Tangled Thing Called Love (30 page)

Eyes popped, mouths fell open, hands flew to hearts. Ben was bare-chested, his hair was wet and spiky, and he was wearing only a
Coulee Queen
blanket sarong style around his waist. The raw-looking scar on his forehead only emphasized his masculinity. Here was a buccaneer who’d just boarded the ship and was hunting for women to plunder.

“We were in the life jacket locker,” Labeck said. “Canoodling,” he added with a piratical smile.

“Canoodling,”
Darlene Krumke breathed, waving an imaginary fan across her chest. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

Ben waggled his eyebrows. “Yes, it does. And Mazie is a world-class canoodler.”

Chapter Thirty-four

How was it that all those women in
Gone with the Wind
ran around with half-naked bosoms and didn’t catch their deaths of pneumonia? Mazie wondered. She was freezing as she hurried along in the drizzly dark under the shelter of her weenie parasol, which was as much use as a snow shovel in an avalanche.

Ben hadn’t wanted her to leave the boat without him. “It could be dangerous,” he’d said. Which was ridiculous. This was her
hometown
, for goodness sake, not the rougher side of Milwaukee. The only danger she was in was having the wind pick her up by the hoops and sail her over the rooftops like a big yellow box kite. It would only take her ten minutes to run over to the garage, retrieve the truck, and then return to the boat to pluck Ben out of the beauty queens’ clutches before they started asking him for personal canoodling lessons.

Waiting until Ben was distracted, Mazie had slipped off the boat. But she hadn’t realized that the familiar streets would be so empty, the shops would all be closed down, and the rain would be coming down in torrents. By the time she got to the garage she was soaked to the bone. It was hours past closing time and the building was dark and deserted. She hoped Buzzy had remembered to leave the back door unlocked. He had! Staggering inside, she wrung water out of her skirt, shook rain off her parasol, then furled the useless thing and hooked it to the little loop at the gown’s waist.

“Hello?” Mazie called, her voice echoing eerily in the huge, dome-ceilinged space. Creepy. She couldn’t wait to get out of here. Where was Scully’s truck? As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could pick out the vehicles, dim light gleaming on their metal surfaces. She groped along the wall for a light switch. But—funny thing about light switches—you could never find them in the dark.

A sound came from close by, a faint voice. It made her jump—she’d thought she was alone here. Trying to lock in on it, Mazie took a few cautious steps, her soaked shoes sclupping on the floor like suction-tipped darts.

The voice was more distinct now. Edging around a corner, she saw that the sound
was coming from the Winnebago camper trailer parked near the garage office. It was about fifteen feet long, toaster-shaped, with rounded corners and shiny aluminum walls, probably dating from the 1950s. It was small and cute and looked like a character in a Disney cartoon:
Winnie the Winnebago Has an Adventure!
This must be the camper purchased to serve as living quarters for Buzzy, Mazie recalled—the one Channing and Derek had turned into their personal party room.

She figured someone was in there now, because flickering light showed through the closed window blinds and it was obvious that the voice—which was now singing—was coming from a TV set. The trailer’s door was open, spilling out a rectangle of light, and as she moved closer, Mazie could see inside. There was a cramped kitchen containing a hobbit-sized sink, a hot plate, and a minifridge. A foldout table sat between two upholstered benches way too narrow to accommodate modern-day butts. Everything looked chipped, dingy, and flyspecked. A jar of marshmallow spread, a container of peanut butter, and a loaf of bread sat out on the counter, along with a mug of what smelled like cocoa. Comfort food. For whose comfort? Suddenly Mazie’s stomach made a noise like a rooting piglet. She hadn’t eaten on the cruise boat and she was starving.

Which made her not responsible for what happened next. Cocoa was Mazie’s kryptonite. Against her will, the cocoa fumes pulled her into the trailer. Her skirt snagged in the doorway, but she squashed down the hoops and shoved through, feeling like Goldilocks invading the three bears’ cottage. She wasn’t going to eat anything; she just wanted to breathe in the aroma of the chocolate.

After one glorious inhalation, Mazie turned to survey the rest of the trailer. Everything was cunningly constructed to make maximum use of every square inch. A built-in sofa doubled as a bed, a built-in coffee table had cutouts for cups, and a bathroom no bigger than an airplane toilet was squeezed into the rear. What little space remained was taken up by a high-backed Queen Anne chair that obviously wasn’t part of the trailer’s original equipment.

The chair faced toward a TV set, an older, pre-plasma model that was tuned to a reality show. At first she thought it was one of those
American Idol
knockoffs. A woman was standing onstage, singing “I Will Always Love You.” Ticket to Clichésville, Mazie thought, waiting for her to get hooted off. The performer was tall and pretty, with long
blonde hair. She wore a glittery gown with a plunging neckline. She looked familiar, and for a second Mazie thought she was some pop star whose face was always plastered across the tabloids. Then she recognized the singer.

It was Channing Blumquist! She was on the stage of the Quail Hollow High School Auditorium. She trilled her last note, flatting on the
you
in the key of C, then bowed, smiled, and thanked the audience.

Except there
was
no audience.

Icy prickles skittered down Mazie’s spine. This was weird. But maybe there was a simple explanation—maybe Channing was rehearsing for the pageant.

The camera angle never changed. It was a stationary camera, Mazie realized, aimed at one spot. Holding a cord microphone, Channing walked across the empty stage until she was right up next to the camera, her face filling the screen. “Tell us a little about yourself, Miss Blumquist?” she said in a low, masculine-sounding voice.

“Well, I don’t usually like to talk about myself,” Channing said in her normal, high-pitched voice. “I’m just an ordinary girl who likes long walks on the beach, collecting stuffed animals, and supporting the Fighting Bobwhites.”

Girl
wasn’t exactly appropriate, Mazie thought. Channing was not Sweet Sixteen in this video; in fact she looked close to her current age—too old to be talking about stuffed animals and supporting the team.

“In my spare time I like to hang out with my friends at the mall.” She giggled girlishly. “I guess you could say I’m just a typical teenager.”

Channing paused, her eyebrows shooting up into her perfectly styled hair, as though listening to a question only she could hear. “My goals? Well, beauty queens have the stereotype of being dumb, but I have a really high IQ. Not to brag on myself, but I’ve been accepted into medical school. After I get my doctor diploma I plan to set up practice in a poor African country such as Malaysia.”

Whoa! First-degree cognitive dissonance! Was this a parody?

Channing took a deep breath, then made her voice low and dramatic. “And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our winner.” She bent to a boom box sitting on a folding chair, and pressed a button. The old
Miss America
theme blared out. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Miss Quail Hollow of 2001—Channing
Blumquist!”

The film went black for a few seconds before the videotape resumed. The camera angle had changed; the camera was now positioned at the end of the portable runway, which was swathed in red paper tablecloths. An amateurishly hand-lettered banner reading
Miss Quail Hollow Pageant 2001
was draped above the stage. Channing strode out onto the runway. She’d changed into a white gown and was holding a bouquet of supermarket roses. A sash ran diagonally from her shoulder to her hip. It read
Miss Quail Hollow 2001
. A glittering tiara sat atop her head.

Channing glided along the runway, waving and blowing kisses to the empty auditorium. “I love all of you,” she warbled to the vacant seats, tears brimming in her nobody’s-home eyes.

Bette Davis, Mazie thought, wearing little girl clothes in
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
, reliving her moments of fame as a child star.

“Thank you for this honor.” Channing whispered, wiping tears with an extended pinky. “I promise to be the very best Miss Quail Hollow ever, ever,
ever
!”

Some guys, especially athletes, never get over high school. The moments of glory on the field are the high points of their lives, and nothing after that—marriage, jobs, parenthood—can compare.

Some women are like that too. The Prom Queen, the cheerleading captain, the pom squad star—nothing ever comes close to the adrenaline rush of having every eye in the school on you, the girls envying you, the boys desiring you.

How much trouble had Channing gone to in order to re-create her eighteen-year-old self? She must have arranged the whole show to take place late at night, when no one was in the building. She’d have had to steal keys to the auditorium. She’d have needed to unlock the storage compartment under the stage, drag out the heavy runway and wrestle it into place by herself. She’d have needed to turn on the auditorium lights and the spotlights, swing the curtains into place, set up the sound system, arrange the camera on a tripod and set it on a timer. She’d have had to buy dresses, shoes, gloves, flowers.

What was the point? Was it to compensate for her life being a series of disappointments and disasters? She’d dropped out of college, narrowly escaped going to jail for stalking and harassment, been divorced by her husband, and now lived with her
mother in a hometown she’d probably never wanted to see again.

Channing moved closer to the camera. She looked lovely but vacant, the kind of person who believed Malaysia was in Africa. Mazie stared at Channing’s tiara and creepy-crawlies ran up and down her arms. The letters
QH
were elaborately entwined into the hearts that formed the peak of the tiara, and there was a tiny bird, a quail, centered between the hearts.

It was the tiara Fawn Fanchon had been crowned with. No one had seen it for thirteen years.

“I should have won, you know.” The voice came from the chair, making Mazie’s heart jump violently. Channing Blumquist had been sitting there silently this whole time. “
She
stole my crown. All I did was take it back.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Channing had changed out of her parade gown into a navy hoodie and sweatpants. She looked misleadingly normal. She smiled, revealing her perfect teeth. “Like my little place? I come here when I need to get away from my mother.”

“It’s nice.” Mazie started backing toward the door.

“Uncle Buzzy told me you’d be coming back here for your truck. I found your keys under the floor mat—that’s where he always leaves them.” She pulled the keys out of her pocket and jingled them. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up.”

Uh-oh
.

Not wanting to turn her back on Channing, Mazie kept reversing, her skirt acting like a street sweeper, knocking aside a stack of magazines and a beer bottle.

“You’re not running away, are you, Mazie?” Channing’s uninflected voice came out even flatter than usual. “You want your keys, don’t you?”

“Toss ’em.”

Channing shook her head, bouncing the keys on her palm. “You’re a disgrace, you know that, Mazie? Your makeup’s smeared, your hair’s a rat’s nest, and that dress—you look like you’re fleeing from the burning of Atlanta.”

Fleeing
. Yes, excellent idea. Mazie took another backward step, sensing that the door was just a step behind her.

“That ‘Alley Cat’ number—what a joke! You fumbled most of the steps and your tail flew off—but the judges
loved
it! It’s so gosh-darned unfair!”

“Then you shouldn’t have syruped my keyboard. That
was
you, right?”

“It was scary. I could have gotten caught.”

“And my gown?”

“It wasn’t fair, you having a dress nicer than mine! I was only going to make one tiny cut. But somehow once I started ripping, I couldn’t stop. It felt so good!” Channing studied Mazie, frowning. “I don’t get it. You do everything wrong but people still like you. You’re like
her
!”

“Like Fawn?” Mazie breathed.

“Fawn was a piece of trash. She lived in a friggin’ trailer. She bought her clothes at Goodwill. Half her relatives were in jail, and the other half—”

Mazie bolted, wrenching the blimp through the narrow doorway, jumping the steps and tearing back the way she’d come, bouncing off things in the dark but not caring, intent only on reaching the back door.

Here it was, straight ahead, and she had a lead, but Channing was close, pounding along behind. Mazie skidded on the wet floor and nearly smacked headfirst into the back door. She wrenched at the knob, but it refused to turn. Rotating, jimmying, hammering, cursing at it—nothing worked. She was certain it’d been open when she’d come in. Someone must have entered the garage since then, leaving that swamp on the floor and locking the door. Buzzy? Or had someone been in the garage all the while, watching her flounder around in the dark?

Lights abruptly flickered on all over the garage, the brightness so dazzling it seared her eyeballs. Channing stood a few feet away in front of the master switch box.

Her voice was high and resentful. “I practiced for that pageant all through senior year. I rehearsed my talent routine every night. Mama hired a consultant to teach me how to walk and make speeches. We spent months shopping for my gown until we found exactly the right one. And then that little piece of swamp trash stole my crown right from under my nose!”

Channing was probably long overdue for her fifty-thousand-mile mental health checkup, Mazie thought; she’d completely slipped off the lube rack of reality. Veering around Channing, Mazie took off toward the front of the garage, dodging in and out between parked vehicles; here was Scully’s pickup, here a delivery truck, there a classic Mustang, and there—just beyond a burgundy panel van—was the big bay door!