Lady Be Good

by Nancy Martin

  Dropping his towel, the bartender rushed over and shook his hand. “Luke! Luke the Laser! Wow, we missed you this season. Anything you want, buddy. It’s on the house.”

  “Hey, thanks, but that’s not necessary. One gimlet with a twist for the lady and a draft, huh?”

  While the bartender burst into gushing praise for Luke’s career on the football field, Grace slipped off her coat and sat on one of the empty stools, neatly crossing her legs.

  That’s when a large woman in jeans and a sweatshirt lurched up to the bar, an empty wine glass in her hand. She poked out her forefinger from the glass and pointed at Grace’s face. “Hey,” she shouted over the noise, “didn’t I see you on TV this morning? You’re Dear Miss Vanderbine.”

  Surprised to be recognized, Grace said, “Yes, that’s me.”

  The woman smirked. “Nice underpants.”

  “Uh, thank you. I was a little--”

  “Yeah, the two of you sure looked silly,” the woman said. “Yelling and dancing around like there was a mouse in the room.” With a closer squint at Grace, she added, “You’re thinner in person.”

  Grace got the impression the remark was not meant as a compliment. “Thanks, I guess.”

  “My grandma had a copy of your book.” The woman had garish red hair and too much makeup, and she was clearly on her third or fourth glass of wine. She leaned closer and confided, “In high school, I tried to use it for a book report once, but I got a D.”

  How was Grace supposed to respond to that? She tried to look sympathetic. “Too bad.”

  “The book was too damn long. How was I supposed to write a report about a book that was practically an encyclopedia? It musta been six hundred pages.”

  Unable to stop herself, Grace said tartly, “It’s shorter now. Maybe it’s time to buy an updated copy.”

  The drunk frowned. “You trying to be funny?”

  “No, I simply--”

  The woman poked Grace’s chest with her finger. “You can’t tell me nothing about manners, fancy lady. So don’t give me the hard sell.”

  Grace leaned back to avoid the alcohol fumes. She could think of several things she could sell the drunk—like maybe a walk outside to clear her head--but Luke turned around and immediately grasped the situation.

  He said to the woman, “Hey, your glass is empty. How about if we buy you another drink?”

  The woman had been building up a head of angry steam, but she looked up into Luke’s easy-going smile and her mood changed. “That’s real nice of you. Sure, buy me a chardonnay.”

  The bartender sent an understanding glance at Luke and reached past Grace for the woman’s glass. “Let me take care of that.”

  The woman said to Grace, “You could take some lessons from your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not—“ Grace began, then thought better of correcting her. Instead, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”

  The wine glass was refilled in record time. Luke affably took it from the bartender and handed it ceremoniously to the redheaded woman. “Here you go. Enjoy.”

  “Thanks, hon, I will.” She shot a considerably less friendly glare at Grace before turning away and heading back to her table.

  “Whew,” Grace said. “Nicely defused. If she’d had anything in her glass to begin with, she’d have thrown it at me.” She pulled off her hat and set it on the bar, then ran one hand through her blonde hair to fluff it up again.

  “Hey, it happens. If people get the impression you believe you’re better than they are, they get testy real fast. Better not to talk seriously to them. Just smile and make ‘em happy.”

  Grace hadn’t expected to learn anything from a football player, but she looked at him more carefully and said, “I’ll remember that.”

  Luke sat, looking at her more carefully now that she had removed her hat. He turned his stool outward so his long legs could stretch in comfort. But the crowd was tight, so he swung back toward Grace. His knee bumped hers in the process. He didn’t appear to care that his jeans were marked with a perfect handprint of automotive grease.

  Grace re-crossed her legs. “You obviously know how to handle people.”

  He continued to study her more carefully. “It’s not hard. You gotta relax, that’s all. People can sense you’re uptight.”

  “I’m not uptight.”

  Luke laughed.

  “I’m not!” Although in her borrowed clothes, Grace had to admit she wasn’t as comfortable as she’d prefer.

  The bartender slid Grace’s drink across the bar to her, and Luke’s beer appeared a second later. Luke reached for his and took a slug.

  Still stewing about being perceived as uptight, Grace heard her cell phone jingle, and she reached into her handbag to politely shut it off. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It rings constantly.”

  “Answer it,” he said. “It might be your airline calling with an update.”

  It wasn’t the airline. Instead, Grace heard Nora Blackbird’s distressed voice. She tuned out the noise of the bar to listen.

  “Grace? Grace, darling, I’m so sorry, but I can’t meet your flight this evening after all. I’ve got an emergency on my hands.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Grace said, plugging her finger to her ear so she could hear Nora more clearly. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Emma,” Nora said, and Grace could imagine her pacing the hallway of her chic condo in Philadelphia. “My naughty little sister has disappeared. Run off or captured by aliens, I’m not sure which. I’d vote for aliens right now, and I hope they torture her. But I’ve got to track her down to make sure she’s okay.”

  Nora’s younger sister Emma was always causing some uproar in the Blackbird family. Grace chastised herself for not hearing the concern in Nora’s voice earlier. She had probably been worried about her sister hours ago, but Grace had been too wrapped up in her own minor problems to notice.

  Grace said, “Do you have any idea where she might be?”

  “Not a clue,” Nora replied. “Probably a bar, though, so I have to find her before she self-destructs.”

  “Has she been drinking again?”

  “For months,” Nora replied. “You can get a cab? And find my condo?”

  “Rittenhouse Square,” Grace said. “It’s easy to find. If you’re not there, I’ll ask the doorman to let me in. But listen, Nora, my flight has already been postponed. If it’s canceled, I’ll do my best to get there in the morning.”

  “Your television interview is at one o’clock.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be there. After the interview, you can enlist me. I’ll do whatever you need. We’ll beat the bushes together.”

  Nora thanked Grace and wished her love, then said a hasty good-night.

  Grace ended the call, but sat for a second staring at her phone. With all her heart, she wished there was more she could do for Nora. A friend in need.

  When she turned back, Luke was finishing the act of signing an autograph for the bartender. With a friendly grin, he passed the paper across the bar and reached for his beer again, turning his shoulder slightly to indicate he wanted to be left alone. It was a maneuver Grace realized was an artful way of telling someone to get lost without hurting feelings. She’d have to remember that, too. The bartender gave Luke’s shoulder a comradely pat before heading down the bar.

  Luke’s knee bumped Grace’s again. She wondered if he was doing it on purpose, but his expression seemed guileless. She re-crossed her legs to try to give him more room as she tucked her phone back into her handbag.

  “Trouble?” Luke asked over the crowd noise.

  Grace sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Long story. Family drama.”

  “Anything you need help with?”

  “That’s sweet, but no.” Grace didn’t want to say more, but Luke’s expectant expression forced her to relent. She said, “My sister-in-law is going through a rough patch. She and her two sisters have all been widowed very suddenly.”

  “Wow, what
are the chances?”

  “Yes, it’s an awful tragedy. My mother used to say their family has a curse. All the Blackbird women kill their husbands.”

  He laughed shortly. “No kidding? You mean—really killing them?”

  “No, they die, not from murder, but other reasons.”

  He was amused. “And you’re a part of the family?”

  “Only indirectly. My brother was married to Nora.”

  His smile faded fast. “Was?”

  “Yes, he died last year.”

  Luke frowned. “I’m sorry.”

  Grace felt her throat close up at the mention of Todd, but she shook her head, determined not to display too much emotion—not in front of a stranger. “It’s all right. I’m--Todd was troubled. Wild and fun as a child, but he got mixed up in drugs and spun out of control. We’re still learning how to accept that he’s gone.”

  She was making it all sound so much easier than it had really been. But Mama always said Dear Miss Vanderbine didn’t let her personal feelings show.

  “That’s rough. How’s his wife doing?”

  “Sometimes good, sometimes terrible.” Grace tried to smile. “I asked Nora to help me with this book tour to give her something else to focus on. But now her younger sister may be in some trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  It was a complicated story, too, but Grace tried to stick to the simple version. “Emma’s husband was killed a few months ago, in a car accident. She’s devastated, too, but unlike Nora she goes on drinking binges. Her husband---come to think of it, you might have heard of him. He was a football player.”

  Luke looked surprised. “In the pros? What was his name?”

  “Jake Kendall. He played for--”

  “For Philadelphia,” Luke finished, his face astonished. “Hell, of course I knew Jake. He played quarterback for Michigan when I was at Notre Dame. We played against each other then, and later when we both hit the pros.”

  “Then you must have heard about his death.”

  “Sure. It was a hell of a shock.”

  “Yes.” Grace reached for her gimlet and stirred the swizzle stick. “Emma was in the car with him, but she survived. Nora’s very worried about her now.”

  Luke was silent. He didn’t drink from his beer, but he appeared to be studying it as if a secret floated in the foam. His ready smile was long gone.

  Grace leaned closer. “Have I said something to upset you?”

  “No,” he said at once, shaking himself out of a reverie. “Just—I heard rumors.”

  “About--?”

  Luke shook his head. “Just rumors. Nothing important.”

  Grace sipped her gimlet and tried to let the topic evaporate. Around them, the bar was noisy with people. A television flickered a news channel, showing snowy roads and cars spinning their wheels in slush.

  After a moment, Luke said, “How are you mixed up with Jake’s widow, exactly?”

  “I’m not mixed up. She’s my sister-in-law’s—”

  “Yeah, I know, but are you, like, involved in her problem?”

  “Involved? What on earth do you mean?”

  “Just—Look, I may me out of line with this, but Jake—his reputation wasn’t perfect.”

  Grace set her drink down. “What are you saying?”

  “He had his problems, too. Rumor had it, he was gambling. That’s a big no-no in my world. A few guys have said it got him killed.”

  3.

  Grace said, “It was a car accident.”

  With sarcasm, he said, “Yeah, what are the chances of that?”

  While Grace tried to keep her mouth from falling open in astonishment, Luke said,

  “The weather was clear. The road was dry. Maybe a car swerved into his lane, but a guy like Jake, with his reflexes? There’s no way he should have died.”

  “He’d been drinking.”

  “I heard he’d had one drink. For a guy his size? That’s nothing.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Grace snapped. “Jake died in an accident.”

  “Bullshit. I knew Jake well enough to know he’d never lose control of his car—not with his wife in the seat beside him. He wasn’t that kind of an idiot. The whole thing was suspicious. I don’t know why his family didn’t push the police to investigate.”

  Coldly, Grace said, “The family was very upset by his death.”

  “Well, they were stupid not to ask more questions. Jake shouldn’t have died the way he did. There’s more to the story.”

  The possibility that Emma Blackbird’s husband died for any other reason than a slippery patch of road had never occurred to Grace. It seemed impossible to her now.

  But before she could pursue the subject, her cell phone jingled again. It was a text message from her airline. She skimmed the message—another postponement of her plane.

  Luke had his phone out of his pocket, too, and he was checking some information. Without looking up from his screen, he said, “Your flight?”

  “Still postponed.”

  “The weather’s getting worse.” He held up his phone so she could see a weather report. “The city’s starting to close some of the roads. What are you going to do if your flight’s canceled?”

  She didn’t have time to answer. Another patron of the bar had been staring at Luke from a nearby table, fidgeting in his chair as the crowd shifted so he could keep his gaze on Luke. Suddenly he stood up and marched over, pushing through other people.

  “Are you Luke Lazurnovich?” he demanded.

  Luke turned to the belligerent man, his amiable façade back in place. “Yeah, that’s me. Do I owe you money?”

  The man’s face broke into a delighted grin. “My son is your biggest fan.” He pumped Luke’s hand as if priming an oil gusher. “Would you mind signing an autograph? For my son, of course. His name is Skeeter. He’s a junior in high school. Plays on the offensive line.”

  “Good for him. You got a piece of paper?”

  The man fumbled eagerly through his pockets and finally grabbed a napkin off the bar. “How about this?”

  “Got a pen?”

  The bartender brought a pen. While Luke signed his name on a cocktail napkin, Grace eyed his long, relaxed body with a sidelong glance. He really was an astonishing specimen of the male animal. Big and powerful. Strangely graceful, too. No wonder people noticed him. But his easy-going manner—that’s what drew Grace’s attention again as he signed the napkin. He was a big teddy bear with the public, she decided. He treated people kindly. Surely that was the basis of good manners, whether Dear Miss Vanderbine said so or not.

  The man waiting for the autographed gave Grace a second glance, a look of puzzlement crossing his face. His gaze darted from Grace’s elegant suit to Luke’s stained jeans and back again, as he clearly thought what’s wrong with this picture?

  “Are you with him?” he finally asked Grace in a tone that indicated her answer couldn’t possibly be yes.

  Grace smiled and shook her head.

  The man winked. “I didn’t think so. What are the chances?”

  Grace didn’t know whether to be offended or amused. “Is your son a football player?”

  “Yeah, he’s—well, he got hurt last October—broke his leg skateboarding. He’s having a hard time making it back, but he hopes to play football again next year. I guess that’s why he’s a fan of the Laser.”

  Grace guessed that an avid fan of football would know exactly why an injured kid would be a fan of Luke Lazurnovich, but she had no idea. Rather than advertise her ignorance, she encouraged the man to continue his story. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, Skeeter fell off his skateboard doing tricks at a local skate park.” The man went into a long story of his son’s accident, his hospitalization and recovery. Grace listened politely.

  Luke finished signing his name and a short message on the napkin and handed it over. “There you go. Best of luck to Skeeter.”

  The man read the message on the napkin. He seemed genuinel
y grateful. “Thanks, Laser. This is going to mean a lot to my son.” He shook Luke’s hand again and went back to his table.

  Public duties finished, Luke turned back to her. Once again, their knees bumped, causing Grace to re-cross her legs.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time I actually finished a drink in a bar. People come over all the time. If this keeps up, we should find somewhere else to go.”

  “I think it’s charming. People really like you.”

  “I played offense. That means I was a good guy on the field—most of the time. People figure they can approach me and I won’t punch their lights out.”

  “You got injured last year?”

  He shook his head. “Three years ago. Broke my leg in a game, lots of drama.”

  Taking a chance, Grace said, “You seem an unlikely kind of person to play a violent sport.”

  “Don’t assume. I can knock anybody on his ass when I have to. How about another drink?”

  Grace hadn’t realized how quickly she’d downed her gimlet. Talk about Jake Kendall’s death had caused her to forget herself, and the idea of knocking people on their asses temporarily short-circuited her brain.

  “No,” she said, gathering up her hat. “Thank you, but your fifteen minute parking pass must be expiring. And I should go figure out a contingency plan for myself.”

  He was studying her again. “Do you know anybody in Pittsburgh, Grace Vanderbine?”

  “Not a soul. Why?”

  “If your flight is canceled, you want to spend the night at my place?”

  She laughed. “Is this customary in Pittsburgh? A gentleman buys the drinks, gets the lady to talk about subjects calculated to throw her off balance, and then he invites her to adjourn to the ever popular ‘my place’?”

  He planted his elbow on the bar and smiled all the way to the deepest part of his baby blues. “Have I got you off balance?”

  “A little, yes,” Grace admitted. She pulled on her hat and endeavored not to look flustered.

  She must have failed, because he laughed again. “Relax. I’m not asking you to hit the sheets with me. I’m thinking ahead, that’s all. The roads are closing. The hotels are full. The weather’s getting worse. What’s the proper etiquette for asking a lady if she needs a bed for the night?”