by Jane Heller
“I’m going to make it happen? Just go to the fuckin’ beauty parlor and tell them to dye it back.”
“Oh, really? And what am I supposed to do about the boobs? Drop them in the recycling bin like a couple of old telephone books?”
“You’re totally flipped out,” said Jeremy as he grabbed me by the arm and walked me briskly toward the front door.
“Oh, I see,” I said as he opened the door. “You’ve heard enough. Is that it? I’ll bet you’re not used to having your darksiders rise up and demand their freedom. Well, you’d better get used to it because I’m not giving up until you leave Banyan Beach.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, sweetheart,” said Jeremy, literally picking me up and depositing me outside his house. “It’s you who’s goin’ bye-bye.”
He closed the door and left me standing there, hyperventilating. With shaking hands, I fished in my purse for the BreathAssure bottle and popped a couple of capsules into my mouth. Well, why not? If Avon’s Skin So Soft could kill mosquitoes, why couldn’t BreathAssure capsules soothe raw nerves?
I had just swallowed the capsules when I involuntarily let forth one of those awful, fiendish, bestial growls. I sounded like a wild animal, for God’s sake, and I nearly scared myself to death. Another little warning from Satan, I assumed.
“Okay, okay,” I said, hurrying into my car before Jeremy’s neighbors either called Animal Control or came after me with their shotguns. “I’m going, but I’ll be back. You can count on it.”
As I pulled out of the driveway, a blinding bolt of lightning suddenly lit up the sky, nearly sending the car into a tree.
Must be another warning from the devil, I figured, given that there wasn’t a single cloud in sight.
Chapter 17
The phone rang at seven-thirty on Wednesday morning. It was Ben.
“Are you all right, Barbara?” he asked, his tone concerned, brotherly.
All right? I thought ruefully as I wound a strand of my hair—my long, straight, blond hair—around my finger. There was nothing all right about me. I was all wrong—from my bogus Barbie doll looks to my supposed “hot streak” at work. The whole thing was fake. I was fake. A fraud. An impostor. A creation of the devil.
“I’m fine,” I told Ben, wishing I could tell him the truth. “Why?”
“Because I got a call from Jeremy last night. He said you went over to his house and acted like a complete nutcase.”
“That was sweet of him.”
“He said you were going on and on about some real estate deal and when he tried to shut you up, you started making these wild accusations.”
“They weren’t wild, believe me.”
“What do you mean? Did Jeremy try anything?”
“Try anything?”
“Yeah. Did he come on to you?”
“No,” I said.
“That doesn’t sound like Jeremy. I’ve never known him to be alone with a woman and not come on to her.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be flattered or insulted.
“Since you know him so well, Benjamin, why don’t you tell me about him,” I said, wanting to be talked out of believing that Jeremy was Satan’s cover in Banyan Beach. Despite David’s confirmation that Jeremy was fronting for the devil and despite the rather incriminating remarks Jeremy himself had made to me, I had my doubts. For starters, there was Jeremy’s oh-so-politically correct stance on the environment. Would the devil, who had probably never met a river he didn’t want to pollute, actually allow his cover to speak out against pollution? Then there were the corrupt, back room deals that Jeremy had insisted went into the development of the River Princess. Would the devil, who was as corrupt as it gets, really let his cover go around town exposing corruption? And what about the business of Jeremy’s donating the money he made from The Fire Ants concerts to the Save the River Initiative? Would the devil, the very antithesis of faith, hope, and charity, permit his cover to behave in such a charitable manner?
“Why ask me about Jeremy?” said Ben. “You’ve known him as long as I have.”
“I know him but I don’t really know him,” I said. “What sort of person is he? Behind the macho image, I mean.”
“He’s the most decent guy there is,” said Ben. “He’s always fighting for the underdog and standing up for what he believes in. His methods may piss people off, but his heart is in the right place. I really admire him.”
“But he acts like such a jerk sometimes,” I pointed out.
“Who doesn’t?” Ben countered. “So what if he isn’t the type of guy that Mom and Dad approved of. He didn’t go to Harvard and he never shed the redneck accent and he doesn’t care if he’s on somebody’s Best Dressed List. He’s just Jeremy. What you see is what you get.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“No maybes about it. Take the time he spends with those kids.”
“What kids?”
“Those poor kids that live over on Trent Avenue.” Trent Avenue was Banyan Beach’s very own slum, a section of town that was never mentioned in travel brochures.
“What does Jeremy do with those kids?” I asked.
“One Saturday a month, he takes a different group of them fishing on the Hatteras,” said Ben. “He spends the whole day with them, teaching them how to fish, showing them how to operate a boat, feeding them lunch, the whole thing. He doesn’t brag about it. He just does it, even though it means giving up a Saturday’s worth of charter business. That’s the kind of person Jeremy Cook is.”
Now I was more confused than ever. Could David have been wrong about Jeremy? Was it possible that the devil had fooled him, too? Or was Satan causing my doubts, deliberately keeping me off-balance so I’d have to remain a darksider, carry out his mission, have his babies…
I stopped myself. The thought was too gruesome to contemplate.
“Barbara? Why the sudden interest in Jeremy?” asked Ben. “You told me you wanted his phone number so you could talk to him about fishing. But that wasn’t really why you went to see him, was it?”
“No,” I admitted.
Ben was silent for a moment. “You’re hot for him, is that it?”
“Oh, please.”
“Well, then why the interest?”
“Mom always said Jeremy had the devil in him. I just want to find out if it’s true.”
After I finished talking to Ben, Pete launched into one of his barking routines. He had been sitting quietly on the floor, right beside my bed, throughout my conversation with my brother, but the minute I hung up the phone, he started up, as if it were his turn to talk to me.
“What is it this time?” I asked as I leaned over to scratch the furry white patch on his chest.
He became calm for a second or two, but when I lay back down in bed, the barking began again.
“Woof! Woof! Woof!” he said, standing now. He stared at me, his hazel eyes blazing with intensity, and I couldn’t look away. I sat up, threw the covers off, and continued to be held by his gaze. Suddenly, he stopped barking and, with tongue hanging and tail wagging, bounded out of the bedroom.
I leapt out of bed and followed him into the bathroom, where I watched in amazement as he crouched in front of the vanity underneath the sink, gripped its door between his teeth, and pulled it open.
“What are you doing now?” I asked, recalling the episode with the MLS book.
His tail wagging furiously, Pete barked once in response, then turned away from me and began to burrow inside the vanity.
“Hey, don’t go in there. You’ll knock everything over,” I wailed as I watched Pete’s nose topple a bottle of Scope, a jar of Vaseline, and a container of Band-Aids.
I attempted to shoo him away from the vanity, but he wasn’t budging. He actually seemed to be searching for something, although I couldn’t imagine what, given that there weren’t any doggie treats stashed in there, just your basic Walgreen’s merchandise. He continued to rummage around, his body practically stuffed inside the narrow but deep st
orage area, until he finally found an object that interested him: my scale. It was a typical bathroom scale, a rather sterile-looking white model, the kind you stand on and watch the little needle waver between the black numbers until it settles on your actual weight. The morning after my transformation, when I’d awakened and found that I had miraculously shed twenty pounds, I’d stuck the scale in the back of the vanity, figuring I no longer needed to weigh myself. Now here was Pete, wrapping his teeth around the side of the scale and dragging it out of the vanity!
He set it down on the bathroom floor and then stepped onto it, like a fat person at a Weight Watchers weigh-in. The scale was too small to accommodate all four of his paws, of course, so first the back two, then the front two, kept slipping off. But there was no question about his intention. He was trying to stand on that scale and weigh himself, as if he understood the scale’s function! Or so it seemed to me.
“What’s going on?” I asked, thoroughly puzzled by the latest of Pete’s Stupid Pet Tricks. As I had never owned a dog before, I could only assume that he was behaving in a bizarre (for a dog) manner. For all I knew, every dog was obsessive about his weight. On the other hand, Pete wasn’t much of an eater and only picked at his food when he did eat. Maybe there’s such a thing as an anorexic dog, I thought, and Pete is one. Why else would he care how much he weighed?
Or was I missing something? Was Pete attempting to communicate with me in some strange way? And if so, what in the world was he trying to say?
Pete barked several more times as he stood on the scale, then hopped off of it and trotted back into the bedroom, as if what had just occurred were merely part of his morning ablutions.
I remained in the bathroom, struggling to make sense of what I had witnessed, until I realized that if I didn’t hurry up and get dressed, I’d be late for work.
Charlotte usually held her weekly meeting on Monday mornings, but she had assembled all of us on a Wednesday so we could discuss the forthcoming open house for the River Princess, which was set for the following Tuesday night. As Home Sweet Home was the listing agency on the condominium, we would be hosting the gala celebration on the building’s spectacular waterfront patio, along with the developers. Invitations to the gala had been mailed two weeks before to all the movers and shakers in town, as well as to Home Sweet Home’s customers, many of whom were movers and shakers. We hoped to ply our wealthy guests with liquor, wow them with the building’s numerous amenities, and sell them a condo. We also hoped to draw the media to the event so that those who couldn’t make the party would be sure to hear about it.
“How about going over the assignments?” Frances suggested, after we had all gathered in Charlotte’s office. Since Frances was the Home Sweet Home agent who had worked with the developers in the past, she was the actual listing agent on the property and had the most to gain if the party was a success.
“I’m right on target with my assignment,” said June Bellsey, who had volunteered to handle the media coverage for the party. “Generally, the TV stations won’t commit to sending a crew until the day of the event, but Lloyd knows the news directors at Channel Five, Channel Eight, and Channel Ten, and he guarantees they’ll come.”
“Not if there’s a murder that day,” Althea said sourly. “The way the murder rate in this town has been skyrocketing lately, there’s a good chance we won’t see a single TV camera videotaping our guests. Not when they can be videotaping corpses.”
“Aren’t we being a little morbid, Althea dear?” asked Charlotte. “Perhaps if you had some more tea…”
“I don’t think Althea’s being morbid at all,” Deirdre announced. “I’d never say this to a customer, naturally, but this town is beginning to scare the pants off me. Did everybody hear about that poor old woman who was set on fire yesterday?”
“Oh, God. That was horrible,” said Suzanne. “Imagine someone doing a thing like that to an innocent woman. She was in her eighties, wasn’t she?”
“Eighty-two,” Deirdre volunteered.
“With sixteen grandchildren,” June added.
“A widow,” Althea chimed in.
While the others traded bits of information about the case, I sat there, frozen in my seat. According to news reports, the murderer had doused his unsuspecting victim with gasoline just as she was leaving the First Presbyterian Church on Franklin Avenue. And then he lit a match, threw it at her, and fled, while she burned to death. There had been a similar killing ten days earlier. That victim, too, had been torched to death. Now the residents of Banyan Beach were afraid. And I was afraid for them. Because I knew that the murders weren’t the work of your average, garden-variety pyromaniac. It was the devil who was making the residents of Banyan Beach burn. I knew it as surely as if I had committed the crimes myself. And if I remained a darksider and gave birth to a darksider baby, I would be just as guilty as Satan himself.
No, I thought, feeling the perspiration form above my top lip. I refuse to carry out my end of the bargain. I can’t do it. I won’t do it. I’m going to make the devil leave town if it’s the last thing I do.
But first, I reminded myself, I had to find him.
“Barbara? How are you coming along with your assignment for the gala opening?” said Frances, jarring me out of my thoughts.
“My assignment,” I said, trying to make myself care about a dopey party while the devil was out there toasting people like marshmallows at a campfire. I had been given the task of writing the copy for the promotional brochure we were having printed up. It was to extol the virtues of the River Princess—from the fabulous water views virtually every unit enjoyed to the building’s state-of-the-art recreational facilities. I was to make special mention of the three large fountains that adorned the patio; of the fact that in the center of each fountain there was a marble sculpture of a mermaid, the creation of DeWitt Charney, some mucky-muck artist from Palm Beach; of the fact that each mermaid’s mouth formed a spout out of which water trickled. The fountains and their accompanying mermaids were either works of art or symbols of wretched excess, depending on whom you asked. They were being covered by heavy tarpaulins until the night of the gala opening, at which time they were to be unveiled as part of the festivities.
“The copy’s all written,” I reported to Frances, who had put herself in charge of the hors d’oeuvres. I only hoped that, given her gargantuan appetite, she would leave some of them for the guests. “It’s ready for the printer.”
“Wonderful,” she beamed, her fleshy cheeks bulging. “I knew I could count on you, Barbara. Now, what about the music, Deirdre? Has that been taken care of?”
“Oh, sure, Lutzie,” said Deirdre. “I found a harpist.”
“Oh, please. Not a harpist,” Althea groaned. “Talk about pretentious.”
“What’s pretentious about it?” Deirdre asked.
“Let me put it this way. When was the last time you sat around listening to harp music?” Althea challenged.
“Never,” Deirdre admitted. “But that’s the point. The party is a special occasion, and special occasions call for special music.”
“Yeah, but harp music?” Althea said, rolling her eyes.
“Why not?” Charlotte asked innocently. “Harp music is the music of the angels.”
“The people we’re trying to sell condos to aren’t angels, believe me,” Althea said.
“Yes, but angels are very ‘in’ right now,” said June, who considered herself an authority on popular culture.
Althea was about to respond when I let out one of those awful growls. Everyone in the room turned to look at me. It was humiliating, but I was getting used to it.
“Sorry,” I shrugged. “It’s my stomach acting up again. I’ve got an appointment with a gastroenterologist.”
Obviously, there was nothing wrong with my stomach. My guess was that the devil didn’t like all this talk of angels and was making his feelings known. Through me.
“I agree with Althea on this one,” said Frances, moving the
meeting along. “Harps are a little much.” She turned to Deirdre. “How about finding us someone else? An accordionist maybe?”
Deirdre sighed and made a few notes.
“That leaves the guest list,” said Frances. “Suzanne, how are the RSVPs coming in?”
Suzanne pulled a folder out of her briefcase. “So far, about fifty people have accepted,” she reported. “I have a feeling we’ll be close to a hundred by next week. Since we’re having the party out of season, we don’t have much competition for partygoers. There’s nothing else going on next Tuesday night.”
“And let’s not forget about the hundred invitations we distributed to local businesses for their customers,” Frances said. “I bet we’ll get over two hundred people at this party.” She was practically licking her lips in anticipation of selling condos. Lots of condos. We all were. At least, I thought I was. After hearing Jeremy and his father talk about the way waterfront development was killing the fish and destroying the river, I had to admit that I wasn’t quite as pumped up about the River Princess as I used to be.
“Oh, this is all so exciting,” June cooed. “I love a good party.”
“Even if no celebrities show up?” Althea sneered.
“Oh, but celebrities will show up,” June said smugly. “Lloyd and I will be there.”
Chapter 18
The weather on the day of the River Princess party was unseasonably cool and dry, like a crisp fall day up north. White, puffy clouds drifted across the bright blue sky, and there was a fresh, sweet-smelling breeze blowing off the ocean. For the first time in months, I drove with the car windows open.
At about four o’clock on that fateful Tuesday afternoon, I went home from the office to change clothes, figuring I’d make it over to the River Princess by five. When I walked in the door, Pete bounded over to me, welcoming me with sloppy wet kisses. It was nice to be wanted, and I returned his affection with a few sloppy wet kisses of my own.
