Jealousy Filled Donuts

by Ginger Bolton

  Her usually musical laugh sounded a little strained. “Hardly.”

  In the kitchen, I took three yummy cheeses—Amber Mist, Manchego, and Camembert—out of the fridge and arranged them on a large tray with crackers, cheese knives, and sweet pickled baby cucumbers. I placed the cheese tray, three plates, three wineglasses, and some cute cocktail napkins on the granite-topped island where we’d all be able to reach everything.

  Fingers tapped on the front door. Making a funny chirping noise, Dep bounded to the living room.

  I was sure my visitors would be Misty and Samantha, but I peeked outside, anyway.

  Misty and Samantha were each holding a bottle of wine up near the peephole where I’d be sure to see it.

  Laughing, I opened the door and invited them in. Both were in shorts, cool tops, and sandals. For a second, I thought that Samantha’s hair was its original brown, but then I saw the subtle navy streak in front of her left ear.

  “None of us has to work tomorrow,” Misty explained. “Let’s party!” Did I detect wariness in those blue eyes?

  Samantha cast a quick glance up at our tall friend and then looked at me. By the second glass of wine, I thought, Samantha and I will hear about whatever is bothering Misty.

  I’d already thanked Misty for telling Rex Clobar that I wouldn’t harm anyone, so I thanked Samantha, too.

  Both of them shrugged it off. “You’d say the same for either of us,” Samantha said.

  Misty added, “I’m only sorry that you left us for those few minutes to go get your sweater and we couldn’t say for certain that we knew where you were every second.”

  Samantha’s grin reminded me of her impish smiles back in junior high. “Too bad Brent wasn’t with us during the fireworks. You could have cuddled up to him.”

  “Or sent him for my sweater,” I said.

  Samantha did a little dance step. “She doesn’t deny the cuddling.”

  “Alleged cuddling,” I corrected her. “Why would I deny something that can’t happen?”

  Misty and Samantha giggled. I did my best to ignore them, helped by Dep, who galloped into the kitchen. We followed her and feasted on cheese, crackers, pickles, and wine. Dep wandered into the sunroom and sat on a windowsill where she could keep track of the yard outside.

  After about the seventh time that Misty sighed, I asked, “Is something wrong, Misty?” We were only on our first glasses of wine.

  She broke a cracker in two. “I think I know why Scott doesn’t like me.”

  I contradicted her. “Of course he likes you.”

  Samantha added, “Scott likes everyone.”

  “That’s just it.” Misty sighed again. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m crazy about him. He’s just about perfect. But he likes me the same way he likes everyone else, and I was hoping he’d automatically be as interested in me as I am in him. He likes you, Emily.”

  “In the same way he likes everyone else,” I argued. “I’m just a friend. I’m sure he knows I don’t want to go out with anyone.”

  “But you’re always nice to him. I’m not.”

  Samantha moved the wine bottle farther from Misty. “You’re cut off.”

  I said, “Misty, you’re nice to everyone.”

  Misty ran her fingers through her long blond hair. “Not when I’m on duty.”

  I contradicted her. “I’ve seen you on duty. You’re always kind.”

  Samantha remained very noticeably quiet and watchful. She had to have witnessed Misty at more emergencies than I had.

  Misty scowled. “Not always. Like the night of the Fourth of July, and last October, too, out at Little Lake Lodge. When I have to manage a scene and take statements, I’m bossy and treat everyone, including Scott, like potential criminals. I order Scott around. No wonder he doesn’t like me.”

  I eased a slice of Amber Mist onto a cracker. “When you’re doing crowd control at a fire or a collision that Scott’s attending as fire chief, how does Scott treat you?”

  Still obviously annoyed with herself, Misty muttered, “Not like a criminal.”

  “Misty, I’ve seen him at fires and collisions lots of times,” Samantha reminded her. “He’s businesslike and abrupt, and he’s not afraid to order people to move back. I’ll bet he’s told you what to do at times, like when there’s a fire or other hazard.”

  “That’s different,” Misty claimed. “He does that to protect us.”

  Samantha slanted a look at her. “Misty, do you like him any less because he’s doing his job?”

  “Of course not. He’s always kind. I’m not.”

  Samantha and I just looked at her.

  “I guess I could change,” Misty admitted. “Or try to. If it’s not too late.”

  I suggested, “You don’t need to change, but why don’t we all get together again when none of you are on duty and no one has to order anyone else to move back or get out of the way? We could all go to the Fireplug or to the new pub, Frisky Pomegranate. Or we could have a nice, casual potluck barbecue at one of our houses. We had lots of fun together on the Fourth before the tragedy.”

  “We did have fun,” Misty agreed. “Are you free tomorrow night?”

  Samantha and I both said that we were.

  “Let’s have a barbecue at my place, then,” Misty said. “I’ll try the guys, too, but even if they can’t make it, we three will have fun together.”

  Samantha grinned. “We always do. And you might even try flirting with Scott. I flirted with Hooligan, and look where it got me.”

  Misty and I both asked, “Where?”

  Samantha’s sly smile turned into a very happy one. “Going out together every chance we get.”

  Misty and I cheered, and there were high fives all around. And more wine.

  Misty said to Samantha, “Wait, Hooligan’s not working tonight. You two should be together.”

  With one hand, Samantha dusted cracker crumbs off the granite countertop into the other hand. “He’s picking me up in . . .” She glanced at my kitchen clock. The big hand was a knife and the small hand was a fork. “Three minutes, actually.”

  That statement provoked more cheers from Misty and me.

  Samantha must have thought she needed to add, “So, that means that Scott and Misty have to get together, and then there’s you, Emily.” She dumped the crumbs into the sink.

  I held my palms out toward her. Halt. Double halt. “I was already paired off with someone perfect. I’ve had more than my share of happiness.”

  “But maybe Brent hasn’t.” Samantha could be very sassy. She climbed back onto her stool, picked up her wine, and watched me over the top of her glass.

  I had to resist. “Maybe he has. He’s never seemed to have difficulty finding gorgeous women to date. Gorgeous tall women.”

  “That was then,” Samantha said.

  Misty added, “Haven’t you noticed how he looks at you, Emily?”

  “No!” Flustered, I corrected it to, “He doesn’t look at me any differently than he looks at other people.” I glared at my two best friends. “Stop snickering! He doesn’t look at me any differently from the way he looks at Dep.”

  Samantha and Misty laughed harder.

  “Anyway, Samantha,” I informed her snootily, “your three minutes are nearly up.”

  She slid off her stool. “So they are. Excuse me, ladies, I’m off to spend the rest of the evening with my darling Hooligan.”

  Misty and I looked at each other. Between giggles, I managed, “Way back in junior high, we pinky swore to avoid dating hooligans.”

  Samantha flounced out of the kitchen. “You two are jealous.”

  Misty looked wistful. “Maybe,” she admitted.

  The front door closed. Misty and I traded glances and then ran to the living room and peeked out the window.

  Hooligan, in a nice shirt and jeans, had his arms around Samantha. He let her go, opened his passenger door, and gallantly handed her into the front seat.

  Misty breathed, “True love.
” We watched Hooligan’s car pull away from the curb. “I’d better go, too,” Misty said. “So you can get your beauty sleep in case Brent wants to see you tomorrow.”

  “So I can suffer through another interview with DCI Agent Rex Clobar? No, thanks.”

  Misty became serious as she let herself out. “Try not to hurt Brent.”

  Bewildered, I shook my head. “I’m not . . . he’s not . . .” But she was gone.

  “Meow.”

  I picked up my cat. I didn’t mind cuddling her. “He doesn’t look at me any differently than he used to, Dep, does he?”

  She wriggled.

  I set her gently on the floor. Trying not to remember that, before the interview with Rex Clobar in that freezing meeting room, Brent’s and my relationship had seemed to change, I went into the kitchen and wrapped the remains of the cheese and crackers.

  “Meow.”

  “Okay,” I admitted to Dep. “Brent was attentive during and after the interview, too.”

  “Meow.”

  I put the pickles away. “He can’t help being empathetic.”

  “Meow.”

  “Yes, Dep, Alec was, too. And I do like Brent. A lot.” I shook my head to clear it. “As a friend.”

  “Mew.”

  I washed the glasses and put the empty wine bottle in the recyclables bin. “I think I had too much to drink tonight. And besides, Brent was all business today in Deputy Donut.”

  “Meow.”

  “Okay, you’re right, he was businesslike except during those few seconds of playing and snuggling with you, but you don’t have to brag about it.”

  Without answering, Dep trotted upstairs. Reminding her that we had the next day off and could sleep in if we wanted to, I followed.

  Chapter 19

  As usual, Dep made certain I was awake in time to get ready for work, even though it was my day off. Grumbling about her early-morning enthusiasm, I showered and dressed in fuchsia shorts and a matching blouse with a scalloped hem.

  After breakfast, I sat outside on a chaise longue with Dep purring on my lap and a mug of complex and exotic coffee grown in Papua New Guinea. It would have been more relaxing if I’d been able to stop thinking about how Tom and Jocelyn were getting along without me. What if the shop became crowded and Jocelyn felt overworked and wanted to quit?

  For me, being there might be less worrisome than not being there.

  However, I had other things I needed to do. As soon as I thought that Felicia might be at her hairdressing salon, I called her. She had a cancellation in only a half hour.

  Even though I had to leave Dep at home, it was a great feeling to go out in the middle of the morning for a walk. The day was sunny and already warm. I zigzagged south and east through our residential neighborhood to Felicia’s cozy salon.

  “Emily!” Felicia cried when she saw me in the entryway. “Long time, no see!”

  I made a rueful face. “I know. I’m overdue for a cut.” I pulled at one of my curls and let it spring back more or less into place.

  Nearly everything inside the salon was brilliant lime green. Cloaked in a lime green nylon cape, one patron sat underneath a hair dryer that could double as a UFO on a stilt, and I understood the birthday boy’s mother’s concern about her children knocking it or others like it over. Felicia wore a smock, lime green tropical flowers and leaves, with matching leggings and shoes. Even her short curly hair was lime green. On the night of the Fourth of July when I’d glimpsed her leaving the fireworks display only moments before that homemade skyrocket exploded and fatally injured Taylor, Felicia’s hair had been its usual jet black. Had she changed the color to go with the décor of her salon, or did she hope that anyone who saw her now would not realize she was the woman they’d seen at the fireworks, perhaps with a homemade skyrocket hidden inside a stack of donuts?

  Felicia covered my fuchsia outfit, which didn’t quite clash with everything else in her salon, with a lime green cape. “Is your mom home yet?”

  I followed Felicia to the shiny black porcelain sink. “I haven’t heard from her. Have you?”

  Felicia turned on the water and helped me and the voluminous cape into the chair. “Not a word. She goes to someone in Florida who just ruins her hair! I wish she’d get back here so I can attempt to fix the terrible cut she always gets down there.”

  Suspecting that the “someone” in Florida who cut my mom’s hair was my dad, I didn’t say anything. Both of my parents were inveterate do-it-yourselfers. The wonder was that my mother ever let a professional cut her hair. She had to like Felicia’s haircutting a lot. Or my father’s not so much . . .

  Felicia reclined my chair until the back of my neck rested on the comfortably indented and curved edge of the sink. Warm water sluiced over my head. I relaxed and let Felicia massage my scalp and then wrap it in a warm, fluffy towel. That treatment alone could have been what kept my mother returning to Felicia.

  Back at the cutting station, Felicia removed the towel and looked at my reflection in the mirror. “How much are we taking off?”

  My drenched curls drooped halfway down my neck. “Lots. If it’s nice and short, I won’t have to bother you again for a long time.”

  “Aren’t you a chip off the old blockette?”

  For a second, I thought Felicia said blockhead. My mother would have laughed.

  Felicia tilted my head down and started snipping.

  Raising my eyes without raising my chin, I looked at her in the mirror. “I heard that the Fourth of July queen had her hair done in here on Thursday morning.”

  Felicia made a clicking noise with her tongue. “What a pity.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the other patron, who was paging through a magazine. With that UFO roaring around her head, the woman probably couldn’t have heard what Felicia and I were saying. Nevertheless, Felicia lowered her voice. “It’s sad when anyone dies, especially a young person just out of her teens, and far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but that queen was a piece of work. I fixed her hair up all nice and pretty that morning, and then she refused to pay me.” Snip, snip, snip. “She said I should bill the Fabulous Fourth Festivities Committee! Of all the nerve! Then she flounced out of here and went across the street to that fancy-schmancy place and had her hair done all over again. I saw her come out of there with her hair in an absolute mess, like she just got out of bed.”

  To me, Taylor’s hair had looked lovely, but I didn’t tell Felicia that.

  I hoped that Felicia hadn’t heard what Taylor had said about her—broadcast through a megaphone, no less—at the parade-marshaling grounds.

  No luck. With her scissor blades clashing against each other, Felicia launched into a diatribe about how Taylor had defamed her. “In front of the whole world! She told everyone I was jealous of her hair. Now, that was certainly never true. I can be a blonde anytime I want.” She gave her lime green curls an approving smile in the mirror. “That queen was mean, so mean to everybody that I wonder if someone killed her just to get back at her, you know?”

  “Who would do that?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Snip, clash, snip. “I certainly wouldn’t.”

  “Who was she mean to?”

  “She complained about nearly everyone in town. She actually gloated about beating out her so-called best friend in the competition to be queen.” Felicia was so worked up that I was afraid her scissors might slip. “Your mother,” Felicia told me, “never complained that time I slashed her neck.”

  I almost jumped. “What?” I squeaked without moving my lips more than I absolutely had to.

  “It was totally an accident, and your mother forgave me. And she let me give her first aid.” Snap, snip. “She paid me, too. Not for the first aid, which I did for free, but for the cut and styling.”

  After that, I was afraid to say much, afraid to move. However, Felicia managed to cut my hair without severing an artery, and she did a good job, too, although it was always hard to tell with curls that had minds of their o
wn.

  While coaxing those curls into place, Felicia told me, “I saw you at the fireworks. You were with a handsome guy in a uniform.”

  Oh, great. When Felicia finally saw my mother, Felicia would tell her about the handsome guy in the uniform, and my mother would borrow every wedding magazine in the Fallingbrook library. I quickly set the record straight. “I was beside him, but not with him. I was with a group. He was actually with one of my friends.” It wasn’t a huge fib. It was sort of true, too, even if Scott didn’t know it yet.

  I’d seen Felicia when she was leaving the fireworks and I was returning to Scott and the others, so Felicia must have seen me earlier. I hadn’t noticed her, but she could have passed the five of us when we were laughing and talking together, totally focused on one another.

  If Felicia was willing to admit that she’d been at the fireworks, did that mean she was innocent of harming anyone there? I asked, “Did you enjoy the fireworks?”

  “Naw. All that noise and light gives me a headache. You know Mama Freeze?”

  “Yes. She makes the best ice cream.”

  “Doesn’t she? Every year, I say I’m not going to the fireworks, and every year, she persuades me to go. We’ve been friends for years, so we end up going lots of places together. Oops, there’s a naughty little curl that escaped its fate.” Snip. “There. Now it’s perfect.”

  While I was paying Felicia and no longer in danger from those clashing scissor blades, I asked if anyone had left a Deputy Donut bag full of donuts in her salon recently.

  She was digging around in her cash drawer and didn’t look up at me. “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I gave a family a half-dozen donuts at the community picnic on the Fourth, and they managed to lose the entire bag somewhere. They thought it might be here.”

  She broke a roll of quarters on the edge of the drawer. “I didn’t cut a family’s hair on the Fourth. I would’ve remembered that.”

  “I think they stopped in for the mother to make an appointment.”

  Felicia slid quarters into their compartment in the drawer. “Those donuts would be stale by now, wouldn’t they? Or do you use preservatives?”