Dial Me for Murder
Page 30
Abby cleared the dishes and served the dessert and coffee (she wouldn’t let me lift a finger!). Then, motioning for us to quiet down, she stood up and said, “It’s time for another sweet treat, you dig? While I spent the day basting the bird, our soulful hero, Jimmy ‘The Bard’ Birmingham, was writing a poem for this engaging occasion. And he’s going to read it for you now, kids, so listen up!”
Abby sat down and Jimmy stood up. Fingering his beard and looking slightly embarrassed, he took a crumpled piece of paper out of his hip pocket and began to read.
Slam pan man
Doin what you can
Hip hound
A cool hot dog
Blowin his tune
Rockin and sockin
With the mood
Mother of toils
Who told us so much
How high to climb
How low to fall
All been written
All been said
Wrongfully repeated
Often misread
Happy endings inside my head
A day anew
A lot too few
Umm . . . well, what can I say? There seemed to be a message in there somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. But who cared what the words meant, anyway? They were written by Jimmy Birmingham! The grooviest poet in Greenwich Village! The original slam pan man! The man who, along with his cool hot dog, had snatched me from the jaws of death! It was the best poem I ever heard in my whole darn life, and if I live to be a hundred (which is beginning to seem like a distinct possibility), I will never hear another one like it. (Unless Jimmy writes a sequel tomorrow—which is also a distinct possibility.)
After the poem, the chocolate cake, the coffee, and several additional rounds of champagne, Abby put a stack of 45s on the record player and tried to get everybody up to dance. Lenny, Jimmy, and Otto joined her on the floor—cavorting to the beat of Chuck Berry’s hot new single about a car named Maybellene— but Dan and I remained seated at the table, smooching, nuzzling, sighing, and making plans for the future.
We decided to get married in two weeks on the coast of Maine, in the small fishing village where Dan’s parents lived. We would take Katy with us, of course, but after the brief ceremony in the office of the local justice of the peace, she would spend the rest of the weekend with her grandparents in their cozy cottage on the bay. The weather would be cold and wet this time of year, but Dan and I would be warm and happy— making love by the fire in the Marrytime Suite at the Moby Dick Inn.
We wouldn’t be able to go on our honeymoon right away (I had a big story to write and Dan had two complex murder cases to wrap up, don’t ya know), but we were looking forward to the spring, when we would squander the advance from my Harrington House contract on a fabulous two-week holiday in—where else?—Hawaii. (I wanted to see how my dream would come out.)
As we sat cuddling at the table, sipping champagne and watching our goofy friends rock around the clock with Bill Haley and The Comets, I finally screwed up the courage to tell Dan that I had decided to keep my job at Daring Detective. I thought he was going to flip out and start yelling at me—maybe even (gasp!) threaten to break off our engagement—but I was wrong. He just gave me a sexy wink and said, “Look, I’ll be moving in with you soon, Paige, and I intend to keep a very close eye on you and keep you out of trouble. So if you want to hold on to your job, it’s fine with me. Just promise me one thing. No more unsolved murder stories, okay? No more dangerous investigations. No more chasing killers and meddling in police business. No more telling lies and keeping secrets.”
That sounded like six things to me, but I was in no mood to argue. “Don’t worry, babe,” I said. “I learned my lesson this time. I really like my life—especially now that I’ll be spending it with you—and I won’t risk it again. I promise you my sidewalk sleuthing days are over. For good.”
I meant it then, and I still mean it now. I’m going to stay in the office and stay out of danger—even if it kills me. I’m going to make coffee and clip newspapers and write in-house stories only. And no matter what happens—no matter how curious or fixated on a breaking murder story I become—I am never, ever, ever going to play detective again.
Honest.
About the Author
Amanda Matetsky has been an editor of many magazines in the entertainment field and a volunteer tutor and fund-raiser for Literacy Volunteers of America. Her first novel, The Perfect Body, won the NJRW Golden Leaf Award for Best First Book. Amanda lives in Middletown, New Jersey, with her husband, Harry, and their two cats, Homer and Phoebe, in a house full of old movie posters, original comic strip art, and books—lots of books. You can visit the author online at www.amandamatetsky.com.
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Hats off to my husband, Harry, who slogged through a bad case of writer’s block to pen the poems of Jimmy Birmingham. It was hard work, but somebody had to do it.