Death of a Neighborhood Witch (Jaine Austen Mystery) (8 page)

“A hundred and eighty dollars.”

Thanks to her job dashing off quips for animated insects, Kandi can afford to drop one hundred and eighty clams on a blazer without blinking.

“So let’s get this straight. You found a dollar. And spent a hundred eighty. And you came into riches how?”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport,” she said, shoving the dollar back in her purse. “Madame Vruska said I’d come into money, and I did. And she said I’d meet my true love in the arts. And I will. I just know it!”

She had so much hope in her eyes I couldn’t bear to disillusion her.

“Of course you will,” I murmured, patting her hand soothingly while nabbing one of her croutons.

“So how’re things going with the new guy on your block?” she asked.

“Peter? He invited me to his Halloween costume party.” Eagerly I told her about the flapper outfit I’d just rented.

“Sounds adorable!” she enthused.

“It will be, if I remember to suck in my stomach all night. It’s a little tight around the tummy area.”

“Tight around the tummy?” She perked up in that way she gets when she’s about to wax euphoric. “Then you must, absolutely
must
, get a Tummy Tamer.”

“A Tummy Tamer?”

“A spandex miracle worker that takes inches off your tummy instantly,” she said, morphing into an infomercial spokeswoman before my eyes. “I simply adore mine.”

“Why on earth are you wearing a Tummy Tamer? You don’t even have a tummy.”

“That’s because I’m wearing my Tummy Tamer. You wouldn’t believe how fat I am without it.”

Don’t you just hate it when skinny women talk about how “fat” they are? Don’t you want to just choke them with a celery stick?

“Honestly, Jaine,” she said with a missionary gleam in her eye. “You have to promise you’ll get one for Peter’s party.”

I could see there’d be no living with her unless I promised.

“Okay, okay. I’ll get a Tummy Tamer.”

Of course, I had no intention whatsoever of buying one of the silly things. Girdles are just too darn uncomfortable.

But after Kandi and I had hugged good-bye and I’d sneaked back to the food court for a giant salted pretzel, I happened to be walking through a department store I shall, for legal reasons, call Floomingdale’s, when I ran smack into a display of the very Tummy Tamers Kandi had been raving about.

There they were, stacked high on a table, with the most amazing Before and After pictures propped up in the middle of the display. I gaped in amazement at a woman, who in her Before picture looked a lot like me after a rendezvous with Messrs. Ben and Jerry, and in her After picture resembled a runway model in Milan. Like magic, her tummy had disappeared.

“It’s a miracle, isn’t it?” a seductive voice whispered in my ear.

I turned to see a stick-thin saleswoman at my side.

“I’m wearing one now,” she confided, running her hands down her size 0 body.

And for one crazy minute, I actually imagined I could look like a Milan fashion model with the help of a piece of spandex.

As if in a trance, I reached for a box.

“Is it very uncomfortable?” I asked, wondering what price I’d have to pay for such a fabulous body.

“Not at all,” Ms. Stick assured me. “You’ll hardly even know you have it on.”

And like a fool, I believed her.

Chapter 8

T
here’s got to be a special place in hell for the guy (it can’t possibly have been a woman) who invented the Tummy Tamer. A place of honor right next to the guys who invented bikini waxes and rice cakes.

It was the night of Peter’s Halloween party, and I’d waited till the last minute to try it on.

Freshly showered, my hair blow-dried to perfection, I was standing in my bra and panties, admiring my newly sleek tresses, thinking how cute they’d look with the feather headband that came with my flapper costume. Prozac was stretched out on my bed, watching me get dressed, taking an occasional time-out to claw my comforter.

Up until that moment, everything had been humming along smoothly.

And then I reached for the Tummy Tamer.

When I took it out of the box, I groaned to see it was the size of a Barbie headband. Surely there had to be some mistake. Obviously someone had put a toddler’s Tummy Tamer in the wrong box.

But no. When I checked the label on the Tummy Tamer, I saw it was the right size.

Gingerly I stepped into it, wondering if I would be able to get it up past my ankles.

You’ll be happy to know my ankles were a breeze. The rest of the journey, however, was a struggle of monumental proportions. I tried valiantly to tug the diabolical band of elastic past my thighs and up around my hips, grunting and groaning every step of the way. All the while, I swear I could see Prozac snickering from her perch on my bed.

At last the battle of the bulge was over. Gasping from the exertion, I checked myself out in the mirror and was pleasantly surprised to see that the Tummy Tamer had lived up to its name. It had, indeed, whittled inches off my tummy.

True, it felt like my internal organs had been sucked into a space bag, but on the plus side, I couldn’t help thinking how wonderful I was going to look in my flapper outfit.

Suddenly all the effort seemed worth it.

I was busy admiring my almost-washboard tummy in the mirror, imagining myself as a Keira Knightley-esque waif in an Upstairs, Downstairs/English countryside/
Masterpiece Theater
production when there was a knock on my door.

“Hey, Jaine, it’s me,” Lance called out.

He’d graciously offered to pick up our costumes on his way home from work, and now I slipped into my robe to let him in.

He stood there with a garment bag in one hand and a large plastic shopping sack in the other.

“Hand it over,” I said, reaching out for my adorable flapper costume.

“Tiny problemo, honey,” he said, an undeniably shifty look in his eyes.

“What tiny problemo?”

I didn’t like the sound of this.

“Estelle accidentally rented your flapper outfit to someone else.”

“What??!”

“But don’t worry. I got you something even better!”

He unzipped the garment bag, and to my horror took out a large hunk of matted black fur, reeking of mothballs.

“What on earth is that?” I asked, in shock.

“An ape suit!” he said, whipping a repulsive ape head out of the plastic sack. “Isn’t it a hoot? And the best part is, you won’t have to worry about wearing makeup!”

“You did this on purpose!” I said, advancing on him with fire in my eyes. “You switched my outfit so I’d look awful in front of Peter.”

“Why, Jaine,” he said lamely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, come off it, Lance. If you looked any more guilty, you’d be in a mug shot.”

“Okay, okay, I did it,” he said, sinking down onto my sofa with a heavy sigh, John Barrymore at his absolute hammiest. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m a terrible friend. I wouldn’t blame you if you never spoke to me again.”

He blinked his eyes furiously, in an unsuccessful attempt to work up some tears. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“No. Never.”

“I’ll make it up to you somehow, sweetie. I promise. I know! Want me to help you pick mothballs out of the ape’s fur?”

“No!” I shrieked. “Just go!”

I shoved him out the door, wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this mess. Maybe it wasn’t too late to drive over to the costume shop. But when I called the store, all I got was their answering machine. It was almost eight, and they were closed.

I considered going to the party in street clothes, but I didn’t want to be the only one there without a costume and have Peter think I was a poor sport. I also considered wrapping myself in a sheet and going as a ghost, but unfortunately all my sheets have Martha Stewart daisies on them, and that didn’t seem terribly ghostlike.

Oh, what the heck. I’d wear the damn ape suit. With any luck, Peter would think it was funny.

Wearily I tossed on jeans and a T-shirt. Then, taking a deep breath, I stepped into my costume. The stench of mothballs was overwhelming. I’m guessing the last time that ape suit had been worn was at the premiere of
King Kong
.

But I had to look on the bright side, to think positive thoughts.

If Peter really liked me, surely an ape suit couldn’t come between us. Somehow I’d dazzle him with my witty repartee. Peter would see beyond my moth-eaten exterior to the charming, intelligent woman in the C
UCKOO FOR
C
OCOA
P
UFFS
T-shirt beneath. And Lance, the traitor, in his werewolf togs, would watch me, wringing his hairy hands in jealousy.

Yes, I could make this thing work if I really tried.

And so it was with a spring in my step, hope in my heart, and an ape head under my arm that I headed up the street to Peter’s party.

The party was in full swing when I showed up, with lots of people milling about, drinks in hand, the “Monster Mash” playing in the background. Most of the guests seemed to be Peter’s friends and work colleagues, but sprinkled among them were a few of the neighbors.

Mr. and Mrs. Hurlbutt were there, decked out as Frankenstein and—in a perfect example of art imitating reality—the Bride of Frankenstein.

“Don’t come whining to me when your dentures come loose,” I heard Mrs. Hurlbutt tsk as Mr. H. scarfed down some candy corn.

Next I spotted Kevin and Matt Moore, the His ’n’ Hers realtors, dressed as a pair of pirates, handing out their business card to a guy in a Tarzan loincloth.

As I glanced around, I was dismayed to see that half the people weren’t even in costume. Indeed, there was little Amy Chang, the grad student, looking way too fetching in Capri jeans and a ruffled tee. If I’d known people were going to show up in street clothes, I never would’ve worn my ghastly ape suit.

Which, after only two minutes at the party, was beginning to get awfully warm.

And I couldn’t help noticing that as I made my way through the crowd, people were giving me a wide berth.

“P.U.!” I heard Kevin say as I walked by, wrinkling her nose. “Something smells like mothballs.”

Why did I get the feeling I wasn’t about to be the life of the party?

Lance had Peter cornered over by the fireplace, and as I approached, I could hear him yakking about Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust as if he’d actually read a syllable more than their reviews on Amazon.

I lifted my ape head to wave at Peter, who was decked out in tight jeans and a T-shirt, a sign around his neck reading N
UDIST
O
N
S
TRIKE.

What a clever way of wearing a costume without wearing a costume. Why the heck didn’t I think of something like that?

“Hey, Jaine!” he said, spotting me. “So glad you could make it. Great costume!”

“I picked it out!” Lance had the nerve to say.

I hoped he choked on his martini olive.

“But getting back to Proust,” Lance went on, blocking me from Peter’s view, “I just love the way he wrote about Madeleine. She was such an interesting character.”

A madeleine is a lemon cookie, you twit,
I felt like saying.

But of course, I did not help him out with that useful tidbit of info.

Instead I put on my ape head and wandered aimlessly for a while, reeking of mothballs, the designated party pariah.

I stopped to look at some of Peter’s photos on an end table, hoping to get a clue about his sexuality. My heart sank when I saw him grinning into the camera, his arm slung around the shoulders of another guy. Then it soared when I saw another picture of him with a woman. Then it sank again when I realized she was an amazingly attractive woman.

Oh, well. Time to lift my spirits with some chow. And some spirits.

I headed for the buffet table in Peter’s dining room, where Cryptessa’s maid Rosita was busy replenishing a platter of cold cuts.

“Hi, there,” I said, lifting up my ape head. “I didn’t realize you worked for Mr. Connor.”

“He just hired me for tonight. Please don’t tell Cryptessa,” she said, her eyes darting about in fear, as if she expected Cryptessa to pop up from behind Peter’s china cabinet. “She’d have a hissy fit if she found out.”

“It doesn’t take much to get her hissy, does it?” I asked.

“No.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’m afraid not.” Then, remembering her duties, she added, “Have some cold cuts. They’re delicious.”

She didn’t have to ask me twice.

I rustled up a corned beef and Swiss on rye, a wee bit o’ chardonnay, and a Bloodshot Eyeball Cookie for dessert.

If I couldn’t have fun with Peter, I might as well have fun with some corned beef.

I found a secluded seat in the corner, and with my ape head nestled on the floor beside me, I was just about to chow down when I heard—

“Jaine, honey!” It was Lila Wood, the neighborhood politico. “How wonderful to see you!”

At last. Someone who didn’t mind the smell of mothballs.

It was not my company Lila sought, however, when she plopped down on the seat next to me, but rather the opportunity to go over her campaign platform. In excruciating detail. Before I knew it, she was rambling on about what a fantastic job she’d do as president of the Neighborhood Council, reminding me how hard she’d fought for the sanctity of our neighborhood and what a fearless leader she’d been in the battle to keep a rapacious real estate developer named Ralph Mancuso from putting up a mini-mall at the end of our block.

“Mancuso must be stopped!” she cried, thrusting some flyers into my hand.

Which wasn’t easy to do, considering I was holding a corned beef sandwich at the time. But somehow she managed.

“If he had his way, there’d be a yogurt parlor on every corner of Los Angeles.”

Frankly, a yogurt parlor on every corner seemed like a pretty good idea to me, but I kept on nodding as if I agreed with her.

She continued blathering away about Evil Ralph Mancuso as I polished off my sandwich and Bloodshot Eyeball Cookie.

Through it all, the woman showed no signs of shutting up.