“It's you,” he sputtered, his pale blue eyes widening. He looked so much like a surprised baby, I expected him to squeal and clap.
“In the flesh,” I said, still through gritted teeth.
“Miss Day,” he said. “Sunny's sister. Finnegan's daughter. The private eye.”
I raised my eyebrows. Did he still not know my name? If so, he'd be the only one in town.
“Chip, if you're looking for another thing to call me, I'm also your second-cousin's boss and the owner of Glorious Gifts.”
He shook his gaze off me and looked down at a pint-sized blond girl who was tugging his hand. “Daddy, is that her? Is that Stormy Day?”
Daddy? Chip the Mailman had a daughter?
She let go of her father's wrist and clapped her hands together. “It's really you,” she said excitedly.
Since it was the most enthusiastic greeting I'd gotten from anyone who wasn't my cat, I knelt down to be eye level with the kid.
“That's me,” I said, offering my hand.
The girl had a round, friendly face and perfect teeth. She looked like a miniature professional newscaster as she shook my hand.
“You're famous,” she gushed. “Your name is on the wall at the coffee place.”
“You must mean the House of Bean,” I said. “I don't know if I'd call myself famous, but it's true they named a drink after me. It's a latte with vanilla, cinnamon, and a dash of the same chili pepper powder they put in the Mexican hot cocoa.”
She gave me a dazzling, angelic smile. “I know.” She seemed to be about eight years old, or possibly a precocious seven-year-old.
Chip leaned over and asked the girl, “Q, Mom doesn't let you order coffee, does she?”
“I can get a small one,” she said defiantly.
Chip shook his head. “Sweetie, coffee's bad for kids. It'll stunt your growth.”
She used both her pointer fingers to jab him in the round stomach. “Dad! You drink coffee all the time, and you have this big belly!”
He rubbed his stomach and frowned. “It's true. I'm addicted to their Teenie Weenie Beanie Steamer.”
Still kneeling, I tilted my head up and looked from Chip to his daughter and back again. This was a side of the mail carrier I hadn't seen before, and it did a lot to soften my impression of him. How could I have been so shortsighted? But of course Chip the Mailman had a life away from his delivery route. The big-boned man didn't just appear by magic to deliver mail to my father's neighborhood and then puff away to another dimension once the mail bag was empty.
Jessica joined me in kneeling before the precocious child. She said, “Q, it's not nice to comment about people's tummies. Not even if they're family.”
I asked the girl, “Your name is Q?” I made the connection to the conversation we'd had with Samantha Sweet at the open house. Her daughter, Sophie, was best friends with a girl named Q. I hadn't known it was Chip the Mailman's daughter.
The blond girl nodded. “Q is short for Quinby. Q-U-I-N-B-Y. Some people call me Queen Bee, but it gets confusing, because that's my mom, too. You can call me Q.”
“Quinby,” I said, nodding. “And you know Jessica?”
Jessica answered, “I used to babysit Q when I lived in the apartment, which was near her house.”
The little angel-faced girl said, in a very mature voice, “Jessica used to babysit me, but now we're just friends.”
She reminded me of someone. I smiled and told her, “Jessica and I went to school with a girl named Quinn. She was a real queen bee.”
“I know,” the girl said. “That's my mom. She was the head cheerleader when she was in high school. We have the trophies on our fireplace. One day, I'm going to be a cheerleader, too. But first I'm going to be an actress.”
I looked up at Chip in yet another whole new light. “You're married to Quinn Baudelaire?”
He gave me a big grin. He had gaps between all of his undersized teeth, which didn't take away his giant-baby appearance.
“Actually, I'm married to Quinn McCabe,” he said proudly. “She changed her last name when we got married.”
Quinby said, “That's spelled M-little-C-big-C-A-B-E. There are two Cs.”
Jessica and I both stood up again. I looked from my friend to the mail carrier and back again.
My inner voice was screaming Quinn the Perfect Queen Bee married a chubby mailman! Oh my God!
Stupidly, I said to Jessica, “So, Quinn still lives here in Misty Falls?”
“I told you that,” Jessica said. “You were invited to her birthday party, in the summer, but you were too busy to come with me. Remember?”
“Right,” I said hesitantly. How was it I could clearly remember the sting on my butt from Quinn slapping me when I wavered in the pyramid fifteen years ago, yet I couldn't recall what month her birthday party had been? It had to be shock over seeing who she married. “That was back in...” The date didn't come to mind.
Jessica caught on and covered for me. “Stormy, you couldn't make it because you had a business appointment with Countess Octavia of Krengerborg.”
“Ah, yes. The Countess,” I said with the snooty tone we used for talking about the woman.
Quinn and Chip's daughter, Q, couldn't have looked more interested if she'd tried. She whispered, “You know the Countess, too?”
“We famous types stick together,” I joked.
Chip said, “You should invite us along some time. I'd love to meet Countess Octavia when she's in town.”
“Sure,” I said. “And I do hope to catch up with Quinn very soon.” I smiled at the round-cheeked mail carrier and his precocious daughter, who'd very luckily gotten her mother's good looks. “And her adorable family, of course.”
“Of course.” Chip wrinkled his nose and lifted his upper lip in a baby chipmunk expression.
He gave me a long stare before saying, “I know what you're thinking, Miss Day. How could someone as hot as Quinn end up marrying a chunky guy like me? Trust me, I've heard all the jokes. Our friends say we're like those sitcom couples, where they pair the comedian guy with a hot wife. Like Kevin James and a supermodel.”
“For the record, I happen to like Kevin James,” I said.
“Sure, but you wouldn't marry him.”
I tried to look nonchalant. “Who knows? He hasn't asked.”
Beside me, Jessica chuckled softly.
Chip didn't laugh. He stared at me with a look no less accusatory than the one he'd given me back when we'd first met.
I quickly reviewed everything I'd just said to Chip. I hadn't made any comment about his physical attractiveness. But I had been thinking about it. Quinn was a nine or a ten in high school—long legs, blond hair, button nose, flawless skin, big blue eyes, and the kind of perfect hourglass figure that all the guys ogled and all the girls longed to have. Even if she'd let herself go these last fifteen years, surely she was still a seven.
Chip the Mailman, however, exuded all the sex appeal of an organic turnip. How much better shape could he have been in when he'd snagged Quinn as his wife?
As he stared me down, I tried to picture them as a couple, but I couldn't. In high school, Quinn had dated athletic guys, some good ones but mostly jerks. She'd taken Michael Sweet to the senior prom, despite my protests.
“Quinn used to date jerks,” I said to Chip. “If you're good to her, that's all that matters.”
“I am,” he said. “I'm her devoted subject, and she's my queen.”
“I'm happy for you both,” I said, and I meant it. I looked down at the girl they called Q. “Just the one kid or are there more cuties?”
Chip pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweaty forehead. His cotton square was the red-and-white kind, not like the plain white ones I carried.
“We've only been blessed with one little firecracker so far,” Chip said. He lifted his upper lip in the chipmunk expression again. “I run hot. That's why I always wear shorts on my delivery route, even in the snow. The doctors say there's n
othing wrong with me. That's just how some people are. But body heat's bad for the little swimmers.”
“I've heard that,” I said, nodding sagely. “Not about you specifically, but about”—I looked down at the kid to make sure she wasn't listening too closely to our discussion of her parents' baby-making issues—“the little swimmers.”
The crowd around us shifted. The scent of hot bread wafted through. A space opened up, and we found ourselves at the counter being asked what heat level of mustard we wanted with our soft pretzels.
I was thankful to have the conversation changing away from talk of Chip's body heat and its side effects.
We placed our orders, and Chip graciously bought us a round of refreshments.
We thanked Chip, and before we parted ways, I made a vague promise that I'd be seeing him again soon.
“Not if I see you first,” he quipped, and then he held his stomach with both hands and laughed silently. “See? I'm funny, just like Kevin James.”
Jessica and I exchanged a look.
I started to step away and excuse myself, but young Quinby grabbed my hand and looked up at me with her big blue eyes.
“Stormy Day, I'm going to be famous, just like you,” she said. “I'm going to get my own drink named after me.”
“How are you going to do that? You need to get super famous to get your own beverage.”
“I know.”
“Do you want me to put in a good word for you with Chad? He's the manager at House of Bean. We're pretty tight.”
Jessica snickered as she took a big bite of her soft pretzel. Chad and I weren't tight, but he had stopped rolling his eyes at the other baristas whenever I came in and refused to order their version of a vanilla latte by its full name: Teenie Weenie Beanie Steamer.
Quinby covered her mouth with both hands and smothered a laugh. Then she flung her arms in the air and dramatically whisper-yelled, “I know a secret!”
Jessica and I made the appropriate ooh faces.
Chip made a fatherly growl. “That's enough, Junior Queen Bee.”
Jessica asked the girl sweetly, “What will they put in this drink they name after you? Lots of honey? Honey from the queen bee's hive?”
“No.” She gave us an adorable you-grownups-are-always-so-stupid look. “Warm mead with cinnamon. Like what Kinley drinks after sword fighting, in the books.”
Chip clamped his hand over his daughter's mouth and gave us a nervous laugh. “That's enough making new friends for today.” He began herding her away. “See you around. Miss Day, I hope you can make it to the next party. It's our annual hootenanny.”
“I wouldn't miss it for the world,” I said. “It's high time I caught up with Quinn Baudelaire. I mean, Quinn McCabe.” I smiled at the little girl. “And the future most-famous-person of Misty Falls.”
“It really is a hootenanny,” she said brightly. “With a live band and everything!”
“Will there be straw bales for sitting on?”
“Duh!” She shook her head at me adorably before taking another bite of her pretzel and walking away with her father.
I turned to Jessica and said, “Duh! Of course there are straw bales. It wouldn't be a hootenanny otherwise.”
Jessica took a bite of her pretzel. “Quinn wants us to wear our old cheerleader uniforms to the hootenanny.”
“You'll have to kill me first,” I said.
“The party's in three weeks. We can do lots of jogging before then.”
“But we always jog a route that leads us to the bakery. It sort of defeats the purpose.”
She murmured that I had a good point about the fatal flaw in our exercise plan.
I turned and looked in the direction I'd seen the McCabes walk away. “That is not the man I expected Quinn Baudelaire to marry.”
“Who'd you picture her with?” She giggled. “Quick. Say the first name that pops into your head.”
“Voldemort,” I said.
She doubled over with laughter. “The wizard villain from Harry Potter? But we hadn't even heard of him when we were in high school.”
I shrugged. “You told me to say the first name that popped into my head.”
Her expression sobered. “It's actually a good match,” she said.
Chapter 7
Three hours later, after Jessica and I had partaken in many free food samples, played some games, toured the renovated areas of the resort, and even gotten two-for-one manicures at the beauty spa, we headed for the exit, exhausted and smiling.
Roomies' Day Out had been a marvelous success, we both agreed as we admired our new nails. Jessica had gotten her fingernails painted pink, to match the flowers in her sundress, whereas I'd opted for the no-polish men's manicure with just a cuticle trim and nail-buffing.
My decision to not get any polish was met with cheeky comments by Jessica, who thought I might be embracing the role of “macho film noir old-timey detective” a little too hard. Her jokes stung enough for me to allow the bubbly girl at the makeup counter to give me a quick makeover. I just had to prove I could still be a girly girl if I wanted.
Now I had smoky eyes. Or as my father would have called it, raccoon eyes.
Each time I caught sight of myself in a reflective surface, I looked over my shoulder to see who was following me.
We were on our way out of the casino when we bumped into Samantha Sweet.
“Wow,” she exclaimed as she took in my raccoon eyes. “Stormy, are you...” She struggled to find the right words. “Oh, it's makeup!”
I squinted at the dark mark next to her eye. How ironic that the woman with an actual bruised eye had been upset by my fake ones.
I turned to Jessica and said, “I told you my coloring doesn't suit dark eye shadow.”
“You need more color on your lips to balance it out,” Jessica said.
“It looks nice,” Samantha lied, wincing. She looked around at the crowd with tired, half-lidded eyes. “No wonder my open house was slower than molasses in January. The whole town is here.”
Jessica asked, “How did the rest of the open house go? Did you get an offer?”
“No,” Samantha said tiredly. “Have you seen Michael and Sophie around?”
“We didn't see your family, but we did bump into Sophie's friend Q. She's really something.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Q is full of... confidence.”
We were being jostled by the crowd, so we moved away from the door and toward what seemed to be an open area in the atrium. It turned out to be a gurgling water feature, a pint-sized replica of the waterfall Misty Falls was named for. The sound of the water crashing over the rocks created a powerful white noise that canceled out the din of the people around us.
“Ooh, misty,” Jessica said, waving her hands through the air over the base of the water feature, which was surrounded by a rock wall with not-so-subtle signs reading DO NOT SIT, STAND, OR PLAY ON ROCK WALL.
The three of us breathed in deeply, commenting on how pleasant the misty air was around the fountain.
“It's like a misty oasis,” Jessica said.
Samantha stuck her tongue out like a thirsty lizard.
I handed Samantha an unopened bottle of water from my purse. She thanked me and drank it while giving me an appreciative look.
A few minutes later, she had rejuvenated thanks to the hydration. Her emerald-green eyes were glowing again.
“The power of water,” she said, smiling.
“Sorry your open house didn't go well,” I said. “The home does show nicely. Maybe an offer is just around the corner.”
Samantha pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse and applied it using a compact mirror. Jessica and I exchanged a look. The pink lipstick was, without a doubt, the same shade I'd wiped off Colt Canuso's mouth earlier that day. Was she here at the casino to meet her husband, or was she hoping to see Colt again?
Samantha put her lipstick and compact away. “Actually, girls, I did get a proposition today, but it wasn't the sort of offer
I was looking for.”
“Oh?” I tried to keep my face neutral. If she was going to tell us what happened with Colt, I didn't want to overreact.
“And what an offer it was,” she said, laughing. “A ninety-five-year-old gentleman offered to give me a ride on his electric scooter.”
I said, “Sounds like you had quite the eventful day.”
Samantha's emerald-green eyes darted around nervously, and she reached up to fix her hair but succeeded only in making the blond fringe at the front stick straight up.
“The guy on the scooter wasn't even the weirdest part of the day,” Samantha said.
“Oh?” Here comes the confession about kissing Colt. I leaned in expectantly.
She fluffed her hair again, sending more blond fringe straight up. “At the end, when I was closing up, I walked into the kitchen and found a guy in there. By himself. Just standing there.”
“Creepy,” Jessica said.
Samantha nodded. “And he was clutching an enormous knife.”
Jessica gasped and covered her mouth. “What did you do?”
“I screamed,” Samantha said matter-of-factly. “As one does when they encounter a man in the kitchen with a big knife. But then he screamed, too. And he immediately dropped the knife. Then I started apologizing to him for scaring him! Can you believe it?”
Jessica slowly lowered her hand from her mouth. “Was this the ninety-year-old with the scooter?”
“No, just a regular guy, about our age. I didn't know him. He said he just moved to Misty Falls.”
I asked, “What was he doing with the knife?”
“Cutting a cupcake in half,” she said. “It turned out he only wanted to have half a cupcake. Isn't that bizarre?”
I shook my head. “Those mini cupcakes are already pretty small. That is suspicious. You should put in a report with the police. I can ask around for you. Dimples is always at my father's house.”
“No need,” Samantha said. “The guy seemed harmless enough. We chatted for a few minutes. He said he was on a low-carb diet and it was making him crazy for sugar. But on the plus side, he said he might come back to take a second look at the house.”
“Make sure you bring Michael with you,” I said. “You shouldn't be alone with this guy. It could be dangerous.”
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