You know,” Bootsie said, interrupting my reverie, “Mike’s on my list of suspects for Honey’s painting.”
“Mike’s her nephew, isn’t he?” squeaked Sophie. “And, like, her favorite person in the world. He’s gonna inherit everything, so he’s got no reason to steal it.”
“Maybe he needs cash right now,” Bootsie told us. “I mean, I hope it was Eula who took Heifer, but it could have been Mike. He probably read about that sale of the seven-hundred-thousand-dollar Huntingdon-Mews and decided to grab it, sell it, and speed up his inheritance!”
I considered Bootsie’s latest theory for a moment while perching on a bar stool, since Holly’s wedge sandals were starting to pinch my toes. In Agatha Christie novels, impatient heirs are always trying to either steal from their own family members or—and this I couldn’t even contemplate vis-à-vis Mike Woodford—poison wealthy relatives and accelerate the process of getting their hands on what was listed in a will as rightfully theirs.
But Mike had never shown any interest—other than those Gucci loafers he busts out for parties—in the fancy side of life. Like Honey, he only cares about cows. Plus he already lives on the gorgeous grounds of Sanderson in a fantastic little stone cottage.
“I’m pretty sure the only thing Mike reads is Organic Farming,” I informed Bootsie. “They probably didn’t cover that auction where the other Huntingdon-Mews sold for big bucks.”
“I thought you were positive it was either Eula or Gianni who took that piece of art!” added Sophie.
“It’s probably Eula or Gianni,” agreed Bootsie. “Which is why my plan is to get Eula drunk and then ransack her attic. Wish me luck!”
At that moment, Holly announced that she was ready to head home.
“You’ve just spent three months and twenty-five thousand dollars of Howard’s money on this party, and you’re leaving after forty-five minutes?” said Bootsie.
“My work is done,” Holly told her. “I wanted to support Mrs. Potts and her passion for the traditional.”
“I thought you just wanted to stick it to Eula Morris by taking over the party,” Joe pointed out.
“That, too,” agreed Holly. “Also, I might be in an existential crisis about whether tomatoes matter.”
“So, like, you’re searching for the meaning of life?” Sophie asked.
“Not really,” Holly told her. “More just for the meaning of the past ninety days I spent planning this dumb party.”
“Ya need a sign!” Sophie told her. “I’m a big believer in stuff like messages and signs! I mean, look at how I met Gerda. I saw what I thought was the sign for a Versace boutique across a canal in Venice, and was leaning over to get a better look, and almost fell in the water—and Gerda yanked me out! We’ve been friends ever since!”
Just then, a blindingly bright light flooded the tent. As a bewildered buzz rose from the guests, and everyone rushed outside.
A huge billboard was visible beyond some trees and just past the first golf tee, its border a Vegas-style line of flashing bulbs.
In huge white letters, the sign read, “Mega Wine Mart! Opening Next Month with 40,000 Square Feet of Discount Booze!”
Chapter 12
WITH THAT, WE all agreed it was time to leave, and went to the Bryn Mawr Pub.
“That Wine Mart has to be your ex’s idea,” Bootsie told Sophie. “It’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.”
“It better not be!” Sophie said, stamping her tiny bejeweled spiky heel as we slid into the large booth at the front of the pub. “ ’Cause if he owns it, I get half of it in the divorce! I gotta go call my lawyer.”
“How did you plan a party for three months and not notice that sign going up behind the eighteenth golf green?” Joe asked Holly.
“When Eula’s around, I don’t have time to look up,” she told him.
“My lawyer’s gonna look into this new store,” Sophie told us, looking up from a text. “He’s turned up a bunch a stuff Barclay owns but didn’t list in his property accounting.”
“I’ll find out who’s behind the Wine Mart,” Bootsie promised. “I’m not going to let Eula steal this story from me!”
“She already did,” Joe informed her, holding up his phone, on which he’d brought up a recent Bryn Mawr Gazette piece about a new wine store coming to town—which none of us had noticed in the last issue.
“How dare she!” screamed Bootsie. “I cover alcohol-related events!”
“You’re supposed to be the town’s preemi
nent reporter,” Joe reminded Bootsie. “How did you not know that something called a Mega Wine Mart was being built right off the town’s main shopping street?”
“I was in Maine this week,” said Bootsie angrily, then calmed down a little. “Although, come to think of it, I might have heard something about a new liquor store. It wasn’t a superstore, though.”
I was facing the street in our booth, and just then, my attention was caught by a tall, willowy figure that had just wafted through the slightly dingy front door of the Pub.
The lighting was dim in here, emanating from neon beer signs and a Phillies game on a TV above the bar, but after blinking a few times, I knew with a sinking feeling that my first impression had been correct.
The slim and perfect blond girl up near the Pub’s all-you-can-eat barrel of peanuts was none other than Lilly Merriwether.
IF ANYTHING, LILLY—who happens to be the ex-wife of my boyfriend, John, and honestly is everything you wouldn’t want your boyfriend’s ex to be—had gotten better-looking over the past year. Instead of the tennis outfits I’d always seen her in when she was in Bryn Mawr full-time, she wore a really cool-looking, flowy print dress with a halter neck, plus some chic suede sandals.
I gave a little nudge to Holly, and Sophie and Bootsie turned to gaze openmouthed at Lilly, too.
Luckily, Holly isn’t a big fan of Lilly’s, either. Some of this was out of loyalty to me, since everyone knows you’re not supposed to be friendly to a girl who was married to your friend’s boyfriend.
Mostly, though, it was because Lilly was Holly’s main competition in the gorgeous, slim, and wealthy blond category of girls in town when she lived here.
“Lilly’s got on the Thakoon dress I ordered last month,” noted Holly coolly. “Luckily, the Pack-N-Ship lost the package, because that dress will never be worn by me now.”