Hostile Makeover (34 page)

“Actually, it’s pretty comical. But forget about the cigarettes,” Lacey said. “This film is completely about how a diet, chic new clothes, and a great eyebrow waxing can change your life.” The only problem was that the designs by Orry-Kelly, particularly the fabulous suits, which she was anxious to gaze upon again, made Lacey long to stretch out on the floor, open Aunt Mimi’s trunk, and look for similar patterns from the same era. She particularly remembered a gorgeous and perfectly simple black dinner dress that Bette Davis as the newly chic Charlotte Vale wears in defiance of her horrid mother. The dress was made even better by pinning camelias in the décolletage. But Mimi’s trunk had been relegated to a deep dark spot behind the sofa, and besides, it was Lacey’s personal trunk of dreams; she didn’t want to share it. Her mother and sister wouldn’t understand.

“Okay, then, I know,” Cherise offered. “We could do shots every time someone lights up.”

“We’ll be sloshed before the movie’s half over,” Lacey said. “But look out for that great outfit the first time she steps off the ship, when the camera pans up from her spectator pumps to her smart traveling dress to her big straw hat that shadows her eyes. It’s a real movie moment.”

Rose and Cherise didn’t want to miss a minute of it, so Brooke and Lacey were free to take a break on the balcony. It was slightly brisk but brilliantly clear, and the moon was rising over the Potomac River. They grabbed their jackets and gin and tonics, and Brooke took her new Burberry tote.

“Damon is going to find out whether those supermodels are part of the Babes project.”

“And how can he tell that?” Lacey asked.

“His source has a very classified piece of equipment, a handheld GPS detector, which should be able to pick up and decode the distinct frequencies that their implants transmit.”

Lacey nodded sagely, just as if she had the slightest idea what Brooke was talking about. “What if they don’t have implants?”

“Please. They’re models, with busts as round as grapefruit. About as natural-looking as their cotton-candy hair.”

“Okay, I’d love to see Damon prove that,” Lacey said. “Does the machine beep when he gets close to the implants? Louder and louder? Like a Geiger counter?”

“We’ll have to see. Maybe he can put it on vibrate mode so it doesn’t interrupt the eulogies.” Brooke reached for her purse and withdrew her latest Spy Store toy. “Night-vision binos. Generation Three. Check these babies out.”

It was fun watching small furry critters near the water’s edge and seagulls sleeping on the pilings, but soon the binoculars lost their novelty. And the full moon illuminated the whole scene and decorated the Potomac with a glittering swath of moonlight. They needed a really dark night, Brooke said, for a proper test of night-vision binos. Lacey handed them back just as something close by caught her eyes, a movement on the other wing of her own apartment building, the wing that met hers at a right angle.

Standing on the far balcony was a black-robed figure, looking at her. His face was hooded and shrouded in shadows. She couldn’t make out whether the figure was wearing a mask or not, but her heart froze. He stood still in the crystal night air for a few moments, and Lacey was glued to the spot, blood pulsing in her temples. She reached out to tap Brooke’s shoulder for the night-vision binoculars, but Brooke was engrossed in watching a possum in a tree.

The French doors of the other apartment opened, and a Gypsy woman in flowing scarves came out. She said with a distinctly Brooklyn accent that carried on the still air, “Whaddaya doin’ out here? We’re gonna be late. You’re always makin’ me late.”

The hooded figure replied in another nasal New York accent, “I’m comin’ already. What would the party be without the Scythe Man? Hey, babe, you seen my scythe anywhere?” He gave the Gypsy a friendly pat on the butt and stubbed out his cigarette.

Lacey felt a rush of relief and anger at herself for jumping to the conclusion that the Grim Reaper was stalking her and had followed her right to her home.
And right to my mother and sister!

“Let’s go in, Brooke. I’m chilled to the bone.”

Chapter 26

St. Mary’s Church, a few blocks from her apartment, was the only place Lacey knew she could get some peace and quiet Sunday morning. Lacey remained the only Catholic left in her immediate family. She knew that Cherise and Rose would prefer to let her go alone, and for that she gave thanks. “You could always go to some Protestant church,” she had pointed out. “Christ Church, for example, George Washington’s very own church, it’s very pretty—”

“I’m on vacation,” Cherise said sleepily, and hit the pillow again. In return for an extra hour of sleep in Lacey’s trundle beds, they promised to have breakfast made by the time she returned.

At St. Mary’s she slipped into the very back pew, knelt down, and closed her eyes. She heard the small, comforting noises of other worshipers filling up the pews. When she opened her eyes Victor Donovan was kneeling next to her.

She felt her eyes pop open. Vic generally looked like a wayward altar boy, the kind who might be caught fencing in the back of the church with the candlesticks and racing through the “Our Father” so he could go play baseball, or catch frogs, or tease girls, or whatever boys did after church. He grinned, knowing he had caught her off balance. With a name like Donovan, she had always assumed he was Catholic, but with his personal history, she also assumed he didn’t have much to do with the Church, at least not anymore. She raised her eyebrow at him.

“You can’t give me that look in church, Lacey; it’s some kind of sin. Mortal? Venial? Skeptical. That’s it; it’s a skeptical sin.” He sat right next to her, not as an answer to her prayers, because she wasn’t praying about him.
At least, not exactly.
However, his white smile and the twinkle in his eyes teased her. He took her hand and squeezed it.

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“Praying for your safety. Move over.”

Notes from the organ signaled the beginning of the Mass, leaving her to wonder about him for the next hour. But she was bemused to notice that he knew all the words, and he knew when to rise and when to kneel.
He’s done this before,
she concluded. She assumed he wanted to lecture her about something, and when they emerged into the sunshine with the rest of the parishioners she asked him.

“What made you show up here?”

“I called and your mom said you’d gone to church. How come they’re not here?”

“They turned Protestant. It’s easier. Leaves more time for golf.”

He laughed out loud. “But easier has never been your way, has it?”

“I don’t do it on purpose. It just happens that way.” He gave her a look. “Don’t say anything. And why are you here, really?”

He squinted in the sun and reached for the sunglasses in his pocket. “I had it on the best authority, a responsible reporter I know, that you were going to be safe this weekend. And then I saw
The Eye Street Observer.
I shouldn’t read it, but I can’t help myself. It detailed your run-in with the Grim Reaper. Luckily, you escaped the scythe.”

“You can’t get mad at me; we’ve just been to church.”

“Like I said, I was praying for your safety. I lit a candle for you.” He put his arm around her shoulder, and they walked down South Royal Street back to her apartment. His arm around her shoulder felt very nice and, for once, uncomplicated.

“I ran into Montana,” Lacey said. “We had a sweet little chat. She warned me she’s getting you back.”

Vic sighed. “One thing you need to know. This is Montana’s last stand, and she knows it.”

“I think you’re wrong. She doesn’t know it.”

“Well, I know it, Lacey. And that’s the important part.”

“And is everyone still standing in Montana’s last stand, or has she laid you low?”

“Still standing.” He took a beat. “I was never married in the Church, Lacey.” She looked at him. “Just thought you’d like to know. For future reference.”

“And where were you married, if not in the Church? Aboard a tramp steamer?”

“Las Vegas, Nevada, a justice of the peace. So, from certain angles, it never even counted as official in the first place—although it sure as hell seemed official when we went to court to break it up.”

“Oh, Vic.”
Las Vegas? Not Las Vegas.
“Couldn’t you have just shacked up, as my mother would say?”

“Would have been easier, that’s for sure. Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn’t forever.”

He walked her home, but couldn’t stay for brunch, much to her relief. She didn’t want to press the subject and ask for his intentions. She wasn’t even quite sure about her own intentions, and trying to spell them out would just ruin the mood. She just smiled. It simply meant that Vic could be married in the Church. If he chose to. Someday.

Chapter 27

“It must have seemed like a good idea at the time,” Lacey said in response to her mother’s harrumphing disapproval of the circus-like atmosphere at Amanda Manville’s memorial service.

Mourners of all stripes gathered before the Bentley Museum of American Fashion, tourists, fashionistas, Amanda groupies, puzzled locals, all gawking at the media and one another, trying to spot the rumored celebrities in the crowd. News trucks blocked the museum entryway, and a slow-moving line was passing through security while guards cleared names on the invited-guest list. Lacey was relieved to find the name Smithsonian was on the list for a party of three.

Once they were inside the Grand Lobby, the media were blocking nearly every view of the podium. Lacey spotted the broadcast reporters, rehearsing their opening bits with their camera crews. Cords snaked willy-nilly through the room, making an obstacle course between the folding chairs and the memorial display, creating hazards that would earn them frowns of disapproval from safety inspectors. The focal point was a group of enormous photos of Amanda on easels and a podium for the speakers. A tableau of plastic mannequins posed among the photos, dressed in outfits from the Chrysalis Collection.