Worst In Show: A Jamie Bravo Mystery

by Layce Gardner

  I walk into the living room where I find Juniper laid out on the couch. She has a hot water bottle on her forehead. Her eyes are red and runny and so is her nose. I plop on the couch by her feet.

  “Ooooo, don’t bounce me,” she moans. “Can’t you see I’m sick?”

  “Really? I thought you just looked like crap.”

  “Ha ha,” she says. “Hand me those nose drops, will you?”

  I look at the coffee table. It’s littered with cold remedies and used tissue balls. The nose drops are about five inches from her hand and about five feet from my hand. “Get ‘em yourself,” I say.

  “I hate you,” she says, not meaning a word of it. I know she loves me. She just doesn’t know how to show it. “I’ve got the world’s worst head cold. If you only knew how bad I feel.”

  “Did you know our mother used to date mobsters?” I say, changing the topic from her favorite subject—herself.

  This piques her interest. She sits up. “Before or after Pa?”

  “Before, idiot. There’s a mobster named Frankie that still has the hots for her. He said she had the best prosciutto in town.”

  “Ew,” she says, “You’re grossing me out.” She tilts her head back and aims the nose drops into her big nostrils.

  “You’re grossing me out,” I say.

  Ma walks in the room and puts the back of her hand on Juniper’s forehead. “Be nice to your sister,” she orders me.

  “Hey, Ma, how come you never told us you had mob ties?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ma asks.

  “Does the name Frankie ring a bell?”

  “Frankie?”

  “Yeah. I met a mobster today. His name is Frankie. He knows you. Says he had a thing with you back when.”

  Ma laughs. And for a split second I can see the youthful Bella that Frankie and my father fell in love with. “Sure, sure, I remember Frankie. He was Russian.”

  “Russian? I don’t think so. He’s Italian,” I say.

  She waves her hand at me in a shoo-fly gesture. “I meant he has Russian hands and Roman fingers. If you know what I mean.”

  It took me and Juniper a second and then we got it. “Ewwww,” we say at the same time.

  “He wasn’t a mobster back when I knew him. He was a good Catholic boy. Well, until the visiting novice priest made a pass at his younger brother. Frankie broke his nose. He quit school and church after that.”

  “Sounds like he was a tough guy even back then,” I say.

  “Frankie was a good boy. If he’s Mafia there’s a good reason,” Ma says.

  I chewed on that for a moment. Ma maybe on to something. Maybe mobsters really are a good force in the community. Without them, us Italians would run wild. “Well anyway, Frankie says to tell you hello."

  Ma blushes and fans herself.

  “If I didn’t know better I’d say you still had a little crush on this Frankie,” Juniper says.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m having another hot flash,” Ma says. “Besides, I love your father and that’s that.”

  Before I could ask her anything else there is a loud scream and Griffin runs into the living room. He launches himself into the air and lands in my lap. “A.J.! You’re here!”

  Griffin is my sister’s son. My nephew. He’s probably my favorite person in the world. He calls me A.J., which is short for Aunt Jamie.

  “Hey, kiddo!” I say. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  He wraps his arms around my neck and babbles, “I’m so glad you made it. Now you can take me. Mama is too sick and Grandma said if she baked the ziti you’d come and take me and I have to go, they’re counting on me to show up.”

  “Take you where?” I ask.

  Griffin continues babbling, not making any sense to anyone but himself, “Please, A.J., I have to go! Emerald and Chelsea and me are the stars. I’ve just got to be there or they’ll get really miffed at me.”

  “Slow down, mister,” I say. “Start from the beginning and tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “They said you’d take me,” he says, pointing an accusing finger at his mom and my mom.

  Now, I know why the baked ziti. It’s all a conspiracy to get me to take Griffin somewhere.

  “What’s he talking about?” I ask.

  Juniper and Ma exchange looks. “I have to check on the ziti,” Ma says, leaving the room.

  I raise an eyebrow at Juniper. “Spill,” I command.

  “Tonight is the talent show for his grade school. Jenner’s out of town and I’m sick. Pa’s coming down with something, too. He’s been in the bathroom for the past three hours. Ma can’t go because she’s probably contagious by now, too. Please tell me you can take him, he’s been working so hard on this rapping thing.”

  I look at Griffin. “Rapping thing?” I ask. “Are you a rapper now?”

  “You bet!” Griffin jumps off my lap and starts doing some weird noises with his mouth and hands. He shuffles around the room, moonwalking and making kerploff bass noises between his lips and hands. I laugh and say, “Okay, okay, of course I’ll take you, Griff.”

  “Yeah!” His hug is my reward for being such a good aunt. Well, that and the ziti I’m about eat a whole pan of.

  Twenty

  I don’t believe in love at first sight. I used to. Back when I was young and fell in love with Jodi Foster in Little Foxes. I wrote her about a million fan letters and she never wrote back. She broke my pre-teen heart. Then I forgot about Jodi the moment I laid eyes on Rhonda. Rhonda sat next to me in sixth grade Math and was much more receptive to my advances. We held hands on the playground and sneaked kisses in the girl’s bathroom. Unfortunately, that also ended tragically when I caught Rhonda kissing Gilbert Ramsey under the monkey bars. And that was the highlight of my love life so far.

  In other words, I haven’t had good luck with romance.

  That’s why when I first laid eyes on Griffin’s second grade teacher, I tried to talk myself out of my immediate infatuation. I did this by noting all her flaws: her eyes were too large. Her face was shaped like a heart. Her boobs were round. She wore UGG boots.

  It didn’t work. While I was busy noting all her flaws I was also taking inventory of her assets. Her long, curly black hair was tied up in one of those messy buns. She had perfect olive skin and brown eyes with little flecks of gold. She had a knockout body that even a loose dress and leggings couldn’t hide. She was, in short, a stunner, and I was thoroughly smitten.

  Griffin looks up at me, then to her and back at me. He says, “That’s my teacher, Miss L.”

  “What’s the L stand for?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “It doesn’t stand for anything. That’s her name.”

  “Introduce me,” I say and push him in her direction.

  I’ve seen men in parks walking dogs to get attention from women. Some men even go so far as to hire babies for an hour or two to meet women. Before today, I thought this was morally wrong. But now, I totally use my cute seven-year-old nephew to meet his teacher.

  “Hey, Miss L.!” Griffin shouts as he runs to her. He grabs her around the waist and buries his face in her midsection.

  She hugs him back, laughing. “Griffin! You made it!”

  I follow him over and scold lightly, “Hey, kiddo, you can’t surprise-hug everybody. It’s not polite.” I smile apologetically to Miss L. “We’re Italian, what can I say? We’re big huggers.”

  “You must be the A.J. Griffin’s always talking about,” she says.

  “Um, yeah…” I wonder what he’s told her about me? I hope he didn’t tell her how I cheat at Old Maid or let him eat ice cream after his bedtime.

  “A.J. brought me. She’s the bomb,” Griffin says by way of introduction. Then he spots some of his friends and speeds off, surprise hugging three of them at once.

  “My name’s really Jamie,” I explain. “A.J. stands for Aunt Jamie.” Geez, I hope I don’t sound as stupid as I think I do.

  “Well, my name’s not really Miss L. The
L stands for Lambrusco. But you can call me Gloria,” she says with the most scrumptious lips I’ve ever seen.

  “Oh, your name is Gloria?”

  “No,” she says with a straight face.

  It takes me a moment to realize she’s kidding. I shake my head. “Sorry, that was stupid. Of course your name is Gloria. I like that name. It’s a pretty name. Gloria. Gloria, Gloria, Gloria,” I blather. God help me, will somebody shoot me and put me out of my misery. I sound like a dolt.

  Gloria smiles and my heart melts. “I like the name Jamie, too.”

  I nod about a million times and then I do something truly stupid. I pull out a business card and hand it to her.

  She looks the card over and says, “So, you’re a private detective?”

  “Yep, sure am.” God, I think this woman has lowered my IQ by about fifty points. I can’t think of a thing to say.

  “I didn’t know private detectives still existed,” she says. “I thought they were only in those old movies.”

  “Well,” I say with a shrug, “Here I am. I detect, therefore, I am.” I chuckle like it was witty. Which it wasn’t. But she chuckles back and we chuckle together for a few seconds.

  “So, how is Juniper?” she asks.

  “Who?”

  “Juniper? Griffin’s mother? She’s still sick?”

  “Oh! Right, right. She’s sick, yeah. Snot and everything.”

  Thank goodness, Griffin chooses that moment to run back over to us before I make an even bigger fool out of myself.

  “C’mon, A.J.,” he says, tugging on my hand, “I’ll show you where you can sit for the show.”

  And then—because when it rains, it pours—a little girl runs up to Gloria and chatters, “Donny threw up. He threw up all over himself and all over Suzy. It stinks!”

  Gloria shoots me a helpless look and says, “Duty calls. Maybe we can talk again after the show?”

  “That’d be great,” I say.

  Then she’s gone. And it’s like there’s this big empty space where she once was and I’m left spinning in a vacuum.

  “You okay, A.J.?” Griffin asks.

  “More than okay, buddy. More than okay.” I walk toward the rows of chairs and say, “Now show me where you want me to sit.”

  I’ll be truthful here. I didn’t really watch the show. I watched Miss L. She was off to the side of the stage, whispering lines to the kids, handing them props, gently pushing them on the stage or pulling them off the stage and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was falling fast and hard for Gloria Lambrusco.

  This kind of love is the stuff that history had made famous. Da Vinci had his Madonna. Tristan had Isolde. Romeo had Juliet. Anthony had Cleopatra. Bogie had Bacall. Ricky had Lucy. Sonny had Cher. You get the idea.

  Jamie and Gloria. The sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard.

  After the show there is a celebration and snacks. I hang out by the refreshment table. There is a variety of unsweetened juices and cookies of organic origin. I nibble on a carrot stick and watch Gloria make the rounds of parents. She saves me for last.

  She leans in to me and whispers in my ear, “I think Griffin may have been the star of the show. But if you tell anybody I said that, I’ll deny it.”

  Good grief, she smells great. Like a fruit salad. Oranges and pomegranate. Is it her lotion or her shampoo or the fact we’re standing by the fruit platter?

  I sniff her hair while she continues, “He definitely has an X-Factor, don’t you think?”

  “I think it’s the cleft in his chin. People are drawn to it.”

  “There is that,” Gloria says, laughing lightly. Her eyes meet mine and linger. She says, “I’m so glad you came. Now I have a face to go with all the stories Griffin has told me.”

  “I’m glad I came, too. I hope there’s another talent show soon.”

  “No, there’s only one talent show a year.”

  “Oh. Too bad.”

  “But maybe you can come to our Holiday Pageant.”

  “Definitely. I’ll be there,” I say. “I mean here. I said there, but I meant here. Because it’ll probably be here. Unless it’s there. And then I’ll be there. Okay, I’m shutting up now.”

  Thank God she laughs. Hopefully, she thinks I’m trying to be funny and I’m not a total dunce.

  “Miss L., I can’t find my other shoe!” a little boy hollers.

  “Duty calls,” I say for her.

  “I hope we see each other again soon,” Gloria says.

  “Me too.”

  I watch her walk away and I catch myself grinning like crazy. Hey, what’s that thumpity-thump-thump sound? Oh, wait, that’s just my heart beating a mile a minute.

  Twenty-One

  “Guess what?” Griffin asks.

  “Don’t chew and show,” Juniper says sternly.

  Griffin swallows and starts all over, “Guess what?”

  “What?” Ma asks.

  “A.J. and Miss L. are in love!” he explodes in little boy enthusiasm.

  I drop my spoon and would’ve have choked if it hadn’t been ice cream in my mouth.

  I brought Griffin back to my parent’s house after the talent show. Ma brought out her famous Ricotta cheese cake and ice cream to go with it. Now we were all sitting around the table eating and enjoying Griffin’s recapping of the show. Or, I was enjoying it until he decided to share my love live with my family.

  “In love?” Juniper asks. “Really?” She looks at me. In fact, everybody is staring at me with their mouths open. Except Pa. He’s the only one still eating. A bomb could go off, but if there’s cheesecake in front of him, he wouldn’t know it.

  I pretend to be busy choking so I don’t have to acknowledge their stares. I finally clear my throat and say, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Don’t pay any attention to him.”

  “I do too know what I’m talking about!” Griffin says to the whole table. “You should’ve seen them. They were making eyes at each other!”

  “Making eyes, huh?” Juniper says.

  “I talked to her is all,” I say. “Gloria is very nice.”

  “Gloria already? First name basis,” Juniper says.

  “That’s her name, isn’t it? So what?”

  “Sounds like love,” Juniper teases.

  “It’s not love,” Griffin says. “They have the hots for each other.”

  I choke again. This time for real.

  “Is that so?” Ma says. “What about Veronica?” She raises an accusing eyebrow in my direction.

  “Ma, I’ve told you a hundred times. We’re broken up and there’s no chance of reconciliation.”

  “Good. I never liked Veronica,” Pa says through a mouthful of cheesecake.

  “Don’t chew and show,” Griffin says.

  “Sorry,” Pa says.

  “Veronica was yucky. And she doesn’t like kids,” Griffin says.

  “What makes you say that?” Ma asks.

  “I overheard her on the phone one time. She called me a precocious brat,” Griffin says.

  “The precocious part was a compliment,” Ma says.

  “And he wasn’t being a brat,” I add. “He simply questioned her ethics.”

  “What ethics?” Juniper asks.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Good for you,” Juniper says, beaming at her son.

  Pa stands. His eyes grow wide. I think he’s ready to say something profound until he grabs the seat of his pants and shuffles as quick as he can toward the bathroom. Looks like his digestive system is still on the fritz.

  Not missing a beat, my sister says, “Now back to Miss L. She’s single and she’s a lesbian.” She says it like those two points are all that’s required for me to fall in love with Gloria.

  “Why is she single if she’s such a good catch?” Ma asks. She has a philosophy that good mates are never single. This reasoning has never made sense to me. How are you supposed to find a good mate if all the good ones are already taken?

  “Her partner d
ied of ovarian cancer,” Juniper says. “Two years ago. As far as I know, she’s never dated since.”

  “God bless her. I stand corrected,” Ma says.

  The good thing about Ma is that she always admits when she’s wrong. It just so happens that she rarely thinks she’s wrong. This is one of those times to put on the calendar because it won’t happen again anytime soon.

  I stumble over my thoughts, “So… hypothetically speaking… if Gloria was so inclined… theoretically, that is… if she wanted to maybe be friends and grab a bite to eat…”

  Juniper interrupts, “Oh, for God’s sake, Jamie, just ask her out.”

  “I can talk you up a lot. I’ll tell her how great you are and stuff,” Griffin adds.

  I look at Griffin. “Why do you want me to go out with her so badly?”

  “Cuz Miss L. would make an awesome aunt,” he replies.

  “I think so too,” Juniper says. She squeezes my shoulder. “You deserve someone nice.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Ma announces. “You’ll ask this Gloria out. And bring her over here for dinner. I want to meet my future daughter-in-law.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least vote on it?” I joke.

  “Everybody who wants Jamie and Gloria to go out, raise their hand.”

  Ma raises her hand. Juniper and Griffin raise theirs. I smile and raise my hand, too.

  Twenty-Two

  You ever noticed how when you’re in love things seem to go much smoother or at least the annoying things seem less so? I won’t exactly say I’m in love… yet. But even the potential for love makes my life seem better. Veronica the cat batting my nose to wake me up doesn’t even faze me even though it’s way earlier than normal. Dropping the bar of soap on my toe in the shower only elicits a mild oath. Burning my tongue on the hot coffee only makes me wonder if kissing Gloria is anywhere in my immediate future. I even made the coffee which didn’t turn out half bad because I was in love.