by Elaine Viets
Kiki indicated the Hapsburg princess dress. Its wide, stiff skirt looked like a satin pop-up tent. Its ten-foot train was loaded with crystal beads. Helen wondered how the tiny bride could drag all that fabric down the aisle.
Desiree hated the dress. So did Helen and Millicent.
“Mother, I can’t dance in that at the reception. Not with that huge train.”
“We’ll bustle up the train,” her mother said.
“Can’t,” Millicent said. “It’s too bulky. It will look like a bale of fabric on her back.”
“Is the train detachable?” Helen said.
Millicent raised an eyebrow at Helen’s faux pas.
Kiki’s smile dripped malice. “Let me guess. You had your reception at the VFW hall next to the turkey-shoot posters.”
“Knights of Columbus Hall,” Helen said. “And it was the Holy Redeemer rummage sale.”
Millicent frowned. Helen shut up. She’d let a detail from her old life slip out in her anger. Her fingers itched for the crowbar she’d used to end her marriage. She was on the run, but she never regretted the satisfying crunch she’d heard when she first started swinging and connected with her target. The cries and crunches felt good. Kiki was a candidate for just such a shattering experience.
The silence stretched on. Then Kiki said, “We shall buy two wedding dresses. One for the church ceremony and one for the reception. If Desiree will wear the dress with the train for the wedding ceremony, I will buy her the hippie dress to dance in.”
The bride said yes, happy for even a half victory.
Helen was surprised that Kiki would compromise. Thank goodness for the trend among rich brides for two dresses—and Kiki’s eagerness to run up bills for her cash-strapped ex.
“We’ll take these and come back tomorrow to pick out the veil and bridesmaid dresses,” Kiki said.
Another welcome surprise. Helen didn’t think she could survive another five-hour fight. She did some quick calculations. Kiki would be spending maybe sixty thousand dollars on dresses, accessories, and alterations at Millicent’s. Helen would have to work more than four years to make that much at this dead-end job.
Kiki left in a tornado of promises and air kisses, invigorated by the afternoon battle. Desiree trailed listlessly behind her. Rod, the delectably sweaty chauffeur, opened Kiki’s door. She slid inside decorously.
When the Rolls pulled away from the curb, Helen and Millicent collapsed into the pink chairs. They were soft, but not too yielding. A tired woman could get out of them with dignity. No woman ever sat on the gray “husband couch.” She knew her eyes would glaze with boredom if she went there.
Helen sighed and kicked off her shoes. Millicent fanned herself with a bridal consultant’s brochure.
“The things I do for money,” Millicent groaned.
“Rod the chauffeur is doing something strange for his bucks,” Helen said. “You won’t believe this, Millicent. He was afraid to take a bottle of water from me. I mean, really scared. He said, ‘Don’t let her see you. You could ruin everything.’ He acted like I was handing him a bomb. Why is he so afraid?”
“Because Kiki is a jealous bitch. She doesn’t want her chauffeur talking to a younger, better-looking woman.”
“I wasn’t coming on to him. I’m happy with Phil.” Boy, am I happy, Helen thought.
“Then don’t interfere,” Millicent said sharply. “Kiki’s name should be kinky. She likes watching her chauffeur stand by that car and sweat. She probably does him that way. Don’t feel sorry for Rod. That’s his job. Don’t cater to him like he’s married to a client. He’s not a husband, although God knows he has some of the same duties.”
“At least Rod is well paid,” Helen said.
“He thinks he is, the fool,” Millicent said. “Kiki’s had many chauffeurs. She pays them minimum wage and puts them in her will for a million bucks. When she bounces them, she writes them out. Gets herself cheap help and first-class service that way. It must be a shock for those young men to go from millionaire dreams to minimum-wage reality. I can’t imagine what it’s like.”
I can, Helen thought. I used to make major money and live in a mansion before I caught my ex-husband with my next-door neighbor. I’d kill Kiki if she pulled that on me.
“How do you know these things?” Helen said.
“It’s the talk of the town,” Millicent said.
Which town? Helen wondered. No one discussed it where she lived.
“This chauffeur will get his walking papers soon,” Millicent said. “Kiki didn’t grope him when she got back into the car.”
Millicent talked so easily about the outré world of the overrich. Helen felt like a stranger in a parallel universe. “Well, they’re gone,” she said. “I’m glad it’s over.”
“Over?” Millicent said. “It’s just begun.”
Chapter 2
The Coronado Tropic Apartments were the most romantic place Helen had ever lived. At nightfall, the sweeping white curve of the Art Deco building was softened by mauve shadows. Waterfalls of purple bougainvillea surrounded the pool. Palms whispered subtropical secrets. Little lizards with throbbing red throats scampered through the leaves.
Helen’s house in suburban St. Louis had been more impressive. Its six bay windows had overlooked a backyard forest. Her St. Louis home was bigger, too. Helen could have put her whole Coronado apartment in its great room.
She would have put her Coronado furniture out for a Goodwill pickup. In her old life, it would have been tacky. Here, it seemed witty. Helen loved the curvy 1950s boomerang table, the lamps like nuclear reactors, and the turquoise Barcalounger. She was a different person now. Living on the run had changed her.
Who was she trying to impress with her tract mansion in the burbs? Helen had worked long hours as director of pensions and benefits. While she was staying late at work, her husband, Rob, was stepping out with another woman.
Helen’s fingers twitched when she thought of Rob and Sandy naked on the back deck. Strange thoughts crossed her mind when she saw her husband in another woman. Sandy’s bare legs were waving in the air. Helen thought, Sandy has waxed her legs. I couldn’t do that without anesthesia.
Then Helen had picked up the crowbar and changed her life. She didn’t regret it. She was happier in Florida. Freer, too. If she wasn’t so worried about money, her life would be perfect. Helen went from making six figures a year to six-seventy an hour, plus a two-percent commission.
Helen could imagine what her old ambitious crowd would make of the Coronado residents. “Weird” would be their kindest term. But she tried to remember one St. Louis party where she’d laughed with her friends. She was always networking, making deals, advancing her career.
Here in South Florida, the Coronado residents sat out by the pool and toasted the end of each day. Helen loved her seventy-six-year-old landlady, Margery Flax, with her purple shorts, wild shoes, and red nail polish. The relentless Florida sun turned her face to brown corduroy, but Margery had slender legs and loved to show them off.
Her landlady made a mean screwdriver. After the day she’d had, Helen could use one. She was ready for the evening party by the pool. In the summer, they saluted the sunset. Now, in December, they warmed the winter nights with their laughter.
Helen hated coming out of work when it was dark. She felt like someone had stolen her day while she was trapped inside the store. It was pitch-black by the time she got to the Coronado. The lights were on by the pool. Helen was surprised to see a couple moving silently in the darkness at the edge of the light.
She went closer to the pool. A man and a woman were dancing gracefully to music only they could hear. Helen stood by the pool gate, watching them. The couple twirled, dipped, and danced to their ghost orchestra.
The man seemed in his mid-seventies. He had broad shoulders and a tall, straight figure. His suit did not hang on him, the way old men’s clothes often did. He had the most beautiful silver hair, like moonlight on water.
The wom
an wore a violet dress with a full skirt that flowed with their imaginary music. Her daring spike heels had silver tips. Her gray hair was done in an elegant French twist. Helen stared. It was Margery. But tonight, her raucous hard-drinking landlady was a romantic vision. Helen had never seen this side of Margery. The woman had style. Even her wrinkles were interesting.
Helen would have said they danced like a much younger couple, but she was thirty years younger than Margery and she couldn’t dance like that. Helen had learned to dance in the seventies, which meant she bounced up and down and shook various body parts. Next to these waltzing wonders, she’d look like she’d stepped in a fire-ant nest.
The man spun Margery in a final pirouette and they bowed.
“Bravo!” Helen applauded.
Margery and the man looked up, surprised. They’d been in a dancing trance, unaware of their audience.
Margery recovered first. “This is Warren Webley. He has a new dance studio off Las Olas. He’s renting apartment 2C until his River House condo is ready.”
Those condos started at six hundred thousand bucks, Helen thought. This guy must have money.
Warren dabbed at his forehead with a white pocket square, then bowed slightly. Helen noticed his tie had a hip geometric pattern. Old men’s ties were often out of style, too fat or too thin.
“A dance studio,” Helen said. “You’re obviously qualified, Mr. Webley. It should be a terrific success.”
“Call me Warren,” he said. “And thank you for the compliment. But I won’t spoil your evening with shop talk.”
Good, Helen thought. He’s not one of those sleazy operators who tries to sign you up for lifetime lessons.
“It was lovely to meet you,” he said to Helen. Then he turned to Margery. “I must unpack, my dear.” Warren kissed his landlady’s hand and left.
Was Margery blushing? It was too dark to tell. She definitely had a sparkle in her eyes.
“Do I see dance lessons in your future?” Helen asked.
“I already know how to dance,” Margery said. “But he is good-looking.”
“You may have beaten the curse of apartment 2C,” Helen said.
“I hope so.” Margery’s lighter flared in the darkness as she set fire to a Marlboro. “Seems like I rented that place to every shyster in South Florida. The last two tenants tried to steal me blind.”
“Don’t forget the one who became a nine-hundred-number psychic,” Helen said. “I see her ads on late-night TV. And I guess the con artist is still in jail.”
Margery nodded. “He’ll be there for a while. What a bum. They all looked so promising. It’s weird. My renters in the other apartments are wonderful. Somebody put a double whammy on 2C.”
“It looks like the jinx is dead now,” Helen said. “Let’s have a drink to celebrate.”
“Did someone say drink?” Peggy said.
“Awwk,” Pete said.
Pete was a Quaker parrot, bright green with sober gray trim, who spent most of his time on Peggy’s shoulder. Peggy looked rather like an exotic bird herself, with her crest of dark red hair and elegant beak of a nose.
The Coronado had a no-pets policy, which meant when Margery was around, everyone pretended Pete wasn’t there. Pete sat on Peggy’s shoulder, munching an asparagus spear. Margery sat in a deck chair, smoking her Marlboro. Both held their addictions at the same angle.
“Where’s Cal the Canadian?” Helen asked after another Coronado resident. “I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“He’s visiting his grandchild in Toronto,” Peggy said.
Margery snorted a dragon spurt of white smoke. “Ha. He’s up in that icebox because he’s afraid he’ll lose his Canadian health insurance. He needs to spend a certain number of weeks in his country to qualify.”
“I can’t blame him,” Helen said. “Who can afford American health insurance?”
“Why do you defend that cheapskate after he stiffed you?” Margery blew another furious stream of smoke. Helen hoped it was from her cigarette. “Canadians are cheap,” Margery said.
“Not all of them,” Helen said.
“Oh, yeah?” Margery said. “Did you see what’s spray painted on the supermarket wall? ‘Canadians—Give us your money or go home!’ ”
“That’s all? You should see what the gangs sprayed on the walls in—” Helen almost said St. Louis. “Miami,” she finished.
“Awwk!” Pete moved restlessly along Peggy’s shoulder. Disagreements made the little parrot uneasy. Peggy petted him with a finger until he settled down.
“Have a homemade screwdriver,” Margery said. “You need your vitamin C to think straight. I made the juice myself. That electric juicer was the only good thing to ever come out of 2C.”
Her landlady had helped herself to the contraption when she cornered a deadbeat renter with a .38. Now Helen heard the juicer’s buzz-saw whine daily, as Margery mangled oranges for screwdrivers. She poured the powerful brew into three glasses, then topped each one with a Key lime slice.
Helen took the tall, cool screwdriver and stretched her long frame on a chaise longue. It was a good idea to sit down if you had one of Margery’s drinks. By the time Helen finished it, she could be flat on her back.
“So what’s happening at that soap opera you call a job?” Margery said. “Any more tears, tantrums, or fist-fights?”
“Today was a five-star drama.” Helen filled them in on the undesirable Desiree. “Kiki, the mother of the bride, is a real piece of work. She has a chauffeur who has ‘other duties.’ ”
“You mean sex?” Peggy said.
“Awwk,” Pete said.
“Yep,” Helen said. “They practically did it on the sidewalk.”
“You sound like you disapprove,” Margery said.
“I do,” Helen said.
“I admire the woman,” Margery said. “She’s got life figured out. If I had the money, I’d have some young stud drive my car.”
“Margery!” Helen said.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’s a drag having to please a man. I’d like to have one around for sex without having to worry about his feelings.”
“Sex when I wanted it,” Peggy said. “Instead of in the morning when he likes it.”
Helen wondered how Peggy’s romance with her policeman was going.
“A chauffeur is a man with no complications,” Margery said. “I’d never have to hear about his jealous kids or crazy ex-wife.”
“When I got tired of listening to him, I could say, ‘Shut up, Jeeves,’ and raise the glass window,” Peggy said.
Hmm. Not a good sign for the policeman, Helen decided.
“I could send him home when I got tired of him,” Margery said. “ ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Jeeves. And wash the car.’ All that, and he’d drive in the tourist traffic, too.”
“Now that’s a dream lover,” Peggy said.
“You guys are awful,” Helen said. But she was thinking of her own dream lover, Phil. Who ever thought the perfect man would live right next door?
Helen finished her screwdriver and looked at her watch. It was eight thirty. “I’d better go. I have work in the morning.”
“Are you seeing Phil tonight?” Margery said.
“Probably not. He’s tied up with that court case. The lawyers are keeping him late every night, going over his testimony.”
“That man did you a favor keeping you out of that mess, Helen,” Margery said. “I hope you’re grateful.”
“Oh, I am,” Helen said. “And I know how to show my gratitude.”
The cigarette cloud Margery snorted could have escaped from a smoke stack. “Spare me,” she said.
Helen stood up and felt woozy. Must be a vitamin C overdose from the screwdriver. She needed dinner and so did her cat, Thumbs.
When Helen unlocked her door, the big cat threw himself at her feet and tripped her. Helen pitched forward and grabbed the kitchen counter. “If I break my neck, you’ll starve,” Helen told him.
Thumbs
was a gray-and-white tom with the biggest paws on any cat this side of a zoo. He was a polydactyl and had six toes on his front paws. He also had golden eyes and a rumbling purr when he was pleased. Right now, he wanted dinner.
She poured Thumbs a bowl of chow. She was fixing herself a hash-house dinner of fried eggs, potatoes, and onions when there was a knock on the door.
Helen opened it and smiled. It was Phil.
She was always a little startled by his striking good looks. With his white hair and lean body, Phil looked like a pirate—or a rock star. His crooked nose only made his face more interesting. Helen liked her men a little flawed.
He kissed her and sniffed the oniony air. “Grease! My favorite food group.”
“And the only thing I can make. Let me fry you a heart-stopping dinner.”
“Fine with me,” Phil said. “I sure don’t want to live forever. Not after the day I’ve had in court. Damn lawyers.”
Phil was a private investigator. A case he’d been working undercover got him mixed up with a federal agency, two murders, and Helen.
“Tell me about it,” she said and popped bread in the toaster.
“I’d rather forget about it until after dinner. Tell me about your day.”
“I saw Margery dancing by the pool with the handsomest older man. They looked so romantic, Phil. I hope I have a lover when I’m seventy-six and can dance with him by the pool.”
“I hope it will be me,” Phil said. He took her in his arms and kissed her until the fried eggs were two rubber coasters.
Helen felt his scratchy, end-of-the-day beard against her cheek and kissed the tender spot at the base of his throat. His shirt smelled of starch. He smelled of coffee and something spicy.
Phil kissed her again, and the onions and potatoes turned to cinders.
They didn’t notice.
“I will dance with you now, Helen,” he said, waltzing her around the living room. “But I will love you forever.”
Helen kissed him again and tried to forget the other man who’d made that promise. Suddenly the smoke alarm blared and the moment was lost.