by Angela Henry
“Kendra, if I ask you something will you tell me the truth?”
“Of course.” I had a feeling I knew what he was going to ask.
“There’s not another man is there? When you saw her at the Heritage Arms she was alone, wasn’t she?”
“Of course she was alone, Greg. There is no one but you. Lynette loves you.” Finally—a question I could answer truthfully.
After Greg left, I got dressed, and headed out to run errands and, at Greg’s request, pick up things for a wedding that might not even happen. Allegra was still asleep when I left, making me wonder where she’d been last night and if it was with Carl. Not that I had a right to be too upset since I’d spent my evening with another man. Carl and I hadn’t been spending much time together lately, and for some reason it wasn’t bothering me nearly as much as it should have.
By the time I arrived at Garrison’s Print and Copy Shop it had started to drizzle. I dodged raindrops as I headed inside to pick up Greg and Lynette’s wedding programs. I walked up to the counter and had to wait a few minutes while the skinny woman with frizzy gray hair manning the counter finished a phone conversation before coming to the counter to greet me.
“I’ve come to pick up the order for Lynette Martin-Gaines. It’s for wedding programs.”
“Yes. I was wondering if someone was going to pick up that order. It’s been ready since Monday,” she said mildly and then turned to the wall of shelving behind her. The shelves were filled with boxes of printing to be picked up. She scanned the boxes until she came upon a white one and brought it to the counter. She told me the price and I handed her the cash without asking to see the programs first. Big mistake.
“Here you go,” she said and slid the box across the counter. “Have a nice day.” The phone rang again and she hurried off to answer it.
I opened the lid of the box to look at the programs. Greg and Lynette smiled up at me from their engagement picture printed on the cover of the cream-colored program. Gold lettering beneath the picture listed the date of the wedding and underneath that larger gold lettering declared, Grog & Lynette Forever. Huh? I flipped though the stack of programs and sure enough, Grog & Lynette Forever was printed on each and every one. Oh, no.
“Excuse me,” I said loudly to the woman behind the counter, who was still on the phone. I could tell by the way she was smiling and laughing that it wasn’t business-related. She turned and looked at me as though she’d never seen me before and I waved a program at her.
“There’s a typo on these,” I said, pointing at the offending O in Greg’s name. This should be Greg not Grog,” I said, as she approached the counter. She pulled a pair of spectacles from her pants pocket, perched them on the end of her nose, and squinted at the programs.
“Yeah, that’s a mistake all right.” She checked the copy of the order form taped to the top of the box, which indeed confirmed that it should be Greg and not Grog. “Sorry about the mistake ma’am. I’ll redo these personally and you can pick them up next Monday.”
“Next Monday? The wedding is this Saturday,” I said, my voice rising to a high-pitched shriek. I gestured to the date on the front of the program. “I need these redone today.”
“Today? Nope. Not possible,” she said shaking her head vigorously. “If you’d have come in on Monday when they were ready then maybe I could have redone them this week. But I’m the only one here today and I’m swamped.”
“But it’s your mistake and it’s not my fault you’re swamped. Is the manager in?” I asked. looking past her.
“I’m the manager and owner, young lady,” she said, gesturing to the name tag that read Patsy Garrison/Owner pinned to the front of her denim smock, “and I don’t appreciate your tone.” She leaned forward menacingly against the counter and I caught a whiff of her onion-and coffee-scented breath. I took a step back before it melted my face and she smirked.
“And I don’t appreciate the fact that these programs have been paid for and there’s a typo in them. I demand they be redone today or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what?” she said, straightening up and crossing her arms over her bony chest. “What can you possibly do?”
“Picket! I’ll stand in front of this shop all day if I have to and make sure everyone who comes in here today knows you do shoddy work.”
“Go ahead. If you want to stand outside in the rain like a fool, you go right ahead. That still don’t change the fact that I don’t have time to redo these programs today.” She turned her back on me.
I turned and looked outside to see that the light drizzle had turned into pouring rain. Standing outside in that downpour was not my idea of a good time.
“Look, ma’am, isn’t there any way you could redo these programs today? It’s really important,” I pleaded. I even tried to wring out a few tears but they wouldn’t come. Not that she’d have noticed anyway as she continued to ignored me, instead giving me a view of her flat polyester-encased ass as she bent over a box on the floor.
“I’ll pay extra,” I said finally. That got her attention and she turned to smirk at me.
“No need, young lady. I have something else in mind.”
Instead of paying extra for a rush job on the corrected programs, I ended up spending the next two hours dressed in a denim smock helping Patsy Garrison work through her backlog of printing jobs. Before she got busy redoing the programs, she showed me how to run two of the large, complicated-looking copiers and left me several boxes of résumés, flyers and brochures to copy on various types and textures of colored paper.
The résumés and flyers were easy enough and I got them copied and out of the way in no time flat. But the brochures were giving me fits. The copier that did two-sided copying was out of order, which meant I had to manually flip the copies over to the other side in the paper tray once one side had been finished. The first time I did it the print on the flipside of the brochures was upside down. I was in such a hurry to get done that I failed to test one to makes sure it came out right side up. I ended up ruining two hundred and fifty brochures for the Venus De Milo Day Spa and discreetly pitched them in the recycling bin before Patsy could see what I’d done and punish me by breathing her dragon breath in my face. By the time I finally got them to come out right, which took three tries, I was highly annoyed and almost in tears. Wedding jitters or not, Lynette had now moved to the top of my shit list.
I heard the door to the shop open and ignored it since I figured Patsy was taking care of the customers. A minute later I heard an impatient, “Excuse me, miss.” I turned around and was greeted by the sight of Winette Barlow. Great! She was dressed to perfection as usual with a tan trench coat over a coral-colored suit that flattered her still-youthful figure. Her thick glossy gray-streaked black hair was loose around her shoulders and bright red lipstick accentuated a wide unsmiling mouth. Her dripping black umbrella was making a large puddle at her feet. She didn’t seem to care. Her laserlike stare was unwavering and unnerving.
Had she heard the rumors about Rollins and me? Were the rumors about her and Rollins true? Now that I thought about it, he’d never quite denied it. And more importantly, why did I care? We stared at each other uncomfortably for a few seconds before Winette finally spoke.
“Cat got your tongue, sweetie?” she asked in her soft Southern drawl. Winette is originally from Virginia and usually polite and gracious to a fault. Today, I couldn’t gauge her mood by the tone of her voice. Instead, I smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. Ouch. I guess I had my answer about whether she’d heard the rumors.
“Hi. Winette. What brings you in here?” I asked coolly.
“I’m here to pick up the flyers for the annual Holy Cross car wash this Friday. Morris asked me at breakfast this morning if I’d pick them up for him,” she said and finally smiled. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes and was more a flashing of teeth than a symbol of friendliness.
Dinner with me and breakfast with Winette Barlow. Rollins was sure keeping his social calendar fi
lled. I wondered who got him for lunch? Not that I gave a damn. I turned wordlessly to the shelving unit behind me and located the order for Holy Cross. I handed her the box and she snatched it from me so fast I got a paper cut on the invoice.
“Damn! Was that necessary?” I asked, sticking my finger in my mouth to staunch the flow of blood.
“Oh, that little bit of blood is nothing, honey, compared to what you got coming if you don’t stay the hell away from my man. He’s old enough to be your daddy, little girl,” she practically spat at me, managing to make the word girl sound like an insult.
“You need to tell him to stay away from me. I’ve got a man!”
“Then act like you got one and you can put this,” she said, tapping the top of the box in her hand with a red-tipped fingernail, “on the church’s account.” She flounced out of the shop and I heard a low whistle to my left. I turned to see Patsy Garrison grinning at me.
“Boy, you sure know how to piss people off.”
CHAPTER 11
I finished up my stint at Garrison’s and left with the corrected programs practically hot off the press. I tossed them in the backseat of my car and headed off in search of chocolate therapy, or more accurately, hot fudge cake. It was almost noon and I really needed a fix. Just the thought of cold vanilla ice cream sandwiched between layers of chocolate cake and covered in hot fudge and whipped cream had a very calming effect on my nerves. The rain had finally stopped, leaving it cool outside. I pulled into the parking lot of Frishes Big Boy and headed inside. As I was being seated, I noticed a familiar couple sitting in the back of the restaurant in the corner. It was Cliff and Stephanie Preston. I was surprised they were still in town. From their body language I could tell they were not having a good time. I headed back to say hello. Before I reached their table, Cliff abruptly stood up. He was angry and red in the face and headed out the nearest exit without even noticing me. Stephanie remained seated, staring after him with tear-filled eyes.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Preston. Remember me from the funeral the other day?” Stephanie looked a little startled then gave me a weak smile.
“Of course. But I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name,” she said looking embarrassed.
“Nola Morgan,” I said, lapsing back into my lie. Apparently, her stepson hadn’t blown my cover.
“I remember now. You did Vivianne’s hair for the funeral. Won’t you have a seat? My husband’s gone to get some fresh air.”
I slid into the opposite side of the booth that Cliff had just vacated. Stephanie was staring out the window. “Are you okay, Mrs. Preston?”
“Tell me,” she said, turning to me—her tears had caused her mascara to run in black streaks down her cheeks, “why in the world a man would still be in love with a woman who mistreated their son and cheated on him throughout their entire marriage?”
“You’re talking about your husband and Vivianne?”
“Who else?” She took a sip of her coffee.
“What makes you think he’s still in love with Vivianne?”
“I don’t think he ever stopped loving her. I mean, I know he loves me in his own way. But he can’t stand to hear a word against her. Even after everything she put him and Kurt through. How can he still be in love with her?”
“Why did Vivianne lose custody of Kurt?” I asked, since she was being so open about her family business.
“Because she was a lousy mother. Cliff told me about a time when she took Kurt to the set of one of her movies. She forgot about him and left him in her trailer all day long. He got into some of her sleeping pills and had to have his stomach pumped. He was only two years old. He almost died,” she choked back a sob. I waited for her to compose herself and couldn’t help but admire her love for Kurt.
“Another time, after Cliff and Vivianne had separated, one of Vivianne’s boyfriends beat Kurt because he wet the bed. She stood by and let that man beat her child. Cliff said he had welts all over him.” She shook her head in disgust.
“That’s horrible,” I said. Vivianne apparently had a laundry list of people she’d done wrong to who hated her enough to kill her, starting with her own son. I was amazed that my sister was the only one the police could find evidence against.
“How’d you get along with her?”
“I made sure I never had to deal with her. I think I only ever talked to her once or twice when she’d call to bitch about something to Cliff. Even after she stopped acting she always found a reason to call. It was usually over money.”
“Money? Was your husband paying her support?”
“No, nothing like that. She’d see some old movie of hers on late-night TV or an episode of some show she did a guest spot on and start calling Cliff bugging him about where her residual check was.”
“Vivianne sounds like she had some major problems. I can see why you’d be upset thinking your husband might still have feelings for her.” She nodded like she’d finally found an understanding soul.
“How’d you and your husband meet?” The question brought a smile to her face.
“I was a showgirl in Vegas,” she said, straightening her back and thrusting her double D’s out proudly.
“Really. That’s sounds exciting. Which casino did you work at?”
“Ah, well, it was one of the smaller casinos off the strip called the Kontiki. It’s been closed for years now.” She turned to stare out the window again.
The Kontiki? Hmm. Sounded more like a strip club to me. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Stephanie’s stint as a dancer in Vegas involved a pole, a G-string and grinding nightly on the laps of strange men. Cliff Preston certainly wouldn’t be the first man who’d fallen for a stripper.
“Did you meet Cliff at one of your shows?”
“No. Actually, we met after I auditioned for a role in a movie. I didn’t get the part and someone suggested I get an agent and recommended Cliff, who had an office in Vegas. But instead of signing me to his agency, he asked me out. I said no at first. I mean, he’s old enough to be my father—”
I blanked out for a few seconds thinking back to what Winette Barlow had said to me and could feel myself getting pissed all over again.
“Eventually, he wore me down,” Stephanie continued, unaware that I hadn’t quite been paying attention. “He’s so sweet. No man has ever treated me the way Cliff has. We ended up getting married six months later.”
“And you didn’t mind being a stepmother to Kurt?” She looked shocked at the question.
“No, not at all. Kurt was such a cutie pie and he was starved for a mother’s love, which is what I gave him. All Vivianne cared about was her career. After Cliff married me, we fought for sole custody of Kurt. We won, of course. Vivianne didn’t put up much of a fight, not with so many witnesses testifying in court about her neglect.”
“Wasn’t it around that time that she stopped acting?”
“What? You think she stopped acting because she was upset over losing custody of Kurt?”
“No. No. It was just a question,” I said quickly when her eyes narrowed and her face turned bright pink under her heavy makeup.
“Sorry,” she said flashing me one of those showbiz smiles. “I just get so mad when people assume Vivianne was so destroyed over losing custody of her child that she couldn’t act anymore. It’s just such bullshit, you know. Viviane stopped acting because she couldn’t get any good parts anymore. The last gig Cliff was able to get her was as the spokeswoman for an all-natural vitamin supplement for menopausal women called Vitipause.” Stephanie started laughing and it took a minute for her to continue.
“Vivianne was supposed to do a series of infomercials and travel the country doing speaking engagements about the wonders of Vitipause. They had a whole advertising campaign planned around her. They were going to call it Vivi for Vitipause. But she pulled out of the contract and left Cliff in a big legal mess.”
“Why?” I asked. But was I really surprised Vivianne didn’t want to be the face of Vitipause? It sounded li
ke a brand of doggy treats.
“She said she was way too young to be shilling for a menopausal supplement. That no one in their right mind would believe she was old enough to be going through menopause. She agreed to do it long enough to cash the big fat check they gave her then refused to go through with it.”
“Why was Mr. Preston still representing her? I’d have thought after the divorce and the custody case they’d have severed their working relationship.”
“I think Cliff felt guilty about taking Kurt away from her, though I can’t for the life of me understand why. Plus, by then, no one else was interested in being Vivianne DeArmond’s agent. She was a has-been and what’s worse than representing a has-been is representing a has-been with delusions of grandeur. Cliff felt sorry for her.”
In my opinion guilt and pity were what Stephanie was mistaking for Cliff’s so-called love for Vivianne. But why would Cliff feel guilty about acting in the best interest of his son by gaining custody from Vivianne?
“Do you and Mr. Preston have any other children?” She shook her head and gave a harsh little laugh.
“That’s been the other sore spot in our relationship. Cliff never wanted more children. He even went and got a vasectomy behind my back about ten years ago. The only reason I found out about it was because he blurted it out during one of our fights about having a baby. We almost split up over that one. He ruined my second chance. But like I said, no man has ever treated me the way Cliff does,” she said drily. The tight smile on her face made me wonder if she even believed what she’d just said, because getting a vasectomy without his wife’s knowledge didn’t exactly make Cliff Preston sound like a prince to me.
A waitress had appeared to refresh Stephanie’s coffee. I put in an order for some hot fudge cake to go. After the waitress left, Cliff returned to the table and stared down at me. His frown was a silent command for me to remove myself from his seat. I complied immediately.
