4 Decoupage Can Be Deadly (3 page)

“This booth seems more appropriate for one of those adult expos,” said Jeanie.

“Oh?” asked Janice.

“Not that I have personal experience,” Jeanie quickly added.

“You think
Bling!
will be successful?” I asked Naomi.

She shrugged. “Eventually people will wise up to the fact that the magazine is mostly ads. They’ll stop buying copies. Once that happens, ad revenues will dip, and the magazine will fold. I give it a year tops.”

“Even with most of the ads for products Philomena’s endorsing?” asked Tessa.

“Advertisers are fickle,” said Naomi. “As her contracts near expiration, the advertisers will be courting the next hot spokesperson. Philomena has no staying power.”

“Yet she’s raking in megabucks right now,” said Serena.

“I’d kill for an endorsement deal,” said Tessa. “I wouldn’t care if it only lasted a year or two.”

“One can only hope Naomi is right,” said Sheila. She glanced around the garish exhibit. “I feel dirty just standing here.”

“And yet her booth was mobbed all day,” I said.

“For what? Lollipops?” She picked one up out of a large fishbowl on the back counter. “Omigod!”

“What?” We all turned to stare at her. Sheila’s normally peach complexion was now as flaming red as her hair. “These aren’t lollipops.” She passed one to each of us.

“They certainly aren’t,” said Tessa. “I wonder if the Trimedia board knows she’s passing out condoms with the
Bling!
logo emblazoned on them.”

“Maybe you should put in a call to your Uncle Chessie,” said Cloris.

Tessa’s Uncle Chester Longstreth sat on the Trimedia board. The connection had scored her the fashion editor position but hadn’t helped her when Trimedia forced us into what amounted to indentured servitude last spring.

Tessa grabbed a handful of rubber lollipops and slipped them into her purse. “I might just do that.”

“So what’s with the Marilyn Monroe impersonator?” I asked no one in particular.

Tessa’s eyes grew wide. “You don’t know who that was?”

“If I knew, would I be asking?”

“That’s Norma Gene,” said Tessa.

“You’re kidding.”

“You’ve never heard of Norma Gene?”

“I know Norma Jeane was Marilyn Monroe’s real name, but she died decades before you were born.”

“And she didn’t stand nearly seven feet tall,” said Sheila.

Tessa rolled her eyes. “Do you people live under a rock?”

“Hey, you didn’t know Ernest Borgnine,” said Cloris, sticking up for Sheila and me.

Tessa turned to her. “Has Ernest Borgnine been on the cover of
Us
and
People
lately? Is he mentioned on
Page Six
? Or on
TMZ
?”

“Doubtful, considering he’s dead.”

“Well, Norma Gene has. Several times over the last few months.”

“So, are you going to tell us who she is or not,” asked Janice.

Good to know I’m not the only clueless editor on the
American Woman
staff when it comes to Norma Gene.

Tessa heaved a huge sigh before answering. “Norma Gene is Gail to Philomena’s Oprah. They’re BFF’s.”

“Is she a he?” I asked, curiosity winning out over political correctness.

“Norma Gene is in the process of gender reassignment. Everyone knows that. You should really keep abreast of current events, Anastasia.”

“I’ll add it to my to-do list.” I picked up a copy of
Bling!
and started leafing through the pages. Even though I’d been aware of Trimedia’s newest baby, I hadn’t paid much attention to the birth. The
Bling!
staff occupied offices on another floor of our building, and this was the first time I’d had a chance for an up-close-and-personal with the newest corporate rugrat.

A quick scan of the Table of Contents piqued my curiosity. “What in the world is Vajazzling?” I asked as I flipped pages to find the article.

“They’ve got an article about Vajazzling?” asked Nicole. “Are they including pictures?”

“Oh yeah!” I stared at the eight-by-ten glossy depiction of a certain normally covered-up section of Philomena's anatomy. “This makes rubber lollipops tame, ladies.”

“Let me see.” Serena grabbed the magazine out of my hands. Everyone else clamored around her to ogle.

“Why would anyone want to do that to themselves?” asked Sheila.

“I wonder if it’s painful,” said Cloris.

“Not the Vajazzling,” said Tessa, “but the full Brazilian you get beforehand hurts like hell.”

We all turned to stare at her. “You know this from personal experience?” I asked.

She executed another eye roll directed toward me. “How can you work at a women’s magazine and not know about the latest trends in beauty and fashion?” She glanced up and down the aisle to make sure no one else was around. Then she unzipped the fly front of her designer trousers and pulled down a scrap of pink silk fabric to show off her own Vajazzling, a series of crystals decorating the upper area of her hairless nether region.

“That’s sick,” said Jeanie.

The rest of us concurred except for Nicole who seemed more than a little interested. “How long does it last?”

“About five days,” said Tessa as she zipped up her pants. “Then they start falling off.”

“And you paid how much for this?” asked Sheila.

“Nothing. Many spas are giving them away free with a Brazilian, but it depends where you go. I’ve heard of places charging up to a hundred dollars.”

“What a waste of money!” proclaimed our finance editor.

Cloris elbowed me in the ribs. “So when are we going to see a column on the hot new craft trend of vagina bedazzling?”

Naomi answered for me. “When hell freezes over.”

~*~

My mother ambushed me the moment I arrived home. “Anastasia, we need to talk.”

TWO

I dropped my purse and keys onto the hall table and kicked off my heels. Catherine the Great, Mama’s enormous Persian cat, leaped from Mama’s arms, gave a disdainful sniff to my shoes, then headed for her favorite perch on the back of my living room sofa.

“Mama, it’s after seven. I’ve been on my feet all day and haven’t eaten anything besides a cupcake (or three or four) since breakfast. Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t. Lawrence is picking me up shortly. This has gone on for too long. I can barely look him in the eye.”

I sighed. My mother had a way of carrying on a conversation that made sense only to her. “What’s gone on for too long?”

“Your appalling lack of manners. I brought you up better than that.”

“You’ve lost me, Mama. How about starting at the beginning, but before you do, where is everyone else? Did the boys and Lucille have dinner?”

“Alex and Nick are off with friends, and I have no idea where the commie pinko is. She’s been gone all day, probably out rabblerousing with her commie pinko cohorts. If we’re lucky, she’ll get herself into so much trouble, the police will lock her up for good this time.”

“Don’t start, Mama.” There was no love lost between my mother, a life-long member and past social secretary of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and my mother-in-law, the president of the Daughters of the October Revolution. Mama insisted Lucille and her octogenarian followers, all twelve of them, were plotting to overthrow the government.

Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control have forced me to share my home with both Mama and Lucille and forced them to share a bedroom. That goes a long way toward explaining the
fun
part of my dysfunctional family dynamic. I have the man I now not so fondly refer to as Dead Louse of a Spouse to thank for saddling me with his mother and so much more.

“What about Mephisto?” Mephisto, whose real name is Manifesto (only my mother-in-law would name a dog after a communist treatise) was Lucille’s runt of a French bulldog. The Devil Dog and I had belonged to a mutual animosity society up until one dreadful day this past summer when he’d proven his worth. I now owe my life to Mephisto. Literally. Needless to say, we’d bonded. And that really doesn’t sit well with my mother-in-law.

“What about him?”

“Has anyone walked him?”

“How should I know? She took the mongrel with her.”

One less chore for me. I headed to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator in search of something to eat. The nearly empty interior reminded me I needed to squeeze in a trip to the supermarket tonight. I grabbed the last two eggs and the dregs from the vegetable crisper—half a tomato and a two inch chunk of slightly wrinkled zucchini. A search of the deli drawer uncovered a lone slice of cheddar cheese.

If I only had a bottle of wine to go with my omelet.... But wine was a luxury I could no longer afford. Yet something else to blame on the man who’d dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas, leaving me with debt the size of the gross national product of some third world nations.

I set a frying pan on the stove to heat up, cracked the eggs into a bowl, added some milk, and began whisking the mixture together.

“Anastasia, are you listening to me?”

Actually, I had tuned her out, a skill I’d adopted as a teenager. I loved my mother, but I loved her best in small doses. Luckily, she was planning a sixth trip down the aisle. I hoped her marriage to Lawrence Tuttnauer lasted longer than her last four attempts at happily-ever-after. Mama’s husbands had a habit of dying on her shortly after the
I do’s
. Her last fiancé didn’t even make it to the altar, thanks to a crazy woman who stabbed him in the heart with one of my knitting needles.

“Sorry, Mama. What did you want to discuss?”

“When are you going to invite Ira and his family for dinner? It’s been over two months since their barbecue, and you’ve yet to reciprocate. It’s embarrassing.”

Ira was Ira Pollack, my dead husband’s half-brother. No one knew of his existence until twelve weeks ago when he showed up on my doorstep. Ira was searching for his deceased father’s long-lost love, my curmudgeon of a mother-in-law. He’d since wheedled his way into our lives, playing cupid to Mama and his father-in-law. I was happy Mama had once again found a soul mate, but Ira’s arrival seriously complicated my already complicated life.

I poured the egg mixture into the frying pan, adjusted the flame, and began cutting up the zucchini and tomato. As I chopped, I glanced out my kitchen window at the darkened apartment above my garage. Zachary Barnes, my tenant turned boyfriend, had once again jetted off to some remote corner of the globe on another photo-journalism assignment. Or possibly some covert government activity he swore he didn’t do. I had my doubts. Don’t all government operatives swear they aren’t government operatives?

I sighed.
Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody
. Except Mama driving me nuts.

“Exactly when have I had time to entertain lately? In case you’ve forgotten, I worked a second job all summer.” Although grateful for the extra paycheck I’d earned working weekends as the arts and crafts instructor at the Sunnyside of Westfield Assisted Living and Rehabilitation Center, the stint had taken both an emotional and physical toll on me. And almost gotten me killed.

A brief getaway with Zack to Barcelona had proved no respite, either. Sometimes I think that along with leaving me with debt up the wazoo, Karl also tattooed a target on my back. Ever since he died, people keep trying to kill me. Even in Barcelona.

“People do entertain during the week, dear,” said Mama.

“Yes, people who arrive home from work at a reasonable hour and don’t have a houseful of responsibilities to contend with once they do get home.” Not to mention no husband and both a mother and mother-in-law genetically incapable of helping around the house.

“You can invite them for next weekend.”

“First of all, I doubt Cynthia would lower herself to step foot in my home.”

Cynthia was Ira’s wife, or maybe his trophy wife. I still wasn’t clear about their relationship. She had treated us as if we were society’s castoffs, not fit to enter her Hunterdon County McMansion. During one of the hottest evenings of the summer, we were kept on the patio instead of being entertained in the comfort of that air-conditioned McMansion. When my sons got fed up with the heat and jumped into her pool, she acted like they’d contaminated the water.

“Besides,” I reminded her, “she nearly stroked out when you and Lawrence announced your engagement.”

“True, but that doesn’t mean Ira and his kids won’t come. Alex and Nick need to get to know their cousins better.”

After their first and only encounter with their half-cousins this past summer, my sons had no desire to bond further with what they described as three extremely spoiled brats.

“There’s also the problem of Lucille,” I said. So far I’d been successful at keeping Lucille from meeting Ira, a dead ringer for his deceased half-brother.

“Why is that a problem?”

“She’d probably have another stroke if she saw Ira.”

“So?”