The PMS Murder

by Laura Levine

  “Well, there’s the waitressing. But I can’t use that.”

  “Sure you can.”

  She looked dubious. “Waitress doesn’t sound very impressive.”

  “No, but Food Service Specialist does.”

  She nodded happily. “So it does.”

  “What else?” I asked.

  “I’ve done some temp filing.”

  “Organizational Engineer,” I jotted down. “What else?”

  “When I was a kid, I sold Girl Scout cookies.”

  “Professional Fund-raiser.”

  By now she was beaming. “Hey, you’re really good at this stuff.”

  Pam filled me in on the details of her job history, and I told her I’d finish the resume by the end of the week.

  “Are you sure I can’t pay you?”

  Yes! Tell her yes! You want some money!

  But like a fool, I said, “Forget it. It’s nothing. I knock these things out in my sleep.”

  “You’re a doll,” she said, with a grateful smile. “Now let me get our dinner.”

  She got up and went behind some beaded curtains into her tiny box of a kitchen.

  “There’s always plenty to eat at the club,” she called out from behind the curtain, “so I just fixed us a light bite.”

  She came out from the kitchen holding two sacks from Burger King.

  “Which means only one order of fries with our Whoppers.”

  Then, grinning, she set out burgers, fries, and Cokes on the ottoman she used as a coffee table.

  “Hope you don’t mind my doing take-out. I’m not much of a cook.”

  “Me, neither,” I said. “I use my oven to warm my socks.”

  “Really? I use mine to dry my newspapers.”

  Clearly Emeril had nothing to fear from us.

  “Besides,” I said, squeezing ketchup onto my burger, “I adore Whoppers.”

  And that was no lie. I proceeded to dig into mine with gusto. And I was not alone in my gusto-hood. Pam was right alongside me, mouthful for mouthful.

  When we finally came up for air, we started gabbing. I told Pam about my life as a writer, and she told me about her life as an actress. And trust me, I had the better deal. I don’t know how actors cope with all the rejection. Would you believe she was once turned down for the part of a corpse because she didn’t look dead enough?

  Pam asked me about my love life and, after a hearty chuckle, I explained that it was currently on the endangered species list. I told her about my disastrous marriage to The Blob. That’s what I call my ex-husband. He seemed perfectly divine when I met him. Not a flaw in sight. No hint of the man who would eventually pick his teeth with paper clips and watch ESPN during sex.

  She tsk-tsked in sympathy.

  “I know just how you feel. My marriage was a fiasco, too.”

  “Really? What went wrong?”

  “Everything. We fought constantly, bickered, had screaming matches, threw lamps at each other. And that was just on the honeymoon.”

  She popped a final fry into her mouth, then checked her watch.

  “We’d better get going, or we’ll be late for the meeting. Time to do the dishes!”

  She held out a wastepaper basket, and we tossed in our trash.

  “Well, that’s done,” she said, wiping her hands on her sweats, clearly a graduate of the Jaine Austen School of Housekeeping, too.

  Pam drove her battered Nissan Sentra west on Sunset to Brentwood.

  “So tell me more about the club,” I said, as we tooled past the quatrillion-dollar estates on Sunset Boulevard.

  “Well, we’ve been meeting for about a year now. Most of us hooked up at the L.A. Racquet Club.”

  “The fancy gym on the west side?”

  Pam nodded. “I’d just finished shooting my vegetable soup commercial and I was feeling flush. So I sprung for a membership.”

  “Isn’t it awfully snooty?”

  “Some of the members are, but the PMS gals are really great. We connected right away.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Let’s see. There’s Rochelle. She hosts the meetings every week.”

  “Every week? Doesn’t she mind?”

  “Hell, no. She insists on it. She loves to play hostess. I think she’s memorized every book Martha Stewart ever wrote. The woman cooks everything from scratch. If she could make her own water, she would. She puts cocktail umbrellas in her margaritas and little Mexican flags in her homemade empanadas.”

  “Little Mexican flags?”

  “I know. It’s unbelievable. But I’ve got to say she makes the best damn guacamole I ever tasted. She says her secret ingredient is a dash of orange juice. Whatever it is, it’s fantastic.”

  “So is this Rochelle the ringleader of the group?”

  “Oh, no. Far from it. That’s the funny thing about Rochelle. As much as she loves to entertain, she’s really quite shy. Just flits around, taking margarita orders, making sure everybody has enough to eat. She tends to blend in with the wallpaper, but she’s very sweet. Always sympathetic when one of us has a problem. In her own quiet way, she’s the glue that holds the group together.”

  “What about the other club members?”

  “Like I said, they’re all terrific.” Then she frowned. “Except maybe Marybeth.”

  “Who’s Marybeth?”

  “Interior decorator. Very successful.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” she said, turning onto a leafy street. “We’re here.”

  She parked in front of an impressive colonial house, gleaming toothpaste white in the moonlight.

  I whistled softly. “Nice house.”

  “It’s Rochelle’s pride and joy. She’s constantly redecorating. I don’t think there’s an original room left. My theory is that the house is a substitute for kids.”

  “Oh?”

  “She and her husband haven’t been able to conceive, and she pours all her maternal energy into the house.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Just call me Dr. Freud. Too bad I can’t fix my own neuroses.” She snapped off the ignition and turned to me with a grin. “Guess it’s time to hit those margaritas.”

  And so I sucked in my gut, poufed out my hair, and headed off to my first meeting of the PMS Club.

  Chapter 4

  Rochelle Meyers may have been obsessed with her house, but she sure didn’t take any pains with herself. She greeted us at the door in baggy jeans and an oversized denim work shirt, a dishtowel slung over her shoulder. Her wispy brown hair was in desperate need of a good styling and I couldn’t help noticing a bit of a tummy underneath that work shirt.

  “Hi.” She smiled shyly, her face flushed. “You must be Jaine. I’m Rochelle. Come on in.”

  She ushered us into a foyer the size of my dining room.

  “Why don’t you girls get settled in the living room? I’ve still got a few things to take care of in the kitchen.”

  And with that, she scurried off down the hall.

  “She’s always got something to take care of in the kitchen,” Pam said, leading me into a huge beige-and-white living room, tastefully decorated, with a massive stone fireplace and twin sofas the size of railway cars.

  A slim, gray-haired woman in her sixties was sitting on one of the sofas, reaching for a cut-glass bowl filled to the brim with plump macadamia nuts. I eyed the nuts hungrily. I couldn’t wait to grab some.

  (Yes, I know I’d just finished a Whopper with fries. What can I say? I’m disgraceful.)

  “Hi, Doris,” Pam said to the gray-haired woman. “Meet my friend Jaine. Jaine, this is Doris Jenkins.”

  “Welcome to the madhouse,” Doris grinned.

  Like Pam and Rochelle, she wore hardly any makeup, making no attempt to cover the laugh lines that gave her face a comfortable lived-in look.

  I plopped down on the sofa and helped myself to a handful of macadamias.

  “Jaine’s a writer,�
� Pam said. “She’s helping me with my resume.”

  “A writer? Really? I’m impressed. Writing’s like pulling teeth for me.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “But that doesn’t stop me.”

  “So,” I said, popping a nut in my mouth, “Pam tells me you guys all met at the L.A. Racquet Club.”

  “That’s right,” Doris said. “I remember it well. I’d just dropped 185 pounds of ugly flab.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I got divorced.”

  It was an old gag, but it cracked her up. She laughed, a loud, raucous laugh.

  “Happiest day of my life, getting rid of that bum.”

  At which point, an exceedingly attractive guy in his twenties came sailing into the room with a tray of margaritas. I blinked in surprise. What was a guy doing here?

  “You must be Jaine Austen,” he said, setting the margaritas on the coffee table. “Love your books.”

  Usually I groan when people hand me that line, but this time I found myself smiling. There was something about this guy that I liked. Not in a sexual way, though. My lightning powers of deduction told me he was gay.

  Especially when he said, “I’m Colin Lambert, the club’s token gay guy.”

  “How did you meet the others in the club?” I asked. “Do you belong to the racquet club, too?”

  “Oh, no. I’m Marybeth’s indentured servant. Well, technically I’m her design assistant. But it feels more like slave labor when she calls me at three in the morning and asks me to ‘skedaddle’ over to her place with some fabric swatches. Which is what she did last night. No joke. Three in the morning.”

  He sank into the sofa with a sigh.

  “I need a drink,” he said, reaching for a margarita.

  “So do I, sweetie!” boomed a loud whiskey voice. “So do I!”

  I looked up and saw a tall blonde with big hair, big lips, and big boobs to match. She looked like she was in her early thirties, but this was L.A., the plastic surgery capital of the world. For all I knew, she was on Medicare. She swept across the room in a cloud of expensive perfume.

  “Sorry I’m late. Shoe sale at Ferragamo. So many slingbacks, so little time.”

  She grabbed a margarita, tossed the paper umbrella aside, and practically inhaled it in one gulp.

  “Jaine,” Pam said, “this is Ashley, our resident shopaholic.”

  “Pleased to meet you, hon.” She kicked off her shoes and grinned. “Pam says you’re our kind of people.”

  I smiled what I hoped was an our-kind-of-people smile.

  “Where’s Rochelle?” she asked, looking around the room.

  “In the kitchen,” Pam said. “As usual.”

  “Rochelle!” Ashley shouted. “Get your fanny out here! You can’t stay in the kitchen all night!”

  “I’m coming,” Rochelle called from the kitchen.

  Seconds later, she came bustling out with a bowl of the most delicious-looking guacamole I’d ever seen, studded with giant chunks of avocado. Between the macadamia nuts and the avocado, I’d just died and gone to calorie heaven.

  “I hope it’s not too spicy,” Rochelle said, her brow furrowed with concern.

  “It’s never too spicy, Rochelle,” Colin said. “It’s always wonderful.”

  She set the bowl down on the coffee table and we all attacked it, swooping down with our chips like vultures.

  “It’s divine,” I said. And it was.

  “You sure it’s not too spicy?”

  “No, it’s not spicy at all.”

  “Is it spicy enough?”

  “Rochelle, it’s great!” Pam said. “Now sit down and have a margarita and stop obsessing.”

  “Wait. I’ve got to get the empanadas.”

  Before I knew it, she was trotting out from the kitchen with a platter of homemade empanadas, cooked to flaky perfection. Each one sporting a miniature Mexican flag.

  “I hope they’re not soggy,” Rochelle said, with a frown.

  “Rochelle!” Pam forced her down onto the sofa and handed her a margarita.

  “Drink,” she commanded.

  Rochelle took a sip.

  “Now relax and get tootled like the rest of us.”

  “Somebody pass the empanadas!” Doris said. “Let’s dig in.”

  “Aren’t we going to wait for Marybeth?” Rochelle asked.

  “Don’t be silly,” Colin said. “That could take forever. You know how she likes to make a grand entrance.” He turned to me to explain. “Marybeth always waits till she’s sure everybody’s here and then comes bursting in with some ‘yummy news.’”

  “Is that how she describes it? Yummy news?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Pam rolled her eyes. “Marybeth is the most relentlessly perky person I’ve ever met.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said. “Like Shirley Temple on uppers.”

  “It’s true,” Ashley said, reaching for another margarita. “I think she’s mainlining antidepressants.”

  “She’s always giving us lectures about how we’re supposed to look on the bright side,” Pam said. “If she tells me to look on the bright side one more time, I’m gonna shove my Mexican flag up her wazoo.”

  “You guys are horrible,” said Rochelle. “Don’t listen to them, Jaine. Marybeth is a wonderful person. She’s been helping me redecorate my master bath for the past six months, and she’s been so much fun to work with.”

  Everyone groaned.

  “Okay, so maybe she’s a little too upbeat sometimes, but basically Marybeth is a warm, caring person.”

  “She’s caring, all right,” Colin said. “That’s why she called me on my cell phone in the middle of my cousin’s wedding to tell me to bring her a frappucino.”

  “Shh,” Doris whispered. “I think I hear her coming up the path.”

  Sure enough, the doorbell rang.

  “She always rings the bell,” Pam said, “even though she knows the door’s open. She has to announce her arrival.”

  “Come on in,” Rochelle called out.

  A subtle tension filled the air. And then Marybeth Olson blew into the room.

  She wasn’t at all what I’d expected. I’d seen my share of decorators on House & Garden Television, all of them sleek and sophisticated and bone thin. But Marybeth looked like she’d just stepped off a dairy farm. Fresh scrubbed and clean-cut, with squeaky-clean blonde hair and the most startling green eyes I’d ever seen, as green as a pair of my mom’s fake emerald earrings. The only makeup on her face was some candy red lipstick. And although she wasn’t the least bit fat, she was far from the social string bean I thought she’d be.

  When Pam introduced us, she took my hand and greeted me warmly.

  “I’m sooo happy you could join us, Judy.”

  “Actually, it’s Jaine.”

  “Sorry,” she said, flashing me a dazzling smile. “I always get my J names mixed up.”

  Then she wedged herself onto the sofa between Doris and Colin, subtly forcing Colin to move down to the end of the sofa.

  “Have a margarita, Marybeth,” Rochelle said. “And some guacamole.” She popped up and passed the guacamole to Marybeth.

  Marybeth laid another kilowatt smile on Rochelle. “It looks delicious.”

  “I hope it’s not too spicy.”

  “It’s not too spicy!” everyone shouted.

  “Okay, ladies and gentleman,” Doris said, clinking her cocktail umbrella against her margarita glass. “The weekly meeting of the honorable PMS Club is now called to order. Any news?”

  Without missing a beat, Marybeth piped up, “I’ve got yummy news!”

  Pam poked me in the ribs.

  “The other day, just for a lark, I decided to buy a lottery ticket, and you’ll never guess what happened!”

  “You won?” Pam blinked, incredulous.

  “Yes!” Marybeth rummaged around her purse and fished out a lottery ticket. “Isn’t it wonderful?” She kissed the ticket with her candy red lips. “It’s not very much, though. Just
fifty thou.”

  Just fifty thou?

  “The rich get richer,” Pam muttered under her breath.

  That might not have been much to Marybeth, but it was a lot of Whoppers for a gal like me.

  “That’s great!” Rochelle said, beaming.

  The others murmured congratulations with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

  “Anybody else have any yummy news?” Doris asked.

  “Actually, I do have good news,” Pam said. “Jaine here has agreed to write a resume for me.”

  “Here’s to Jaine!” Ashley took a healthy slug of her margarita. Something told me she would have toasted Hitler if she thought she could get another drink out of it.

  “That’s the good news,” Pam continued. “The bad news is that I got rejected for another part this week. The casting director kept me waiting three hours and then didn’t even bother to have me read. She said they’d already decided to go with someone else. It wouldn’t have been so bad, only they’d made the decision two hours earlier and nobody told me. She made me sit there all afternoon for nothing. And she didn’t even apologize.”

  The members of the PMS Club were filled with righteous indignation.

  “What a horrible person!” Colin said. Well, that’s not exactly what he said. He said a four-letter word that rhymes with blunt. (Those of you who guessed runt, guess again.)

  “Here’s to that [bleepity bleep] casting director.” Ashley raised her glass in another toast. “May she get a yeast infection!”

  We all raised our glasses and drank to that most heartfelt toast.

  “So what else is new?” Ashley asked.

  “Well,” Doris said, taking a deep breath, “I went out on a date this weekend. From a video dating service.”

  “Tell all,” Colin said.

  “What a nightmare. The guy wrote on his member profile that he was 62. And I’m sure he was 62—twenty years ago. All I know is he was at least 80 when I saw him on Saturday. What a date. I spent the whole night slapping him.”

  I blinked, incredulous. “To keep him off you?”

  “No, to wake him up.”

  “You think that’s bad?” Colin says. “Remember that guy I gave my phone number to at Williams Sonoma? The one who looked like Kyan on Queer Eye? Well, he called.”