Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2)

by Livia Day

  Lemon meringue on the other hand … now that was a flavour I could get behind. Tangy sour scoops of dark lemon sorbet, surrounded by a creamy concoction of broken meringue pieces and something vaguely vanilla-ish as garnish. But only vaguely.

  A cop out, maybe. But it was a delicious cop out.

  ‘Much response to the French Vanilla story on the blog?’ I asked him.

  ‘Aye,’ said Stewart, binning several requests for banana-related ice creams (he had a moral objection to them — I’d always suspected he had depth) and pushing the pile of Stewart-approved slips in my general direction. ‘Turns out The Gingerbread House has a massive local following. Girls, mostly.’

  ‘Girls?’ I said in surprise. ‘I thought it would be more…’

  ‘Dirty old men? And fourteen-year-old boys? Aye, I thought so too. Turns out that — Ginger taking her top off nae withstanding — most of the appeal isnae the sex. People watch them for entertainment. Listen to their conversations. The whole storyline where Melinda got knocked up by her ex and decided to have the baby on her own practically melted their server. It’s like a cut price Big Brother. And…’ he hesitated.

  ‘Spit it out, Stewart,’ I told him. Before the Bishop thing reared its head, we were excellent at being honest around each other.

  ‘They earn their money wi’ subscriptions. Highlights of the week are available on the site tae all viewers, but only subscribers get access via the live feed. D’ye remember they said they might lose subscribers without French Vanilla? Because she had her own fan following? Well, since the investigation intae her disappearance began, their subscriber numbers are up 20 percent.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. I took a mouthful of sour lemon and puckered my mouth. Possibly too sour. ‘Wow,’ I said again. ‘So they benefited financially from their housemate going missing?’

  ‘Aye, tha’s my thinking. ’Course, I have a nasty suspicious mind.’

  ‘Yes you do,’ I told him, and made him taste the lemon. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.’

  ‘Wrong about what?’ Xanthippe asked, strolling into the kitchen just as Stewart made a horrible face about my lemon sorbet. ‘I love how you’re too original to make ice cream flavours that people actually like, Tish.’

  ‘Hush, vanilla-lover,’ I said to her. She looked nice. Suspiciously unlike a hired assassin, which is to say she was actually wearing a plum-coloured top instead of something black or so-navy-blue-that-it-might-as-well-be-black. ‘Going somewhere special?’

  ‘Just dropping over to Ginger’s,’ she said casually.

  Stewart and I looked at each other.

  ‘By Ginger’s you mean the house that is wired for image and sound, where every move you make is documented and broadcast to nearly four hundred paying customers, with edited highlights available to the entire web and averaging about 10,000 unique visitors per day?’ I asked, to clarify.

  Xanthippe gave me a look. ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Ye wouldnae be planning tae discuss the missing person case tha’s provided them with a substantial increase in their hits and paid subscription o’er the last week?’ Stewart asked, stealing some of my cracked meringue cream to take the taste of lemon away.

  ‘The subject might come up. While we’re hanging out socially. But I don’t work to a script.’ Xanthippe folded her arms. ‘If you have something to say, just say it.’

  I didn’t say it. I thought really loudly about how it seemed convenient that she and ‘Ginger’ were getting along so well, and how regular visits from Xanthippe to The Gingerbread House couldn’t help but keep the online viewers thinking about the missing person case. But Xanthippe was too smart to be used like that, wasn’t she? Maybe she was playing them. Maybe there was a plan.

  And it was really obvious that she wanted me to ask her what that plan was. I am not exceptionally good at doing what other people want, if it’s not a specific customer-is-always-right scenario.

  So I said nothing. I exchanged innocent glances with Stewart, and then stole back my meringue spoon, rapping him over the knuckles with it. ‘Have a nice night, Zee.’

  We sat in silence for a few minutes after she left. Stewart and I never used to do awkward silences, but recently we’re becoming expert at them. ‘So,’ he said finally. ‘Have ye subscribed tae the live feed yet?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said sternly. ‘That would suggest a morbid fascination with something which is none of my business.’

  ‘Aye, right.’

  ‘Ceege, however…’

  Caught off guard, Stewart laughed. ‘Does Ceege know he’s a subscriber?’

  ‘He’ll find out about it when he gets his credit card statement.’

  Served him right for falling asleep in front of the Playstation. Honestly, that boy had to get out more. Though at least gaming with Stewart felt like a slight improvement on him staring at a computer all night, every night. Was he coming out from his black cloud, perhaps?

  ‘Yer a bad person.’ Stewart beat me to Ceege’s chair, settling into the scary butt grooves with a smug look on his face, and leaving me to lean over his skinny shoulder if I wanted to see what was on the computer.

  Which I did, of course. Not leaning over his shoulder would have meant something I totally didn’t mean it to mean. Or anything. My hair brushed his shoulder as he found the website. ‘You don’t really think…’ I said.

  ‘That French Vanilla was an elaborate plot device used tae spice up their reality web series? It’s worth considering.’

  Yes, yes it was.

  ‘Ye figured that out yerself, though,’ Stewart went on.

  ‘Obviously.’ If we were considering sinister possibilities, I could also start wondering whether Melinda and Ginger had locked dear little Vanilla Girl up in a cupboard somewhere to boost their income.

  Stewart flicked around the site, figuring out how the live feed worked, checking in on the different rooms in the house. ‘They dinnae have one in the bathroom,’ he reported.

  ‘Ew. Thank goodness for that.’

  Ginger was in the kitchen, making something that looked like pasta. Melinda sat on the couch, reading baby magazines on her iPad.

  ‘Want sound?’ Stewart asked.

  I moved away from the screen (and him), settling on the couch so I still had a view of the computer, but not quite so intimate. ‘This feels wrong.’

  ‘It’s nae like they dinnae know people are watching. People are supposed tae watch.’

  Libby and Melinda were so relaxed. How did they do that? It made me feel all scratchy, like bugs were crawling on my skin. Even if they were inviting it, it was so voyeuristic.

  I could of course justify it by saying I was looking out for Xanthippe. Yep, that was the reason. Nothing to do with being a nosy person at all.

  My phone rang and I felt guilty the second I saw Bishop’s name come up. Really, I had to stop doing that. I was perfectly entitled to spend the evening with a friend, watching women through webcams and speculating about an unsolved crime.

  It wasn’t like Bishop was my boyfriend or anything.

  ‘Hey,’ I said in my best innocent voice. ‘What’s up?’

  Stewart, darting a look at me (ha, he knew my innocent voice meant trouble), stood up and went to get some more coffee, or something equally discreet.

  ‘Wanted to let you know I have to stay late after all,’ Bishop told me. (How much did I suck for forgetting we had vague plans tonight?)

  ‘I’m sure I can think of something to do. I have a new ice cream flavour to play with.’

  ‘Aren’t you sick of ice cream yet?’

  ‘That’s the silliest question you’ve ever asked me.’

  My attention was diverted by the computer screen. Xanthippe had arrived at The Gingerbread House already — hardly surprising, as the place was a five minute drive away.

  ‘So I can trust you not to get into any trouble left to your own devices?’ Bishop asked, only half serious.

  ‘Mmmhmm,’ I
said. The second he hung up, I was going to turn up the volume on the computer. I really wanted to know what they were saying. ‘I’ll probably just read up on the history of artificial vanilla chemicals. Throw things at Ceege. The usual.’

  Spy on Xanthippe, spend the evening with Stewart, eat lots of ice cream. None of those things counted as getting into trouble. I wasn’t lying to him at all.

  I could probably get off on a technicality.

  7

  GINGERBREAD FORUMS: Q&A

  KrazeeKween: Cherry, I love your hair so much OMG! Where do you get it done?

  Cherry_ripe: Hey KK. I always go to Tresses in Nth Hobart, but I haven’t had any colour put in since I got pregnant, so that’s all natural!

  Ishtaa1988: question for all of you, are you really super close friends like you seem, or do you secretly hate each other?

  Gingernutz: well I hate everyone. Of course I can only do it between 2am and 4am when Cherry and Vanilla are sleeping

  Cherry_ripe: smacks Ginge

  Gingernutz: heeee sticks out tongue

  French_vanilla: I think it would be horrible if we weren’t friends. Not just living together … living with someone you don’t like SUX.

  Gingernutz: yeah, and why else would we put up with Cherry blubbing through daytime soaps + throwing up all the time? If she wasn’t super sweet, we’d have kicked her to the kerb months ago omg!!

  French_vanilla: totally. Also, Ginger snores.

  Gingernutz: I do not. U pick your teeth.

  French_vanilla: only when you’re there.

  Gingernutz: hits with pillow

  French_vanilla: hides behind pregnant lady

  Cherry_ripe: Children, behave! People are watching us!!!

  Gingernutz: they ARE?

  This was dull. Seriously. Xanthippe was having dinner with two women. They were chatting. Eating pasta. All very pleasant and innocuous. They hadn’t even mentioned French Vanilla yet, or poor old Annabeth.

  Stewart and I were playing tiddlywinks. And no, that’s not a euphemism.

  ‘How can she hae covered everything?’ Stewart asked, lying on his stomach on the floor to get the best angle to flip the big red tiddlywink into the bowl. ‘Her real identity. She must hae left some trace of it. She lived with them for wha’, nine months?’

  ‘It was deliberate,’ I said. ‘Must have been. Xanthippe has the entire contents of French Vanilla’s computer on her laptop — there was nothing worth looking at. A half finished novel, a few months of browser history, mainly related to The Gingerbread House site. Nothing personal. She used webmail only, and we don’t have her passwords.’

  ‘Tha’s suspicious,’ he said. ‘The neatness. Almost as if she was expecting tae leave her computer behind.’

  ‘We’re back to her being a fake, then?’

  ‘She was always a fake. But who else was in on it wi’ her?’

  I held up my hand to quiet him. Xanthippe had finally steered the conversation around to topics relevant to our interests. ‘So have you heard anything about French Vanilla? Your French Vanilla, not that poor kid who died.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ I said cheerfully, relieved. Xanthippe was not falling under the sway of the seductive new webcam friends. Xanthippe was on the case.

  ‘She could be asking as a concerned pal,’ Stewart pointed out.

  I hit him with a pillow.

  ‘The Missing Persons Unit have been great,’ Melinda replied to Xanthippe. ‘Really great. They arranged for counsellors, they’ve been giving us support…’

  ‘Ha, despite the fact that you threw up on that sergeant who tried to talk to us about Vanilla … Anna … wow, that’s hard to get used to,’ said Ginger. ‘We don’t know what to call her.’

  ‘I mostly missed his uniform,’ said Melinda.

  ‘Do they have any idea yet, who she was?’ Xanthippe asked.

  ‘There was nothing on her computer,’ said Ginger. ‘They told us that, a few days after they took it.’

  ‘Really?’ said Xanthippe, swallowing some pasta and sounding convincingly surprised. ‘How can you have no identity information on a computer?’

  ‘She bought it second-hand, not long after she first moved in,’ said Melinda. ‘It was registered to the bloke she bought it from.’

  ‘She had a bank account,’ said Ginger. ‘But it was in Annabeth French’s name — the other girl must have set it up for her.’

  Stewart passed me a mug of coffee and I drank it automatically. He’d put milk and sugar in which was oddly touching. Usually he refuses to support other people’s unholy desire to adulterate the most important substance on earth (direct quote, can you tell?).

  Was Xanthippe trying to draw more out of the Gingerbread women, figuring out what they knew or didn’t know? Or was she playing dumb to help get their little mystery narrative across to the viewing public? It bugged the hell out of me that I wasn’t sure which side she was playing.

  ‘Does it bother you?’ she asked now, her fingers circling the stem of a wine glass. ‘That she lied to you, all this time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ginger, at the same time that Melinda said, ‘No.’ They looked at each other.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Xanthippe.

  ‘I don’t understand it at all,’ Ginger said. ‘She must have been on her guard the whole time, only pretending to be our friend. There’s no excuse for that.’

  ‘There could be a reason, though,’ Melinda said gently. ‘There are always reasons why people do what they do. I can’t help wondering what she was running away from, what was so important that it was easier to take on someone else’s name?’

  ‘She has to have been messing us about,’ Ginger snapped. ‘She lied. Every day. She pretended to be doing uni work, for the whole year, and it turns out she wasn’t even registered as a student. She wasn’t our friend. We … we did a lot for her, we stuck our necks out to help her,’ she added fiercely. ‘Misplaced trust if ever there was any. And our viewers — she lied to them too.’

  Melinda shrugged. ‘She was the one who tried ten different teas to help me through my morning sickness, and sat up with me when I had a really hard decision to make. She always listened when I wanted to talk, and she didn’t hassle me when I was stressed. She was my friend no matter what else she was lying about. I miss her.’

  Ginger swallowed down half a glass of wine. ‘I miss her too,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But she wasn’t real. How do you know she wasn’t laughing at us the whole time?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Melinda. ‘Isn’t it nicer to think that she wasn’t?’

  ‘I know which one I’d want on my jury,’ Stewart told me as the dinner conversation moved on to another topic.

  Xanthippe came home late, and I was waiting for her, feet propped on the couch, and a cup of hot chocolate on the table beside me. It had gone cold an hour ago. ‘Hey,’ I said softly.

  She gave me one of those inscrutable looks she’s so good at, and glanced across the room to where Ceege was back at his computer screen, tapping away at his RPG, seemingly oblivious to us both. ‘Your room,’ she said, heading for the staircase.

  The first thing she saw as she stepped into my bedroom was the little black cocktail dress I had worn to the fancy police dinner the other night. ‘What the hell is that? That’s not you.’

  ‘It could be,’ I said defensively. ‘How do you know that isn’t exactly what I fancied wearing that day?’

  She eyed the label. ‘You bought it new in Myer. New. In Myer. You.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘I thought you were physically incapable of buying clothing that wasn’t from adorable little vintage boutiques, and hipster market stalls. Aren’t you worried that impressing my brother with your new mainstream style will lose you retro credibility points?’

  ‘Can we stop talking about this right now?’

  Xanthippe sat on the edge of my bed and flopped backwards, her dark layered haircut fanning out over my, yes, okay, vintage Japanese bedspread
that had indeed been purchased from a market stall that almost certainly qualified as ‘hipster’.

  We hadn’t done this in forever. Yes, she had a part share in my café now, and she’d been living in our third bedroom for most of the last year, but we rarely hung out, just the two of us. We were best friends in high school, but we had been distant for a long time. You don’t get back something like that — or at least, we hadn’t tried all that hard.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I found out at The Gingerbread House?’ she asked finally. ‘Or did you watch it live?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said, joining her on the bed and grabbing my hairbrush and hair ties. I can’t sleep without braids these days, even if it makes me look like a deranged Heidi in the mornings.

  ‘Good, you watched it live, then. Saves time.’ Xanthippe looked wretched. ‘I can’t help myself. Can’t turn off wanting to figure out what happened. I think I upset them both, though, talking about it like that.’

  I clamped my mouth shut so as not to point out that discussing the missing ‘Anna’ was good for their income stream. ‘Maybe it helps for them to talk about it,’ I said instead. Ah, tact.

  Xanthippe glared at the ceiling. ‘They’re confused, like they don’t know how they’re supposed to feel. They don’t even know who she was. Who to miss.’ There had been a pause just after the ‘m’ sound which made me think for a minute she was going to say ‘mourn’. Possibly I was imagining it.

  ‘It’s only been a week,’ I said finally.

  ‘Eight days. It’s been eight days.’

  ‘In a way,’ I tried, ‘It’s better that no one knows anything about her. It means they can tell themselves she had a plan, somewhere safe to go. Isn’t that more comforting?’

  Xanthippe glared at me. ‘Comforting that they can come up with some pretty fantasy where a girl they lived with for most of a year just appeared and then disappeared like Mary fucking Poppins?’

  ‘If I were them, I’d take what I could get,’ I snapped back.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said after a minute. ‘Me too.’

  What we weren’t talking about was Carly. Carolyn Denver was one of our high school’s goodiest good girls. She always got As, even in subjects she wasn’t great at (she worked so hard you could see the steam coming out of her ears), she was talented at music and art. She even participated in team sports, which I couldn’t understand at all.