Sea Change (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 1)

by T'Gracie Reese

  “Someone might steal my Vespa.”

  “No one will want it, dear.”

  “There’s comfort in that, then, anyway. A person has so little in these final days––”

  “Nina!”

  Her Last Rites were interrupted by Macy Peterson, who exuded far greater happiness than should have been expected from any woman dressed in a salmon-colored suit offset by octopus ink purple scarf.

  “Nina, are you all right?”

  “Yes, I––”

  “She came here,” said Allana, looking first at one woman, then the other, then balefully out a window and into the winter night, “on her moooowwwtacycle.”

  “Nina, you didn’t!”

  “It’s not that far.”

  “Why didn’t you call me? There are so many people I could have gotten in touch with, who would gladly have given you a ride! Do you have a way home?”

  “I thought I’d just let the ambulance take me to The Emergency Ward.”

  A complete blank look on both of the faces staring at her.

  One second, two seconds—

  “That’s a joke.”

  Then both of them knelt forward at the same time and said in one identical voice:

  “Don’t joke about things like that.”

  “Well, if you can’t joke about death then what––”

  The same blank stare.

  Change the subject.

  “You have some wonderful gifts here, Macy.”

  A few more seconds for the awesome specter of Nina’s demise, the horror of a world without Nina—to be gradually displaced by the visions of glittering little jewel caskets lying around what had become a magic kingdom under drifts and drifts of silvery glittery snow, so wonderfully powdery perhaps because all of it was in fact powder.

  “Have you seen the things, Nina?”

  “I’ve seen some of them.”

  “Aren’t they marvelous? Did you see the Hummels?”

  “Yes!”

  “Paul loves Hummels!”

  “Does he?” exclaimed Nina, and thinking simultaneously, then this would make him the first man in the history of the world to do so.

  “Yes, he does! Oh, and by the way, he’ll be here soon. He apologizes for being a bit late; he’s in a big planning meeting!”

  Since Nina had begun a two track conversation, one with herself and one with Macy and Allana, she decided to let the thing go on for a while as it was––four woman chatter, the two Nina’s (public and secretive), and the two people sitting before her.

  What kind of a meeting? private Nina asked secretively.

  “The dishware set was incredible,” public Nina said.

  “Wasn’t it?”

  I don’t suppose Miss You Know Who was at this meeting, was she? asked private Nina.

  “The Limoges is also beautiful,” stated public Nina.

  Allana Delafosse said something to this but Nina was having trouble keeping up with her own two tracks and didn’t pay attention.

  Something about ‘exquisite,’ but who cared.

  Private Nina leaned forward, put her hands on Macy’s knees, looked straight into her beaming face, and said quietly but firmly:

  Do you realize that this woman is stealing your fiancé from you, right under your nose? That she’s been seen with him all over town for the last days? That she’s going to hire him off somehow, give him some fake administrative job for beaucoup money, more maybe than he’s ever seen—take him to bed with her, make him a toyboy for a few months, and then throw him out?

  These words were fed into the translation center, spliced, processed and reprogrammed, then forwarded into the alternative control center which re-routed them into public Nina talk, so that they came out:

  “It’s probably the best shower I’ve ever seen.”

  “I know, isn’t it? People are just so nice.”

  Florence Thomas came by then and said:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  To which, Macy replied:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Allana seconded that, saying assertively:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Leaving an opening which could not be missed by Jaynie, of Jaynie’s Antiques, the woman who’d given one of the three pickle casters, and who could always be counted on to say something like:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Which she did.

  Nine felt compelled to respond, saying:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Allana countered:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Macy corrected her:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  Nina supplemented the thought, saying, in a conciliatory way:

  Blah da blah da blah da blah.

  And then there was a lull in the conversation.

  No one knew how long this lull lasted, nor were any records kept, so it will be one of those mysteries of nature. Suffice to say that for a physically indeterminate amount of time the village had become one those black holes that suck in all human suffering, wisdom, and aspiration, condensing them into a tiny ball of immensely heavy matter—which must for unknown reasons remain hidden for a time—and replacing them with utterly useless blather, which was then spread out all over the universe.

  Unexplained forces finally blew up this black hole, allowing the return of reason to human speech, so that Allana might say to Nina:

  “You know, dear, I did meet with Miss Ivory some days ago.”

  “I think I heard about that.”

  “Well. These things do get round, don’t they?”

  “Yes. Yes, they do.”

  “I must say, I was impressed with her. And with the way she seemed to listen.”

  ‘Seemed,’ thought Nina, may be the operative word here.

  “You know she thinks the world of you, don’t you?”

  “She’s been complimentary to me. I’m not really sure why.”

  “We all know why, Nina. We all know why. She recognized someone who embodies the town’s—well how else shall I say it?––the town’s soul.”

  “That’s asking a lot, Allana, from someone who’s only five feet three.”

  “I’m not certain what height has to do with it.”

  “Nina,” said Margot Gavin, who, empress of her own domain, had joined the group, “is bringing humor into the conversation.”

  “Ah. Well, at any rate. She has shown excellent taste in her feelings for you and she was not at all unreceptive to my presentation concerning Auberge des Arts.”

  “Pardon?”

  “‘Auberge des Arts’ is one proposed name for the mansion itself, renovated in such a way as to become a pure cultural center.”

  “Oh yes! I’d heard about that—just the basic plans, of course.”

  “They are quite complex now. I and several others have been working intently on them. I’m sorry I don’t have the plans here––”

  “That’s all right.”

  “—but we were able to get blueprints of the mansion itself, and it seems perfectly made for such an endeavor. There are two separate areas that might well be transformed into Black Box Theaters. One hall with splendid acoustics, a perfect place for chamber music concerts. There are intimate quarters—one even with a fireplace, if you can imagine that—that remind one of Old English drawing rooms, where Noel Coward, George Bernard Shaw, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and Edith Wharton, might sit chatting far into the night––”

  “—about Paranormal Romance?”

  “Nina!”

  “Sorry, Margot.”

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, Allana. Go on.”

  “Well, that’s basically the gist of the proposal. This splendid mansion is now the centerpiece of our town again; as it was always supposed to be. But now we can put art and culture in the center of our community.”

  “I hope that happens, Allana. I really do.”

  She was about to something both in
spiring and fake.

  She was prevented from doing so, though, by the arrival of something even more inspiring and fake.

  Eve Ivory.

  The woman entered Margot’s garden like an appearance of the Northern Lights, fur, jewelry, bangles, radiance, and misrule. She was not so much a human being as a personified boutique, open only for private showings.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late! Here, I’ve at least brought this!”

  She held before her a small present. It was wrapped in white paper with a red bow. By its precise measurements, Nina could tell it contained something of no value that was ugly.

  “Margot!”

  “Eve!”

  “This is the first time I’ve been in your place. It’s really quite cute in a kitschy sort of way. I have a dear friend with two kiddoes: some of these little sparklies will be perfect for them!”

  “Whatever I can do.”

  “And—is it—you must be Macy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then congratulations!”

  “Thank you!”

  “I’m so sorry to have to borrow your fiancé for the evening, but the meeting just will not end. There are some hugely important negotiations going on at city hall and, well, without Paul––”

  “I understand. He’s excited that he can help. He seems to think something very big is about to happen.”

  “It is, Macy. It is. Which is why I have brought these!”

  Strapped around her neck was an animal of the tundra which she had forced to be motionless so that it could carry her things. She reached into its mouth and withdrew from its pelvic cavity at least twenty letters, all of a hue that would have been called ivory had that not been her name, and which thus would preferably be called ‘bone,’ since that fit more her nature.

  “These are invitations to all of you. A Holiday Gala, December 22, eight o’clock. I think I can promise you to have a truly remarkable announcement to make. Now I must rush back though: and once again Macy: congratulations to you and Paul!”

  So saying, she left.

  She’d been gone for perhaps ten seconds before Margot, shaking her head and continuing to peer at the door, asked quizzically:

  “Who came in?”

  The invitations were opened, analyzed, praised for polish and elegance:

  DEAR MR/MS––

  MISS EVE IVORY HAS THE PLEASURE OF

  REQUESTING YOUR PRESENCE

  AT A GALA

  TO BE HELD

  DECEMBER 22, 8:00 P.M.

  AT

  THE NEWLY RENOVATED

  ROBINSON HOUSE

  RSVP

  There were envelopes addressed to everyone in the store.

  “She did,” Nina said, admiringly, “her research. She got all our addresses right.”

  There was a bit more oohing and aahing about the invitations, and some speculation about what was to go on at this ‘gala,’ and what announcement was to be made that would be so important to Bay St. Lucy.

  But the main thing that Nina could not help noticing was the composure of Macy, who’d lost her fiancé on what might have been the most important evening of her life, up to this point.

  All of these presents were to be opened by the two of them, by her and Paul.

  And, yet, here she was, left to flit from one table to another, one group to another, one exquisite China display to another, apologizing and gushing, smiling and, Nina knew, wondering.

  What exactly did this woman want with him?

  Eve Ivory’s visit, as welcome here as a camp fire in a dirigible, had cast a pall over the evening.

  There was, to be sure, still a kind of cozy glow radiating from the fireplace over by the wall, where three plastic logs turned slowly around an invisible spit, rotating like hot dogs with fake bark.

  But people spoke a bit softer, and seemed to be looking at their watches.

  This was the way of things for some minutes, half an hour longer.

  And then something else happened.

  People began to be drawn to the windows.

  For what? Nina wondered.

  What are they looking at?

  She made her own way across the garden, slipping carefully through two crèches and a balloon figure of Frosty the Snowman.

  She pressed the tip of her nose against the window glass.

  What was that in the street?

  “Would you look at that?”

  “That is something, isn’t it?”

  And it was.

  For stopped before Margot’s shop was a carriage drawn by two white horses—real white horses, which made them the only real things in the village that night—who were driven by a driver with a top hat, and wearing a long coat.

  The horses remained perfectly still, and the ringing of their bells was caused by the wind whistling around them, and not by any deviance on their part from pure military protocol.

  The door of the coach opened, and Cary Grant got out. He was dressed in a tuxedo, of course, which Cary Grant must always wear, and he had on a black and shining top hat

  He straightened, attempted to shake the snow off his shoulders and coat sleeves, could not because there wasn’t any, then returned his attention to the carriage itself.

  He leaned forward, reached into it, offered his arm, and withdrew Lucille Ball.

  No one else could it have been: not simply because Lucy Ricardo had much more in common with the women painters, clay makers, pot throwers, kiln operators, and restaurateurs than did the average medieval nun—but because no film star, with the possible exception of Ingrid Bergman, had this woman’s magnificent shoulders.

  Not to mention the bonfire burning a brilliant scarlet in curls and yule logs only a foot or so above those shoulders, a face, neck, forehead, nose, ears, throat, etc., naturally intervening, but totally overwhelmed.

  Especially since the woman’s back was to the shop.

  “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know. Are those actors, or what?”

  “Margot, who––”

  “Don’t ask me.”

  “Macy, do you know?”

  “No idea.”

  The couple, arm in arm, moved away from the carriage, and disappeared behind a live oak tree that shaded Margot’s shop.

  So that the entire shower crowd now turned as one toward the shop entrance and waited.

  The door eased open, it’s bell tinkling gingerly.

  “Hello. Sorry we’re late. Little trouble with the horse.”

  A slight gasp.

  There in the doorway, inching shyly inside, were Tom Broussard and Penelope Royale.

  Arm in arm.

  He had been Cary Grant. And was still, if one looked carefully, at least far more than he was disheveled old Tom. His stomach was now held in place by a black, shining cummerbund; his hair had been cut, oiled, slick-backed, and beaten, so that it now cowered servilely upon his scalp, ready to allow children to pet it; his shoes glittered like pieces of anthracite coal; and his slump had been magically cured, adding inches to his height by the simple measure of putting his head directly over his shoes instead of one and a half foot in front of them.

  That was remarkable enough.

  But as for Penelope—

  ––that was a bit more.

  No one in the shop had ever seen this woman.

  They had seen a hard block of granite, tall and unyielding, wrapped with oilskin and topped with carrot fire

  But they had no way of suspecting the awesome effect of those rippling muscles revealed by a Bascani Gown, black as night, low-cut, sleeveless, and bejeweled.

  They had no way of suspecting that Penelope Royale was an immensely striking woman.

  “Oh my––”

  “Oh my––”

  “Oh my––”

  The couple made their way through the shop and into the garden, stopping directly before Macy.

  “We’re all so proud of you, Macy,” said Penelope. “Of you and Paul.”

 
“Oh, Penelope––”

  “Your marriage,” said Tom, “is the biggest thing that could happen to Bay St. Lucy. Forget all the other stuff you’ve been hearing about—this is the only important thing. We wanted you to have this.”

  He gave her a small box, covered in exquisite green wrapping paper.

  “Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Penelope.”

  “We should go now,” said Penelope. “I love you Macy. All of us do.”

  Then the two of them turned and left the store.

  Where there was no movement at all until the carriage jangled away.

  Finally, the spell was, if not broken, at least eased somewhat, so the inhabitants of the castle could say:

  “Open it, Macy.”

  “Yes, open it.”

  She did so, fingers trembling.

  Then she took an object from the box and held it up to the light, held it up in the room, so everyone could see. An ivory letter opener; the blade carved to a pencil-sharp point, it’s hilt carved into an intricate, lace work pattern; a green stone flashing fire at it’s end.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a letter opener!”

  “Look at that intricate carving!”

  “Look—engraved on the back of the blade, both of your names: Macy and Paul.”

  “Where is it from?”

  “Here in town?”

  “Not my shop.”

  “Not mine.”

  And then it was for Mrs. Wilson, poor, boring, widowed Mrs. Wilson, she who had spent the last few weeks simply sitting on the edge of Margot’s garden and reading, like a statue, hearing silently all of the gossip of Bay St. Lucy while saying nothing—then it was for her to come forward, take the letter opener carefully from Macy Peterson, and say:

  “It’s from Maurice’s Antiques. One of the finest stores in New Orleans. And my favorite. Each of their items is one of a kind.”

  She gave the letter opener back to Macy and disappeared in the crowd.

  “What’s the jewel on the handle?”

  “What is it?”

  The object was laid on a table for all to see, and the few more questions about its identity—which came from those few people in town who did not know jewelry—were answered by the hundred or so craftspeople and artisans who knew very little besides jewelry.

  “It’s an emerald.”

  Then:

  “How big would you say it was?”