Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “How much?” she finally asked.

  I named what I thought was a reasonable monthly figure to cover her expenses.

  “Outrageous!” she bellowed. “You’re no better than a slum lord!”

  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” squawked Ralph. “Hamlet. Act Three, Scene Two.” Both Mephisto and Lucille growled at him. Ralph squawked back a mimicking growl.

  My domestic skills would never win me the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but my home didn’t exactly qualify as a slum. I pulled the phone book off the bottom shelf of my nightstand and tossed it on the bed. “Fine. You’d better start calling rental agents.”

  With a harrumph, she pushed the directory aside, lowered Mephisto to the floor, and stood. “For that kind of money, I want more room. I’ll move into the apartment above the garage. I need my privacy.”

  She needed her privacy? This coming from the woman who’d stuck her nose into every millimeter of our lives every nanosecond of the day since she moved in? “Even if you could manage the stairs, which I don’t think you can, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “You don’t need all that space. You can move your things into the basement.”

  “I plan to,” I said. “I’m renting out the apartment. You’ll have to stay where you are.”

  “Absolutely not. It’s too small.”

  “For what? You lost everything you owned when your apartment burnt to the ground.”

  She offered no rebuttal. Her entire argument had been an exercise in pushing my buttons. Argument for the sake of argument. Standard Lucille discourse.

  “By the way,” I said to her departing back, “that amount includes cut-rate kibble for Mephisto. If the rest of us have to live on mac and cheese to get by, he’s going to have to make do without his gourmet canned cuisine.”

  She stopped, pounded her cane on the carpet, and glowered at me over her shoulder. “His name is Manifesto, and he has a delicate constitution.”

  So delicate that he’d scarfed down an entire doorstop-heavy fruitcake several weeks ago when no one was looking. At least Mephisto’s thievery had spared the rest of us from dealing with the annual Christmas gift from Hell.

  “We all have to make sacrifices,” I told her.

  “Don’t you lecture me about making sacrifices, missy. I lived through The Great Depression. A depression brought about by greedy capitalists, I might add. I know all about making sacrifices. Unlike some people.”

  Then she launched into one of her very own communist manifestos, which set an orchestra of percussion instruments pounding between my temples.

  Over the years I’ve tried my damnedest to foster a congenial relationship between my mother-in-law and me. Lucille had pulverized all my attempts under her size-ten orthopedic heels. At least I knew I wasn’t the sole beneficiary of her wrath. The Daughters of the October Revolution, all of whom have similar curmudgeon personalities, are the only people I ever recall warming to my mother-in-law—probably because they’re all as curmudgeonly as she is.

  “I’m late for work,” I said, interrupting her dissertation of all that’s wrong with the world. This time I closed the door in her face.

  ~*~

  I tried not to think about Ricardo’s phone call as I made my way to work. Maybe it was a crank call. One of Karl’s lowlife Neanderthal clients with a warped sense of humor. And maybe pigs really can fly, Anastasia.

  Sitting astride a winged Miss Piggy would have been a preferable mode of transportation at the moment. Making the daily rush hour trek to and from work had been somewhat tolerable while I still owned my Camry. My new state of pauperdom had forced me to sell the comfortable silver car with its multitude of amenities back to the dealer. In its place I’d purchased a used, stripped-down, bottom-of-the-line, eight-year-old mud-brown Hyundai.

  The balance of the money from the car sale had paid for shipping Karl’s body back from Nevada and the cremation expenses. Cremation is cheaper than burial, and after what my husband had done to me and his kids, we needed the expense of a cemetery plot. Anyone who wanted to visit Karl in the future, could talk to the urn on the bookcase shelf.

  I’m not a large woman, barely five-two. And as I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t like to whine. Although, I suppose that’s hard to tell lately. Anyway, years ago I learned to accept the God-dealt genes that landed me Mama’s stubby legs, Grandma Sudberry’s below-the-navel spread, and Grandma Periwinkle’s training bra-sized boobs, making me a height-challenged, cellulite-dimpled, flat-chested brunette Bartlett pear.

  And although I refuse to take responsibility for the additional ten pounds I haven’t been able to shed since the birth of my last child—thanks in part to both my Carbo Junkie Gene and my Chocoholic Gene—I still managed to squeeze into a size eight. On good days. Still, in the sub-sub compact Hyundai, I felt like The Incredible Hulk shoehorned behind the steering wheel.

  After an hour of creeping along Routes 24 and 287 at a pace slower than the average snail, I pulled into the parking lot of Trimedia’s new headquarters, situated in the middle of a former cornfield in Morris County. Builders planned an entire business complex for the area, but at present our only neighbor was the new parking lot and commuter rail stop built across the road to accommodate the expected influx of corporations fleeing New York.

  Prior to September 11th, we were located in lower Manhattan, an easy commute for me via public transportation. Our building had sustained minimal damage from the terrorist attack, and after a short stint in temporary offices, we’d returned to our headquarters. However, a few months ago our new owners were lured across the Hudson by cheaper real estate and huge tax incentives.

  Few staff members at American Woman were happy about the move, but then again, even fewer were happy about any of the changes Trimedia had instituted since gobbling up the family-owned Reynolds-Alsopp Publishing Company—least of all our former owner, Hugo Reynolds-Alsopp.

  Hugo remained publisher in title only. The real power now rested in the hands of the Trimedia Board of Directors, a parsimonious group of bean counters who sacrificed editorial content for the almighty bottom line.

  I worked in a cat-claw-cat environment, but unlike most of my coworkers at American Woman, I was content in my position as crafts editor. I had no desire to scheme and plot my way up the monthly magazine’s editorial ladder to the Holy Trinity, better known as Decorating, Beauty, and Fashion.

  None of my coworkers seemed surprised to see me Monday morning. Publishing deadlines wait for no one. Our motto is much the same as the mail carriers’: Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor hail—or in my case, recent widowhood—will keep us from getting our issues out on time.

  Besides, thanks to Trimedia’s Simon Legree-like benefits package, I’d already used up my yearly allotment of personal leave days. And it was only the end of January.

  After dumping my coat in my cubicle office, I grabbed my notes and headed for the conference room. The last Monday of each month was the day we planned the issue five months down the road and gave status reports on the progress of the other issues in the works.

  I arrived to find all the usual suspects, minus Marlys, already gathered around the battered and chipped walnut conference room table. Our building might be spanking brand new, but Trimedia’s bean counters had saved a bundle by moving all our crappy old furnishings from lower Manhattan to the cornfield.

  Marlys Vandenburg was our fashion editor and resident Prima Donna. Rumor had it, she got her job, not because of her experience in fashion but from her gold medal performance in bed—the bed of our former owner, Hugo Reynolds-Alsopp. Marlys kept her own hours and got away with it because, according to another rumor, now that Hugo had lost control of the company, she was performing her bedroom gymnastics for the chairman of the Trimedia Board of Directors.

  I poured myself a cup of brewed high test and took my seat on the Bottom Feeders side of the table. The food and health editors were to my left. The travel and finance edit
ors, plus the one editorial assistant the five of us shared were to my right.

  Across the table sat the decorating and beauty editors, their individual editorial assistants, and Marlys’s assistant. Naomi Dreyfus, our editor-in-chief, sat at one end of the table. Hugo, who still attended editorial meetings, commanded the chair at the opposite end.

  “I suppose we might as well get started,” said Naomi, scowling at the empty butternut faux-leather upholstered chair usually occupied by Marlys. “You’d think she’d make an effort to show up on time at least once a month.” She directed this last comment, along with a bitter purse of her lips, toward Hugo.

  Naomi and Hugo had been an item for years until Marlys came along. Now they barely spoke to one another. Another rumor flying around the office suggested Marlys had recently set her sights on Naomi’s job.

  Hugo lowered his thinning gray head to avoid eye contact with Naomi. He had aged considerably since losing the company and had lost the dapper patina that had attracted beautiful women for most of his sixty-plus years. His hair needed a trim, his suit a good pressing. A series of small stains marred his custom-made shirt and striped silk tie, as though he had dribbled his morning coffee and either hadn’t noticed or no longer cared.

  Now that Marlys had given him the boot, I suspected he regretted walking out on Naomi. The statuesque Naomi, with her well-bred patrician features, cultured tones, Swiss boarding school education, and trademark silver chignon, exuded class. Without the aid of any plastic surgeon, she looked years younger than her actual age of fifty-nine. Naomi was a true silk purse. Next to her, the twenty-five years younger Marlys, for all her designer duds and hours spent at the most chic Manhattan spas, came across as a sow’s ear.

  The rest of us certainly regretted the day Hugo hired Marlys, especially Erica Milano. Erica was Marlys’s personal slave, although technically her title was assistant fashion editor.

  “I have everything covered,” Erica said, her voice little more than a whisper directed at the shocking pink folder on the table in front of her. One of her hands fidgeted with a corner of the folder. The thumb and index finger of her other hand picked at the rubber end of a pencil stub.

  Erica put in sixteen-hour days, doing all of Marlys’s work while Marlys took three-hour, four-Cosmopolitan lunches and all the credit. Unfortunately, Erica was a doormat, and Marlys, who owned a closet full of Christian Louboutin boots, took extreme pleasure in tramping their trademark red soles all over Erica. Marlys had even bullied her milquetoast assistant into running personal errands for her during her lunch hour.

  Naomi forced a smile. “Of course you do, Erica. You always do. And we appreciate your dedication to your job. I have to wonder why we even bother to pay Marlys a salary.” Again, she leveled an icy green glare at Hugo.

  Around the table, the others traded surreptitious glances. Erica was fashion editor in all but name, Marlys in name only. Too bad Erica lacked the backbone—and the looks—to steal the job away from her bitch of a boss. Poor Erica. As long as she carried around an extra thirty pounds and refused to apply to her own body the same design sense and style she used in the pages of American Woman, she’d stay hidden away in a Trimedia cubicle.

  The magazine couldn’t risk the ridicule of the press. A fashion editor had to look the part. And if nothing else, Marlys looked the part.

  One by one, each of us gave our status reports for the issues in progress, pinning copies of layouts and photos up on the cork-covered wall behind me. The Holy Trinity got a bird’s-eye view. We Bottom Feeders needed to twist in our seats. When we had covered each department, we moved on to planning the July issue.

  “I’d like to do a Lazy Days of Summer theme,” said Naomi, “focusing on a patriotic color scheme.”

  Her half-Chinese, half-Irish assistant Kim O’Hara, pushed a lock of straight auburn hair behind her ear and rose to pin some swatches and photos to the wall in the space allocated for the next issue.

  “Any ideas?” asked Naomi.

  “Denim and bandanas are making a comeback,” said Jeanie Sims, our decorating editor. She rifled through one of the file folders in front of her and extracted several catalogue sheets which she handed Kim to add to the wall.

  “Furniture manufacturers are showing denim upholstered sofas and chairs. We could accent with red and white bandana throw pillows?” She glanced my way.

  “Envelope pillows,” I suggested, “along with a few patchwork pillows using both denim and bandanas.”

  “Good,” said Naomi. “What else?”

  I thought for a moment. “We could bring the theme outdoors onto a patio for placemats, napkins, a tray. Maybe a denim hostess apron?”

  “Denim hostess apron?”

  Everyone turned as Marlys Vandenburg breezed into the room and made a production of settling herself into the chair next to Erica. Her derision sounded in her voice and showed on her face.

  She wore a calf-length handkerchief dress of vermillion-colored raw silk. A plunging neckline showcased an enormous teardrop-shaped diamond nestled between her breasts. Somewhat smaller matching diamonds hung from each ear. A diamond clip pulled back her chin-length platinum layered haircut on one side of her face.

  I glanced at Hugo. Was that drool I noticed on the corner of his mouth?

  Naomi didn’t bother to conceal her annoyance. “Nice of you to join us, Marlys, even if you are three hours late. And a bit overdressed.”

  “As I’m sure you’re well aware, previews for Fashion Week began today. I had an interview at Cartier first thing this morning. Didn’t Erica mention that?” She glared at her assistant.

  Erica’s eyes grew wide, her voice squeaked in protest. “But I didn’t know.”

  Marlys, who stood nearly six feet in three-inch stilettos, literally looked down her nose as she graced Erica with a sneer. “You would if you did your job properly.”

  Her lips turned up into a too-saccharine sweet smile as she fingered the expensive bauble between her breasts. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked no one in particular. “The diamonds are from Cartier’s newest collection. On loan to me for a late dinner with Emil Pachette this evening. He’s agreed to give me an exclusive.”

  “An exclusive what?” I asked, unable to resist. Titters sounded around the room.

  Cloris McWerther, our food editor, elbowed me in the ribs. “Naughty Anastasia,” she whispered.

  “You’re just jealous I beat you to the punch,” I whispered back.

  “An exclusive interview,” snapped Marlys. “I don’t suppose someone like you has ever heard of Emil Pachette, but he’s the brightest new star to hit the fashion scene in a decade. By this time next year everyone will be wearing couture from the House of Pachette.”

  She turned to Naomi. “And if we weren’t exiled to this godforsaken no-man’s-land, I’d have time to return home to change before my dinner date. Or perhaps you expect me to show up wearing denim?”

  Not that Marlys had ever shown up for work on time when we were located in Manhattan, but Naomi chose not to mention that fact. “Let’s get back to the issue,” she said.

  “Just a minute,” said Marlys. “What’s this about tacky hostess aprons? That’s so seventies. What’s next? Palazzo pants? Do-it-yourself disco balls?” This time I was the recipient of one of her sneers.

  Marlys considered my monthly contributions to the magazine a waste of editorial space. In her effort to grab more pages for herself, she’d launched a campaign to eliminate my department. Luckily, Hugo and Naomi had fought for me and the value of the craft section to our readers. However, I had no reason to believe she’d given up her quest now that we had new owners. Especially if the rumors about her current bed partner were true.

  Given my dire financial situation, I should have restrained my sarcastic tongue. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. Too bad I hadn’t thought of that before I gave Marlys one more reason to hate me.

  Naomi gave her a brief recap of our plans for the July issue.

  M
arlys’s voice rose two octaves. Her face suffused with a color akin to her dress. “Denim and bandanas? Over my dead body! Where do you suggest we hold the fashion shoot? Dogpatch?”

  She slapped her hand onto the table. “We are not featuring denim and bandanas. I won’t allow it.”

  Naomi sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers under her chin. Somehow she managed to keep her voice calm and controlled as she spoke, but I’m sure the effort nearly killed her. “I happen to be the editor-in-chief of this magazine, Marlys. I make the decisions, not you.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Marlys rose from her chair and stormed out of the conference room, slamming the door behind her.

  As the rest of us squirmed nervously in our chairs, Naomi snapped at Hugo. “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, Dr. Frankenstein.”

  Hugo grimaced. “I’ll see if I can talk some sense into her.”

  “And if you can’t?”

  He cleared his throat, straightened his skewed tie, and pushed away from the table. “I’ll think of something.”

  THREE

  After Hugo left the meeting, we continued planning the July issue, everyone ignoring Marlys’s objection to denim and bandanas. Hugo never returned, but lunch arrived about half an hour later. We continued to work as we nibbled on club sandwiches, a monthly company perk that we all expected to lose once the bean counters discovered that Naomi tapped into miscellaneous expenditures to pay the deli each month. The meeting finally broke up shortly before two-thirty.

  Once back in my cubicle, my cell phone rang before I even had a chance to flip on my computer. I didn’t recognize the number on the display. “Hello?”

  “Hello.” Something about the way those two syllables rolled off the guy’s tongue sent a flooding warmth through me. Or maybe I’d just experienced my first hot flash. Two plausible possibilities (although I certainly hoped I was too young for the latter.) Whichever the culprit, though, the thought of either sent a chill down my spine that immediately readjusted my estrogen levels.