His lips pursed. “Let me tell you, Mister Macho won’t be making a mistake like that again anytime soon. Ruthie could have been dognapped.”
Cookie sighed. “Latin men! You love them because of their fiery, passionate lust for life. But you forget, or at least I do, that the downside to all that passion is a darker, deeper despair than most Anglo men feel.”
All this, I thought, over a decorating contest.
“As a result,” Cookie continued, “Manny, I’m afraid, got absolutely trashed on mojitos.”
My lips were twitching again. To cover, I yawned.
“And then he acted out,” Cookie said, lowering his voice.
“How?”
“He stripped down to his Tommies and went skinny-dipping in that fountain in the middle of Lafayette Square!” Cookie said. “Can you imagine—if the bishop had looked out his window and seen something like that?”
Living as he did in the historic district, I felt fairly sure that the bishop at Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, which fronted Lafayette Square, had probably seen worse. But I kept that to myself.
“No,” I said sympathetically.
“It was not an attractive display,” Cookie said. “When I finally hauled him out of there, he insisted on coming over here. To your place. I think he was somehow planning to vandalize your window. As revenge.”
Alarmed, I stepped out of the house to see what, if anything had happened to my shop.
“Not to worry,” Cookie said. “I managed to drag him away before he did any harm.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said.
“Although,” he went on, “I’m afraid Manny did manage to wake up your employee. She looked pretty startled, and who can blame her? A dripping-wet, half-naked gorgeous Cuban man brandishing a can of spray paint at two in the morning.”
“Employee?” I was drawing a blank.
“Or maybe one of your customers or party guests got overserved and decided it was safer to stay right where she was.”
“Cookie,” I said finally. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the woman who was sleeping in that bed in your shop window last night,” he said. “Tucked in tight, teddy bear and all.”
CHAPTER 12
I pulled the collar of Daniel’s sweater tighter around my neck, to ward off the sudden chill.
“Is—” I gulped. “Is she still there?”
“I don’t know,” Cookie snapped. “I cut through the square to get to your place, so he”—he glared down at Jethro—”could stop and do his business there, instead of on my doorstep.”
He thrust a plastic Kroger bag at me. “This is for you.”
It was still warm. I held it at arm’s length. “Thanks. And, again, I’m sorry about Jethro’s bad behavior.”
“Sorry just doesn’t cut it,” Cookie said, his nostrils flaring in anger. “You should have had that dog fixed. There are enough mutts running around loose downtown—”
“Look,” I said angrily, shoving Jethro inside my door, “we’ll have to continue this discussion some other time. If there’s somebody sleeping in my window, I need to get over to the shop and see about it.”
“I should hope so,” Cookie said, and he turned and flounced off, his tam-o’-shanter bouncing with every step.
After depositing Jethro’s poop in the kitchen trash can, I took the stairs two at a time, calling out as I went.
“Daniel! Wake up! One of the neighbors says he saw somebody sleeping in the bed at Maisie’s Daisy.”
No answer. Daniel is such a sound sleeper, he could—and has—slept through a hurricane.
“Daniel!” I yanked the blanket and sheet off the bed, and shook his bare shoulder repeatedly. “Wake up!”
“What?” He rolled onto his stomach and buried his head under the pillows.
“You’ve got to come over to the shop with me,” I said, stepping out of the pajama bottoms and pulling on a pair of jeans. “That was Cookie Parker at the door just now. He says he saw a woman sleeping in the display window in the shop earlier this morning.”
“Why?” Daniel swung his legs over the side of the bed. I tossed his jeans at him.
“Come on. Hurry up and get dressed. I’m not going over there by myself.”
“Crazy,” Daniel muttered, but a minute later he was right behind me on the stairs. When we got to the front door, he reached out and grabbed my hand.
“You better stay here,” he said quietly. “If this is the same person who broke into your truck, and then the house, there’s no telling how crazy she is. Just stay here. Call the cops.”
“What? No cops. I’m coming with you,” I insisted.
He put both hands on my shoulders. “Please? Just this once, listen to me?”
I shook my head. “It’s probably just a harmless little old lady. The same one BeBe saw snitching cookies last night. We can’t call the cops on her. They’ll lock her up in jail. I don’t want that on my conscience. Not at Christmas.”
“Christmas again!” But he stood aside to let me out the door.
“Not all these homeless people downtown are the quaint little hoboes you seem to visualize,” he said. “There’re a couple of guys who were coming around the back door at the restaurant at closing time, mooching food. The busboys felt sorry for them, were giving them some of the leftovers we donate to the food bank. But a couple of nights ago, one of them started demanding money. He actually threatened Kevin with a knife.”
“Lock the door,” I said over my shoulder, already down the front steps of the town house. “I know you’re worried about my safety, and I appreciate it. But this isn’t some knife-wielding psycho. Cookie said it was a woman. And she was asleep—clutching my teddy bear.”
“Probably had a revolver under the pillow,” he said darkly when he caught up with me on the sidewalk outside the shop.
“She’s gone.” I was surprised at how let down I felt, staring in at the display window.
“Thank God,” he said.
We both stood there, staring at my vision of a Blue Christmas.
“It’s just like I left it,” I said. And it was, mostly. The chenille spread was smooth, the pillows were arranged just as I’d placed them the night before. The feather pen was still poised atop the open diary. The class ring was still there. The blue princess phone, the poodle lamp, even the records were fanned out in the same order around the phonograph. Elvis’s upper lip still curled up at me from the silver-framed picture.
“We’d better go inside and see what’s missing,” Daniel said. “And I don’t care if they do have to lock somebody up, if anything’s been stolen, we are calling the cops.”
“Okay,” I said meekly, knowing that a call wouldn’t be necessary.
Daniel followed me inside, walking every inch of the shop, peering inside cupboards, checking the bathroom, he even got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed, until he was satisfied that it was empty.
“This Cookie guy, was he sure he saw somebody in your shop?” he asked, yawning. “I mean, is there any chance he was mistaken?”
“Well, he admitted he and Manny had been drinking,” I said. “Actually, he said Manny was so upset at losing the decorating contest that he got shit-faced last night over cocktails at the Pink House.”
“The Pink House!” Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
I knew immediately it had been a mistake to mention Guale’s closest restaurant competition downtown.
“Anyway,” I added hastily, “Manny got so trashed he stripped down to his skivvies and went for a dip in the Lafayette Square fountain. And then he came over here, apparently to spray-paint graffiti on my windows. Fortunately, Cookie got him calmed down and put a stop to it. But that’s when they both saw the woman asleep in my display bed.”
Daniel yawned again.
“She’s gone now, that’s for sure. If she ever really was here. I know the bartender at the Pink House. She makes drinks strong enough to stop a bull moose in his tra
cks. I think she thinks it helps her tips.”
I nodded thoughtfully, following Daniel out the front door and stopping to lock up. But he was already in front of the town house, standing on my front stoop.
“I’ll make us breakfast,” he offered. “French toast. You’ve got eggs and milk, right?”
“Yeah,” I called back, looking in at the shop window again. My gaze lingered on the iron bed’s footboard, where my father’s high school letter sweater had hung the night before. The sweater was gone, and in its place was a thread-bare brown sweater with a glittery blue Christmas tree brooch pinned to the collar.
CHAPTER 13
Three days before Christmas, and I still hadn’t finished my shopping. Still, when BeBe offered to feed me dinner if I’d come over and help her wrap her gifts, along with my own, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
BeBe is strictly a wrapping paper-and-ribbon girl, while I have always been one of those demented souls who insist on making every gift a perfect little work of art. Which meant that by ten o’clock that night, we’d drunk two bottles of wine, finished dinner and dessert, and wrapped all her gifts, while I was still slaving away over mine.
I was hot-gluing a string of fake pearls to a glossy black box to which I’d already affixed a vintage scrap of lace collar when BeBe came back into the study of her town house with another glass of wine.
“That looks amazing,” she said. “Who’s it for?”
As an answer, I opened the box and held up the contents.
BeBe winced. “The dreaded seasonal sweater. For your mother, right?”
“I know,” I said. “But she just loves these things. And Valentine’s Day is the only holiday she doesn’t already have a sweater for. So…”
She scratched a fingernail against the appliquéd calico hearts on the pocket of the hot pink cardigan, then pointed at the white satin cupid shooting an embroidered arrow across the sweater’s chest.
“Eloise,” BeBe said sternly, “this is the most atrocious garment I have ever seen. Where in God’s name did you buy the thing?”
“The Internet, natch.”
“What’s the site called, TackyTogs dot com?”
“Worse,” I said, laughing. “The Kitten’s Whiskers.”
She put the top back on the box and pushed it away in distaste.
“I know you bought your dad another power tool, and I saw those beautiful leather books you wrapped up for James and Jonathan, but what did you buy for Daniel?”
I put the glue gun down and flopped onto my back on BeBe’s Oriental carpet.
“Nothing,” I wailed. “You know he’s always hated Christmas. And it’s worse than ever this year. He says he doesn’t need anything, and he doesn’t want me to buy him anything at all. It’s so Grinch-y. But he’s absolutely adamant about it.”
“Ridiculous,” BeBe said. “It’s just a typical male ploy to get out of buying you a good present. Like an engagement ring,” she said meaningfully.
“No,” I said quickly. “I really believe he means what he says. You know he buys me wonderful birthday gifts, and even silly little no-special-occasion gifts. So I know it’s not that. Besides, I don’t want a ring. Not for Christmas, anyway.”
“It’s that whole weird family thing of his, isn’t it?” BeBe asked.
She was intimately acquainted with Daniel’s family saga, since it was she who’d uncovered the whole sad story back when Daniel was still working for her at Guale.
“Yeah,” I said glumly. “His father left at Christmas. His brothers still live here in town, but Eric and Derek are busy with their own lives, and for Daniel, the restaurant just seems to eat up all his free time.”
“Don’t I know it,” BeBe said. “That’s one reason I finally decided to let Guale go. I wanted a chance at having a real life with Harry.”
BeBe had inherited Harry Sorrentino, along with a broken-down mom-and-pop motel out on Tybee Island, less than a year ago, through an unfortunate encounter with a gorgeous con man who ultimately fleeced her. But, in typical BeBe fashion, she’d managed to track the guy down, get her money back, and keep and refurbish the inn into a money-making proposition.
Unquestionably, Harry, the only charter boat captain I know who reads Wodehouse and John D. MacDonald, was the best part of that particular acquisition.
“Speaking of which,” I said. “What are you giving Harry? I know we wrapped a bunch of boxes.”
She giggled and blushed. “Harry is the world’s easiest lay. He likes everything. So I went a little nuts, even though it is our first Christmas together. Let’s see. Of course, there’s that Hawaiian shirt you bought him at that yard sale down in Florida.”
“For two bucks,” I reminded her.
“Right. Harry loves a bargain as much as you, so I left the price tag on it. Oh yeah. I got him a fancy Shimano reel, and a new pair of Top-Siders to wear when he’s out on the Jitterbug, and this one’s my favorite: I commissioned a portrait of Jeeves.”
“BeBe!” I exclaimed. “That’s a great idea.”
Jeeves, Harry’s Yorkshire terrier, was like Harry’s child, and although BeBe always professed to hate dogs, I knew she secretly adored the little guy.
“But where is it? I didn’t wrap any paintings.”
“The artist just finished it today. The paint’s not even dry. I’ve got it hanging on a nail up in the attic.”
“And what’s Harry getting you? A ring?”
“No way!” she exclaimed. “He’s been talking about it. And Lord knows, my grandparents are after me to let him make an honest woman of me, but after three trips to the altar, I still can’t get used to the idea that marriage could be a good thing.”
“It can be,” I assured her. “And Harry’s the one. The only. You can’t judge marriage by what you had before. Those marriages don’t even count.”
“Bless you,” BeBe said dryly. “Harry says the same thing. Only you have to consider the source.”
I helped myself to a sip of BeBe’s wine. “I’m just stumped when it comes to Daniel and Christmas,” I said. “He doesn’t need any new clothes. And usually he buys anything he needs before I even know it’s something he’d like.”
“Hmmm.” She took the wineglass from me and sipped.
“Books?”
“He never has time to read anything except cookbooks, and he buys those himself.”
“Music?”
“I did get him the new Eric Clapton CD. But that’s the only thing I’ve bought for him.”
“Cooking stuff?”
I shook my head. “He has enough gadgets to open a store of his own.”
“Okay. I give up. You’re right. He’s impossible.”
“It’ll come to me,” I said, though not really convinced. “But in the meantime, I’m having the best time playing Secret Santa.”
“For who?” BeBe asked, getting up to turn down the flame on the gas logs in the fireplace.
“Apple Annie,” I said, reaching into the shopping bag I’d brought along and dumping out its contents.
“That’s not her real name,” I explained. “I don’t know her real name, so that’s what I’ve been calling her.”
“And how did you meet Miss Apple Annie?”
“I haven’t. Not officially. But you have.”
“Me?”
“At the open house at Maisie’s Daisy,” I said. “Remember the bag lady who was snitching cookies? Did I tell you, I think she came back and slept in the shop’s display bed that night?”
“You never said a word!” BeBe said. “Is this the same woman who stole your blue Christmas tree pin? Are you insane?”
“I’m not insane,” I said calmly. I reached into my pocketbook and held out my hand for her to inspect the contents.
“The pin! Where’d you get it?”
“She gave it back,” I said. “Actually, I guess it was a swap. She took my daddy’s BC letter sweater that night and in its place left her own sweater. With the Christmas tree brooch pinn
ed to it.”
“What’s this about your playing Secret Santa to her?” BeBe said suspiciously.
“It’s just little things,” I said. “Nothing expensive. After that first morning, when I found the pin, I wanted to thank her for giving it back.”
“Thank her for giving back what she’d stolen from you!” BeBe said. “Weezie, this woman broke into your house and stole food. Then she broke into the shop. Wait, how did she break in?”
“I don’t know. It’s the weirdest thing. The doors hadn’t been jimmied. The locks hadn’t been tampered with. And whenever she’s come and gone, Jethro hasn’t made a sound. That’s why I’m pretty sure she’s the same one who brought him back that night and locked him up in the truck. He trusts Annie.”
“Annie!” BeBe hooted. “Has it occurred to you that this woman slept in your shop? Don’t you think it’s just possible that she’s a crazy, lunatic stalker? She could let herself into your house at any time and slash you to ribbons, and Jethro would probably lick her foot and show her where the silver’s hidden.”
“Gee, BeBe,” I said, my voice dripping sarcasm. “That thought hadn’t occurred to me before, but I sure will sleep well now, thinking about that possibility.”
“Weezie!” BeBe said, giving my shoulders a shake. “I’m serious. You shouldn’t encourage this woman. You should call the cops and tell them what’s going on.”
“You sound just like Daniel,” I said, calmly spreading out the contents of my shopping bag. “He’s convinced she’s some knife-wielding loony tune. He’s such a cynic. Promise me you won’t tell him about the Secret Santa thing.”
“You are such an idiot,” BeBe said.
“Promise,” I begged.
“All right,” she said grudgingly. “But don’t come crying to me if you get murdered in your sleep.”
She pointed at my heap of goodies. “What’s all that?”
“Just some little treats for Annie,” I said. “Hotel soaps and shampoos I’ve picked up on buying trips. A toothbrush and toothpaste. A pair of warm woolen socks. A candy bar. We know she has a sweet tooth! After I wrap them up, I put them in ziplock bags. So they won’t get ruined in the rain.”
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