“I’m glad you do, because I hate it,” Mavis remarked. “When you’re as big as I am, it’s downright embarrassing.”
“Oh, stop it! Get Coco, and let’s get out of here. We’ve tons to do before morning.”
The ride to Liz’s was made in silence, both women lost in their own thoughts. Fifteen minutes later, Toots tucked the Town Car into a narrow alley behind a cluster of small shops, the spot reserved for special customers. “This is it. Come on, I can’t wait to get started.”
Toots hurried around to the passenger door to assist Mavis. “Remember, this is only the beginning. A year from now, you’ll love shopping as much as I do.”
“I doubt that, but I’m open to new experiences, especially when my three best friends and goddaughter are involved. Lord knows I need some excitement in my life. Liz must be a special friend to open her shop this late at night just for us.”
Coco squeaked from her carrier in the backseat.
“Liz is a very special lady. I’ll get Coco,” Toots said.
Toots removed the little Chihuahua from the carrier, snapped her leash to her jeweled collar, placed her on the ground, then took Mavis’s hand. “Let the fun begin!”
Mavis laughed loud and hearty. “I have never been shopping this late. I still can’t believe your friend opened up just for me.”
“That’s what friends do. You’d best get used to it. The life you’ve lived in Maine is a thing of the past.”
Mavis stopped. “I don’t want my life to change that way, Toots. I love Maine. It’s been my home since Herbert died. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”
Toots stopped in her tracks. Was this their first glitch? “Then why did you agree to go to California?”
“It’s not like I’m going to be there forever, right?”
“True, but I’m not sure how long we’re going to be there. Like I said, Mavis, think bicoastal. You have to be okay with this from the get-go.”
“I am, I am. Change is a bit frightening, that’s all. Like I said, I’ve lived in Maine since Herbert died, and that’s been, what, fifteen years? Time passes quickly the older you get.”
“And we’re wasting our time talking about it. Come on, let’s see what Liz has in the way of sexy lingerie.”
Mavis shook her head. Coco scampered alongside her as they entered the dimly lit dress shop.
Chapter 9
Liz’s shop was designed with privacy in mind. There were no price tags on the clothes, no sale tables offering unheard-of discounts, no coupons to receive 50 percent off. Everywhere she looked, Mavis could tell Liz’s customers knew they were in an upscale clothier for overweight women. There were no tiny mannequins wearing clothes that would fit a three-year-old, no racks with sizes 0–2, no pictures with Barbie-size models wearing designer labels. Mavis thought the store resembled some of the celebrity closets she’d seen on the Style Network, only Liz’s was ten times larger.
A small woman barely five feet tall, who didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, greeted them. “You must be Mavis. I’m Liz.” The little lady wore a slim black pencil skirt with a crisp white blouse tucked in neatly and a black-and-white-checkered jacket. Her tiny feet were encased in red leather boots that added at least three inches in height.
Mavis glanced at Toots questioningly.
Toots laughed. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Mavis remembered her manners. “It’s very kind of you to do this for me. I just hate that it’s so late. I hope I’m not keeping you from your family,” Mavis said in one long breath.
“It’s my pleasure, and no, you’re not keeping me from anything. When Toots told me you were a friend of hers in need of a clothing makeover, I jumped at the chance,” Liz said. Her voice was light, almost musical, and easy on the ear.
“Liz likes to dress people. She used to work as a dress designer for some of Hollywood’s hottest stars. A few years ago,” Toots added. It had been more than a few years but, at their age, Toots figured twenty was “a few.”
“Oh, you did! Whom, if you don’t mind my asking, did you dress?” Mavis loved anything connected to Hollywood. Almost as much as Toots loved her tabloids.
“Doris Day was one of my favorites. She let me have free rein when it came to her personal wardrobe. She was a dream to work for.”
“I am impressed. Whatever you think I can fit into, I’ll try. I’m so fat, I’m ashamed of how I’ve let myself go.”
Toots left Mavis’s makeover in Liz’s very capable hands. She took a seat on a blue velvet bench outside the dressing room door while the two women bustled in and out of the dressing room.
Three hours later, with a trunkful of bags and boxes, Toots and Mavis returned to the house, exhilarated from shopping. They carried their purchases inside, dropping them in the entryway.
Her voice ringing with tired excitement, Mavis said, “I’ve never had so many clothes in my life.” She plopped down on a comfortable chair, with Coco resting on her ample lap. “I don’t even want to know how much this cost. I’d probably die of a heart attack.”
“I figured that’s why you hurried to the car once Liz started tallying up the clothes. Trust me, it will be worth every penny when you see how much better you look and feel. Once you start dropping the weight, we’ll do this all over again.”
Thrilled to see the effect their midnight excursion had on Mavis, Toots made a silent promise to herself to do this with all the girls, no matter if they could afford it or not. Seeing the huge grin on Mavis’s face as she tried on dozens of outfits was worth every penny Toots had spent that night, and more.
“I don’t know about that. I’m pretty handy with a needle and thread. I’ll just take in whatever I need to as I lose weight.”
“Bullshit! Stop that right now. You’ll do no such thing. I’m rich, Mavis. Hell, I’m disgustingly rich. I won’t live long enough to spend the interest I earn, so forget about ‘taking in’ your clothes. You’re just going to have to get used to the finer things in life. If you don’t like it—”
“Then I can kiss your wrinkled old ass?” Mavis shot back with a smile.
“Exactly!”
“That wouldn’t be my first choice of things to do, so—for now—you can refer to me as your ‘poor relation,’ and I’ll accept your kindness.”
“Good, because the visual I have of you kissing my ass isn’t pretty.”
Both women boomed with laughter at the mental image.
“It’s late, Mavis. Why don’t you go on to bed? You have a stress test this morning, and I’ve got a few loose ends to tie up, then I’m going to call it a night myself.”
“I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed myself as much as today, Toots. Thank you for making me want to live again. I feel like Cinderella at the ball minus the handsome prince.” Mavis wobbled over to give Toots a hug.
“The prince was way overrated as far as I’m concerned.” Toots smiled, surprised at how good she felt.
“He was, wasn’t he? Well, I—for one—am beat. Shopping is much more physical than I thought. Night, Toots.”
“Night, Mavis.”
During the next hour, Toots made three phone calls and ate a huge bowl of Froot Loops with a cup of sugar and half a cup of milk. The first call was to the Beverly Hills Hotel. They would need a place to stay while she decided exactly how she was going to operate her new third-rate rag. She reserved four of the hotel’s famous bungalows, specifically requesting one of the bungalows where Elizabeth Taylor had honeymooned with six of her eight husbands. They would all have their privacy in the lap of luxury. When the time was right, she would purchase a house. If things worked according to plan.
Maybe she’d buy Aaron Spelling’s old digs. When the time came, she’d check the listings on Mansions for Sale online. She loved pretend house hunting there, often imagining how she’d redecorate something she “bought” online.
Oh, she was going to sleep so well tonight.
Chapter 10
Abby Simp
son was as beautiful as the stars she wrote about, maybe even more so if she believed her coworkers’ gossip when they thought she wasn’t listening. She hated the lunchtime scuttlebutt and thought the comparison preposterous. If anything, Abby took extra measures to downplay her good looks because of their gossip. She’d learned very fast that beauty and smarts weren’t the best mix in her chosen profession. At least not in LA. Inheriting her father’s naturally curly blond hair and clear blue eyes was almost a curse. Factor in a petite frame with curves in all the right places, and she was often mistaken for one of the starlets she wrote about when she hit LA’s hot spots searching for her next story.
A starlet she was not. Just the thought gave her a stomachache. And Toots would have been horrified at the comparison.
Abby had been offered a few small acting jobs when she’d first moved to LA but declined them all. All she wanted to do was cover the stories that made for such scandalous entertainment, not star in one. She hesitated calling it “news” because it wasn’t news in the true sense of the word. She wrote to entertain, but the core of all of her stories contained the truth. She simply made her articles more exciting to read. No one wanted to read about the perfect lives of the admired and cherished. That would get too old too fast. However, when the admired and cherished went to rehab, gained weight, divorced, or engaged in behavior that showed their humanity, the public loved reading that their idols also experienced life’s tragedies—as everyone else did. She just spiced up her stories a bit.
Now with The Informer up for sale, Abby wasn’t sure how long she would even have a job. Had her financial situation been more secure, she would have considered making an offer on the paper, but it was too much of a strain on her already tight budget. She’d invested most of her available cash in purchasing her first home, a 1950s ranch-style house located in Brentwood, an exclusive area west of Los Angeles.
Her mother would have given her the money in a heartbeat if she’d asked, but that wasn’t her way. And there was no way she was going to touch her trust fund. As soon as she’d been legally able to work, at sixteen, she found a part-time job taking in classified ads over the phone for a small family-owned paper, The Daily Gazette, in Charleston, working there until she finished high school. She worked as an editorial assistant at a small publishing house while attending the University of South Carolina, where she majored in journalism, and at twenty-eight she hadn’t slowed down and had no intention of doing so until she achieved her dream: owning the biggest and best tabloid possible, one with worldwide distribution.
To some, her goal might have seemed foolish because tabloids were tabloids. Abby reasoned that, like anything else, they had their purpose. She smiled when she thought of her mother’s secret addiction to them. Since elementary school, Abby had also had an affinity for them, hence her present employment. So what if they weren’t The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal? Abby was unashamed of her profession. If anyone gave her grief about it, she dished it right back at full throttle.
Like her mother, Abby rarely slept. When the phone rang around one A.M. LA time, she answered on the first ring. “Abby Simpson.”
“Are you awake?” her mother asked.
“Of course I’m awake. I wouldn’t be answering the phone if I weren’t, now, would I? You know full well that I never sleep.” Abby was a noted insomniac. Some of her best work had been achieved during the wee hours of the morning.
“No, you don’t. Your father never slept much, either. At least when he was in bed with me.” Toots giggled.
“Again, more than I need or want to know.” Abby laughed. Her mother was quite the character, but she wouldn’t have her any other way. “Is everything all right? You don’t usually call this late.”
“It is almost four in the morning here. But it is earlier in LA, unless I have it backwards—again. Tell me I’m not getting senile.”
“You, senile? Never!” Abby said.
“Thank you for the vote of confidence. I called because I have a surprise for you.”
Oh no, Abby thought. “Okaaayyy.”
“You don’t sound very happy. Do you have company? Is there something you’re not telling me?” Toots asked.
“I’m fine, and no to both questions. I wish I had company,” Abby added wistfully. “Chester is great company, but he doesn’t always understand what I say.” Poor Chester. She’d spent many a night with him lying beside her, ears perked, head tilted in question, tail wagging patiently as though he were really trying to interpret his mistress’s words. Most of the time, she liked her life as it was and didn’t want it any other way. She enjoyed her freedom and didn’t have time for a serious relationship. Well, there was one man she’d been attracted to forever and a day, but she didn’t pursue him because she knew he wasn’t interested in her in the way she wanted him to be. Her dear older former stepbrother, Christopher Clay, her protector and biggest ally in Los Angeles. And he just happened to be one of her best friends.
She’d had her eye on him since the first time she met him, and he’d been lingering in her thoughts as a potential lover ever since. She smiled. Lord, he was a hunk of hot maleness!
“Abby, are you listening to me?” her mother queried.
“Uh, yes, sorry I got distracted. Now, you were saying you had a surprise for me. I’m all ears.”
“You know your godmothers are here. They’re sleeping, as far as I know, but I wanted to be the first one to tell you. Sophie can’t keep anything to herself, you know that,” Toots said affectionately.
“Mom!” Abby loved her mother, but her flair for the dramatic got old at times. “Tell me, or I’m going to start singing. And you know I can’t sing.”
“I do, so let me save both our ears. Here’s the surprise: I’ve convinced the girls to fly out to LA for a visit. We’re leaving later today if all goes according to plan. I even hired a private jet.”
“Mom, that’s fantastic news! I haven’t seen my godmothers in forever. I won’t ask how you managed to talk them into this. What about Ida? I thought she had some disease or something? Sophie sent me an e-mail saying she wore gloves all the time.”
Abby heard her mother’s deep sigh across the wires.
“Yes, and it’s not pretty, either. I feel terrible for her. Joe has arranged for her to see a doctor in LA who specializes in obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD, they prefer to call it.”
“I’m familiar with it. Seems to be on all the talk shows. I think Oprah did a piece on the subject a while back. Knowing what I know, I don’t see how you managed this, but I know you and your powers of persuasion. I’ll borrow a roll-away bed for Mavis. You and Sophie can sleep in my room, and we’ll put Ida on the sofa. It’s not much, but it’s all I have to offer at the moment. Renovating’s finished, but I haven’t started to decorate the spare bedrooms yet.” Abby had inherited her mother’s love of decorating. When she’d purchased her fifties house, she’d sunk what cash she had left into remodeling, doing most of the repair work herself. She’d pulled out the old carpets and, much to her delight, had discovered solid cherry flooring. When she wasn’t out chasing a story, she’d sanded the floors by hand. It’d taken a couple of months, but her hard work had paid off. The flooring throughout her house was as smooth and shiny as glass. She’d saved the original windows and the French doors that led to an enclosed courtyard, another area she’d admired when she purchased the place. Though it was overrun with elderberry vines, honeysuckle, and morning glory, Abby refrained from cutting them back because their fragrance was so intoxicating. Maybe if she were forced to look for another position, she would use her spare time to work on restoring her garden to its original splendor.
“Thanks, Abby, but I’ve already made arrangements for us to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I rented four of the bungalows. I’m staying where Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned with several of her husbands. I can’t wait. It’ll be like old times, the four of us living side by side.”
Hearing the excitement in her mother
’s voice, Abby grinned. She had heard many stories about the years her mother and godmothers had lived within walking distance of one another as teenagers. Some of the stories were so outrageous, it was hard to imagine her four greatest role models actually acting as they had.
“Perfect. Call me as soon as you’re sure of your arrival time, and I’ll arrange for a car to take you to your hotel.” Abby drove a bright yellow MINI Cooper. With Chester always riding in the front, and the backseat packed with her gear, there was no room for passengers.
“Thanks, Abby. That was my next phone call.”
“Then you’d better hit the sack and try to get some sleep if you’re leaving soon. When I see you, I want you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”
“On that note, I’ll say good night. I’ll see you in a few hours. Love you, dear.”
“Same here,” Abby said, then replaced the phone in its stand. With only a few hours before their arrival, Abby went on a cleaning binge, something she’d been wanting to do since last weekend but hadn’t had time for.
In her bedroom, she stripped the pink floral sheets off the bed, tossing them in a laundry basket for later. Since her washing machine and dryer were located in the attached garage, doing laundry would be last on her list because she had to go outside. She looked down at the Wonder Woman nightshirt she wore.
Abby dusted her bedroom furniture with lemon Pledge, ran a Swiffer across the wood floors throughout the house, then followed that with a quick damp mop. Times like this, she was glad she’d finished the floors with polyurethane rather than a “real” traditional finish. She scrubbed the bathtub and the tile in the shower, cleaned the sink, and returned her makeup to the drawer where it belonged.
In the kitchen, she scoured the counters with a nonscratch cleanser. They were the original Formica counters with metal edging and a light blue-and-gray swirly pattern typical of their era. Abby thought they were the ugliest part of the kitchen. She wanted to replace them with granite, but that wasn’t in her budget either. Soon, she told herself. She wasn’t lazy, and she was patient. In time, not only would she have her little home in tip-top shape, she’d also own and operate her own tabloid. Sometimes dreams came true.
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