Crafts, Crimes, and Country Clubs

by Stacey Alabaster

  There was a gatekeeper to get past before I could enter. The receptionist was a thin woman with bleached yellow hair, sitting behind a marble counter with a bowl full of glass beads in front of her and a bowl of mints beside that one. I glanced to my left and saw a sign that said "members only" hanging above the door to the main entrance.

  "Hello," I said, straightening up and trying to hide the muddy paw prints by taking my fluffy hat off and holding it against my midsection. I still had the fluffy white coat on, but by glancing at the women inside with their chic silk, I could tell that I had misread the dress code.

  "You need to be a member to play here." The woman raised her dark eyebrows, which didn't match her hair color.

  "Oh, I don't want to play..." Sports weren't exactly my thing. "I just wanted to use the facilities."

  She let out a haughty little laugh. Looked me up and down condescendingly. "You need to be a member to use those as well. And I can tell that you, my dear, certainly are not."

  So she had seen the muddy prints then. Or maybe it was just the furry outfit.

  I pulled out my purse which had my ID and a hundred dollars worth of cash. I didn't know whether I'd need either or both to get into the club, but I was willing to flash both and see which stuck.

  She scowled at the contents of my overturned purse, which included several gum wrappers...and...whoops, one wrapper that actually contained some chewed-up gum. "This isn't the kind of club you can just buy your way into." She took a business card out and pushed the offensive gum wrapper out of the way with it while she screwed up her nose.

  "Well, how do I get in?" This was the second time that week that I'd been asked to put my money away. But this time, I didn't feel like it was because I was receiving a favor.

  "You need an invite." She started to rearrange the bowl of glass marbles as though that was the end of the conversation. I was supposed to leave.

  "Well, how do I go about getting one of those then?" I asked with a bright smile, leaning forward a little. Maybe she could be charmed. "If you'll just point me in the direction of the person to ask?"

  She stopped fiddling with the marbles. "Is that mud on your blouse?"

  I glanced down at the paw prints. "Well, it's dried now, so technically, it’s just dirt."

  I spotted Sally Nicholas walking toward us and I ducked out of the way, putting my hat back on my head. It was more important that I hide my face rather than my dirty blouse at that point in time.

  She looked amazingly put together. She had ice blond hair without a hint of yellow to it. It was cut into a thick, blunt bob and it swung back and forth like water flowing. She wore a long white coat without a hint of a stain or lint on it. She completed the look with a pair of dark shades.

  Apart from the dark shades, she didn't really look like a grieving widow. She shot a grim smile at the receptionist and headed out the front door, her black purse swinging from her wrist, and I sighed. She hadn't even noticed me. How was I going to become her friend?

  The receptionist turned her back to me. I was truly invisible from that point.

  There was no way I was getting into that club that day. I glanced down at my ruined blouse. It was going to take more than just a white shirt to get inside. It was going to take a much more dramatic change to my appearance. I watched Sally walking to her chauffeured car. I was going to have to look like Sally Nicholas.

  I needed to gain entry into Sally's circle. I just couldn't do it as me. I was too much of an artist. It wasn't just my clothes that were fluffy, it was my hair as well. I glanced down at the bright beads around my wrist. Women like Sally didn't wear dollar bracelets they'd made themselves. They wore gold.

  I knew what I needed.

  I needed a makeover.

  Maybe even a whole new identity.

  "You look amazing, George." Ryan kissed me on the cheek.

  "I look like I am covered in paw prints," I said with a laugh.

  He laughed as well. "I hadn't noticed."

  No, well, I supposed that was my natural state.

  We'd decided to meet for dinner at the local bar, which was hosting a pop-up restaurant of diner food—greasy burgers, fries with cheese, and huge milkshakes with large pieces of candy bars crushed up inside. Ryan had worried it was too unsophisticated and had asked if I would prefer to go somewhere else for a date, and he'd suggested a restaurant out of town called Nelson’s. I'd shook my head. "No, thanks. Places where they fold the napkin on your lap for you kind of freak me out. I prefer a good burger any day of the week."

  It was standing room only when we arrived at the bar. We had to order our meals and wait, clutching the number they'd given us on a stick, watching with eagle eyes for another party to leave so that we could grab a table. "Otherwise, we'll have to eat the burgers standing up," Ryan said with a little nervous laugh.

  "Ooh, it looks like that couple is about to leave..."

  I took off for the window seat, but was cut off by a guy wearing a hoodie and ear phones who took the seat and sat by himself. He didn't even have a table number and wasn't eating or drinking anything. Just staring into his phone, bopping along to a song I couldn't even hear.

  I glanced up at Ryan and laughed a little. "Whoops. Guess we'll just have to stand around for a little longer."

  It felt a little awkward...and that wasn't like us. Sure, we'd had difficult times in the past and periods where we hadn't spoken, but it had never been like this where we felt like we were almost strangers, unsure what to say to each other. Like we had just met and were on a first date, feeling each other out.

  But the thing was, Ryan did feel a little like a stranger to me at that point. As much as I'd tried to keep the incident at the police station out of my mind, I couldn't. I kept remembering the anger, the dark look on his face as he'd stormed back to the car. The missed calls and the one from Matt Gleeson which had said, "Detective Anthony Nicholas is dead."

  "Here we go!" Ryan said, taking off for a newly empty table. We were across from the guy still listening to music.

  Now that we were seated, I relaxed a little and things felt a little more normal. But we were still making awkward small talk, about whether there would be any more snow in town and which TV shows we had recently been binging. There was so much I wanted to say and couldn't.

  My burger arrived and I inhaled the delicious greasy scent of the double beef burger with potato hash between the patties.

  "Mmm, delicious." I had an idea for how we could make things less awkward and get our relationship back on track. It had all gone wrong because we'd gotten the call in the middle of our getaway. We had to get back to the resort. Reset. I smiled to myself, knowing that Ryan would think it was as much of a good idea as I did.

  "Hey, I know last weekend got cut a little short," I started to say between mouthfuls. "And I know you'll be busy with the case..."

  "What case?" Ryan asked.

  I just stared at him blankly. Surely this was his idea of some kind of joke. I put down my half-eaten burger and wiped off my hands. I wasn't sure if it was just because the burger was gigantic, but I felt like I was losing my appetite for it.

  "Um. The big case. Probably the biggest case you've ever investigated—the death of a fellow police officer?"

  "Oh," Ryan said as he finished off his fries like he had no worries in the world. He certainly wasn't suffering from any appetite problems, and had already finished off his southern fried chicken burger. He shrugged and pushed the empty box toward the center of the table. "We are not investigating that. Conflict of interest. The guys over at Hayfield Mountain are, actually. They are the closest precinct." He glanced out the window like this was just small talk as well. To be quickly discarded and moved past.

  I blinked a few times. Oh. I supposed that made sense. It was a conflict, and there was certainly the potential for them to take it too personally, but I was still shocked that Ryan was so nonchalant about the whole thing

  "So you have no involvement? With the, uh, i
nvestigation, I mean," I said, quickly correcting myself before I tried to take another bite of my burger.

  He shook his head. "Apparently, we can't be objective." He shrugged. "Personally, I don't see what the big deal is, but I suppose they've got a point. Those higher up made the decision."

  But I couldn't help wondering if it was more than that. There was something I really wanted to ask Ryan: Are you banned from investigating because you are one of the suspects? But I had to bite my tongue.

  He was unlikely to tell me anything.

  I supposed there was a silver lining. If his caseload was light, we could reschedule our weekend getaway, no problem.

  "So what about this weekend?" I asked, grinning at him. I pushed my basket of fries away and reached out to take his hands. "Why don't we go back to the resort at Hayfield Mountain? I know you paid last time and there's no chance of getting a refund, so this time is all on me, don't worry."

  He pulled his hands away and reached into his pocket for cash so he could pay the bill. "I'm sorry, George. I can't."

  It was an awkward, cool car ride home.

  4

  If I was going to get a whole new look, my friend Caroline was the person to ask. Caroline owned a craft store on the other side of town, but we weren't rivals. We were friends. We looked eerily similar, and had even been mistaken for each other before. She would know what would suit me, and what I could use to turn me into another person. At one stage, she’d had hair just like mine, but she had cut it off and dyed it red. One of the benefits of this was that we no longer got mistaken for each other on the street.

  I pulled at my curls as I stood in her living room in front of a full-length mirror that she had dragged in for me. "I'm thinking about getting this all cut off," I said. "Or maybe permanently straightened." I glanced over at Caroline. "A bit like yours." Caroline could definitely pass for a member of the Pottsville Tennis Club.

  Caroline gasped. "Don't do that," she said in horror. "Your curls are your crowning glory."

  I nodded reluctantly and let go of the strand of hair, watching it spring back in my reflection in the mirror. It was the kind of hair that people paid to have… Was I really going to go to the salon and pay hundreds of dollars to get rid of it?

  "Well, maybe I could just go red instead?"

  She told me that she kind of regretted the switch to being a redhead and that it was near impossible to get hers back to blonde. "Don't make the same mistake that I did."

  I mused on this. "But how am I going to completely change my appearance without altering my hair color?" It seemed impossible.

  Caroline pondered on this for a moment before offering the perfect—and obvious—solution. "I think what you need is a wig," she said.

  "I can't afford a good quality wig. I don't even know where I'd get one at this short notice without ordering online..."

  Then I remembered.

  Melanie's stall.

  And wigs were on sale that day.

  "Don't you freeze to death being outside in this weather?" I asked Melanie, huddled in my coat while I jumped up and down a bit to keep warm.

  She laughed but rubbed her arms a little. "Been doing this for years!" she said. "You get used to the elements, believe me."

  Melanie gave me a sneaky little look while she spun the display of wigs around. I'd told her what I needed. "Are you sure you ought to be here?" she asked me. "What if Brenda sees you?"

  Ack. So, she was familiar with Brenda then. I was hoping that she was blissfully unaware of Brenda's vendetta against her. But she even knew her by name. And I doubted that was because Brenda had come over and offered a friendly hello.

  "Well, we don't sell wigs," I said. "So technically, I am not betraying anyone or acting traitorous."

  It was a good point.

  Melanie looked over the selection with great concentration. She was fully into the idea of giving me a complete makeover. "The bright purple one might be a little too much on you," she mused, holding it up against my pale skin. It did make me look a little goth-like.

  I agreed. At least, for the purposes I needed it for. "I like the color. I just don't think that it screams sophisticated tennis club lady."

  Melanie laughed and pushed the purple wig aside. "I think you might be right."

  "Hmm, what about this?" she said, pulling out a sleek red bob. It was part of the sophisticate selection and it looked like real hair. It looked like the kind of hair Sally Nicholas had, only red instead of pale blonde.

  I took it from her and felt the silky softness of it. I really liked the color as well. Hmm, it was a way of trying out red hair without having to permanently alter my own. And of trying straight hair without needing to get rid of my curls.

  I pulled it onto my head and stared at myself in the mirror. It wasn't just the shade, it was the style that did it. With a sleek and smooth look, rather than my pile of messy curls, I did look far more like the kind of sophisticated woman that would be welcome at the tennis club. My heart raced a little and a flutter of excitement about my new identity went through my stomach. Could I really pull it off?

  Melanie leaned forward and got out a smaller mirror, which seemed to magnify everything, then reached into her bag and pulled out a large palette of blushes and eye shadows in different shades of pink, red, brown, and gold.

  "The key to a total makeover isn't just the hair," she said as she opened the palette and straightened up the mirror, telling me to sit down before she angled it toward my face.

  "Yes, it's also about the clothes," I said sagely, believing that I understood. "So I am going to have to buy a few new items for my wardrobe. All my clothes are rather bohemian. I need less faux fur and more real silk."

  "No," she said. "It's about the makeup." She winked at me. "It can change everything."

  I was confused about how much makeup could change an appearance. “I already wear makeup," I said, not understanding. Not a lot, but I always liked to have a bright shade of lipstick on and I quite liked the look of rosy cheeks as well, so I often added blush to my high cheekbones.

  She reached into her bag for a baby wipe and wiped off my bright red lipstick and the blush. "What you need, makeup-wise, is a make-under," she said. "Bright red goes well with the ash blonde hair, but if you're a redhead now, then you're going to need far more subtle makeup. I think we will go with shades of gold and bronze. A sophisticated look."

  She got out a weird looking sponge and then fetched a thin brush and began to paint on my face like I was a child at a fair. I didn't want to come out of this looking like a tiger.

  "What is that?" I asked, worrying that she was putting too much make up on my face. Wasn't I supposed to be going for the subtle look?

  "It's called contouring," she said. "We can make your cheeks look higher, your nose look thinner..."

  I patted my cheeks self-consciously. "I thought my cheeks and nose were already pretty good."

  Melanie stepped back and admired her handiwork. "But you don't want to look like you, do you? Isn't that the whole point?"

  I looked in the mirror and adjusted my wig, trying to move it from side to side to make sure that it wouldn't fall off if I moved too suddenly or vigorously. I wasn't too worried, though. I had a feeling that the ladies of Pottsville Tennis Club were more into sitting around and sipping Chardonnay than they were in getting up to boogie.

  Not only did I have a new wig, new makeup, and new swanky clothes that I'd had to max out my credit card to buy, I also had a new name. Christine Taylor. I liked it because it kind of sounded like an 80s supermodel. But it was also bland and innocuous enough that no one would ask too many questions. In my new backstory, I was recently divorced and relocated from New York City, looking for a new start in a quiet rural town. Hidden away in a valley amongst the mountains.

  Great. The same receptionist. Only three days had passed since I was last there, but her hair seemed to have grown a lot in that time and she had about half an inch of dark roots below her bleached ha
ir.

  She didn't seem to recognize me. Good. I'd gotten over the first hurdle.

  But getting in still required a bit of sneaking. I waited until her back was turned before I waltzed in through the "members only” door as though I belonged. That was half the battle really, looking as though you belonged.

  No one asked me to leave. Was it really as easy as just walking in like I was a real member? I glanced around and took a glass of champagne that was offered to me. Yes, I was inside. But I wasn't really 'inside.' I glanced over at a booth in the corner where Sally and her gang of lady friends were lounging together on that chilly Sunday afternoon. It was prime position—in front of the fire place.

  Hmmm. I had a feeling there was another layer I still needed to penetrate. It was one thing to be allowed inside the "club," that was just a technicality. Sally and her gang of friends were a less...official club. But one that existed all the same and was even harder to get into. To get into the inner sanctum, I was going to have to wear down Sally Nicholas herself.

  I waited to make my move until she stood up and walked over to the table full of fresh fruits and hand-squeezed juices.

  Luckily for me, I had a scapegoat in that moment. The receptionist came over to the counter and started to clear away the empty trays. Sally thanked her and then said, "Dee. Do you think we would be able to get some more fresh cantaloupe out here?"

  Dee scurried off and then returned with a fresh tray, but made the faux pas of picking it up with her fingers and placing it on Sally's plate. Sally just stared down at the fruit with a cool heavy glare before Dee backed away, not quite sure what crime she had committed.

  I rolled my eyes and pulled lazily on my string of pearls. "Some of the people in this town really have no sense of decency or decorum. Some of them, I swear, have been raised in barns. I mean, really, should people like that even be working here or allowed to touch our food?"

  I felt bad about throwing Dee under the bus, but this was the only straw I had to clutch at.