Hey, Good Looking

by Fern Michaels

  Dodo looked over at her sister. “As long as it takes. Ducky, why don’t you keep Brandon company. It must be terribly boring to be on a stakeout. You might have some insight to contribute if things get…you know, hairy, if Bella returns. You might have to follow Bella if she decides to light out for good. Ducky is good company, Brandon. Don’t you agree, Diddy?”

  “Oh, by all means,” Diddy said.

  Ducky flushed again. What she really wanted to do was get up and hug her sisters for their suggestion. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t need me here, I’ll be glad to go if you don’t mind, Brandon.”

  It was Lautril’s turn to flush. “I’ll be glad of the company. I’ll swing by and pick you up after I get cleaned up. It was a wonderful breakfast, Miss Diddy. Thank you.”

  “Put some perfume on,” Diddy said to her sister.

  “Get rid of those Birkenstocks and put on those slutty shoes you always wear. Play it cool, and you might be able to snag that guy,” Dodo said.

  Ducky huffed and puffed. “What makes you think…”

  “Oh, get off it, Ducky. You’re as transparent as cellophane. I think he has the hots for you. Don’t you think so, Diddy?”

  “I do, I do,” Diddy said.

  Ducky felt pleased with her sisters’ assessment of the private detective’s feelings. “What are you two going to do? This might take all day. You aren’t up to anything, are you?” she asked suspiciously.

  Dodo threw her hands up in the air. “We’re going to sit here and wait for the FBI to show up. Then we’ll decide if we should take a trip to Rayne or not. That’s it. We have your cell phone number. If things change, we’ll call you.”

  “The kids…”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, Ducky, they are busy with each other. Go! Put on your perfume and don’t forget the shoes. I think that private dick is a leg man for some reason. Do you agree, Diddy?”

  “Absolutely. A leg man. Definitely.” She wondered what being a leg man meant. She promised herself to get out more.

  Ducky grimaced. “There are days when I love you two, and days when I hate the both of you. Today I love you.”

  Diddy and Dodo shrugged before they separated to start their day.

  Five days later, Bella Gunn walked into the Natchez Savings and Loan, a thick, heavy accordion-pleated folder under her arm. Years ago, eighteen years to be exact, she’d made a trip here to open several accounts in person. She’d fed those accounts regularly but had never been back. Eighteen years ago she’d also purchased a house, paying cash. It was a steal, actually, the owner dying suddenly, the heirs wanting to settle the estate immediately. Cash had been king that day. If she’d been religious, she would have crossed herself, but since she wasn’t, she merely congratulated herself for thinking ahead to a time when she might need to retreat to a safe haven. That time had arrived.

  She was now Margaret Puckett, but even that wasn’t her birth name. There were days when she couldn’t remember what her real name was. She’d learned a thing or two by reading T. F. Dingle books, Marcus’s favorite author. Crime in all forms, according to T. F. Dingle, worked. Until you got caught. Only the murderers got caught in Dingle’s books, never the clever, wily con artists. However, she considered herself more of an entrepreneur than a wily con artist.

  Bella made her way over to one of the small glass-fronted rooms where a bank officer sat. He looked bored as he stared at the computer terminal in front of him. Well, she would liven up his day in a few minutes.

  Bella looked around, surprised that nothing had changed in the bank in eighteen years. The furniture looked the same, even the rubber plants spaced throughout the lobby looked the same. While the bank officer looked the same, just older, she knew he wouldn’t remember her. Today, she looked totally different from the way she’d looked eighteen years ago. She wore a brown wig and wire-rimmed glasses that were nothing more than window glass. She’d bought them at Iverson’s Drugstore the day she’d arrived in Natchez. The wig was from a catalog and bought years ago. She’d masked her thinness by layering her clothes. The sensible inch-high shoes gave her a slightly frumpy look. No sense in advertising her arrival on the off chance the bank officer or someone else in the bank had seen the news, assuming people in Natchez were interested enough in what went on in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  Bella seated herself demurely, crossing her ankles and looking straight at the bank officer. “I need to avail myself of your help this morning, sir.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, ma’am.”

  Bella hated to be called ma’am. Really hated it. She smiled, her large teeth gleaming like polished pearls.

  The meeting lasted exactly fifty-five minutes. Printouts of her holdings were now safe and secure inside the folder.

  The bank officer escorted Bella across the lobby and held the door for her. He beamed with pleasure.

  A very wealthy, satisfied Bella Gunn smiled again, thanked the bank officer, and made her way to her new car, a Mercedes Benz.

  Humming under her breath, Bella thought about all the really big numbers in her accounts. Years ago the bank didn’t have an investment division, now they did. All her eggs were now in one basket, all fourteen million of them. Invested wisely, the bank officer had told her she could expect a return of close to a million dollars a year and never have to touch her principal. Then there were the jewels that were worth another couple of million.

  “Eat your heart out, Marcus,” she murmured as she sailed down the road in the brand-new Mercedes that got eleven miles to the gallon.

  Margaret Puckett allowed herself a few minutes to grieve for Bella Gunn and all she had endured. She wondered if she would ever be able to forget the humiliating experience in her driveway. To be so close to all her dreams and desires and to suddenly have them ripped away from her at the eleventh hour was almost incomprehensible. The haughty disdainful looks on the members’ faces when she’d cursed aloud was seared into her brain. Even now, she cringed when she thought about it. But it had happened, and she had to live with it.

  What bothered her more than anything was knowing she would be fodder for town discussions forever and ever. Well, she had to live with that, too.

  Taking up residence here in Natchez would allow her to start over and not make the same mistakes she’d made in Baton Rouge.

  Anything and everything was possible if you put your mind to the task.

  17

  The trio in the kitchen watched the weatherman drone on about the possibility of inclement weather throughout the day with flash flooding expected in certain areas. Trixie turned off the TV and looked across the room at her husband and Marcus Gunn. “Now, I want you to drive carefully. There’s no hurry to get Marcus back to Baton Rouge. If the weather turns bad, Fred, I want you to spend the night and come back tomorrow. I can handle the new dogs when they get here this afternoon. Jane promised to be here in a few hours, so I don’t want you worrying about things here at the farm.”

  Fred hitched his suspenders up over his ample stomach. He grinned, looking more like Santa Claus than he did Fred McGuire. “I know the drill, Trixie. Don’t go over the speed limit. Stop for gas. Go to the bathroom. Don’t miss the turnoff because I’m too busy blabbing to Marcus. Go straight to Diddy’s house and park in the alley. I will remember to tell Diddy that you ordered her a new battery-operated wheelbarrow from the Frontgate catalog, and it should arrive in a few days because you are keeping the one you brought here along with Marcus. Did I get it all?” he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

  Trixie pretended to grumble. “I guess so. Marcus…I don’t know what to say to you. You have a rough road ahead, and I wish you the best. Be sure to call me when you arrive.”

  Marcus held out his arms to Trixie. One look at his miserable face allowed her to step forward. He hugged her. “I don’t know how to thank you. Somehow, I’ll find a way.”

  “It’s not me you need to thank, Marcus. It was Dodo, Diddy, and Ducky who made it all happen. Good luck
.”

  Marcus stooped over, wiped at his eyes as he stroked Flash’s big head. “You know what, big guy, you were the frosting on this cake.” He held out his hand, and Flash offered up his paw. The K-9 offered up a shrill bark as the two men walked out the door. He danced around, pawed at Trixie’s leg, and barked again.

  “He doesn’t need us anymore, Flash. He’s going home.” Flash continued to bark and prance.

  Trixie sighed, knowing there was only way to divert Flash. “Okay, time to go to work! Get your gear while I change into my uniform.” This time Flash’s bark was joyful as he raced across the kitchen to the chest under the big window. His bulletproof vest was inside. He used his snout to open the lid, pawed it backward, and dragged out the vest. He trembled with excitement, Marcus Gunn a memory.

  Dodo looked up from the computer she was using when her sister Diddy appeared in the doorway. Dodo didn’t know if she should laugh or cry.

  “Go on, say it! Go on, Dodo. Feel free to tell me I look like a clown. I know I do. Nothing fits. I look like a stuffed sausage. It’s been years since I used this much makeup. Face it, at seventy, makeup doesn’t do much. If anything, it just accentuates the problems. I cut my hair myself,” she volunteered.

  “Why, Diddy? Why are you doing this? Do you seriously believe Marcus expects you to look like you did when you two were in love a hundred years ago? Did you by any chance notice how muchhe has changed? The way he looked didn’t bother you, so why do you think the way you look will bother him? He saw you, remember. Go back to your house, and when you come back here you better look like my sister Diddy, not some floozie.”

  “Are you sure, Dodo?”

  “Diddy, you look silly. I know what you’re trying to do. You can’t fight the clock and the calendar. You are what you are. Don’t try to pretend to be something you’re not. A lot of years have gone by,” Dodo said gently. “Don’t cry, Diddy. Things are what they are and can’t be changed. All we can do is accept it and hope for the best.”

  Dodo swiveled around in her ergonomic chair and put her feet up on the desk. She was looking straight at the photographs on the wall above the computer. Her eyes were sad. So many years ago. Suddenly the letter she had been typing didn’t seem like such a good idea. There was never a response to the letters, so why bother. She didn’t bother to consider the fact that she never put a return address on any of them. She hit theDEL key and turned off the computer.

  Dodo sat perfectly still, her breathing slow and steady as she let her mind go back in time to the day she’d given birth to the boy in the pictures. How happy she’d been. All she wanted to do was shout the news to the heavens, but the Japanese didn’t do things like that. And her family back in the States would never accept a child that was half-Japanese. It was a different time back then. Secretly, she thought Ducky and Diddy might have suspected something wasn’t quite right in her life. They’d grilled her, quizzed her, argued with her, then fought with her about how much time she spent in Japan. But that was then, and this was now. The little boy in the pictures was now thirty-five years old, and he still didn’t know she was his mother. And that was by her choice. She didn’t want him tainted as he grew up. A white mother of a half-Japanese boy simply wasn’t acceptable back then. In later years, when society changed a little, she saw no reason to upset her son’s life. Fortunately for her, she had the wherewithal to pay someone to take care of her son and raise him the way all Japanese parents raised their children.

  Over the years she wrote letters, sent money and gifts, and visited when she could. The boy, a young man now, thought of her as a family friend of the aunts who raised him. Many times she’d suspected that he knew she was more than a friend, but he never acted anything but respectful of the American lady who cared about him. The questions she saw in his eyes remained but were never voiced.

  There were times when she thought she’d done the right thing and other times when she knew she’d made the biggest mistake of her life for denying her son a mother’s love.

  Dodo was jarred from her reverie when Diddy appeared in the doorway. She looked like Diddy, dressed in a sky-blue shirtwaist dress. She wore pearls, and her snow-white hair was pulled back into a prim bun, but her new cut allowed stray tendrils to frame and soften her round face. Her blue eyes twinkled behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “Let’s just say I had a minor senior moment. Thanks for talking some sense into me.” A sound escaped her lips. It sounded suspiciously like a childish giggle.

  Dodo smiled. “That’s more like it. How are dinner preparations going?”

  Diddy sat down on a webbed red plastic chair across from her sister. “Everything is under control. The turkey’s roasting. It will all be ready for dinner at seven. We’re having Thanksgiving a little early this year. That means we’re having all the trimmings.” She looked down at her hands, glad she’d gotten rid of the bloodred nail polish. “Dodo, I’d like to return the favor. If you hadn’t told me how silly I looked, I would have made a fool of myself.” She deliberately raised her eyes to stare at the photographs on the wall above the computer. Then she looked pointedly at her sister. “I think I speak for Ducky as well as myself when I say it’s about time for us to meet our nephew. No, no, don’t say anything, Dodo. We just want you to think about it. We’d both be willing to go to Japan if that’s what it takes. Oh, Dodo, we’ve known…forever.When and if you’re ready, Ducky and I are here for you.”

  Dodo’s eyes grew misty. “How did…”

  “I have my ways. Your mistake was thinking I just sat in my house making quilts to sell on eBay, and eating red-velvet cake and fried chicken. I also know your attic is full of the quilts because you bought them all. I’m every bit as good on the computer as you are.”

  Dodo’s eyes were wild as she looked around her small office, then at her sister. Her voice was fierce when she said, “I’m not admitting to anything, but I will think about what you said. Furthermore, Diddy, my attic is not full of your quilts, which, by the way are beautiful. I donate them every year to the Christmas Bazaar. One of them fetched over two thousand dollars.”

  “I know.” Diddy laughed. “Let’s see what Ducky and that private detective are doing.”

  “Oh, no, I’m not sticking my nose intothat business,” Dodo responded with a laugh.

  Dodo and Diddy turned toward the door when they heard their names called. “It’s Ducky! Oh, dear, something must have happened.”

  Ducky pushed open the screen door and took her seat on one of the rockers. Her sisters looked at her expectantly.

  Ducky flushed. “My place is here with you two. I felt…well, it didn’t feel right being with Brandon under the circumstances. I did invite him for a late dinner. I said seven o’clock. Of course, if he’s still on his stakeout, he won’t be joining us.”

  “Did you have sex with him, Ducky? Is that why he’s not giving up, why he’s coming to dinner?” Dodo blurted.

  Startled, Ducky looked at her sister, flushing a bright pink. “None of your damn business, Dodo. Like I really had time!” she quipped.

  “Will you two stop it. I can’t stand all these squabbles, and nothing is ever solved.” Ever the peacemaker, Diddy got up and started to pace the wide veranda. Since all the verandas on the shoe were the same, she felt like she was on her own veranda. She felt happy, sad, and anxious all at the same time. She wished she knew what the future held for all of them. She was sick and tired of going through life living off her memories. With whatever time she had left in her life she wanted tolive. She sat down on the top step and hugged her knees, the wide overhang protecting her from the rain. Dodo looked over at Ducky. “You’re right, your life is none of my business. I’m sorry. I really am sorry, Ducky. These last two weeks have turned me into someone I don’t even like anymore. Do you…care about Brandon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he care about you?” Dodo asked carefully.

  “He said he does. I don’t have a real good track record when it comes to men, Dodo.” />
  Dodo smiled. “This time might be the charm. If it’s what you want, I hope it comes to pass. I hear a car. Diddy, can you see if someone turned into the alley?”

  “Yes, it’s Fred. He tooted the horn. Should we go to the alley with an umbrella?”

  “No,” Ducky and Diddy said in unison.

  “I’m not extending myself for Marcus one whit more until we hear his story. He has a lot of explaining to do before I can be civil to him. I don’t care if you still have feelings for him or not, Diddy. Just keep thinking about those three kids we raised, who were his responsibility,” Ducky said heatedly. Dodo’s head bobbed up and down in agreement.

  “Here they come, and Fred has an umbrella,” Diddy said, getting up from the steps. “And here come Ben and Darby. They don’t have an umbrella,” Diddy said, her voice full of awe.

  “When you’re young and in love you don’t need an umbrella. You don’t need anything but each other,” Ducky said softly.

  “We’re here!” Fred said from the bottom of the steps. A moment later both he and Marcus were on the veranda, hugging and shaking hands. “I have to call Trixie, if you don’t mind. Looks like I’ll be spending the night, if it’s okay.” He didn’t bother to wait for a response but let himself into the house.

  The sisters looked at Marcus and motioned to one of the wicker rockers. He sank down gratefully. He leaned his head back and sighed. “Do you have any idea of how often I’ve thought of one of these porches? In my mind’s eye, I could see the plants, the flowers, the paddle fans. I could actuallyfeel the rockers. But it’s the scent that I remembered the most. I can smell the river, the marsh, the grass, the jasmine. A person can get drunk just on the scent alone.

  “The trees are amazing,” he said, opening his eyes. “I always loved the moss dripping down the branches.” He stopped talking when he saw his son and Darby running up the steps, drenched to the skin.

  Time stood still as Ben looked at his father but made no effort to go to him. His eyes were cold and dark.“Sir,” he said by way of greeting.