Drop dead divas, p.10
Drop Dead Divas, page 10
Besides, Mama is right. I always end up joining in whatever idiotic thing Bitty does, whether I’m right under her nose or in my own bedroom at Cherryhill. There must be a twelve-step program for people like me. Holly Springs probably has its own chapter; Bitty Hollandale Anonymous. Most likely, however, the Ashland police officer had it right: Ditsy Divas.
About the time Daddy came in the back door from feeding cats, saw me gazing glumly at my cereal and asked if I was getting a summer cold, too, the kitchen phone rang. Mama answered it, and Brownie took the opportunity to nudge my knee in hopes of getting a piece of toast or the rest of my cereal. I gave him half a slice of buttered toast. I had lost my appetite anyway.
“No, I’m not getting sick,” I answered my father. “Nothing that minor.”
His brow rose as he crossed to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “All that mess from yesterday is on your mind, I guess.”
“Oh yes. Is it just me, or has Bitty become a magnet for murder?”
Daddy grinned. He shook his hands free of water and reached for the towel that hung on a small hook over the sink. “Bitty has always been a magnet for trouble. Maybe she’s branched out since you came home.”
“Lucky me. It does not bode well for the rest of my life if in the first six months I’m home, four people we know end up dead.”
“Well,” Daddy said thoughtfully, “it’s not as if you knew any of them well. Or at all.”
“But I seem to get mixed up in it anyway. Imagine, I’ve gone all my life without people dropping dead around me, and I come back here and they hit the dirt like flies.”
“Look at it this way, punkin. Holly Springs is not a huge town. Not like Memphis or New Orleans. People you know are bound to die eventually.”
“Yes, but not by gunshot or strangulation. You must admit the murder rate has probably tripled in the last six months.”
“Probably. But this last one won’t be counted in Marshall County. It happened in Benton County.”
“Well, there’s a ray of sunshine,” I said gloomily. “The Marshall County police must be ecstatic.”
Daddy just laughed and hugged me around the shoulders, then wandered into the living room to watch TV. Morning news, no doubt. Hopefully none of this had made the national media like last time. Bitty and I had been beamed all across America and eight foreign countries when we’d attended Philip Hollandale’s funeral. The fact he had been a United States senator was reason enough, but the scuffle in the church between Bitty and the late senator’s sister had been prime-time newsworthy. Afterward, Bitty had received several marriage proposals in the mail, most of them from men incarcerated in American prisons, but a few from overseas. Apparently, being a rich widow and still lively enough to trade licks with another woman entices a certain male element.
Mama hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen with it. Even though it’s a cordless phone and quite capable of service if not returned to the cradle after every call, my parents treat it as if it is one of those old black box phones with a rotary dial and a long cord.
“That was Bitty,” Mama said. Then she stopped in the middle of the kitchen and looked down at her dog. He looked back at her. His tail thumped happily against old pine floorboards, and a piece of crust hung crookedly from his jaws. “Did you feed him people food, Eureka May Truevine?”
Without waiting for my denial, she scolded, “You know he’s on a restricted diet and should eat only proper dog food.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Anytime my mother uses my full name I know I’m on her bad side. I looked down at Brownie. He has a dachshund head and coloring, but the body type of a beagle. And the loud bay of a bloodhound in full hunting mode when he spots a squirrel or bird trespassing in our yard. He is also a treacherous little beast when the occasion calls for it. As it did now, apparently.
He dropped the toast crust, his ears lowered, and looked up at my mother with a mournful gaze. Then he lay down on the floor and put his head between his paws. He really knows how to get to her. I would have tried it myself if I thought it’d work for me. However, I have my own methods.
“What did Bitty want?” I asked. “I take it she’s home from staying the night with Rayna and is expecting me, right?”
“She said not to come.”
Hope danced before my eyes. “Not come? Okay. Did she say why?”
“Yes. Brandon and Clayton are home from Florida.”
“Why doesn’t that comfort me?” I wondered aloud, and Mama patted the side of her leg to tell Brownie that all was forgiven. He immediately jumped up, barked, and did a circle dance as if reprieved from a long prison sentence. Maybe I should try that next time I get reprieved from babysitting Bitty. It expresses so much without words.
“You’re still going, of course,” Mama said once she had rewarded Brownie with a special dog treat for his dance of joy.
“No, I’m not. Not if her boys are there. They’re grown now and fully capable of watching her mouth.”
I got up from the table, put my dirty dishes in the dishwasher, wiped crumbs from the table, threw away the toast crust still on the floor, then looked at my mother. She wore a small frown.
“Still,” she said slowly, “it might be best if a real adult were there.”
“If you’re sure you want to go,” I said cheerfully, “I’ll be glad to drop you off on my way to town.”
To demonstrate my newfound joy in the day, I mimicked Brownie’s dance of joy around the table, complete with the little hop at the finish. Mama laughed, and I got out of there before she could wrangle me into sacrificing my sanity. Or what’s left of it.
Once up in my bedroom, I chose my attire for the day rather carefully. Someone had recently mentioned that there was an opening for a clerk at the lingerie shop in the town square. Normally, I wouldn’t be interested. After all, I’d been a rather nicely paid glorified secretary in my former career, working in the hospitality industry all across the continental United States. I’d done everything from reception desk clerk to personnel, to filing insurance claims on Workmen’s Comp. I’d conducted employee initiation days, tours, and worked in banquet departments or for executives, depending on what part of the country and how desperate I was to work. I was usually pretty desperate since my ex—Perry Berryman—was a charming rogue with great abs but the work ethic of a sloth. Well, maybe not that bad. I’m just bitter. Or so Bitty tells me. She could be right. Bitter or not, Perry always found work several hundred miles from wherever we were living at the time. Staying in one place too long bored him. And the next place would be “the one” he’d always swear was our perfect paradise.
After living in the middle of the desert, where even the wind was hot and the rain non-existent, we moved to the top of a mountain where we were snow-bound all winter. I worked at a nearby lodge and Perry taught skiing on the Bunny slopes, and when the spring-thaw came, we headed back down the mountain. Once he got a job logging in the wilderness of Idaho. I got a job at a motel in the valley, and we saw each other every other week-end when he’d stagger down from the mountain with his paycheck. Since I worked at the motel, we had a room there rent-free. That was good, because the pay was nothing to write home about. That had been not long after Michelle was born, and it worked out okay until she started walking.
Thankfully, Michelle is now grown, married, and living in Atlanta, and I am free to work wherever I please, as long as it’s within reasonable commuting distance from my parents. After all, they’re the reason I came home. Or so they like to remind me when I find out they’ve planned another trip that will leave me with the cats and Brownie.
But I digress.
It seemed that Carolann Barnett had put a sign in her shop window advertising for help. While it’s a lovely lingerie shop, she also sells gifts and books. Most of the gifts are the usual things, like pretty little jewelry boxes, bath sets, soaps, and so on, and the books are almost all romance novels. There’s a certain rationale that lingerie and romance go together.
I would have to take a refresher course on that. My idea of romance—until lately—has been going to bed in a tee shirt three sizes too big and a pair of loose boxer shorts, with a good book and a box of Junior Mints. Now I’m a bit confused as to what my idea of romance is, because Kit and I are still dancing around the edges of that. Like me, he prefers to take things slowly. Thank heavens.
At any rate, a part-time job would fulfill two main requirements: I would earn a bit of extra money which I definitely need, and it would also fill up my free time. Seeing as how my parents and Bitty are determined to keep me busy schlepping after dogs, cats, crazy and/or dead people, I’d decided that it would be to my advantage to say quite truthfully, “I’m working.”
This would also keep me from being involved in any of Bitty’s schemes, and give me a great excuse not to be included in any secret meeting where a body might pop up. It sounded perfect.
So I showed up in front of Carolann’s shop wearing a nice, cool cotton blouse and pair of freshly-pressed pants. I stood there a moment looking in the window that faces the courthouse square. Exquisitely designed nightgowns, robes, slippers, and teddies draped over headless mannequins. Sheer silk, embroidered satin, lace, ribbons, and all manner of feminine nightwear and underwear could be glimpsed beyond the artfully arranged front window. Taped to the lower part of the window was a ‘HELP WANTED’ sign. I took a deep breath, pushed open the front door, and entered the shop.
It was crazy, but butterflies fluttered in my stomach as if I was a teenager again applying for an after-school job. A pretty blond girl met me not far inside, coming to where I stood gazing in awe at the racks and shelves filled with gorgeous garments.
“May I help you?” she inquired in a soft voice that would be right at home in a library.
“Yes,” I answered in a voice that automatically lowered to match hers. I don’t know why. It just seemed appropriate. “I understand you have a position open for a sales clerk.” She stared at me blankly, so I added helpfully, “There’s a sign in the window.”
“Oh, why . . . let me get Miz Barnett.”
As she retreated to the rear of the store, I wandered around. One look at the price tags let me know these things were probably out of my price range. I have a dollar store budget these days. Gift items were arranged here and there atop glass tables or tucked between stacks of lingerie. A lovely fragrance filled the air, probably from all the lit candles and potpourri. Off to one side, blue velvet curtains swagged over a doorway, and I went through it to see if maybe this would be the bargain side of the shop.
Instead of bargains, I found myself in . . . well, a very interesting section. Discreet arrangements of penises sat perkily upon a black velvet covered shelf just to my right. It took me quite by surprise, and I jumped back and said something that sounded like, “Eek!” in a louder than library tone of voice.
“Are you unwell?” someone behind me asked, and I whirled around as if I had been caught peeping in a stranger’s window.
“Oh no . . . well, this is . . . I think I came in here by mistake.”
Tall, composed, elegantly dressed, the owner of the voice just smiled. “Indeed?”
While I floundered around for something to say that wouldn’t sound too foolish, the cool blond stepped aside as another woman hurried toward me. Dressed like a hippie from the 70s, this woman had wild, curly red hair that made an A-frame around her head.
“Good god, Rose, don’t tell me you’ve frightened another customer!” she shouted. Lunging toward me, the woman stuck out her hand. “Carolann Barnett. Heather tells me you’ve come in to apply for the sales position?”
I took her hand and nodded. Carolann Barnett certainly did not speak in a library voice. In fact, her voice was so loud I think I saw one of the penises fall over. I didn’t want to look, though, so I could be mistaken about that.
“Yes,” I began, but she shook her head.
“Sorry. I filled it two days ago. Don’t I know you?”
I hesitated. Relief that the position was already filled was somewhat startling, but in light of the, uh, decorations in the room where we stood, I didn’t think I was qualified to be a sales clerk. Common wisdom demands that one must know something about the merchandise being sold, and I’d never seen anything quite like those fully erect rubber penises in my entire life. Not once. Thank god. They’re frightening.
Carolann snapped her fingers. “Wait. You’re Trinket, aren’t you? Emerald’s twin sister?”
Since Emerald and I look nothing alike, I was rather surprised she knew that, but I nodded. “Yes.”
“Emerald and I were best friends in junior high. My maiden name is Lewis. I moved away for a while, then moved back here after I got married. I heard you were back in town. Aren’t you one of the Divas?”
Feeling rather like I’d stepped into a minefield, I slowly nodded. The woman she’d referred to as Rose looked at me with a lifted brow. She had a cool expression that let me know she didn’t approve of the Divas.
Carolann said, “I thought you were. You’re Bitty’s cousin. Bitty used to come in here a lot when she was married to the senator, but I don’t see her much anymore. Rose is my business partner. It was her idea to add the Blue Room. What do you think?”
The Blue Room must be where we were. I turned away from the shelf holding the row of penises standing at attention like little soldiers wearing hats, and tried to focus my gaze elsewhere. It was difficult. Crotchless panties in red satin trimmed with black lace were pinned to the opposite wall. Bras with a portion of the cups cut out hung right above the panties. A matching set. How nice. If you lived in a brothel. I tried to think of something tactful to say.
Books were stacked here and there, some on a shelf within my reach. Blindly, I grabbed one of them. “Romance novels are my favorite. I read them all the time. I’ll take this one.”
“That’s the Kama Sutra. Rose keeps the romance novels over here.” Carolann pointed to a shelf attached to the wall below the penises.
I froze. I just couldn’t look. If I went to that shelf and one of those penises fell on my head, I would run screaming out of the shop and everyone would know I’d been in there. Or in the Blue Room, anyway. How can a woman who looks so cool and elegant and acts so snooty stock a room with rainbow-colored penises? I wondered wildly.
As if sensing my predicament, the young girl, who’d met me when I first came into the store, stepped from behind Rose and took the book from my hand. She gave me a big smile, and I noticed again how pretty and young she was.
“I read romances all the time,” she said in that same, soft voice, “so let me pick one out for you, okay?”
“Sure you’re old enough?” I joked, and she laughed.
“Old enough to vote, thank you. Here you go. It’s a historical romance. I think you’ll really enjoy it.”
“Do you mind checking her out, Heather?” Carolann boomed. “I’m still opening boxes of new merchandise.”
“Sure thing, Miz B. I’ll take care of the front while you take care of the back.”
“Good girl! Glad I hired you. Oh.” Carolann gave me a guilty glance, and I shook my head.
“I can only work part-time anyway, so it’s just as well.”
Carolann looked relieved. She was pretty in a flamboyant sort of way, with her mass of unruly curls waving all around her head and shoulders as if having a life of their own. She was almost my age, but somehow she had never left the 70s. She wore a tunic and long skirt, and several strands of beads around her neck. One strand held the emblem for a peace sign. Another held a glittery rainbow.
“That’s good. Come back again, Trinket. Get something for Emerald. I’ll pick it out for you, if you like. She’d love this room.” A loud burst of laughter followed that comment, and made me wonder if there was a lot I didn’t know about my sister.
Then Carolann leaned a bit closer to me and said in a loud whisper, “Maybe you can tell me the real story behind what I read in the papers next time we meet, too. I bet it’s a lot more interesting than what I’ve already heard.”
I mumbled, “Uh, yeah, sure. Next time. Maybe.”
“Good!” she said.
With a wave of her hand, Carolann disappeared back into the main part of the store and the room seemed much quieter. At some point, Rose had slipped away, and I was rather glad. She couldn’t have been forty, but she gave me the impression of an old-maid schoolteacher. Or a nun. With a peculiar penchant for penises.
Heather checked me out. I left the store with my romance novel, got into my car, and drove straight to Bitty’s house. I had questions about the Blue Room and its merchandise that needed answers only she could provide.
As I rather expected, Bitty’s house was rocking. I sat in my car for a moment. If Six Chimneys had been a cartoon, the house would literally be bulging at the sides and rocking from side to side. Since it’s not a cartoon, only the doors were swinging. It looked like a conga line of kids coming in and out the front door. Cars were parked in the double driveway all the way up to the garage, resembling a used car lot.
It occurred to me that getting Bitty’s undivided attention wasn’t going to be possible unless I dragged her into one of the bathrooms and locked the door. Even then it might not work. As always when Brandon and Clayton are in residence, they attract friends in large numbers. Like packs of dogs, they scavenge Bitty’s house for food, then leave a mess behind when they go. I find it amazing that she allows it, but she’s just so happy when her boys are home.
Maybe Bitty is one of those people who has to have a lot of distraction in her life. Me, I could go for a month alone on a desert isle and still be miffed if I saw a rescue boat coming my way. The solitude would be heavenly. Bitty always has people around her. So I guess for her it’s just normal and fine to allow roaming packs of wild young people run around her house. My head had already started throbbing and I hadn’t even gotten out of my car yet.
