Gilt by Association (14 page)

“What?”

“Never mind, dear.” Buford gave me that locket shortly after we started dating in college. Even then it had a history. The miniature photograph inside had not been supplied by the jewelry company. It was Dorothy Monroe's face, the girl who sat behind me in chemistry.

“But that's not the main thing,” she wailed.

“Oh?”

“Last night when we made love—”

I clamped my hands tightly against my ears.

“—he couldn't—” I still heard her say.

“Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,” I said loudly. I wasn't being mean, I just didn't want to hear.

“—get it up—” I heard anyway.

I released my ears. “Oh, dear, you may be right after all. Tell me, has he started whistling Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major?”

“You mean the one that goes like this?” She gave me a mercifully brief rendition, but lived up to her name nonetheless. I have heard starlings whose tweets were more melodious than that.

I nodded. “You were probably right, dear. It could well be Carla.”

“See, I told you,” she bawled and virtually collapsed in my arms.

For the next half-hour I comforted the woman my husband had betrayed me with. If only my mama hadn't brought me up to be such a gracious Southern lady.

I
don't know what got into my head, allowing Tweetie to play with my head like that. But after I chatted with Charlie, who was in a hurry to get back to school for basketball practice, I put the fate of my face into Tweetie Byrd's hands. Literally.

“One of my famous makeovers is all that stands between you and ravishing beauty,” she said.

I was so astonished at her use of the word “ravishing” that I decided to give it a go.

“All right, but nothing permanent,” I wisely insisted. “And please try and stick to a plausible palette. Absolutely nothing iridescent or phosphorescent.”

Tweetie tittered. “Oh, you always manage to make me feel so much better, you know that?”

I hate to say it, but I had to return the compliment when I left an hour and a half later. She did a better job on my hair than Maurice, my regular stylist, and the makeup job would have made Eve Arden weep for joy. Fortunately her clothes didn't fit me, so I was able to quit while I was ahead. Not since my wedding had I looked so put together. I could only hope that Arvin Schlonecker—Bob's podiatrist—was worth having to listen to a detailed, blow by blow description of Tweetie and Buford's sex life.

He wasn't. Arvin had yet to grasp the fact that a man's brain is—at least to a woman—his sexiest organ. Not that
Arvin was stupid, mind you. One can't memorize words like “metatarsus” and the five bones it contains and not have some gray matter. But Arvin—perhaps because he was on the short side—had a complex, and obviously spent more time pumping his pecs than beefing his brain. The result was a man who bulged obscenely through his sports jacket, and upon whose neck you could have safely perched the Panthers' new stadium.

“Hey
babe
,” he said when I answered the door. He was obviously vastly relieved that, even in my three-inch heels, I was shorter than he.

I was so relieved that he didn't have two heads or three eyes—at least one of the Rob-Bobs is into Picasso—that I ignored his rude greeting.

“Hey yourself,” I said amiably.

I had not intended to invite him in until after dinner. He seemed to have other ideas, however, so rather than be walked over, I stepped aside. He immediately took off his jacket, presumably to give me a better look at his pecs.

“You know, we don't have to go out. Not if you'd rather stay home.”

I couldn't believe my ears. Did he expect me to cook for him as soon as I was through admiring his physique?

“But I want to go out. I've been looking forward to it all day.”

“Bojangles is having a special on chicken combos,” he said. “And $2.99 will buy you the works.”

“I took the liberty of making reservations at Cedar's Palace,” I said. “In half an hour. Would you like me to drive?”

That did it. A body like his couldn't afford to be seen anywhere but behind the wheel of the car. An antique, souped-up Jaguar with more chrome than Mama's fifties-style kitchen.

The deal was that I could pick my favorite restaurant, and I had. After breakfast at Denny's, supper at Cedar's
Palace in Pineville is my favorite gastronomical event. Cedar's Palace is an upscale Lebanese/Italian restaurant (I kid you not). I go there for the Lebanese menu. The food is exquisitely prepared, the staff friendly, knowledgeable, and courteous, and the atmosphere elegant. I'm talking cloth napkins and tablecloths, and a grand piano tinkling away in the middle of the room. The prices are remarkably modest.

Arvin must have been pumping his iron in the basement of a fifties fallout shelter. He seemed to have no clue what a really good meal costs these days, or he would have seen that evening as a bargain.

“Hmm, seems to be on the high side,” he mumbled.

It took a great deal of willpower, but I stifled my conditioning and did not defer by suggesting we go elsewhere.

“It's worth every bite,” I said. “You'll see.”

He scanned the menu again. “I suppose I could try one of the pasta dishes from the Italian side. I need a lot of carbs to bulk up, you know. The house salad looks good,” he said pointedly.

I refused to take the hint and continued to study the Lebanese entrees.

“Or you could get a soup for the same price.”

I silently took the Rob-Bobs' names in vain. I am a liberated woman, and don't mind at all paying for my own tab. Sometimes I even insist on it. But this was a blind date set up by my friends, and the conditions were that I chose the restaurant and that my date paid. I certainly was not going to pay to have supper with a man with no neck, and not much above it.

Tweetie, I bet, had never paid for anything in her life. Not with cash money. If Tweetie could skate through life with her wallet tucked safely in her purse, then why couldn't I for one night? This was dangerous thinking, and I am ashamed to say that I succumbed to the Tweetie
Byrd syndrome and used my feminine wiles, which Tweetie had so kindly enhanced. I fluttered my five coats of mascara and pursed my passion-fruit lips.

“But I just
adore
Lebanese food,” I purred.

“Hmm,” he said, giving my side of the menu another try. “Couscous has carbs, doesn't it?”

“Absolutely. But wait until you taste their homemade pita, hot and fresh and from the oven. It's to die for.”

“Hmm, well, I guess we could each have a side order of couscous and split an order of pita. Unless they bring that free with the side orders. Then we can each have our own.”

How terribly generous of him. That's one thing I have to give Buford credit for. He was no skinflint. Not when it came to eating in restaurants at any rate. Of course that was all part of the good old boy milieu—trying to impress your friends by buying enough food to choke a hog.

Fortuitously Nina, our waitress, appeared at that moment. Nina had been my waitress on several previous occasions, but always when I had Buford in tow. She had always been polite, but rather formal. Now she seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

“Y'all decide yet?” she asked, looking directly at me.

It was time to take the bull by the horns. “Yes, Nina. We'll each have an order of humous for starters. Let's see—then some nice refreshing tabouli to clear the palate. After that, the mixed grilled kebabs with the rice pilaf—and how about some stuffed grape leaves as well. Oh, and then would you mind terribly wheeling the dessert cart by for a look-see?”

“Sure thing,” Nina said and left while Arvin's mouth was still open.

“Just wait until you sink your buds into one of those fresh pitas,” I reminded him.

Arvin remained skeptical, if not horror-stricken, until Nina returned bearing the humous and warm pitas. A few
bites, however, made him a convert. Either that or he figured I had decided to pay, since I'd done the ordering.

“So,” he said, his mouth crammed with pita, “Rob and Bob say you own an antique shop.”

I nodded, waiting to swallow before I answered. “It's the Den of Antiquity on Selwyn Avenue.”

“Ah yes, the place that was in the paper this morning.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I read about your shop in the paper. And you, of course. Finding that dead body in the closet. It must have been terrible. I had no idea I was dating a celebrity.”

I feel my throat constrict. It was a good thing I had swallowed.

“It was in the paper,” he added.

“What paper?” I had been in too much of a hurry to even glance at the
Observer
. Surely if something had been in there, someone—like Mama—would have called and told me by now.

He took another large bite. Sharing a single order with him would be a sure way to diet.

“It was in the
Charlotte Observer
. It wasn't a long article or anything, and it didn't have a picture, so I didn't recognize you. Of course I should have realized that the odds are against there being more than one Abigail Timberlake in Charlotte.”

“The odds are against me surviving this ordeal,” I moaned. “If my ex-husband finds out, my goose is cooked.”

“Why?” He asked it placidly. He reminded me of a short but muscular cow, chewing its cud.

“Well—I mean, you don't know Buford. He's not going to want his son, Charlie, to have anything to do with someone involved in a murder case.”

“But you're not involved, are you? Rob and Bob didn't say anything about you being involved with murder.”

“Of course
I'm
not! Not directly. But I had to go and
buy that damn suite of French furniture from the Barras estate. How was I supposed to know it came with a body?”

He unabashedly took the last pita from the basket. “Did you say Barras estate?”

“Yeah. Do you know them?”

“Lottie Bell Barras Bowman is a patient of mine.”

“What a small world! You know, of course, she died this morning.”

“Well, I'll be damned.”

“Heart attack.”

Nina arrived with our tabouli salads and stuffed grape leaves. She took one look at the empty pita basket and the loaf in Arvin's hand, and frowned.

“Those pitas are for both of y'all,” she said. She disappeared with the empty basket. A few seconds later she reappeared with a full basket and plunked it down on the table in front of me.

As soon as she left Arvin reached for a fresh pita. I thought of snatching the basket away from him, but instead just took one loaf and deposited it safely on my plate. It was my fault after all. I had pushed the pitas, praising them as the tastiest thing this side of Nirvana. Just as long as he kept his fingers and his fork off my plate, we could coexist until the end of the meal. But just to be on the safe side, I ate hurriedly.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked suddenly.

I looked up. He had polished off his tabouli and his half of the grape leaves, and was eyeing my portion hungrily.

“Do you have any hobbies?” I asked. Having him talk wouldn't stop him from eating, but it might slow him down.

“History.”

“Oh?” I couldn't wait to hear the history of foot medicine, or maybe how the first shoe happened to be made.

“I'm a French history buff,” he said almost shyly. “I love reading anything on the subject. From the Cro-Magnon inhabitants of the Dordogne region of France to the beginning of World War II. But that's where I stop. The Vichy government pisses me off—pardon my French.” He laughed. “How about you?”

“Never judge a book by its covers,” Mama would say if I told her about my date with Arvin. I couldn't help but wonder how Arvin had judged me. The truth is, I am actually a very boring person, with no interests that I can think of outside my business and family.

“Antiques,” I said glumly.

“Well, that's history in a way.” He took the second to last pita loaf.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Of course it is. What's the oldest thing you've got in your shop?”

I had to think a minute since my inventory is always changing. “That furniture from the Barras estate. It's French, you know. Late eighteenth century.”

“There you see! Imagine what has happened to that furniture since the day it was made. Who owned it, who sat in it, how it got from France to here. That's history.”

“That's the furniture's history, but that's not
history
history,” I said. “Authentically historical pieces are few and far between.”

Lord knows, not a month goes by that I don't get a call from some hopeful person trying to sell me something they've just inherited that once belonged to Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis. One illiterate but very sincere young woman wanted desperately to sell me a hooped crinoline that “actually belonged to Scarlett O'Hara.” I was unable to convince her that Scarlett was a fictional character. Had it not been for my rather deep regional accent, I'm sure she would have accused me of being a twentieth-century Yankee carpetbagger.

Arvin shamelessly took the remaining pita and piled it on top of the one already on his plate. If Nina saw that shameless stockpiling, she would be displeased.

“Well, you just never know,” he said. “Barras is not a terribly common name, and there was a fellow by that name who was the Empress Josephine's lover at the time she met Napoleon.”

“You don't say—what the heck?”

Something soft had just run up along my left calf. I threw back the tablecloth expecting to see a spider, or possibly a roach, but there was nothing there. I should have known. Cedar's Palace is not the type of place one finds vermin.

“So you see,” Arvin was saying, “we have a lot in common, you and I. Antiques and history go hand in hand like—”

“What the hell?” I flipped the cloth just in time to see Arvin's right foot disappear into its shoe, like a hermit crab seeking the safety of its shell.

I stood up. “Why Arvin Schlonecker!”

“Is anything wrong?” Nina asked as she scurried up. She spied the pita pile on the podiatrist's plate. “You,” she said, pointing a rather long, bony finger at him, “out of my station.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me, buster. Get moving.”

“I can handle this, dear,” I said gratefully.

“You sure, hon?”

“Quite sure, dear.” I made a mental note to personally oversee her tip.

She shook her finger again at the chagrined Arvin and stalked off muttering to herself. I sat back down.

“You know, you're a bit of a jerk,” I said calmly. “And that's a real shame, because you have so much potential.”

“I do?”

“You're darn tooting.”

“Like what?” He seemed suddenly bashful.

“Well, you know a lot about history, and you must be a pretty good podiatrist or Bob wouldn't go to you. He's pretty picky. And, well—I guess it won't hurt to tell you this—you'd be kind of cute if you weren't all muscle.”