Hooking for Trouble

by Betty Hechtman

  “It’s kind of make it or break it for her group,” the one with shaggy brown hair said. “How long has it been since they were hot? Their first album was a monster, and the second faded fast. If the one coming out next month tanks, they’re over.”

  The other one, who was wearing a gray fedora, spoke up. “The word on the street is there’s a track on it that will hit a nerve, like the monster hit they had on their first album. You know, one of those songs that everybody plays on Sunday night when they feel like their life is going under.”

  “Speak for yourself,” his friend responded. “I don’t need a song to pep me up. I just do this paparazzi stuff to support my real work. My real passion is photographing insects.”

  “Anyway, she’s the one doing all the heavy lifting for the group,” the guy with the gray fedora said. “She keeps getting herself on reality shows and talk shows. Ilona Chambers doesn’t have to do anything. Being married to a successful country singer keeps her in the limelight and pays for everything.”

  Bob gave me a funny look since my drink was sitting on the counter waiting for me, but I hadn’t taken it.

  One of the photographers leaned around me and motioned toward Bob. “What do you have to do around here to get waited on?”

  I took my coffee and went back into the bookstore. All the action was right around the information desk. Cheyenne was posing for a photograph with Mrs. Shedd. Then Adele came over to the group in her Dorothy costume—they must have been reading The Wizard of Oz today—and began posing with Cheyenne, a blond woman I didn’t know and the kids. There was a man hanging off to the side of the group. I hadn’t gotten much of a view of him in the dark, but I was guessing it was Garrett Mackenzie, Cheyenne’s husband. For all of Cheyenne’s flash, he was pretty nondescript. Just this side of six feet, I guessed, with dark hair cut in a short style. He wore jeans and a graphic T-shirt with a leather jacket thrown on top. He walked over to adjust one of the little girls’ jackets so that the “I love the ChIlLas” clearly showed. He had the kind of walk that was all shoulders and said, I’m important.

  I deliberately clung to the side of the bookstore and made my way to the yarn department. I didn’t want to get caught up in the middle of everything, even though there was no reason for me to keep a low profile. There was no way Cheyenne knew I’d sent the cops.

  “There you are,” Mrs. Shedd said as I finished crocheting the last row of a pot holder. “Cheyenne was asking for you.” Mrs. Shedd had a singsongy cadence to her speech, like she was being overly accommodating.

  “Oh no.” I dropped my crochet hook and it hit the table with a loud ping. I was wrong. Cheyenne knew it was me. I wanted to slide under the table and disappear. I could tell my boss was trying to make a good impression on Cheyenne.

  I tried to pull Mrs. Shedd aside. “A funny thing happened after you all left my birthday party,” I began. But it was too late to say more. I stood up and prepared for the onslaught as Cheyenne stepped up to the table.

  What she did next totally surprised me. She didn’t even look at me, but instead at the pot holder I’d been working on. “Crochet saved my life,” she said, picking up my hook. Then she turned to me. “I understand that you have a crochet group and classes.”

  I stumbled over my words now that I realized she didn’t know who I was or what I’d done. “Yes, we love crochet here.” I indicated the big selection of crochet hooks.

  I had a list of the classes in a plastic sheet and showed it to her. While she read it over, I got a better look at her. There was something gushy about her. Like she was trying too hard to be a regular person. I confirmed what Barry said. She had no visible bruises. I wanted so badly to ask her about her tango dance number, but I didn’t want to take the chance that it would connect me to the previous night. She had a soft shape I could identify with. In other words, she was built like a normal person instead of a size zero model. She was dressed comfortably in black leggings and a long red sweater.

  “This one is definitely for me,” she said, pointing at the Tunisian class. Adele had joined us by now and quickly announced that she was the teacher.

  “We’ve already started, but I’d be happy to give you a catch-up class,” she said.

  Cheyenne touched the puffed sleeves of Adele’s blue-and-white-checked dress. “You look like somebody I can relate to. We considered using a photograph of us all dressing up as Alice in Wonderland for our upcoming album cover. We still have the outfits,” she said with a smile before turning to me. “Sign me up for that, please.” I told her when the next meeting was and then Adele spirited her away for the catch-up lesson.

  Mrs. Shedd watched them go and, when they were out of earshot, turned to me. “You know I love having CeeCee in your group. She’s certainly well-known. But Cheyenne has such a big personality, she’s going to bring attention to the bookstore. Please don’t do anything to mess this up, and make sure Adele doesn’t either.”

  “What happened to her kids?” I asked, looking around the big space. I could see into the children’s department, and it was empty except for Cheyenne and Adele.

  “You know how it is with celebrities—they all have nannies for their kids. You must have seen her. A pretty girl with blond hair. She took the kids home already.”

  As she finished explaining, Mr. Royal came up to us, holding a frame. He handed it to Mrs. Shedd, and she smiled with pleasure.

  She held it up for me to see, and I understood why she was smiling. It was a photograph of her with Cheyenne. It was meant to be a candid shot and showed the two of them talking while the nanny helped the two little girls put on their jackets.

  As my two bosses admired the photograph, I thought how funny it was that they tried to give off the impression that they were merely partners in the bookstore. We all knew there was more going on. Pamela Shedd and Joshua Royal were a definite example of how opposites made a good team. She worried incessantly about the success of the bookstore, which, considering the current state of bookstores, seemed warranted. But to counteract all the online shopping, Mrs. Shedd had turned the bookstore into a cornucopia of attractions. We had all the usual bookstore activities, like author events and writers’ groups, and of course, the Hookers met here, which had led to adding a yarn department. The crochet parties and Yarn University had grown out of the new addition.

  Mr. Royal was always optimistic and seemed confident that everything would work out. Pamela—I never could bring myself to call her that out loud—looked her sixtysomething age, though there wasn’t a strand of gray in her honey blond hair and it still had a silky texture. Mr. Royal had a boyish quality due to the agile way he moved and his enthusiastic expression. His shaggy hair was getting more shot through with gray, but it just seemed to add an interesting dimension to the color.

  For the moment, he was staying put, but in the past he’d taken off frequently to travel the world, doing all sorts of things. When I’d first started at the bookstore and Mrs. Shedd had mentioned her partner, he was nowhere to be seen and I’d thought he didn’t exist. She was very patient about letting him take time off when he itched for an adventure. And all the traveling had left him with lots of skills.

  “I was thinking we could start our own gallery,” Mr. Royal said. “All the stores around here have photographs with their celebrity clients, so it’s time we did, too.” He suggested a prominent place near the cash register that would be hard to miss. He went off to get a hammer while Mrs. Shedd let out a satisfied sigh. Then she looked to me.

  “Molly, you started to tell me something about last night.”

  CHAPTER 4

  When I finally got home that night, all signs of my parents’ visit were gone. I moved my slippers and such back to my bedroom, glad to have my space again. “It’s going to be great having them here,” Samuel said when I came into the kitchen. He gestured to a canister on the counter. “She left some of her famous granola, and ther
e’s a green drink in the fridge. She said I ought to make sure you drink it.” He winced as he looked at me, knowing that was an impossible task to have been given. I knew it didn’t taste bad, but I just couldn’t get past the pond-scum look.

  He was making himself a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and offered to add one for me.

  “A much better offer than the drink,” I said, and he went to put together another sandwich while I took out a container of tomato bisque soup and poured it into a saucepan.

  Samuel saw me looking at the living room. “Don’t worry. They won’t be rehearsing here. They’re going to get a real rehearsal hall before they go on tour again, and in the meantime, they can use the rec room at the place they’re staying.”

  I was glad to see my younger son seeming so cheerful. He loved his grandmother, and he loved that he was the musical director for her group.

  We ate our soup and sandwiches together, and then he was off for an open mic night at a pizza place.

  The house seemed very quiet after the previous night. Mason called to let me know he’d arrived and missed me. Dinah called as well. She and Commander were discussing their wedding plans, and it was making her anxious. To help, he’d offered to take it all over so that all she’d have to do was show up. I think he’d figured it was a good way to keep her from getting cold feet. She thought it didn’t seem fair for him to do it all, and they’d agreed to work on it together, but he was taking the lead.

  I told her about the episode after the party. She was more interested in hearing about Barry than about my neighbors’ dancing routine. “I wondered about inviting him to the party,” she said. “But I was afraid it might seem awkward. But it seems like fate took care of it.”

  In the background, I heard Commander calling Dinah to look at a menu for their wedding breakfast, so I let her go.

  I think there’s some kind of saying about idle hands getting in trouble. It was certainly true for me. I tried crocheting for a while, but I felt restless. The detective set was just sitting there, waiting for me to play with it.

  I unpacked everything and then looked at the game portion, which was all my son Peter had noticed. But I wasn’t much interested in games after being part of the real thing. I picked up the binoculars and looked out through the French doors at my yard. It was only dimly lit, thanks to the burned-out bulbs. But bright enough to see a flash of black-and-white run across the yard.

  I got up and went to the kitchen, where I saw the door was ajar. Samuel must have just gone out it without locking it behind him, again. Mr. Kitty was an escape artist, and Cat had made use of the open door. I saw her on the prowl. They were both headed right to the back fence.

  I felt pretty comfortable going to the back there since my yard was so dimly lit, and after seeing the condition of the neighbors’ yard the day before, I was pretty sure no one was going to be out there.

  I couldn’t grab both of them at once. I went for Cat first, since she was more the hunter of the two. She’d left me a number of “gifts” in her time, and I really didn’t want another one. Once I’d deposited her inside, I went back to get Mr. Kitty. I was relieved that he hadn’t jumped the fence again, instead seeming content to rummage around in the ivy. I glanced up at the house in the next yard. There was nothing wrong with having a look, I figured. From this spot, I could see into the first-floor windows. I used the binoculars for a better view. It seemed a lot more peaceful than the other night. I recognized the nanny’s long blond hair as she sat strumming a guitar for the little girls. A man walked in, and I knew he wasn’t Cheyenne’s husband, Garrett. This man seemed shorter, with a much slighter build, and he was wearing a cowboy hat with the sides rolled up. Of course, it had to be Ilona’s husband.

  I had gotten the 411 on the singing group from my mother. Cheyenne was the leader of the group, and her sister Ilona did some acting and was married to a country singer. My mother didn’t say much about the third sister other than that she wasn’t at all like the other two. I struggled to remember the country singer’s name. Matt Meadowbrook. I don’t know what it was exactly about his body language, but I could tell he was watching the nanny with interest. I heard someone walking in the yard and slipped back into the shadows just as I recognized the distinctive gait of Garrett Mackenzie. He stopped outside the window and looked in. What was that about? Was he spying on his own family? Was I imaging something sinister in his body language, like he wasn’t happy with what he was seeing? Maybe Barry was right, that I did have crime on the brain and saw everything through that filter.

  But anybody who knew anything about show business divorces lately knew that it had become a cliché for the husband to get involved with the nanny. Was it something like that? Matt Meadowbrook seemed to be eyeing her, too. Was Garrett jealous? I don’t know why these celebrity women hired such pretty young women. Personally, I would have been looking for somebody who looked like Mrs. Doubtfire.

  Garrett must have heard Mr. Kitty rustling in the ivy, because he turned in our direction, and I was glad I hadn’t changed the bulbs—I was invisible to his gaze. He muttered something and went around to the front. I heard a door shut.

  “Enough detective work for one night,” I said to Mr. Kitty when I finally snagged him.

  The cat turned around and looked at me with his big greenish eyes. Was he on to me? Did he know that his escapes had become an excuse for me to spy on the neighbors?

  CHAPTER 5

  “We have a new student,” I said to the gathering of the Tunisian crochet class. Adele shot me an unhappy look, no doubt thinking I was stepping on her territory as teacher. But since I was in charge of the whole Yarn University, I was really like the dean, so I thought it fair that I handle introductions.

  It was the second meeting of the class, and Rhoda, CeeCee, Elise, and Dinah had shown up from the Hookers. Terri and Melody, the two women who seemed like one unit, as well as Lauren and Susan, were also present. Fanny wheeled Oscar in as I was speaking, inspiring Susan to let out another “Oh, puleeze.” The dog jumped out of the stroller and into CeeCee’s lap, which delighted her. Since it was right after the happy hour gathering of the Hookers, Sheila and Eduardo had moved to the end of the table and were just observing the class.

  “I think you all will recognize her,” I said, turning to see if she’d made an appearance yet. Cheyenne was just coming through the bookstore. She had a tote bag with the ChIlLa logo and was wearing high-fashion jeans and a loose-fitting royal blue top under a jean jacket with the collar turned up. She’d thrown on a multicolored scarf, which completed the “perfect pop star doing everyday life” look.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said when she reached the table. Everyone was nodding, so I was pretty sure the group knew who she was. Even so, I said her name and mentioned ChIlLa and her position as a judge on Show Me Your Tune. “And is there something else?” I prompted, to see if she would mention whatever the supposed dance number was for. She looked at me blankly. “No, that’s it for now. Of course, with our new album coming out, we’ll be making the rounds of talk shows.”

  Rhoda asked where she’d learned to crochet, and Cheyenne seemed to stumble. “It was a while ago. I was staying somewhere and it was an activity.” She quickly changed the topic to the class. “I’ve always wanted to learn how to do Tunisian crochet. Adele gave me a demo, but I can’t wait to try it for myself. Tell me what I need to get started.” She looked to me. I had already put together a kit with a hook attached to a cable and the assorted yarns for the project Adele had designed for the class.

  Susan watched as I handed the supplies to Cheyenne. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she said in a pointed tone. “Doesn’t she have to pay for her supplies, or do celebrity types get special treatment?”

  “I can assure you, Cheyenne paid for her supplies just like the rest of you. I simply added it on to the price of the class for her.”

  Cheyenne simply ig
nored Susan and walked around the table. “Do you mind if I sit next to my sister?”

  “Sister?” a bunch of us said together. Cheyenne seemed mystified. Then she chuckled. “Lauren, you’re doing it again?” She turned back to the rest of us. “I bet she introduced herself as Lauren Plimpton and said she had two kids and nothing more.” Cheyenne gave her sister a disparaging look. “I keep telling her she needs to have a persona even when she isn’t onstage. My other sister, Ilona, certainly does. And look where it’s got her. She’s an actress and everybody knows who she is when she walks some red carpet event with her husband, Matt Meadowbrook. I’m sure you all recognize his name.” She waited while everyone but Susan nodded in acknowledgment. Susan merely appeared annoyed.

  Cheyenne gave Lauren a disparaging shake of her head before she continued. “You’d never guess that she was the same—just a minute,” she said, interrupting herself, and then went across the bookstore to the music and video department. She came back a moment later holding a CD. “You wouldn’t recognize her as the person sitting across the table,” she said with a laugh, and then passed the CD around. I got the first look. Cheyenne was certainly right. On the cover of the CD, Lauren was sporting a rainbow-colored wig with a chopped-off, asymmetrical style. She was wearing a skirt about the length most figure skaters wore, which she’d paired with white thigh-high hose held in place by garters and chunky high-heeled shoes. She did not resemble the plain-looking thirtysomething mom across the table who seem baffled at being the center of attention.

  I noticed that Mrs. Shedd was hanging at the edge of the yarn department, watching what was going on. Cheyenne gestured toward her while she spoke to her sister. “You ought to get them to hang a photo of you up by the front, like they did of me. We’ll get Ilona to come in, and they can add her photo, too.”