by Mary Bowers
She rattled on while opening a can of cat food and fussing a little at Wicked as he jammed his head into her hand to make her hurry up. He was so impatient he managed to push into the can before she had the lid completely off. Some of the meat paste got onto the top of his head.
“Now look at you,” she scolded as he flicked the cat food down with his paw and gobbled it. I could swear he was grinning the whole time. “He always wants to know if it’s chicken. He gives me the business if it’s tuna, but I think he needs variety, whether he likes it best or not. Now,” she said after Wicked and the bowl of cat food were safely on the floor, “what were we talking about? Oh, the little green men. I’m a little flustered about it, I have to admit it. Aren’t you scared, out there by the river on that big estate, just you and Michael?”
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Ed will find out what’s going on. It’s probably just kids.” I didn’t tell her about my own encounter; she seemed genuinely nervous, and I never liked to see her upset.
“While Janet was here this morning she told me a wild tale about seeing one of them,” she said, forcing a laugh. “I didn’t pay her any mind, though. Janet’s nice enough. She always means well. She just lets herself get too excited, that’s all. Hasn’t got the sense of a peahen. Poor thing hasn’t changed a bit since she was seven years old,” she added, tapping the side of her head. “But you shouldn’t waste your whole morning fussing over me. I’m fine. I’ll just go and take a little nap now. You go ahead and get yourself over to the diner. It’ll be lunchtime soon.”
I was nodding and looking at her through hooded eyes, holding my bottom lip in my teeth. “You really are a devious little thing sometimes,” I said.
She gave me a look of wide-eyed innocence, took a tissue from a box on the kitchen counter and gently dabbed at her nose.
“You may never have been married, but you know a few things about human nature. Message received, Florence. And you’re right – Michael probably is over at the diner. If Bernie ever wants somebody to do a lonely hearts column, I’m recommending you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly.” She pottered along after me as I started for the front door. Wicked came bounding along too, having finished his food in about eighty seconds – including the rest of the blob he’d gotten onto his head.
At the front door, we paused and she looked at me again with her soft brown eyes. “I never did learn much about men, but every woman knows that you have to keep an eye on them or they get themselves into trouble.”
I impulsively gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You are so right. I’ll get right on it, as soon as I look in at Girlfriend’s. Feel better. I’ll check back with you soon and see how you’re doing.”
* * * * *
Myrtle, of course, was making a mess of things at Girlfriend’s, but I reminded myself as I came into the shop that Florence was on the mend and she’d get herself back to work as fast as she was able, knowing what Myrtle was capable of.
She was diligently rearranging a display of glassware so that all the pieces were lined up from the tallest to the shortest, without regard for color, function or shape. I bit my tongue. She’d offered to help out in a crisis, and I was grateful. I knew that dealing with the public and working a cash register were out of her comfort zone. Putting the display back the way it was would give Florence something to do when she got back. She liked fussing around with the glassware.
Being a Monday, the shop wasn’t busy and there was nothing for me to do but watch Myrtle deconstruct what had been a very nice display. There hadn’t been any new donations that needed sorting and pricing, the bank deposit had gone in without a hitch (Myrtle gave me the deposit ticket, so that was all right), and when she knocked over a delicate vase and broke it, I helped her clean it up and got out of there.
Outside on Locust Street, I checked my watch and saw that it was too early for lunch. On Mondays, when I always came into town, I treated myself to lunch at Don’s Diner, sometimes with Michael. When his name flitted across my mind, I got that old feeling in my chest and remembered Florence’s advice.
I got my cell phone out hopefully and called him, but the call went straight to Voicemail. Since it was too early to go to the diner, I decided to check in at The Bakery and see what the twins had to say about their own encounter with whatever had been running around in the night. I wanted to hear for myself how closely it matched my own experience.
Chapter 5
I hadn’t been into The Bakery since it had been owned by a young lady from St. Augustine who was, to put it mildly, a lousy baker. I knew that Rosie and Poppy were divine bakers, because I’d tasted some of their creations at Ed’s house, but I also knew that being a wonderful home baker didn’t necessarily translate to being a competent commercial baker. For years now, the twins had had their own housekeeping business, and one of their clients had been Edson Darby-Deaver, which was how I’d first met them.
Ed is a guy who doesn’t like people touching his stuff, and the twins can give a good impression of a pair of short, round octopuses when they get busy, so although Ed would now have to find a new cleaning lady, he was happier having the twins making cakes and cookies. You can’t exactly call Ed a foodie, but he was a slave to the twins’ home baking.
When Justine Decker had owned The Bakery, it had been all pink and white stripes and reflective surfaces and ice cream tables with curly-wire hearts for chair backs. The twins had toned down the pinks with shades of green, and the old white-painted hardwood floor had been stripped and given a clear coat of varnish, which made a world of difference. The curly-heart chairs were still there, but you didn’t immediately think of the teddy bear’s tea party when you walked in the door.
Rosie was behind the display case when I came in. I knew it was her, because she was wearing a name tag; the twins are absolutely identical. It was an odd time of the morning and I was the only customer. I said hi and went over to the sideboard to grab a cup of coffee before I went up and looked into the bakery case.
“How are you doing?” I asked after ordering a shortbread cookie. “I hear you had a strange encounter the other day.”
She gave me a penetrating look before pulling a cookie out of the case and handing it over. Her flaming red, curly hair looked glossy and hard in the fluorescent light, and as she snapped her head around at me, it didn’t move.
“Who told you about that?” she asked.
“Edson Darby-Deaver. We were discussing what’s been going on around town this morning.” She looked so disturbed about it, I hastened to let her know that it wasn’t just casual gossip. “I had an experience of my own last night, out at Cadbury House.”
That softened her up, and her attitude went from defensive to thoughtful as she gave me my change. Then she said, “Take a seat, honey. Let’s talk.” But she said it very quietly, not in the booming contralto that usually came out of both twins, so I wondered if Poppy hadn’t been teasing her about it. She wasn’t lowering her voice for anybody else, because nobody else was in the shop.
She came over and sat down, waited for me to settle, then leaned across the table. “Little thing?” I nodded. “About so high?” she asked, leveling a hand a little less than three feet off the floor. I nodded. Then I said, “Sort of grunted and ran away?” She nodded. We gazed at one another for a moment in silence.
“What has Ed decided it was?” Rosie asked, absent-mindedly taking a sip of my coffee. I didn’t say anything. I’d had enough that morning, and Rosie looked like she needed it more than I did. I did pick up my cookie and take a bite, though, firmly claiming it as my own. She could have the coffee, but I wanted that cookie. It was creamy-soft perfection with a dusting of powdered sugar across the top.
“He hasn’t decided yet. You know him,” I added. She had cleaned Ed’s house for years; she really did know him. “He’ll check every reference, type out several reports, consult with his colleagues and sleep in the graveyard for a week before he decides what’s going on.”
<
br /> “The graveyard?”
“It’s where I saw – whatever it was.”
“You were out in the middle of the night in a graveyard when you saw that thing?” she said, giving a literal shudder. She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug as if she needed its warmth.
“Not in the graveyard. Next to it.”
“Same difference. Oh, lord, and here I was feeling sorry for myself. You win. My experience was nothing compared to that. It was dark out, mind you. It doesn’t get light until about 7:30 this time of year, and our day starts around 3 am. But I was only a step away from the back door, and Poppy was not far away from me, and I knew I could bolt back inside and slam the door and be safe.”
“You poor thing! Is that what you did?”
“Actually, no. I was frozen to the spot. The thing was gone before I could even move. I can’t imagine what it was like for you, being next to a cemetery all alone in the middle of the night.”
“I had a buddy with me: King. He’s a Malinois – kind of like a German Shepherd. Smart. Loyal. Protective. I guess he made me feel safe, and by the time I realized what was happening, it was over. But what was your impression, Rosie? What did you think it was? People seem to have gotten the idea that we’re being visited by aliens.”
“That’s just a fad. This thing didn’t look anything like an alien. It was a machine.”
Without getting into exactly what real aliens look like, I said, “A machine?” I sat back, went to pick up my cookie for another bite only to realize I’d finished it, then said, “Hmmm. You know, now that I think about it . . . .”
Rosie was up. She’d noticed she was drinking my coffee and got another cup for me, saying, “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. You looked like you needed it. Hmm – a machine.” I mulled it over.
She nodded, her hair moving rigidly with her head. “It looked like a machine, it sounded like a machine and it moved like a machine. Alien my foot,” she added trenchantly.
“Don’t knock the aliens,” her sister said, coming out of the back room with an enormous baking sheet and walking over to our table with it. “Have one,” she told me, “on the house. Careful; they’re kind of hot yet.”
I took one and quickly dropped it onto the napkin from the one I’d already eaten. She was right. It was hot.
Rosie glared at the pan of fresh cookies, glared at Poppy, then stood up. Looking back at me, she said, “You see what I mean? People go nuts when things like this happen.”
“We may as well capitalize on it,” Poppy said.
The cookies were shaped like helium balloons, and I already knew how they were going to be decorated, but Poppy told me anyway.
“I’m going to put green icing on them and then make big black almond-shaped eyes and two little dots for noses. Maybe I’ll give them little tiny smiles, if it doesn’t look too creepy. Then I’m putting a few on a plate and setting it right in the front window. Great idea, don’t you think?”
“I guess.”
From behind the bakery case, Rosie said, “For your information, Miss Taylor has seen the thing, too, so she’s not likely to be amused. She agrees with me, by the way. It wasn’t an alien at all. It was a machine.”
Poppy stared at me. “Really? Well, don’t go telling people that before the cookies sell out. An alien craze can do wonders for a town. Look at Roswell.”
Her sister slapped a cleaning cloth down on the counter and looked furious. “Do you really want Tropical Breeze to become another Roswell?”
I was looking thoughtfully from one twin to the other and munching the fresh cookie. It turned out to be a sugar cookie, and still had that fresh-from-the-oven tender-crisp edge to it. I hadn’t made my mind up yet about Rosie’s idea that it had been a machine, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed possible. I’d seen that kind of thing on TV. They called them “bots” – short for “robots” – and mostly the ones I’d seen had been pounding the nuts and bolts out of one another in remote-controlled, mechanical battles.
Poppy faced off with Rosie and said, “They sell a lot of souvenirs in Roswell, and I’m sure that every bakery in that town has alien cookies. And cakes! Oh man, what we could do with cakes! I’ve got an order from some of those convention people who are coming in this weekend. Perfect timing, huh? They specified a classic layer cake, but I think I’ll just have a few novelty cakes sitting out when they come in to pick up their order, just in case.”
She grabbed the tray of new cookies and headed for the back room. “I gotta make some sketches. This is gonna be great!”
I was left in the empty shop with Rosie, and we looked at one another.
“I’m afraid you and I are about to become celebrities,” she said. “Once word gets around, they’re going to be after us like a pack of groupies.”
“God help us,” I murmured. “I think I’m going stay out at Cadbury House this week. They can’t track me down there.”
“That’s fine for you, but what about me? I can’t very well lock up the shop and hide from them.”
“Your sister seems to be happy about all this, and nobody can tell the two of you apart. Exchange name tags with her.”
Her face lit up, then she lifted an eyebrow and looked positively evil. “We haven’t changed places since high school. I think it’s about time we did it again.” Her voice went into a sing-song. “Oh, Poppy?”
She moved toward the back room and I left them to work it out. Now that I was stuffed with cookies I didn’t really want any lunch, but I was going to the diner anyway. Michael would probably be there. Florence may be a spinster, but she’s right about men: you have to keep an eye on them.
* * * * *
I wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on Michael that morning, which was exactly what I had been afraid of. He was in Don’s Diner, all right, and he was not alone. The lady with the electrocuted pixie hair was cuddled into the same side of a booth with him, acting like they were all alone in the backseat of his car out at Lover’s Lane or something. I came straight across the restaurant floor with blood in my eye and crashed the party.
“So you’re Vanessa,” I cried, sliding into the other side of the booth. I saw the twinkle in Michael’s eye and gave him a little kick under the table. He knew exactly what was going on in both feminine minds, and he was enjoying it. I gave him a simper and said, “Do you always take your burglars to lunch after the break-in?”
Michael ignored the witticism and formally introduced us.
“So you’re Taylor,” she said, fastening transparently blue eyes on me like they were a pair of gun sights. “Michael mentioned you, I think, didn’t you, honey?”
“I did,” he said, lapping it up. “Back before we started to reminisce. Taylor is one of Tropical Breeze’s best-known citizens. She runs an animal shelter on the old Cadbury estate. You remember that place, don’t you?”
I waited for him to remind her (if he hadn’t yet told her) that he was living there with me. He might have intended to, or maybe not, but she cut him off.
“I think I may have heard something about that,” she said vaguely. “How very dedicated you must be, always cleaning up after animals and putting up with all that barking. I’ve never understood how people could do that kind of thing, but lots of them do. Very noble,” she added dismissively.
“And you’re some kind of TV personality?” I asked, frowning as if I were trying to remember. “Or was that a long time ago? You don’t do much of that kind of thing anymore, do you? Are you retired now? Media belongs to the young and juicy, doesn’t it? It’s terrible what they do to women in that business. By the time you’re over 30, you’re all washed up, and don’t even talk about your sixties! Oh, hi DeAnn,” I said as the waitress walked up. “I’ll just have the usual.”
“I already put the order in. Just came over to give you your unsweet,” she said, setting the iced tea in front of me and giving me a split-second wink. She loved my smack-talk, but Michael didn’t. He was gi
ving me a warning look, but I just couldn’t help myself. Vanessa Court was one of those women who make themselves ridiculous, dressing like teenagers, or even pre-teens. I’m not saying you should limp around in Army boots and support hose when you’re in your sixties, but dang! Have a little dignity. As I’d slid into the booth, I couldn’t help but notice the pink spike heels she was wearing with the pink stretch jeans and the blinged-out white denim jacket. She was skinny enough to wear them, but that’s not the only thing that matters. Maybe she needed the spike heels to crack windows when she was burglarizing houses. Which reminded me.
“If you needed a place to stay last night,” I said kindly, “you should’ve called Michael. I would’ve been happy to put you up at Cadbury House. It’s a mansion, you know; plenty of room. You didn’t need to go breaking into houses. Or didn’t you have Michael’s number after all these years?” Blink blink.
“I think we’ll order now,” Michael said, signaling desperately to DeAnn.
“How long has it been since you and Michael have seen one another?” I said once DeAnn was walking away again.
“When you have as strong a connection as Michael and I have,” she answered, petting his arm, “years don’t make a difference.”
