by Leigh Tudor
Freed her sisters from a sinister doctor and set them up in a home in the remote prairie land of Texas. Yep, they could check that one off the list.
Loren grabbed the side of her chair as Mercy began to apply what she said was a thin layer of primer on her skin.
“Hold up,” Cara piped up with her finger in the air. “It says you can, under no uncertain terms, pursue him.” Cara’s eyes narrowed, now pointing her accusing finger at Loren. “Have you been pursuing Alec?”
Mercy piped up. “No, she avoided him like the plague except when she thought he wasn’t looking and made sexy eyes at him.”
Loren’s head pulled back. “What are you talking about? I never made sexy eyes at Alec Wilder.”
“Please, you did, and you do . . . when you think he’s not looking.” To illustrate, she tilted her head toward Vlad and narrowed her eyes while batting them slowly.
Vlad shook his head. “That is not it. It is more like this.” And then he held his head high and raised an eyebrow.
Mercy grimaced. “You look more like a cartoon villain than Loren pining over Tractor Bob.”
Cara continued reading down the list. “Never let him see you sweat.” Lowering her book, she patted her finger against her lips. “Has he seen you all gross and sweaty? I have and it’s not a good look.”
Loren was unable to respond as Mercy began to apply copious amounts of foundation on her face, answering on her behalf. “She was sweating buckets all over him during that first self-defense class in the church gymnasium. She clocked him, too, although she claims she didn’t.”
“You hit him?” Cara cried in disbelief. And then as if in realization, she squealed in a higher pitch. “Oh my gosh, you lied. You said he fell and hit his head or something. We should never lie. Tell her, Madame Garmond. Tell her it’s a mortal sin.”
Before the elderly woman could respond, Loren said to Cara, “Let’s just say that I’ll probably be foregoing the Pearly Gates.”
Cara’s face fell. “That’s not the least bit funny.” And then said with more sass, “Do you want to go to hell?”
Loren squinted her eyes as Mercy was getting a little carried away with what appeared to be a tube of concealer.
“Of course not, I was just kidding, but before you get all snippy with me on the evils of lying you might want to remember that trip you made to Dallas recently.” Loren said, doing her best to make eye contact with her younger sister. Difficult to do as Mercy’s application process was similar to that of some of her more aggressive artistic brushstrokes. “But to answer your question, yes, he has seen me gross and sweaty.”
Cara twisted her lips as she glanced at Madame Garmond, and read on, “Oh, this one more than makes up for you being sweaty and physically accosting him. She says here that you should always ‘treat your body like a finely tuned machine.’”
“She is that,” Vlad concurred.
“Her body’s a lethal weapon,” Mercy chimed in. “She’s like that bad as—” Mercy glanced up at Madame Garmond. “Um, that really cool chick in that old Terminator movie who wouldn’t die no matter what or who you threw at her.” Mercy leaned toward Loren with an ominous-looking black-tipped brush. “Quit being a baby and hold still while I apply the liquid eyeliner.”
After what seemed an interminable amount of time suffering through more layers of makeup and Mercy’s insistence that she remain still, Mercy sprayed her face with something she called “setting spray” that smelled more like a bathroom trash can that had been out in the sun too long.
She coughed a couple of times as Mercy looked over her face as if it were a Horchow therapy sketch.
“Done!” she said with a wide grin. “New and improved Loren Ingalls.”
For a millisecond, three sets of eyes took in Mercy’s work. Loren’s face began to feel warm with all the mute scrutiny.
Until Cara finally said, “She looks quite glamorous.”
“Doesn’t she?” Mercy said. “It’s called ‘red-carpet’ face.”
“The red lipstick is quite dramatic,” Vlad remarked.
“Are her cheeks supposed to be sunken-in like that?” Cara asked, physically sucking in her own cheeks.
“It’s called contouring,” Mercy explained. “Makes her cheekbones pop.”
Cara leaned in closer. “Are those fake eyelashes?”
“Aren’t they beautiful? I picked them up at the local drugstore. They’re magnetic.”
Loren was getting nervous as everyone kept staring at her, the mirror situated in a way that wouldn’t allow her to view Mercy’s efforts.
Apparently, Mercy felt the reticence from her viewers as well. “Well, what do you think?” She turned toward Mrs. Garmond.
“Oh, well, Miss Mercy, I find her to be quite chiseled and red-carpet worthy.”
Mercy smiled and turned to Cara and Vlad.
Vlad nodded and chewed his bottom lip. “I must agree with Madame.” He looked up at Mercy. “Where is date?”
Mercy shrugged and looked to Loren for an answer.
Loren shrugged hers as well. “I dunno.”
Cara smiled weakly and squeezed Loren’s shoulder with encouragement. “You look . . . unreal.”
They all continued to stare at her face with narrowed eyes while Mercy grabbed her various tubes and palettes and turned to her with a stern face. “You’ve got just enough time to get dressed, don’t smudge anything. I’ll run this stuff upstairs.”
Mercy jetted through the hall and upstairs, and just as quickly, all three began to talk at once.
“She doesn’t look like herself. It’s like she’s plastic.” Cara said, shaking her head and getting a closer look.
“We have words in Russia for woman look such as this. Not good ones,” Vlad added sternly.
Madame Garmond took Mercy’s place in the chair in front of Loren and began to call out orders. “Cara, tell Mercy I need her to go back to the grocery to pick up a spice I had forgotten. Do not allow her back into the kitchen. Vlad, stand by the living room window and let us know when Loren’s gentleman friend pulls into the driveway.”
Loren finally grabbed the mirror to look at what had everyone moving into crisis-mode. What she saw made her inhale sharply.
“Oh, my God! This is too . . . too much,” she said. “I’m either going to a movie premier or hitting the pole at Girls Gone Wild down in Newport.”
Her lips were not just red, but a lacquer-red and her contoured cheeks could literally cut glass. Her eyelashes looked more like huge fluffy spiders that mated and gave birth to more fluffy spiders. Her eyebrows were oddly perfect.
No one had perfect eyebrows.
“I can’t go out looking like this.” She glanced at the time on her phone. “I have to call and cancel.”
But then what would she tell Mercy? It would only hurt her feelings. And there was the stupid sister card, irrevocably pulled. As much as she hated it, it was Loren’s responsibility to follow through. Even under the worst of circumstances.
Her head jerked up as she heard Cara shepherding Mercy down the stairs to the front door. “Madame said we have to pick up some . . . .”
“Cardamom!” Madame blurted.
“Okay, quit pulling my arm. I’m going as fast as I can.” Mercy’s voice rang through the hallway, “We’ll be right back, Madame. Have fun tonight, Loren.”
Vlad leveraged the opportunity to make a hasty exit. “I go with girls. Delay return.”
Madame shook her head. “No, you wait on the porch and advise Master Wilder that Loren is running a smidge behind and will meet him at the local brasserie.”
A woman on a mission, Madame Garmond grabbed one of the teardrop-shaped makeup sponges Mercy had left behind and turned Loren’s face toward her. “This just needs some toning down. Hold still, and I’ll have you looking more like yourself in no time.”
For an elderly woman, Loren was shocked at how quickly she went to work, patting the damp sponge over her face and rinsing it several times in the sink.
Removing much of the excess product, she began to blend, making Loren wonder if Mercy had used a trowel during application.
Madame then grabbed a clean dish towel from one of the drawers, pulling it gently along Loren’s lips, making the towel appear as if it were cleaning up a murder scene as opposed to an overly enthusiastic makeover.
During the process, Loren breathed in Madame’s light perfume and noticed her hair was a soft, salt and pepper color.
Her hands were small, the skin crepey from years of, what? Did she wash dishes? Scrub floors? She seemed too regal and put together to do something so mundane. Although she did know her way around the kitchen. The chicken smelled wonderful.
Without warning, Madame tugged at one set of the magnetic eyelashes, and then the other, causing Loren to yelp. Loren’s fingers went to each eyelid to stem the stinging. Humming a tune Loren didn’t recognize, Madame pulled out a mauve-colored lipstick from inside her shiny black purse and gingerly dabbed it across Loren’s lips.
“There,” she said, moving the mirror so that Loren could assess her work.
Loren sighed with relief as she recognized her face, the makeup now giving her a pretty glow as opposed to the look Mercy had delivered with such a heavy hand.
“How did you know how to do that?” Loren asked, gripping the sides of the mirror.
“A lifetime of practice,” Madame said with a slight nod of her head.
“Thank you.” Loren was amazed at how quickly she’d gone from grossly over-done to a slightly improved version of herself.
“You’re most welcome,” Madame replied, matter-of-factly. “I’m sure your beau will find you quite beautiful with or without makeup.”
“Thanks for the encouragement. To be honest, I have no idea what the criteria for success is when it comes to dating.”
Madame shifted in her seat. “When you attended your seminars and conventions, did you not have the opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of men your age with similar interests?”
Lies. Loren always seemed to be either propagating or defending them. What would life be like if she could be completely forthright and honest?
But who was to say that Madame wasn’t also well-versed in subterfuge?
“Madame,” she said with a sigh, wishing she could go to her room and pull the covers over her head as opposed to going on a fact-finding date. “All those years at the Center, did you really believe I attended math conventions and seminars, and Mercy was strolling around art shows? Did it really make sense to you that we would be allowed such privileges when we were also supposedly diagnosed as dangerous psychopaths? Did you, or anyone else for that matter, ever question anything Dr. Halstead did to us at the Center?”
Madame clasped her hands in front of her, sitting tall and refined in the midst of their shabby kitchen.
“Would it surprise you to know that I was fully aware of what was going on at the Center as it pertained to you and your sisters?”
Both blood and anger raced through her veins in a dead heat as she contemplated Madame knowing the truth and allowing them to be abused, their skills leveraged in the most dangerous, dishonest, and devious of ways. All in the name of profit, thereby funding the Center and making the doctor a very rich man.
Loren raised an eyebrow. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you were on the take as well.”
“Oh, Dr. Halstead had no idea that I was aware of his countless criminal activities.”
“But you said nothing. You did nothing to help us. To help Cara.”
“An understandable assumption; inaccurate, but understandable.”
“Funny, I don’t recall you playing a role in our escape.”
“No? Did you honestly think it an accident when you so conveniently came across a vial of poison?”
Loren froze at Madame Garmond’s insinuation. The same insinuation made by Vlad within days of his unexpected arrival.
Could they have been working together? Vlad never once mentioned Madame Garmond as an accomplice when it came to Dr. Halstead’s death.
And now Madame was claiming to be aware of their missions when she was supposedly clueless yesterday. Charlotte wasn’t even aware of why they had left for days, sometimes weeks, at a time.
Could Vlad and/or Madame be lying about why they were here?
Maybe Mercy’s intuition about Madame was spot-on before turning into the old lady’s personal sycophant, that is. Maybe she was here spying on them and reporting into Jasper.
Now that Loren thought about it didn’t seem so farfetched. Cara, Madame, and Jasper traveled all over the world together. Could have Madame and Jasper been partners in crime despite Madame’s insistence that she didn’t like or trust Jasper around her “charge”?
Loren sat back in her chair and clasped her hands over her stomach in an attempt to appear unaffected. “I think you have more to tell me. Please continue.”
“We don’t have time to go through all the details.” Madame stood from the table to check on her simmering chicken. “We can discuss them later. Until then, you have a nice young man coming to pick you up for an evening out. Just be yourself and I’m sure he will find you utterly charming.”
She gave Loren’s clothing a once-over, which consisted of cutoffs and a shirt printed with a large tongue hanging out of a mouth on her chest. “That is, assuming you own presentable clothing.”
Loren glanced down at her shirt. “I think I can find something that doesn’t scream ‘sex dungeon’ or ‘daddy issues.’”
Madame then reached behind her neck to unclasp the string of pearls that lay there and re-closed the clasp once it encircled Loren’s slender neckline. “These pearls belonged to my mother. Allow me to loan them to you for this evening. She claimed they could provide any outfit a hint of refinement and good taste.”
Loren glanced up, still not sure what to think of Madame’s stilted, but kind gesture. “Think they’ll clash with my red satin bustier and fish nets?”
Madame’s prim demeanor softened the slightest. Loren felt herself becoming uncomfortable with a look from the elderly woman that tinged on the side of pity.
“I think you use cavalier and inappropriate humor when you feel frightened and unsure of yourself.”
Loren straightened her spine. “The only thing I’m unsure of is why you’re here. And the only thing that frightens me is the prospect of my family being sent back to the Center.”
Madame tilted her head and nodded slowly. “We have more in common than you realize, my dear. That too is my greatest fear and the very reason I am here.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.”
—Sir Isaac Newton
English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author. Widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists
of all time
* * *
Alec had just pulled into Lucky’s parking lot at the same time Loren arrived.
He descended from his truck to meet her by the entrance door. They made their stiff and awkward hellos, only to be surpassed with a stiff and awkward hug.
“You look, nice.” Alec said, feeling oddly and uncomfortably pleased that she had made an effort with her clothing and makeup.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at her dress as if embarrassed. “This old thing.”
As Alec held the front door open, Loren noticed that the bar had quite a different vibe compared to the night of Mercy’s birthday party. No dancing, no lines two-people-deep behind the bar, several people trying to grab Gus’ attention to place a drink order.
Tonight, the music on the jukebox was slow and moody, and the tables spread out with couples sidled up next to one another.
“This is unusually . . . cozy,” Alec said with what appeared to be a bit of discomfort.
“What is this? Couple’s night?” Loren’s eyes scanned the room and then she sucked in. “Sweet baby Jes
us, is that Henry and Lenore Sterling canoodling in the corner?”
At that moment, Henry whispered something in his wife’s ear and she giggled like a teenager as she swatted his arm. The typically thorny woman looked to have just come from The Hair House with a fresh perm and wearing lipstick, no less.
Henry returned the arm swat with a naughty pinch to her rather large thigh.
“Yeah, I didn’t need to see that,” Alec said, as he turned away from the visual train wreck.
“Nobody needs to see that.” Loren grimaced.
“Doesn’t their daughter attend your self-defense class?”
“Used to. She got a job offer in a nearby town. Told me she wasn’t sure she was going to take it because she liked living at home.”
“Isn’t she in her late twenties?”
“Thirty-two.”
“What made her change her mind?”
Loren glanced down, suddenly infatuated with her new, red, embroidered cowboy boots. “Someone may have told her that it was time she had an adventure. Spread her wings a bit.”
Alec smirked. “No wonder they’re all over each other. They’re empty-nesters.”
“Aren’t they a little old to . . . you know.”
“Canoodle?” Alec asked with a chuckle. “I don’t think there’s an age limit, Loren.”
Turning her head in the other direction, she spotted Becky Waterman giggling at something her husband said and then toss a straw at him as they shared a private joke.
She was pleased to see her friend out of her house and having a good time with a spouse who, more often than not, preferred to sit in his recliner and game with strangers online.
On their other side was Sue Ellen Whalen, who worked at the local feed store and attended Loren’s self-defense class twice a week. She was sitting next to Edgar Mason, with a huge smile on her face. Things seemed to be progressing nicely for the terribly shy couple. Loren gave her a discreet thumbs-up when Edgar wasn’t looking, and Sue Ellen smiled back as her face turned an alarming scarlet red.
