Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out (4 page)

Yeah, right.  “I’d be happy with just a hundred,” I said. 

Now, as the kids raced around the Hale house screaming, Becky emerged from her cavernous walk-in closet and fixed me with an appraising look.

“Thanks for keeping the kids tonight.  Usually I could just have Blake watch them, but he seems to have taken up residence at Jones McEwan lately.  I was considering installing a cot in his office, but I don’t want to encourage him.”

“I know.  Rick’s been at the office a lot lately, too.  But it’s no problem.  You know the kids love each other. It almost makes it easier.” 

“Right up to cleanup time, anyway.”

“I’ll just bribe them with Oreos.”  Becky pursed her cupid’s bow lips and ran a hand through her curly blonde hair.  “Now, what are we going to do with you? I think green’s a good color for you, don’t you? Something short, to show off your legs.”

I closed my eyes and relinquished the reins to Becky, who despite her children, always managed to look like she stepped out of a Talbot’s ad.  As Elsie and Nick joined Zoe and Josh in disassembling the house beyond the bedroom door, Becky plugged in a curling iron and squeezed me into a dress two sizes too small.  Then she assembled a cadre of brushes and unguents and went to work.

“How did you get this job, anyway?” she asked, clamping a curling iron onto a hank of my hair.  I jerked away as the hot metal grazed my ear. 

“It was the only thing in the paper that looked interesting.”  I winced as the hot iron brushed my ear again.  As Becky sprayed and crimped, I told her about my first encounter with Peaches Barlowe and Peachtree Investigations.  Becky had been at Disneyland with her kids for the last week and a half, so I hadn’t had a chance to fill her in.

When I finished, she fluffed my bangs and fixed me with a doubtful eye.  “It doesn’t sound like a really reputable agency.”

“Well, they’ve got enough work to hire me.  And she’s right; it
is
interesting.” I told her about Mr. Pence in the motel room and she snorted.

“What does Blake think?” She sucked in her breath.  “And what about Prudence?”

Prudence was my mother-in-law, the queen of twin sets and dinners with hand-lettered place cards.  I’m not exactly the daughter-in-law she had in mind.  In fact, I think she’s still reeling from the shock of our marriage, even though it happened almost eight years ago.  So far, I’d skirted the whole issue of my new part-time job, but it couldn’t last forever.

“Prue doesn’t know,” I said.  “And I haven’t told Blake the gory details.”

Becky shot me a wicked smile.  “I’ll bet not.  I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation…”

“I’m hoping it will never happen, but I know that’s being foolishly optimistic.”

“You know, for the sake of marital harmony, you could always do those at-home parties, like Mary Kay, or Tupperware.  Ellen Bentsen makes loads selling jewelry.”

I glanced up at her, but her heart-shaped face was lost behind a cloud of Finesse Ultra Hold.  “You know, you’d kill me if I suggested that to you.”

“Okay,” she said, pumping the sprayer a few more times, “maybe not Tupperware.  But why the P.I. gig?”

“I don’t know.  We needed the money.  To be honest, I didn’t know that’s what I was applying for at first.  And then when I found out, I figured I’d give it a shot.”

“At least it’s more exciting than being room mother.”  She sighed.  “I’m actually a little jealous.  I could use a little spice in my life.”  That didn’t surprise me.  Becky might look a little like one of the Stepford Wives, but beneath her polished exterior, she had a yen for adventure that chasing toddlers didn’t satisfy. 

An image of Irwin Pence and his paddle pal flashed through my mind.  “I forgot to tell you, I lost Elsie’s fry phone.  We talked about it earlier, but if she asks for it tonight, tell her it’ll turn up.”

Becky drew in her breath as the iron clacked down again, singing my other ear.  “Oh my God.  I can’t imagine what it would be like if Zoe lost Kermit.  She’d just die.  How did it happen?”

“I dropped it outside the room, and Pence picked it up.”

Becky’s eyebrows shot up.  “Mr. Saran Wrap? The one with the hooker?”

I started to nod, then stopped when my forehead hit hot metal.  “I know.  I’m just hoping I can find a new one.”

“Ouch.”  She snorted back a laugh.  “I guess you couldn’t just knock on the door and ask for it back, could you?”

I shot her a stern look from beneath the curling iron. 

“All right, all right.  I know it’s not funny.  But what are you going to do now? I mean, didn’t those go out of circulation like five years ago?”

“Yeah.  I can’t even find one on eBay.”

“Not good, Margie,” she said, spraying another cloud of liquid plastic.  “Not good.”

After another half an hour of prodding, singeing and smearing, Becky applied a last dab of mascara and stepped back to inspect her handiwork.  “I think you’re done.  Go take a look.”

I blinked at the unfamiliar person staring out of the full-length mirror.  My usually droopy reddish-brown hair had been teased to a wavy halo around my face, my thin lips had been plumped and slicked with fire engine-red lipstick, and my tired green eyes were ablaze in a rainbow of shimmery eyeshadow.  The rest of me had been stuffed into an emerald sheath dress, which was fine while I was upright. But I felt all circulation shut off to the bottom half of my body the moment I sat down. 

“Dear lord.  I look like the Happy Hooker.”

A furrow appeared in Becky’s smooth brow.  “Too much?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “That was exactly the look I was going for.”

#

At five-forty-five, I pulled the Caravan into a Deliveries Only parking spot across from the Bank One parking garage, slid a Hot Chocolate CD into the player and cranked up “You Sexy Thing.”  The mascara Becky had applied kept making the lashes of my right eye stick together, and the control top hose felt like two boa constrictors were getting cozy with my upper thighs.  In short, I felt about as sexy as Mrs. Potato Head.  As the music throbbed in the minivan’s crumb-encrusted interior, I pried my eyelashes apart for the sixth time and focused on the “I believe in miracles” part.

By six o’clock, I was having serious reservations about the life of a private investigator—and about Becky’s wardrobe selection.  The dress cinched into my waist, pushing my diaphragm up to right under my chin, and my breathing was so fast and shallow it sounded like I was practicing for Lamaze class.  I reclined the seat a few inches to relieve the pressure, convinced that whatever brain cells had survived two pregnancies were now expiring from oxygen deprivation.

I had just inched back to an almost prone position when someone rapped at the window.  I hit the window button and rolled it down.

“Hey!” It was a short, skinny red-headed guy in a blue uniform with a Lone Star Delivery patch affixed to the chest.  I found myself staring at his nose, which was huge, erupting from the middle of his narrow face like Mount Fuji.  “You can’t park here.  I’ve got a truck.”

I tore my eyes from his nose and saw that he was right. He’d double-parked his truck right next to me, blocking my exit.

At that moment, a red Miata swung out of the Bank One parking garage.  I scrabbled for my notes and checked the plate number.  It was a match.

“Lady! You gotta move!”

“You’re in my way!” I barked, lurching to a sitting position.  I threw the van into reverse and slammed into a parking meter.  Then I put it in drive and swerved out into the street, smacking the front of the truck with the back half of the Caravan.  As I gunned the engine, a shudder ran through the minivan’s frame, and something clattered to the pavement.

“Are you fucking insane?” he screeched from somewhere behind me.

I glanced in the rearview mirror.  Fuji-nose stood in the middle of the street, shaking his scrawny arms at me.  A few feet in front of him, like an orphaned child, lay my back bumper.

I returned my seat to an upright position and tried to concentrate on breathing and following the Miata, but my thoughts kept returning to my mangled minivan.  Was it possible that the damage was just cosmetic?  Had I remembered to pay the insurance premium? And how was I going to explain this to Blake?

My mind was still straining to recall the details of my insurance when Jack Emerson cruised into a parking spot on Fourth Street and climbed out of the little red car.  He was an attractive man in his late thirties, with clean-cut salt-and-pepper hair and a tall, trim frame clad in charcoal slacks and a white shirt.  At the sight of his lean body striding down the sidewalk, my already compressed chest deflated further.  It was going to take more than a miracle to get Emerson to want to go to bed with me.  I was thinking mind-altering drugs and duct tape.

I pulled the minivan into the only vacant space—another Deliveries Only spot—and unfolded myself from the driver’s seat, enjoying the first full breath I’d had in an hour.  Then I took a peek at the back of the minivan and almost choked.  The rear left panel had imploded, and it looked as if someone had tried to pry the rest of the back end off with a crowbar.  Could they reattach bumpers? Maybe I could swing by and pick it up later. 

A car door slammed somewhere, reminding me that the reason my minivan looked like a can of Friskies after a run-in with a pack of starving cats was that I had been sent out to seduce George Clooney.

I wrenched my eyes away from the carnage.  Then I breathed in as deeply as I could, smoothed down my dress, and trotted after Emerson as fast as was possible in a pair of black Ferragamo slingbacks two sizes too big.

After a half-block walk, he stopped in front of a bar and slipped through the dark entrance.  Good.  Dim lights and liquor.  It wasn’t duct tape, but it was a start. 

I loitered near the entrance for a moment and slipped in behind him, flashing a grimace at the bouncer as I tottered over the threshold.

 Entering the chilly darkness of the Rainbow Room was a little like stepping into an oversized meat locker.  My eyes strained to adjust to the dim light.  At first, the only things visible were streaks of neon and the glow of cigarettes.  After a moment, I could make out several groups of fashionably dressed men and women clumped around a cavernous room, plumes of gray spiraling up from their cigarettes like smoke signals.  The building had probably been a warehouse in its previous life. Now, it was dominated by a long runway in the center, cool tubes of blue and pink neon everywhere else, and above it all the heavy beat of dance music.  The place reeked of spilled beer, cigarette smoke, and the musky smell of bodies.  This was definitely not the Green Meadows PTA meeting. 

When I could see enough to move, I shuffled forward a few steps and scanned the room for Emerson.  He was sitting at end of the curved bar.  I adjusted the hem of my skirt, sucked in another shallow breath, and wobbled in his direction.

I hoisted myself onto the vacant stool two down from Emerson, sucking in my tummy and trying to look sultry yet nonchalant.  As I directed an airy wave toward the bartender, the gold band on my left hand glinted in the blue light. 
Crap
.

 I yanked my hand back and buried it in my lap as the bartender, a tall Adonis-like creature whose half-buttoned silk shirt revealed a chest like sealskin, glided over.

“Can I help you?”

“Gin and tonic,” I said, tugging at my wedding ring under the bar.  It was stuck just beneath my knuckle.  “Extra large.”

He cocked a sculpted eyebrow at me.  “They only come in one size.”

“Oh.  Well, whatever size they come in, then.” He slicked back his blond hair and reached back for a glass.   I slid my eyes over to Emerson, who had half-turned in my direction, and gave the ring a sharp, desperate tug.

As Emerson’s eyes met mine, the gold band slipped past my knuckle and zinged across the smoky room.  It made brief contact with the substantial derriere of a short redhead before clinking to the black tile floor and disappearing into a tangle of chrome chair legs.

His eyes followed its trajectory.  “Lose something?”

The blood rushed to my face.  “I’ll be right back.”  I got off the barstool and lurched across the room, the slingbacks slipping on the waxed floor as I plowed through the jungle of tables and chairs.  Emerson watched with interest as I held my breath and lowered myself to my knees, groping under the chairs for my wedding band.  It had landed in a pool of pink gooey stuff. 

I pried it up and tottered back to my seat, clutching the sticky ring behind my back.  Unfortunately, by the time I returned, a sleek woman with glossy brown hair had sidled over to the barstool between us and was leaning into Emerson as if he were the only thing holding her up.

On the plus side, Adonis had returned with my gin and tonic.  After wrapping my ring in a napkin and burying it in my miniscule purse, I grabbed the drink and downed half of it.  Then I shot a glance at the slender brunette, whose handkerchief-sized dress exposed several acres of tanned, unblemished back, and drank the rest. 

As I perched on my stool, watching the ice cubes in my glass quiver in time with the music, I began to wonder what I was doing here.  My dress was cutting off the blood supply to my lower body, my eyelashes were stuck together, and the minivan looked like it had recently starred as a speed bump in a Monster Truck special.  And for what? The man I had spent the last two hours preparing to seduce was wrapped around a brunette ten years my junior. 

I stirred the quivering ice cubes with a moody finger.  Maybe Becky was right, and I should hand in my badge.  Or whatever it was that P.I.s carried to say they were P.I.s.  The brunette snuggled in closer to Emerson, and I decided it was time for another gin and tonic.  I was trying to flag down Adonis when a woman’s manicured hand closed on my right arm.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?”

I whirled around and blinked.  At first I thought she had woolly bear caterpillars on her face.  Then I realized they were false eyelashes.  My gaze drifted south to her substantial figure, which had been stuffed into a bright orange cocktail dress.  The plunging neckline ended just shy of her navel.