Drop Dead Lola

by Melissa Bourbon

  They launched into it, telling the story together, finishing each other’s sentences. They were in sync with each other. “We’re what you might call long lost twins,” Karen said.

  Katherine spoke next, but Karen finished the sentence. “Meaning we grew up separately—”

  “—but discovered each other and since then we’re inseparable.”

  “What does that mean, long lost twins?” Natalie asked.

  “Our birth mother gave us up for adoption. We were split up at the adoption agency.”

  Corinne gasped. “That’s horrible!”

  “Is it true what they say about twins?” Lucy asked. “That you feel each other?”

  Karen and Katherine looked at each other and nodded. “We each felt like something was missing, but we didn’t know what.”

  So the twin lore was true. I’d seen TV specials and had read articles about similar stories. “How’d you find each other?”

  Katherine notched her thumb like a hitchhiker toward her sister. “She did one of those DNA tests. I was an exact match.”

  “We’re identical,” Karen said.

  Katherine took her sister’s hand and squeezed. “Pure luck that we found each other, but now we wouldn’t know what to do without each other.”

  “And the pole dancing?” Elli asked.

  “We both loved it before we met each other,” Karen said. “Once we discovered that, we thought, why not open a studio? We could make up for lost time and do what we love.”

  Katherine pulled her hand free and spread her arms wide. “And here we are!”

  “Ready to keep going?” Karen asked.

  I definitely was. I could salsa dance. I could take someone down in three moves thanks to my martial arts training. Dammit, I was going to master this pole.

  Katherine and Karen both circulated, the spiky heels of their shoes clicking against the wood floor as they walked around. They took the time to work with each of us individually as we tried to master the different moves Karen had taught us. After a while, Karen strutted back to the front of the studio, gripped her pole with one hand, and began a routine that, quite frankly, blew my mind. She swung around the pole, scissor kicked, did the splits upside down with her upper body perfectly aligned to the chrome. It was effortless, sexy, and made me want to get that good. “Maybe I’ll start coming with you,” I whispered to Lucy.

  Her face lit up. “Oh my gosh, Lola, that would be so fun! Then Jack’ll want a pole in your bedroom, too.”

  “In my bedroom? No way, not happening. Remember Magdalena and Gregorio Cruz own my flat. Can you imagine me explaining that to them?”

  She guffawed. “Yeah, right. No. Way. Lola, you need to get your own place.”

  “Dímelo a mi,” I said. “Tell me about it. I’m working on it.”

  “Okay, girlies. Here we go,” Katherine said. “You’re going to put your moves together into a little routine. Ready?”

  The bachelorettes pumped their arms or nodded their heads or clapped. They were all ready. We were all ready.

  This time Katherine took the spot at the pole in the front of the studio. She danced around the pole using all of the moves we’d been practicing, seamlessly stitching them together in a cohesive routine. Once she’d demonstrated the whole thing, she took us through it step by step, and then we practiced.

  “I heard you have a new case,” Lucy said as she swung her body around her pole, her legs straightened and separated in a scissor kick.

  I managed to glance at her as I gripped my pole and practiced my front hook spin. “How’d you hear that?”

  She flipped her body over, her legs spreading into an upside-down split. She continued until her pointed toes touched the ground, leading her body into the splits on the floor. I gaped at her. “When did you learn to do that?”

  She preened. “I told you, I’ve been taking lessons for a while now.”

  “Wow. Just wow.” I let go of my pole, spread my legs, and slipped toward the floor, but the insides of my thighs screamed, and I got stuck a good foot from the floor. The splits were not in my repertoire.

  “It took me a while to get my flexibility back,” Lucy said.

  Lucy had three kids and I had none. This wasn’t a competition, I realized, pero there was no way she was going to best me in the splits department. I would prevail.

  I locked my elbows, letting my fingers prop up my upper body. I gently bounced up and down and tried to loosen the tight muscles in my thighs, but they were having none of it. I bent my back leg and brought it around in front of me, then sat. I’d work on my splits at home. “How’d you hear about my case?” I asked again.

  “Jack told Antonio who told Zac.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And people say girls can’t keep secrets.”

  She kept moving around her pole. Her lessons were definitely paying off. I could see why Zac would want to watch her perform. “So, how’s it going?” she asked.

  “I’m pretty much nowhere. The mom is convinced her son didn’t kill himself, and I believe her. In fact, I think it’s possible someone tried to kill her and make it look like a suicide to keep her quiet.”

  “Holy shit, Lola. That’s scary. You need to be careful.” She paused, then added, “And you better not tell your mom about that.”

  “You better not tell Zac, ’cause he’ll tell Antonio and you know Tonio will tell Magdalena.”

  She held onto the pole with one hand and one leg hooked around it, pressed her lips together, and made a motion like she was turning the key and throwing it away. “Mums the word.”

  “Gracias,” I said.

  “De nada.” Her Spanish accent wasn’t great, but it also wasn’t horrible. “I won’t say a word.”

  After another hour, we were all exhausted, and I thought Gracie’s breasts might spontaneously explode from too much milk. That woman needed to pump, and muy rapido. She scooted off to a back room somewhere, toting a bag that held her electric breast pump, bottles, and a mini cooler to keep the milk fresh. Being a new mom was hard work. I couldn’t say I was looking forward to balancing all that job entailed with my current paying job. I might not consider myself green anymore, but I was no Manny Camacho. I wanted to gain more expertise and solve more cases before I threw everything in my life up in the air by introducing babies.

  Leti, on the other hand, stared after Gracie with an expression of awe and expectancy. I could see it in her eyes. She couldn’t wait to be cooed at and called Mama.

  We took turns showering and changing into the second set of clothes we’d all been told to bring. Elli and Lucy had thought of everything, right down to finding a studio that would let us clean up before the second part of our adventure.

  “What’s next?” I asked Lucy as the others sat against the mirrored wall or stretched out their sore muscles.

  “Oh, this is gonna be so great. It’s a secret till we get there, though.”

  I angled my head low, clearly saying: Are you serious?

  Lucy looked over her shoulder at Elli, then lowered her voice. “Okay, but you cannot tell Elli that I told you.”

  This time I pressed my lips together, turned an imaginary key, and tossed it into the ether.

  “We’re doing—” She lowered her voice even more. “—boudoir photos.”

  Pole dancing and boudoir photos? Dios mio. Elli and Lucy were either under-sexed or over-sexed. Either way, they had the horizontal salsa on the brain, and the bachelorette party had given them the excuse to dance till they dropped.

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Have you met my sister Gracie? She barely wrapped her leg around a pole. You really think she’ll get all sexed up and pose for photos?”

  “We’re all doing it,” she said, sensing my hesitation. “You can be as corny or innocent or risqué as you want. Come on Lola. It’ll be so much fun!”

 
“Estás loca,” I said, and I seriously meant it, but now I knew why Elli and Lucy had told us each to bring some sexy lingerie. I’d thought a saucy slumber party was in store, but it was a lot more than that. Was I ready to take intimate, romantic, and who knows, maybe erotic photos? If I gave them to Jack, would he just laugh? And afterward, what would he do with them? What would I do with them? They certainly couldn’t be hung on the walls of either of our apartments. I guess they’d go in a drawer. In my case, they could keep company with the illicit old photos I had of a post-coital Jack.

  I was torn. I didn’t want to disrupt the bachelorette party Elli and Lucy had worked so hard to plan, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about stripping down in front of a stranger and having them capture my image. I didn’t have much time to contemplate my personal boundaries, however, because Elli had rounded up the others, they were all throwing their heartfelt thanks to Karen and Katherine, and the next thing I knew, we were out the door and piling into our cars.

  Instead of thinking of lingerie and artistic lighting, I let Lucy dodge Rina and Natalie’s questions and tuned out, simply rehearsing the pole dancing moves in my head. Once in a while, my thoughts drifted to Philip and Marnie Haskell, but I had nothing new to inform my deductions, so those thoughts drifted away again.

  The photography studio was back in downtown Sacramento, not five blocks from Jack’s loft. Would the proximity to the man of my dreams help or hinder me in my efforts to play seductress? Help, I thought. Every look I gave, every pose I struck, every intimate connection I made with the camera would be about Jack.

  The squeals from Natalie, Rina, and Corinne started as soon as they heard what the plan was from Elli and Lucy. “Grab your bags,” Elli reminded us all. The groans from Gracie, and the nervous giggles from Leti couldn’t overshadow the excitement of the others. “I’ve always wanted to do sexy pictures,” Corinne said. “My mom did them when she was first married. They’re still hanging in my parents’ bedroom, if you can believe it.”

  Someone said, “Ewwww,” but Corinne shook her head. “No, no,” she said. “They’re really artistic. Beautiful. I love seeing her that way.”

  “Look at me,” Gracie said. Two small wet spots dampened the front of her shirt. “There is no way this body can look sexy right now. It’s in full mother mode.”

  “It’s in full mother mode because your husband thinks you’re incredibly sexy,” I said. “You have to remember who you are besides being a mother.”

  Gracie glared at me. “Easy for you to say, Lola. You look like Sofia Vergara and I look like Sofia Vergara’s great grandmother.”

  The other women reacted instantly, encircling Gracie and bolstering her with their encouragement, compliments, and hugs. “You are gorgeous,” Corinne said. “You need to take these pictures so you can see it for yourself.”

  The door to Megan Watner Photography opened and a woman stood there. Her ash blonde hair was an unruly mass of ringlets held back by a blue scarf. She was petite—no more than five foot three—and on the thin side, had a wide smile that stretched from one side of her face to the other, and I imaged she had the booming voice and personality to go with that mouth. When she spoke, she confirmed it. “My bachelorette party! You’re finally here! I’ve been counting the minutes since—” She flipped her wrist and looked at her watch. “—three o’clock, at least! Earlier even!” Everything she said seemed to end with an exclamation point.

  Lucy and Elli both had duffle bags with them, which I imagined were full of tawdry outfits and sheer lingerie—in case we hadn’t brought the right things, or needed something different once we got started. These ladies were bachelorette party planners of the highest order.

  She beckoned us inside, effusing over each of us as we passed her. “Would you look at that smile? Beautiful! Those legs! They go on for a mile, at least. Freckles! I adore freckles! Ooolala!”

  Gracie was last. She tried to preempt Megan Watner by dipping her head modestly. “I’m a mother—”

  “So am I!” Lucy hollered back at her.

  “A new mother,” Gracie continued.

  Megan looked her over, then nodded knowingly. “And let me tell you, you are one sassy mama, aren’t you?”

  Gracie’s gaze darted up at Megan, her eyes pinched slightly. I knew she didn’t believe she was sassy, not for a second, but she was wrong and Megan was dead right. When we were little, it was Gracie who’d been the traviesa, not me. She’d been the naughty one, always getting us into trouble with our mother. My naughty streak materialized later—in high school, when I’d seriously crushed on Jack, which had led to spying, which had eventually carved the path for my career choice. Gracie’s antics had prepared her to be able to recognize the same sass in other kids; she was the perfect teacher as a result. No one could get anything by her.

  “I don’t feel very sassy at the moment,” Gracie said, and I could see her eyes glass over. She, maybe more than any of us, needed the empowerment of the pole dancing and boudoir photos. She needed to see herself as beautiful, as more than the mother she now was, as the woman she would always be underneath everything else.

  Megan threaded her arm through Gracie’s and escorted her inside. She turned to wink at me as I brought up the rear. She didn’t effuse over me, because she was going to direct her attention at the moment on Gracie. That was fine by me. My sister needed her more. I suspected that when it was my turn in front of the camera, I’d get the full brunt of her zealousness.

  Megan kept Gracie close as she showed us the changing rooms, the backdrops she’d set up (a claw-footed bathtub, a wrought iron bed with silky sheets, a garden space with trellises of vining flowers, and a fluffy rug), and the wardrobe accessories, including silky robes for each of us to wear while we waited in the green room for our turn.

  She went over her philosophy (loving the female form, empowerment, sensual artistic photos done with setting and lighting), how she operates (only her and the person being photographed are together, the rest wait in a private room), and the length of the session (three hours, which equated to about twenty minutes for each of us, but she said she was more than willing to go over if we wanted to, or to schedule separately at a later date for any of us who wanted to have a lengthier session all on our own—or with our partner). Yikes, me and Jack together? That was a big fat no.

  She had us sign disclosure forms, giving her permission to photograph us each, then left us in the dressing areas she’d set up and we dolled ourselves up. Elli and Lucy had told us to bring makeup, and Megan had curling irons, mirrors, hairspray, body glitter, and high heels in a variety of sizes, as well as a collection of fishnet stockings, sheer wraps, and teddies. Boudoir photos seemed to be Megan Watner’s area of expertise.

  She’d set out bottles of water and a platter of juicy strawberries and grapes, along with an album portfolio of some of her featured work. I thumbed through it. The photos showed women of all different body shapes and sizes spread across a bed, or leaning over the bathtub, or draped in a sheer wrap, back arched, nipples only artfully visible. Nerves tangled in the pit of my stomach. It was one thing to dress as a scantily clad school girl to catch a killer at a nudist camp Halloween party, but it was something else to put your sexuality on display.

  I tried to put my good Catholic girl inhibitions aside as I changed into one of the lingerie pieces I’d brought. Easier said than done. What was I doing here? I had a potential murder to solve, yet I was pretending to be a lingerie model.

  “Who’s first?” Megan said as she opened the door to the dressing areas and poked her head in.

  We all looked at each other. Corinne and Rina raised their eyebrows hesitantly. Natalie had turned pale. Gracie shook her head NO and I could almost see her stomping her foot for emphasis. Leti’s eyes were wide with what I could only define as terror. She had put on some piece of lingerie, then had quickly wrapped herself up in one of Megan’s satin robes, clenching
the fabric together at her sternum. The boudoir photos had sounded good in theory, but now that it was time to pose, the room was brimming with our insecurities. Would we look sexy…or ridiculous? I had to admit, I had the same question and the same insecurities. I didn’t think anyone could be fully immune to those feelings.

  Only Elli and Lucy looked excited and ready to go. When no one volunteered, Elli shot up. “I’ll go.”

  A collective sigh of relief filled the room. Elli skip-hopped to the door. I looked from her to her sister. Leti looked like she was having heart palpitations, but Elli giggled and let her satin robe slip from her shoulders as she left the room. They might as well have been from different parents, they were that different from one another.

  We waited, making nervous chit chat, while Elli did her shoot. She came back, blushing and grinning from ear to ear. “Oh my God, Leti, it’s so fun. Come on!” She grabbed her sister’s wrist and dragged her up.

  “I c-can’t,” she stammered.

  Elli tugged. “Of course you can. You can!”

  Leti resisted, but I got the feeling that she secretly wanted to—at least on some level—because she let her sister lead her out of the green room and into the studio. Elli didn’t come back. “That’s a good sister,” Corinne said. “Staying with Leti.”

  Rina laughed. “If Leti can do this, I can do this.”

  “Are you next, then?” Corinne asked.

  At that moment, the door swung open and Leti and Elli came in. Leti had her robe back on, but it hung open revealing a white satin nighty with a lace bodice. She wore cute little kitten heels with white faux fur. If this was her plan for her wedding night, she and Mark were going to have a lot of fun. Corinne confirmed my assessment by saying, “Mark Landry isn’t going to know what to do with you, Leti.”

  Leti’s cheeks had already been tinged pink, but now they turned bright red. She covered her face but peered up at us over the tops of her fingers.

  “But she’s going to know what to do with Mark,” Elli said with a wink.