Prosecco Pink

by Traci Angrighetti

  I sighed and tossed my purse onto the velvet zebra print rococo chaise lounge. I'd forgotten that Sunday was movie night, or "ladies' night" as Glenda had christened it, and that it was my turn to host. "Oh, not much. I spied on Bradley and Pauline, I nearly got us all killed by a couple of alligators in heat, and then I hit Bradley with my car and pulled a gun on him."

  "Oh, sugar," Glenda said, kicking her skinny, veined legs forward out of her backbend and coming to a standing position. "That sounds sexy."

  I rolled my eyes. "I'm dead serious."

  A coy smile formed at the corners of her mouth, and then she took a long, sensuous drag off her signature Mae West-style cigarette holder. "So am I, child. So. Am. I."

  I didn't bother asking her not to smoke since she owned the fourplex that all of us lived in as well as the rather unique bordello-style furnishings in my not-so-humble abode. But I did make a mental note to ask her to stop letting herself in to my apartment.

  "Why would you spy on Bradley?" Veronica asked, her brow furrowed. "You said you trusted him."

  She never ceased to amaze me. "So, the trust thing is what you're worried about? Not the part about the gator or the gun?"

  Veronica screwed the cap on the bottle of nail polish. "Well, you're in one piece, and you're not in jail, so I assumed that those other things got worked out somehow."

  "Well, you could at least act concerned, you know."

  "I'm sorry," she said, fidgeting with the ribbon on her pink baby doll pajamas. "It's just that I thought you were finally over your trust issue with men. That's all."

  "I was. I mean, I am," I hurried to add. "I trust Bradley, but I don't trust Pauline around Bradley."

  Veronica cocked her head to one side. "Well, isn't that the same thing?"

  "No, it isn't. You have no idea how manipulative she is. Plus, she's always so perfect and prepared. I mean, the woman carries a bottle of Perrier water around with her just in case she needs to remove a stain."

  "Perrier?" Glenda asked, wrinkling her mouth. "I don't get women who drink bubbly water when they could be drinking champagne. This Pauline sounds suspect, if you ask me."

  I cast Veronica a triumphant look. "See? Glenda doesn't trust her either."

  Veronica shook her head. "Trusting Pauline isn't the issue. The problem is that you're underestimating Bradley, and it's not like he's stupid."

  "No, but he's a man, and she's drop-dead gorgeous. She's built like a model, and she looks like Lucy Liu. To top it all off, she has violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor. And you know how good Liz was at stealing other women's men."

  Glenda batted her inch-long, blue false eyelashes. "You know, Ronnie, I think Miss Franki's right. If there's one thing I learned while I was stripping, it's that even the smartest man is no match for a cunning woman."

  I nodded, vindicated, although I wasn't entirely sure that you could compare my Harvard-educated, bank president boyfriend to the average strip club patron. But then again, maybe you could.

  "You know what I think, sugar?" Glenda continued after taking a long, thoughtful drag off her cigarette.

  "What?" I asked, eager to hear her opinion. Glenda was a little rough around the edges, but she often had sage advice.

  "You need to make sure that she doesn't put nothin' over on you," she replied, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "So you're gonna have to stick to this Pauline like a pastie on a titty."

  Veronica cleared her throat. "Franki, will you let the dogs in? My toes are still wet."

  "I'll do it," Glenda said, hopping to her five-inch-high-heeled, slipper-clad feet. "I need to freshen up my glass of champagne, anyway."

  As Glenda paraded past me to the kitchen, I noticed that she too was wearing baby doll pajamas—in tight black fishnet with large holes cut from beneath her armpits all the way down to below the hip. It was quite possibly the most clothing I'd ever seen her wear.

  Glenda opened the back door, and my brindle Cairn Terrier, Napoleon, bounded over to me, his tail wagging.

  "There's my good boy," I said, bending over to greet him.

  Napoleon skidded to an abrupt stop, gave a quick sniff of my feet, and took a giant leap backward.

  "So much for the unconditional love of pets," I said. "I guess I'll take that as my cue to go shower the swamp off me."

  Veronica adjusted the bowtie on her cream Pomeranian, Hercules. "Hurry up so we can start the movie."

  "What did you get?" I asked, even though it really didn't matter what the movie was. The only thing I'd be watching were the images of Bradley's hurt face and Pauline's haughty one that kept replaying in my head.

  "Zombie Strippers," Glenda called from the kitchen.

  Obviously her turn to pick the movie, I thought.

  "By the way," Veronica began, "I made sugar cookies, and Glenda brought an extra bottle of champagne. Isn't this going to be fun?"

  I gave her a blank stare. "Yeah. Tons."

  Veronica placed a reassuring hand on my arm. "I know you're worried about Bradley, but try to relax and enjoy the evening."

  "I can't. On top of everything else, I might have cost him an important business deal. Do you think I should call and ask how it went?"

  "No," she replied. "Let him have tonight to cool off. Then tomorrow you can apologize and explain how you feel about Pauline. I'm sure he'll understand."

  I nodded, but I wasn't so sure about the understanding part, especially after my jealousy had almost gotten him killed—first by the alligators and then by me. I set off for the shower thinking that it was going to take a lot more than champagne, sugar cookies, and strippers to get me through the night.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I parked in front of the old brown brick building at 1200 Decatur Street in the French Quarter and glanced up at the bright green, shuttered windows of Private Chicks, Inc. It was the fifth time in two weeks that I'd been late to work, so I was hoping that Veronica hadn't made it to the office yet. There was no sign of her White Audi, but just in case she'd parked on one of the side streets, I tiptoed up the three flights of stairs. As I pushed open the main door, the lobby bell blared like a foghorn.

  "You're late!" Veronica shouted from another room.

  I walked into her office, my head hung low. "I know. I'm sorry."

  "Sorry?" she hissed, sounding remarkably like a Parselmouth from a Harry Potter movie.

  I raised my eyes and was surprised to see that in place of her usual designer business attire, Veronica was wearing a dress that looked like something straight out of Glenda's stripper costume closet. She was also really pale—gray, actually. "Are you feeling okay?"

  In reply, she stood up from her fuchsia leather chair, threw back her head, and let out a blood-curdling howl.

  Wait. A howl? I opened my eyes and realized that a) I was still and bed, and b) Napoleon was the one doing the howling.

  I lifted my head to scold him, and it felt like a hatchet had just been buried deep into my skull. "Bad boy, Napoleon," I whispered.

  He cocked his head to the side, probably confused by my unusually soft tone.

  I settled back into the pillow and wondered whether my dream was some sort of sign that I shouldn't be working for my best friend. But then I quickly decided it was more likely an indication that I needed to lay off the Limoncello. And the zombie strippers.

  Rather than lift my head again, I felt around on the nightstand until I found my phone. I glanced at the display—seven a.m., no missed calls, and no texts. The realization that Bradley hadn't tried to contact me hit me like a sledgehammer.

  I tossed the phone back onto the nightstand, and, as if on cue, it began to ring.

  Certain it was Bradley, I sat up—through the pain—and grabbed the phone. It was my parents. If they were calling on a Monday before they went to work at our family deli, it spelled bad news. I laid down in preparation for the undoubtedly deflating conversation to come.

  "Hello?" I replied, trying to hide my concern.

  "Francesca? It's your mo
ther, dear." Her shrill voice bore into my head like a drill, as did her habit of stating the obvious.

  "Yeah, I know that, Mom."

  "You didn't call us last night. Is everything okay?"

  I thought about the alligator almost eating me and me almost killing Bradley. "Everything's fine, Mom."

  I heard the sound of the receiver slamming down on what I knew to be the kitchen counter.

  "Joe!" she shouted. "Francesca's fine!"

  I waited for the inevitable grumbled response of my father.

  "Tell her that just because she's in New Orleans now doesn't mean she can forget about her family here in Houston," he said.

  And there it was.

  "Did you hear your father, dear?"

  "Yes, but why do you guys get so worried when I miss one phone call?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. Worrying was my parents' favorite pastime, after Yahtzee.

  "Because you usually call us on Sunday, dear."

  "I know that, but I was watching a movie with Veronica and Glenda, and it ran late."

  "How nice. What did you see?"

  This was one of those times when honesty was not the best policy, so I threw out the first innocuous movie that came to mind. "Gone with the Wind."

  My mother let out a dreamy sigh. "I've always loved that movie! My favorite part is when Rhett looks at Scarlett and says, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'"

  "I'm pretty sure that's everyone's favorite part, Mom."

  "Did you know that Clark Gable was bisexual, Francesca?"

  This conversation was taking an alarming turn. "Listen, Mom, I need to start getting ready for work. Were you calling to tell me something?"

  "Oh yes, dear. Do you remember your cousin Giovanna? The one who's only twenty-four and is already an attorney?"

  I put the back of my arm over my eyes. The fact that my mother was bringing up my cousin's age and profession meant one of two things. Either she was calling to tell me that Giovanna was engaged or that she'd been promoted. I was betting on the former. "Of course I remember her. She's my cousin."

  "Well, you're not going to believe this, but she's engaged to a judge!"

  "Tombola," I said aloud.

  "Are you playing Italian bingo, dear?"

  I sighed. "It's seven o'clock in the morning, Mom."

  "Well, I distinctly heard you say 'tombola.'"

  "I know, I just… Never mind. When's the wedding?"

  There was a long pause, and then I heard muffled voices and the sound of a scuffle. I knew from years of experience that my eighty-three-year-old Sicilian grandmother, Carmela, was trying to wrest the receiver from my mother's hands.

  "First she's gonna have-a the festa del fidanzamento," my nonna announced, breathless from the struggle.

  I should've predicted that my nonna would be listening in to a conversation about a wedding. She'd been trying to get me married for the last thirteen years, since I was sixteen.

  "She found a nice-a Sicilian boy," Nonna continued, "so they gonna get married in a church in-a Sicilia."

  I couldn't help but feel a tinge of resentment toward Giovanna. By announcing her plans to get married in a Sicilian church, of all damned places, she'd opened up a world of grandma hurt for me. My nonna had already accepted the fact that Bradley wasn't Sicilian, reasoning that a twenty-nine-year-old zitella like me couldn't "have-a it all-a." But I wasn't sure how she was going to react to the news that a church wedding to Bradley—provided that he ever proposed to me, that is—was out of the question in light of his divorce. Of course, I avoided the issue and muttered a polite, "That's nice."

  Nonna gave a bitter laugh. "'That's-a nice,' she says. Well, if-a you think it's-a so nice, then why you no wanna date those-a Sicilian boys I find-a for you?"

  I thought of the string of Sicilian-American chauvinists and mammas' boys she'd given my phone number to a few months before. "Uh, they weren't exactly my type."

  "No? And-a what's-a your type, Franki? This I want-a to hear."

  I was treading on dangerous ground. If I wavered in my response, she would sick her army of Sicilian suitor-soldiers on me again. "My boyfriend, Bradley Hartmann," I replied in no uncertain terms.

  "Okay, and-a when is-a this-a Bradley gonna come-a to meet-a your mamma?"

  "Nonna, we've only been dating for a few months."

  "That's-a plenty of time. I got-a engaged to your nonnu, God rest-a his soul, after two-a weeks.

  "But that was in Sicily during Fascism. This is the United States, a democracy, sixty years later."

  "And-a you see where all-a this-a freedom has-a gotten you, eh? Thirty-two years old without-a no husband. Una tragedia."

  These calls from home were always so uplifting. "Nonna, I've really got to go. I have a list of things to do before I go to work this morning."

  "Well, you add-a this to your list. Tell-a Bradley to meet-a your mamma. Because I'm-a hearing the tick-a tock-a tick-a tock-a of-a your clock all-a the way here in-a Houston."

  If I stayed on this call a minute longer, my brain—and my biological clock—were going to explode. "I'll do that," I gushed. "Ciao Ciao!"

  Happy Monday, I thought as I threw the phone onto the nightstand. I kicked off my hot pink velvet duvet and climbed out of the French bordello-style bed. Thanks to my family, I was now painfully aware that I was old, husbandless, and quickly closing in on barren. So I figured that there was no time like the present to drop by Ponchartrain Bank to find out whether I was boyfriendless too.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later, I was strolling down Canal Street toward Ponchartrain Bank, taking in the sights and smells of the busy thoroughfare. Unlike the narrow, shop-and-bar-lined streets of the adjacent French Quarter, Canal was one of the main arteries of the city. In the colonial era, it was the dividing line between the French and Spanish portion of the city and the newer American Sector, which is now the Central Business District. Four lanes across with a two-way trolley line in the center, Canal looked more like something you would see in an urban metropolis such as Los Angeles than in a small Southern city like New Orleans. And the same could be said about its hordes of tourists and bums.

  As I approached the foreboding black slate walls of the bank, I felt a growing sense of anxiety. I wondered whether Bradley was still mad about the alligator-accident-gun thing. But then I reasoned that the fact that he hadn't called me didn't necessarily mean anything. After all, it was entirely possible that he hadn't been able to call because his meeting ran late. And, looking back on the whole swamp incident now, the only real harm done was a little muddy water on his suit and possibly a lost business deal. But life was about so much more than work. Surely he could see that.

  Feeling a surge of newfound confidence, I pushed open the heavy glass door and glanced toward the teller area on the right. Despite her petite 4' 10" frame, I immediately spotted Corinne Mercier, a teller who had helped Veronica and me solve a homicide case at the nearby LaMarca luxury goods store a few months before. She was just finishing up with a client, so I started in her direction to say hello.

  "Why, Franki," Pauline's pompous voice boomed from behind me as I was enveloped by a cloud of her perfume. "I'm surprised to see you here."

  I turned around and saw Pauline sitting at her desk in front of the row of offices on the left side of the room. "I hardly think it's surprising that I would drop by my bank," I said. Then I added, with emphasis, "And my boyfriend's place of work."

  She blinked. "I couldn't agree more. It's just that I thought you'd be hard at work wrestling alligators or gunning down innocent people."

  I sighed and slung my hobo bag over my left shoulder to free up my right arm. You know, for gesturing. "Listen, Pauline. I don't have time for this."

  She rested her chin on her folded hands and looked me straight in the eye. "Neither do I."

  I shifted in my slingbacks. This woman had a lot of nerve. "Could you buzz Bradley and let him know I'm here?"

  "He's in a
meeting," she replied. And, as though dismissing me, she picked up a jar of opaque white glitter and began sprinkling it into a stuffed envelope.

  I gave an impatient toss of my hair. "Okay, what time will it end?"

  "No clue." She picked up another envelope and added the white flakes.

  "Can you at least tell me how the meeting went with Mr. Stafford last night?" I asked through quasi-clenched teeth.

  She ceased sprinkling and glared up at me. "I'm not at liberty to discuss confidential bank business."

  I'd set myself up for that one. "All right, then. Just tell Bradley I stopped by."

  "That'll be number one on my to-do list." She flashed a false smile.

  Somehow, I doubted that. I started to walk away, but my curiosity got the better of me. "What are you doing, anyway?"

  Pauline turned up her nose with a self-important air. "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm putting together the invitations for the 'Shoot for the Moon' charity event I'm organizing for the bank. It's to raise scholarship funds for kids who were victims of Hurricane Katrina."

  "So, what's the white stuff?"

  "It's supposed to be moon dust," she replied, rolling her eyes.

  "You sure it's not anthrax?"

  She smirked and shook her head in disgust. "Everything's a crime to you, isn't it? And we saw where that got you last night."

  I felt a wave of anger rise in my chest, but I fought to maintain my composure. I couldn't cause a scene at Bradley's bank, especially not after the events of last night. "Think what you want, but a lot of people are going to open those envelopes and panic when they see white powder."

  "Oh, and I see you're also a cynic," she said, raising her eyebrows in mock surprise. "How charming."

  I narrowed my eyes. "Coming from someone like you, I'll take that as a compliment."

  She fluttered her eyelashes and faked a mournful frown.