Sally raised her eyebrows and for a second, I thought I was done for. It was too much. You shouldn't have come on so strongly. She was probably friends with Dee, even if she was the staff and even if she did use her fingers to touch food.
But then she tilted her head back and laughed. A little too strongly and heartily for someone who had been recently widowed, to be honest.
"Yes, it can be a little like that around here," she said. "A lot of riffraff." She leaned in closer to me. "But don't worry, I can show you where the good parts of this club are—where the receptionist is not allowed. Follow me."
I followed her through the doors into the spa room where there were two other women with face masks on, getting pedicures, while bowls of strawberries sat beside them.
Sally took a seat and patted at the table beside her to let me know I should join her. "If you have to live in a town like this, then at least make the most of it. That's what I say!"
I kept my voice low so that I could keep up the 'posh' accent I had been affecting since I'd walked though the doors. "I know the feeling," I said. "I never thought I would end up living in a place like this." I rolled my eyes for good measure, just to show her how little I thought of the town that I had secretly grown to love quite a lot. I sat down next to Sally. "It is full of cheap craft stores, and dinky little secondhand shops..." Well, it looked like I was throwing myself under the bus as well. At least, Christine Taylor was throwing George under the bus.
"And tacky little stalls that pop up in the middle of the street," Sally said, putting her hands out for a manicure. I'd actually never had a manicure nor a pedicure in my life, but it was not the time to act shy. I had to act exactly like I knew what I was doing. I slipped my shoes off and acted confident, glad that I had taken off my toe rings before I left the house.
But Melanie was another straw I could clutch at—and another person I could throw under the bus. I rolled my eyes again. "Ugh. Have you seen that stall as well?" I asked, laying back on the bench. "It is a complete eyesore."
"You know there is a place for women like us here in Pottsville," Sally said as she leaned over a little. "Well, I guess it's more of a group than a physical place. A group of women which is a little more..." She paused for effect. "'Exclusive."
I nodded as she handed me a card with the details. Wow. They really had their own business cards. "Ladies of Pottsville," it said, and there was an address on it that wasn't the address of the tennis club.
"We get together several times a week, both at our houses and at the club. I mean, the excuse is that we play tennis, but really..." She threw her head back and laughed. "None of us have picked up a racket in years." Shouldn't she be a little more somber for a recent widow?
I quickly realized I was staring at her and drawing suspicion to myself, and laughed back to mirror her.
She glanced over at me. "Why don't you join us all for a gathering here tomorrow," she said. "I think you would fit in, Christine. Seeing as you're new in town, I am willing to do you the favor of helping you out. I was in your position just a few months ago.
"I'll be there," I said with a wink. "Sounds like this is my kind of place."
It was back to work and back to reality that Sunday night, as Brenda had called me in to do an emergency inventory and to change the prices of any of the items that Melanie also stocked so that we could 'stay competitive.' But I wasn't quite prepared to slip from one identity to the other. I had removed the wig—too dangerous to be seen as the full "Christine Taylor" in my real life—but the face-changing makeup was still present. I hadn't had a chance to wipe it off, and also, I quite enjoyed my new thinner nose.
"You look different," Brenda said, frowning and narrowing her eyes to inspect my appearance further.
Good. That was the entire point. I smiled to myself. Brenda had noticed that I looked different, and it was Melanie's makeup skills that had done the trick. I was a little nervous about what would happen the next day, when I would have to do the makeup myself, but Melanie had given me a guide and a link to a YouTube tutorial if I got stuck on the contouring.
Brenda tilted her head. "What have you done to yourself? Have you dyed your hair?"
Leave it to Brenda to completely miss the obvious. The hair was the one thing that hadn’t changed. I picked up one of the wine glasses—we hadn't sold a single one—and decided to discount it by 30%.
"Your nose looks smaller," Brenda finally said, deciding on what the difference was. "Have you had something done to it?"
"Well, I haven't had a nose job since I saw you yesterday, if that's what you are asking," I said. "It would take a little more recovery time than that."
Even though it was Sunday evening, there were people mingling in the street, looking at the snow and the lights. I pulled down the blinds so that I wouldn't be seen in the shop. I had to keep my two identities separate. Some people were a little more observant than Brenda was. Like Ryan.
"There. I think that's everything," I said, when the final item had been accounted for and discounted. As I looked around at all the 'half price' stickers, I was starting to get nervous about whether we'd even make a profit that week.
It was dark, but I could see that Brenda had left something out on the front counter as I picked up my purse and turned to leave.
"What is this?" I asked, picking up the document. It had a heavy letterhead with the name of an attorney at the top. Henry Lewis and Co. "Have you been served, Brenda?" I asked, a little amused.
"Legal documents," she said smugly. And they weren't being served to her. She was planning on serving them. "Just a draft for me to take a look at. My attorney thinks that I have a case. We have a case, I mean," she said, taking the piece of paper from me. "That woman is clearly stealing data on our prices and then using it to undercut us. We can sue her for loss of sales."
"You can't be serious," I said to Brenda. "You're going to sue Melanie?" I doubted she even had a legal leg to stand on.
"Who is Melanie?" she asked as she placed a hand on her hip. Geesh, Brenda didn't even know the name of the woman she had a vendetta against? I checked the document. It was simply addressed to "Miscellaneous Portable Craft Stand."
"She's the— Oh, it doesn't matter," I said, realizing I was about to give away the fact that Melanie and I were on a first name basis. And kind of friends. And I'd kind of given her my business several times by purchasing relatively expensive wigs and makeup.
Speaking of the wig. I reached into my bag and pushed down the red mop that was threatening to spill over the top.
Brenda swooped up the papers. "I'll give these a read tonight, then we can proceed with getting this witch out of town."
"I just think this is a little over the top," I said, trying to reason with her. "We don't want to make a sworn enemy here, do we?" I was starting to get nervous that Brenda might actually interact with Melanie and discover our friendship. I felt like I was juggling a lot of balls and they were all about to come crashing down on me.
"She started it," Brenda said. "With her discounts and stealing our customers. I thought you would be on my side! I thought you'd be grateful, actually, but I suppose that is a little too much to ask." She went back to one of the shelves that she had already taken stock of and started counting the items again.
I sighed.
Maybe I could speak to Melanie before it came to legal action. Maybe I could warn her about the war path Brenda was on and she could change her prices, get the right permits, or just leave town before she was sued. Anything to avoid the ugliness.
But there was still that conflict guzzling in my belly. Brenda kind of had a point. She was undercutting our prices. Maybe she wasn't doing anything illegal, but we were suffering. Didn't I have a responsibility to protect my shop and my employees?
Who did my loyalty really belong to?
5
So there wasn't just the 'inner circle,' there was literally a secret room inside the tennis club that was not only 'members only,' it was "Pott
sville Ladies’ Tennis Club" only. As in, only women that Sally deemed important enough were allowed to enter the plush suite that overlooked the whole town. In spite of what I'd said to Sally the day before, this was far from being my kind of place. I didn't like the idea of exclusivity, places where some were allowed and some weren't. I looked at my reflection in the window and adjusted my wig for the fortieth time, then paused when I suddenly wondered if anyone outside the building could see what I was doing. Surely not, though—the windows were tinted and we were hidden away from what I had previously described as the "riffraff."
The suite was equipped with a full bar and a bartender offering to make us cocktails, but Sally wanted to stick to champagne. I watched the slick bartender pop it and pour it without any troubles. "Wow, I had no idea there was such an exclusive place like this in Pottsville— Wait, is this marble?" I ran my hands over the bench that the bartender was working on. I was more used to battered old wooden bars.
Sally laughed. "You act like you've never seen marble before, Christine! And of course it is. Everything in this room is made from the best materials," she said like it was only a matter of course. Because why would anyone settle for anything but the best, if money was no problem?
Ryan had told me that Sally Nicholas's family was wealthy and that they'd looked down on her marrying a blue-collar cop. But apparently it had been true love. Apparently. There was still a lot more I needed to know about that. I took a sip of champagne and peered at Sally over the top of the glass. She was wearing a red coat that day—still no sight of black anywhere on her. Maybe she was saving all her grieving for the funeral, which had been delayed due to the investigation.
I nodded and walked over to the window. We were literally looking down on the rest of the town from this angle. But they wouldn't have known it, or even known that we were there.
I clinked my champagne glass against Sally's. "I can see why you need to keep the riffraff out of here," I said, admiring the view on the other side, away from the town, where the lake and the mountains met. Hayfield Mountain loomed in the background. With the fresh snow and the frozen lake below, it looked just about as good as the view from the resort where Ryan and I had stayed. Well, in the end, we hadn't stayed at all. Visited. Briefly. Barely long enough to spill champagne on the floor.
I had to put him out of my mind. Shake it off.
"Can I grab another refill on this flute?" I asked, holding my glass up as I turned to the bartender. I was getting a little anxious, knowing that the other women in Sally's group would be joining us any moment. It wasn't just Sally I had to impress—and convince with my new identity—it was all of the women.
"Of course. The champagne is bottomless around here."
I tapped my finger against the glass as we waited for the other women to arrive, biting my lip a little, part of me hoping they wouldn't show. But part of my new identity was a cool, calm exterior, so I had to hold it together. "Don't worry," Sally told me with a gentle laugh. "They can seem a little cold and intimidating at the start, but when they open up, you'll find they are...well, a little cold and intimidating!" She threw her head back and laughed again.
Great. That didn't make me more nervous at all.
The first to arrive was a tall woman with long blonde hair that was naturally thin, but the blow out she clearly got every day made it seem like she had a bit more body. I waited nervously and hoped that she wouldn't realize that I was wearing a wig. It was strange—I was surrounded by two blondes, but I had chosen a red wig to 'fit in.' I had to suppress a giggle for a moment when I thought about it.
"This is Tina," Sally said as the other woman offered me an outstretched hand and a limp handshake. She had very thin, cold hands. "She is our expert skier," Sally said, like she was proud of Tina, but there was an air of tension in her voice. Maybe Sally wanted to be the star skier of the group. Tina just nodded at me and kept her distance from Sally during the introduction, even though it was subtle enough that Sally probably didn't even notice. Maybe this was just how these women did friendships? They air-kissed each other and then retreated to opposite sides of the room.
"You must be new around here?" Tina said as she gripped a flute with her talons, checking me out with a heavy dose of skepticism. She was clearly less accepting of me than Sally had been.
"Yes, I just moved to the area for a fresh start. I op...." I almost said 'opened a craft' shop and then stopped and caught my breath for a moment. I was getting George and Christine mixed up. "I opted to move here because it is a big change from New York where my ex-husband was making my life a misery after the divorce." I rolled my eyes and reached down for a cracker, dipping it in the caviar that was on offer. I cringed a little as the salty, musky taste hit my tongue and I swallowed it down.
At least it wouldn't be hard for me to find stories about a tiresome ex-husband. I knew that the clue to a good lie was to keep it as close to the truth as possible. We'd never been to New York together, but he did have a habit of making my life a misery. It was just a pity that we still lived in the same town—though he did make an excellent dog-sitter at short notice.
Tina raised an eyebrow. "And how are you finding this little squat of a town?"
"It's quite charming, in its own way," I said with a little eyebrow raise and a wink. "Perhaps not a place to live forever, however." This time, I ate the cracker on its own without any fish eggs.
"Yes. It's not a place I would choose to live if my husband hadn't forced me to move out this way," she said, still looking at me with heavy suspicion as she lounged in one of the chairs. She had an accent that sounded almost British, the way she over-enunciated certain words, but I had a feeling she had never actually lived there and it was all part of the pretense these women put on. I'd even found myself putting on a bit of an accent without really knowing why. There was nothing wrong with my natural accent—I'd just suddenly felt self-conscious that everything I said and did was going to give me away.
Tina told me that she didn't actually live in Pottsville but in a three-story mansion about twenty miles out of town, with sheep and alpacas that she kept in a paddock. "Of course, I don't go near them myself, but they are quite the tourist attraction," she said of the alpacas, detailing the way that people traveled from all over the state to visit the animals and shop at her small on-site shop. Apparently, they sold the fur as well as knitted sweaters made from the animals on the farm. Well, her employees did anyway. I asked if she really employed someone to run the shop full-time. She nodded and took another sip of champagne. "Yes. I pay her minimum wage, which is far more than what she should get for what she actually does. But, I’m sure it pays her bills..." Like she was doing her employee a favor out of the goodness of her heart.
Didn't sound like it was just the alpacas she kept her distance from. Sounded to me like she didn't go near the tourists much either. Or this poor woman who ran her shop.
Sally pulled me away for a moment and explained the way that the group worked. "It's all unofficial, of course," she said quietly, but one that let me know that this was important. This was my shot at proving I was worthwhile. "There are no fees to join this group. No way of officially gaining entry either, if you understand." But she gave me a squeeze on the arm and a wink. "But don't worry, you are doing great."
I nodded. "I suppose I should count myself lucky then." My sleeve fell down a little and I noticed that I was still wearing my bracelet made of the beads I had purchased at Melanie's shop. I quickly pulled it down and hoped that Sally hadn't seen anything. If she really pressed me on it, I would say that it was a gift made by a young niece who insisted I wear it. That I was doing it as a favor out of the goodness of my heart. Charity.
As well as Sally and Tina, there were three other women in the group. It seemed like everyone had their place. Lucy was the next to join us. "This is Lucy Taylor," Sally said, and I could tell that she was Sally's best friend in the group. Lucy was protective of Sally and seemed extra skeptical about me being there. Sh
e was still a blonde, but hers was a dark honey shade, and even though she seemed to be the closest to Sally, she was quiet that afternoon after walking in and agreeing to try one of the bartender's espresso martinis. She barely even said hello to me and didn't treat me the same way Tina had, which was for some reason a little disappointing. But I thought that maybe she was just sussing me out from a distance, trying to figure out if I was good enough to join their little clique.
The last two women—Robyn and Lorraine—were the real outsiders. Both brunette and lower on the pecking order. I could tell, because both of them were friendly to me and seemed like they actually wanted to make friends with me.
And they both seemed a little scared of Sally. I didn't blame them. It was a little like being back at high school, but I just had to buck up and drink my champagne and smile and hope that my wig didn't slip off. If I was going to infiltrate the group, I was going to have to act like I belonged. "So, Christine," Sally said. "Tell us what you would usually be doing on a cold and frosty Monday."
It was strange to hear people calling me "Christine." Every time I heard it, I kind of glanced over my shoulder for a moment, thinking they were referring to someone standing behind me. I was going to have to work on my reaction time. After the third time, I heard it and just gave a blank stare. I was starting to wish I'd just stuck with Georgina. "Nothing as fun as this," I said with a laugh as I offered my flute for yet another refill.
Tina had a twinkle in her eye that made me a little nervous. "We are thinking of ditching this place and heading back to mine. What are your plans for the rest of the day, Christine?"
I gave a slight shrug. Casual. "I don't have anything set in stone," I said, flipping my shawl over my shoulder for good effect. "I'm easy breezy. Take things as they come."
Tina and Lucy exchanged looks. There seemed to be a hidden look in there somewhere. She's falling for it, they seemed to be saying to each other.
Falling for what exactly?
Crafts, Crimes, and Country Clubs Page 4