I looked up and found the woman staring into the mirror at me. I get really self-conscious when anyone inspects me too closely. I start feeling like I’ve got something hanging out of my nose or stuck in between my teeth, which I probably do.
I turned away and she began checking out the hair products that were for sale behind the cash register. I wondered if she knew who I was. As if she’d read my mind she suddenly appeared at my side.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking directly at me.
Carla sprang into action. “Marie, this is Brandy. Brandy—Marie.” No last names; keeping it anonymous, like an AA meeting.
“DiCarlo.” Marie said pointedly. “Marie DiCarlo.” Okaaay. I get it.
“Bobby’s wife,” she added, just in case I didn’t.
“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled.
Marie heaved a begrudging sigh. “I’m sorry about my brother.”
Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding, about a month ago her brother tried to kill me with a hatchet.
“Oh, that’s all water under the bridge now,” I said. “So how is your brother?” I smiled my most ingratiating smile. See, we can all be friends.
She didn’t smile back. I honestly don’t know what she was so bent out of shape about. I thought I was being really nice about the whole hatchet-wielding-brother incident. She turned to Carla.
“Put these on my tab, please, Carla.”
“Sure thing, hon.” Carla took the hair products out of her arms and went to get a bag.
Marie leaned into me. She was so close I could smell the Winterfresh gum on her breath. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Bobby and I are very happy together.”
“I’m glad for you.”
“Are you?” She straightened up and walked out of the salon, leaving her purchase at the counter.
“What was that all about?” Carla asked.
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“She didn’t threaten you or anything, did she?”
“No, why?”
Carla began combing my hair. It was so greasy the comb kept slipping out of her hand. She bent to pick it up, her spandex clad butt perched high in the air.
“Everyone knows that marriage is going south, sweetie. And you moving back to the neighborhood didn’t help any.”
“Carla, Bobby and I are over. I never even think of him that way anymore.” I gave a surreptitious look heavenward to see if God was paying attention to my lie.
“Prove it.”
“How can I prove it? That’s ridiculous.” A diversionary tactic I’d learned from my mother.
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
I groaned, my intestines constricting into one gigantic knot. “Carla, I don’t want to be fixed up. Don’t I have enough to contend with right now? If you want to do me a real favor, get me a job.”
“If you play your cards right, you could have both.”
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“This guy I want you to meet—”
“How do you know him?”
“I don’t—exactly. His mother comes into the shop. She says he’s a real sweetheart, rich, successful and handsome too.”
“Then why does he need his mother to get dates for him? Forget it, Carla. There is no such thing as a good blind date.”
“He’s some high power guy at The News Network.” Wow. I’d been trying to get an interview with them since I got back to town.
“He sounds perfect. Can’t wait to meet him.”
Carla smiled triumphantly. Okay, I can be bought. So sue me.
Toodie’s old Toyota pick-up was parked in front of my house when I got home. I pulled in behind him and got out of the car, careful not to scrape the door on the curb. I was driving my brother Paul’s car—a mint condition, 1972 metallic blue Mercedes SL convertible—“a classic,” he’s quick to remind me. I knew I’d have to give it back to him one of these days, but I was reluctant to plunk down my practically non-existent savings on a new set of wheels.
Toodie leaped out of his truck, balancing a large carton on his shoulder. He galloped towards me, dragging an extension cord behind him.
“Hi, Roomie,” he beamed.
I truly wished I shared his enthusiasm.
“Toodie,” I said, grabbing my keys out of my pocket-book, “this is just temporary, remember? Until your granny gets back from the Bahamas.” I pulled open the storm door and let him walk ahead of me into the living room. “When is she coming back, anyway?”
Toodie set his carton down and shrugged. “Dunno.”
“She is coming back, though, isn’t she?” Visions of my new “roomie” burning down my house with his woodworking set before I even made the first mortgage payment danced through my head.
“Oh yeah. She’ll be back.” He nodded his head vigorously, a gesture obviously meant to reassure. It didn’t.
I showed Toodie to his room and laid out some clean towels for him.
“Just one thing, Toodie. This is a drug-free zone. Oh, and if you’re planning on entertaining anyone, I’d rather they didn’t spend the night.”
Toodie’s eyes grew wide. He sat down on the bed and patted the seat next to him. I reluctantly sat down too.
“Brandy, if this roommate thing is going to work, we’ve got to come clean with each other.” His voice gentled. “Are you like ‘hot’ for me?”
Before I could ask him if he had completely lost his mind he continued. “Because I like you, Brandy. I really do. But I have to be honest. I don’t think of you that way.” He stared at me with baleful eyes. Pity. The man pitied me!
“Toodie, I can assure you that’s not what I meant! And what do you mean, you don’t think of me that way? What’s wrong with me?” Seriously, what’s wrong with me? I felt insulted that a man with the IQ of a basset hound was spurning my affections. AS IF!
“Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re great. But you and John Marchiano are a terrific couple, and I wouldn’t want to, ya know, come between you two.”
John Marchiano is my oldest and dearest friend, but he doesn’t have a shred of sexual interest in me. John climbed out of the womb wearing Chanel and singing show tunes, a fact that has somehow eluded Toodie.
“Well, I’m glad we cleared the air on this, Toodie. I promise I won’t make things awkward by coming on to you.”
“Thanks,” he said with the utmost sincerity.
I stood. “Come on, I’ll make you some lunch.”
Lunch consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk. We split a Family Size Hershey Bar for dessert. Chocolate and I have a spiritual connection. It fills me up, makes me happy and never lets me down. If it were legal to wed an inanimate object, I’d ask it to marry me.
After lunch Toodie dragged his toolbox in from his truck and buried himself under the kitchen sink. I sat at the dining room table, licking melted chocolate off the candy wrapper, the employment section of the newspaper spread before me. What is it that Franny is always saying about positive thinking? That you should start by envisioning the thing you want, make it real in your mind. “Okay,” I thought. “I’ll give it a try.” I shut my eyes, the words formulating in my brain.
NOW HIRING: Investigative Reporter for nationally acclaimed news program. Little to no experience necessary. Great salary. Benefits. I opened my eyes. Toodie was staring at me.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m envisioning.”
“Is it working?”
I scanned the employment section for my ad. “No.” The phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” Toodie reached for the receiver. “Alexander residence,” he said in a ridiculously phony British accent. “This is the butler speaking.”
I don’t know why but I thought it was hilarious.
“Whom shall I say is calling?” He paused dramatically. “One moment please. It’s your mother,” he said, handing me the phone.
I made a face that any normal person would hav
e interpreted as the “I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-my-mother-now-tell-her-I’ll-call-her-back-face.” But Toodie is guileless and doesn’t read social cues. I put the phone to my ear.
“Hi Mom.”
“Since when do you have money to squander on a butler?”
“He’s not a butler, Mom.”
“Then why is he answering your phone?”
I suppressed the urge to scream and said instead, “How’s Daddy?”
“Your father’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
So what else is new? “Why are you worried about me? I’m fine.” Jobless, penniless, but fine.
“Brandy, don’t you ever pick up the papers?”
“Of course I do. I’m browsing through the comics’ section as we speak. Did you know that Cathy and Irving got married? What’s it been, twenty years?”
“Don’t get flip with me, Brandy Renee.” Uh oh. She’s pulling out the middle name. She must really be upset.
“I’m sorry, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“Well,” she said, mollified, “It seems that there has been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood lately.”
“How many is a rash?”
“Armed robberies,” she said, choosing to ignore me. “In fact,” she added, lowering her voice to the stage whisper she usually reserved for conversations about terminal diseases, “Mrs. Edelstein’s neighbor was held up at knifepoint in her own home, two blocks down on Ritner. They took her jewelry and a bust of Beethoven. I just don’t want to pick up the newspaper one day and see your name listed among the victims.”
Oh why did I think it would be nice to get her that subscription to the Inquirer when she moved to Florida?
“Brandy, are you there?”
“I’m here, Mom. Listen, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m perfectly safe.”
“Well, keep the doors locked—and call your brother.” That’s my mother’s solution to everything.
She filled the next ten minutes detailing her trip to the podiatrist. I care, I really do, but I’m a little on the squeamish side. So when she started in with her toe fungus, I decided to wrap things up.
“I’ve got to run, Mom. The butler wants to use the phone.”
Chapter Two
“Ya know the nose, ya know the man.”—Janine DiAngelo, twin sister of Franny and the definitive expert on key male anatomy.
“I’d always heard it was the thumbs.”
Janine took a swig of Rolling Rock ale and considered this. “No, Danny Margolis has huge thumbs.” She shook her luxurious auburn haired head, lost in promises unkept. “He was a big disappointment.”
Reflecting on my own meager experience in this department, I deferred to Janine’s wealth of knowledge.
It was five p.m.—Happy Hour at the Pensacola Bar & Grill, an after-work hangout for the actual employed. Young urban professionals flocked here, presumably, after a hard day at the office, to unburden themselves of the pressures of the working world. Sitting among them at the bar, munching free snacks and nursing beers, Janine and I were Happy Hour frauds.
I glanced over at my cohort in unemployment. Janine looked like a goddess in her “weather be damned” short tight skirt, which accentuated her legs, and a form-fitting turtleneck, which accentuated other parts of her near perfect five foot nine inch body. I slumped beside her in my uniform jeans and sweatshirt, looking like the shortstop for a peewee softball team.
“So how’s it going with Toodie?” she asked.
It had been a week since the big move, and I had to admit to being pleasantly surprised. He’s sweet, in a loopy sort of way, and as a plumber he knows only too well what can befall a person who doesn’t clean the hair out of the shower drain. Plus, he cooks. I reported all this to Janine.
“Brandy,” she said, one eye on me and the other on a six foot two inch suit and Armani tie that was making its way over to the bar, “don’t you think it’s a little odd that in the all the time you’ve been back, the only socializing you’ve done is with a thirty year old jailbird who still lives with his granny?” Well, when you put it that way…
“I socialize. Yesterday I had a dental appointment, and just last week I took Rocky to the vet’s to get spayed.” Rocky is my twelve-week-old kitten, who, judging by the hordes of Tomcats sniffing around the house, has no trouble getting dates.
The Armani tie reached the bar and slid onto the stool next to Janine. His sandy-haired, equally well-dressed friend sidled up next to him, giving me the once-over. To his credit, he didn’t try to slip me subway tokens or point me in the direction of the nearest homeless shelter.
“Hey,” he said, reading the logo on my sweatshirt. “South Street Boxing Gym. Do you know Frankie Brentano? He’s the manager there.”
Janine flashed me the “thumbs up” sign and deliberately turned her back to me.
“Yeah, I know him,” I said. “He’s my uncle.”
Uncle Frankie is my mother’s significantly younger, formerly delinquent brother and one of my favorite people in the world. “How do you know him?”
Stan, it turns out, is an avid boxing fan. He is also an accounts exec at a nearby advertising firm, a Lacrosse player, divorced from his childhood sweetheart and a former spelling bee champion. I learned all this in the space of three minutes. I also learned that Stan likes to work with his hands. One arm leaned on the bar while the other snaked up my back, rubbing concentric circles along my spine and settling around the vicinity of my chest.
“Stan,” I asked, smiling, “did we meet in a former life and it just slipped my mind?”
“I’m sure I would’ve remembered,” Stan said, smooth as snake oil. And then, swear to God, he winked at me. I gave myself points for not throwing up.
“The reason I’m asking is, you’ve got your hand practically down my bra cup, and that’s usually reserved for men I’ve known longer than six minutes.” I disengaged myself from Stan and leaned across him to tap Janine on the shoulder. She tried her best to ignore me, lost in conversation with Eric Something or Other; another accounts exec, and judging by the placement of his hands, a “leg” man. I tried again.
“Yo, Janine. Isn’t that Christine Yablonski over in the corner, by the plastic Fichus tree?” I waved a hearty hello in the general direction of the faux Fichus. A middle-aged woman with short, steel gray hair and a man’s suit smiled and waved a tentative hello back.
“Who?” Janine asked, clearly not playing along.
I turned to Stan and Eric. “Old friend. Would you excuse us for a minute?” I shoved Janine off her stool and herded her out of the bar area.
“Brandy, what is wrong with you? Those guys are cute, rich and interested.”
“Look, I don’t mean to sound ungracious here, but unless Stan is an undercover gynecologist, he needs to keep his hands off my boobs.”
Janine thought about this for a minute. “Maybe he’s just a really affectionate kind of guy.”
“And maybe he’s just a perv. Janine, we just met!”
Janine looked downcast.
“Okay, what’s going on here? Why are you pushing so hard for this?”
“Well,” Janine said, “it’s just that we’ve all been worried about you.”
“Who all?”
“Everybody.”
I felt a colossal headache coming on and with it, a minor epiphany. “Have you been talking to Carla?”
Janine refused eye contact. “Maybe.”
Unhhh! “Carla thinks I moved back here to be near Bobby. Is that what you think too? Because that’s ridiculous! Not to mention pathetic. Do I look pathetic to you?” My voice was starting to hit a range known only to dogs—and possibly whales.
Janine raised her arms in an “I surrender” gesture. “Okay. I believe you. You’re not stuck on Bobby. But Eric and I are really hitting it off, so could you please be civil to Stan—at least until I can get Eric to ask for my phone number?”
“Fine,” I grunted.
“Thank you.”
“Too much?” I whispered. She rolled her eyes in response.
“What’s this?” I asked, inspecting the glass.
“Long Island Iced Tea,” Stan the Hand said.
“Oh, I love iced tea.”
“Uh, Bran?” Janine started, as I picked up the drink and took a huge thirst-quenching gulp. The effects were immediate, the room spinning out of orbit being my first clue.
“This isn’t iced tea, is it?”
“In name only,” said Stan.
“What’s in this thing, anyway? And by the way, it’s delicious!” I grabbed hold of the straw and began slurping it down like there was no tomorrow.
“Vodka, gin, tequila…” He reached for my glass.
“Whoa, hold on there, cowboy.”
Stan tried to pull the drink out of my hand but I was too quick for him. I downed the rest and set the glass back on the counter, grinning up at him. He had a certain je ne sais quoi that for some reason I hadn’t noticed before. The arm was back around my shoulder and this time I let him keep it there.
“Hey, Stan,” Janine said, eying his arm around me, “you didn’t slip a little Ecstasy in there, did you?”
“No! What do you take me for, anyway?”
I tugged on Stan’s sleeve, pointing to Janine’s drink.
“Yoo hoo, can I have another one of those things?” I asked, leaning against him. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. In fact, when I squinched my eyes closed real tight and tilted my head, he looked just like Bruce Willis in his old Moonlighting days. Before the pierced ears and shaved head.
“Ya know, you’re kinda cute,” I said. And then, Oh God, I winked at him.
Janine drove me home. I was a little fuzzy on the details but, apparently, Stan and Eric left shortly after I challenged the middle-aged woman wearing a man’s suit to an arm wrestling contest.
No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) Page 2