by Scott, D. D.
Kit came up behind me and poked me in the ribs. “Ouch!” I yelped, almost dropping the mirror. “Don’t do that!”
“Did you get a chance to tell Hunter about your mirror?”
“That’s who you want to be my financial angel? He’s obnoxious. I don’t want him in on the deal.”
“Do me a favor and work with him… try.”
I was about to tell Kit to drop Hunter when I heard those Cockney noodles behind the shrubbery.
“I see that Wendy-bird over by that sour looking Yank. She wouldn’t be here if there weren’t some artifacts lying about. Get over there and mingle.”
The portly priest stumbled out of the bushes mumbling, “Mingle. Mingle. Mingle.”
I started to warn Kit he had party crashers, but he touched my shoulder and cut me off, “We’re going to do an unveiling in a bit. I’ve set up a little stage near the end of the deck. The mirror will perform outdoors, right?”
“The mirror will perform anywhere. I just need a volunteer.”
“How about Tina?”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll let her know she volunteered. But first I need to get those Calypso musicians organized so they can give you a proper drum roll. Do you think that dude on the kettle drums is hot?” He zipped off yelling over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back to get you.”
I was bracing myself for my grand unveiling when Wendy wandered back to my side. “That Hunter guy is a real dick. Did you know he’s trying to buy the Queen’s Croquet?”
Half listening to Wendy while readying myself to step before the audience, I cut my eyes to her. “Is the Croquet for sale?”
“I don’t think Kit knows it is. That Hunter guy wants it for a tear down. He’d have it leveled!”
A strand of hair blew onto my lips and stuck on the gloss. I pulled it off. “He can’t do that. This is a historic site.”
Wendy shook her head. “It’s not. It’s just a South Beach landmark and Hunter Heart is a power putz.” She shrugged. “I’m off to rescue Alice. It looks like some old fool is talking her ear off. Good luck with the unveiling. We’ll be right up front.”
I could see how Wendy might be a bit bitchy. I liked her.
The band did a kettle drum roll. Kit took the microphone and tapped it with his finger. “Ladies, gentlemen, and queens, may I have your attention.” Kit motioned me to come toward him. I nodded and picked up the mirror from the table. Just as I was getting a firm grip on it, the two Brits whizzed past. The big lug grabbed the mirror while the short guy shoved me to the deck. I fell on my butt but popped up and reached for the little guy’s head. His wig came off in my hands. He dodged and went flying after the portly priest.
I screamed to Kit for help and raced after the thieving duo, skirting the furniture and blabbering guests. “Stop those thieves! Help!” I yelled.
All I received were smiles. It must have appeared I was part of the entertainment.
Rounding the end of the patio I clung to the railing. I could see the chubby vicar below prancing through the seaweed my mirror held high, the hairy-legged tart right behind him.
“We’re with you!” Wendy called.
Alice yelped in pain.
I glanced back.
She’d fallen. The heel of her right shoe was jammed firmly in a gap in the deck. As she struggled to get up her left heel stuck fast in yet another space in the planking. I’d never seen anyone in the circus do a reverse split with their legs headed in opposite directions. That had to hurt with those ankle-straps cutting into her flesh. I stopped in my tracks and headed back to help her. When I saw Kit and a waiter racing to Alice I turned and continued after the thieving clowns.
“Stop!” I yelled down at them. “You don’t know what you have there. You’re in danger!”
The portly priest froze for a second, holding the mirror above the salty ocean sprays. The little twerp pushed him and he started running again.
The sound of breaking glass and groans drew my attention back to Alice. Kit was flopped on top of her, his lovely black tux dotted with dozens of creamy canapés. A waiter was splayed on top of Kit his tray to the side, while a second waiter held a wobbly plate with tumbling glasses. Seagulls were on them in an instant, a thousand birds peering and peeking. It was a scene from Alfred Hitchcock. I shrugged and threw myself into an Olympic dive after the Brits.
I leaped off the second-story patio deck, rolling when I hit the ground. I came up coated in beach sand like a Saltine cracker and galloped after them, my gut churning. That mirror was mine. How dare they?
“I’m right behind you!” Wendy yelled. “Duck!”
A conch shell went spinning past my head and landed just short of Algy’s legs.
When I ducked, I hit a pile of seaweed and my feet went flying, black slime slurping up my legs. I did a tumble and rolled to all fours knowing whoever was behind me was getting a very personal view of me in my mini-dress.
The duo appeared to be racing for a small rowboat beached about twenty feet ahead.
As I drew closer I heard the little guy yell, “Crickey! We got it!”
“What is it?” the portly priest shouted back at him.
“A mirror you moron!”
“Odd, that,” The big guy yelled as he pranced over the swooshing waves.
“Keep running,” the little tranny said as he shed his heels.
“She’s gaining on us! This is another fine mess you’ve got us into,” the priest yelled. “What does this mirror do?”
“Bloody hell! I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get to Zo White’s Fractured Fairy Tale.”
Something or someone lay still at the shoreline. The fugitives splashed over it, the big lug turning to look as he ran. He stumbled but caught his footing. “Blimey that looked like a body… a lady-body!”
“Keep running you fool! Hold the mirror so it doesn’t get wet!”
“That looked like that bird what got in the limousine with us. She might be dead.”
“Not our problem Nob. Keep running. Watch that wave. Is that a shark?”
I gave up the chase and fell to my knees on the sand next to Tina’s body. The side of her head was a mass of blood. She was clearly, most severely dead.
THE END
A Note from the Author
I am really excited to be here. So much so… I went out and bought a full bucket of KFC extra crispy. I just pigged out for lunch to celebrate. J ☺
When you’re a freelance writer with a quirky sense of humor, being in the right place at the right time helps a lot. If I just stand still for five minutes… wham! Something funny and worth writing about will happen to me. I’ve accidentally sky dived, been elected president of the Japan American Society (I’m not Japanese), been stalked by crazies, and ran off with a real life White Rabbit. I was fortunate enough to take part in writing workshops with Stephen King, Robert B. Parker, and James Michener.
I’m a single mother, living on the edge in South Florida. My writing history is diverse. It began when I started an underground newspaper in grade school and was threatened with excommunication by the nuns. I’ve packed many adventures into my life labeling even the disasters as “material for my next book.”
For six years I traveled the United States listening to men reveal their darkest secrets for my book, The Adventures of a Love Investigator, 527 Naked Men & One Woman. When I was finished with my odyssey, I pulled a blanket over my head and refused to come out.
Lovely to take part in this super anthology. Pass the bucket o’ chicken, please.
About the Author
Barbara Silkstone is the best-selling author of The Fractured Fairy Tales series that currently includes: The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters; Wendy and the Lost Boys; and London Broil.
Silkstone’s writing has been described as “perfectly paced and pitched — shades of Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen — without seeming remotely derivative. Fast moving action that shoots from the hip with bul
let-proof characterization.”
Wendy and the Lost Boys topped the charts in comedy, climbing over Tina Fey, Sophie Kinsella, and Ellen DeGeneres. The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters has been a consistent best seller in comedy. Both Wendy and Alice have been in the top 20 Amazon comedies at the same time. Silkstone has been fortunate enough to take part in writing workshops with Stephen King, Robert B. Parker, and James Michener.
Barbara Silkstone loves to hear from her readers.
You can write to her at: [email protected]
Or visit her at:
Barb’s Wire eBooks & More http://barbswire-ebooksandmore.blogspot.com/
Twitter @barbsilkstone http://twitter.com/#!/barbsilkstone
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/Barbara-Silkstone/100000778601230
Fractured Fairy Tales by Silkstone
Criminally Funny Fables
The Secret Diary of Alice in Wonderland, Age 42 and Three-Quarters
This author has a unique narrative voice, and reading the story is like taking a smooth slide into Alice’s surreal world. The premise is outstanding — a classic we all love, with a contemporary, intelligent twist.—Elizabeth Lindberg, author Upper West Side Stories
Wendy and the Lost Boys
Be aware, this is not the Peter Pan story you want your kids reading. It is clearly intended for adult readers. Yet it appeals to the childlike part of us that loved the classic original stories. Combine that childlike love with modern politics and technology, and you get this smart, snarky, hilarious mystery. The story is richly developed and leaves you guessing until the very end. I am liking this grown-up version of Peter Pan even more than the original.—Tiffany Harkleroad for Tiffany’s Bookshelf
Purchase for your ereader at: Smashwords
London Broil — the sequel to Wendy and the Lost Boys
The snarky Python sequel to Wendy and the Lost Boys. A murderous rollercoaster ride through London during a killer heat wave.—Ravan Reviews
Zo White — coming Summer 2012
WHEN WE WERE MIDDLE-AGED AND FOOLISH
By Jayne Ormerod
I’ve never seen a dead body up close and personal, let alone one chopped up like a fryer chicken and stuffed into two Hefty Cinch Saks. It’s not a pretty sight, and is accompanied by an even more ghastly smell. I fought down the vomit burning my tonsils and stumbled out of the garage as fast as my linguine legs could carry me.
“Well?” Monica Lyn, my best friend since preschool, asked.
“That’s a real dead body all right.” I gave into gravity and melted down onto the driveway. The heat from the blacktop warmed by a late August sun seeped through my cotton capris but did little to soothe the post-horrific shock rattling my extremities.
“Not a mannequin leftover from Halloween or something?” The tone in Monica Lyn’s voice bordered on a whiney panic.
“Mannequin’s don’t smell. Nor ooze blood. Go call the police.”
“No police.” Monica Lyn twisted her long dark hair into a bun on the back of her head, then released it, allowing it to cascade down over her shoulders. She did it again. And again. And again.
A nervous sort of chuckle gurgled from my solar plexus. “Yes, police. Now.”
Silence. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll think J.J. had something to do with it.”
The J.J. to whom she referred was Joseph Jackson Hunter III, Monica Lyn’s soon-to-be-ex-husband. It was his garbage can we’d roped to the tow hitch on her F-150 and rolled the six blocks to her parent’s house, where she was temporarily living until the Family Court judge decided who got custody of her and J.J.’s McMansion on the hill.
The plan had been to paw through J.J.’s discards in hopes of finding incriminating evidence regarding his illegal business dealings, which Monica Lyn had long suspected but never proved. This would then be hung over J.J.’s head in order to procure a more Monica Lyn-friendly divorce settlement. I didn’t consider it blackmail—that’s such an ugly word—but more like marital justice.
“A dead body in his trashcan trumps an embezzlement scheme any day,” I explained to her.
“J.J. couldn’t have done it. He passes out at the sight of blood.”
“Then how do you explain the dead body?”
“I can’t. Yet.”
“I’m calling the police.” No sooner had I fished my i-phone from my pocket than Monica Lyn snatched it from my hands and tossed over the fence into Mrs. Gardener’s backyard. (For the record, the neighbor’s name wasn’t really Mrs. Gardener. My small, seaside hometown is big on nicknames and had bestowed the Gardener moniker upon her decades ago when she’d created a beautiful English Garden in the center of town square. That was the sum total of her gardening efforts, and long before I came around so I honestly don’t know her real name.)
“Reality check,” Monica Lyn said to me. “That hacked up body is in my garage, with our fingerprints on the trashcan handle. And look, you’ve got blood on your hands.”
I looked down, and sure enough, my French Tips were splattered with red goo. I swiped my hand against the grass, but the evidence remained, pulsating like a Jackson Pollock version of The Telltale Heart. Not only did I look guilty, I was beginning to feel guilty.
Monica Lyn started pacing like a high-strung thoroughbred before being loaded into the starting gate at the race track. “Nobody is going to believe us when we say we found it at J.J.’s house. They’ll think we killed him. Her. It. No, calling the police is Out. Of. The. Question.”
When Monica Lyn resorted to a speaking style that punctuated after ever word, there was no room for rational counter arguments.
I drew a deep breath of honeysuckle air and let it out in a Lamaze-style breathing technique that had brought me little relief when I’d given birth to my only son twenty-one years ago. It didn’t help much in this situation, either. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
She stopped pacing, punched her fists to her hips and said, “We can haul it up the street to Kitty Kline’s house.”
Kitty Kline was our sworn archenemy. The reason: she’d sprouted breasts in 5th grade and they’d still been growing when we’d graduated from Rocky Shoals High School. The boys had all loved her. The girls had all hated her. And after all this time, apparently still did. “You haven’t gotten over that boyfriend stealing incident?” I joked. That had happened in 8th grade. Twice.
“Not a boyfriend. A husband.”
“You mean Kitty Kline’s the scrawny blonde crack ‘ho…” My voice trailed off when a look of complete disgust washed over Monica Lyn’s face. I wished I could take back the mental image I’d planted in both of our heads. Monica Lyn had yet to find the strength to share all the sordid details of discovering J.J.’s cheating ways, but I knew it involved her early return from a city council meeting to find J.J. and the aforementioned SBCH (scrawny blonde crack ‘ho) enjoying a game of Strip Billiards. A dead body delivered to Kitty Kline’s doorstep seemed a good first step on the road to healing. Plus, it would keep me from having to answer a lot of questions from the police. I took another swipe of my nails against the grass. “I’ll need a glass of wine first.”
“I’ll need a bottle,” she said.
• • •
Monica Lyn and I had shared our first bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill on the night of her 14th birthday. That had been twenty-eight years, three months and six days ago. I still had a Jimmy Buffett lyric tattooed on my backside as a souvenir.
In honor of my first visit to my hometown after a twenty-five-year absence, Monica Lyn had purchased a case of the beverage that more closely resembled cough syrup than cabernet. We each grabbed a bottle and, armed with a bucket of ice, headed for the back patio to figure out a plan. With her parents decamped to their mountain cabin for the summer (it was cooler there, and wasn’t plagued by tourists), we had the house to ourselves. In hindsight, it would have saved us a lot of grief if Mr. and M
rs. O’Neill had been around to talk us out of our simple (yet stupid) plan.
As soon as it was nice and dark—and we were good and drunk—we donned matching pairs of yellow Playtex Living Gloves and hauled the trash can up the center of Fisher Street to Kitty Kline’s house. Our fumbling fingers dropped the trashcan more times than I cared to count, which required us to chase it as it rolled down the hill towards Sagucci Bay, which got us to giggling so much we had to slip behind Mr. Magoo’s (another nickname—for obvious reasons) lilac bush to relieve ourselves on at least three occasions. And, unbeknownst to either of us, it resulted in a trail of blood leading from Kitty’s curb straight back to Monica Lyn’s garage.
Once we reached our destination, we parked the trash can in the small patch of weeds that constituted a front yard. It felt good to be rid of that body. “Time-a call-la police,” I sang while performing a sloppy Running Man dance move.
“Sssshhhh,” Monica Lyn shushed me. “Don’t wake Mizzizzizz Kravitz.”
Mrs. Kravitz (real name: Peterson) was the nosy body of Sagucci. Monica Lyn and I had bestowed upon her the nickname based on a character in the TV show “Bewitched” after she caught us sneaking out of Monica Lyn’s bedroom during the wee hours on a school night and the old biddy had squealed on us to our parents. Her generally accepted nickname was Mrs. Muffin—she baked the best blueberry muffins this side of the Mississippi—and lived two doors south of Kitty. Not a thing happened on this street without Mrs. Muffin/Kravitz knowing about it. She had been older than dirt when I’d lived on the north end a quarter century ago. Hard to believe she was still alive, let alone still poking her proboscis into everyone else’s business. I held a finger to my lips and repeated in a loud whisper, “Call-la police.”
