Caramel Crush

by Jenn McKinlay

  That was as far as she got before Nicole interrupted her.

  “Shut up!” Nicole looked her over, up and down and from side to side, as if she was looking to see what Mel was hiding.

  “Okay,” Mel said. She didn’t want to offend Nicole by speaking, but it was going to make asking her questions about Mike rather challenging.

  “Melanie Cooper, I see it now. You have the same eyes and nose, but wow, you are missing some chins. I never would have believed it was you,” Nicole said. Then she grabbed Mel’s hand and dragged her into the house. “Come in, we have so much to catch up on.”

  The panic Mel had been feeling before she knocked now seemed as if it might have been warranted, sort of like the heart-stopping moment right before a boat sank, leaving no survivors.

  Eleven

  “So, how are you?” Nicole asked. “Diane mentioned that she was still in touch with you but she didn’t give any details. Look at you, you’ve lost an ass ton of weight. How much? Fifty, seventy-five, one hundred pounds; somewhere in there, right?”

  Since she had Mel in an unforgiving hold, reminiscent of a manacle, Mel had no choice but to follow her across the Italian marble foyer and down the stairs into the sunken living room, much like a hostage.

  Mel took a moment to scout the room for alternative exits. At a glance, it was clear that whatever else Nicole was into, drapes were definitely a passion of hers. Floor-to-ceiling French doors lined one wall, which presumably led outside, although Mel couldn’t be sure because the two sets of drapes on each door, done in eye-watering shades of raspberry pink and black, were all drawn shut. So there went that plan.

  The furniture was black with drapery-matching pink throw pillows and the thick area rug that covered the floor was also black. She supposed she should be grateful it wasn’t pink, but it didn’t need to be because an enormous cursive letter N was painted on the far wall in, yep, more of the bright pink with stylistic black swirls painted all around it. Wow, just wow.

  “So, how about a strawberry daiquiri?” Nicole asked. She released Mel’s wrist and motioned for her to take a seat on one of the puffy black chairs. “I make one that’s to die for.”

  “No, thanks. Since I have to drive . . .” Mel’s words trailed off as she turned to sit and caught a glimpse of the portrait hanging over the fireplace on the opposite wall.

  Nicole followed her gaze and grinned. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Um . . . I . . . It,” Mel stuttered.

  Mel didn’t want to look at the painting. In fact, her life could have gone on quite happily if she had never seen such a thing, and yet it was like the time she and Angie caught the baboons fornicating at the zoo—once witness to such a thing she couldn’t seem to look away.

  In the portrait, Nicole, wearing nothing but thigh-high leather boots, a red thong, and matching bustier, was posed in the painted portrait as if she were Spider-Woman climbing down a wall, with her hands reaching forward, a come-hither look on her face, and her butt and the boots following her like the back end of one of those slinky-dog pull toys.

  “Gino, the artist, really captured my essence in this piece, don’t you think?” Nicole asked.

  If butt floss is your essence. Mel bit the inside of her right cheek to keep the words from escaping and opted to nod instead.

  “You know, not that many women are comfortable with their sexuality,” Nicole said. She put her hand on her hip, thrust out her breasts, and tossed her hair back. It was a move that had likely been perfected after hours of practice in front of a mirror. “I like to think I’m a bit more evolved than most women.”

  Mel forced herself to look away from the portrait, only mildly wrenching her neck in the process, and turned her head so that she could only see Nicole, who took the seat beside hers.

  “It’s a really good likeness,” she said. That was the best she could do. Nicole could take it or leave it.

  Nicole hugged herself as if she just couldn’t contain her joy. “Thank you. I think so, too. But enough about me, let’s talk about you.”

  “Actually,” Mel began, but Nicole interrupted her.

  “You know, I don’t understand why you weren’t asked to be in the wedding. I mean, duh, of course I know why, but now that I’ve seen you I really don’t see why Diane was concerned.”

  Mel felt her temples contract as she tried to keep up with Nicole’s verbal gymnastics. Had she always been like this? Mel couldn’t remember, mostly because she had chosen to block out all of their previous interactions over the years, but still, she didn’t remember her being this chatty.

  “I’m sorry, are you saying Diane was concerned about me?” Mel asked.

  “Yeah,” Nicole said. She frowned. “When she asked me to be in her wedding and I asked her if you were going to be in it, she said no, because . . . well, you know why.”

  A tiny voice inside of Mel told her not to go there, but the voice was so tiny, like a Who down in Whoville, and Mel’s curiosity was so strong, she went there.

  “No, I don’t know,” Mel said.

  “You know, in case you went on a food bender and got fat before the ceremony,” Nicole said. As if to illustrate her point she took a deep breath and ballooned out her cheeks to emphasize what she thought Mel would look like after a binge.

  It took every ounce of Mel’s self-control not to poke Nicole in both cheeks just to see her face pop. To ensure against it, she clasped her hands together in her lap. Perhaps this was why some people from the past needed to stay in the past; they were terminally rude, stupid, and mean.

  “Well, it’s too bad she didn’t pick me,” Mel said. “I mean, at least I’m not shtupping her fiancé.”

  “Ah!” Nicole gasped as if Mel had told her what she really thought about her. Sadly, there was not enough time in the day, er, week for that. “I don’t know where you got your info—”

  Mel held up her hand, gesturing for Nicole to stop. To her surprise, Nicole did.

  “Enough,” Mel said. “I know you. You can deny it all you want, but if I found out about it anyone could. So tell me, did Diane know?”

  Nicole glanced away, staring at her gaudy drapes as if looking for an answer or stalling to think up a lie. Mel settled back into her seat. The bakery was in good hands. She could wait here all day if she must.

  “I don’t know who is spreading such vicious rumors—” Nicole began.

  “No.” Mel shook her head. If Nicole thought she could bluff her way out of this, she was seriously mistaken. Mel was in full-on shut-down mode.

  “Jealous people gossip about the people they envy—”

  “No.”

  “Was it Diane’s cousin Hannah? She has been just awful to me since the day we met. Had I known I was going to have to put up with judgment from the self-righteous, I never would have agreed to stand up for her.”

  “No.”

  “Who is trash talking me, then? Who? I demand to know.”

  Nicole stomped one high-heeled sandal into the thick black carpet. Her lips were pressed into a hard thin line that looked like they’d only be pried open by a daiquiri straw.

  “Did you have an affair with him?” Mel asked. “Yes or no?”

  “What does it matter?” Nicole asked. “I talked to Diane a few days ago and she said she was calling off the wedding.”

  Mel gave her a steady look, the sort that made it clear that she wanted details without her saying a word. Nicole rolled her eyes. Her bogus thick eyelashes and heavily made-up cat eyes looked particularly funny with her eyeballs tipped up as if studying her hairline.

  “Did she say why?” Mel asked.

  “She said something about her return on investment not being what she had planned on,” Nicole said. She lowered her head and looked at Mel. “She was very vague and now that I think about it, she was very short with me on the phone. I thought it was because, we
ll . . .”

  “Because you were sleeping with Mike,” Mel said.

  “You’re not going to let it go, are you?” Nicole asked.

  “Nope,” Mel said.

  “God, you were like this in college, too, such a badger,” Nicole said. “No wonder your best friend was a box full of Oreos. Who could stand to live up to the mighty Melanie Cooper’s scrutiny?”

  Mel frowned. “Me? Scrutinize? Ha!”

  “You did!” Nicole accused. “You always had that pinched look of disapproval on your face. If I missed a class, you gave me the look. If you caught me sneaking a boy out of my room past curfew, there it was again. You were so judgy.”

  Mel blinked. “I wasn’t judging you. I was shy. You all had so much personality and you were always giggling and gossiping together, and there I was, the chubby girl who no one would talk to or hang out with, except Diane, and that’s probably because as my roommate she had to.”

  “Shy?” Nicole asked. “I thought you just didn’t like anyone.”

  “No, I was terrified of you all,” Mel said.

  “Huh,” Nicole said. “I thought the fat girl was always supposed to be the fun-loving, good-time girl; you know, the pretty girl’s sidekick.”

  “Thank you, Hollywood, for giving plus-sized girls a purpose,” Mel said. She knew Nicole was missing her sarcasm but whatever. “You might try losing fat girl from your vocabulary, Nicole, and change it to plus size, curvy, or even bodacious.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Nicole shrugged. “Hey, you’re not fat now so you must have put down the bucket of chicken and backed away at some point, right?”

  “I really think I hate you,” Mel said.

  Nicole wrinkled her nose. “That was mean.”

  “Listen, if you didn’t bag Mike, that’s fine,” Mel said. “I just came to find out what was going on with Diane since she hasn’t seemed to be herself. I’m sure she’ll be relieved to hear that you couldn’t manage to sink your hooks into her man. Even though she’s called off the wedding, this might make her less bitter about the whole thing.”

  Yes, Mel was out of patience. Yes, she was playing a calculated risk. She knew Nicole. Vanity was her weakness and Mel was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be able to abide the idea that people thought she hadn’t been able to steal Diane’s groom from her.

  It was a terribly manipulative maneuver to make, and Mel didn’t care. Not one little bit. She wanted to get out of this hellhole of black and pink and she’d do whatever it took to get the information she needed to make it happen.

  Nicole pursed her lips as if trying to keep herself from talking. Yeah, she’d have about as much luck holding back Niagara Falls with a spoon.

  “I thought Mike and I were in love. He told me he loved me at any rate,” she said. “But there was someone else.”

  “Diane?” Mel asked. “You remember, the woman he was supposed to marry.”

  “No,” Nicole said. Her look was sly. “And I’m betting Diane found out about the other woman and that’s why she called off her wedding. It’s one thing to lose your man to a woman who is as young and beautiful as you are—well, let’s be honest, more beautiful—but it is another to lose him to . . .”

  Mel was on the edge of her seat but Nicole stopped talking.

  Mel stared at her and Nicole looked at her with a closed-lip smile that did not reach her eyes.

  “Seriously?” Mel asked. “You’re holding out on me now?”

  “I can’t help it,” Nicole said. She shook her long dark hair and wriggled in her seat. “It’s just so delicious.”

  “Well, let me give you some incentive,” Mel said. “There’s one thing I didn’t mention about Mike Bordow. He’s dead.”

  The smile slid off Nicole’s smug face like a scoop of ice cream falling off a cone. Mel could almost hear the splat!

  “That’s impossible,” Nicole said. “I just spo—”

  Mel raised her eyebrows but Nicole wisely did not continue speaking.

  “I imagine the police are going to hear the same rumor I did,” Mel said. “And they’re going to be very interested in talking to you about your relationship with Mike, so tell me, who else might have had a motive to kill him?”

  “Kill him?” Nicole’s eyes went wide. Her lips trembled, and as the color drained away from her face, it left her makeup looking more like a clown’s face paint than a grown woman’s cosmetics. Mel didn’t think she could fake a response like that.

  “I found him,” Mel said. “I won’t give details except it was most definitely not an accident. So, who else did he have queued up as a little side bit?”

  Nicole was breathing hard and she put her hand over her heaving bosom. “It was Cheryl, Diane’s mother.”

  Twelve

  Mel sat in her car, staring at the dashboard as if there was an answer for her there that might make the fact that she had just discovered that Diane’s mother was having an affair with her future son-in-law okay. Yeah, there was no way that could ever be all right. What sort of a mother slept with her daughter’s fiancé? The thought horrified.

  She had met Diane’s mother, Cheryl, only once when they were moving into their dorm room as freshmen. While Mel’s parents and her brother had schlepped all of Mel’s belongings up to their room, Diane’s mother had sat on the edge of Diane’s bed and filed her nails. When it was clear that she wasn’t going to help her daughter, Mel’s father and brother had stepped up and hauled the rest of Diane’s belongings to their room.

  Joyce, Mel’s mother, had tried to engage Cheryl Earnest in conversation but Cheryl was engrossed in the latest issue of Glamour magazine while she filed her nails into talon-sharp points and had only given her cursory answers until Joyce had given up, shrugging at Mel as if to say she had no idea what to say to the other woman.

  Cheryl was not what one expected of a college freshman’s mother in her spiky high heels and slinky wraparound silk dress in a shade of emerald green that enhanced the green of her eyes. Her wavy blond hair hung halfway down her back and she moved with the predatory grace of a jungle panther. When she spoke, Mel had almost expected the voice of Jessica Rabbit.

  In contrast, Joyce, with her bobbed hair, light makeup, ironed cotton blouse, beige capri pants, and sensible running shoes, looked like she was made for giving hugs, slapping on Band-Aids, and doling out chocolate chip cookies. Up to that day in her short eighteen years, Mel had never been as grateful for her mother as she was at that moment.

  When all of their belongings were piled waist-high in their room, Cheryl had uncurled herself from Diane’s bed and looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Well, looks like it’s time for me to go,” she said. She beamed at her daughter. “Freedom beckons! Man, I’ve been waiting eighteen years for this. Woo-hoo!”

  With that, she kissed Diane’s cheek and swept from the room without even pausing to thank Mel’s family for their help.

  “But, Mom, wait . . .” Diane’s voice trailed off as her mother never broke her stride, never looked back, and as far as Mel knew, never stepped onto campus again.

  Diane clutched the sweater she’d been holding to her chest and then turned away from Mel and her family and began to unpack, busily hanging her clothes in her half of the wardrobe as if it were a timed competition. Mel got the feeling it was so no one would see that she was on the brink of tears.

  While her dad and Charlie went to scout the local food situation—it was a Cooper family rule to always check out the local take-out joints in any new neighborhood—Joyce helped Mel unpack. After a few awkward moments, she began to help Diane as well, saying something lame about more hands, less work. Mel had remembered being afraid Diane was going to think they were hopelessly dorky.

  Instead, Diane started to warm up under Joyce’s attention and when Charlie and her dad arrived back with a variety of takeout, D
iane happily joined them in trying out the local pizza, Thai food, burger joint, and sub shop. Her dad handed over the take-out menus as if he were giving her the key to the city, and Mel and Diane found a spot for them on the bulletin board by their door.

  When her family finally left a few hours later, they hugged Diane like she was one of their own and she hugged them in return. A very different parting than she’d had with her own mother. When they were falling asleep that night, Mel was almost unconscious when Diane spoke, breaking the silence.

  “Your family is really nice,” she said. “Thanks for letting me be one of you tonight.”

  “Anytime,” Mel said.

  Seeing her family through Diane’s eyes, Mel had been filled with love for her people and in a strange way it made the homesickness that had been dogging her ebb. She had them. They had her. Nothing could change that. Not the miles in between them. Not even death, or so she had thought with the innocence of youth. Losing her father a few years later would change her perspective on that, but still, seeing what Diane had at home had made her love her family all the more.

  Mel took her phone out of her purse and turned on her virtual assistant. She knew she should probably tell Uncle Stan what she had learned instead of doing what she was thinking of doing. She knew it and yet she couldn’t help but feel that if she got to Cheryl first, she might be able to find out more than Uncle Stan would.

  She could just imagine how Detective Tara was going to react to her going to see Cheryl Earnest. Instead of deterring her it spurred her into making what some—Joe—might call a rash decision. As always, Mel consoled herself that it was always easier to get forgiveness than permission.

  The simple fact was that with both her bridesmaid and her mother playing hide-the-salami with her fiancé, it made Diane look like the winner in the Most Likely to Whack the Groom competition. Despite knowing what a hard-ass Diane could be in life and business, Mel couldn’t believe that she killed Mike.