Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

by Donna Andrews

  “And grandchildren!” Mrs. Tranh called after me. “Plenty of grandchildren! Keep her real busy!”

  I ducked into the dressing room. Outside, I could hear Michael laughing and talking with Mrs. Tranh in a mishmash of French and Vietnamese. I pressed a hand to my cheek, which felt hot. Was it the weather, or my embarrassment? Dammit, I thought, I wish everyone would stop trying to push us toward the altar. Maybe my problem wasn’t fear of commitment; maybe it was just plain, old-fashioned stubbornness. Maybe if everyone started trying to pry Michael and me apart … .

  Later, I told myself, and I shed my workday gown and turned to see what Mrs. Tranh and her ladies had made.

  They’d designed it to go with Michael’s white-and-gold uniform that was clear. Off-white dupioni silk shot with gold threads, and trimmed with lots of lace, most white but some gold.

  The improvised dressing room contained a full-length mirror. I held the dress up in front of me and sighed. I couldn’t just let Mrs. Tranh do this for me for nothing. Even though Michael had probably already paid her, I had to do something to thank her.

  First, of course, I had to get into the dress. And for that I was going to need help; it hooked up the back. And was it my imagination … no, I spread the material at the waist to see how it fit. Definitely too small. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t anorexic either; I could see no chance of squeezing into that dress.

  I heard the curtain rustle. Mrs. Tranh, I assumed, or one of her ladies, come to help me into the dress. I’d have to break the news that they’d miscalculated, I thought as I turned.

  And found myself looking up at Michael.

  Chapter 12

  “Mother would have a fit if she saw the glaring anachronisms you’re wearing instead of plain, sensible, colonial undergarments,” he said, putting his arms around my waist. “Although I rather like them.”

  “Not surprising,” I said, reaching up to put my arms around his neck. “You picked them out. Do you own stock in Victoria’s Secret or something?”

  “No, but maybe I should buy some,” he said, reaching down to kiss my neck.

  “You should,” I said. “Might as well get something out of all the money you spend there.”

  “Oh, I do,” he said, with the sort of soft laugh that distracted me completely from the business of getting into the costume.

  I was about to suggest that we skip the party and adjourn to our tent when I heard Mrs. Waterston’s voice outside, berating someone.

  “Damn,” Michael said. I had reason to believe his thoughts had been running along the same lines as mine, but his mother’s voice brought both of us back to Earth. “We don’t dare leave her alone for long; she’s so keyed up there’s no telling who she’ll upset. I’d better behave, and lace you into your costume.”

  “Hook me up, actually, but I don’t think it’s going to work,” I said. “This thing is definitely too small.”

  “Not when you put the corset on,” Michael said.

  “Corset?” I said. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  But no, when I looked back at the hook on which the dress had been hanging, there was, indeed, a white-and-gold corset. The real thing, with boning and laces up the back.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Although they’d have called it ‘stays’ in this time period.”

  “I stand corrected.”

  “Look at all the work she put into this,” I said, “All that lace and decorative stitching that no one will ever see.”

  “I think it was intended for a small but select audience,” Michael said. “She told me you’d need help getting into it.”

  “Badly thought out,” I said. “It should be designed so I need help getting out of it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you will,” he said.

  Although it took longer than expected, for one reason or another, Michael eventually managed to lace me into the stays—not all that tightly, thank goodness. I’m not into bondage. But it did take enough off my waist that the white-and-gold gown fit like a second skin.

  “I suppose we’d better go out and let Mrs. Tranh admire her creation,” Michael said.

  “And see what your mother has gotten up to,” I added.

  “That, too,” he said.

  “I like this dress already,” I said. “It’s probably an anachronism of the first order, but she’s given me pockets.”

  I put a few essentials in the pockets and stepped outside, where we allowed Mrs. Tranh and the ladies to ooh and ahh over their handiwork for a few minutes. Then we braced ourselves and stepped out into the party.

  We must have stayed longer in the dressing room than I realized—the party had gotten crowded, and almost all of the rental costumes were in use. The effect was rather impressive, as if we’d really been transported back into colonial Yorktown.

  At least from a slight distance. Closer up, women didn’t look too bad—“One size fits most” is easier to achieve with period dresses. Although most weren’t wearing stays, of course, so they hadn’t quite achieved what I was now learning to recognize as the authentic period silhouette.

  The men, alas, looked pretty motley. Apparently, Mrs. Tranh had estimated on the small side in making the men’s costumes, and a fair number hadn’t been able to get into the tight knee breeches. Looking around, I could spot half a dozen men whose costumes looked perfectly fine until you noticed that beneath their blue coats you could spot denim or fluorescent polyester or garish plaid.

  Luckily, Mrs. Tranh and the ladies had also made a lot of what the reenactors called “overalls”—though to me, they looked more like long white gaiters. The overalls began at midthigh and reached down to cover the tops of the shoes, which meant that you only caught occasional glimpses of the modern pants when their wearers walked. Or modern shoes, for that matter. Evidently Mrs. Waterston hadn’t even tried to provide period shoes, simply instructing people to show up in dark shoes if they didn’t have proper footgear. She’d had me make a quantity of large buckles that could be clipped onto a shoe to give at least a suggestion of authenticity. I saw my handiwork gracing a remarkably wide range of shoes. They made penny loafers and black leather Reeboks look rather plausible, at least from a distance, but I wasn’t sure they did anything to improve the authenticity of Air Jordans.

  Fortunately, the majority of the guests came in some kind of costume. Except for the deliberate rebels, most crafters just wore whatever they’d been wearing all day. What they’d probably be wearing for the next two days, for that matter. Well, that would add to the air of authenticity. Michael had invited half a dozen of his fellow French soldiers, and a few people had burst forth with truly wonderful costumes. Tad was still resplendent in his silk and velvet, while Faulk had decided to pay homage to the Scottish side of his ancestry by wearing a kilt and was attracting a great many admiring glances.

  So was I, though for rather different reasons.

  “Meg, you look fabulous,” Amanda told me. She was still in her homespun outfit, but from the look on her face I could tell she was kicking herself for not researching period party clothes. “And you’ve lost weight,” she added. “I didn’t notice it in that baggier dress you were wearing all day.”

  “That’s because I didn’t lose any,” I said. “I’m wearing a set of stays under this dress; the damned things really do take inches off your waist.”

  “Where does it put them?” she asked.

  “It pushes everything up and out,” Michael said, with an appreciative glance.

  “Well, yes, actually it does,” I said, adjusting the lace at the edge of my bodice in a vain attempt to disguise exactly how very much of me there was to push up and out.

  “Isn’t that a mite uncomfortable?” Amanda asked me.

  “Actually, it isn’t,” I admitted. “Sounds weird, but it gives your back a lot of support which, after standing around all day, isn’t exactly a bad idea. And it doesn’t feel constricting—but more regal, if that doesn’t sound too weird. I mean, there’s no way you can sl
ouch in this thing.”

  “Yes, it makes you look taller,” Michael said. Which didn’t bother him, of course, since at six feet four inches he still towered over me, no matter how much taller the stays made me.

  “Taller, yeah; and that’s not all,” Amanda said, chuckling. “Honey, you’d better keep your eye on her in that thing. You don’t want some fast-talking redcoat to cut you out.”

  “Don’t worry,” Michael said, putting a proprietary arm around my waist. “I intend to.”

  We strolled around the party, taking in the sights. The string quartet was a little shaky. Obviously, they hadn’t been here all day, like the rest of us. They still jumped every time the cannon fired, while most of us had learned to ignore the artillery. I wondered if the residents of Yorktown in 1781 had gotten so oblivious to cannon fire. Probably not, if each boom signaled that somewhere in town a cannonball was about to fall. A couple of houses in town still had cannonballs in their sides. Although I knew at least one of the most picturesquely embedded cannonballs, the one in the Nelson house, had fallen out in the twentieth century and was cemented back in by a Hollingworth cousin who worked for the Park Service, during preparations for the 1931 Sesquicentennial—one of the things they don’t tell the tourists.

  Someone had told Mrs. Waterston that lawn bowling was a popular social activity in colonial Virginia, so she’d roped off part of the lawn and provided several sets of balls, hoping some of the guests would strike up a game and add to the picturesque period atmosphere.

  Unfortunately, she’d neglected to provide a set of rules, and anyone who actually knew how the game was supposed to be played had long since deserted the bowling lawn.

  By the time Michael and I arrived, we found a standoff between a group who wanted to play something resembling horseshoes without any stakes and a flock of my aunts, advocating a mutant form of wicketless, malletless croquet. The argument was purely theoretical, since the balls had long since been appropriated by my nine-year-old nephew, Eric, and his friends. They hid in the bushes, rolling balls out among the guests’ feet, trying to see how close they could come to selected relatives’ ankles without actually hitting them. From time to time, you could hear startled squawks from various parts of the crowd, as someone stepped on a ball. If you happened to be watching, you’d see the victim’s head suddenly disappear into the crowd, usually accompanied by a small eruption of food and drink.

  “Oh, dear,” said the sheriff, who was standing nearby, sipping punch and absentmindedly combing the occasional stray tomato seed out of his beard. “I suppose I should do something about those boys.”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Tell them to lay off my craft-fair friends and our family and go after someone who deserves to break his neck. Like him,” I added, pointing to the buffet, where Tony-the-louse was loading up a plate.

  The sheriff laughed, nervously.

  “Or better yet, them,” Michael said, pointing to the other end of the buffet, where Wesley Hatcher and Benson stood talking.

  The sheriff followed Michael’s finger, then, when he saw Wesley and Benson, his eyes widened, and he choked on his punch.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, as Michael slapped him on the back.

  “I’d better go talk to those fool boys,” he said, when he’d coughed most of the punch out of his windpipe.

  “What do you suppose got into him?” Michael asked.

  “Good question,” I said. “Something certainly shook him up, and I suspect it was Benson. I just wonder why.”

  “Could have been Wesley Hatcher,” Michael pointed out. “They were standing together. Why don’t I go help him out with the kids, and maybe I’ll get the chance to ask him.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  I sipped my wine and watched from the edge of the yard while Michael and the sheriff tracked down the rogue bowlers. I was enjoying being quiet and alone. Having spent the whole day talking to customers, craftspeople, tourists, reenactors, and stray relatives, I just wanted to sip my wine in peace and talk to nobody.

  With his usual flair for turning up when least wanted, Wesley Hatcher sidled over toward me. He was staring rather fixedly at my décolletage, and I wondered if I should keep an inch or so of wine in my glass to throw at him in case he said something disgusting.

  Apparently, Wesley hadn’t completely forgotten what I was like. When he realized I had seen the direction of his stare, he smiled nervously and developed a keen interest in the other guests.

  “So, is this a party or a wake?” he asked.

  Chapter 13

  “Oh, come on, Wesley,” I said. “It’s a very nice party.”

  “Bo-ring,” he chanted. “How can you stand it around here?”

  “Welcome to small-town America, Wesley,” I said. “Last time I looked, they hadn’t blockaded Route 64; you could leave any time.”

  “Yeah, but what’s the point?” he said. He sounded a little tipsy. “I had vacation coming to me, so I’m taking it while I can. You can be sure they won’t pay me for it if the rag folds.”

  “Is your paper going to fold?” I asked. Not that I cared one way or another about the Super Snooper. Apart from scanning the headlines if the grocery line was running slow, I never paid the slightest attention to it. But this did rather cast Wesley’s triumphant return to his hometown in a very different light.

  “Who knows?” he said, shrugging. “Whole industry’s going down the tubes. Maybe I should do the whole roots thing, come back and work at the Town Crier.”

  Or maybe not, I thought, since he’d left town one step ahead of several juicy libel suits. “I should think going back to the business magazine would be more interesting,” I suggested.

  “Don’t rub it in,” he growled.

  “Don’t rub what in?”

  “The magazine’s dead,” he said. “Bigger company bought it out and sacked the whole staff. I got out just in time, moving to the Snooper.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he muttered, and took a gulp from his drink. “So am I. I did some good work there.”

  “Charlottesville Businessman Kidnapped by Aliens?” I suggested. “Elvis Sighted in Norfolk Shopping Mall?”

  “Real work,” he said. “Legitimate journalism. Not the crap I’m doing now. It ruined my career when the Intelligence folded, if you want to know the truth. If I could just break a story, a really juicy story, something I could use to land a job on a legitimate publication … .”

  He chugged the rest of his drink.

  “Hell, even a better tabloid,” he added. “Then I’d still be a scum-sucking bottom feeder, but at least I’d be a well-paid one.”

  To my surprise, I found I was starting to feel just a little sorry for Wesley. It was a novel sensation, and I pondered it in silence, while Wesley crunched an ice cube from his glass.

  “So help me out, will you?” he said, through a mouth full of ice. “You know everything that goes on in this burg; you always did. Your mother said you could find me a story, something juicy I can run with.”

  “Get lost, Wesley,” I said. “The only story I know is that we’re having a fabulous celebration of Yorktown Day, with the biggest crowds the town has seen since the Bicentennial, and everyone’s having a wonderful time.”

  “That’s not news, it’s PR,” Wesley grumbled. “Why don’t you—hey, what’s that?”

  “That” was Tad and Roger Benson, raising their voices in another argument. Wesley scurried over to get closer to the action, reaching into his pocket for his notebook as he went. I decided I could hear just as well from where I was. Neither was trying to keep his voice down.

  “I never touched your damned booth,” Benson was saying. He was holding a bloody handkerchief handy, as if he expected his nose to begin bleeding again at any moment.

  “The hell you didn’t,” Tad shouted back. “I know damn well you went through everything in the booth; you didn’t put things back carefully enough to hide that. But it won’t do you any goo
d. I’ve put the evidence where you’ll never find it.”

  “Evidence,” Benson snorted. “You haven’t got a shred of real evidence and you know it.”

  “I’ve got enough to prove everything.”

  “Should we do something?” Michael said, appearing at my side.

  “No,” I said. “Not yet anyway.”

  “I suppose this would be a bad time to bring up the fact that if anyone rifled the booth it was me, looking for another pad of receipts when I was filling in for Faulk.”

  “A very bad time, I should think. Later, when Tad has calmed down. I wish Tad would stop going on about how he’s got the evidence put away in such an incredibly safe place.”

  “Why?” Michael asked. “Don’t you think he has evidence?”

  “I bet he has,” I said. “But I’m not all that sure my purse is such a safe hiding place. I have this sneaking feeling the evidence is on a CD-ROM Tad handed me earlier.”

  “Good grief,” Michael muttered.

  The shouting match reached a crescendo, and Tad stormed off. He hit a stray lawn-bowling ball on his way and for a few seconds, he pedaled and flailed his arms furiously like someone trying not to fall off a unicycle. Then he recovered his balance, if not his dignity, and strode out into the darkness beyond the glow of the lanterns.

  When Tad disappeared, I glanced back to see what Benson was doing. And saw, though I couldn’t hear, that Faulk, too, had a few things to say to the software pirate. He stopped talking as I watched, and they stared at each other for a few minutes. It was scarier than watching Tad square off with Benson, partly because of what had happened earlier. I think everyone at the party was watching, fearing—or hoping for—a rematch. And partly because Tad and Benson were about the same size, while Faulk towered over either one of them. And maybe partly because, despite the sturm und drang, I’d never heard of Tad hitting anyone, but I’d seen Faulk lose his temper and finish an argument with his fists, especially in college, when I first knew him. He’d worked a lot on controlling his temper over the last fifteen years, but I still kept my fingers crossed every time I saw him get angry. And, apparently, accidentally bloodying Benson’s nose hadn’t done a thing to improve his temper.