A Bad Day for Romance (5 page)

“
We?
” Chrissy protested. “Hey, I got an appointment for a bikini wax this afternoon.”

“Ain’t nobody going to see your special area in your dress,” Stella said calmly.

“But Ian’s coming tomorrow morning!”

“That gives us twenty-four hours to get this straightened out, doesn’t it? And he can deal with a little stubble. I don’t think he’ll much mind.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Dotty sniffled. “It don’t even matter if you can’t get them all back here for the rehearsal dinner, we’ll manage without them. As long as they’re here for the wedding.”

“I hate to say it,” Chrissy said, “but, Dotty, you don’t even seem to
like
most of them.”

“Well, that’s true,” Dotty said, ticking names off her fingers. “Taffy’s just got worse over the years, Divinity’s so stuck-up I can’t believe no one’s put an arrow through
her
backside yet, and just being in a room with Marty for fifteen minutes makes me feel like I been dipped in cooking oil. But they’re family, you know, so even if I don’t like them, I got to
love
them.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Stella and Chrissy agreed in unison.

After all, they had families of their own.

CHAPTER FOUR

STELLA LET CHRISSY DRIVE, A RISKY
proposition, so she could make a few calls. Mercy Hospital was on the southern end of Kansas City, only forty-five minutes away, but the way Chrissy drove it was liable to take twice that unless she got distracted by conversation, in which case she tended to take her eyes off the road and let her foot press farther and farther down on the gas pedal until she was tearing down the fast lane guided by nothing but luck.

Stella’s first call was to Novella Glazer, the most voluble of the Green Hat Ladies, a scrum of octogenarian ladies who’d planned to form an outpost of the better-known Red Hat Society until Gracie Lewis’s husband offered up half a dozen brand-new John Deere promotional ball caps from his feed store. If there was one thing the Green Hat Ladies knew, it was that free is a bargain any day of the week, and they proudly sported their chapeaus at the daily lunch meeting at the Prosper Popeye’s Chicken.

But thriftiness was the least of the ladies’ virtues. They were also wise and generous and keen for gossip. Stella made a practice of calling on them for help in her thornier cases. If there was a rumor that needed to be backed up, a relationship that needed untangling, an event that needed to be put in historical context, you couldn’t find a better panel of experts.

Crowdsourcing, Prosper style.

Novella picked up after only a couple of rings. “How’s the weather down there, Stella?” she asked without bothering to say hello. “I’m trying to decide if I should bring the fox.”

Novella was well known for her ancient fox stole, one end of which sported a moldering tail and the other, the fox’s head, which appeared to have been prepared fairly early in the taxidermist’s career. Stella herself had sat behind Novella in church staring into the thing’s beady glass eyes, unable to tear her gaze away from the clumsily stitched leer, which gave the fox an air of lechery.

“I’d say you’re good without it, since there ain’t a speck of rain in the forecast and it’s heading up toward seventy today, but I got bigger fish for you to fry.”

“You got a new case?” Novella demanded eagerly. “Who’s done what now?”

That was the downside of enlisting the Green Hat Ladies—they expected to be rewarded with full disclosure. It was a tricky dance, though they had proved discreet when needed.

“I can’t talk about it yet,” Stella hedged. The minute the ladies got to the resort, they’d not only ferret out the details of the camping tragedy, but communicate them all to those back home in Prosper. Delaying the news as long as possible was the least Stella could do for the Flycock family. “But listen, there’s a few alterations need done on Dotty’s gown. And a few of the bridesmaids’. Nothing too major,” Stella lied. “And you’re just so good with a needle.”

“Stella, you know I’d love to, I really would, but they’re running
House
back-to-back on Bravo tonight and I just can’t get enough of that Hugh Laurie. My heavens, I could just eat that man up.”

“Novella, this is serious! This is Dotty’s
wedding
we’re talking about! Of course, I guess I could give Shirlette a call. Come to think of it, she was in my advanced serger class last fall, she was practically teaching it herself. I guess she’s probably the better person for the job.” Stella held her breath, hoping Novella would take the bait.

“Why, Shirlette couldn’t stitch a straight line if you paid her!” Novella squawked. “Back in home ec she used to have to rip all her seams. She never did learn how to set in a sleeve. Don’t be calling her, Stella, or Dotty’s gonna look like she’s on that
What Not to Wear
.”

“Well, I just don’t know what we’ll do, then.”

“Oh, hell, I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Give me an hour to get Len fed and I’ll swing around and get Gracie. She won’t mind coming up a day early with me.”

Stella thanked Novella and hung up.

“Shame on you,” Chrissy said. “Pitting those old birds against each other that way.”

“Aw, don’t shame me, they’re all just looking for a reason to get out of the house. Also maybe don’t be taking up two lanes,” she added, as Chrissy nearly sideswiped a church bus.

Stella resisted grabbing the wheel several more times, and they arrived at Mercy Hospital without mishap. After almost taking out the ticket dispenser at the parking garage, Chrissy managed to park more or less in a single space on her second try, and they hurried to find Divinity’s hospital room.

It turned out not to be difficult. Once the volunteer at the information desk had directed Stella and Chrissy to Divinity’s floor, they stepped off the elevator to a volley of screeching.

“Stoooooop! You’re hurting me, you’re hurtinghurtinghurting!”

“If you’d just
please
hold still—”

A tall, silver-haired woman wearing what looked like a giant lavender karate suit burst out of the room, clasping her hands to her ears. When she saw Stella and Chrissy, she took her hands away and her face lit up in a bright grin.

“Stella Hardesty, what on earth are you doing here?” she demanded, wrapping her arms around her in a tight hug. “Did Dotty send you up to check on us?”

“Yes, she did, and it sounds like I’m just in time. Do you need me to go slap some duct tape on that child’s mouth?”

Tilly giggled before releasing her and turned to Chrissy, hugging her, too. Strands of colorful beads clicked gently around her neck and silvery bangles jingled at her wrists. “And you’re Loreen’s youngest, aren’t you?”

“No ma’am, Susie’s the baby. It goes Mac, Lorrie, Danyelle, Pete, me, and Sue.”

“Aw, God bless your mom and Ralph, having all of you kids!”

“God bless them for sure,” Chrissy agreed reverently.

“Oh, now.” Tilly gave her a playful wink. “Don’t you be doing it, too.”

“What’d I do?”

“You don’t got to be careful around me just because I’m a reverend now. I ain’t
that
kind of holy. Fact is, I believe I just committed a few sins of the heart myself.”

“Like wanting to strangle your own flesh and blood?” Stella guessed, as the screeching started up again in the room.

Tilly rolled her eyes. “It’s
stitches
, Stella, not the second coming of the Lord the way she seems to think. If any of mine carried on that way, I’d take a switch to ’em.”

“How bad hurt was your niece, Mrs. McAfee?”

“She fell out of a tree, maybe twenty feet up. She hit a couple branches on the way down and got some nice scratches here and there. One on her neck’s going to look nice for Halloween. She can pretend she got bit by a vampire. And that little shaved patch looks kind of strange. Her ankle ain’t nothing, a little ice would have fixed it up. She’s got a little cast on her arm… but other than that it’s mostly little cuts and bruises. And all that poor nurse is doing is trying to change her bandages. I told Taffy I had to make a call.” Tilly shrugged. “I guess I could call us up a pizza, so’s I’m not lying.”

“I think the Big Guy’ll give you a pass on that one,” Stella said reassuringly. “Look, we’re here because Dotty’s just beside herself thinking you all might have to miss her wedding. She says they won’t spring Divinity until they figure out who killed Bryant, so I told her I’d come up and, uh…”

“Grease the wheels?” Tilly said helpfully. Stella didn’t miss the twinkle in her eye, the same one from back when she was trying to teach Stella and Dotty to smoke, or daring them to steal licorice from the five-and-dime, or enlisting them to TP the principal’s house. “Well, I won’t say no. I wouldn’t mind getting down to the resort myself. But you might have drove up here for nothing, because they’re getting ready to release Divinity from the hospital right now. Ordinarily I’d think we’d need to schedule in some grieving for Bryant, but I must say that she’s taking his passing remarkably well.”

There was a silence while Chrissy and Stella absorbed that piece of information. “Huh,” Chrissy eventually said, as they filed into the room.

They nearly collided with the nurse, who was backing out of the room with his hands up placatingly. “Doctor’ll be in in a minute with your release papers,” he said, then turned and practically ran down the hall.

When Stella got a clear view of Divinity, she had to cover her mouth to stop herself from gasping. The girl was a remarkable study in contrasts, or perhaps a life model for a Picasso painting. One half of her face looked relatively normal, but the other half supported the initial rumor of an animal mauling: her eye was blackened, lip split, cheek purpled and bruised; a bandage ran from her collarbone up to her jaw, which was scraped and scabbed. Neat rows of stitches decorated her arm and the half moon under her eye. A pink cast wrapped around her left arm and her manicure, on the fingers peeping from the cast, looked like it had been through the wringer, the polish peeling and nails broken.

Behind her, Taffy wrung her hands and murmured placatingly, while her husband hovered dejectedly in the corner of the room, his hands jammed in his pockets. Stella hadn’t seen the Flycocks in years, since they’d moved out to a ritzy section of Fairfax, where Marty could build his realty empire, but they looked exactly as she would have expected. Marty had a stiff anchorman hairstyle that he almost surely dyed, given that it was a shade of dark brown rarely seen on fifty-something white guys, and his trench coat was decorated with the kind of plaid lining designed to let you know he spent about ten times as much on it as he had to. A little lace collar perched at the top of Taffy’s unflattering cardigan, and her hair looked like she kept a cake dome on top to protect it after the hairdresser sprayed the hell out of it. Given that she and Tilly were identical twins, it took a moment to sort out the resemblance.

“Look who came to visit,” Tilly said warmly. “Stella, and she brought Chrissy Shaw!”

“I remember y’all from pageant days,” Chrissy said helpfully. “It’s sure nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Flycock. And look at you, Divinity—why, you poor little beat-up thing.”

While Stella said her own greetings she watched Chrissy nervously; that particular smile was dangerous.

“Let’s let them visit,” Tilly said to her sister and brother-in-law. “Come on, you guys, let’s get some coffee while they wait on the release papers.”

“They’re sending a
wheelchair
,” Taffy said.

“We have to go see the
sheriff
,” Marty added. “Which isn’t convenient at all. I told them I’m trying to close a deal by end of business today. I’ve got paperwork like you wouldn’t believe.” The pair of them seemed to be looking for someone to blame, and Stella was glad when Tilly got them out of the room.

“I remember you,” Divinity said to Chrissy, curling what was left of her lip. “You got kicked out because you were too fat.”

Chrissy regarded her blandly. “And they let you stay even though that judge had to get a tetanus shot when you bit her.”

“Hang on a second there,” Stella said hastily. “What Chrissy means to say is that we’re both just so awfully sorry about your fiancé’s passing.”

Divinity turned frosty brown eyes her way. “Thank you.” She sniffed. “Although, Bryant and I had broken off the engagement.”

“And yet there you were on a camping trip with him.” Chrissy steadfastly ignored Stella’s dagger stare, the one that was meant to telegraph
behave
. “Out in the forest, just the two of you and all that nature. I got to say, that ain’t the way I usually celebrate breaking up with someone.”

“We still have—had—mutual business interests. Bryant was my manager.”

“What all kind of promotion brings you out to the middle of the woods? Seems like there wouldn’t be a whole lot of folks for you to sing to out in the middle of nowhere.”

“I can’t imagine why you’re asking,” Divinity said. “But I’ll just tell you the same thing I told the cops, which is that we were having a working retreat. I have auditions coming up and we were preparing for them.”

“You gonna audition like that?” Chrissy said dubiously. “With your face and all?”

Stella shot out a hand and pinched the soft underside of her assistant’s bicep, a move she’d perfected on Noelle back when her daughter was little. Chrissy swatted at her and yelped, while Divinity glared.

“I hear you’re singing at the wedding,” Stella said.

“I’m doing a duet with my old roommate Lexie. I
better
be, anyway,” Divinity said grimly. “There’s going to be a scout there.”

“Really?” Stella mentally inventoried all of Dotty’s friends and family and didn’t turn up a single talent scout.

“Yes—Leif Torgrimson,” Divinity said primly. “He went to school with Kam.”

“What the hell kind of name is that?” Chrissy demanded. “
Leaf?
Like on a tree?”

“It’s, like, Dutch or something. I don’t know.” Divinity shrugged impatiently. “He and Kam were in the same dorm, Dotty told me. He lives in L.A. now. He discovered Troy Olsen. You know, that sang ‘Liquor’s Quicker’?”