by Nic Saint
“Oh, Miss Valour!” the manager’s honeyed voice rang out. “I believe you forgot something.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and when she saw that he was clutching her bra, holding it aloft for the entire floor to see, the blush of shame stole over her cheeks, another thing she normally never allowed. Blushing, she had decided when she was fourteen, didn’t become her, so she had vowed never to do it.
She gritted her teeth, ignored the goggling onlookers, stalked over to the desk, snatched the brassiere from the man’s hand and stalked off again. Never again would she set foot in The Bristol, and if she had any say in it, and she did, she would make sure that Reece pulled some strings and had this horrid manager fired.
It didn’t do, she felt, to be insulted like this on the eve of her wedding. Managers were put on this earth to personally see to it that her every wish and command was fulfilled, not to thwart her at every turn. And as she walked down Fifth Avenue she took out her phone and texted a brief missive to her fiancé to this effect. As her nails clicked on the polished glass, she paused. What was the little turd’s name again? Oh, yes. Rufkis.
‘Fire Frank Rufkis,’ she furiously typed, then added a smiley, a heart, another smiley and enough kisses to make Reece realize he better take her command into consideration right speedily, or else there would be trouble for him as well.
Chapter 7
Felicity eyed her mother’s new hairdo critically. “It’s fine. Just…different.”
“It’s blue!” Mom cried. “Blue!”
“Looks like something from a horror movie,” Bancroft muttered.
They were sitting in the Bell living room, where Felicity’s mother had just returned from her weekly visit to the hairdresser. This time Rita had decided to go for something unique. The result was both frizzy and rambunctious, as if Mom’s hair was about to leap from her head and start a rock band.
Mom gave Bancroft a prim glare. “If that’s all you can say you better keep your tongue, young man.”
Bancroft shrugged and returned to his perusal of Kim Kardashian’s latest selfie. Felicity’s cousin was tall, thin and quite unattractive, and had decided at an early age that the world wasn’t good enough for his talents. He’d wanted to become a celebrity stylist but instead had to settle for working at the family bakery. Now, at the age of twenty-three, he still harbored vague dreams of moving east and allowing Hollywood’s elite to take advantage of his skills.
In the meantime he was working a second job as stylist for Revolution Cool, a beauty parlor on Hutton Street, and had made quite a name for himself as one of the snarkiest young men in the business, frequently dropping comments that even Donald Trump would have deemed too crass.
“I think it’s wonderful, Mom,” said Felicity soothingly. “It’s new, it’s bold, it’s fresh, it’s—”
“Are you talking about Coca-Cola or Aunt Bianca’s hair?” Bancroft asked without looking up from his phone.
Bianca gave her daughter an exasperated look. “I knew I should have refused. Every time Rita starts experimenting things go horribly, horribly wrong.” She threw her hands in the air. “Now look at me! I’m like Madonna in the eighties!”
Bancroft snorted. “Try Diana Ross in the seventies.”
Felicity bit her lip. It was true that her mom looked a little funky. “I think you should give it a go.”
“But I can’t!” Mom cried. “What will the customers think?”
It was her eternal cry of anguish. Having stood behind the counter at Bell’s Bakery & Tea Room for thirty years now, the thought foremost in her mind was what the customers would think. In her defense she represented the store—the first and last person the customers saw. “I might as well quit now and apply for a job at Marcel!”
“They wouldn’t take you,” said Bancroft. “They’re not in the market for chemistry experiments gone wrong.”
Felicity wished her cousin would just put a sock in it. “I think the customers will like it just fine. Just give it a try and you’ll see it’s not as bad as all that.”
“You think so?” Uncertainly, Mom stared in the mirror and patted her hair.
“I know so. You just go out there. I’m sure you’ll get tons of compliments.”
“Or requests for My Old Piano,” murmured Bancroft, while liking all the Kim Kardashian updates he’d missed since last checking her profile five minutes before.
“I don’t know,” muttered Mom, looking forlorn.
“You’re a revolutionary, Mom,” Felicity said. “People admire you for the bold choices you make.”
“It’s not my bold choice,” protested Mom. “It’s Rita’s and I don’t see why I have to suffer the consequences.” In spite of her misgivings she finally relented. “Oh, all right. I’ll give it a whirl.”
Bancroft laughed, and when two angry stares hit him squarely in the midriff, he cried, “What? It’s funny. Give it a whirl? With cotton candy hair?” He rolled his eyes. “Am I the only one in this family with a sense of humor?”
“You’re the only one in this family with a lack of heart,” Felicity said critically. “Mom needs our support, not silly little jokes.”
He gave Mom an appraising look. “I guess it’s not that bad.”
Mom raised her chin. “Thanks, Bancroft. I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all day.”
Bancroft gestured to Felicity. “Don’t blame me. She made me.”
While Mom headed down the stairs to return to the tea room, and Bancroft was once again absorbed by his social media updates, Felicity lingered behind for a moment. She was thinking about Alice and wondering if she hadn’t agreed too quickly to that crazy bet. Reece Hudson was engaged to be married, and she just hoped Alice wouldn’t get it into her head to try and stop the wedding.
“Do you know Dorothy Valour?”
Without looking up from his phone Bancroft muttered, “Who doesn’t?”
“So you know she used to go to Happy Bays High, right?”
Bancroft frowned. “No, she did not.”
“Oh, yes she did,” Felicity said, proud to know a celebrity factoid her cousin didn’t. “Alice and I used to know her back then. She was one grade ahead of us.”
Bancroft’s face betrayed the admiration he felt for the socialite. “And? How was she?”
“Bitchy, even then. She once attacked Alice for wearing the same dress. Said she’d copied her style and she would file charges with the fashion police.”
Bancroft laughed heartily. “That’s hilarious!”
“Alice didn’t think so. She even asked Virgil if there was such a thing as fashion police and if she could be sent to jail for breaking fashion law.”
Bancroft chuckled freely. “That’s a silly thing to ask, even for Alice. I would have thought she had more sense than that.”
“Virgil assured her that the fashion police weren’t real and Alice was so upset she went over to Dorothy and poured her cranberry juice all over her dress.”
Bancroft’s face contorted into a horrified frown. “But those stains wouldn’t have come out!”
Felicity smiled at the recollection. “She told Dorothy that since their dresses were now a different color she didn’t have to bother the fashion police. Dorothy didn’t think it was funny.”
“She must have been royally pissed.”
“Oh, she was.”
“Funny story,” said Bancroft as he returned to the perusal of his phone.
Felicity gazed out the window for a spell. She hoped that when Alice hit on Dorothy’s fiancé, she wouldn’t take things too far this time. For one thing, Dorothy had serious clout these days. She could cause a lot of trouble.
Then again there wasn’t a chance in hell Alice would come within two thousand miles of Reece Hudson. The man was a movie star and probably lived in Beverly Hills or some such place. No way would he ever pass through Happy Bays on his way to his latest movie premiere.
She got to her feet and gave her cousin a shove. “Back to work, lazybones.”
“Just a minute,” he muttered.
She headed downstairs. It was time to put in her Sunday afternoon shift. But as she picked up her apron from its peg in the kitchen and started to strap it around her waist, the agitated sounds of some sort of fracas reached her from the tea room.
She pushed through the double doors and saw that a bunch of people had gathered there. They were all standing around Virgil. The policeman appeared upset, as he was gesticulating wildly, his face beet red. What the heck?
“What’s wrong?” she asked her mother, who stood wringing her hands.
“It’s Alistair Long, honey. He’s been murdered.”
Chapter 8
Rob Long was in a bad mood. His wife was getting on his nerves. Not that he himself was a peach to live with, but lately neither was she.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, honey,” she was saying. “You’re usually not this tightfisted.”
“It’s a frivolity,” he said, returning his attention to the newspaper. He’d read the article three times already and still didn’t know the gist. If Maggie could just stop talking and let him read already he might find out what those Washington bureaucrats had decided to do about the budget.
“It’s not frivolous,” she lamented.
“It’s a necklace. You don’t need it.”
“It’s important to me, Rob. You know I like to look nice.”
Maggie Long had once been a prom queen and the most beautiful girl in school. Now, fifteen years into their marriage, her good looks had waned and so had her self-esteem. She was still blond, but most of it came from a bottle these days. And the amount of mascara she used would have made a raccoon jealous.
He adored her, but this tendency she had to buy every little trinket she saw on the internet drove him up the wall. She already owned the biggest collection of jewelry of all of their friends—his sister Ruth included, which was quite a feat—and still it wasn’t enough.
“We simply can’t afford it, honey,” he explained. He caught her look of disappointment and put down the paper. “Look, I told you already we need to be careful what we spend. What with inflation and all…”
“Oh, I know, honey, but it’s not as if we’re poor. As soon as your parents sell that silly little inn of theirs, and that silly piece of land, we’ll be rich.”
She’d touched the crux of the matter. “They’re not selling yet.”
“They’re old. They’re bound to sell sooner or later.”
She was right. Sooner or later they had to sell. But when? His dad owned a piece of land he was never going to use, but instead of cashing in he stubbornly hung onto it. Probably for some sentimental reason. And in the meantime Rob had been canned—though he had yet to tell Maggie— and their savings were dwindling fast. It simply wasn’t fair.
Prices in the Hamptons, even in that remote hamlet of Happy Bays, were soaring, with lucrative deals popping up on the real estate websites every day—he knew, because he kept track of them. If only Dad would get with the program they could be swimming in money now, just like Scrooge McDuck. Millions of the stuff would be coming their way.
In fact he’d been so sure his folks were going to sell he hadn’t even bothered to find another job, figuring he’d busted a gut long enough working for the man. Now it was time to live a little. And spend a lot. Same thing with Ruth. Since his sister’s deadbeat husband had left her, she’d been looking forward to payday.
If only Mom and Dad would finally make a move.
In all fairness it was mainly Dad throwing up hurdles. He didn’t want to sell the inn, and maybe the old man had a point. Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But the land? That was plain dumb.
“They’re bound to sell all right, but that doesn’t mean we have to spend money like water on frivolities like that little trinket of yours.”
Her face fell, and he knew he’d said too much.
“Now you’re just being mean,” she said softly.
“Look, just have a little patience, sweetness. It’s like you said, once they sell, we’re on velvet.” He could never deny her anything. Even after all these years she was still his own beauty queen. Why she’d ever agreed to marry a scrawny curmudgeon like him he still didn’t know. And now, with his hairline receding about as quickly as their bank balance, he was starting to resemble Scrooge McDuck himself. But without the outrageous fortune.
Her smile returned. “Rob…honey…”
“What?”
Her voice had dropped to a seductive purr. “Maybe we can take a little dividend now?”
He shook his head good-naturedly. He could see her coming a mile away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, honey.”
She rolled her eyes. “What if I buy this necklace now? It’s not as if we won’t be able to afford it once you get your inheritance, right?”
She sure had a way of getting what she wanted. He sighed. “All right. But don’t overdo it.”
She jerked her head up, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, Rob, thank you. Thank you—thank you—thank you!” She leaned across the table and pressed a loving kiss on his lips. “I’ll go on over there and get it right this minute!”
“Knock yourself out, honey.” Then, as she moved to the living room to turn on the computer, he hollered, “And use the platinum, not the gold card.” He’d maxed that one out last month.
“Sure will!” she trilled like a child on her way to meet Santa at Macy’s.
Chapter 9
“There isn’t a man alive worth the price of these,” Alice grumbled. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, her tablet in her lap, and checking out the kind of clothes and shoes she would need to entice the likes of Reece Hudson.
Unfortunately, all of them were out of her price range. Outrageously so, in fact. She knew that if she wanted to win the bet she needed to look her absolute best, and there was no way she could ever compete with the Dorothy Valours of this world with her pathetic excuse of a wardrobe. Though ideal to sell caskets and guns, or spend an evening at Jack’s Joint, it wouldn’t do to catch the eye of a Hollywood celebrity. If she could ever manage to get within eye-catching range of the man, that was.
It wasn’t so much that Dorothy Valour was prettier than she was, she decided, but the socialite simply had a much larger budget to spend on clothes, make-up, and all the little things that make such a big difference.
When suggesting the bet to Felicity she hadn’t thought things through, but after her friend had left to put in her Sunday stint at Bell’s, she’d started googling Reece Hudson and had discovered that the man was seriously out of her league. He owned several houses, his own private yacht, a fleet of cars, and even his own chain of nightclubs. And of course he’d dated the world’s most gorgeous women, before finally settling on Dorothy Valour.
Her former high school nemesis had gone from strength to strength when building her own ‘career’. Though she didn’t do much in the form of work she was famous in her own right and her net worth was something that made Alice’s stomach lurch. And now that she was marrying Reece Hudson the woman’s fortune was made.
Damn, she thought, experiencing a sudden pang of jealousy. Some people do have it all. Money, fame, looks, and the dreamboat boyfriend.
She was happy with the life she’d chosen and enjoyed rooming with Felicity. The house had belonged to Alice’s grandfather, and the Whitehouse family had decided that Alice and Felicity could rent it on the cheap, in exchange for maintaining the property.
She felt a wave of inadequacy washing over her at the sight of all those pictures of Dorothy Valour dressed up to the nines at receptions, on yachts, at movie premieres and even talking to the president of the United States on behalf of some nonprofit she was a spokesperson for. For Christ’s sakes, there were even pictures of her opening the Paralympics.
She shook her head as she took stock of her own life. She’d always wanted to be a policewoman and follow in her father’s footsteps. After being the Happy B
ays chief of police for going on thirty years now it was that man’s dearest wish to have his little girl join the force. Unfortunately each time she tried out for the police academy she failed miserably. There simply was something about taking tests that got to her and made her freeze up and forget everything she learned.
Same thing happened when she needed to take her driving test. Even after trying out a dozen times she still hadn’t managed to snag her driver’s license.
Finally a family meeting had been called and the family had decided that Alice would be spared the humiliation of trying out for the police force over and over again. Instead, she would be employed by the family. She now worked part-time for her Uncle Charlie at the funeral parlor and part-time for her Uncle Mickey at the gun store. And in her spare time she was running the HBNWC—the Happy Bays Neighborhood Watch Committee—where she could play cops and robbers without the ordeal of having to pass an exam.
It was a good arrangement that satisfied everyone. Until now. Now she realized she’d failed in life. She hadn’t managed to accomplish her childhood dreams and she was a complete and utter failure.
Staring at the picture of Dorothy Valour she suddenly realized that the woman was doing it again. In high school she’d managed to make her feel like a dork and now, even by the simple fact of her existence, she was doing it again.
She shook her head, her lips a tight line, her pixie face grim, and her green eyes flashing dangerously.
“No way,” she spoke to the picture of a radiant Dorothy on the screen. “No way are you going to make me feel bad.” She raised her chin, planted her hands on her hips and said, “I’m going to snap up that fiancé of yours, Dorothy Valour. And then we’ll see who’ll be smiling.”
After this declaration she instantly felt a lot better. She would have felt a lot better still if she’d been able to pour a glass of cranberry juice on Dorothy's dress, but that would have to wait. Right now she needed to draw up a plan of campaign. How could a girl from Happy Bays snag a rich and famous Hollywood star? Maybe the man came out to the Hamptons from time to time? Perhaps to visit dear friend Steven Spielberg in East Hampton?