Going For Broke

by Nina Howard

  She threw it to him, and it landed halfway between them. “She throws like a girl,” Mike said to Parker. Parker laughed. Nobody ever spoke to his mother like that. Victoria watched them with wonder. It didn’t strike Parker odd at all that a strange man had shown up in his backyard and started playing ball with him. Maybe he was just happy to have someone to play with. Mike’s charm extended to ten year olds as well. He chatted easily with Parker about nothing important, with a baseball tip or two thrown in without criticism. Victoria sat on the back steps, chin in her hands, watching them.

  Parker had really blossomed in his short time here. She never really had the time or the luxury to worry if taking him out of the only school he had ever known, away from all of his friends and his home was going to be hard on him. Parker never complained once. He still asked about Trip, and seemed content with her explanation that Daddy was away on a very extended business trip. Was Trip really such a nonentity in Parker’s life that his disappearance didn’t have that much impact? She wondered if it would be the same if she had left, too.

  “Mom! Watch out!,” Parker called as a ball came whizzing by her head and hit the back door with a thud. Parker steeled himself for his mother’s admonishment - he knew all too well the erratic nature of Victoria’s famous wrath. Instead, she picked up the ball and threw it back with everything she had. Mike had to reach to catch it.

  “Not bad, Vernon. You may have the makings in you after all,” he teased.

  ###

  That night Victoria went to tuck Parker into bed. This was a new routine for them, as in New York she was usually out and Lumi got the children down for the night. Victoria found that just before bed, her otherwise tightlipped child wanted to talk.

  “That was awesome today, mom. Thanks.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a ballplayer,” she admitted.

  “No, thanks for letting me play with Mike. He’s awesome!” Parker was getting sleepy. “He said we could try some batting practice tomorrow.”

  “Did he, now?”

  Parker’s eyes opened wide. “Do you think I can make the team, Mom?”

  “I think you can do anything you put your mind to,” she said as she kissed his forehead. “Goodnight, honey. I love you.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Mike walked around a cramped store that sold overpriced garden implements, and looked at his notes. It had the same address of the fast food place Victoria and her mother had lived above back in the 80s. It looked like Victoria wasn’t the only thing in Tenaqua that had undergone an upgrade in the past twenty years. He went around back and found stairs that lead to the apartment over the store. He was able to peek through the back door window to see the galley kitchen still outfitted with avocado green appliances and a cheerful floral valence over the window. Fortunately the current occupant wasn’t home, so he was able to poke around.

  He peered in, and saw that the living room overlooked an empty parking lot, equipped with way too many security lights. He couldn’t see any further into the apartment -- he had seen enough. From what he could tell of this town, living over any store, even a ritzy one, was beyond the wrong side of the tracks.

  He had spent the past few days trying to get a better idea of who Victoria Patterson Vernon used to be. It really had nothing to do with the case. She was just the bait, and he was there to get Trip Vernon. She had gotten under his skin, and he was compelled to figure out what made her tick. So he went back.

  Back to the little house she lived in when her father was alive. There was a young family who was playing outside when he went past so he couldn’t get a good look inside, though watching the young family play today gave him a fairly good idea of what it looked like years ago.

  He went to the high school. He wanted to get an idea of where the pain in the ass princess had spent her formative years. The school and campus was vast, and Mike had to park his truck four blocks away from the front door. He didn’t want to use his official pass and draw attention to himself. To that end, he was wearing a shorts and a polo shirt, and looked more like a dad on the way to the golf course than a trained agent.

  The school had an elaborate security system set up, but all Mike had to do was to flash his badge quickly and the guard, who was more involved with his phone than his guard duties, let him in without a close look. He walked the halls during a passing period, and had never seen so many teenagers in one place. He tried to picture Victoria slamming her way through the hundreds of bodies that milled through the halls with no luck. This looked too much like a contact sport.

  He stopped in front of a trophy case that could have contained a small car. It was teeming with dozens of gleaming trophies, some almost three feet tall. At first he thought it was the trophy case for the entire school, though after a closer inspection, he realized it was just for the swim team alone.

  Evidence of excellence was everywhere. The student art on the walls looked commercial. There was a display selling CDs that the jazz band had recorded. He noted that it was a Grammy-winning jazz band. In high school. The posters for plays from seasons past looked worthy of Broadway. Jesus, it must be hard to stand out in a school like this.

  After his trip to school, he stopped at a local coffee shop for a break. He regularly avoided the Starbucks of the world, not because of any sense of outrage at corporate entities absorbing the individuals, but because he just didn’t care for their coffee. He also found that in a coffee shop, not a cafe, people were more willing to talk.

  The Tenfield Cafe was no exception. He sat down and was immediately greeted by a fortyish waitress with a smile and a carafe of coffee. She handed him a plastic laminated menu that he could probably recite without even looking at it.

  “Just coffee for now, Sheila,” he loved using names off of name tags. Half the time folks forgot they were wearing them.

  Sheila gave him a huge smile as she checked out his ring finger with satisfaction. “Just let me know if you need anything sweetheart.”

  “Maybe you can help me,” he said with as much charm as he could muster. “I’m looking for an old friend of mine. Any chance you know Vicky Patterson?”

  She shook her head. “Patterson? Nope. Is she from around here?”

  “Tenaqua High, 1986.”

  “Me too! Never heard of her. Then again, there were over a thousand kids in my graduating class. Are you sure?”

  “Thanks anyway.” Mike stirred his coffee. “Can I get a little cream, too? Thanks.” Oh well. A dead end, but a decent cup of coffee. It wasn’t a total waste.

  “I know Vicky Patterson,” a tobacco-stained voice in the booth behind him said.

  He turned around to see a woman who did not look like she came from the land of Range Rovers and hired help. He briefly thought of the year that he and Brooke had gone to a Halloween party dressed as White Trash. He wore a wifebeater, trucker hat and bad teeth. Brooke had a wig with long, stringy grey hair, six tattoos, pock marks on her face and a black eye. Add the black eye and this woman would look exactly the same. She looked to be around 60, although Mike had the feeling that she had just been ridden hard.

  “Really?” Mike asked. She sure didn’t look like someone Victoria would even hire, let alone pal around with. “How do you know her?”

  “It depends. Who’s looking?” She sounded like a Mickey Spillane character. Mike half expected her to whip out a switchblade to cut her grilled cheese sandwich.

  “I’m an old college friend. Mike Sanders,” he lied as he stood up to shake her hand. “I remember she grew up in Tenaqua, and was nearby on business, so I thought I’d look her up.”

  His new friend looked him up and down very slowly, then smiled. At least she had all her teeth, Mike thought. “Sit down, Mike.”

  Mike settled into her booth and learned more than he ever wanted to know about Patty Holton. Patty not only went to high school with Vicky Patterson, she had known her since they were five years old. Patty had lived in Tenaqua as a child, and now lived in the neighboring to
wn of North Park, where she lived in an apartment with her two cats Dolly and Frank. She worked as a checker at the Costco a few miles away, and liked spending her free time in Tenaqua. She liked the ambience of a small town, she said.

  Mike tried to interrupt her monologue a couple of times, but was unsuccessful. Finally he grabbed her hand and put on his most charming front. “Tell me about Vicky.”

  “She was one of the smartest kids in the class, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She was always quiet, and looked like she was destined to go nowhere. She was okay, I guess, I didn’t really talk to her much. Nobody did, come to think of it.”

  “You weren’t friends?” Mike asked.

  Patty gulped her coffee and scrunched up her face. “Vicky didn’t have a lot of friends.”

  “Did she have any boyfriends?”

  “What, are you the jealous type?” Patty laughed at her own joke. “Don’t worry there -- Vicky spent all her weekends babysitting.”

  “Babysitting?” Mike couldn’t reconcile the thought of the Victoria Vernon he knew with someone paid to watch other people’s children. It sounded like he didn’t understand the concept.

  “Yeah. Sorry, not a lot to tell about your girlfriend there, pal. I hate to say it, she was kind of a loser.”

  Mike stifled a smile and stood up. He threw a couple of dollars on the table. “Thanks for the info. And no, she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “In that case...” Patty tried to stand up to meet Mike, but he was too quick for her. He stopped at the register to grab a toothpick and was out of the door in a flash.

  ###

  Victoria rode her mother’s bike, which she now considered hers, up to the Thrift Shop the next morning. She was heading downtown tomorrow to meet with Mercedes again, and wanted to commute in something besides her mother’s Talbot's best. Besides, it just felt good to shop, even if had to be for used clothing.

  She noticed that the window display in the store had not changed since the first time she visited, except for the absence of the Victoria ‘s Ferragamos. They didn’t even bother to replace the shoes. Bendel’s changed their windows weekly.

  The first time she came to the Thrift Store she had skulked in and out, hoping no one had seen her. Today, she was emboldened by her finds, and went inside with head held steady, if not exactly high. Instead of the undertaker that had been working there on her previous visit, there was a sprightly older woman who wore sensible shoes and a short grey bob. She had reading glasses hanging around her neck, and looked like she should be working at the local library. She smiled a big toothy grin, and waved Victoria in.

  “Come on in, we don’t bite!” She said. Victoria wasn’t so sure with those chompers. “What are you looking for Honey?”

  Victoria hated it when anyone called her Honey, especially waitresses, store clerks and old men. The only people she allowed to call her Honey were Andrea and Bill Clinton. It used to drive Trip crazy.

  “Good morning!” chirped the woman behind the counter. “Are you looking for anything special?”

  Two pairs of Ferragamos may be too much to ask. “I had some luck here the other day finding some designer clothes.”

  “Oh, do you have a black tie event?” Hardly.

  “No, just something that doesn’t say ‘Merona’ on the tag.” The woman looked at her with a blank stare. Victoria presented it in a new way. “Clothes that would have people’s names on them. Calvin Klein, Georgio Armani, Michael Kors ...”

  The woman brightened. “Oh, I know! Only men’s names?”

  Heck no! Stella, Donna, Gloria - there were so many amazing women designers. “Anything you have.”

  “This may work. I wasn’t sure what we could do with it,” she said as she leaned under the counter to pull up her find.

  She placed a vintage Judith Lieber purse on the counter, and Victoria caught her breath. It was gorgeous! And expensive. Victoria knew the market for a purse like that could fetch four figures. Even at the thrift store they had to know what it was worth.

  “It’s beautiful,” just holding it made Victoria happy. “How much?” The last thing she needed was a expensive, stunning evening bag.

  “$12?” the woman suggested.

  “Twelve dollars?” Victoria wanted to be sure she heard right. The woman nodded her head. “I don’t really need it,” Victoria wanted to play it cool. “But I’ll take it.” She didn’t need it, yet she’d be an idiot to walk away from a $2000 purse for the price of a couple of lattes.

  “You have some fantastic hidden treasures in here,” Victoria was just making small talk as she browsed the racks of clothing. Little boys’ cub scout uniforms were mixed in with mens’ suits. Sweatpants and overalls were intermingled with evening dresses. “You probably could sell so much more if it was better organized.”

  “Oh, if I only could,” the woman sighed. “We’re so short staffed here, it’s all I can do to get the new inventory on the floor.”

  While the were talking Victoria had fished out beautiful ivory lace top - no name, though the lines were good - and a darling high-waisted black pencil skirt. The skirt was probably from the 80s, though she knew the look was coming back. She laid them on the counter.

  “You have such a good eye,” the woman told her. “You should work here,” she said, half-joking. Victoria didn’t seem like the type to work at a thrift store. Then again, Victoria didn’t seem like the type to be in a thrift store.

  A job? Victoria was intrigued. She had never even considered getting a job. With everything that had happened to her in the past couple of months, it never occurred to her.

  “Elise Feldman,” the woman said, extending her hand over the counter. “Think about it. You’d be fantastic.”

  “Victoria Vernon,” Victoria answered. She could really turn this place around, as the only place this store could go was up. She was intrigued. “Tell me more,” she said.

  ###

  She walked out of the store with four fabulous items she could never use in her current situation, and came away with something far more valuable: A job. She was still a little bit in shock. Elise had made it all seem so easy. She’d work four hours a day, Monday through Friday. She only made $8 an hour, and she’d have first access to all the goods that came through the store. Besides, spending her days with Jerry Springer was getting tedious. There are only so many paternity tests one can watch in a lifetime. It’d do her good to get out of the house, she reasoned.

  She got on her bike and started riding down the sidewalk, which was a bit of a challenge, not only due to her high heels, but also to the various skateboarding kids and stroller-wielding mothers that blocked her pathway. She had tried to ride on the road the first week she arrived in town, but was almost taken out by a teenager in a topless Jeep who nearly ran her into a light post, of course it was some white suburban kid blasting rap music so loud he never even heard her swear at him.

  Lost in thought, she barely noticed the woman with two young girls walking toward her. She did, however, hear one of the young girls yell at her.

  “Mommy!”

  She turned around to see Posey holding the hand of a little girl, who in turn was holding the hand of someone who must have been a mother because even the help in this town didn’t dress in blue jeans and a ‘Ripon College’ sweatshirt. Just as she turned to look at Posey, she ran straight into a jogging stroller that was casually parked smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk.

  Sprawled on the sidewalk, the woman and the two girls ran to her. While she wasn’t badly hurt, her pride was more than a little bruised. How embarrassing, not only to wipe out in front of an audience, but to find your own child apparently absorbed into another family. When had that happened?

  “Are you okay?” the woman asked as she helped Victoria up.

  “Mommy!” Posey tried to pick up the bike, but it was too big for her. The woman effortlessly grabbed the bike with one hand, not letting go of Victoria with the other. Man, she may not be dressed well,
but she had a hell of a grip on her.

  “I’m fine - thank you,” she said to the woman. “Posey, what are you doing uptown?”

  “Claire asked me to go to the library with her. Bud said it was okay,” Posey explained, terrified that her mother would be angry with her.

  “Bud? Where was your grandmother?”

  The girl’s mother jumped into the conversation and extended her hand. “I”m so sorry. I’m Kathy Berner, Claire’s mom. What a terrible way to meet!” she laughed. “We called and talked to, is it your father? He said it would be fine.”

  Victoria steadied herself and stifled her anger and embarrassment. She felt ambushed, both by the bike accident as well as this chirpy mom.

  “The girls have been dying to get together, and I always thought we’d run into you someday, but just not like this. We’re headed for a coffee - care to join us?”

  “Coffee?” She was a sophisticated New Yorker, but coffee for the under-six set seemed a bit over the edge.

  “They love the Frappacinos. They’re like milkshakes. No caffeine, I promise.” Kathy Berner had an openness that was hard not to like, despite her collegiate wardrobe. Victoria found herself being dragged into the local Starbucks and sitting at a table for four. Was this the modern-day mother/daughter tea party, she wondered.

  The girls quickly lost interest in the adult conversation, although Victoria was surprised to find that she was having a great time. She missed having a friendly face to chat with. Her only interactions lately were with her mother and Bud, or the omnipresent Mike. Kathy was cheerful and chatty, and most importantly, wasn’t too curious about Victoria. After a couple of polite inquisitions as to Victoria and Posey’s background, she seemed to pick up on the vibe that Victoria didn’t want to dwell on her past. She easily filled the conversation with tales of other first grade mothers, general Tenaqua gossip, a couple of book reviews, and a bit of background on herself.

  Kathy and her husband Rob moved to Tenaqua from Minneapolis three years ago. They had a another daughter in third grade, and lived just a few blocks from Barbara’s house. Kathy used to be a brand manager for Pillsbury, but stopped working when they moved south. She wanted to get back to work now that Claire was in school full time, but the time never seemed right. But, she confided, they could use the money.