A Catered Tea Party (9 page)

Of course, Bernie and Libby apologized. They had to. At which point Michelle had wiped away her tears with the back of her hands, hugged both of them, and trilled that they were all going to be best friends, and wasn't that going to be wonderful?

If Libby had a knife, she would have stabbed her. Instead she'd smiled and said she was looking forward to it.

“I
don't think your daughters like me,” Michelle declared as she massaged Sean's shoulders.

Sean was sitting on a bench facing the Hudson, while Michelle was standing behind him.

“Of course they like you,” Sean declared, reaching up and patting her hand. “What's there not to like?”

“I don't think they do,” Michelle said, contradicting him. “All I wanted to do was help,” she added, her voice taking on the plaintive quality she excelled at.

Sean gave her hand a squeeze. “Maybe you just need to give them a little more time. After all, we've just been seeing each other for a month.”

“Two months,” Michelle corrected. “But I don't think it would matter if we'd been seeing each other for a year,” Michelle said as she came around and sat down next to him. “I think your daughters would still feel the same way. Do you know, they think I'm stealing their recipes,” she said indignantly.

“No, they don't.”

“Yes, they do!”

“They didn't say that, did they?” Sean demanded.

Michelle's eyes misted over. “They didn't have to.”

Sean stiffened, and Michelle swallowed and made a show of being brave. She patted his shoulder.

“Promise me you won't say anything to them. It'll just make things worse. Please,” Michelle implored when Sean didn't answer her.

“Fine,” Sean said gruffly. “If that's what you want.”

“It is,” Michelle said. “It is. I so want all of us to be friends.”

Sean sighed. He felt as if he was swimming in the ocean and couldn't see the currents that were tossing him this way and that. He knew there was something going on between the three women, but he was damned if he knew what—which was depressing since he prided himself on his ability to read social situations.

For a moment, he and Michelle watched a man fishing from his outboard anchored near the shore. Sean followed the arc of the line with his eye, remembering when he used to go fishing for trout with Rose at a little river in the Catskills before the girls were born. Things seemed so much simpler then. Or maybe that was just the way he remembered it. He wasn't sure.

“So you like it?” Michelle asked after a couple of minutes had gone by.

“Like what?” Sean asked, turning to her. He'd been so immersed in his thoughts that he hadn't heard what she was saying.

“The shop's name,” Michelle repeated, Sean noticing a definite edge to her voice. They'd just been to see the place. According to the contractor, it would be ready to open in another three weeks, which in Sean's experience meant at least four or five weeks, if you were lucky.

“Oh, definitely,” Sean lied. “Love it.” Actually, he hadn't heard what Michelle had said. He'd been thinking about deep-sea fishing and wondering if he could convince his buddy Clyde to go on another trip with him.

“You don't think they'll mind?” Michelle asked.

“Who?”

“Your daughters, of course.”

“No. Why should they?” Sean replied, a comment he would come to deeply regret. In retrospect, he realized he should have taken Michelle's comment as a hint of stormy waters ahead.

Michelle reached up and stretched, leading Sean to focus his gaze on her breasts. “I don't know,” she said, dropping her arms back down once she'd attracted his attention. “But I'm pretty positive your daughters don't like the idea that I'm opening up a shop so close to theirs.”

“I'm sure its fine with them,” Sean told her, even though he had a vague suspicion that Michelle was correct, that it wasn't alright with his daughters. He just thought that if he kept ignoring the situation it would eventually go away.

“I've been thinking,” Michelle said, rubbing a thumbnail up and down his arm.

Sean waited.

“Maybe we can join forces.”

Sean turned to look at her. He didn't understand.

Michelle explained. “I can sell some of Bernie and Libby's stuff in my shop, and they could sell some of my stuff in theirs.”

“What would be the point of doing that?” Sean asked, genuinely bewildered.

“That way we could expand our brands,” Michelle said.

“Brands?”
What was that?
Sean wondered.

“It's our product names. Like Nike. Nike is a brand.”

“I know what Nike is,” Sean replied, shifting his weight. He still got stiff if he sat too long. “I just don't understand how that pertains to what you were talking about.”

Michelle took in a deep breath and let it out. “What I meant is your daughters and I could cooperate instead of compete. That way it would be a win–win situation all around.”

Sean shook his head. He was pretty sure—no, he was positive—that Libby and Bernie wouldn't agree to that. “I don't think they'll see it that way.”

Michelle ruffled his hair and walked her fingers down the back of his neck. “Will you talk to them about it? Please,” Michelle cajoled. “Maybe we could even combine our shops if this works out—my lease is just for a year. Then you and I could see each other all the time.”

“Sure,” Sean said, thinking how nice that would be.

The truth was that he enjoyed being around Michelle. She was warm and soft, and she held his hand and rubbed his back, and he liked that. Plus, she made him laugh. She made him feel attractive and wanted, things he didn't know he could feel anymore. But the girls didn't get it, and he was too embarrassed to tell them he was ready to go out in the world again, not just be their dad.

“I
wanted to puke when he told me,” Libby said, recalling hers and Bernie's conversation with their dad about Michelle's proposal. “She didn't even have the guts to tell us herself.”

“Michelle?” Brandon asked, clarifying. It was ten o'clock in the evening, and he, Bernie, Libby's boyfriend, Marvin, and Libby were at the bar at RJ's, drinking beer and eating pretzels.

“Whom else have I been talking about,” Libby demanded, her face flushing as she remembered the conversation she and Bernie had had with their father. Talk about nerve! And the thing that got her the most upset was that their father hadn't seen anything wrong with Michelle's plan.

“Can we use the words manipulative and conniving to describe her?” Bernie asked.

“You can use whatever words you want,” Marvin replied as he took a sip of his Brooklyn Lager.

“Sounds as if you guys had a really bad day,” Brandon noted as he put another bowl of pretzels in front of them.

The four of them were the only ones in RJ's at the moment. There'd been a rush at six, a slight trickle at seven, then everyone had cleared out, and things had been dead ever since, dead to the point where Brandon had been able to finish restocking the cooler, clean the counters, and sweep up, but then August was always a slow month, Brandon reminded himself. August was when three-quarters of his regulars took their vacations. Hopefully, it would stay quiet until two, when he could close the place up and go back to his flat with Bernie—if the gods were kind.

Libby took another sip of her IPA and carefully put her glass back on its coaster. “Between the tunnel and Michelle, we had a no-good, absolutely terrible day,” she declared, paraphrasing the title of one of her favorite childhood books, but as she looked around, she realized that no one had gotten the allusion, which depressed her.

Marvin started to say something, changed his mind, took a sip of his beer, and ate a couple more pretzels instead.

Libby turned toward him. “What?” she asked.

“I didn't say anything,” Marvin protested.

“But you were going to,” Libby pointed out.

Marvin took another sip of his beer. “But I didn't. I changed my mind.”

“Tell me,” Libby ordered.

“Yeah, Marvin,” Brandon said in a mocking tone as he planted his elbows on the bar. “Tell us.”

“Brandon, just drop it,” Marvin replied, his voice rising.

Brandon grinned. He loved needling Marvin. You could always count on a response. “Ah, come on,” he wheedled, doing an excellent imitation of a high school girl.

“It's nothing,” Marvin said. He rubbed his hands together. “Let's play some darts.”

But Libby wasn't going to be put off that easily, especially since Marvin was now writhing in discomfort. “Why won't you tell me?”

Marvin made one last attempt to avoid the conversation he was about to have. “Because you won't like it.”

“Try me,” Libby told him.

“You're going to be really pissed.”

“Marvin . . .”

“Fine. If that's what you want.” And Marvin shrugged. Maybe it was better that Libby hear what he had to say. After all, it wasn't that terrible. “Have you ever considered that Michelle isn't as bad as you think she is? That she's actually seeing your dad because she likes him, not because she wants to steal your recipes? That maybe your dad likes having someone in his life? That maybe you're being paranoid?” There. He'd said it.

Libby glared at him. The phrase “if looks could kill” came to Marvin's mind.

“See,” Marvin said, “I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Brandon leaned forward and cleared his throat. Now that he'd gotten this started, he figured he needed to say something. Number one, he owed Marvin, and number two, he thought Marvin might be correct. “You have to admit Marvin may have something there,” he said. “Maybe you girls are overreacting . . . Or not,” he said looking at the expression on Bernie's face and thinking about tonight. “But even if you're right . . .”

“We are,” Bernie declared firmly.

“There's nothing you can do about it,” said Brandon, finishing his sentence, grateful that he hadn't mentioned the phrase
geriatric sex
.

“That's true,” Marvin said. “If you go on this way, you'll just get your dad even madder, and he'll be less likely to listen to you.”

“So what would you, with your great font of relationship advice, suggest?” Libby asked.

Marvin decided to overlook the sarcasm and take Libby's question at face value. “That's easy,” he answered. “If it were me, I'd kill Michelle with kindness.”

“Easy for you to say, but hard for me to do,” Libby retorted. “She makes me so angry.”

“No kidding,” Brandon threw in. “I'd never have known.”

“She had no right,” Libby pounded on the bar, “to be snooping around in the back of our place the way she was. No right at all. I mean our recipe for our chocolate chip blondies was right out on the desk!”

“Oh no!” Brandon cried, putting his hand to his heart. “Is that as bad as stealing the secret of eternal life?” he asked, forgetting himself again.

“Ha, ha,” Bernie said. “Lest you forget, our recipes are our livelihood.”

“Sorry,” a contrite Brandon said. “Maybe she really was curious about your setup,” he suggested. “It is possible.”

“Then why didn't she ask to see the back of the shop when we were around? Or make an appointment?” Libby challenged. “We would have shown it to her.”

“Would you have?” Brandon asked.

“Of course, we would have,” Bernie countered.

Brandon thought for a moment. “Okay, her place is going to open soon, right?”

Libby and Bernie nodded.

“Three weeks. A month. Something like that,” Bernie said.

“So why don't you guys see what she's serving at her place when it opens,” Brandon suggested. “If the menus are the same, you'll know.”

“And meanwhile just say nice things about her to your dad,” Marvin suggested.

“Like what?” Libby demanded.

“I don't know,” Marvin replied. “Come up with something.”

“I can't,” Libby responded. “There's something off about her. When I look at her, I get a bad feeling.”

“I like her shoes,” Bernie interjected. “I can compliment her on those.”

Everyone ignored her.

“Then don't say anything to your dad about her, Libby,” Marvin said. “Don't say anything at all. Just smile.”

“Fine,” said Libby pantomiming a smile.

“I'm serious,” Marvin told her.

“I'll try,” Libby agreed, relenting.

“Do not try. Do, little grasshopper,” Bernie said.

“Shut up,” Libby told her.

Brandon intervened. “A toast,” he said, lifting up his glass of IPA, even though he generally made it a rule not to drink while on duty. “A toast to trying.”

Libby, Bernie, and Marvin raised their glasses, clinked them, and drank.

“Are you coming to the funeral?” Marvin asked after he'd put his glass down.

“Whose funeral?” Bernie asked.

“Zalinsky's, of course. Who else?”

“He's being buried here?” asked Bernie. She couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice.

“Yup. He is. Zalinsky bought and paid for everything himself.”

“Paid, paid?” Bernie asked, thinking of Zalinsky's empty bank account.

“In cash,” Marvin informed them. “Evidently, he came into the funeral home last month and arranged the whole thing with my dad. He even wrote his own obit. It's going in the paper as soon as the police release the body.”

“We should go,” Libby declared.

“I would expect no less,” Marvin told her.

“Interesting,” Bernie murmured, thinking about Zalinsky's get-out-of-town bag that she and Libby had found in the tunnel.

“That's fairly unusual, isn't it?” Brandon asked Marvin.

“Not really,” Marvin said. “You'd be surprised by the number of people who prepay.”

Bernie swiveled on her bar stool until she was facing Marvin. “Did Zalinsky tell your dad why he was doing it?”

“Yeah. As a matter of fact, he did.” Marvin popped a couple more pretzels into his mouth and crunched them up. “He said that he liked living here, and he wanted to be buried here, and since his experiences in life had taught him how fickle fate was, he believed in buying what he wanted while he had the money. Then he added that he'd learned that if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself.”

“Well, he certainly took that to heart with the play,” Libby observed.

Bernie reached over, took a pretzel, broke it into three pieces, and ate them. “I wonder what happened to make him change his mind?” she mused after she'd chewed and swallowed.

“Change his mind about what?” Marvin asked.

“Staying,” she answered.

Marvin drained his glass, considered having another beer, and decided not to. “He was leaving?”

“Remember Zalinsky's go bag? The one we found in the tunnel?” Libby reminded him.

“What about it? That doesn't prove anything. He could have packed that bag a long time ago,” Marvin pointed out. “That could have been his equivalent of my grandmother sewing diamonds into the seams of her coat for, as she used to say, ‘just in case.'”

Bernie took a sip of her beer. “One thing is fairly clear,” she said. “He obviously didn't see it coming.”

“Obviously,” Brandon agreed. “If he had, he would have taken the guy out first.”

“Definitely,” Bernie replied, thinking back to her dealings with Zalinsky.

“I wonder who is going to be at the funeral,” Libby said, changing the subject.

“He doesn't have any family,” Marvin said.

“None?” Bernie asked.

“None that he listed,” Marvin replied.

Brandon ate a couple of pretzels out of the bowl and refilled it for the third time. “Here's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering whether Zalinsky was killed because someone wanted the teapot or they took the teapot as an afterthought?”

“You and everyone else,” Bernie said. She was about to add something to her comment when her cell began to ring. She dug it out of her tote and answered. It was Casper.

“You have to come,” he cried when Bernie picked up. “You have to come now.”

“Where are you?” Bernie asked.

“At my house. Please.”

“Are you okay?” Bernie asked.

“Physically or mentally?”

“Either.”

“I'm not sure,” Casper replied before he hung up.

“Great,” Libby groused when Bernie filled her in on the call. Talking to Casper was the last thing she wanted to do at the moment. “Do we have to?”

Bernie thought about Casper's tone. Even though Casper was inclined to the dramatic, there had been a genuine note of panic in his voice. “Yeah. I think we do.”

“It's probably nothing,” Libby said.

“No. I think it's something,” Bernie said as she slid off her bar stool. She turned to Brandon. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”

Brandon grinned. “I'm counting on it.”