Scareplane

by Elise Sax

  He put his wallet and phone in his jacket’s inside pocket and his gun and shield on his waistband. Then, he stopped and arched an eyebrow while he gave me the once over. He smirked his usual smirk.

  “I’m rethinking the quickie thing,” he said. “You look damned good in my bed, Pinky.”

  “Your bed? I thought this was my bed.”

  “Squatter’s rights. Look it up.” His phone dinged, and he read the message on its screen. “Oh, damn. Gotta go,” he said, serious again.

  “You’ve been working nonstop. Is Remington still out of town?”

  “Yes, but that’s okay. I’ve got someone taking up the slack,” he said and gave me a quick kiss. “I might not make it home for dinner. Busy. Busy.”

  “That’s okay. I’m busy, too. I have two new matches to meet at Tea Time,” I said to Spencer’s back, as he walked out of the room.

  “Everyone loves the matchmaker who can curse a house,” he said and disappeared down the hall. I sighed. Spencer was joking, but he was right. A good chunk of the town now believed that I could curse a building ever since the house across the street had been hit by an airplane a few weeks before. Funny thing was, cursing was good for the matchmaking business. I guessed they figured that if I could make a plane fly into a house, I could find them their true love.

  After hopping in the shower, I went downstairs. My grandmother was waiting for me in the kitchen. “Good morning, dolly,” she greeted me in her blue housedress. “I got the bagels in the toaster. Would you put on the coffee?”

  “Sure. Spencer had to leave early to prepare for his conference.”

  “I know. He said goodbye before he left,” Grandma said, taking the bagels out of the toaster and putting them on plates on the table. She took a seat and began to spread cream cheese on her bagel. I poured coffee into our mugs and took the milk out of the refrigerator. “Another busy day for matchmaking?”

  “It’s been nonstop for weeks, ever since you know what.”

  We turned our heads in unison in the direction of the house next door. The plane crash was still caught in the mess of law enforcement, the FAA, the TSB, and probate, and so the plane wreckage was still sitting in the middle of the house with its tail sticking up in the air like a flagpole, announcing to the town about my powers to curse large structures.

  “You’re making love matches, dolly. That’s a good thing, no matter why the matches come to you.”

  I hoped she was right. In addition to making love matches, I was finally making real money. For the first time in forever, my bank account was in the black. I was even considering buying new clothes for the change of seasons.

  I washed the dishes and kissed Grandma goodbye. I had an appointment with a new match in ten minutes, which was just enough time to walk to Tea Time, the tea shop where I had been doing most of my business lately.

  I left the house and took a deep breath of the sweet mountain spring air. It was March in Cannes, and the weather was sensual in its perfectness. Cannes was a small town, which had been founded in the 19th century after gold was discovered. But the gold ran out quickly, and today Cannes was a haven for tourists looking for antique stores and pie shops and a walk around the apple and pear orchards. My grandmother’s house was one of the oldest houses in the tourist-invaded Historic District, and it was a beautiful Victorian, but tourists weren’t taking pictures of it today. Instead, they were hovering on the sidewalk across the street, taking selfies in front of the house with the plane sticking up out of it. There were at least a dozen tourists, which was pretty typical for any given time since the crash. The house had gotten a lot of attention, and it had even been the lead story on CBS Sunday Morning.

  I walked quickly past the tourists, hoping they didn’t point at me and mutter curse curse, which had been happening lately. I walked so fast that I got to Tea Time five minutes early.

  The tea shop was located in the Historic District and housed in an old saloon. It still had the original bar from its Wild West days and a few bullet holes in a wall. Tea Time sold expensive tea and Cannes’s best coffee, much to the frustration of its owner, Ruth Fletcher, who thought that coffee drinkers were one notch above serial killers. I had a deal with Ruth for free lattes for a year, and I was taking advantage of it in spades.

  Opening the door to Tea Time, I raised my hand. “Large latte for here, Ruth!” I called.

  Ruth was an ornery octogenarian with more energy than I had. Her hair was cut short, and she had no makeup on her face. She was wearing Katharine Hepburn pants, a men’s short-sleeved button-down shirt, and pearls.

  “Shut up!” she hollered at me. “You think you own the place or something?”

  “Just the lattes,” I said happily, taking a seat at a center table. The place was packed, and it was the only free table. Despite her complaints, Ruth started up the espresso machine. Her grand-niece Julie was waiting the tables.

  “Tea is hot,” she squeaked as she passed me. I noticed her hands were bandaged, and the teapot she carried was sloshing tea out as she walked.

  Ruth plopped down across from me and handed me my latte. I took a sip. “Delicious,” I told her. Ruth sneered back at me.

  “Coffee will kill you, Gladie.”

  “Yes, but what a way to go.”

  Ruth looked at Julie and shook her head. “I wonder how long it will take that girl to figure out to put the lids on the teapots. At least she hasn’t set fire to anything for a few days. Look at this place. Packed with tourists. My dogs are barking, and it’s barely eight o’clock.”

  She was right. We were having a more than usual busy start to the tourist season. “I heard there were tour buses coming up from L.A. to see the wildflowers.”

  Ruth nodded and wiped a hand down her face. “They say we’ve got the biggest wildflower bloom in eighty years. God save us from the Daffodil Committee. Those freaks are the worst. I wish I could hibernate until May.”

  “Daffodil Committee?” I asked, but there was a crash in the back room, and Ruth went to see what damage her niece had done.

  “Gladie? Gladie Burger?”

  A middle-aged man with dark curly hair, who was wearing a blue suit with half of a tie and a hopeful expression, was standing over me.

  “I’m Gladie,” I said. “Are you Mr. Doughy?”

  He nodded and offered me his hand to shake. “Call me Larry. Phew. I’m so glad I found you.”

  He took a seat at my table and blew out air. His breath smelled like toothpaste, and I figured he was meeting with me on his way to work. I took a sip of my latte and pushed down the nervous feeling I still got when faced with a client. People were coming to me to help them with big life decisions and to help them be happy, and I wasn’t sure I was all that competent.

  “How can I help you, Larry?” I asked in my most professional voice.

  He smoothed out his half-tie and looked down at it, self-consciously. “A cat ate it,” he explained to me. “On my way here.”

  “A cat ate your tie on your way to see me?” I took another sip of my latte.

  “Yep. It jumped into my car and ate my tie. That’s kind of why I called you to match me.”

  Because I was good with cats? Because I had a tie collection? Neither of those was true. Larry Doughy was going to be so disappointed.

  He leaned forward and grabbed my wrist. “I’m cursed,” he whispered. His eyes were round saucers, and his pupils were dilated.

  “You’re cursed,” I repeated calmly, smiling, and nodding my head like I dealt with cursed people all of the time. My phony courage aside, I scanned the shop for Ruth because she had a Louisville Slugger ready if the situation warranted it, and even if it didn’t warrant it.

  “I’ve been cursed for the past nine days, ever since I wrote that tweet. It’s been a doozy of nine days, I got to tell you. I got to get this curse lifted ‘cause I only have so many toes.”

  Larry kicked his right foot up onto the table and took his shoe and sock off. I counted his toes.

/>   Three.

  “I won’t even tell you what happened to the other two,” he said, pointing to his unfortunate foot. There were a series of stitches where the other two toes used to be.

  I looked around nervously for Ruth. “You’d better put your foot away,” I urged. “Ruth is particular about not having feet on her tables.”

  He put his sock and shoe back on. “You’re my only chance.”

  “I’m sure I can find a match for you who doesn’t care about your toes,” I assured him.

  Larry leaned forward. His expression was that of a desperate man. “Match me? I want you to uncurse me.”

  “I…huh?”

  “Uncurse me. I heard about the house. Just do the opposite of what you did to the house.”

  It took fifteen minutes to convince Larry Doughy that I could match him and bring love into his life, which would take the edge off his whole curse thing. But as far as Larry Doughy was concerned, I was the witch who could free him of whatever curse was on his head from unwise tweeting. So, I agreed to a swap in which I would do my best to uncurse him if he let me match him, too. It wasn’t an ideal arrangement, but he gave me a check for two hundred dollars as a down payment, so who was I to argue about my uncursing talents?

  As soon as Larry left Tea Time, Ruth attacked my table with a spray bottle of disinfectant and a wad of paper towels. “I’ve had a lot of things on my tables, Gladie,” she grumbled. “But this was the first time I’ve had a three-toed foot on it.”

  “You sprayed my latte, Ruth. I’ll need another one.”

  “Aren’t you leaving? It’s like your ass is glued to my antique chair.”

  “I have another match any second. A little more sugar in my latte this time, Ruth. Do you have any Danish?”

  Ruth threw the paper towels at me. “This is a place of business. A business.” She was spitting mad, and her wrinkly face was bright red.

  “That’s what I’m doing, Ruth. Business.”

  “Your business. But this is my business.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Tomay-to, tomah-to.”

  My next match walked in the door. Cynthia Andre was a retired county clerk from L.A., and she had recently moved to a cottage just outside of the Historic District of Cannes to find love and to needlepoint the great monuments of Europe.

  I handed my latte cup to Ruth. “Make sure you clean it out,” I told her. “I don’t want to drink bleach, and don’t forget the Danish. You got prune? I could use some prune.”

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “How long is this going to last, making my tea shop your office?”

  “I hope forever. I’m an empire, Ruth. I’m the queen of matchmakers. I went to the gas station yesterday and filled up my tank all the way. All the way, Ruth. I’m a goddamned titan of industry.”

  She grabbed the latte cup from me. “I’ll tell you this. Half this town thinks you have powers to crash a plane into an innocent house, but eventually it’ll be the new season of The Bachelor, and they’ll forget about your magical powers, and it’ll be ‘give me five dollars’ worth of gas on number three’ all over again. Meanwhile, Larry Doughy’s digits aren’t long for this world, and you’re going to need to get him help before sandals season. Damned Twitter. I wouldn’t get near that social media stuff if you paid me a million dollars.”

  “You really think he’s cursed?” I asked her, surprised. Ruth was an Age of Reason fan and had probably even lived through the era. She often made fun of my grandmother’s third eye. It wasn’t like her to put stock in magic or curses.

  “I think he’s had a terrible run of bad luck, and it doesn’t look like it’s anywhere close to ending. Don’t you know anything?” she asked, but didn’t wait around for an answer, not that I could have answered her.

  I took Larry’s check out of my purse and looked at it. Two hundred dollars. That was more than enough money to deal with a curse or a run of bad luck.

  Cynthia looked around the shop for me, and I stood up and waved at her. “Over here,” I called. She smiled at me and marched to the table like she was leading a battalion in the Russian Revolution. She plopped down on the chair across from me and slammed her utilitarian purse on the table.

  “I want a man who can cook,” she said. “Are you taking notes?”

  I rifled through my purse for a scrap of paper and a pen. I jotted down a note about Cynthia’s need for a cooking man.

  “And he needs a full head of hair,” she added and pointed at my paper for me to continue writing. “I don’t want bald or half bald or comb-over. I want a thick head of manly hair, cut above the ear.”

  I ran out of room on the scrap of paper.

  “I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” I said, but I didn’t know a single man her age who could cook and had hair anywhere besides his ears. I would have to get my grandmother’s help for Cynthia. She knew everyone.

  “I heard you were good,” Cynthia said and then her voice dropped to a whisper. “I heard you could do things.”

  “Well…” I started.

  “And I heard that you’re dating the chief of police. He’s got nice hair.”

  She was right. Spencer had a gorgeous head of hair. Dark and thick and always perfectly cut. I blushed, thinking about his beautiful hair.

  “That police station is like a modeling agency,” Cynthia continued. “There’s another one over there who looks like The Rock.”

  I blushed, again. She was talking about Remington Cumberbatch, who I had seen naked on more than one occasion before I started dating Spencer.

  “And then the new one should be on a runway somewhere,” Cynthia said.

  “New one?”

  “The new detective.”

  “Oh. Yes.” I didn’t know there was a new detective. Spencer had mentioned that he had help, but he didn’t say it was a detective. In fact, he had been closed-lipped about work lately, except for the fact that he was freaking out about the conference. I was sort of surprised that he had hired another hottie for his force, especially after what had gone on between Remington and me. “He’s very good-looking, huh?”

  “She. Detective Williams. She looks like Angelina Jolie but with bigger boobs and longer legs.”

  Ruth brought me my latte. “What’s the matter, girl? Did you forget to breathe?” she asked me. “You got no color in your face.”

  I gasped and sucked in some air. “Bigger boobs than Angelina Jolie?” I asked Cynthia, ignoring Ruth.

  “Are you talking about the new cop?” Ruth asked. “I hear they had to special order her uniforms. Probably at Sexy-Mama-R-Us or something. Men are going to start turning themselves in just to get frisked by her. Poor Fred had to go home early the other day because he was hyperventilating so bad after he caught a good look at the new cop walking away from him. I mean, she’s got a butt that can stop traffic. You get me? Gladie? Gladie? Did you have a stroke?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Funny thing about jealousy, bubbeleh. Sometimes a person will be jealous when they shouldn’t be and not be jealous when they should be. It’s hard to tell a jealous person what to do. On one hand, don’t worry about what you can’t help and what probably is nothing because being jealous is a lot of energy. On the other hand, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And getting burned hurts worse than a zetz on your tuchus.

  Lesson 100, Matchmaking advice from your

  Grandma Zelda

  “It’s probably nothing to worry about,” I told Bridget in her condo. She was sitting at her dining room table with a client, doing his taxes. The table was covered in papers, her computer, and a large calculator. Bridget’s condo was three stories, each a small floor. This was the eating floor. I opened her cabinets and searched for snack foods that would take my mind off of Detective Angelina Jolie’s legs.

  “Where are the goldfish crackers and Nutella? Isn’t that what kids eat?”

  “I don’t have a kid yet. I have three months to go,” Bridget said, pushing buttons on her calculator. “And little Lech isn’t
going to eat processed food. He’s going to be vegan or paleo. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “I don’t want to pay taxes this year, Bridget,” Bridget’s client said. I recognized him as the owner of the cat ceramics store outside of the Historic District. “My daughter has a cross-bite. Do you realize how much that costs?”

  Bridget pushed her hoot owl glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “I think you’re going to have to pay taxes, Jerry, unless you have a lot of new deductions.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, still holding the pantry door open. “Who’s Lick? You’re naming your son Lick? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Phew. I had to catch myself. It wasn’t safe to criticize parents. Bridget was my best friend, and I didn’t want to ruin our relationship because I was freaked out by her weird baby names or the fact that she was never going to buy goldfish crackers, again. My stomach growled, and I went to the fridge to see what vegan / paleo people ate for snacks.

  “Not Lick,” Bridget explained, stretching out her back. Her belly was getting bigger every day. “Lech. Like Lech Walesa, the Polish labor organizer. He was president, too, but I don’t care about that.”

  “Lech,” I said. “Nice name.” Actually, it was better than her last name for her unborn baby, Vladimir.

  “Aren’t teeth a deductible?” Bridget’s client asked her. “Teeth should be a deductible. Do you know how much teeth cost? They cost an arm and a leg!” he shouted without irony.

  Bridget wiped her brow and tucked her curls behind her ear. She had a lot of hair, and it was growing like weeds since she got pregnant. “I don’t think teeth are a deductible. Did you give to charity?”

  “Charity?” he asked, his voice rising again. “How can I give to charity? Do you know how much teeth cost?”