by Tamar Myers
“Not yet.”
Foolishly, I tried to open the door while the car was moving. Wisely, the car manufacturers had seen to it that I was indeed going to have to wait. I soon learned that even my window wasn’t going to budge at my command.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“My name is Taiga Fünstergarten”—she spelled her name, then added—“with an umlaut.”
“Well, Miss Fee-yoon-ster-garden—what is it you want? Money? I’ll give you my wallet—heck, you can even have my Gucci handbag; just let me out at the light.”
“That’s not a real Gucci—it’s a hideous knockoff. And please, do me a favor, and never try to pronounce my last name again.”
“A hideous knockoff? I’ll have you know I paid almost fifty dollars for it at A faux dables on King Street.”
“Like they say, Abby, there’s no accounting for your taste.”
“Who says that? And who the blazes are you?”
“In due time, Abby.”
My abductress—for that’s how I chose to think of her—was a very plain young woman, with short curly hair that was rodent brown, and pale down-turned lips. She appeared to be devoid of makeup. She was dressed in a gray skirt and a gray blouse, which didn’t match, and a pair of sturdy gray shoes that almost matched the blouse. Altogether her ensemble was close enough to being a uniform to make the situation even scarier for me.
“Look, lady—ma’am—whatever, it’s not what you think. I’m only trying to help out Mr. Curly.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, help him find the distributor on this end.”
“Who’s Mr. Curly?”
Poodle poop, I said to myself, and without any alliteration. Maybe this one was the distributor. Loose lips sink ships, a wise man once said, but a mouth like Abby Washburn’s can get you a lifelong invitation to Davy Jones’s locker.
“On second thought, Miss Taiga, you’d do well to ignore everything I say. The doctor said I’d have these moments of paranoid delusion if I skipped my medication, but oh no, I wouldn’t listen. But I tell you, she is wrong about one thing, I am not violent.” I smacked my pitiful excuse for a faux Gucci. “Just because I insist on carrying a loaded weapon with me everywhere I go is no reason to suspect me of violent tendencies.”
“You don’t fool me, Abby.”
“Yes, that one death was ruled an accident, but what about the other four?” I smacked the hapless tote again.
“I used to drive the transfer van for the state psychiatric prison, Abby. Those patients weren’t nearly as much fun as you.”
“Still, you’re not smiling.”
“I never smile. Would you, if your name was Taiga Fünstergarten? With an umlaut?”
“Point taken, bless your heart. Will you at least tell me where we are going?”
“No.”
“Pretty please? With oodles of sugar on top?”
“You’re starting to annoy me, Abby.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I don’t pack a gun—even a fake one—but I won several wrestling championships in college.”
“Men’s, or women’s?”
“That was mean-spirited.”
“But can you blame me? I’ve been kidnapped, made to feel like a fool when you didn’t believe my gun shtick, but worst of all, you exposed my Gucci as a fake!”
“I think you might actually be serious.”
“You’re darn tooting. I’ve toted this tote with me to countless occasions. For all I know now, I’m the laughingstock of Charleston.”
“Calm down, Abby. You need to have perspective. There are a lot worse things in this world than having your friends know that you wear cheap knockoffs—which, I assure you, they do. Think of the hunger, poverty, and acts of personal violence that women all over the world are experiencing this very minute, and here you are stressing over something I said about your bag. Thank heavens I didn’t say anything about those silly wannabe Jimmy Choo shoes you have on.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Abby, you sound positively outraged.”
“How dare you? How dare you—” I cleared my throat, and in the couple of seconds that this took, I changed my mind. “How did you know the Jimmy Choos weren’t the real McCoy?”
“Experience, Abby. I’ve seen more Jimmy Choos and Guccis and you name the brands—I can spot a designer brand like a forester can spot a maple or an oak.”
I turned to better scrutinize the drab woman.
“Abby, I know what you’re doing.”
“My one butt cheek was going to sleep—that’s all!”
“You’re thinking, how does such a Plain Jane, one who dresses in Goodwill clothes—that’s what these are, Abby—know anything about designer clothes? It’s because I see so much of that crowd, that’s why. But Abby, I think it’s perfectly okay to wear what you do in your circles. I’m sure that no one has noticed. And I’m sorry I went overboard; your tote really isn’t that hideous, and I take it back about your friends knowing.”
I couldn’t help snorting. “Do you honestly expect me to believe all that? I mean, even your car looks like it got pulled off the junk heap and then resurrected.”
Taiga’s down-turned lips actually twitched in what may have been the beginning of a smile. “It is an old car. But it runs well, and it gets me there.”
“I know rich people,” I said. “You’re not one of them.”
We’d made several turns by then and were headed up East Bay Street. This made me think our destination might be somewhere across the Cooper River, so I was totally taken by surprise when she made a right turn onto Calhoun Street, and then a left into the parking garage that serves the South Carolina Aquarium.
“Uh-oh,” I said, “you plan to feed me to the fishes.”
“I care about animals,” she said flatly. If she had a sense of humor, it was as dry as a Carolina summer.
“Abby, we’re going on a little walk. I want you to stick with me. Of course you’re free to run off, holler, and make a fool of yourself, but you might wish you hadn’t.”
“Is that another threat?”
My captor did an expert job of parking on the top deck, and then without further ado got out and made her way as close as possible to the side overlooking the adjacent shipyard. I did consider bolting, but it was mid-afternoon and there weren’t any other people out on the upper deck, and yes, I confess, I was as curious as a box full of kittens.
“You see that ship down there being loaded?” Taiga asked. She hadn’t even turned around to confirm my presence.
“What about it?”
“Read the name—please.”
“S.S. Taiga.” My heart skipped a beat, but then, thank heavens, common sense took over. “What does that prove? Maybe you work here, you saw the name on the boat, so you tell me that’s your name as well, big deal. My name is Statue of Liberty. So what?”
“Abby, sarcasm seldom becomes anyone, and I regret to say that you are not the exception.” She opened her own bag, which I know came from Target, because I have one just like it at home. “Here, look at my license. As it happens, this was my daddy’s first container ship, and I’m getting ready to retire it. I own a fleet of them. Sixteen in all—but they don’t all sail into Charleston. Some are Los Angeles–based, while most of them sail between the Continent and New York.”
I stared in disbelief. “Why I’ll be dippity-doodled,” I finally said. “You really are Taiga Fünstergarten—with an umlaut. Or else you’ve stolen her wallet. Nevertheless, this doesn’t prove that this is your boat.”
“Ah, my dear Abby,” she said. And although she had to be at least a decade younger than me, she sounded like a tired old aunt. “If you represent the best of what this nation has to offer, then we are in worse shape than I thought. Tell me, how many Taiga Fünstergartens are there in the Charleston phone book, listed, or unlisted?”
“Like I said, you could have stolen the ID.”
“With a photo of me included.”
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“That can be doctored.”
“I’ll grant you that. So come, let’s get back in the car and we’ll drive around to the dock—although I know that a dock might not be your favorite location right now—and I’ll introduce you to the captain. Will that make a believer out of you?”
I know, she could have been bluffing even then, but I pride myself on picking up on the nuances of people’s voices, and Taiga sounded resigned, as opposed to anxious. I suddenly realized that she knew that I would eventually believe her; it was just a matter of her taking me through the tedious steps of proving who she was.
“Don’t bother yourself, dear; I believe you. But allow me to say, you are the first fabulously rich person I know who dresses like a—uh—”
“Regular person?”
“Yes, but a nonslutty regular woman, and that’s how it should be. Nowadays folks go shopping in spandex shorts and halter tops—Never mind that. Why did you kidnap me?”
“Saffron is just down the street. As I’m sure you know, they have fabulous desserts. We can talk over early tea—English style.”
Saffron Café and Bakery is one of Charleston’s culinary jewels. The menu for the main courses is predominantly Mediterranean, but the desserts seem pretty much American to me—well, except maybe for baklava and the German chocolate cake. Everything, however, is good—no, make that superb. There is no such thing as getting a bad meal at Saffron.
“No thanks,” I said. “I just had bread pudding at Poogan’s Porch.”
“Then have a cup of coffee on me and watch me eat. It’s a better place to set a scene than standing on the roof of a parking garage.”
“Say what?”
“You’re better off not trying to figure out everything I say; I enjoy trying to be enigmatic.”
I shook my head, and then nodded vigorously. “You’re definitely an enigma, Taiga Fünstergarten with an omelet. You’re—”
“The word is umlaut, Abby, not omelet.”
“I stand corrected. Anyway, as I was about to say, you’re not only enigmatic, you’re also a bit ominous. I have the feeling that I really don’t have much say in the matter. Do I?”
Taiga smiled broadly.
14
When I observed how moist Taiga’s hunk of German chocolate cake was, I decided a thin slice would be the perfect accompaniment for some mid-afternoon perk-me-up coffee. Taiga stuck with her aforementioned tea.
We made small talk until we were both served, and then I got down to business.
“Okay, Taiga, what’s this all about? Alfie?”
“Abby, playing the dimwit does not become you; you know his name is Conrad.”
“Excuse me?”
“My uncle, Conrad Stallings. You just had lunch with him a couple of hours ago.”
“Look, I was being droll, not dull—never mind. So he’s your uncle, huh? What are you two, some kind of tag team?”
Taiga swallowed and daintily patted the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “My uncle is the only family I have left. I’ll be the first to admit that he’s eccentric in an upper class sort of way, but he’s not crazy, Abby. He’s certainly not dangerous. Like many of the old families of Charleston, and throughout the Deep South, he’s still living in another era.
“But for Uncle Conrad Stallings—he was my mother’s brother—that era happens to be when Britannia still ruled the waves. He married an English tea planter’s daughter in Malaya—now Malaysia—after World War Two. It was during the last gasp of the British Empire, but for Uncle Conrad it was like coming home. He’s a man born out of his time. Really, Abby, he should have been born two generations earlier.
“At any rate, Uncle Conrad’s bride died two years later in childbirth, and then not long after that Malaysia became an independent country. Did my uncle tell you about the house my mother built for him on James Island?”
During her rather long recital I’d been wolfing down my cake. The number of calories I’d managed to consume that day was plum amazing. A highly creative person—like, say, an author—might suggest that I was eating for two, but that would be medically unlikely, given my current stage of life. Whatever the reason, if I continued inhaling carbohydrates as a way to deal with stress, I might soon have to bounce to work, rather than walk.
“No, although your uncle proposed marriage, we neglected discussing where we would live.”
Taiga sighed. I’d obviously disappointed her again.
“Abby, no one lives in the house my mother built; it was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo. You should have seen it. My mother had it decorated to look like what an English planter’s house might look in the highlands of Malaysia. But what’s germane to this conversation is that in the gentleman’s sitting room—the den, if you will—she had on display some first rate trophies and a really fine collection of ivory.”
I licked my fork for the second time and was considering a quick pass over Taiga’s still untouched icing when I realized it was my turn to speak. “Um—let me guess, so the real reason you kidnapped me is so that you could convince me just how badly your eccentric uncle needs to buy my ivory collection. Since you’re a veritable Miss Money Bags, Miss Fünstergarten, why not just buy him a small African country and let him shoot elephants? That will allow him to feel veddy British.”
Taiga leaned over the table. At first I thought she might be protecting her cake, but then she started to whisper. “I would have replaced his ivory sooner, but I respected the ban—oh crap, that’s not the whole truth. I don’t like breaking laws. I might risk millions of dollars in business deals, Abby, but I obey these kinds of laws. Then when I followed my uncle to Chopsticks today and overheard the two of you—well, somehow it didn’t seem like such a big deal.”
I recoiled in surprise, and my response was anything but a whisper. “You were spying on us at Chopsticks.”
“I was seated right behind you.”
“But I didn’t see you.”
“Why would you notice a frumpy woman in gray clothes?”
“Harrumph,” I said. “Tell me, how many times have you heard that word this year?”
“Seven times. I belong to ASS, the Archaic Speech Society. I make a point of using ‘harrumph’ and other seldom used heard words at least once a week.”
“Back to the subject at hand, dear—”
“Abby, please don’t say no, before you’ve had a chance to drive out and see Uncle Conrad’s simulated tea plantation.”
“But I—”
“You can bring a friend—like that Amazonian who works for you, or your unibrowed best friend, or your petite mother. Or that cute husband of yours.”
“On one condition.
“Name it.”
“You buy me a piece of cake to go, for that Amazonian, and another for my shop assistant with the caterpillar eyebrows.”
It was a done deal. What’s more, when I got home that night I discovered that Taiga Fünstergarten had every dessert in the display case packed up and sent over to my house. My petite mother and cute husband were too busy feeding their faces to be the least bit suspicious.
When Greg and I moved to Charleston five years ago, we asked Mama to move down with us. At the time, she was ensconced in the house that she and Daddy had raised us in, up in Rock Hill. Although Mama had grown up there, and had many friends in the area, the only family she had left was a cousin who raised laboratory rats, and who was, to be brutally honest, a bit squirrelly.
I adore Mama, as does Greg, and she adores us, and for the most part it has been a mutually beneficial arrangement. We provide my mother with companionship and security, and she cooks fabulous dinners and keeps us from ever getting bored. (As my friend Lydia once said, “Your mother is like a short Jim Carrey with breasts.”)
Initially I was worried that a senior citizen from a small city like Rock Hill would have a hard time adjusting to the sophisticated likes of one of America’s last bastions of culture. But the fact that Mama is stuck in the year 1959 makes her a pe
rfect fit for Charleston. All she had to do was plug into Grace Episcopal Church, join a book club, and seek out the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the Confederacy, and Mama had more connections than a jumbo box of Tinker Toys.
One would have thought that after consuming all those sweets, Mama would have experienced a sugar crash. Instead, she donned a plum-colored satin dress—full circle skirt, of course—with a self-covered belt that cinched a waist that still measured in the twenties. She slipped her tireless feet into plum-colored satin pumps, and since it was still the fifties, and it was winter, she set a plum-colored hat upon her silver head (according to Mama, only harlots and movie stars dye their hair—myself excluded).
“How do I look?” she said.
“Like a million bucks,” Greg said, although he was too busy watching Wipeout to even glance at her.
“Will your bag be plum as well?” I asked.
“Of course, dear. In my day there was no such thing as overcoordinating. Don’t believe those fashionista men on Oprah; they have v-jay-jay envy.”
“Mama!”
“Oh Abby, you’re such a prude.”
“And you’re such a contradiction; neither June Cleaver nor Margaret Anderson would ever have said that.”
“Yes, but both those characters would be dead by now. So tell me, how do I look?”
“Awesome as usual, Mama.”
“I do, don’t I?” she purred. “It’s the prunes, you know. They’ve been proven to keep wrinkles away.”
“Where are you going, Mama? To play bridge?”
“Heavens, no; I gave that up for Lent.”
“It’s not Lent yet. Is it Blue Stockings then?” That’s the name of Mama’s erudite book club. She doesn’t exactly read the books, but she does comment on them.
“On a Saturday night? We may be older, Abby, but we have lives too. Who would want to stay in and discuss some boring book on a Saturday night?”
“Then what will you be doing?”
“Give it a rest, hon,” Greg said, without tearing his eyes from our fifty-two-inch wall-mounted screen. By the way, when we first bought this monster, it seemed large; now it barely suffices.