Antiques Swap

by Barbara Allan

  The following evening, I had dinner with Tony at the Serenity Country Club. The two-story cream brick-and-stone structure with wide pillared portico was located on the outskirts of town, on a prime patch of real estate almost certainly brokered by Travis Thompson.

  Tony didn’t belong to the club—even when he was chief, his police salary couldn’t cut that—but Mother and I had a limited membership not including golf (neither of us knew how to play anyway). But it gave bridge-playing privileges to Mother, allowing her access to the local hoity-toities, a key source of gossip (or “intel” as she called it). Me, I could make use of the pool, a real blessing on hot summer days (and a challenge to keep my figure in swimsuit shape). Both of us could dine at the club’s restaurant, which served the only food in town that you could classify as “cuisine.”

  Tonight was prime rib, and the expansive linen-and-fine-china dining room was at capacity. I was lucky to have landed a last-minute reservation, since just about anybody who was anybody in our little burg was present: bankers and businesspeople, politicians and physicians, many with their families.

  As Tony and I were escorted to our table, I noticed the Eight of Clubs (now seven) seated at their usual round table by the window overlooking the Olympic-size swimming pool. Emily, Megan, and Tiffany were dressed to the nines, with Travis, Brent, Sean, and Wes in sharp, tailored attire. Nothing the group wore could be purchased in Serenity.

  Maybe our apparel paled in comparison, but Tony and I didn’t look too shabby—he was in a nice navy Men’s Warehouse suit with light blue shirt and yellow tie, and I had on a Kate Spade black cocktail dress with jeweled accents around the neck, a pair of her pink patent-leather pumps, carrying a clutch purse that looked like a transistor radio—all bought at a nearby outlet center for forty percent off, and another thirty percent off because it had been Presidents’ Day.

  Tony ordered the prime rib and I opted for the filet of sole—not being much of a red meat eater.

  And my date was not much of a talker, tonight certainly no exception.

  “Don’t care for it?” I finally asked, after watching Tony pushing the rare beef around his plate.

  “It’s fine. Just not very hungry.”

  Half of my delicious fish was gone already.

  “Brandy.” He paused, choosing his words. “I wish you’d rethink this . . . I know I said that I’d—”

  “No. Trust me. It’ll work.”

  He sighed, then nodded. “All right then—go ahead.”

  I raised my voice a little. “Really? Do I need your permission? Maybe I’m getting tired of you telling me what I can and can’t do!”

  “I wouldn’t have to,” he shot back, almost booming at me, “if you had the common sense God gave a goldfish.”

  My eyes flared at him. “Are you calling me . . . stupid?”

  “No, Brandy. You’re bright, all right. It’s your judgment that’s dim.”

  I threw my napkin down. “That’s all! That’s plenty! Don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t come by the house.”

  “Got it,” he said coldly, and returned to his food.

  I huffed at him, got no response, stood abruptly, and stalked out, feeling eyes on me all around the dining room. I went into the adjacent, more intimate bar, where I took a seat at the counter, ordering a Scotch on the rocks from the bartender.

  I was on my second drink when Wes slid onto the stool beside me. He was wearing a light gray suit, black shirt open at the collar, and his cologne smelled good. Good and expensive.

  “Little lovers’ quarrel?” he asked, with a tiny smile.

  I stirred my drink with a swizzle stick. “More than a little, I’m afraid.” I sighed. “But it’s been a long time coming.”

  Wes caught the attention of the bartender, gestured to my drink and said, “The same.” Then to me: “I never could quite see you two together.”

  “Right now? I can’t either.”

  “What is he? Ten years older?”

  “Twelve. Maybe I was looking for a father figure.”

  “Sounds a little kinky.”

  “More like needy.” I sighed. “He knows my mother is a handful. That I have to . . . spend a lot of time just keeping track of her. He can’t seem to handle that.”

  “Family is important. He should know that.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I admit she gets into his business. She has this ridiculous Murder She Wrote hobby, which means I really have to keep on top of things with her. She’s bipolar, you know.”

  “I heard she was . . .”

  “Nuts?”

  “. . . eccentric.”

  I laughed a little, took a sip from my tumbler, then asked, “Won’t your friends miss you?”

  He shrugged. “We were done with dinner. They’ll be along for a nightcap . . . here they are now.”

  Travis and Emily Thompson came in, followed by Brent and Megan Morgan, then Sean and Tiffany Hartman, in a brittle cloud of laughter and conversation. If there were better-looking couples in town, I hadn’t seen them.

  As the group congregated at the bar, Wes asked me, “You know everyone, don’t you, Brandy?”

  “Sure . . . hi.”

  Brent Morgan, looking good in a navy pinstripe suit, came over and put a hand on my shoulder in a way that might have been appropriate if we’d known each other better. The tall, dark-haired, chiseled-featured president of Serenity Bank asked with practiced concern, “How is your mother? I heard she was in the hospital.”

  “She’s home now, but just very confused.”

  Brent’s wife Megan leaned in, frowning sympathetically. She wore a chiffon pastel floral dress, her brown hair pulled up into a French twist.

  “What happened, anyway?” Megan asked. “Word around town is she was mugged!”

  Brent said lightly but not flippantly, “Doesn’t sound much like Serenity.”

  I said, “Apparently it was a mugging. Everybody thinks we’re rich since we made that TV pilot. We wish.”

  Travis Thompson joined the group gathering around me. The real estate developer was apparently comfortable enough with his rugged looks—and station in life—to dress down a little. His navy sports jacket and tan slacks probably only cost a grand.

  He asked me, also at least feigning concern, “Don’t know what this town is coming to. Was anything taken?”

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “Her wallet was stolen.”

  “Identity theft is the real worry,” Emily Thompson said, “in a sad situation like this.” She was in tight green silk slacks with a matching sleeveless blouse that complemented her loosely waved strawberry-blond hair.

  Sean Hartman, compensating for his heft and lackluster looks with a killer black suit and gold Rolex, asked, “Did your mother get a look at this mugger?”

  I shook my head. “She doesn’t even remember getting hit on the head. She’s had short-term memory loss and is really addled. The doctor who treated her thinks she may never remember.”

  A what a terrible thing look passed between Sean and his wife Tiffany, but if there was any subtext, I couldn’t discern it.

  Tiffany, in a strapless pink dress, her white-blond long hair worn straight, remarked cryptically, “Perhaps it’s a blessing. Sometimes memories can be too traumatic to handle.”

  “You might be right,” I admitted.

  Wes said, “You should really take her to the University Hospital, to a specialist.”

  “We’ll see how she does the next few days.”

  “Shouldn’t mess around with that, Brandy.”

  Megan shivered. “Why do they keep it so damn freezing in here? . . . Let’s have our drinks over by the fireplace.”

  The group moved in that direction.

  At first I wasn’t sure if I was included in the invitation, but then Wes took my elbow, easing me off the stool, escorting me over to join the others in a corner of the bar where several couches and overstuffed chairs formed a semicircle in front of an unlighted gas fireplace.

 
The shivering Megan flipped a switch on the wall and flames sprang to life behind the glass, then joined Emily and Tiffany, who had claimed one of the couches.

  Brent, Travis, and Sean took the other couch, leaving Wes and me side by side in overstuffed chairs. The otherwise boys-together/girls-together arrangement said something about this group. Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t help but feel the wives were an adjunct to these frat brothers, interchangeable parts where the husbands remained as one.

  The bartender came over and took drink orders, Wes putting everything on his tab. I already felt tipsy from the Scotch—I am not a world-class drinker—so I ordered a diet cola.

  The three women immediately settled in to a huddled conversation, making me feel the outsider. Perhaps that was why Brent leaned my way, friendly.

  “Say, Brandy.” From his manner you’d think we socialized all the time. “When will you know if that TV show of yours is a go?”

  “By the end of the summer, they say.”

  Travis asked, “What about your mother? I have a hunch her personality has a lot to do with how that show came to be. What kind of curveball will it throw, after what’s happened? I mean, if her memory’s not better.”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll be even more entertaining.”

  “How’s that?” Sean asked with a half smile.

  I launched into a spirited account of Mother in the hospital, how she thought she was in the USO over in France entertaining the troops with Bob and Bing. This prompted Wes to share the hour he had spent with her, in which she had regaled him with backstage stories of her experiences behind the lines with Jane Russell and the Andrews Sisters.

  Between the two of us, we had everybody howling with laughter. Mother may have disparaged my acting skills, but tonight I was a hit. Thanks to a little Scotch, anyway.

  Then, wanting to leave on a high note, I announced that I had to leave, having been away from Mother for too long.

  “Caregiver and all that,” I said with a smile and a shrug.

  Everybody gave me warm good-byes, then Wes walked me out.

  At the Caddy, I was about to get in when he drew me close. I was expecting this, and had already formulated how to handle his kiss. Not too passionate, not too tepid. Just promising enough.

  When we parted, he asked, “How would you like to go to a party tomorrow night?”

  “What kind of party?”

  Wes gave me a wink. “Let’s call it a . . . swinging affair.”

  “Hummm . . .” I smiled, hiding the combined glee and dread that were jumping up and down within me like naughty twin children. “Sounds interesting. But with Mother in her current state . . . could I meet you there?”

  “Sure.”

  He gave me the details.

  In the Caddy, I dialed a familiar number on my cell.

  “Well?” Tony asked.

  “I’m in,” I said.

  A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

  Most swap meet vendors start shutting down their tables midafternoon, so go early in the day. But stick around for last-minute bargains from sellers who don’t want to cart their unsold wares back home. Their aching backs may put a smile on your face.

  Chapter Eleven

  Danger Hand

  (Opponent who can damage the declarer’s prospects.)

  After dinner next evening, I was seated at the Art Deco dressing table in my bedroom, putting the finishing touches on my makeup, when Mother came in and sat on the foot of the bed, leaning forward, hands folded. I could see her behind me, in the huge round mirror, gazing at me somewhat oddly.

  Part of that oddness might be explained by her hair, a chin-length red bob with bangs, one of a variety of wigs a fellow thespian had dropped off after plundering the Playhouse wardrobe for means to disguise Mother’s half-shaved head. With her big round glasses, she looked like an older version of Scooby-Doo’s pal Velma, another amateur sleuth with a dog in her life.

  “Dear,” Mother said, brow furrowed, “I simply must express my qualms about this evening. Do you have even the remotest idea exactly what kind of sybaritic bacchanal you may be attending?”

  “No. I don’t even know exactly what either of those two words mean. Probably not potluck dinner.”

  Her eyebrows went up over the big lenses of her glasses. “Actually, you’re rather close. . . .”

  I was to meet Wes at eight o’clock at the Grand Queen Hotel on the river front, specifically on the top floor near the ballroom.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Nothing will be behind closed doors. I’m a newbie, after all. Anyway, I assume Wes is taking me to the VIP Club.”

  The VIP Club was an exclusive key-card bar on the same floor as the ballroom, frequented by the likes of Wes and other well-off Serenity citizens.

  Mother said, “I can live with it, as long as you don’t wind up rendering unto Caesar in the Roman Spa.”

  She was referring to an ancient Rome–themed suite with a Jacuzzi that probably didn’t date back quite as far as Cleopatra. A decade ago, the Grand Queen Hotel had been slated for demolition, but the wealthy publisher of the Serenity Sentinel stepped up to save the Victorian edifice, which got a much-needed three-million-dollar face-lift. Now people came from all around the state to stay in one of the Grand Queen’s many “theme rooms,” like the aforementioned many-columned playground, a way-out moon room complete with space-capsule bed, and a King Arthur Suite with suits of armor and an even more unlikely hot tub.

  (Originally there had been a Tarzan Suite with a bed in a tree, until a honeymooning couple fell out, breaking various limbs—the tree’s mostly, but one each of the bride and groom’s. The room has since been remodeled into a Valentine’s Suite.)

  Mother was asking, “So, dear—what’s your plan? Your investigative agenda?”

  I looked at her in the dressing table mirror; she so hated that she was not coming along. Me taking the lead was driving her batty. Battier.

  I said, “I’m hoping the other members of the Eight of Clubs will be there, and, well, we’ll just see how it plays out.”

  “See how it plays out,” she said.

  “Yes. How it plays out. Like, maybe someone will let something slip while in his or her cups.”

  “That is a plan of sorts.”

  “Thank you.”

  “A plan for catastrophe. A recipe for disaster.”

  “Mother. I . . . will . . . be . . . fine.”

  She took in a sharp breath. “You must stay on top of your game. You dasn’t drink too much.”

  “I ‘dasn’t,’ huh? You know I’m not much of a drinker . . .”

  “Yes, and keep that in mind! In this group, who knows what some miscreant might drop in your drink! And then, after your defilement, word will get around and everywhere you go, they’ll be calling, ‘Hey there! Orgy Girl!’ ”

  I closed my eyes. “Mother, no one is going to slip me a roofie.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  Drinking, date-rape drugs . . . was I back in college?

  “Stop worrying,” I said. “If I get uncomfortable, I’ll just book it, okay? I’m a big girl, all right? I’ll have the car.”

  Her sigh started at her toes. “Very well, dear. But I’d feel better if you took along my Taser.”

  “Won’t fit into my evening bag.”

  “Mace?”

  “It’s a tiny purse.”

  “What about using one of my surveillance gizmos?”

  She got those by the dozen from spy sites on the Internet.

  “For instance?” I asked.

  “My voice-recorder pen.”

  “What, and sit and doodle on a napkin? And hope people come around and just casually spill their guts? No.”

  “The camera necklace?”

  I shook my head. “Clashes with my outfit.”

  She raised a finger, a gleam in her eyes. “How about my new self-sticking, motion-activated, clothes-hook hidden camera?”

  “Only if you can sa
y that three times, very very fast.”

  Mother stuck her tongue out and made a nah sound. I had reduced her to that, and it felt pretty good.

  But I also felt a little bad for her, so I pretended to be seriously considering these ridiculous suggestions, asking, “So if I take your clothes-hook camera—suppose someone actually hangs a coat on the hook, blocking it?”

  “A definite drawback,” she admitted, frowning. “I do wish I could find a use for my hook-cam—it was terribly expensive. But now that you mention it, there are design flaws. . . .”

  My makeup complete, I turned and looked directly at her. “Mother, I’ll have my cell. Stop worrying.”

  She frowned. She looked disturbingly cute in the red wig.

  “You say your boyfriend, our esteemed ex-chief, has approved your participation in my investigation of these murders.”

  “Yes. But of my investigation. You are on the bench, lady. Sidelined with injuries.”

  “Be that as it may,” she said, brushing the air with dismissive fingers, “let me ask you—have you cleared tonight’s exploratory incursion with your Tony?”

  I shook my head. “No. Just isn’t necessary yet. He knows I’m infiltrating, but . . .”

  “Not that you have a date with Wes Sinclair.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  Her sigh was on a grand scale, her hands on her knees, her Velma wig shimmering under the overhead light.

  “I have a suggestion,” she said.

  Rut-ro.

  “A suggestion that I admit pains me to make. You simply must call Tony Cassato and tell him what you intend. See what he thinks. If he clears it, I will clear it.”

  I got up, smiled politely, and said, “I don’t need permission from either of you. I’m a—”

  “Big girl, yes.” Her expression was glum. “But a foolish one.”

  At sunset I pulled the Caddy into the hotel’s packed parking lot, the sky awash with color, a blaze of pinks and purples, as if the bold strokes of a master water-colorist.

  I got out, entered the hotel via the back lobby, and took the elevator up, stepping off the eighth floor. There a sign on a metal stand greeted me, white letters on black.