Antiques Bizarre (6 page)

I frowned at the other tuna can. “You’re a chess queen, and I’m a
Tiddly Wink?
”

Mother’s eyebrows scaled her forehead, seeking escape. “Why not, dear? Didn’t you love to play Tiddly Winks as a young sprout?”

“I also loved Old Maid but I don’t want to be one! Anyway,
you’re
the Borne who liked
that
game. I thought it was stupid. Peggy Sue hated it.” My older sister. “Why can’t
you
be the Tiddly Wink?”

Mother put hands on hips. “Because then
I
couldn’t be seen behind the Froot Loops!”

She had a point.

“Then make me Michelangelo,” I suggested, referring to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle among the other game pieces in the front Popsicle stick row.

“Sorry, dear.
That’s
the man from Sotheby’s.”

I stuck out my lower lip. “Well, I could be one of the other turtles you didn’t use…there
are
four in the TMNT game, you know.”

Mother shook her head vigorously, and amazingly nothing rattled. “Absolutely
not
. They all look alike. I might become confused.”

“First of all, you are often confused anyway. And second of all, the turtles do
not
look alike. Leonardo has a blue mask and carries a sword, while Donatello has a purple mask and uses a
stick
—”

Mother stomped her foot, in the manner she’d employed when little “sprout” Brandy used to get under her skin. Which had been frequently.

“Dear!”
Mother said, exasperated. “If you didn’t want to be the Tiddly Wink, you should have gotten up earlier.”

“What? I’m psychic now? And when would that have been—like…three in the
morning?
”

Mother ignored that, saying testily, “I have already written down who is what and have committed it to memory. To do otherwise would make it difficult for me. I’m an older woman and you must make allowances.”

As astonishing as her admission to being an “older woman” might have been, it paled next to her disingenuousness. I happened to know that Mother learned her entire part of “Everybody Loves Opal” in one night, when she stepped in to replace the lead actress after a stage light dropped on her (the actress, not Mother) (no, Mother didn’t drop the light) (at least, she had an alibi).

Mother reached behind the dining room table and, with a dramatic flourish, produced another piece of cardboard that she placed on a chair, making an easel out of it.

Printed with a black marker in large capital letters was:

MADAM PETROVA = CLUE
^®
—MRS. WHITE

DON KAUFMAN = OPERATION
^®
—LEG BONE

KATHERINE ESTHERHAUS = CLUE
^®
—CANDLESTICK

SERGEI IVANOV = COOTIE
^®
—HEAD

JOHN RICHARDS = TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE
^®

LOUIS MARTINETTE = PARCHEESI
^®
—ELEPHANT

SAMUEL WOODS = MONOPOLY
^®
—TOP HAT

MOTHER = CHESS
^®
—QUEEN

BRANDY = TIDDLY WINKS
^®
—TIDDLY WINK

I ignored the redundancy of the last entry, even though it described my own role, and said, “I don’t think chess needs a registered trademark.”

Mother had become a stickler about crediting trademarks after she’d gotten into trouble producing a play she wrote that had used the Coca-Cola logo in the title. She might have got away with it had she not sent the script to Coke’s Atlanta HQ, asking if they’d like to back her in a nationwide tour of said play. (Her next original work was entitled: “Cease and Desist.”)

Anyway, Mother looked at me for a long moment before asking tersely, “Don’t you have somewhere to
be
?”

I checked my Chico’s watch, which I hadn’t removed from my wrist last night.

“Oh, yeah…I’m supposed to pick up Tina in an hour.”

Mother’s eyebrows climbed again. “
Well?
You wouldn’t want to be late for your BFFF.”

“You put in an extra ‘F,’ Mother.”

“Did I? Well, I’m
sure
it doesn’t stand for anything
nasty
….”

That’s the closest I’d ever heard her come to dropping the “F” bomb, and it showed just how long she’d been up, and how manic she was getting. Houston, we could have a problem—Vivian Borne might be about to launch into orbit….

“Never let it be said,” I said, “that Brandy Borne can’t take a gentle hint.”

And I turned on my heel and left her to her cardboard theater of the absurd.

As long as I was a Tiddly Wink, I had no intention of taking Mother’s new “murder case” seriously.

A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

Sometimes an auctioneer may change the description of an item, at the start of bidding. Make sure you base your bid on that description and not a prior catalog listing. You don’t want to wind up buying a pig in a poke. And what is a pig in a poke, anyway?

Mother explains:

Back in the Middle Ages, a “pig in a poke” was a rat or cat in a bag that got passed off as a suckling pig to hungry suckers. It’s a perfectly good expression, and if my daughter encourages you not to use it any longer, please feel free to ignore her.

I
n the kitchen, an unusually subdued Sushi sat by her bone-shaped dog dish (one side, food; the other, water), apparently still feeling guilty for moistening my pillow.

I opened a small can of Mighty Dog
^®
, which was the only dog food she would tolerate, and dumped the contents into the dish. (Free crates of the aforementioned pet food will be forwarded to the author by the publisher.)

After wolfing down her breakfast, Sushi waited patiently while I prepared a syringe of insulin, then, pinching a fold of fat at her neck, I gave her a quick poke.

And she put up with this, why? As I indicated briefly in passing,
after
the shot, Soosh always got a special treat: today, a homemade cookie from Serenity’s own Doggie-Woggie Bakery Shop. (It’s just possible, by the way, that a bakery shop for dogs may be one of the Seven Signs of the Coming Apocalypse.)

Bribery transaction complete, I put Soosh out the back door on a long leash, left her to do her business, then hurried upstairs to get ready.

After a quick shower, I dashed to my bedroom and rummaged through my messy closet for something to wear that would disguise my skin and bones. I put on a bulky
blue Free People sweater over a Three Dot tee, and retro flare-legged Joe’s jeans. (Effective now, unlike Mother, I’m dropping
all
trademark indicators.)

To detract from my sallow pallor, around my neck I wrapped a ghastly Technicolor designer silk scarf that my older sister, Peggy Sue, had given me, and which I’d never worn.

Then, seated at my Art Deco dressing table with its big round mirror, I piled on twice as much makeup as usual—going especially heavy on the blush—and moussed my hair to double its size until I looked like Chewbacca in drag. Makeup hadn’t gone on this trowel-heavy since the eighties.

Back in the kitchen, I retrieved the yapping-to-come-in Sushi, then bid Mother—who was still fussing over her cardboard church replica and her various pawns—a warm good riddance, I mean, good-bye. After grabbing my Betseyville purse, I headed out to the Buick.

Tina and her husband, Kevin, lived in a white ranch-style house on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The view from their home was year-round spectacular, but never so much as in the spring, when the trees lining the riverbank were beginning to bud and flower, nature working with a soft-color palate of pink, lavender, yellow and green.

In the driveway, in white T-shirt and cut-off jeans, was Kevin—hunky, sandy-haired, early thirties—washing both of their cars (Tina, black Lexus; Kev, silver Mazda) and getting himself a good deal wetter than the vehicles. As I pulled in, I wolf-whistled out my powered-down window. If we’re ever going to even out this battle of the sexes thing, turnabout
has
to be fair play.

He grinned, shut off the hose, then jogged over, leaning in.

“Fries and a cheeseburger with everything,” I said. “Diet Coke with extra ice.”

“Sounds like you’re eating for two,” he said, his eyes drifting downward for any sign of a baby bump.

“Yeah, but I don’t look it, I know,” I admitted. “Won’t see anything for a while—too early.”

“But everything’s fine?”

“Everything’s fine.”

I hoped.

Kev glanced back at the house, where a beaming Tina was coming out the front door, no faster than somebody fleeing a burning building.

“Just a heads up,” he whispered. “She’s been looking at baby catalogs all morning—don’t let her spend
too
much.”

I nodded solemnly. “I’ll keep her in check.” As in, I would make sure she didn’t write any more checks than were left in her checkbook.

Tina and I, fast friends since high school, were a gleefully terrible influence on each other, where shopping for clothes was concerned. We had honed our fashion skills while at community college, often buying identical items independently, because we were so much alike in our tastes. We each considered the other a sort of fashion genius, the way a conceited fool stands admiringly before a mirror.

Tina, wearing an olive-green DKNY shrunken jacket and dark skinny jeans, skipped around the front of my car, then jumped in on the passenger side. She had a radiant glow—
hey, who was the expectant mother around here, anyway?
—with her prettiness framed by natural blond hair falling like liquid gold to her shoulders, her light blue eyes and fair skin reflecting her Norwegian ancestry.

I gave Teen the cheeriest smile I could muster.

“And how are we doing?” she asked, twisting in her
seat to face me, her eyes flicking down and back from my still-flat belly.

I wasn’t sure if she meant me and her, or me and the baby, or me, her,
and
the baby. (I had ruled out Kevin, who was back to his husbandly hose duties.)

But I replied, “Just great! Couldn’t be better.”

Her eyes widened at the sight of my scarf. Her expression said she might indulge in some sympathetic morning sickness.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Hideous doesn’t cover it. Peggy Sue. Last Christmas. Where Sis is concerned, there will always be a
test
later, and I have to be able to say truthfully that I wore it.”

“
And
be seen in public?”

“Witnesses may be called.”

She pursed her pretty pink lips. “Didn’t come with a gift receipt, huh?”

“Nope. Anyway, what would I say? The scarf didn’t fit?”

She made a clicking in her cheek. “A real pity….”

“Just be glad I didn’t regift it to you.”

I backed the car out of the drive; Kevin paused in his work to wave. We didn’t deserve him. (For the record, I didn’t get preggers for Tina by shacking up weekends with Kevin—I had gone the much more socially acceptable, if less entertaining, test-tube route.)

As we headed in the direction of the mall, I employed a trick I often use when I’m with someone and don’t feel so good: I get them talking about themselves.

“So,” I said, “Kevin says you’ve been poring over baby catalogs. See anything you like?”

This kept the ball in Tina’s court for a good five minutes (with me interjecting the occasional “uh-huh”) and long enough for us to arrive at our destination, which was the
elaborate mall that conspired with its competition—the quaint shops of downtown Serenity—to make our little town a shopping destination for the greater area and weary travelers.

Indian Mounds—so named because of an adjacent Indian burial ground—was located on gently rolling hills, with pathways winding through an asymmetrical layout. That the Mounds was outdoors—unusual for our versatile climate—didn’t seem to deter shoppers in the least, even in the coldest of winters. Many people—myself included—preferred it to stuffy enclosed malls, where you can get all hot and crabby going around in your coat.

In recent months, a tasty tableau of new restaurants had sprung up around the mall, ranging from formal to family-friendly, and hitting just about every ethnicity.

Tina said, “Your turn to pick.”

My joke to Kevin about cheeseburgers and fries had stuck in my brain, and suddenly I had a craving for drive-in food. This was no doubt one of those pregnancy urges, and I saw no reason not to give in to it. Anyway, a fattening malt might do me good.

“How about the Corvette Diner?”

We had not yet eaten there, opting for healthier fare, and also waiting for the fuss to die down—when a new restaurant opens in Serenity, you need to wait a good two months before the crowds subside.

Tina smiled sideways. “Happy days! I was
hoping
you’d say that….”

Maybe Teen, who rarely veered from her salad sans dressing, really was experiencing a sympathetic pregnancy.

I wheeled into the parking lot, lucking into a nice close space, and we got out and headed toward the restaurant. If the outside decor—which featured a vintage Corvette embedded in the wall, its stylish tail toward us, as if the
car had come crashing into the diner—was any reflection of the inside, we were in for a treat, or anyway a good time.

We opted for one of the red, plastic-padded booths instead of a round chrome table, our eyes taking in the assault of fifties memorabilia plastered on the walls and ceiling, while a jukebox blasted away, Elvis singing “Blue Suede Shoes.”

A waitress plopped down next to Tina, saying, “Shove over, honey—my feet are
killin
’ me!”

The woman, like the Corvette, had a lot of miles on the odometer, and was tricked-out to accentuate it: over-bleached hair (a wig), heavily-penciled eyebrows, false eyelashes, and goopy lipstick. Her white uniform dress was too tight, bursting at the bosom, and a button pinned on one shoulder announced TAKE ME FOR A RIDE.”

“What’ll ya have?” the waitress asked, chewing gum, to boot.

I recognized her—Selma Lewis, one of mother’s chief competitors for eccentric gal parts in local theater. The waitresses and waiters here were not just hired but cast, and were either local theater types or area college kids from drama programs.

Playing along, I asked, “Anything good in this dive?”

She partially covered her mouth with a chipped, red-nailed hand, and said sotto voce, “
Not
the meat loaf…and
I’m
fresher than the cherry pie.”

Tina asked, “How’s the coffee?”

“What’s available right now, you could break a spoon on. Some fresh is brewin’, though, sweet cheeks.”

I asked, “And the burgers?”

“That’s what we’re famous for, honey! The cows come around and line up to participate. Ask for grilled onions, and you may experience true love.”

Tina and I ordered the same thing: cheeseburger with grilled onions, fries, and a vanilla malt.

Before the waitress left, she dropped character briefly to whisper, “How’s Viv doing?”

“Okay.”

“With the theater closed ’cause of the flood, she must be climbing the walls.”

“No, that would be me, living with her.”

Then back in character, she said, “I
hear
you, honey! I
hear
you!”

With that settled, Tina and I got down to the business of catching up—only amateurs do their visiting while they shop.

But before I had a chance to steer our conversation into placid waters—for certainly Tina had heard all about the fiasco at the church bazaar—my friend leaned forward and said, pleadingly, “Brandy…
please
tell me you’re
not
getting caught up in your mother’s latest shenanigans.”

“Shenanigans” was possibly the nicest way Teen could have put Mother’s penchant for involving herself in local crimes.

Teen rushed on. “When I heard that you could have had food poisoning like the rest of those people—well, I cried for hours. Honestly, Brandy,
you
might have died.
And
the baby!”

I reached for her hand, squeezed it, and said reassuringly, “Nothing is going to happen to me. I’m not going to do anything foolish. I know how much the baby means to you and Kevin.”

She was nodding, but her blue eyes asked, “
Do
you?”

The tenseness of the moment broke as a college-girl waitress flashed by on roller skates, throwing a handful of bubble gum on our table.

I let go of Teen’s hand, sat back in the booth. “Sweetie,
you have nothing to worry about—the church thing was just a freak accident. Anyway, the chief has told Mother in no uncertain terms that she’s to stay out of the police investigation.”

Tina gave me a rumpled smile. “And since when has that stopped her?”

I leaned forward. “I admit I can’t always control Mother, but I most certainly can control myself. And I’m not going to get involved in anything that will jeopardize either me or the baby. I promise.”

She frowned at me. “You’re not…parsing words, are you?”

“Of course not!” I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“You stopped short of saying that you wouldn’t get yourself involved, or allow your mother to, either. And if the TV is to be at all believed, this was no ‘freak accident.’ That Chicago art dealer may have been murdered. And who’s to say the food poisoning was accidental?”

“You sound like
you’re
the one who’s involved.”

Her eyes flashed. She wasn’t cross with me, but she wasn’t fooling around, either. “I am involved, if you’re involved. You’re carrying our child!”

Again, whether “our child” referred to me and her, or her and Kevin, or me and her and…forget it.

“I’m sorry, Teen, but I’m already involved. I’ll try not to get any
more
involved, but you have to understand—these deaths, not to mention serious sickness among over one hundred people, all grew out of something Mother put in motion.”

“That stupid auction.”

“That stupid auction is going to raise a lot of money for flood relief in this town, so while Mother always has ulterior motives, her heart was in the right place. Teen, she was up all night, worrying about this.”

I didn’t go into detail—Tina hearing about Mother making a cardboard replica of the church and peopling it with game tokens would have hardly been reassuring.

“Well,” she said almost timidly, “just let the police handle it. Just you girls stay out of it.”

“That’s just it—we’ll
be
involved somewhat, because we were at the scene, and this was Mother’s idea in the first place, the auction. She ran it. I helped. We’ll be questioned and all that kind of stuff. Can’t be avoided.”

“I…I understand. I do understand.”

“And the way Mother is reacting…I’ll admit she’s talking this amateur-sleuth silliness again, but the real reason is not that she’s delighted to have another crime to ‘solve.’ She blames herself. Holds herself responsible for the two deaths. And the churchful of sick people.”

“And you’re saying she’ll try to do something about it?”

“Teen, I’ll do my best to prevent that. But she’s going to make noise. That much we know about Vivian Borne—she
is
going to make noise.”

How could Tina argue with that?

And when Tina smiled in defeat, I segued into, “Have you thought about baby names?”