But the thing—or, rather, the man—she bragged about most was her husband, plumber Phil Shatsky. A colorless, weak-chinned doughboy who could install a whirlpool tub in the bathroom while whipping up a mean crème brûlée in the kitchen. It was enough to make a middle-aged woman go all crazy, thinking about Phil with an apron on, scrubbing the stove and—pant—matching socks from the laundry.
And those weren’t the only devastatingly sexy stunts in Phil’s repertoire. He also took out the garbage without being asked, vacuumed the house twice a week, swirled Ti-Dee Bowl in the toilets, scraped leaves from the gutters and did all the grocery shopping—with coupons!
Plus, he never, ever watched televised sports.
On this the female population in our steel town of Lehigh, Pennsylvania, agreed: you could keep your George Clooney; give us a Phil Shatsky any day. Phil Shatsky was a Swiffer-bearing god above all men.
Unfortunately, Deb’s favorite place to brag about Phil happened to be in our little pink-walled salon, the House of Beauty, where innocent clients were forced to listen to Phil’s feats of greatness, held captive, as they were, by their noble pursuit of beautiful hair and all the strenuous sitting that is required.
“I feel kind of sorry for everyone else, not having husbands who dote on them like Phil does me,” Debbie prattled as Sandy and I slaved over her complicated up do. “I mean, I married the perfect guy. You have to admit, I’m the luckiest woman alive.”
“You’re the luckiest woman alive,” Sandy had to admit.
“I just know other women hate me for it.”
“I’m sure no one hates you.” Sandy smeared on some glue and affixed another champagne blond hair extension to Debbie’s scalp so Debbie could have the biggest hair at the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local #10 annual Christmas ball that evening. “Right, Bubbles?”
I was pretty sure people hated Debbie, so I didn’t say anything. If you can’t say something nice about a person, then sit next to me, was the way my mother’s favorite saying went.
Besides, Debbie wasn’t my client, so I wasn’t obligated to suck up. I no longer worked at the House of Beauty, now that I was a full-time reporter at the
News-Times
. The only reason I was there was because my former boss and forever best friend, Sandy, was swamped. It was the Christmas season, her busiest time of the year. Also, the nuttiest.
This was when Sandy lost all control and turned the House of Beauty into Santa’s crack house. Blinking lights were strung everywhere. Tinsel dangled from every mirror. Mistletoe hung over every doorway. There was not just one normal-sized Christmas tree, but three, including a miniature one covered in red-and-green-foil Hershey Kisses that Sandy kept by her register. Not to mention the maniacal plastic Kris Kringles smiling from every window.
And if that weren’t enough to cause permanent brain damage, consider that the standard House of Beauty smog of Final Net and nail polish fumes was mixed with Lysol Holiday Pine Breeze. Don’t even get me started on the music. If I never again hear Karen Carpenter whine “Merry Christmas, Darling,” it won’t be too soon.
Sandy gave me one of her meaningful stares, an ocular order to play along with Debbie’s need for reassurance. My best friend was under a lot of pressure these days to keep customers happy now that a competing salon—Jeffrey Andre—had opened up in our newly revitalized “warehouse” district. I understood what she needed me to say.
“Of course no one hates you, Debbie. Sandy’s right.”
Sandy mouthed,
Thank you
.
“You’re only saying that because you don’t know Marguerite,” Debbie said.
“Marguerite?”
“This desperate housewife who’s trying to get her claws into my husband, though as far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t stand a chance of spit in a windstorm. I mean, Phil choose someone over me?
Puhleese.
Marguerite would have to step over my dead body first.”
I tried not to strangle her as she smiled approvingly at her reflection in the mirror.
Debbie took a sip of bottled water and continued chattering. “Have I ever told you Phil does the laundry? He does. Folds and puts away. Pretreats, too. Plus, he even watches Lifetime with me. I can’t tell you how many nights we’ve spent in front of the TV, Phil and I, crying our eyes out over some Victoria Principal movie. And the next thing I know, there we are making the kind of passionate, toe-curling love you only see in those videos. He even lets me sleep on the dry side of the bed afterward.”
Was it hot in here? I shifted my feet. Sandy’s pupils were dilated, imagining a night of masculine laundry folding, Lifetime viewing and dry-sheet sleeping.
“Yessirree, Phil and I are bound to one another till death do us part.”
Sandy’s eyes met mine. She didn’t have to speak, I knew what she was thinking:
Till death do us part, Bubbles
.
Sandy had been on my case lately because I’d ruined all chances of marrying my own soul mate, the devastatingly sexy Associated Press photographer Steve Stiletto. He of the flashing blue eyes and the tight, creased jeans. The one man who could make my heart stop with a knowing look, the brush of his hand, the suggestive twitch of his lips.
The first time I met Stiletto we were thrown together on an assignment to cover a “jumper” from the Philip J. Fahy Bridge. I knew it was trouble when Stiletto not only violated police orders by climbing onto the bridge, but also positioned himself on a precipice fifty feet above the Lehigh River—just so he could get a great shot of my legs. Also of me falling over the edge.
Of course, any man like that is full of himself, an egotist, overconfident and infamous for having brief, fiery relationships with foolish women. Of course, I was madly in love with him.
What Sandy couldn’t understand was why I’d turned down Stiletto’s marriage proposal (and returned his three-carat Harry Winston ring) so I could remarry my ex-husband, Dan, aka “Chip,” Ritter.
What Sandy didn’t know was that Dan was blackmailing me.
How to describe Dan. He’s a lawyer, though not what you’d call high caliber, seeing as he has already been disbarred once and kicked out of his firm with a court order never to return. Plus, he advertises on urinals. How classy is that?
These days he’s a personal-injury attorney who habitually leaves his business card on icy parking lots, on grocery aisle floors where Tide’s been spilled (by him, no doubt) or any place where a slip and a fall could mean bucks in his pocket.
I had to remarry Dan for one reason and one reason only. I got pregnant—eighteen years ago.
And now our seventeen-year-old daughter, Jane, was going through a serious crisis from being kidnapped last month. After much analysis, the family counselor we’d been seeing, Dr. Lori Caswell, decided the blame for Jane’s trauma lay with me and me only. I am, in her professional opinion, an unfit mother, a selfish career woman who through negligence and risk exposed Jane to an extraordinarily nasty crime.
According to Dr. Caswell, I lack even the basic skills of mothering since I let Jane live on A-Treat and Tastykakes and allowed her to pierce several body parts and wear ripped jeans to school. Add to that my licentious relationship with Stiletto, our many nights in his mansion achieving sexual heights that in some parts of Georgia are grounds for imprisonment, and it was a wonder the division of family services hadn’t knocked on my door sooner.
Should a judge ask, Dr. Lori Caswell informed me, she was fully prepared to report that Jane should be barred from any and all contact with me and she should move in with Dan. Unless Dan and I remarried. Then Jane could live with both of us—provided Dan kept vigilant watch over my erratic behavior.
Dan had already asked me to remarry him, but I had wavered. Now, with Dr. Caswell’s declaration, he held the trump card. I needed to either say yes to his proposal once and for all or lose my daughter. If I turned him down, he vowed to seek an emergency custody revocation order and have Jane removed from my home by Christmas.
So as much as I despised him, as much as I could not bear to sit across the table in view of his puffy face or even hold his fat hand, I said yes. But I agreed only because Jane wanted Dan and me together as parents. She told me she felt safer in a home with a father and a mother under the same roof, more secure, more
normal
. And I would have done anything,
anything,
for Jane to feel normal again.
Next I knew, Dan had started divorce proceedings against his socialite wife, Wendy, in the highly respected jurisdiction of Guam. I had no idea where Guam was. I’d flunked that course: “Seven Foreign Countries Where You Can Get a Quickie Divorce” at my alma mater, Two Guys Community College. Apparently Guam is not a foreign country, but part of America, according to information I later received. (Damn Two Guys and its used 1949 textbooks.)
With the divorce almost final, Dan had arranged for us to get rehitched on Saturday. In fact, as soon as I was done with Debbie, he was picking me up to apply for the license at city hall.
Sandy had no idea what a terrible dagger Dan was holding over me. I was too embarrassed to confide even to her that a psychologist had ruled me an unfit mother. Of all my failures in life—and, trust me, I’ve failed more than most—this was the absolute worst.
Nor had I been able to tell Stiletto. I mean, what would he think if he knew that I was too much of a screw-up to raise a kid? He’d find me revolting, that’s what. Better he remain under the misimpression I was remarrying Dan simply for the sake of Jane and leave it at that.
Though, God, I did miss him. Missed the way his capable hands would slide over my bare hips, how he pressed his hard naked body against me, purposeful, unrelenting, determined . . .
“Hey!” Debbie gave me a dirty look. I realized I’d been yanking her hair.
“Sorry,” I apologized. It was true what they said in magazines. Sexual frustration can lead to baldness, but only if it’s your hairdresser who’s frustrated.
Debbie returned to her cell call. I stopped thinking about Stiletto and concentrated on the up do. And then, just as we were finishing her hair extensions and I was applying the last coat of shellac, uh, Final Net, the most awful, devastating, horrific event ever to befall the House of Beauty befell.
Debbie blinked and rubbed her eyes. “Is it getting warmer in here? I feel dizzy.”
That was when I noticed the red blotches. First on her neck.
Hickey,
I thought, immediately reconsidering when another red blotch appeared under her ear.
I motioned for Sandy to take a look.
Sandy’s very practical and not easily flustered. She wears peach polyester uniforms and keeps her curly brown hair tied up neatly in a matching peach bow. She padded over to inspect.
“Debbie?” she inquired. “Do you feel okay?”
Debbie was clutching her stomach, the cell phone shaking in her hand. “What’s wrong with me? I feel so dizzy. I feel like something bad is going to happen.” She began to scratch maniacally. Little red welts were popping up all over her arms. Her nose was running like a dripping faucet.
The welts. The dizziness. The running nose. This was an allergic reaction.
“Debbie, are you allergic to anything?” I asked.
“Latex,” Sandy said, adding quickly, “but I didn’t use it.”
“Not that.” Debbie wheezed. “Remember? Wheat . . . fatal. Shouldn’t forget.”
A fatal wheat allergy? Holy crap!
Suddenly, Debbie brought her hand to her throat. “Ugh” was all she could manage. “Ugh.” Her tongue was swelling and she was breathing funny.
Sandy’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I’m calling 911.”
Completely panicked now, I leaned over and slapped Debbie’s cheeks. She was going. She was going fast. This was a code blue. Whatever that was.
Sudafed,
I thought, grabbing my purse and searching for Benadryl or any antihistamine I could find through the mess of lipsticks, pens, paper, bank receipts and assorted tampons. So much makeup. All my Maybelline for a single EpiPen.
“Does anyone have any Benadryl?” I hollered across the salon.
Sissy Dolan and Trula Kramer, octogenarians in hearing aids, lifted their hair dryers. “What?” they both hollered. “There’s a fire drill?”
Oscar, Sandy’s miniature poodle, hopped off his plaid doggy bed and began yipping madly just to add to the commotion. I wanted to slap some sense into all of them.
Sandy was on the phone describing the scene to the dispatcher. Before I knew it, sirens were blaring across the South Side. Alerted by their uncanny sixth sense for incoming tragedy, a crowd of babushkas gathered outside, equipped with aluminum lawn chairs and bags of popcorn for the free show. Then an ambulance pulled up and emergency crews rushed through the door. They were so fast, they must have been next door at Manny’s Bar and Grille having a beer when the call came in.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Sandy directed them to Debbie, whose face was now a queer shade of purple. I stepped back and looked away while they did their jobs.
“Where’s the fire?” Tula Kramer said, rollers stuck all over her gray hair. “I don’t smell no smoke.”
Sandy gathered Oscar into her arms and began petting madly as the medics pounded on Debbie’s chest and applied oxygen. Finally, after zapping her a couple times with portable defibrillators, they lifted Debbie onto a stretcher, tucked a white sheet around her and carried her to the ambulance.
They left behind Lehigh detective Monica Wilson, otherwise known as “Vavavavoom” or “Vava,” for short.
Vava used to be a knockout before she became a cop, starting out as a lowly meter maid and working her way up to the rank of detective. She was busty and tall and gorgeous with high cheekbones and the kind of figure that made men forget their first names.
Vava brought out a tablet and began asking Sandy and me questions: who was Debbie, how old was she, who was her next of kin.