Operation Bonnet

by Kimberly Stuart

  “Thanks for the message, Mrs. H.,” I said, feeling just a tiny bit of regret for pushing all of her buttons at such a fragile hour. Mother always said I wasn’t a morning person. “I’ll call That Friend of Mine right now.”

  “Fine,” she said, dropping a stack of folded shirts on the top of my dresser on her way out. “Tell him I don’t say hello.”

  “I sure will.” I’d picked up my phone and was already dialing.

  “Finally.” Matt must have been worked up. His voice almost had an inflection. “I’ve called about ten times. Didn’t she give you the messages?”

  “Mrs. H.? Of course she did. We Monroes, while certainly not faultless, do know how to hire and fire people. If Mrs. H. didn’t relay phone messages well, she’d have been canned decades ago.” I shimmied into the same pair of jeans I’d worn the day before and noticed they were a bit tighter than they’d been when I’d bought them. “I think I might be getting fat,” I said, more bemused than irritated.

  “Doubt it,” Matt said, returned safely to his monotone. “Besides, you’d have to put on about three bills for anyone to see past the hair.”

  These are the comforts of old friendships. You can make fun of hair and not have that be the end of it. “Before I forget, Mrs. H. said to tell you she doesn’t say hello.”

  “Ooooo, that’s rough. I’ll be sure to tell my dad when he gets home.”

  Mrs. H. and Matt’s dad, Arthur DuPage, nursed a completely unhealthy grudge against each other for an unknown offense that occurred when they went to high school together. After much in-home espionage, document rummaging, and even the use of microfiche at the Casper Public Library, I still had no idea what happened. I tried prying some information out of Mrs. H.’s husband, Mr. H., before he died ten years ago. To no avail. He was even more tight-lipped than she. He made his face blank, going so far as to let his jaw go slack. It was probably the closest I’d come to verifiable scandal in this town, and the H.’s shot the drama to bits. That I was friends with Arthur’s son did cause Mrs. H. considerable angst, but most of what I got out of it was her reddened face, muttered curses every now and then, and the use of Matt’s title, “That Friend of Yours.”

  “What’s the rush, then? Why are you stalking me? People will start to talk.” I picked at my hair with a wide-toothed comb but made no discernible progress.

  “I’d actually be really great at stalking. You know—quiet, invisible type.”

  I know Matt better than most and could hear the small note of a smile in his words. “You should try that! Please, will you? Stalk someone, and let me be the one to get you on surveillance tapes so I can bust you and finally have a case under my belt. Please, Matt? Be a stalker for me?”

  He cleared his throat. “Um, I don’t think that would be a healthy boundary for us.”

  I rolled my eyes, glad he couldn’t see. Ever since he’d started reading self-help on his way to a career in psychiatry, the man had the ability to stop friendly banter on a dime.

  “The reason I called,” he said, apparently pleased at our avoidance of crossed boundaries, “is that you should meet me at the store when it opens. You might be in the market for one of our hottest items, which goes on sale today.”

  “Shut up. Are you serious?”

  “As the grave. See you at ten.”

  One of the many perks of being friends with Matt, in addition to having a backup date to every school dance for grades seven through twelve, a person to sit around and be cynical with in college, and a person who didn’t seem to tire of you even when you were stuck in a huge house with your grandmother and a cranky housekeeper, was that he worked at Radio Shack. A budding PI really needed a contact on the technological inside—someone who would, say, call with an alert that the recording device for which one had been pining was finally on sale and wouldn’t cost a month’s wages.

  I gave up on my hair and pulled it into a horrible pink ball cap Mother and Pop brought me from Belize one year. I’d found the Radio Shack crowd to be less discerning in the ways of fashion than even I, the disappointing only daughter of Annette Monroe, fashionista of the universe and owner of sixty-four pairs of black high heels. I’d counted, and that number didn’t include charcoal gray or prints.

  “Nice hat,” Matt said when I met him at the front entrance. “I didn’t peg you to be one for pink.” His voice never moved up or down one single note of the scale, but his dark eyes flickered with mischief.

  “I have layers you haven’t even seen,” I said, looking past him into the store. “Let’s go before they sell out.”

  Matt snickered. “I guarantee you will be the only one in Casper buying the Elite Xtra 680 Digital Voice Recorder today. You can probably not run.”

  Too late. I jogged through the aisles, waving quickly to Don, the store manager who looked disapprovingly at my speed. Whatever, I thought. I’d seen him sprint into a Cleveland Barnes & Noble the night the third Harry Potter book released. He was not one to cast stones.

  When I got to the Elite, I picked it up and did a little dance in the aisle. I’d been waiting for this moment for four months, since the first time Matt had shown me the new model. My old recorder was too big, analog instead of digital, and far too obvious in the pocket of my jeans. I’d had to resort to wearing a trench coat on several occasions, which was entirely too Nancy Drew.

  “Hello, Nellie.” The voice was deep and familiar.

  I turned. It was the Amish guy from work. He stood uncomfortably close to me and wore a neon green shirt with the words SPRING BREAK ’98 on the front. I took a step back. “Oh, hi. Amos, right?” Part of PI work: steel-trap memory with names.

  “Yes, I am Amos. How are you today?” He spoke with a slight accent, but very carefully. I got the feeling he was the kind of person who didn’t much like making mistakes.

  “I’m well, thank you.” I showed him the Elite. “My Holy Grail is on sale.”

  “Holy Grail? I am here for a phone charger. Do I need a Holy Grail?” He began a perusal of the Elite display.

  “Hey,” Matt said, coming to stand by me. “Did you find one, or are we sold out?” He glanced at Amos and raised an eyebrow above his glasses.

  “Amos, this is my friend Matt. Matt, Amos just started working at the course. He used to be Amish.”

  Matt let out a low whistle and put out his hand. “Wow. So you’ve probably not spent a whole lot of time in Radio Shack.”

  Amos’s upper lip lifted up in a lopsided grin. “No, but I can shoe a horse in twenty minutes.”

  “Sweet,” Matt said, nodding. He ran a hand through a head of thick chestnut hair. Thick, but still comb-cooperative, the jerk. “Touché, my friend.”

  I was beginning to feel annoyed with the male bonding, so I made my move to go pay. “Nice seeing you, Amos.”

  “But wait, please. I want to know what is the Holy Grail.” He smiled again. “You tell me about this thing, and I will teach you how to shoe the horse.”

  “I’m going to pass on the horses,” I said, though Matt looked like he’d be in. “The Holy Grail is a voice recorder. I can use it to record conversations without anyone knowing.” I couldn’t help it: Saying the words aloud made me shiver.

  Amos looked confused. “You don’t want a person to know you are talking? Is this not impossible with your loud voice?”

  He did not look embarrassed by the comment, and Matt looked delighted.

  I sighed. “I mean, I can record the sound of my conversation, the audio.”

  Blank stare.

  “Tape it? Have a copy of it later? Like a CD? Or a record album?”

  Total confusion.

  Matt tried. “Dude, like a podcast.”

  “Oh, yes, a podcast!” Amos’s eyes lit up. “I love the podcast of Howard Stern! You can make a podcast like his!”

  “Good g
ravy,” I said under my breath. Who was this kid? “Right, kind of like that.” Then, feeling the need to distance myself from Howard, I said, “It’s for my work. I’m a private investigator.”

  Amos’s eyes widened. “Oh, that is a very important job. I know about this job.” He nodded sagely. “I have seen this many times on the show Magnum, P.I. with Tom Selleck.”

  I was fairly sure Tom Selleck was dead or perhaps in a home, but I let it go. “Exactly. It’s very exciting, rewarding work.” I shrugged. “I keep my job at Tank’s as a diversion.”

  Matt coughed, and I threw him a dagger look.

  “Well, it’s good to chat with you, Amos,” I said, walking backward toward the front of the store. “See you Monday.”

  He waved, unsmiling, not unlike a kid during his fifteenth revolution on a Ferris wheel. “Good-bye, Nellie and Matt. I hope you catch lots of bad men.”

  “Nice guy,” Matt said as we left the store. He dug his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “A little intense, but nice. Do you think he’d really show me how to shoe a horse?”

  I shook my head, busy unwrapping the Elite. “Probably. Let me know, and I’ll come record you yelping in pain when the horse lands you one in the kisser.” I pushed the red button and recorded our entire conversation on the way home.

  4

  Comfort Food

  I heard the laugh before I could see her. It was really more of a whinny than a laugh, so I couldn’t take any credit for aural stealth. My location, the meat counter at TasteWay Supermarket, was at least forty feet from the front of the store, but I could hear her up at checkout. Misty Warren. Remember? Not the snorter but the insulter? She still lived in Casper and, unfortunately, ruined nine out of ten expeditions to the grocery store because she’d married into ownership.

  When Bill, the meat guy who liked to floss his teeth behind the counter, handed me the filets, I took my time strolling along the back of the store. I was finished shopping for dinner and really didn’t feel like lingering by the condiments, but neither did I feel like having to converse with Misty Warren. She was hyphenated now: Misty Warren-Pitz. That was seriously her new last name. I heard her using it as I dragged my feet toward the register.

  “Misty Warren-Pitz,” she said, holding out a clump of painted fingernails to a customer in line. “P-i-t-z.”

  I’d heard this before too. She spelled it out, as if the z canceled out the fact that everyone could only think about armpits. I started unloading my groceries and tried to remain inconspicuous, a skill I’d basically perfected in my research.

  “Hey, there, Nellie,” Mr. Lockhart said. He ran my filets, the bacon, and the shallots down the conveyer belt. “How’s things?”

  “Fine,” I said in a small voice, keeping my eyes on the cash register. I wasn’t afraid of Misty Warren, but there were times when I just couldn’t muster up the strength to endure her. That afternoon was one of those times. My parents had just called to let me and Nona know they’d be home for dinner, and would I rustle up something homey and midwestern? My mother and father could have hired anyone at any time to cook anything, but I always balked at the idea when it came up because I enjoyed cooking. It was not something I advertised, because in a town like Casper, you might as well start hanging out in the church basement on permanent potluck duty. Not to mention what it could do to your social life, everyone all frantic trying to get you married off to some man who needed a woman to “make a house a home.” People here still talk like that, and it made me want to hole up with Nona and take a vow of chastity, that’s what.

  I almost made it out of the store. The kiss of death came when Mr. Lockhart called after me, just before I reached the automatic sliding doors to freedom.

  “Nellie, tell your dad I shot three under par last week! Probably not anything special for him, but I took home steaks that night for Irma.”

  I kept walking and waved without turning around, but it was too little too late.

  “Excuse me,” I heard her say. “Nellie Monroe? Is that you?”

  I rolled my eyes before turning around, although she might have seen the conclusion of the arc as I came to face her. “Hi, Misty.”

  She put one hand on her hip and sighed dramatically. Exactly like high school, only without the orange-and-blue cheerleader’s skirt. “It is so hot outside. Can you believe how hot this is for June?” She let her chin drop at the injustice of it.

  “Yep. Pretty hot. Well, I better run.” I turned to go.

  “Nellie, with that hair, you would just be stunning in Forest Haven.”

  Misty sold berets. This was the newest incarnation in a long line of mercenary tragedies. First came the classics: Tupperware, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef. When I thought really hard, I could understand the pull, at least with Pampered Chef. Nothing wrong with providing the community with a few more stoneware pans and lemon zesters, all in the name of a woman building a career. But Misty seemed to have something of a retail ADD, as she’d hopped from five or six home-based businesses since then. We’re talking lawn ornaments (predominantly gnomes); photo frames made entirely of recycled milk cartons; an exercise machine called Tush-B-Little, Tush-B-Quick (absolutely a real product; I got suckered into attending one of those parties and couldn’t walk for three days); and my personal favorite, bras that pushed up and out with such force, victims sent Misty chiropractic invoices for months afterward. The newest in the long line of terror was berets.

  “You think?” I asked and wished I hadn’t.

  “Oh, definitely,” she said. “We should totally schedule a party! The hostess gets a buttload of free stuff.”

  Do you see why this would never work? Who wants to buy things, really, from a woman who employs the word buttload in a sales pitch?

  “Thanks, Misty, but I’ll have to pass. Talk with you later,” I said, backing up and out of the store. When I stood at my car, rummaging in my bag for my keys, I noticed a tinge of pity for the girl. I may have been living in my parents’ house and getting ready to cook them dinner, but at least I wasn’t selling berets. Hope remained.

  At the risk of sounding full of conceit, my parents’ kitchen would have been a mausoleum were it not for me. My mother loved to tell a story at cocktail parties of the first and only meal she prepared as a young bride. It was not a very interesting story, but like all things my mother touched, it became more so with each retelling and a lot of hand gestures. The fated dinner involved a Cornish hen with a carcinogenic char, bread that remained disheartened and gooey on the inside, and mix brownies that made Pop ill. The consolation dinner after all that went awry was toast, which she burned. At this point in the story, Annette admirers would laugh with appreciation, saying things like, “What a great story!” and “It’s a good thing you do everything else so well!” They, of course, didn’t have to suffer in the home where burned toast was the better of two choices.

  Even though Mother renovated the kitchen with all high-end, high-dollar finishes, she had yet to actually use any of them, with the exception of the automatic garbage can and the temperature-controlled wine drawer. There was a deep-fat fryer concealed neatly with a stainless-steel cover. I’d long ago earned the right to use the six-burner gas stove, the built-in griddle, the warming drawer. The subzero freezer was stocked with homemade chicken stock, filled pastas, cookies, my famous chocolate sorbet. All of this remained a secret to anyone outside the family other than Matt, who dubbed me Betty Crocker with a Sneer until I made him dinner. Then I swore him to unwavering secrecy and stoked that flame every now and then with baked goods. It was pathetic how quickly his allegiance firmed in the face of a chocolate scone.

  I filled a stockpot with water to boil the new potatoes. The key to off-the-charts mashed potatoes is buttermilk. That and some healthy-sized crumbles of Maytag blue cheese. And butter. All things that might have adverse effects on your jeans fitting if you
didn’t keep in shape for the occasional high-speed chase.

  I was trimming the asparagus when Pop appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hi, pumpkin,” he said.

  I wiped my hands quickly on my apron and rushed over to hug him.

  “Ah, nothing better,” he said, moving back to get a look at me. Following sun year-round gave my father a perma-tan, though Annette was careful to help him walk the line between a healthy glow and the George Hamilton syndrome. “A welcome-home greeting from my little girl.”

  “Right, except I’m almost thirty.”

  “What?” Pop looked panicked. “When’s your birthday? September, right?”

  I laughed. “Pop, I’m not really thirty. But I’m almost twenty-one.”

  “Oh, give me a break, Nellie.” He sounded relieved. “You have nine years. At my age, nine years is the difference between a meaningless bump on your shoulder and a pine box.”

  “Wow,” I said. “So much to look forward to. Have you been hanging out with the Olafsons again?” Stan and Rita Olafson were two little birds who looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife. They shared my parents’ love of the PGA Tour, travel, and a good waitstaff, but they also infected Pop with a fear of mortality. I always knew he’d been with one of them when he’d ask me to take a look at his eyeball or his foot or his earlobe. He’d wait with expectation and then blurt out, “Well? Don’t you see it?” I never did, but he never quit asking.

  “As a matter of fact, I have.” His voice came from deep within the pantry, right before he emerged with a bag of pistachios. “We were just talking about you on the flight home. Myles is still single, you know.” He raised his eyebrows and crunched into a nut.

  “I’m sure he is,” I said. “I’m sure I am too. Yet I am still not interested in dating a person who sniffed Wite-Out during American civics in sixth grade.”