Crystal Clear

by Jane Heller

  I didn’t say anything.

  “How is New York?” she asked, changing the subject.

  Tell her, I thought. Tell her how New York is. Tell her how you’ve lost all interest in the city and its breakneck pace; how you don’t feel the same devotion to your father and your job that you once did; how you want to come home…to Terry and Annie…to Sedona. Tell her.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you need an accountant, Cynthia?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have someone to do your taxes?”

  “Sort of. Why?”

  “I was considering the possibility of opening a practice in Sedona. I was hoping you’d be my first client.”

  “Crystal! You’re coming back here? Terry never said a word!”

  “Terry doesn’t know about it,” I said. “I didn’t know about it myself until an hour ago.” I paused, trying to remain calm. “I was thinking of flying out and surprising him, Cynthia—he gets a kick out of spontaneous gestures—but I figured I should call you beforehand, to make sure he still wants me.”

  “Still wants you?” she laughed. “He’ll be ecstatic that you’ve had a change of heart. In fact, I’ve got a terrific idea. Could you be here by Christmas Eve? Terry and Annie are coming for dinner that night. It would be perfect if you could join us. Quite a Christmas present.”

  Could I be there by Christmas Eve? I wondered. It was only ten days away. There would be a million loose ends to tie up by then, a million details to take care of. Still, it was doable. I’d make it doable.

  “I’ll be there on Christmas Eve,” I told Cynthia. “But it’ll be our secret, right? You won’t say anything to Terry or Annie?”

  “No way! I can’t wait to see their faces when you walk in the door. Oh, Crystal. I’m so happy for you.”

  “I’m happy for me, too.”

  On December 24, I boarded America West’s 12:45 flight out of JFK, which was scheduled to land in Phoenix at 2:51. I was so charged up I could have flown all the way to Arizona without the plane.

  Of course, getting a seat on the flight had been tricky. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and the ticket agent had said he only had one seat left.

  “I’ll take it,” I’d told him.

  And so there I was, in the middle seat yet again, stuck this time between “Tiger Man” and “Mr. Ferocious,” two impossibly muscular professional wrestlers who were continuing on to Las Vegas after the plane made its connection in Phoenix. They were only slightly more talkative than Larry and Dave had been, back in September, but they seemed more tolerant of my frequent trips to the lavatory.

  “You guys ever been to Sedona?” I asked them as we were flying somewhere over this great country of ours.

  “No. Where’s that at?” said Tiger Man.

  “It’s in Arizona,” I said. “Two hours north of Phoenix.”

  “What do they got there?” asked Mr. Ferocious, his voice heavy with an accent I couldn’t place.

  “They have really good energy,” I said. “And a lot of sage.”

  And that was the extent of our conversation.

  When we arrived at the Phoenix airport, I hustled over to the Avis counter and picked up my rental car, another burgundy model. Apparently, rental cars come in either white or burgundy and the white ones get snapped up first. I threw my bags into the trunk, hopped in, and pulled out.

  “Here we go,” I said out loud as the car and I chugged onto Interstate 17. “No turning back now.”

  The two-hour drive was a blur. I was so hyper that my mind positively raced. First, I’d picture the look on Terry’s face when I showed up at Cynthia’s. Then, I’d flash back to my last few days in New York—from my instructions to my cousin Vivian to look in on my father every once in awhile, to my final meeting with Otis, during which I told him exactly where he could stick his tool.

  And then there was my poignant exchange with Rona.

  “This is the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me,” she exclaimed when we’d said goodbye.

  “That’s ever happened to you?” I laughed.

  “Sure. I feel a spiritual connection with you after all these years, Crystal. What happens to you happens to me.”

  She hugged me so tightly she nearly cut off the circulation in my arms.

  “I love you, Rona. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” I said tearfully.

  “What makes you think you’ll do anything without me?” she insisted.

  “Well, of course, we’ll talk on the phone all the time and—”

  “Talk on the phone? I’ll be two steps away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m moving to Sedona, too,” she announced. “You’ll need a secretary when you open your accounting practice.”

  “You’re quitting Duboff Spector?”

  “Gave them my notice yesterday,” she said. “This place doesn’t deserve either of us.”

  “What about Arthur and his fear of heights? Does he know that Sedona is 4,500 feet above sea level?”

  “Illandra suggested I give him special herbs,” she said. “To counteract phobias. He’ll be sky diving when I’m through with him.”

  As I headed north on I-17, I beamed, reliving that conversation with Rona. Having her with me was going to be the icing on the cake.

  I was forty-five minutes outside of Sedona when I spotted the familiar red rocks in the distance, so majestic, so welcoming.

  Almost there, I thought, trying to contain my excitement. Almost there.

  Cynthia’s directions were easy to follow. I pulled into her driveway at 6:02 and parked right alongside Terry’s Jeep. The house was ablaze with Christmas lights, the front lawn dotted with Styrofoam Santas.

  I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror, combed my hair, wiped a smudge of lipstick off my teeth.

  I was about to get out of the car when I suffered a momentary loss of confidence. Am I doing the right thing? I wondered suddenly, my heart in my throat. Am I?

  And then I caught a quick glimpse of Terry, moving across what I assumed was the living room window. The mere sight of him erased all my doubts.

  I’m here, my love, I smiled to myself as I approached Cynthia’s front door. I’m home.

  About the Author

  After nearly a decade of promoting bestselling authors for New York publishing houses, Jane Heller became a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author herself. Her 13 novels, nine of which have been sold to Hollywood for movies and television, are now entertaining readers around the world. She has also written a nonfiction book about her passion for baseball and the Yankees, as well as a survival guide for those caring for a loved one with a chronic or critical illness. Her new novel, Three Blonde Mice, a spinoff of her popular novel Princess Charming, will be published by Diversion in August 2016. Born and raised in Scarsdale, New York, Heller currently resides in New Preston, Connecticut, with her husband, Michael Forester.

  Connect with Jane

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  More from Jane Heller

  Romance and murder are on the menu in USA Today bestselling author Jane Heller’s wild comic novel Three Blonde Mice. Three best friends go on a cooking excursion led by a famous chef, only to discover one of their classmates is very keen on practicing knife technique. They and eight other guests will learn how to cook farm-to-table meals at a chic farm-to-table retreat, with renowned TV/restaurant chef Jason Hill. Elaine is less than thrilled—especially because the program wasn’t supposed to include a surprise appearance by her former boyfriend, Simon, who’s still the love of her life but can’t commit to her. What’s more, after milking a cow and making cheese, she stumbles on evidence that one of her fellow agritourists is out to murder Chef Hill at the resort’s Bounty Fest finale. Three Blonde Mice serves up a crackling romance between Elaine and Simon, a twisty whodunit involving a screwball cast of suspects a
nd a satire of current food fads and the farm-to-table chefs who perpetuate them.

  Read on for an exclusive extended preview of Three Blonde Mice!

  Prologue

  The fingers hovered over the laptop’s keyboard, fidgeting and flexing, poised to begin typing. And then suddenly, propelled by the writer’s burst of inspiration or clarity of purpose, they were off, racing over the keys in a manic hurry. Within minutes, the following words appeared on the screen:

  Dear Pudding,

  Did you know I call you Pudding, by the way? No, of course not. The name came to me as I was watching your cooking video on YouTube. You were talking about how you’ve loved pudding since you were a kid—chocolate pudding, banana pudding, rice pudding, tapioca pudding, sticky date pudding with caramel sauce. I had this hilarious image of your body dissolving into a vat of thick, spongy, gelatinous pudding, sort of like the Killer Robot from Terminator 2 melting into liquid metal or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters transforming into the gummy white goop that buries Manhattan. Listen to me carry on about movie villains. Too much time on my hands, I guess.

  Anyway, I signed up to be a guest at the hotel’s Cultivate Our Bounty week just so I could get close to you, but since we won’t have quality time alone until the very end, I thought I should write a quick note to say how much I despise you.

  Yes, despise you. Does it scare you to hear that? Are you shocked that someone doesn’t think you’re God’s greatest gift to the world? I’ll pretend to be your fan for the entire week, and you’ll probably buy my act, because you don’t have a clue. You walk around like you’re this important chef, someone whose passion in the kitchen we’re supposed to admire, but we both know you’re in it for the money and the ego. You’re all about having foodies slobber over you as a promoter of the farm-to-table movement—excuse me, the farm-to-fork movement. Or is it plough-to-plate, cow-to-kitchen, barn-to-bistro, or mulch-to-meal? I can’t keep track of your terminology anymore, can you? Bottom line: There’s only one movement you promote, and it’s your own.

  You’re a fraud—100 percent con artist. You wouldn’t know authenticity if it hit you over the head with one of your overpriced cast iron skillets. You have the image of this do-gooder who’s all about the land and the farmer and the planet, when in fact you have no conscience, no remorse for your actions. Do you know how much those actions enrage me? Enrage me, as in pure, unprocessed, non-genetically modified rage. If you don’t get that, you will—as soon as it sinks in that your miserable life is nearly over. When that happens, your instinct will be to use this letter to protect yourself, but you won’t show it to anybody—not the police, not even the little toads who work for you, because you have too many secrets of your own and can’t risk the exposure. Pretty interesting predicament you’re in, wouldn’t you say?

  I’m sorry about having to kill you on Saturday at the Bounty Fest thing. Not because you deserve to live—we’re all better off with you dead, believe me—but because killing isn’t something I do on a regular basis, and I really don’t want to get caught. There’s always the chance that some unlucky bastards could show up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’d have to take them out too. Still, while I’d rather not commit multiple murders, killing you will be so satisfying after what you did that I’ll just have to shrug off potential collateral damage. Besides, any idiots who fall for your Cultivate Our Bounty bullshit deserve whatever they get.

  The fingers sagged over the keys, depleted after their flurry of activity, but eventually directed the cursor to the navigation bar, clicked “file,” then “print.” Seconds later, the Dear Pudding missive materialized on plain white paper, ready to be sent to its recipient or, perhaps, delivered in person.

  Day One:

  Monday, July 15

  1

  “Welcome. Welcome,” said the woman who was standing in the center of the room. Fifty-something years old, she had a weathered but pleasant-looking face and wore a Whitley-logoed T-shirt with a pair of blue jeans. Her gray hair was fashioned into two long, age-inappropriate braids. If she’d had a beard and mustache, she would have been the spitting image of Willie Nelson. “I’m Rebecca Kissel, Whitley’s executive director. I’m so pleased that you’ve chosen us for your agritourism experience and are here at our Welcome Happy Hour. We’ve got an exciting week planned for you, and the weather is supposed to cooperate, so I know it’ll be fun as well as educational. You’ll enjoy meeting our in-house staff as well as your fellow agritourists, but the highlight will be your interactions with the renowned farm-to-table master we’ve snagged for you: Chef Jason Hill, who personifies clean, sustainable food that’s as beautiful to look at as it is to eat. He’ll be your instructor this week as our artisan in residence and will preside over our Saturday Bounty Fest finale to which we invite our non-Cultivate-Our-Bounty guests as well as members of the community.”

  She nodded at a long table set up across Whitley’s Harvest Room, a serene space that overlooked infinite pastures. It was painted in the palest yellow and decorated in a neutral palette of bleached oak flooring and oversized white-slipcovered chairs. There were also strategically placed white poufs—cubes that doubled as ottomans on top of which rested reading materials about the property’s rich agricultural history.

  “Before you leave tonight,” she continued, “please stop by the hospitality table and pick up your personal earth-friendly, 100 percent recycled cotton Whitley tote bag. There’s one for each of our agritourists as well as one for Chef Hill—you’ll see your nametag pinned to your bag—and it contains maps of the property, a biography of Chef Hill, his recipes that you’ll be preparing, a copy of his latest cookbook, the schedule of events, and lots more. The tote bags are handy because you can repurpose them for the beach, for work, for groceries, for gardening, whatever you like.” She beamed, as if she were about to announce a cure for cancer. “You’ll really appreciate the bags after you’ve cooked with us this week. Just think how much fun it’ll be to bring your homemade fruit preserves, pickled vegetables, and raw nut balls to your friends and neighbors!”

  “Speaking of nut balls, whose idea was this trip anyway?” I said to my best pals, Jackie Gault and Pat Kovecky, as we huddled together in a room full of strangers at the start of our week’s vacation. Well, more precisely it was a “haycation” because we were staying on a farm.

  No, we weren’t camping out in some broken-down barn. Please. I’m a person who has standing appointments for twice-weekly blowouts. We’d booked the Cultivate Our Bounty package at Whitley Farm, a Relais & Chateaux resort in Litchfield, Connecticut. It boasted a restaurant headed by a James Beard Award nominee and guest cottages outfitted with four-poster king-size beds swathed in Frette linens and layers of down, and we were there to learn where our food comes from and take culinary classes so we’d be able to cook the stuff. We would be milking a cow and making cheese from that milk; selecting a grass-fed, pasture-raised chicken and then roasting it with herbs we picked in the garden; foraging among the weeds for elderberries, milkweed, and other oddities of nature and then turning them into edible menu items. From Whitley’s brochure: “Our goal is to increase understanding and appreciation of the land and the food it provides by giving our agritourists the opportunity to cultivate the bounty that sustains us while experiencing true farm-to-table cooking.”

  “It was my idea,” said Jackie in her low, husky voice. “I thought the Three Blonde Mice deserved a week that didn’t involve a hit man and a wacko ex-husband.” She knocked back the last of her wine and heaved a grateful sigh, as if she’d been waiting all day for that glass. She preferred hardcore alcohol like bourbon and Scotch but would drink anything you put in front of her—too much of it lately, if you asked me. As for her “Three Blonde Mice” bit, it was the nursery rhyme nickname I’d given the three of us when we met seven years ago, and not because we were mousy. My hair was shoulder length and highlighted to a near platinum blonde; Jackie’s was cut short and utilitarian like a punk boy
’s, spiky and strawberry; Pat’s was a maze of tight frizzy curls—the color of oatmeal with glints of gray.

  “I think it’ll be enlightening,” said Pat, after a decorous sip of her wine. She held her glass with her pinky extended like someone drinking tea out of one of those itsy bitsy china cups. “A nice change from last year’s trip, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m counting on it,” said Jackie.

  We took vacations together every year, and the last one was a disaster: a seven-day cruise to the Caribbean on an enormous floating hotel called the Princess Charming, during which Jackie’s ex-husband Peter had hired one of the other passengers to kill her on the ship. Yes, kill her. (The would-be hit man was in the dining room with us every night. At the 6:30 early-bird seating, if you can believe it.) On top of that, she and Peter had been partners in J&P Nursery, a landscaping and gardening center in Bedford, a New York suburb frequently referred to as one of the most posh hamlets in America. The nursery serviced the fifty-acre estates of Wall Street hedge fund managers who viewed themselves as country gentlemen and therefore bought a lot of topiary. But when Peter turned out to be a crook, a cad, and a creep, and was carted off to the big house, the business became Jackie’s responsibility.

  Pat gave Jackie’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “We won’t let anything or anyone upset the apple tart this week, don’t you worry.”

  “Apple cart, Pat.” I always tried to restrain myself from correcting her, but, despite her privileged upbringing and Ivy League education, she was hopelessly susceptible to malapropisms and often spoke in sentences you’d expect to hear from a foreign exchange student. “I’m sure apple tarts will figure into our week here though.”

  I polished off my glass of Whitley Farm’s Merlot-Petit Syrah. It was pretty decent for a blend produced in Connecticut, which was not, after all, California. In California, we’d be blathering about how a wine’s structure, balance, and aroma were a religious experience. Not that I was a wine connoisseur. I drank red mostly because it was packed with life-saving antioxidants, allegedly. Women my age—I’m on the diminished-estrogen-level side of forty-five and a borderline hypochondriac—need all the help we can get.