A Tale of Two Biddies (League of Literary Ladies)

by Logan, Kylie

  Automatically, I glanced at the bar and saw Levi moving through the crowd, heading to the stage to take control of the situation.

  It wasn’t easy.

  People surged toward the stage, somebody called out, “Off with its head!” and the crowd took up the chant.

  The guys who’d interrupted the concert were more determined than ever, and not about to be stopped by five middle-aged band members.

  While two of them held back Dino and the others, the one with the melon raced over to the guillotine and positioned it in the stocks, and I actually found myself feeling sorry for Dino. He’d been so proud of his little trick, and he was going to be so embarrassed when, like my cantaloupe, that watermelon faced certain death and made it through without a scratch.

  Levi made it to the stage just as the guy pulled the lever and the blade shot down.

  It plonked into the watermelon with a sickening thud that made the crowd let out a collective gasp.

  A second later, the front half of the watermelon neatly fell away from the back half.

  And red juice splurted out of the melon and spilled across the stage.

  5

  It’s all fun and games until a magic trick goes very, very wrong and puts an end to the revelry—and the rock concert.

  One look at that sliced-in-half watermelon, and Dino’s face turned the color of ashes. It took him a moment to catch his breath, but once he did, the first thing he did was declare that the concert was over and wave his bandmates off the stage.

  And the second?

  It was that second thing that had me wondering, because right after he growled, “We’re getting the hell out of here,” Dino shot a look into the audience that I swear could have melted steel. Coincidence? I couldn’t say. I only knew that it was aimed right at the spot where I’d last seen Richie Monroe.

  “What did I tell you? There’s an aura of impending doom!” Chandra’s comment made me regret that I’d mentioned what I’d observed inside the bar. Now that the concert was over, we were standing outside Levi’s with Luella and Kate. The mini fireworks show wasn’t supposed to officially begin for another half hour, but with the concert being cut short, town officials and the folks from the fireworks company scrambled to get things started sooner. From here, we might not be able to see everything, but we could watch at least some of the show and we wouldn’t need to contend with the crowd that streamed into the park.

  I glanced Chandra’s way. “I think it was more like an accident,” I said.

  “You can think anything you want, that doesn’t make it true.” She wasn’t supposed to carry her lite beer out to the sidewalk with her, but Chandra had it in a paper cup and figured no one knew. She downed a gulp. “You said so yourself, Bea, Dino and Richie had a fight in your driveway yesterday. Obviously they hate each other. And I bet Dino tried to kill Richie the other night. You know, when he got pushed into the lake. That’s why Richie retaliated today and fixed the guillotine so it would cut off Dino’s head. Admit it, it all makes sense. And it explains why Dino sent a death-ray look at Richie after the guillotine incident. You know, to let Richie know he was onto him and that paybacks would for sure be a bitch.”

  As usual, following Chandra’s train of thought was a trip through Convoluted R Us. I didn’t even bother to mention that when Richie went into the water on Monday night, Dino wasn’t even on the island yet. Or that tonight the guillotine was just for show; Dino wasn’t scheduled to put his head in it until the Saturday night concert at the park. What was the use? Instead, I concentrated on the meat of her argument.

  “It wasn’t exactly a fight,” I told her, because the more I thought about what had happened in my driveway when Richie delivered the croissants, the more I realized it was true. “It was more like Richie laying into Dino and Dino acting like he didn’t have a clue what Richie was talking about. Richie was madder than a wet hen, but not Dino. He just stood there and acted like he didn’t care about whatever it was Richie said. And later, when I asked him about it, he said he didn’t know who Richie was. In fact, he told me he’d never even been on the island before. Dino said Richie must have mistaken him for someone else because he didn’t know Richie, so he couldn’t possibly know what Richie was mad about.”

  “Then it’s just like in A Tale of Two Cities.” Sure of her theory—whatever that theory was—Chandra nodded. Kate, Luella, and I? We stared at her in amazement.

  “Don’t act so surprised!” Chandra finished her beer and tossed the cup in the nearest trash can. “If you ladies were reading the book like you’re supposed to be—”

  “What’s amazing is that you are.”

  Chandra twitched away Kate’s comment with a lift of her chin. When she pulled back her shoulders, she looked like a kid giving a book report in front of the class—if a kid giving a book report wore purple shorts; a tie-dyed top in swirls of purple, pink, and orange; and sandals with two-inch-high platforms. “In A Tale of Two Cities,” she said, glancing from one of us to the other and daring us to criticize her take on the book, “there are two guys who look alike. One guy’s name is Sydney . . . er . . .”

  “Carton,” Luella said. She’d obviously read at least some of our assignment.

  Chandra grinned. “That’s right, Carton, and he’s a lawyer. And there’s this other guy named Charles Dubray—”

  “Darnay,” Kate corrected her.

  “That’s right.” Chandra’s smile froze around the edges, but she accepted the correction with good grace. “Darnay. Charles Darnay. He’s French, and Sydney is English. And the two of them—Charles and Sydney—they look an awful lot alike. Darnay is being tried as a spy and a witness says he can identify him for sure, only when the time comes, he can’t tell Darnay from Carton, who’s also in the courtroom, and that’s how Darnay gets off. And Darnay and Carton are both in love with the same woman, and later, when they’re going to chop off Darnay’s head with the guillotine, Carton changes places with him.” Sighing didn’t seem to fit into Chandra’s book report, but sigh she did. “Sydney sacrifices himself for love.”

  It was as apt and economic a synopsis of A Tale of Two Cities as I’d ever heard, and I told Chandra so.

  She blushed. “Well, some of us take our reading assignments seriously.”

  “Yeah, some of us do. Which is why I can’t believe—”

  With the lift of one hand, I cut Kate off. There was no use for the two of them going at each other, and I knew if I didn’t put an end to it, that’s exactly what would happen. The League of Literary Ladies had come a long way since the day we were sentenced to discuss books for the next year, but I had no illusions. If we weren’t careful, if we didn’t remember that our problems were in our past and that we were all friends now, our neighborhood bickering could erupt again at any moment. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not when for the first time since college, I had real friends I could trust to stand at my side, thick or thin.

  Besides, we had more serious things to worry about than who was reading what. Like who messed with the magic guillotine, and why. Kate must have been thinking that, too. “So what do Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay have to do with Dino and Richie?” she asked.

  I thought I understood what Chandra was getting at so I explained. “Richie went after Dino. Dino says he doesn’t know Richie. That means Richie thought Dino was someone else, and he wouldn’t have thought that if Dino didn’t look like someone else. Like Sydney Carton and Charles—”

  “Darnay.” Chandra was proud of herself for remembering the name. “And don’t you see, it explains everything. That’s why Richie yelled at Dino at your place yesterday, Bea. Mistaken identity.”

  I gave Chandra’s theory another few moments of thought. It was a little out there, but then, so was messing with a magic trick that was designed to be harmless. “So whoever messed with the guillotine might have done it because he thought Dino was someone he’s not. If that person knew the guillotine was only going to be used as a prop tonight, then rigging
it like that was designed to send a message. But if that person thought Dino was actually going to do the guillotine trick tonight, if he thought Dino was going to kneel down and put his head in the stocks and Jesse was going to pull that lever . . .” I couldn’t make myself finish the thought.

  I didn’t have to. Kate did it for me. “That could have been Dino’s neck in that guillotine.”

  “And it could have been Dino’s blood splashed all around,” Luella added.

  “And it could have been Dino’s head rolling around the stage like that half of watermelon,” Chandra reminded us, though, really, she didn’t need to. I’m pretty sure the way we all stood there, our arms wrapped around ourselves and our expressions twisted, we could imagine the scene for ourselves.

  I shook away the thought because it was either that or collapse onto the sidewalk and whimper. Thinking like a detective was better than thinking like a horror writer. As the Ladies constantly pointed out, I do not have the stomach for that. “We don’t really think that Richie would do a thing like that, do we?”

  “Richie’s not exactly what anybody would call normal,” Kate said. “He might go after Dino if he hated him enough.”

  “Or if he hated the person he thought Dino was,” Chandra added.

  “Well, at least no one really got hurt,” Luella said, and with a small smile, I thanked her for diverting the subject. Yeah, we were still discussing the guillotine incident. But without the gory details. “And I’d bet a dime to a donut those rockers aren’t going to use that guillotine in their act on Saturday night.”

  I shivered. “I couldn’t even put my head in that thing when it was on my front porch and Dino guaranteed me one hundred percent that it wouldn’t hurt me. I can’t imagine he’d have the nerve to do it on Saturday. Not after what happened tonight. Imagine . . .”

  We all did, and as if we’d choreographed the move, we instinctively stepped closer to each other.

  “Cold, girls?” Moving with far more energy than a lady her age should have, Alice Defarge trotted by, coming from the direction of the park. She had one cone of fluffy pink cotton candy in one hand, and a cone of blue cotton candy in the other.

  Luella waved on behalf of all of us. “You’re not going to watch the fireworks?”

  With the pink cone of cotton candy, Alice pointed across the street to the knitting shop. I knew the cottage she shared with Margaret was behind it and across a small but neatly tended garden. “We can see just fine from the backyard,” she explained. “Margaret’s already got the lawn chairs out and I said I’d pick up dessert.”

  “Don’t you know, Alice,” Chandra called out. “It’s not officially dessert if it’s not chocolate!”

  Alice laughed. “Not in our house.” She scooted closer. “You know, back in the day they used to call me Chocolate Alice and they used to call my sister Vanilla Margaret. That’s because Margaret hates chocolate with a fiery passion. She never eats it. Never even allows it in the house. No worries!” She gave us a conspiratorial wink. “I get my fill over at the fudge shop near the carousel, and Margaret is never any wiser. But when we’re eating dessert at home . . .” Once again, she held out the cotton candy.

  I had no doubt that the pink one was for Margaret.

  “You are coming to the park on Saturday for the big fireworks show, aren’t you?” I asked Alice. “We’re planning to get there early so we don’t have to fight the crowd, and we’ll save seats for you and Margaret if you’d like.”

  “That’s so nice, dear.” Alice backed toward the street. “I’ll be sure to mention it to Margaret, but it will all depend on what time the reruns come on for The Lawrence Welk Show. Margaret loves Lawrence Welk. That Margaret, she can be such an old fuddy-duddy sometimes.” With a sly smile on her face, Alice turned and headed toward home just as Levi walked out of the bar.

  “Well?” I promised myself I wasn’t going to bug him, but really, I couldn’t help myself. All this talk of Richie and Dino and mistaken identities and heads being chopped off made my brain spin, and the only thing that was going to stop it was answers. “Did you find anything wrong with the guillotine?”

  Levi wore a white apron looped over his neck, covering his jeans and T-shirt. It was spattered with red stains. “I’m no expert when it comes to magic tricks,” he admitted. “I don’t think I could tell if that thing was tampered with even if I looked. Besides, I didn’t have much of a chance. Mike and I were too busy cleaning up watermelon guts.”

  “Guts. Ooh.” Kate pressed a hand to her mouth.

  I’d hoped for something more definitive as to the condition of the magic guillotine. “Well, we can always talk to the band,” I suggested, and as if on cue, Nick, Jesse, Paul, and Scotty sauntered out of the bar. If the guillotine-trick-gone-wrong bothered them, they sure didn’t show it. In fact, when their fans started to squeal, they stopped in the doorway, posed for pictures, then went over to the table that had been set up at the other end of the sidewalk where the band was scheduled to sign autographs.

  “No Dino,” I commented.

  “Probably swamped by worshiping women inside,” Kate suggested.

  And I found myself shivering.

  Luckily, the thought was banished by the first pop from the park, and automatically we all looked up. A sparkling fizz lit the night sky above the trees. It exploded with a muffled poof, and crystal sparks the color of Margaret’s cotton candy rained down.

  “Come on. I want to see this up close.” Jayce Martin zoomed by and grabbed Kate’s hand, and together they hurried toward the park.

  “Interesting,” Chandra commented, watching them go.

  “Fascinating,” Luella agreed.

  “And I’m staying out of this conversation,” Levi said.

  I turned his way to tell him I agreed, and I was just in time to see Dino slip out of the bar and walk over to the table for the autograph session.

  Seeing an opportunity, I excused myself and headed that way, too.

  “You’re going to need to wait your turn,” a woman in a We Love Boyz ’n Funk T-shirt told me when I approached the table from the front instead of the back of the line.

  Really, I didn’t think so. I mumbled something about being the band’s landlady (technically true even if it wasn’t relevant), and went around to the other side of the table to stand at Dino’s shoulder.

  “Hey, babe!” I might have tricked myself into believing the greeting was for the so-excited-she-was-ready-to-self-combust woman at the front of the line if Dino didn’t glance over his shoulder at me and give me a wink. “I figured you’d be here. Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

  “Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to support a chamber of commerce event,” I said as pleasantly as I could. My comment was punctuated by an explosion of golden stars above the trees in the park, and around us everyone made the appropriate oohing and aahing sounds.

  I propped one hand on the table and leaned closer to Dino so I could whisper, “You told me that guillotine trick was one hundred percent safe.”

  His hand stilled over the picture he was about to autograph. It showed a smiling group of five teenagers, and automatically I went down the list. Aside from the fact that they were thirty years older and thirty pounds heavier, Scotty, Jesse, and Nick didn’t look all that different. Paul had lost his crop of bushy hair completely. And Dino . . . I took another moment to study the dark and handsome kid in the photo, then looked at the man who was looking up at me. Hard living showed in every line of Dino’s face, and his eyes had the hungry look of a man who’d tasted fame but had never gotten a big enough gulp to satisfy himself.

  He dashed off the signature and handed the photo to the waiting fan. “It wasn’t funny. Somebody’s going to pay for that guillotine trick,” he growled. The next woman moved to the front of the line. Excited, she danced from foot to foot. She never took her eyes off Dino once, not even when a shower of fireworks lit the street with streaks of green, orange, and purple.

  I went for subtle. Aft
er all, nobody but me, Dino, and the people we’d shared the secret with knew that for tonight, the guillotine was supposed to be nothing but a prop designed to tease folks into going to Saturday’s concert. “Somebody?”

  Dino’s gaze slid toward the front door of the bar, then back to me. “Don’t you worry about me, babe.” He patted my hand. “I know who it was, and there’s no way the son-of-a—”

  “Picture, Dino? Please!” The next woman in line jumped up and down and waved her smartphone. “Come over here and take a picture with me. Puh-leez!”

  He did, and I took the opportunity to return to where Levi, Luella, and Chandra waited. My timing was perfect. The mini fireworks show ended with a mini grand finale. A dozen or so rockets all hit the sky at the same time, and along with the pops and the whirrs, the night sky lit up with flashes of white, puffs of gold, and twinkling yellow stars.

  In the light, I saw Mike Lawrence hurry out of the bar and start down the street in the opposite direction from where Levi waited for me.

  “I’ve got to get back behind the bar.” Levi sounded almost apologetic and I didn’t want to wonder why.

  I settled back on the ol’ reliable cocktail party talk. “It’s late and I’ve got to get going, anyway.”

  No sooner had Levi gone back into the bar than I was surrounded.

  “Oh, no!” Chandra looped her right arm through my left. “You’re not going to run out of here now. Not when Levi’s looking at you the way Levi’s looking at you.”

  “He’s not looking at me at all,” I pointed out. Apparently the fact that he’d gone inside and couldn’t see me from in there was lost on both Chandra and Luella.

  “You know what she means,” Luella said. She grabbed my right arm. “You can’t make the poor boy suffer.”