by Misty Simon
Certainly I wasn’t a dog. I had dates in high school, although I hadn’t had one in a while before leaving California. But that could have been because so many people in California were obsessed with weight. Malibu Barbie would fit right in.
I wasn’t obsessed with losing weight myself—note the touching thighs and the need for sleeves at all times (no tank tops here)—and I certainly wasn’t the thin model type. I’d always thought of myself more as the corn-fed variety of girl. So did that mean Ben liked his girls healthy, or was he feeling sorry for me, being the new girl and all? But then what about the attempt with the big words? I couldn’t think straight.
When Harry Met Sally popped up on one of the cable stations, and I settled in to enjoy the whole friends-to-lovers thing, and especially the part with the faked orgasm in the deli. Maybe that could be Ben and me—the friends thing, not an orgasm at Mad Martha’s Milk and Munchies.
On one side of my brain—the purely physical side—I wanted him with my every breath. But the other side, the one that said I’d waited this long, why not make sure it was really what I wanted before jumping in with both feet, was shouting louder and making more sense. I didn’t want to make a mistake. This was a small town, and from what I’d already seen, few secrets were kept, much less hidden. Did I want my whole life to be laid out in front of everyone if things didn’t go well with Ben?
But perhaps the whole small town thing wouldn’t be so bad when trying to ferret out a murderer. Surely someone knew something that could help. I had to find out who, and how to pry the information from their brain.
I must have fallen asleep sometime after the part of the movie where Harry and Sally’s newly married friends were arguing over the ugly wagon wheel coffee table, because when the phone rang, it jolted me off the couch and right onto the floor. Harry was running through the streets of New York trying to get to the New Year’s Eve party and the ringing continued. I picked up the receiver right before it would have gone to voicemail, and after saying hello waited for whoever was on the line to do more than a heavy-breathing routine.
Chapter Sixteen
After a few seconds of what sounded like Lamaze (I was in the birthing room with my sister Maggie when she had her first munchkin), it occurred to me this could very well be an unfriendly phone call. Normally by now someone would have said they had the wrong number or at least hello. So I tried again. “Hello?”
Still nothing.
“Look if you’re not going to say something, I’m hanging up. I don’t go in for the whole phone-sex thing and have absolutely no interest in a new vacuum cleaner.”
“Bitch,” said a voice that was in no way nice. “Go home. We don’t need some California slut running through this town.”
“I am home.” But the voice started the heavy breathing again, and I was a little scared. The threatening tone was so soft I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The breathing continued, so I hung up with a definitive click. No one was going to make me think about leaving by calling me a bitch. And the slut part? Well, I thought my amazing resistance around Ben proved that false. Puh-lease, as Bella liked to say.
My backbone lasted through the thirty seconds it took for the phone to ring again. What if it was the voice again? What if the person on the phone said something meaner or more threatening? I thought long enough for the voicemail to pick up. Then I waited a couple of minutes for whoever it was to leave a message and hang up, before dialing my service number and retrieving the message. The whole “press one for unheard messages, press two for saved messages” thing played and my shaky finger pushed one.
There was a pause and then, “Hi Ivy, this is Maggie checking to see how you’re settling in and wanting to warn you Dad is making plans to come out your way. He got this idea in his head that since you didn’t come back in two weeks like he thought you would, he better come and get you.”
No, no, no.
The message continued, “So brace yourself for the onslaught of Dad. Call me if you need anything. Love you, bye.”
My dad was coming here? Here to my new house and my new shop with the boudoir in the back? Here to talk me out of my new life and back to his?
I was in some serious trouble. Stan Morris was nothing if not persuasive, and he could be very judgmental about things he didn’t understand. He was not going to understand why I sold leather and vinyl bustiers for the dominatrix-inclined. This was not good.
The next morning, after a restless night with little to no sleep, I got out of bed and realized I’d better step up my morning routine if I wanted to get anything done before noon. Because the Halloween rush was over for my little costume shop and the Christmas season was not yet upon us (despite all the decorations going up in the big department stores an hour away), I was changing the store hours. Working seven days a week didn’t allow me any kind of freedom, so I decided to close the shop on Tuesdays. An executive decision, for sure, but it wasn’t like some of the people in town could like me less at this point. I had little to lose. Today was my first day of freedom.
Bella called to see what I was doing, right before I called her. For some reason, she said, her calendar was blocked off for today. She couldn’t remember why she would have done that, but since she had nothing to do she wanted to get together. We agreed to meet up at her house and she’d come with me for my errands.
Well, now that I was going out with Bella, I had to wear something fancier than my blue jeans and a T-shirt. Bella never left the house if she was less than a hundred percent put together.
I chose a peacock blue silk T-shirt and black linen pants. I threw a long black sweater jacket over the whole thing and told myself I looked perfect.
The cold air was crisp as I walked the three short blocks to Bella’s cottage. Fallen leaves crackled underfoot, and my heeled boots ate up the distance. There was something so exhilarating about the smell of wood smoke in the air and the bite of cold wind on my cheeks. The perverted and yucky caller of last night could shove it; my dad could take himself right back to where he came from. I was not leaving, and no one could make me.
When I arrived at Bella’s house, it was a hive of activity. I knocked and there was no answer. I waited a minute, giving her a chance to come to the door, and then knocked again. Still no answer, so I let myself in.
My eyes must have been deceiving me, because I could have sworn I saw Bella running around with a makeup-free face and hair resembling a tumbleweed instead of her usual perfectly coiffed self. What had happened in the twenty minutes since I’d spoken to her?
I caught her on her second pass from the dining room to the kitchen, and she looked surprised to find someone gripping her arm. “Oh,” she said, her mouth a perfect, naked O. “God, Ivy, you’re already here. Didn’t we just get off the phone?”
“Uh, no. That was almost thirty minutes ago.” I peered around nervously at the mess in the living room and tried to shut out the loud music in the background. “What’s going on?”
“I totally forgot about this makeover party I’m supposed to do tonight, and now I’m stuck. I’m trying to get things organized, and it’s not coming together at all the way I thought it would. I’m in a panic.”
“How about if I help you?” I asked, sincerely wanting to make her life a little easier. Bella had helped me out so many times and in so many ways the last few weeks. She’d been my first friend in this little town and my confidante when I’d needed her. And I knew, with my dad’s imminent visit, I’d need her even more than before. So I threw on my best-friend hat and waited for her to tell me to go do any number of things.
But all she came up with was, “Can you make some coffee?”
“Sure. But isn’t there anything else I can do to help at the same time? I’m actually a pretty good organizer after years of practice in the corporate world. Can’t I do anything more substantial for you?”
“Believe me, coffee is not only substantial but crucial at this point in time. If you can get some started, I’d b
e forever grateful, and then we’ll see what else you can do to help.” The absent smile was so unlike Bella I didn’t know what else to do but go and start the coffee.
After putting the paper cone in the Mr. Coffee and pouring in grounds I finally found in the freezer, I pushed the glowing red button and went to find Bella.
“So why all the craziness?” I asked, after locating her out on the little back patio that looked out over a lush and colorful garden of roses and aged trees.
“I guess with Janice’s death this party totally slipped my mind. If nothing else, I would have thought it would be cancelled, since it’s Janice’s aunt that’s throwing it.”
“I hadn’t realized Janice had any family here. I thought she’d moved here last year to get away from family.”
Bella sat heavily in a chaise lounge and I followed suit in the matching chair. “Well, now, I wouldn’t really call it family in the way that you or I might think of family. It’s a very strange combination of hate and jealousy and family obligation. Janice moved back last year because her uncle had been diagnosed with colon cancer. She felt she should be here for the uncle and to help her aunt, since Janice’s cousins couldn’t seem to tear themselves away from the jet-setting scene in South Florida. So Janice showed up in town and stayed with her aunt for about a week before it was apparent that living there would be like asking for a front row seat in hell.”
“Huh. I guess that would be a hard situation to move into.”
“That’s not the half of it. Janice had to sit all the time and listen to how perfect the cousins were, even when she’d been the one to move half way across the country and they still hadn’t come home. Here their mother is, trying to help her husband, and it’s their father who is dying, but they can’t be bothered because it’s the height of the season down there.” Flipping some of her mussed hair out of her eyes, she got up from her chair and stalked to the kitchen for the fresh coffee. I followed again.
Bella poured herself a huge ceramic mug full, took a sip, and turned back toward me. “Ooohhh. That is so much better.” She took another sip before continuing. “So anyway, about ten months ago the uncle passed, the kids finally got their act together enough to at least come for the funeral, and the will was read. The shit absolutely hit the fan. The uncle had left Janice a very tidy sum of money and the kids were fighting tooth and nail to get it back. Said it was theirs and she had no right to anything. But the aunt was the loudest because the money actually came out of her stuff. The kids won’t really get anything until both parents pass away. So not only were the cousins pissed Janice got something, they were also pissed because they still have to wait for their mother to go to the great shopping mall beyond before they see any of their money.”
“Sheesh. That’s pretty selfish. Especially when they hadn’t done anything at all. And besides, it was the uncle’s money.”
“Right you are, Miss Ivy, but not in the cousins’ eyes.” Bella walked over to the sofa and started counting brushes and packets of test eye shadow. “As far as they were concerned, Janice was a freeloader and a gold digger, if you can believe it.”
I gasped and couldn’t help myself—I laughed. Not in a “ha-ha this is funny” kind of way, but in the way that bursts from you when you simply cannot believe someone did something so totally outrageous. “God, that is some serious nerve.”
“You’re not kidding me. Janice was really upset and decided to not have anything to do with them for the last few months. But then her aunt called her, wanting to reconcile, and Janice was a really big softy at heart. So she went over to the family house and tried to bridge the gap between them. Janice is...was such a sucker for a contrite heart. Even if it turned out her aunt really wasn’t sorry.”
More packets of eye shadow and blush were sifted through and the piles grew, teetering and then settling into a kind of small mountain. Even with my unpracticed eye I could see Bella was sorting by tones, and I was impressed. I think that’s another reason I had liked always wearing brown; it’s hard to screw up in coordinating outfits when everything goes with everything else.
I missed Janice and had only known her for a short while. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for Bella. “I’m really sorry, Bella. I hadn’t realized you and Janice were such good friends.”
“Not so much good friends. She came into the shop every six weeks for a trim, and we got to know each other. But I will really miss her as a customer. She was fun and great to talk to.” A sigh escaped Bella and it was weary, heavy. “But back to her aunt. Well, that is one chilly woman. She called this morning to make sure we were still on schedule for the party, like nothing new had come up since she planned this ridiculous little soiree. Can you believe it’s supposed to be for some other biddy’s birthday? I could understand a day at the spa, or everyone going to a salon for the works. But a makeover party in your home? Maybe with a Mary Kay consultant, but I was trying to do a favor for Janice, and now I have to go regardless of how much I want to punch that rude bitch aunt in the face.”
“Would you like some help? Not with the punching in the face thing but with the party?”
“Well, there’s not a whole lot to do, but it would be nice to have the support. You could hold back my fist if she says something snarky.”
“It would be my pleasure. So what time is this soiree?”
****
Two hours later, I’d run my errand at the dry cleaners and stopped by the police station to find out if there was anything else they needed from me regarding the costume I’d turned in. The answer there was No and a polite, “Keep your nose out of this.” Fine, then, I thought at the time. But I really wanted to find out what was going on, so I made a mental note to tap Ben’s brain and connections.
Bella and I jumped into her bright yellow VW Bug after we’d packed the trunk with every kind of cosmetic available, and we headed out for the aunt’s house.
“All right,” Bella said with a sneer on her perfectly made-up face and a toss of her perfectly coiffed hair. (I felt much better now that she was back to the Bella I knew and loved. Not that I begrudge a person a day minus the makeup, but it was a little disconcerting to see her so frazzled when she always seemed so put together.)
“This party is a birthday party—remind me never to allow myself to be roped into one of these things again. We’ll set up two different stations and have a line of women going from the makeup to the hair. They have to do their own makeup and the hair will be my thing. Your only job is to make sure they don’t swipe a whole bunch of the packets I put in the baskets. I once had one of these things with eight people. I brought forty packets, expecting a big turnout, and even though I should have walked home with a bunch of stuff left over, those women completely cleaned me out. So keep a sharp eye on them.”
“Will do.”
We pulled up at a brick ranch-style house with every window aglow. The sound of cackling women drifting from the house as we got out of the car reminded me of the Shakespeare tale about the three witches. I really hoped I wouldn’t “toil and trouble” while here tonight.
I helped Bella with the cargo in the back. We each took an armful of capes, tablecloths, and the baskets of cellophane-wrapped and bundled clusters of every combination of eye shadow, blush, lipstick, mascara, and foundation packets.
A short, blue-haired lady answered our knock. If this was the aunt, she was seriously a cool cucumber. No nice smile or handshaking, no “Thanks for coming.” Instead we got “What the hell took you so long? You better not be late setting up.”
We followed as she went into a dark room and threw on the lights, revealing a whole lot of chintz and shelf upon shelf of knick-knacks. I was feeling claustrophobic already. Bella set up a table in the corner as the merry aunt went about, sniffing periodically and harrumphing often.
“Would you mind getting me a glass of soda, Mildred?” Bella asked, causing the look on the woman’s face to go from mere disapproval all the way to fierce scowl. But she did move, aft
er a stare down between her and Bella, in which Mildred looked away first. She clomped away on her orthopedic shoes, and there was about thirty seconds of silence before I had to muffle a giggle.
“Holy cow,” I said, still trying to keep the laughter inside. It certainly wouldn’t do for Mildred to walk back in while I was laughing like a loon.
“Yeah,” Bella said, fighting a battle of her own and obviously losing. “Why me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. She seemed sweet on you.”
“Yeah, right. You think maybe it’s the stick up her ass that makes her look so anal?”
“Bella!”
“What?”
“She could walk in any minute. You don’t want her to discreetly hock a loogie into your soda pop before she gives it to you, do you?”
“She wouldn’t even dream of that.”
“But you can’t be sure. I’d like to get in and out of here with the least amount of trouble possible. I have to open tomorrow and do not want to have a bunch of old women at my door telling me I’m a terrible person and they’ll never come in my shop again. Some of the older women are the ones I usually find in the back of the shop holding up panties with less fabric than is truly advisable for someone of that advanced age.”
Just then Aunt Mildred walked back in with two glasses filled with dark liquid and put them on the third table in the room. “If you’re finished setting up,” she paused significantly, like master to servant, “we’re ready to begin this part of the evening.”
For the next hour and a half, I eyed the basket of samples and how many each person was taking while Bella worked on up-dos, beehives, and perfect pin curls.
I’d heard some gossip this evening but nothing that really gave me any clues as to who had killed Janice. I wasn’t any closer on where to start my search.
One last lady came by my table, picked up a neutral/brown packet, and headed over to Bella. The gaunt woman sat in the makeshift salon chair in front of Bella and started talking. I was arranging the leftover sample packets (yes, with my eagle eye there were leftovers) to go back to the car, when the older woman started talking. “Such a shame about Janice. It’s too bad Ralph Mercer couldn’t get that awful client of hers to go home. I heard the client threatened Ralph with a lawsuit, as if he could be intimidated. This guy has been causing a heap of trouble around here. Poor Martha Howard over at Mad Martha’s has had to put up with his snotty attitude every morning since Thursday, and Nancy Harkham at the Bubbling Brook is housing him. He is not a nice man.”