Shopping. Oh, glorious shopping. Looking for that elusive sale. Finding that buy that would make other women turn green with envy and pound their breasts in hopeless desperation. Ah, the sweet satisfaction of the shopping experience. Oh, glorioski, is that silk shirt a third off and does it come in my size? And that baby doll tank in gorgeous green with a sweetheart neckline and embroidered hem, well, isn’t that to die for?
Mary Grace was happily lost somewhere in one of the biggest malls in Northern Texas. She had a debit card and two major credit cards. She had substituted her Franco Sarto pumps for comfortable yet stylish peep-toed, sling backed flats in red patent leather. With an injection of Starbucks grande, double chocolate chip, frappuccino blended crème, she was ready to browse. Certainly a lunatic would be murderer couldn’t keep up with Mary Grace in full on, caffeinated, indomitable shopping mode.
A baby was crying somewhere.
That little Chelsea pink and white striped polo shirt makes me want to give up all my possessions. Is it on sale, perchance? I see a little sticker. Do I have a winner? Mary Grace dug furiously. Damn, only ten percent off. Too cute. But another day, little polo shirt. Go back to your fellow polo shirts until that day.
Someone said, “Shh, Johnny. This will only take a minute and then Mommy and you will go see the ice skating rink. They have a play area for you too. Lots of neat rubber shapes like big rocks and cool animals for my little pumpkin.”
Oh, that low rise cut jeans with the frayed look. I think my hips might blurp out a little. Maybe if I did a few more crunches in the morning?
The baby started to cry in earnest. The voice said, “Hush, little guy. I mean, it’s just a department store, for crying out loud. They shouldn’t have the music so loud and you’re only a little tired.”
What if I sucked in my gut a lot? What if I had emergency liposuction? What if I swathed plastic wrap around my tummy and did those perverse side twists that will probably wrench a groin muscle? What if I ignored the fact that Deep Throat Mommy has obviously found me again and pretended I was deaf, dumb, and blind?
Mary Grace sighed and put the jeans back in the pile, neatly arranging the ends, determined to draw out the time before she had to actually acknowledge the other woman. Finally, she turned and saw Deep Throat Mommy standing there. She was still the same thirty-something, would be den mother with the impossibly adorable, blue-eyed baby in a flowered sling across her chest. This time Mary Grace cataloged the way the other woman looked, taking mental notes for the police, Brogan, Callie, and probably her mother, too. Shoulder length blonde hair, honey blonde strands accompanied by the same blue eyes as the baby’s. A plain black t-shirt, worn Levi’s, tattered Nikes, and a quilted baby bag slung over one shoulder. She was a few inches shorter than Mary Grace and she had a dribble stain from baby across one shoulder. “Oh, for God’s sake,” Mary Grace said. “Did you follow me around today?”
“Yep,” Blonde mamacita said. “House to hospital to here. I liked the other shoes better.”
“I can’t walk around in them much,” Mary Grace said plainly. “Or I’d have to amputate my little toe, and maybe my second to last toe, too.”
“Bummer,” the mother said, patting junior on the head while he snuffled. She deftly extracted a binkie from the baby bag and the kid chortled in sudden delight. His lips latched on and he sucked away like a little professional. “Listen, I know they arrested that Kennebunk guy,” Deep Throat Mommy said conversationally, “but you’re still in danger. I mean, he wasn’t behind all of it.”
“Kennebrew,” Mary Grace corrected automatically. “And could you be a little more specific? Like from exactly whom? Maybe a social security number? Driver’s license number and mother’s maiden name?”
The blonde mommy looked around surreptitiously, as if scanning for someone. She suddenly froze. “Oh, crudcakes,” she said and the frightened expression on her face was enough to give Mary Grace a start.
Mary Grace looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. There were shoppers looking inside the store’s windows from the mall’s main halls. There were people coming and going, but there was no one shooting dagger-like looks at Mary Grace or Deep Throat Mommy. There wasn’t a single lurker who appeared as though they could merrily stick a stiletto heeled shoe into Mary Grace’s back. When she looked back at the mother, the other woman was halfway down the nearest aisle, making tracks for the nearest exit. “Oh, no you don’t,” Mary Grace yelled, and launched herself after the woman and her little baby, too.
The blonde mommy looked over her shoulder and saw Mary Grace in pursuit. She let out a loud peep of distress, and the baby spit out the binkie to cry out his correlated suffering in strident complement. She dived through a display and polo shirts went flying in several different directions. The baby started to wail in an earsplitting harmonization. Several people stopped to stare. A clerk began to hurry toward the display with a worried expression on her face.
Mary Grace shouted, “Hey! Stop!”
Deep Throat Mommy plowed into a group of tourists and expertly shouldered through them, keeping the baby safely to one side. She cast a look back at Mary Grace and abruptly screamed, “That woman’s after me!”
Mary Grace tripped over a pile of polo shirts and protested, “I am not!” Well, I am, too, but I can’t exactly tell all these people that. Quick, think of a good excuse to be chasing a woman with a baby slung across her chest. Pause. Snap. There is no good reason for that. She took three steps after the fleeing Deep Throat Mommy, when the blonde woman looked over her shoulder again. “She stole a purse and…a binkie!” Mary Grace bellowed.
Deep Throat Mommy glared at Mary Grace, terribly affronted by the accusation. “She’s trying to kidnap my baby!” she shrieked in response. “She’s a nutcase, one of those women who can’t have one of their own and she tried to get mine! OH, please help!”
Mary Grace faltered in shock. “If I wanted a baby, I know exactly how to go about it, you pinheaded, little imp and who the heck is…” Then someone clobbered her over the head with what felt like bricks and Mary Grace decided to rest her eyes until the pain and ringing in her ears receded, which happened to be quite a while.
•
“Of course, I don’t know who she is,” Mary Grace said, holding a package of Blue Ice to her head. “I don’t know who it was that slammed a refrigerator over my head, either.”
“It wasn’t a refrigerator,” said a helpful clerk. “It was a large purse.”
“Did it have a refrigerator in it?” Mary Grace asked wrathfully.
“I didn’t see one,” the clerk said seriously.
The three security guards were standing around looking around, at each other, and at the floor in turn. They weren’t exactly sure what to do. Nothing had been stolen. No one had witnessed Mary Grace trying to steal any baby from any blonde women, and the security feeds had backed her up. Furthermore, the woman who had screamed the complaint had fled the premises with the baby in her arms and vanished without a trace. Further, furthermore, the woman who had slugged the stuffing out of Mary Grace had also vanished. Furthering furthermore exponentially, the attacker with the leaden purse had appeared to be wearing a hokey disguise in the feeds. Witnesses reported a heavy red haired wig, face concealing sunglasses, and a raincoat that didn’t quite fit in with the June temperatures of the greater Dallas area. Consequently, the guards were like a pack of infuriated and confused monkeys. Any moment and the feces would start flying.
“She’s a material witness,” Mary Grace suddenly snarled. “I wasn’t trying to do anything except get her to tell me the name of the person who’s stalking me.”
Two of the guards nodded solemnly at Mary Grace. The third one meaningfully looped a finger around the space near his ear. “Is there someone we should call, Miss?” he asked, after his finger dropped. “Psychiatrist? Psychologist? A little padded wagon?”
Brogan, she thought instantly. Brogan would come. Then she bowed her head. No, Brogan thinks he’s
got the guy. This is just pure silliness on my part. Just some weirdo who hasn’t said anything at all to me, besides ambiguous garbage, who’s following me around. Plus he’s going to think I’m taking advantage of us having sex. Oh, man. I’m in so much trouble. “No, thanks,” she said weakly, feeling like a little sissy girl.
“Maybe we should file a police report,” said another one of the guards.
“For what?” said another one. “The mommy and baby are long gone, and this one,” he indicated Mary Grace, “doesn’t want to file charges on the third, ‘missing’ woman.”
Mary Grace sneered. Like that would help anything. “I’m leaving,” she announced, and the guards murmured amongst themselves, unable to come up with a valid reason for keeping her.
Finally, the tallest security guard and the one obviously who got paid a quarter more an hour than the others, said, “We’ve got your name and address, so you’re not allowed back into this mall for six months or we’ll prosecute you for trespassing.”
That got her attention. Mary Grace said, “You’re banning me from the mall? For six months?” She almost cried because of the unfairness of it all. “I didn’t do a darned thing. See, I even used ‘darn,’ instead of damn…oh, dammitall.”
They escorted her to Callie’s car and she got another little unfairness shot in the butt. Someone had flattened all four tires and keyed the entire circumference of the little red convertible. One of the guards said, “Jeez, lady, I guess you weren’t kidding.”
Mary Grace glared and said, “I hope a five hundred pound shoplifter accidentally falls on you from the second floor of the mall and smooshes you into pancake thinness.”
Chapter Sixteen – Thursday, June 23rd
An embarrassed lady writes to me: Dearest, wonderfulest, smartest, most bodacious Auntie, I’m afraid I’ve had an incredible, shuddering, knee-knocking night in the sack with a very potent man, and my silk brocade comforter has taken one too many hits as a result. Please tell me how to avoid taking my comforter to the drycleaner’s, who happens to know my mother from our church. Sincerely, a very bad girl. My reply: Oh, energetic and enthusiastic bad girl, I have but three pieces of advice. Better aim. Use rubber sheets for that extra kinky factor. And oh, learn how to swallow.
- Aunt Piadora’s Beauty (and sometimes cleanliness) Hints
Mary Grace had intended spending the afternoon shopping herself into oblivion followed by a mind-shattering follow-up event at Brogan’s Highland Park love nest. Instead she had to endure snide security men, disparaging remarks from complete strangers who thought she really had tried to kidnap a baby, and arrange a flatbed tow truck to pick up Callie’s Mazda Miata. “No, you can’t just tow it the regular way,” she was forced to explain in excruciating, numbing detail. “It’s got FOUR flat tires. Four. Two of them are not going to magically re-inflate in the back so it can be towed that way.”
That was followed by a call to the Ford dealer to see if by some miracle her Explorer was ready. It was not; no canonization for the car repair place would be occurring. It had been two and a half weeks since the brake cutting, hill descending, air bag inflating incident, but the mechanics were taking their sweet assed time and blaming the delay on the parts department. Moreover, the parts department was blaming the factory in Indonesia for not sending the appropriate part. Mary Grace couldn’t call the factory in Indonesia because the parts department wouldn’t give her the number, so she was left to languish in carless abandonment.
One of the security guards had been detailed to watch her while she made her various calls. “Ralph,” Mary Grace said after a lengthy, get-to-know-each-other conversation. “You should really get your wife that Dior J’adore Pure Perfume. It’s on sale at Saks Fifth Avenue and you get a discount, too. That’ll leave you enough for roses and a box of chocolates. Nice chocolates, too, buddy. Godiva I think. Don’t scrimp.”
Ralph thought about it. “That’s going to break my budget.”
Mary Grace resisted moaning in disparagement. Non-shopping men. She totaled it up for him, including a few freebies that would impress his wife. “It’s only about $150, if you’re smart.”
“Only that much?” Ralph said wonderingly.
“And she’ll love it,” Mary Grace said. Ralph is going to get some booty, but I’m not saying that aloud.
“She’s going to complain about the chocolates making her fat,” Ralph said morosely, trying to pick the plan apart.
Oh, please. Secretly she’s going to be drooling. “Get her a small box. They have a nice selection of less expensive gifts there and if you flirt with the clerk, she’ll put a very pretty ribbon on it, and put it in a very elegant bag.” Mary Grace nodded encouragingly.
“You’re not the kook I thought you were,” Ralph said sincerely. “I’m really sorry someone has tried to kill you, and embarrass you, too. Thanks for the advice.”
“Well,” Mary Grace admitted graciously, “sometimes I come across as a little odd. This whole thing has been a stressor nonstop. But shopping and finding bargains is my little gift. I hope your wife has a pleasant anniversary.” Ralph’s going to have a great anniversary. And no one is trying to knock him off, either. Lucky son of a bitch.
“I’m going to have to escort you to the cab stand on the ground level, now, Mary Grace,” Ralph said apologetically.
Mary Grace sighed. She didn’t really want to take a cab home, but she didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t call one of her relatives who would immediately blab to her mother and she couldn’t call Brogan, who would probably blow a gasket, or some other part of his male anatomy. Besides her head still hurt and she wanted about ten ibuprofen pills or maybe an ibuprofen drip. It was a cab or walking, and it was about five miles to her house. “Okay, but don’t tell the cab driver I’m being stalked or he might not take me home.”
•
Ralph was walking beside Mary Grace when they passed the large ice skating rink and she saw a long line of tables and displays with all kinds of intricate gadgets and colorful paperwork to explain what was going on with each device. She said wearily, “So what’s up here, Ralph?”
“Science fair displays from local elementary schools,” Ralph answered positively, happy that his anniversary issues had been niftily resolved. “You wouldn’t believe what some of these kids can do. That one over there.” He pointed. “That kid did an experiment on the differences in fizzyness in soda pop. He managed to fill up three balloons with fizz. The one over there did a project on how light intensity affects solar cells. I never even thought about something like it. But there was one kid who actually built a replica nuclear device. Got the grand prize. The effects of nuclear power on the environment or something like that. Pretty whiz-bang.”
Mary Grace glanced over the displays and looked longingly at the window of the department store beyond. There were three sale signs in the window taunting her maliciously. “You mean he actually built a nuclear bomb?”
“Nonworking,” Ralph laughed. “Where’s the kid going to get the radioactive material to make a bomb?”
“Nukes Я Us?” Mary Grace answered dryly, not really interested.
Ralph laughed again.
Mary Grace trudged on, dismayed by the effects of being banned from her favorite shopping grounds. There are other malls, dammit. I don’t need this one. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just wanted to escape that mental place where I was being stalked and my stalker hasn’t been caught yet. It’s not like I can go after the murderous idjit 24/7, and shopping is so good for my calmness. Is that such a wrong thing? She glanced over her shoulder for a last look at the interior of the mall and saw a group of kids standing beside a display. A photographer was taking pictures of them. They were all proudly displaying their pie-plate sized ribbons.
She stopped abruptly, staring, something inexorable nibbling away at her brain. Ralph sighed dramatically. “Come on, Mary Grace. I’ll put you in the cab myself, you don’t have to worry about someone getting to you until you get home, and
then you can call the detective you were talking about. You really don’t want to go to jail today.”
“Those kids,” Mary Grace jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “How old are they?”
“Elementary grades,” Ralph said. “Oh, some of them are as young as eight. They’re about 4th grade to 6th. I don’t think the younger grades do the science fairs. Pretty cool stuff for an eight year old. When I was eight I probably would have done an experiment on how big a bubble I could pop with gum. Hmm.”
“Eight years old?” Mary Grace tilted her head crookedly. Really. Could my mother have her theory half way correct? My mother? Could it be that simple? Jack Covington has an alibi for the brake job and the BMW explosion. He was at Disney World with Morgan during…the brake job attempt, and anyway, Trey admitted to that one. But Jack was in Las Vegas during the BMW explosion.
“Come on, Mary Grace,” Ralph said again, patiently. “Let’s get you out of the mall before my boss has you arrested.”
A light bulb exploded in her head. Mary Grace nodded more excitedly. “You bet. I’ve got a photograph to look at.”
When she got into the cab, she told him where she wanted to go.
•
Jack nearly groaned at the sight of Mary Grace walking into Pictographs, Inc. He took a breath, shook his head tiredly, and then did groan. He was the last one in the office and Mary Grace Castilla was the last person he probably wanted to see.
Mary Grace didn’t care. Jack didn’t have a restraining order against her…yet. And she was determined. Worse, she was going to get the answers she wanted one way or another. “I need something, Jack,” she announced. Then she marched past him, going directly into his office. There she positioned herself squarely in front of the framed photographs. Specifically, she was interested in the one where Morgan had a large trophy in his hands and was standing next to a complicated gizmo and a sign that said it was a science fair.
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