by Penny Warner
“Yes, Mom. Three doctors, in fact. They all said I’m going to be fine.” I tucked my bandaged hand in my lap so she couldn’t see it and ask more questions. “How are you, Stephen?” I asked, redirecting the conversation to Jonathan’s father.
“Much better,” he said, “now that Jonathan is out of jail.”
Although his speech was somewhat slurred, I heard what I wanted to hear.
Jonathan lifted his head and smiled. “Yeah, he’s doing great. Rehab begins tomorrow and that should do wonders for his mobility, right Dad?”
Throughout this whole ordeal, the love between father and son remained strong and was still evident. If nothing else, Jonathan and I had one thing in common: a close bond with an elderly parent.
Once we’d ordered, Mother peppered me with questions about Stephanie. I wasn’t hungry after my latte and muffin and just had orange juice, but Brad ate a he-man plate of bacon and eggs, while Jonathan just poked at his omelet.
I filled Mother and the others in on the details of Stephanie’s twisted reasons for killing Levi and Zach—they got in the way and knew too much. And why she’d tried to kill me—likewise.
“That poor thing,” Mother said, forgetting for a moment that the poor thing tried to silence me with a glass shard. But that was Mother—always rooting for the underdog, even if the person was a killer.
“She’ll get the help she needs in the psychiatric ward,” Brad said, wiping bits of breakfast off his mouth. “And then she’ll get her own private cell.”
Jonathan cleared his throat, set down his coffee cup, and wiped his own mouth with his napkin. “Presley . . . ahem . . . I don’t know what to say, other than thank you. You’re not only a great party hostess, but you essentially saved my life, and probably the lives of others as well. I owe you.”
I felt my face flush. “Oh . . . you really should thank my mother. If it wasn’t for her . . .”
Mother looked at me, a little bewildered, then said, “I told you she was San Francisco’s premiere party queen. I’m so proud of her.”
“Well, you were right, Ms. Parker,” Jonathan said to Mother, then turned back to me. “Presley, I have a check for you.” He pulled a folded prewritten check from his shirt pocket.
I opened it and read the amount. He’d doubled my fee.
“Oh, Jonathan, this isn’t necessary—” I started to say.
“Yes, it is. And by the way, I’m doubling the donation amount for the American Stroke Association as well.” He glanced at his dad. Was that a tear I saw in Stephen Ellington’s rheumy eyes?
I folded the check and thanked Jonathan.
“What are you working on now, dear?” my mother said, breaking the silence that had settled over the table.
I sighed, and shot a glance at Brad. “Well, Brad got me hired for a big event in exchange for discounted rent in my new office building. It’s not for another few months, but it looks like I’ll be planning a mini-Expo, a tribute to the one that was held on Treasure Island seventy years ago, only on a much smaller scale.”
“What fun!” Mother said. “Your grandmother Granny Constance was there, you know. She was a Pan Am Clipper Ship Hostess on the Magic City. Are you planning a Gayway?”
The fair’s “Gayway”—which had nothing to do with San Francisco’s Castro district—had been the most popular part of the Expo, especially Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch, a peekaboo adult playland featuring scantily clad women frolicking in little more than colorful ostrich feathers.
She didn’t wait for my answer. Instead, she said, “Did you know that the Expo was considered a financial flop, and closed early, over four million dollars in debt?”
Brad whistled.
Stephen raised an eyebrow.
Jonathan squirmed in his seat and grimaced. “Speaking of which,” he said, glancing at each of us in turn. “I’m selling what’s left of Hella-Graphics. ILM is interested in the 4-D projector and a couple of other companies are too. I think it’s time.” He glanced at his dad, who gave him a crooked smile.
I’d been wondering what Jonathan had planned to do after all this, but the news still came as a surprise. I knew he’d worked hard to create his innovative products and build his business.
“What will you do next?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe work on some kind of product that helps stroke victims like my dad. I’m pretty good at gathering talent and inspiring them to create something visionary.”
I hesitated, then asked the other question that had been on my mind. “What about Lyla?”
He shook his head. “That’s over. We were both cheating on each other. Hers was more from revenge, but still, that’s no way to be married. In fact, I’m off women for the time being. I just want to focus on my dad.”
“Now we’re both going to rehab,” Stephen said proudly. “Just not the same kind.”
I took a sip of orange juice and decided to bring up one last loose end. “So George Wells really committed suicide?” I said more than asked, confirming what the police had ruled.
Jonathan nodded solemnly. “You know, I sensed something was up, but I had no idea he was under such pressure. The whole idea of Hella-Graphics was to make it an enjoyable place to work.”
Apparently, having a personal trainer, a slide between floors, and a coffee barista wasn’t enough to keep the employees happy. Maybe a psychologist would be a better hire.
I thought about Teddi Wells and how hard it was for her to accept her husband’s death as a suicide. The guilt she must have been feeling for not knowing—or not seeing—how depressed he had been, how trapped he had felt. It would take time—and her own therapist—to cope with those unresolved emotions. I made a mental note to have coffee with her this week just to talk and let her know I cared.
“Well, I’ve got to run,” Mother said, winding up the conversation. “I have bocce ball this morning, and Curves this afternoon. Then a bunch of us are watching a Golden Girls marathon. We’re going to dress up as our favorite character from the show. Guess which one I’m going to be.”
“Blanche, of course,” I said. The men looked bewildered.
“How did you know?” Mother asked.
I knew my mother all too well. And I hoped to go on knowing her for a long time to come.
Brad and I escorted my mother to Jonathan’s car while Jonathan wheeled his father along. He had picked up both his father and my mother from the care center, and promised to return them safely.
“Presley!” my mother said, suddenly looking alarmed. “I’ve lost my purse again!”
I glanced down at her side and pointed to her Coach bag. “It’s right there, Mother.”
She followed my pointing finger, recognized her bag, and clutched it tightly to her side. “Thank goodness!” she said as she stepped into the car, visibly relieved.
Just before he got into the driver’s seat, he paused and looked at me. “Thanks again, Presley—for everything.” I nodded. He slipped inside and drove away.
Brad took my good hand and we walked slowly to his SUV. Still feeling the pain of my bruised hip, I favored my good leg, and used Brad’s strong arm for support. When we reached the car, he held the door for me, then went around the car and got in. I had my iPhone in my hand and was scanning messages when he asked in an English accent, “Where to, madam?”
I grinned, shut off the phone, and dropped it into my purse. “To the Bat Cave, Alfred.”
“Ah, don’t tell me we have another case, Batgirl.”
“Not a case, a party. Where do you think I could rent some bats this time of year?”
Brad eyed me as if I now needed my own psychiatrist. “Bats? I hate bats.” He shivered.
“Well, you better get over that, because Lucas Cruz wants a ‘wrap party’ to celebrate finishing his latest film.” Cruz, the resident movie producer on the Island, rented one of the Pam Am Clipper hangars for filming. It wasn’t unusual to spot Robin Williams, Danny Glover, or Margaret Cho coming or going.
> “A bat party?”
“Nope. A Vampire Party.”
“That should be interesting,” Brad said, raising a lascivious eyebrow. “Maybe we should go back to your place and get in the mood. I’ll wear one of your vampire costumes—actually just the cape—and you can . . .”
“Down, boy,” I said, giggling. “First we need to make a little side trip.”
“Where to?” he asked.
“Colma.”
“Colma . . . aka ‘The City of Souls’? What for? That place gives me the creeps. It’s nothing but cemeteries.”
I smiled. “I know. That’s exactly why Cruz wants to host the Vampire Party there. If we hurry,” I said, channeling Béla Lugosi’s Transylvanian accent, “we can look over the graveyards and be safely home before darkness falls . . .”
Brad grinned at me and started up the engine.
How to Host a Killer Séance Party
So you want to chat with Elvis? No problem—even though he’s been dead for decades. Just host a séance, hold hands around a crystal ball, and wait for the spirits to appear.... Ideally, at the circle you’ll want a few true believers, a couple of skeptics, and one or two who are open to the possibility of the supernatural. And don’t forget the medium—real or not. It’s time for a ghost-whispering Séance Party.
Invitations
Invite the skeptics and believers with a “message from the beyond . . .” Cut out a white circle, glue the top edge to a black card, and write, “The Spirits Are About to Speak . . .” on the outside. Underneath, glue another white circle and include the party details. Or draw a ghost on a white card with a speech bubble providing the information. Or outline your palm, draw lifelines, and write the details along each line, indicating their “future” at the party. Include a tarot card or a lucky rabbit’s foot.
What to Wear
As the hostess, you might dress up as a gypsy, or wear all black with a lacy scarf. Tell the guests to come in costume, dressed as a character from the twenties, when the séance was in its heyday. Or suggest they come as a witch, sorcerer, or fortune-teller.
Decorations
You’ll need a dark room to host the séance, one with draperies that will keep out the light from outside. Set a round table in the middle of the room and drape it with a black lace tablecloth. Set a crystal ball (or an upside-down fishbowl) in the center of the table. Light candles around the room and play spooky Halloween music in the background. Set hanging pictures at an angle, and string fake cobwebs along the lights and furniture, or in the corners of the room. Download creepy pictures from the Internet, frame them, and set them on tables or hang them on the walls. Get an accomplice to help you with some simple séance gimmicks while you summon the spirit world. (See Games and Activities for examples.)
Games and Activities
Scare the goose bumps out of your guests with a few ghoulish games and spooky surprises!
Summon the Spirits
Have a real séance with a hired medium. Or put on your own séance and set the scene with lots of spooky gimmicks. Have the attendees sit at the table and hold hands. While you close your eyes and mumble to the spirit world, have your accomplice do some of the following tricks. Tie fishing line to a picture on the wall and move it slightly. Do the same to the draperies. Knock softly, then louder, on the wall. Turn on a fan and blow out a candle or two. Start up a fog machine. Spray the guests with a sudden blast from a squirt gun. Have sheeted ghosts pass through the room. Use a speaker or karaoke machine to create the voices.
Channel the Spirits
After the guests are thoroughly spooked by the unseemly spirits, it’s time to channel the dead. First, tell a little background to continue the spooky mood and put on a theatrical performance as you call the spirits. Then bring back someone famous from the past that everyone knows, such as Elvis, Queen Victoria, or Marilyn Monroe. Have the accomplice imitate the voice, and answer questions from the attendees, such as “Elvis, how did you die?” “Ah ate too many pork rinds—thank you verah much.”
Ouija Board
Get out the Ouija board, choose a couple of guests to sit opposite each other, and ask questions. Take turns so everyone gets a chance to hear answers “from the Other Side.” You might even include some preformed questions the players must ask, such as “Who will meet the man of her dreams next?” or “Who in the room is keeping a deep dark secret?”
It’s in the Cards
Read up on fortune-telling with tarot cards. Then predict each guest’s future using the cards.
Predictions
Have the guests make up predictions for each guest. When everyone is finished, choose one guest to read her predictions—then guess who created it.
Movie Madness
Rent creepy movies that feature ghosts and other strange creatures, such as The Others, The Ring, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, Ghostbusters, The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, Poltergeist, The Shining, What Lies Beneath, or Ghost. Share them with the group.
Refreshments
Make your own fortune cookies. Buy prepackaged sugar cookie dough. Roll out the dough as thinly as possible, cut into circles, fold the circle, curve it into a “C,” and pinch the ends, leaving a small opening. On small strips of paper, write down funny fortunes, such as “You will learn to play the violin,” “You will marry a clown,” or “You will come back as a mule.” When the cookies are lightly browned, let them cool, then insert the paper predictions. Make a devil’s food cake for a centerpiece, topped with tarot cards or the crystal ball.
Favors, Prizes, and Gifts
Tarot decks make great prizes and favors, along with lucky charms, scary movies, a book of ghost stories, creepy sound tracks, and astrology books.
Party Plus
Invite a “real” medium, psychic, or tarot-card reader to your party to lead the séance or predict the future.
For more party ideas, check out Ladies’ Night: 75 Excuses to Party with Your Girlfriends by Penny Warner (Adams-Media).
Read on for a sneak preview of
Penny Warner’s next Party-Planning Mystery,
HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE
Coming from Obsidian in Fall 2012.
PARTY PLANNING TIP
With the popularity of vampires today, why not host a Vampire Party! Take your pick from the Twilight saga, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. Or give your party some bite and invite all of them!
It should have been a dark and stormy night, à la Hollywood, but the October moon was full and the sky cloudless. I stood quietly in the cemetery, feeling as if I were viewing a film. But there were no cameras, and this was no movie.
I watched as the tall, pale twentysomething man dressed in tight black jeans and a black chest-hugging T-shirt suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. He seemed to glide toward the wide-eyed, raven-haired young woman who waited for him. She wore a flowing white dress, sheer and low-cut, that displayed her obviously enhanced breasts. Leaning seductively against a towering headstone, her long hair swirling in the night breeze, she smiled at the man in black approaching her. He held a glass of bloodred wine in his hand.
I felt like a voyeur, but I couldn’t take my eyes off this mesmerizing couple.
He offered her the glass, not taking his eyes from hers. “This is very old wine. I hope you’ll like it.”
She wrapped a porcelain hand around the stem, her lacquered red fingernails tinkling against the glass. “Aren’t you drinking?” she asked, her eyes reflecting the bright spotlights. She took a sip.
Staring at her with intense dark eyes, the young man parted his full mouth, revealing white teeth that glinted in the light. “I never drink wine.”
I almost laughed out loud at the familiar line. Count Dracula had said the same thing to Renfield in the 1939 film. But when the man in black suddenly jerked, as if having a spasm, I gasped. Seconds later he shot up into the air like a rocket, and disappeared
into the branches of a eucalyptus tree.
“Awesome!” I said, clapping. I could feel my heart racing.
I looked around, certain I’d be joined in a round of cheery applause. But when I saw frowns on the faces of those nearby, I stopped.
“No! No! No!” Lucas Cruz yelled from behind me.
Cruz, as everyone called him, was the eccentric producer/ director at CeeGee Studios, located on Treasure Island. Five years earlier he had set up his computer graphics/film company in one of the long-empty Pan-Am clipper ship hangars on the island. Since then he’d produced a number of sci-fi and horror films, which featured his cutting-edge special effects. One of his films had starred local San Francisco resident Robin Williams as Cosmo Topper in a remake of the popular 1937 ghost film Topper. In spite of Robin’s talents, the movie had quickly gone to video.
Cruz had hired me to plan a wrap party to celebrate—and publicize—the end of production on his latest horror film, Revenge of the Killer Vampires. I’d seen a few clips of the jump-the-shark spoof of vampire flicks that had ravaged theaters around the country. The two “hot” young stars—Jonas Jones, who played the vampire, and Angelica Brayden, the love interest—would no doubt become ET, TMI, and Gossip Guy regulars once the film debuted. And I was lucky enough to have just witnessed a preview of the mini-performance from the movie that would be performed at tomorrow night’s party.
The wrap party would have been simple enough to host if it hadn’t been for the fact that Cruz wanted the event held in a cemetery—“for the ambience.” After overcoming my initial resistance, I researched the possibilities online, and I found a Wall Street Journal article that mentioned the growing popularity of murder mystery events, scavenger hunts, and other events held in cemeteries. Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles projected movies onto mausoleum walls. Davis Cemetery in California offered bird walks and poetry workshops. Others presented Shakespeare festivals, family picnics, and even weddings.