Skinny Dipping (16 page)

Mimi wove her way through the people, her feelings mixed. Perhaps Sarah’s subsonic sisterly SOS had been timely. Joe Tierney was entirely too attractive and Mimi might end up doing something impulsive. Mimi was not impulsive; she was laid-back. Indulging your impulses meant acting on them, and being laid-back meant acting on as little as possible, especially on those things that had high stakes. Which was why Mimi didn’t have too many casual relationships with men (or any other sort, for that matter). The last time Mimi had allowed herself to scratch an itch in relation to a man, she’d scratched herself straight into pregnancy.

In short order, Life had once more alerted her of the need to keep her distance. Especially when it came to people who breezed in and out of her life. She preferred to do the breezing, a fact of which Mary’s nasty little remark about her father’s disappearance had reminded her. ’Twas better to breeze than to be breezed upon.

As soon as Mimi saw Grandmother Werner, she recognized the well from which the Werner cankles had sprung. She also recognized that Grandmother Werner was high. The woman, stout as a beer stein and with a froth of white hair to boot, slouched in her chair, her head thrown back, her eyes open but unfocused. A collar of diamonds dug deep into the fold of her neck, and her hands were laced across her round stomach, each finger cuffed by multitudinous rings.

Sarah sat in a chair pulled up next to her grandmother, smiling tremulously in answer to the sidelong glances shot in their direction. As soon as she saw Mimi, she went limp with relief as if she thought Mimi was an expert on stoned old ladies. Okay, Mimi thought, an image of Naomi Olson springing to mind, she did have some experience, but she was no expert.

“Where’s your dad?” Mimi asked as she drew near. “Where’s Mary?”

“She went to find Dad,” Sarah whispered through her smile. “Grandmother thinks Mary is Mom. She called Mary a bad name.”

“So?”

“Everyone was listening,” Sarah said.

Poor Sarah, still young enough to feel like the cynosure of every eye. She sat down in the chair on the other side of the old woman, scooting it close so she and Sarah could talk over the old lady without being heard. “What happened?”

“Mary said Grandmother was acting oddly when she arrived but has just gotten steadily worse. She insisted on dancing with one of the servers.”

“That’s because she’s as high as a kite, Sarah,” Mimi said, casting an eloquent look at the glassy-eyed, smiling old woman.

Sarah paled visibly. “Oh, God.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know she was using drugs,” Mimi said disbelievingly. “You
did
occasionally look around all those years you spent in college, didn’t you?”

“I swear I didn’t know,” Sarah denied hotly. “She’s always been difficult about Mom. This summer she was diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy and in the hospital they gave her morphine. I know it’s a terribly painful condition and since she’s returned home she’s complained about how the prescriptions don’t work. And recently she started getting…odd. I thought she had incipient Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. I never put two and two together. Why would they give her those sorts of drugs?”

“I’d say she’s doing her own pain management,” Mimi said, not without kindness. She glanced at Grandmother Werner, who was chuckling quietly, muttering something to someone only she could see. Her fingertips drummed a rhythm on her plump knees.

“She’s always been so aloof, and, well, a little superior. She detests ‘scenes.’ And now she creates them almost daily.” Sarah gave a little hiccuped sob. “What do you think we should do?”

We? She
should be on the other side of the room flirting shamelessly with Joe Tierney and deciding whether to make all his Fowl Lake beach fantasies come true. This was all plainly none of her business. For the love of God, she was meeting the old lady for the first time.

“What if she starts dancing again?” Sarah asked.

“Ask her if you can lead?”

“This isn’t funny, Mimi,” Sarah said. “When she came back from the bathroom, she accosted a server and insisted he dance with her. Everyone’s looking at us. I don’t know what to do.”

Mimi glanced around. No one was watching them. Since Grandmother Werner had slipped happily into la-la land they’d returned to their conversations. “As far as anyone here knows, your grandmother was overcome with the joy of the occasion and now she’s calmed down. So, why don’t you just enjoy the rest of the—”

“Who’re you?”

Both Mimi and Sarah, leaning forward so they could converse over Mother Werner’s slouched form, turned their heads. Mother Werner peered blearily down at them.

“Who,” she repeated, looking directly at Mimi, “are you?”

“Mimi.”

“Mimi.” Sarah’s grandmother squinted, trying to place her. A glint of recognition lightened her cloudy eyes. “The Frog’s by-blow?”

On the other side, Sarah gasped. “Grandmother!”

Mimi looked askance at her. “Frog?”

“She’s taken to calling Mother a Frog,” Sarah said, casting anxious looks around.

“It’s not an ethnic slur, simply a comment on her physical resemblance,” the evil old lady purred.

“Gotcha.”

Mother Werner’s eyes narrowed to little slits. “I remember. You are the product of her first misalliance. The Frog
claims
it was a legal union. As if being a cheap divorcée was any better than simply being a cheap floozy.”

At the mental image of Solange dressed in satin hot pants and a tube top and teetering atop four-inch Lucite stilettos, Mimi laughed.

The corners of Mother Werner’s thin lips twitched upward and disappeared. “Your mother must have been wed at fifteen. How old are you? Fifty?”

Mimi stopped laughing. “Forty-one.”

“You look older. You should use sunscreen. A good exfoliation might help. Try the spa. It’s decent for a shipboard venture. My husband is there now. I should go find the old bastard before he starts pinching the poor masseuse’s bum,” she said, bracing her hands on the arms of the chair and preparing to heave upward.

“What’s her name?” Mimi quickly asked Sarah.

“‘Her’ name,” the old lady said darkly, “is Mrs. Werner.”

Apparently, the old gal wasn’t all
that
doped up.

“Christian name.”

“Imogene,” Sarah said softly. “And Grandfather has been dead for thirty years.”

Imogene rewarded this betrayal by making a disgusted sound. “Bah.”

“Thank you, Imogene—may I call you Imogene?” Mimi asked calmly. So the bum-pinching husband was dead, eh? They were in her territory now. She mentally rubbed her hands together. “Your husband asked me to tell you he’d be with you soon enough.”

Sarah shot Mimi a startled look.

Imogene studied Mimi sharply a moment before releasing her grip on the chair arms. “I suppose there’s no hurry,” she finally said. She settled like a bag of wet sand in the chair. “How long have we been on board now? I can’t recall…” Her eyelids fluttered shut and she was out.

“Where would she get the sort of drugs that make you fantasize like that?” Sarah asked.

Maybe Baby Precocious wasn’t so precocious after all.

“My stockbroker,” Imogene said, eyes still closed, and chuckled. “At least he knows where his bread is buttered. The damn quack is too lily-livered to risk his precious medical license.”

“I can’t believe that,” Sarah whispered helplessly. “Her stockbroker is almost as old as she is.”

“I’ve got it!” Imogene’s eyes had snapped open and she was staring with unconcealed relish at Mimi. “Why, you’re that table-rapper, aren’t you? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Got me,” Mimi said without rancor.

“Ha! Well, I hope your little show is a bit more professional than that oily ciscebo,” Imogene said, glowering at one of the male servers. “The lout stepped all over my feet. And he calls himself a dancer. Remind me to speak to the ship’s purser about him. Insolent. Didn’t even finish our dance.” She closed her eyes once more.

“I’m sorry, Mimi,” Sarah said miserably, her pale cheeks a tender blush shade Bobbi Brown would have died to re-create. “I haven’t even thanked you for coming over. You’ve been so—” she looked up and Mimi was horrified to see unshed tears shimmering in her eyes—“so wonderfully uncritical.”

Christ.
What was with Sarah making with the maudlin? It was weird. Sarah wasn’t emotional. At least, not that Mimi recalled. She wondered whether Sarah’s new sex life could really account for such a drastic personality change. Maybe she’d hit her head recently. “Don’t blubber.”

“I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “Dad or Mother should be back any second now. You should rejoin Joe Tierney. I think he likes you, and Grandmother’s not your responsibility.”

No. She wasn’t. Which, Mimi well knew, made it easier for her than for Sarah. Because Sarah loved the old witch and seeing her like this was painful for her. It wasn’t painful for Mimi.

Sarah had knit her fingers together and was studying them. Quickly, Mimi tallied her options here: Go and find Joe GQ or stay here with Granny Werner.

Sarah looked up and smiled bravely.

Ah, crap. Joe GQ had probably moved on to greener pastures by now, anyway.

“Look, Sarah,” she said. “These are your parents’ friends. You ought to be the one out there making nice on their behalf. I wasn’t so keen on mingling, anyway, and you know I’m not self-sacrificing so I’m telling you the truth. So, go on. I’ll stay here with Imogene. Besides, she’s dying to expose me as a fraud.”

“Did you read my mind?” Imogene asked, smiling smugly.

“Why can’t people get this straight? I am a
medium
, not a
clairvoyant
,” Mimi said.

“Isn’t that convenient?” Imogene said, opening one sardonic eye.

“Yes.”

Imogene laughed and Mimi gave Sarah a “get out of here” jerk of her chin.

Sarah rose, clearly relieved. “I’ll be back as soon as I find Dad.”

“No hurry,” Mimi said.

“No hurry,” Imogene echoed, both eyes now open. “Run along, Sarah, my dear. I might as well stay for this woman’s act since the band isn’t playing anymore.” She leaned toward Mimi. “If you’re any good, I’ll tip you.”

Joe networked his way around the room, but his heart wasn’t in it. The conversations seemed a little stale, a sense of déjà vu attending every exchange. When fifteen minutes had elapsed and Mimi hadn’t returned, he assumed she’d found some friends—Congressman Popitch’s comments about no one knowing her well notwithstanding.

He couldn’t imagine Mimi was that much of an enigma. For him, yes, but she had a huge extended family and was obviously a fixture at Fowl Lake, so obviously she was well known to them. On the other hand, he knew this wasn’t necessarily true. Like the neighborhood curmudgeon who never leaves his house, you could be somewhere without anyone knowing you.

He’d just decided to thank the Werners and take his leave when he spotted Mimi sitting next to a portly older woman against the far wall. They were engaged in a heated discussion. The old woman was shaking a finger a few inches under Mimi’s nose, and Mimi, her expression obstinate, had crossed her arms over her chest. Both women looked like they were enjoying themselves immensely.

He stood back in the crowd, watching her, charmed. More of her hair, he noted absently, had come undone. She roused conflicting impulses in him: he wanted to personally place her in the hands of a good hairdresser, and at the same time being with her made him want to buy a pair of jeans. He hadn’t had jeans since he was nineteen.

“Here. I remember you like Scotch. Single malt, right?” Mary Olson, the Werners’ older daughter, appeared at his side with a highball in each hand. She pressed one of the glasses into his hand.

“Chin-chin!” She clinked the top of her glass to his with a little too much force, sloshing liquid over her hand. She frowned, traded her glass to her free hand, and shook the drops from the wet one, at which point he realized the young woman was blitzed. From what he knew of Mary Werner, she was normally fastidious in the extreme.

Joe glanced toward Mimi. Mary followed his gaze. Her coquettish smile overturned into a disapproving frown.

“Oh, Joe. Don’t tell me you’ve succumbed to the charms of my loosey-goosey”—she drew out the vowels—“older sister.” She took a swig of Scotch and smiled coyly. Oh, dear.

“Well, lookee there. She’s even got Grandmother Werner twisted around her little finger. Ha!” Mary said, her eyes on Mimi and the old woman.

“Tell me about Sub-Surfer, Mary,” Joe said, trying to divert her attention. “My company is always interested in software security applications—”

“She’s not all that, you know,” Mary said matter-of-factly.

“All what?”

“Anything.” Mary ran her fingertip along the rim of her glass. Her cheeks were flushed. “That whole ‘live for the moment’ thing?
Pfbbt.
And her ‘I don’t want anything but my freedom’? Double
pfbbt
. I mean, that’s fine as long as it isn’t an out-and-out lie.” A look of offended innocence turned Mary’s cheeks an even brighter pink. “I never would have pegged Mimi as a liar.”

“Liar?”

“Well, look at her. They don’t wear designer dresses and pearls like that on Central Avenue. For someone who claims she doesn’t care about worldly possessions, she sure has some nice ones.”

Joe looked at Mimi. He’d noticed the dress and necklace earlier. And both did fly in the face of the impression she’d given him up at Fowl Lake.

“How can she afford a dress and jewelry like that?” Mary was muttering. She downed another swig of her drink. “Mom refuses to give her a cent. And she doesn’t have a job. Not a real job.”

Mimi had said that all of the Olsons—and she’d certainly given the impression she included herself in that category—were too poor to move the family compound from Chez Ducky. But when he’d seen the expensive way she was decked out tonight, he’d discounted that impression, thinking she had been talking about only the Olson side of her family, not herself. Apparently not.

“Mary, I’m not really comfortable discussing you—”

“Or maybe taking advantage of people pays better than I thought. I gotta say, from the looks of things, she must be pretty good at her job,” Mary went on as if she hadn’t heard him. She lifted her glass in Mimi’s direction in a toast.

“Mom always said Mimi had more potential than anyone. She coulda been anything. Done anything. And
that’s
what she chose to do with it.”

Despite a certain sympathy for Mary’s feelings—after all, her sister was a charlatan—he found himself wanting to defend Mimi, find excuses for her. Ridiculous. He didn’t even know her. If her own sister thought she was a charlatan, chances were she was a charlatan.

“You really don’t like her very much, do you?” Joe asked.

Mary looked at him, startled. “Huh?” she said, scanning his face as if she thought he’d been joking. Her surprise melted and she shook her head. “Nope. I’m just as big a sucker as the rest of you. I love her.” She looked around. “I need a drink,” she said and waded into the crowd.

Surprised, Joe watched her go before turning his attention back to Mimi. She was still talking to the older Mrs. Werner, her unvarnished, piquant face animated, surrounded by more escaped tendrils of coiling black hair. She didn’t look like a vulture, feeding on people’s unhappiness. She looked like a handsome, humorous woman with no access to a beauty salon who, despite or because of this, and he really did not know which, was very appealing.

He wanted, very much, to figure out which image was closer to the truth. True, he was going to be in Minneapolis only another couple weeks. True, they’d likely never see each other after he left. Chances were he’d be halfway across the world for the next three to six months. It didn’t matter. Until he left, he wanted…ah, hell. Did he always have to know exactly what he wanted or why he wanted it? No.

He made his way toward her. As he drew near he heard Mrs. Warner demand, “I insist you use a Ouija board.”

“Fine,” Mimi said, looking around. She spied an empty serving tray resting on the table next to her and moved it to her lap, then upended a clean glass ashtray from the same table. “Here,” she said. “Rest your fingertips on the edge of the planchette.”

The old lady didn’t move. “That’s not a planchette; it’s an ashtray. And that’s a serving tray.”

Mimi blew out a deep breath.

“You’ll never get very far in your chosen profession with such obvious gimmickry.” The old woman sniffed. Suddenly, her face contorted in pain.

At once, Mimi slid the tray from her lap. “Are you all right?”

Joe started forward.

“Mother?” Tom Werner came hurrying from the corridor, Sarah beside him. Joe stopped.

The old woman looked up at Tom. “Tom, I’d like to go to my cabin. Could you…”

“Of course.” Tom turned and gestured to someone in the hall. “I’m sorry, Mother. This has been too much for you.” He looked over his mother’s head at Mimi. “Thank you, Mignonette.”

There was sincere affection in his gaze. A fresh wave of pain contorted Mrs. Werner’s face, but she still managed a tart smile. “What are you thanking her for, Tom? She tried to convince me that tray is a Ouija board. Whoever hires the acts for these ships ought to vet them more closely.”

Mimi sighed. “No tip?”

The old lady’s lips twitched with amusement, but she mastered the impulse, pinching her mouth into autocratic lines. “No tip.”

Aided by Tom, she lumbered to her feet, wincing, and limped away supported on either side by her son and Sarah, her nose high with disapproval.

Mimi was still smiling when she saw Joe. She rose to her feet, her expression surprised and pleased, without the least trace of guile.

“I take it social disaster has been averted?” he asked, taking two wineglasses from the tray of a passing server and handing her one.

She shook her head. “No, thanks, and no disaster. Just keeping Tom’s mom company for a little while.”

He didn’t believe her.

She looked around and her expression grew crafty. “But now would be a good time to make my exit. The dutiful daughters are all otherwise engaged, so I can slip out unnoticed. You may have to stay and mingle, but I don’t. Do me a favor? If one of my sisters or my mother asks, tell her you saw me on the other side of the room. If I play this right—and
you
play this right—I can get brownie points for having been at the party for a three full hours rather than”—she craned her neck to see the Rolex on his wrist—“one and a half.”

She was close enough so that he could smell her soap. He wondered whether her hair was as silky as it looked. The few other times he’d seen her it had been wet, either from a lake or from a shower. Now it looked unbelievably soft and lustrous. Maybe she didn’t need a hair salon after all. He wondered whether she wore a lace bra beneath the expensive dress or if all the surface sophistication was just that. He wondered whether she would still seem such a cipher in his milieu, amongst the rich and powerful, as she had been in hers, amongst the odd and not so powerful. But most of all he wondered who she was. Really.

“I’d rather you let me come with you,” he said before he realized it.
This,
he thought,
is a mistake.
He didn’t mix business with his personal life. He wasn’t going to. He was giving her a ride on his way to the Grand Hotel.

Her eyes widened with feigned shock. “But, Mr. Tierney,
your
absence will definitely be noted.”

She was right.

“Do you have a car?” he asked.

“No, I took a taxi here.”

“
I
have a car.” He dangled the bait temptingly.

She laughed. “Let’s go.”