Bubbles All The Way (13 page)

“Wouldn’t have surprised me. There were two guys covered with tattoos on board. Major tattoos.”

The women rinsed their hands one last time and ripped out paper towels. I was dying to talk to Tess the redhead. I had to talk to her.
I wanted to murder her myself.
No kidding.

“Excuse me.” I tapped her on the shoulder.

Tess gave me a thorough once-over, mentally grading me a C-.

“I couldn’t help overhearing. Were you talking about Debbie Shatsky?”

The women shifted uncomfortably, uncertain what I was about. “Yesss,” Tess said slowly. “Why? Don’t tell me she’s a friend of yours.”

How to play this. Reporter or beautician? I sided with beautician. It had worked with Debbie’s first husband. It might work with her. “As a matter of fact, I was doing Debbie’s hair today, when she, you know, had the attack.”

This was big news, immediately elevating my status among the glimmer twins. “Get out! You were there?” The brunette upgraded her appraisal of me. “What happened?”

I shrugged, debating how much information to divulge. Enough to keep them interested, not too much to make them paranoid. “We’re not sure. An allergic reaction apparently.” I paused for effect. “Personally, I think her death could have been murder.”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Tess nudged the brunette.

The brunette shifted her feet nervously. “Not that anyone we know would have actually gone through with it, of course.”

“Not even Zora?” Tess arched a brow.

“Whew!” The brunette rolled her eyes. “I forgot about her. She really was pissed. I mean, Debbie ruined her life, her career. Everything.”

“And isn’t she a nurse in Debbie’s allergist’s office? That’s how Debbie met her and talked her into going on the Love Boat.”

Ca-ching!
I bit my lip to hide my glee. This was soooo good. If I just let them talk, they might tell me the whole story. A scam cruise? Ruining someone’s career? The police wouldn’t have time to pin the blame on Sandy. They’d be too busy investigating this Zora woman or Ern Bender or who knew who else?

From Lorena’s stall came the sound of a lighter being flicked and all hope fizzled.

The brunette tossed her towel into the wastepaper basket and sniffed. “Do you smell that?”

“Her allergist’s office?” I chimed, trying to distract them. “How interesting.”

Tess wrinkled her nose. “Is someone smoking?”

The toilet flushed and Lorena emerged from the stall, a flounce of her teal dress haphazardly stuffed into her jeans. She ignored the women’s glares as she went to the sink and washed her hands.

Two more minutes and I could have learned Zora’s full name. Or at least the allergist’s.

“Were you smoking?” the brunette asked Lorena.

“No,” lied Lorena, who practically had a smoke ring dangling over her head.

“Because there’s a sign,” the brunette persisted, pointing to the NO SMOKING sign on the mirror. “And it’s there for a reason. I don’t appreciate having my health compromised by inconsiderate people.”

Lorena glanced at it and turned away. “A little smoke ain’t going to kill you. You get more smoke in your lungs sitting in rush hour on 22.”

“I should report you,” Tess declared. “If I’d known there were going to be people like
you
here, I’m not so sure I would have come.”

Lorena flicked water off her hands. A couple spots landed on the brunette’s winter white suit. Horrified, she tried to bat them off with her paper towel.

“What do you mean, ‘people like me’?” Lorena asked.

“People who wear cheap, ill-fitting dresses from some Goodwill bin over their dirty jeans.”

Oh, hell. This was going to be bad. That cheap, ill-fitting dress had been handpicked by Lorena’s sister for her own wedding. I did a swift check of my surroundings for any weapon Lorena could lay her hands on. Thankfully, the women’s room was relatively weapon-free. Then again, Lorena was resourceful.

She set her hands on her blue teal hips. “Well, I might consider that an insult. That was, if it weren’t coming from a pathetic, love-starved spinster who has to pay for a man.”

The women gasped. I shielded my eyes. Note to self: never, ever bring Lorena on an indoor assignment. From now on she must be outdoors, preferably in the dirt, where she does not have to be house-trained.

What followed next was a lot of shouting and makeshift weapon fashioning. Lorena was wielding a hairbrush and Tess an eyelash curler, like that could do any harm. All chances of getting a scoop were blown and so, I feared, was my opportunity of seeing Stiletto auctioned off since Pauline must have been on her way to toss us out on our butts.

I could not imagine things getting worse. Then again, I’m an idiot. Because just as Lorena was about to face off with Tess, the bathroom door was flung open and in walked Wendy.

As in Dan’s ex-wife Wendy.

Wendy was superthin and superrich, thanks to the fortune she inherited from her father’s cheeseball snack-food empire. Dan had left me for her back in the day, back when he assumed I couldn’t advance his career as an ambulance chaser. She’d made him change his name to “Chip” and stop eating halupkies. Under her spell, he believed he had WASP potential.

However, with Wendy’s fortune dwindling thanks to the revolt against high-fat, fried snacks (except in Pennsylvania, where they are still rightly glorified), Dan had turned his attention back to me. That was the only reason I could come up with to explain his fierce determination to marry me. Although sometimes I wondered if there was another motivation, a more sinister impetus.

“Bubbles!” Wendy let the door slam behind her. “What are
you
doing here?”

“You know her?” asked the brunette.

“Unfortunately,” Wendy said. “This is
the
Bubbles. The one I was telling you about.”

Tess dropped her eyelash curler. Guess I was much more of a celebrity than I knew.

“She’s even more absurd than you described.”

“White trash,” Wendy said with a snort. “Dan went back to her because he couldn’t help himself. It’s in his genes. Some men will always sink to the lowest common denominator.”

In case it wasn’t obvious, Wendy despised me. She used to hide her disgust when she was married to Dan. Now that they were divorced, however, the gloves were off and her sixty-five-dollar manicured claws were bared.

“But why should I be surprised? Of course Bubbles is here. She’s here to bid on Steve Stiletto, the man who bedded and left her.” Wendy licked her thin lips. It reminded me of a wolf, ready to pounce on a rabbit in a field. “I could have warned you, Bubbles, that a man of Steve Stiletto’s wealth and pedigree wouldn’t spare the time of day for a cheap little blue-collar ho like you. You’re more fit to change his sheets rather than sleep in them.”

“Don’t you have an innocent field mouse to kill or something?” Lorena said.

I was glad Lorena was there to defend me because I couldn’t. Wendy’s words were too true. Stiletto was rich, educated and aristocratic while I was nothing but a widowed cleaning woman’s daughter. Wendy had hit my soft spot and she knew it.

“Which one is Steve Stiletto?” Tess opened the program, searching for Stiletto’s head shot.

“Number three.” Wendy’s eyes glinted. “I was thinking I might bid on him, too.”

“No!” I said, before I could stop myself.

Tess flashed me a triumphant grin. “Let me bid for him, Wendy. He’s gorgeous.”

“That’s a wonderful idea, Tess,” Wendy said. “It is, after all, for a
good cause
.”

“Oh, go ahead and bid, Wendy,” the brunette suggested, as if this was some fun game. “After all, you are single again.”

Eeep!

Registering my reaction of absolute horror, Wendy was all too pleased to agree. “That’s true. All the winning couples get a room and private dinner at the Hotel Lehigh tomorrow night. A night with Steve Stiletto might be just what the doctor ordered. Lord knows I could use a good lay after years of sleeping with the human potato.”

She laughed so hard I thought for sure her surgically minimized nose would explode.

That knot in my stomach twisted a bit tighter. I had to outbid her, but how? Together or apart, Wendy and Tess had more money than I would ever have. Which, admittedly, wasn’t hard. Any industrious teenager with a paper route had more money than I had.

“Hey,” Lorena said, her hand behind her ear, “I think I hear your broom calling, Wendy.”

But it wasn’t Wendy’s broom. It was the opening bell.

The auction was already under way.

P
auline was onstage introducing the freckled basket-ball player when Wendy, Tess, and I took our seats. Lorena didn’t sit. She crept around the room looking for photo opportunities. Or other places to steal another quick smoke.

“In addition to serving on the board of Big Brother and Big Sister, K. C. donates one week each summer to teaching disadvantaged youth how to play basketball at his private estate in the Poconos,” Pauline read, introducing K. C. the basketball player. “K. C. is an avid golfer as well, hitting three under par, and he loves to sail his catamaran each spring from his beachfront home in Avalon, New Jersey, to his waterfront estate in the Caribbean!”

A chorus of “ohhs” rose from the audience. K. C. smiled and flipped back his tuxedo jacket to reveal a pair of slim hips set off by a plaid cummerbund. Several women bent their heads and took copious notes.

“Once voted Sexiest Man in Pennsylvania, K. C. is thirty-five, retired from playing for the Philadelphia ’76ers, and—are you ready, ladies?—actively looking for a soul mate to share his dream of raising a family in the brand-new home that he is building in bucolic Bucks County!” Pauline applauded briefly. “Shall we start the bidding at two hundred dollars?”

This was met with much more applause. K. C. winked and did another spin.

“Gay.”

I nearly fell off my seat. Lorena was crouched next to me in the aisle, adjusting the zoom on her camera. I hate when she creeps up on me like that.

“Not every single man above the age of thirty-three is gay,” I whispered.

She snapped a photo of a woman bidding two hundred fifty dollars. “He is. Got it from the guys in sports. Even has a life partner of ten years. The head chef of some fancy Philly restaurant. That’s why he’s retiring so young and quitting basketball, so he and his partner can adopt a baby from China and open a restaurant in Lumberville.”

A woman whose bid of four hundred fifty dollars had snagged K. C. jumped up and down applauding herself. The good-natured basketball star climbed off the stage, embraced her and bent down to kiss her warmly on the cheek. Then he went off to plant similar kisses on the losers. For a gay man with a life partner and a baby from China on the way, he was doing a pretty good job faking it.

I needed to get some color before the auction was over. I kept forgetting that I was actually filling in for Flossie and not here merely to hook up with Stiletto.

Jenna Szvakis, who was sitting in the back row next to her mother, was my solution. I’d been doing Jenna’s hair since she was six and even then she’d had a weight problem. Now she and her mother were taking up four folding chairs total and no one was sitting next to them, as if their excess weight was contagious.

Lorena slinked off to do her dirty work while I slid down one chair to Jenna. Jenna was in head-to-toe pink. It broke my heart.

“Hi, Jenna,” I said. “Don’t you look nice.”

Jenna looked up from her program where both K. C.’s and Stiletto’s faces had been circled in red marker. “Hey, Bubbles. Thanks. You, too.”

I had the feeling this compliment wasn’t completely sincere, judging from the way she cringed when she saw my purple nails.

“Mom and I were just talking about what happened down at the House of Beauty this afternoon. Is it true Sandy mixed up the wrong chemicals and poisoned that woman?”

“Absolutely not. We don’t know what happened, exactly, but it wasn’t Sandy’s fault.” Maybe I should wear a sign:
Debbie’s Death Was Not Sandy’s Fault
.

“See,” Jenna’s mom said. “I told you so. What are you doing at a bachelor auction, anyway, Bubbles? I thought you were getting remarried in a few days.”

I half sat on my left hand with its missing diamond ring. “I’m here on business.” I explained about now working forty hours at the
News-Times
and how I’d been assigned to cover the auction for “Talk of the Town.”

“Oooh.” Jenna blew out her puffy pink cheeks. “ ‘Talk of the Town.’ Big-time. I’d love to be mentioned there. My sister was when they had that baby shower at the school where she’s a teacher.”

Perfect. Eager to be in “Talk of the Town.” They would fit the bill. I wrote down their cute quotes about searching for the ultimate men, the joys of double dating and possibly double wedding ceremonies. I mean, how often do a mother and daughter hit the town to pick up men together?

The auction was starting up again. I held my breath as Pauline reached into a fishbowl to pull the number of the next bachelor.

“Number three. Steve Stiletto.”

I knew it. My face went red as Stiletto walked out, graciously kissed Pauline’s hand and bowed his head endearingly. He grinned as if this were a gas, though his eyes were searching the audience. For his new girlfriend, Sabina?

Or me?

Jenna said, “He’s hot. He’s my first choice.”

She wasn’t the only one.

As Pauline launched into her spiel about how great Stiletto was—award-winning international photographer, heir to the famous Henry Metzger fortune, blah, blah, blah—a buzz reverberated throughout the room. Several women sat up straight and got their numbers ready, including Tess, who was sitting across the aisle shooting me darting eye barbs.

The auctioneer banged the gavel. “Shall we start the bidding at two hun—”