Till Beth Do Us Part (A Jamie Bravo Mystery Book 2)

by Layce Gardner

  Burt slides the Yoo-hoo in front of me and I swivel back around. “So, where's Travis? I thought he was on the schedule for today.”

  “He was. I let him off early because he had urgent business to attend to.”

  That's weird. If Travis had urgent business, I'd know about it. “What kind of urgent?”

  “The shopping kind.”

  “Was there a shoe sale at Nordstrom?” I chuckle. “Did Travis suddenly have an urge for some new palazzo pants?”

  Burt leans his elbows on the bar and looks at me. “He's shopping for you, Jamie.”

  “Me?”

  “You have a reunion coming up, right?”

  I choke on my Yoo-hoo. “Please tell me he's not shopping for a reunion outfit for me.”

  “Oh, but he is. He explained your urgent situation and I agreed with him. You need to go to the reunion. You need new clothes,” Burt lisps.

  “I don't need to go to the reunion. I need food and water. I don't need new clothes.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says me.” I slurp so hard on the tiny straw that the cardboard box almost turns inside out. “Besides, I haven't even made up my mind whether or not I'm going.”

  “Oh, you're going.”

  I don't like to be told what to do. I've been that way since I was four-years old and my mother told me to eat my Brussels sprouts. They made me gag. Now I don't do Brussels sprouts or what people tell me to do. I dig in my heels, saying, “No, I'm not.”

  “Yes. You are.”

  “What're you going to do? Put me in handcuffs, stuff me in your trunk and force me to go?”

  Burt stares at me, unblinking.

  “Oh crap. That's exactly what you have planned,” I say.

  “Not exactly. I was going to use duct tape, not handcuffs,” Burt says.

  “Why does everyone want me to go to this frickin' reunion?”

  It was meant as one of those rhetorical questions, but Burt answers anyway, “Because, Jamie dearest, we love you. You need to get out more. You need to socialize. You need to meet more people. I.e., people that are not Veronica.”

  “I meet plenty of people. As a matter of fact, I just got back from meeting a new person. Sheri Rosetti.”

  He perks up. “Rosetti? As in Ronny Rosetti?”

  “That's her husband.”

  “Poor woman. He has such a tragic appendage,” Burt says.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I never forget a penis.”

  “Should I ask?”

  “Probably not… But back to you, darling. You need to experience more. And Travis and I want to help you do that,” he says.

  “Help me? Interesting word choice. Kidnapping is not helping. In fact, last time I checked, it was a federal offence.”

  Burt lifts the bar divider, walks through, and settles his large rump on the stool beside me. “I don't know if I ever told you this, but I'm allergic to duct tape. I used it once in a beauty pageant when I was just a young queen. It made parts of me more-so and other parts less-so. I was in the middle of my talent when the itching started. And this was no ordinary itching. This felt like a parade of fire ants biting my testicles.”

  “What was your talent?” I ask in an effort to derail the story.

  “I did Faye Dunaway's monologue from Mommie Dearest. The most brilliant part was I wore my dress with the wire hanger still in it.”

  “Very creative.”

  Burt smiles. “Thank you. Anyway, back to my testicles. Within seconds, they began to swell. They plumped up bigger than twin beach balls and I was rushed to the hospital, lying on my back with my legs in the air.”

  I cringe at the visual. “So the moral of the story is, don't use wire hangers.”

  “No, Jamie, the moral of the story is that I would brave my duct tape allergy to get you to your high school reunion.”

  My cell phone chooses this moment to ring, saving me from any further discussion of Burt's beach balls. “Jamie Bravo,” I answer.

  “Where are you?” It's Travis.

  “I’m at the bar waiting for you to be at work,” I reply. I motion for Burt to get me a fresh Yoo-hoo.

  “I need you to come home,” Travis says.

  “Because you bought me a new outfit for the reunion,” I say with my tone deep and disgusted.

  “You have to come home. We have a guest,” Travis says. He hangs up on me. Well, you have to admit, Travis has a real way with building suspense.

  I push the redial button. When he picks up, I say, “Who’s the guest?”

  “Reggie from Nordstrom. She’s helping us with Project Runway.”

  “Dare I ask what Project Runway is?”

  “It's you, Jamie. It's what we're calling the plan to get you looking hot for your reunion.”

  “You are a social menace.”

  “And you’re behaving like an uncooperative child,” Travis says. Even over the telephone waves I can tell he's pouting. Travis is an expert pouter. He can do it for days. Weeks even. And when he's pouting he doesn't make coffee or clean house or do any of the little things I love. He's like that old story I read in English class—Lysistrata. Except instead of withholding sex, he's withholding coffee.

  “Ugh. I’m coming.” I stand.

  Burt licks the tip of his finger and makes a chicken scratch on an imaginary board. “Queens one, lesbian zero.”

  “This game is so not over.”

  *

  Ivan barks as I drive Silver by The Barkery. It's a bakery that specializes in doggie treats. The building looks like any other bakery except there are paintings of dogs wearing human clothes and eating cake and donuts on the plate glass window. It always made me wonder who was fool enough to buy expensive treats for a dog. Then I got a dog and became one of those fools.

  My wheels have no sooner rolled to the curb than Ivan begins to yip and yap and do a little dance in his basket. He loves this place. It's as addictive to dogs as Starbucks is to humans. I clip a leash on Ivan and he leads me into the store.

  I have to admit it smells good in here. If you didn't know better you'd think the treats were for human consumption.

  That gives me an idea. A very delicious idea.

  “What’ll you have?” the big, burly guy behind the counter asks. He looks like a goombah. Usually, a petite Italian woman works the counter.

  “One liver pate biscuit and an apple spice mini-muffin,” I order.

  “That all?”

  “You better give me a bag full of those special peanut butter teeth-cleaning biscuits.”

  “Coming up,” the man says. He scoops everything into a bag and hands it over. “You look familiar. You from around here?”

  “Lived here my whole life. My mother was born just around the corner.”

  Ivan stands on his hind legs and dances for a treat. I give him a biscuit.

  “What’s your mother's name?” he asks.

  “Bella Bravo. Her maiden name was Rivetto.”

  His face lights up and he kisses his fingertips, exclaiming, “Bella, Bella, Bella! You look a lot like her. She was the most gorgeous girl in the neighborhood. Every boy had a crush on Bella Rivetto.” He blushes. “Even me.”

  I hand over a twenty, but he waves it away. “Your money is no good. It’s on the house. You tell Bella that Dom from The Barkery said hello.”

  “Have you always been a baker?” I didn’t think that dog bakeries had been the rage back when my ma was a girl.

  “It's the family business. I've been covered in flour my whole life. I started the dog bakery when dogs became fur kids. It’s a lucrative business.”

  “I’ll give Ma your best. And thanks for the biscuits.”

  “Stop by any time.”

  Ivan yips a final thank-you as we go back out the door.

  Eight

  Travis has called in the big guns. He's invited Reggie over to dress me up. Reggie works at Nordstrom. She sold me my trench coat shortly after I got my P.I. license. She also wor
ks as a personal shopper for people who have no taste of their own and can afford her. The fact that she's in my living room surrounded by piles of clothes means that I am in big trouble.

  Reggie is one of those women I can't quite figure out. She's not pretty, but you wouldn't know that by looking at her. What I mean is. . . she thinks she's pretty and she's convinced everyone else that that she is, too. She has a big nose, not Streisand big, but close. Her face is thin and long. Her shoulders are boney. Her feet turn out when she walks. But somehow, you put it all together and it's not so bad. Maybe it's her perfume.

  Anyway, by the time I roll through the door, Reggie and Travis are making themselves at home on my couch. They're looking through a huge stack of fashion magazines. This is my first clue I am in big trouble. My second clue is that Reggie is dressed in a blue pin-striped suit and an even bluer blouse. Her pant legs billow out like sails. Must be hell walking into the wind.

  Ivan jumps on Travis's lap, kisses him, and snuggles up on a pillow for a nap. I wouldn't mind a nap myself, but Travis and Reggie have other ideas.

  “Are you ready?” Travis asks, standing.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To become the créme de la créme of your reunion,” he says with a big wave of his arm. “You're in the prime of your life!”

  I knew we shouldn't have watched The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. He's been doing a Maggie Smith impersonation ever since.

  “I don't want to go to the reunion. I've spent twenty years trying to bleach most of those people out of my brain. No way I want to revisit the scene of the crime,” I reason.

  Travis reaches out and snags the doggie treat bag out of my hand. He looks inside and swoons with pleasure. “Ooooh, biscotti.” He takes a treat out of the bag and bites into it. I don't say a word. Hey, it's not my fault he didn't see the dog on the front of the sack.

  He holds the open sack out in front of Reggie. “Want one?”

  She thinks about it for all of one second, then pulls one out. “Thank you.”

  I try not to laugh as she nibbles the 'biscotti' like a squirrel.

  Ivan raises his head off the pillow, watches them chew his biscuits and yips.

  “Sorry, Ivan, but Jamie says I can't give you people food,” Travis says.

  “Oh, just this once won't hurt,” I say. I give Ivan his own biscotti and that seems to satisfy him.

  “Take off your clothes,” Reggie demands.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have to try on clothes. First, you have to remove those. . . those. . . clothes.” She makes a face at my ensemble.

  “I don't understand why you two are so into this. Why do you care what I dress like to go to a lousy reunion?”

  “It's like playing Barbie dolls. The grown-up version,” Reggie answers. “It's fun.”

  Travis helps himself to another biscotti. “Yummy. You'll have to bring these home more often,” he says.

  “I will,” I say with no trace of humor.

  “Didn't you ever dress up your Barbie doll?” Reggie asks me.

  I shake my head. “No. My Barbie went around naked and barefoot with a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. When she left the house she wore dirty pajamas. I glued a tiny beer can to her hand. She had cankles. She was Trailer Trash Barbie.”

  “Okay, huggy time is over,” Travis says all business-like. He walks over to the chair which is piled high with clothes. “Come see what we’ve got. Reggie will take back what doesn’t work. There are several possibilities. You need to try stuff on to get the full effect.”

  I'm not going down without a fight. “I’m not going and that's that.”

  “Sure you are, honey. Give it ten minutes tops—show everyone your stuff and then you can leave,” Reggie says.

  “My mother used that trick on me a lot growing up—the old 'if you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay' trick. I told her I didn't like the first grade but she made me go back for twelve more years.”

  “Mothers are master manipulators,” Reggie says.

  Travis puts on his Jean Brodie face and says, “You're thirty-eight. This is the prime of your life. It's all downhill after this. This is your last chance to look hot, strut your stuff, and make Zelda jealous.”

  I know Travis is trying some psychological voodoo on me, but it works anyway. The thought of making Zelda salivate and, for one moment, want to be in my shoes does the trick. “All right, I agree to go for ten minutes tops in one of these fancy outfits only because you won’t leave me alone unless I do.”

  Travis claps his hands and Reggie smiles. Little do they know, they may have won this battle, but they haven't won the war. I look at the haystack of clothes on the chair. I pick up the top dress. It's hideous. It looks like something a square dancer would wear. No, wait, I take that back. I think even square dancers would think it's hideous. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Travis and Reggie shake their heads. “It’s perfect,” Travis says, holding a straight face.

  “I'm not going. Not even for ten seconds,” I say. I turn to walk out of the room, but their laughter stops me. I turn around.

  Travis holds the hideous dress up in front of him and says, “It's a sales trick, Jamie. This dress is so bad that it makes everything else look good in comparison. Reggie uses this trick all the time on her customers.”

  “That really works?”

  Reggie looks smug. “It does. That's why I'm the best personal shopper in all of Lakeland.”

  “Here,” Travis says thrusting something into my arms and pushing me toward the bedroom. “Go try this on.” He quickly leaves and shuts the door.

  I sit on my bed and wonder what just happened. A minute ago I was on top of things, now I'm being bullied by two girlie people.

  I hold up the clothing Travis thrust on me. It's a dress. A little black dress. I believe this is what women refer to as an LBD. Which has always confused me. I thought LBD meant Lesbian Bed Death. Now I am looking at an LBD which is sure to cause LBD and be the DOM. (Death of Me.)

  I throw the LBD onto the bed and march to my door. I open it a crack and yell, “I don't do dresses!”

  “Humor me,” Travis says with his mouth full of biscotti.

  “Trust me,” Reggie says with her mouth full too.

  I have never trusted anybody who says 'trust me.' But I figure there's only one way out of this mess: Forward.

  I shut the door, shuck off my clothes and shimmy into the LBD. Easier said than done. It's too tight. In fact, it's so tight that most of my flesh is popping out of it like a busted tin of biscuits.

  I pull the full length mirror out of my closet. I keep it in there so I don't have to witness the decline of my body. Especially the bottom half. Especially the back, bottom half. My butt is my problem area. At least I don't have to look at it all the time. I put my mirror in the closet about a year ago. I had discovered that starting my day off in a depressed or self-demeaning way was a bad idea—it set the tenor for the rest of day.

  “How long does it take to put on one tiny dress?” Travis asks, rapping on the door.

  I open the door a crack. “That’s the problem. It's a tiny dress. I’m not certain it covers my entire butt.”

  “Come out here and let’s see,” Reggie commands.

  I sigh. What is it with women that makes me do what they want? They don’t even have to try hard. I open the door and walk out.

  Travis puts his hand on his heart and gasps. “You look fantastic!”

  “Really?” I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or doing another sales trick.

  Reggie walks in a circle around me doing a full-on inspection. She squints one eye and pooches out her lips while she thinks. Finally, she says, “It works on you.”

  “What about my butt? And my boobs, they’re practically falling out.”

  “That’s the whole idea,” Travis says, circling around me as well. “I’m thinking black pumps and a loose chignon. She’ll be perfect.” He raises an eyebrow at Reggie loo
king for confirmation.

  I shake my head. I don't know what a chignon is but I don't think I want to wear it even if it is loose.

  “I vote no. This dress looks good on her, but it's not Jamie,” Reggie says. She lets out a long sigh.

  “I agree with Reggie. No way I'm wearing this dress.”

  Travis flounces on the couch, crosses his arms, and pouts. “You are absolutely no fun.” His face suddenly brightens. “What if I go with you as your date? I could be your international date of mystery. That way you wouldn’t look like a loser. Then would you wear the dress?”

  “I already have two dates for the reunion I'm not going to,” I say, hoisting my boobs up and pulling the dress down over my butt. That's a very hard thing to do at the same time—kind of like patting your head and rubbing your belly simultaneously.

  “Why do you have two dates if you aren’t going?” Travis asks.

  “I've been asking myself the same thing.”

  Reggie hands me another outfit. The colors are nice. Soft maroons, golds, and reds for the blouse. A long brown vest and brown pants. I’m just happy that it's not another dress.

  I go back to my bedroom and close the door. I think about crawling out the window. It would probably take them about ten minutes before they realized I was gone. But I know Travis. He wouldn't give up. He’d drag me back home and make me go through this all over again. The sooner I make it through the fashion show, the better off I’ll be.

  The blouse and pants part of the outfit look fine. The vest is absurd. It drags the floor. I look like Bea Arthur in the old TV show Maude.

  I throw open my door and walk out. Unfortunately, I'm not used to walking inside a tent and I trip. My face breaks my fall.

  “Okay, well, that outfit's not going to work,” Travis says.

  “Nope,” Reggie agrees.

  Ivan leaps off the couch and runs to me where I'm sprawled on the floor. He licks my face. “I’m all right, buddy. But thanks for checking,” I say, getting to my feet. “At least somebody cares.”

  “I think you’ll like this last one,” Reggie says, holding up a white tux that looks like the one Ellen wore when she married Portia, only less scarfy.