Black Thursday (11 page)

“But I have my own—”

“Password?” FJ asked. “You used to use some variation on the words
frugal
or
bargain
, but now you use one of the cat's names and a number from one to five.”

“
Applebee4
ring a bell?” Trent asked.

“You shouldn't be trying to open my private emails in the first place!”

“We wouldn't,” FJ said, “under normal circumstances.”

“But we were worried,” Trent said.

Why had I thought the boys could track down CC's web address but wouldn't think to crack my apparently rudimentary password combinations? “You still shouldn't be snooping on my email account.”

“But it's okay to snoop into CC's?”

Touché.
I kept that comment in my head.

“So, what is going on?” FJ asked.

“I'm not sure yet.”

Since it was useless to try to keep anything from the boys, I proceeded to fill them in on everything from the suspicious nature of the accident to the various theories about CC's identity.

“Seriously?” Trent asked when I finished.

“Interesting,” FJ said, pulling up MrsFrugalicious.com. Trent and I watched as he logged into the admin section and began to peck away on the keyboard. “CC's comments did start appearing right about the time Bargain Barn began to advertise,” he finally said.

“So Alan is on to something?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Trent said.

“We'll keep looking into it,” FJ said.

“I really appreciate it,” I said as the door from the garage squealed open and the combined chatter of various Michaels family members echoed through the front hall.

“Listen,” I said, lowering my voice with the sound of approaching footfalls. “Everything I've told you or that you guys find out is entirely between us for right now. Okay?”

“No problem,” FJ said.

“What about Eloise?” Trent asked, in his less than quiet indoor voice. “I mean, she's part of all of this, too.”

“I don't want to get her all worked up and then have to send her back to school tomorrow worried before things get figured out.”

“And she will get all worked up and worried,” FJ said.

“True that,” Trent added.

“I just think it's better to give her the all-clear message once it really is all-clear.”

“Hey there,” Frank said from outside the door to my office. He entered the room smiling, almost expectantly, as though he'd been listening and thought he'd heard something he wanted to hear. “What's doing?”

He stopped beside a framed snapshot of himself. Taken in happier times during a family trip to Hawaii, I'd left the photo on my bookshelf for “Feng Shui purposes” at the realtor's insistence. When I compared the current humbled Frank with the tan, handsome, cocky man I'd fallen in love with, and then glanced over at the boys who looked so much like him, I realized the anger I'd held all these months was giving way to something else.

What that something was, I couldn't entirely say.

Not yet.

“Nothing to report,” I said.

_____

There was plenty to report to Alan, however.

As soon as I shooed all three guys out of my office, I dialed his number. When he didn't answer, I left a voicemail followed by a text, both with a generic
call me when you get this
message.

Just in case.

I needed to rest before I had to gear back up for the Higgledy-Birdie nuptials. But hoping Alan would get back sooner rather than later and too keyed up to actually close my eyes, I turned to my computer, opened my spreadsheet program, and updated my
Questions & Answers
spreadsheet instead:

Why would CC write to me from as many as four different email addresses?

1. She had various emails and simply used whichever one struck her at the moment she felt compelled to write.

2. She was crazy.

3. She wasn't a she at all, but a big corporation bent on bankrupting and taking over Bargain Barn.

As Alan's theory rolled around in my head, I logged onto Mrs. Frugalicious. I checked for any noteworthy follow-up comments and returned the business correspondence that had been rolling in over the past two days (including no less than six advertising inquiries, all of whom mentioned they'd seen me on the news and wanted to do business).

I emailed back with advertising rate cards and was just finishing up a response to the message Wendy Killian from
Here's the Deal
had left on Friday when my phone rang.

My stomach flip-flopped when I read
Payphone
on the caller ID, but I figured it had to be Alan calling me from a “safe” phone.

“It's Alan,” he said, confirming my suspicions. From the traffic noise and what sounded like wind in the mouthpiece, I assumed he was calling from the last remaining coin-operated gas station phone in the whole city. “Returning your call.”

“I'm not sure what to make of this,” I said by way of hello. “But CC was writing from four different email accounts.”

“Did you say four different emails?”

“And the message I got last night was different from the other three.”

“Holy,” he said, over a honk. “This confirms everything I thought.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “But why would CC, whoever she or they might be, send that last email? Wouldn't it just make more sense to let the accident be an accident?”

“That's been nagging at me too,” he said.

“Don't you think its time we alert the police?”

“Not yet,” Alan said. “Whoever's behind this is clearly ruthless. If they get wind that we've given the police what at this point are only leads—”

“Okay,” I said, not entirely sure that was the right course of action. “But—”

“But I plan to spend the rest of the day holed up here in the office viewing store security tape from Thursday night.”

“There's tape?”

“Not from up high enough to see how that pallet fell, but there has to be something or someone of interest.”

_____

Before I finally, blessedly, rested my head for a long overdue nap, I posted a message on MrsFrugalicious.com:

Dearest Frugarmy,

As most of you know we lost one of our own under the most awful of circumstances. If you are a friend or relative, a fellow shopper from Bargain Barn, or just want to support the family of Cathy Carter, please join me in celebrating her life and commitment to bargain hunting at the North Suburban Church tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.

With love,

Mrs. Frugalicious

sixteen

The processional music was
already playing when we arrived and split up into twos and threes to fill the random remaining seats among the plastic palm fronds and flowers in the central courtyard of the South Highlands Valley Mall. I managed to wave to a few familiar current and former mall employees before the “Wedding March” began to filter through the speaker system and we all stood.

Bedecked in a tiny veiled wreath and perched on the shoulder of Pete from Pet Pals, Birdie the parrot started down the aisle toward a grinning, tuxedo-clad Higgledy the monkey.

Joyce stood beside me, dabbing her eyes. “I just love weddings.”

“Me too,” I said, although I couldn't quite shake off thoughts of the funeral I'd also be attending in the next twenty-four hours. Still, the inherent joy of a commitment ceremony, even one as surreal/absurd as to unite two different species, was a welcome diversion.

Birdie hopped from Pete's shoulder onto the flower-covered perch beside her grinning, love-struck groom. This was an odd diversion, but admittedly a touching one.

Mr. Piggledy—complete with Bible, black robe, and online minister's license—joined the happy couple at the altar.

“I'm glad you finally got some rest this afternoon,” Joyce whispered.

“Me too,” I repeated. I'd slept through my alarm and finally awoke hitting my snooze button in the middle of a dream where I was being pecked by a squawking parrot. “It's been a challenging few days.”

“Don't you mean months?” Joyce whispered.

I glanced back at Barb, seated behind and to the right of us with her kids and Gerald, and Eloise and the boys in front and to the left, and wondered how, despite effort on my part to avoid being alone with my mother-in-law, I'd veered off to leave a present at the gift table
30
and ended up sitting with her.

“Months,” I managed to agree.

“Dearly beloved, we have come here on this crisp fall evening to surround Higgledy and Birdie with our love and best wishes for the journey they've chosen to embark upon together. While this may be the first ceremony of this type you have witnessed, its purpose, like all commitment ceremonies, is to celebrate deep spiritual union.” Mr. Piggledy paused to smile lovingly at the happy couple and then a
t Mrs. Piggledy, who was dressed in mother-of-the-bride pink chiffon and a matching pale pink cast, and was seated in a flower-covered wheelchair parked in the front row. “From myself, my wife, and the bri
de and groom, we thank you for being here tonight. We are truly blessed to be able to celebrate this passage in the presence of so many good friends and family.”

A woman wearing the dark green blazer bearing the SHVM crest that signified her position as the new mall manager stood off to the side of the altar. She smiled and blew a kiss to the happy couple.

“Higgledy and Birdie, despite your individual differences, you share love, loyalty, and trust, which are the foundations of a lasting and happy union …”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a look of what seemed to be consternation cross Joyce's tight face.

“And with your commitment, trust, and uncanny ability to communicate with each other, I know your life together will be full of joy, satisfaction, and peace.”

“Frank …” Joyce whispered under her breath and into my ear.

I held mine, dreading what was coming next.

“Who brings this monkey to be given into this union?” Mr. Piggledy asked.

“I do,” Mrs. Piggledy said, her wheelchair beside Higgledy.

“And who brings this bird to be given into this union?

“I do,” said
Pete from Pet Pals.

“I don't believe what an absolute dumb shit he was,” Joyce whispered in my ear.

Had I'd really just heard Joyce, who
never
swore, utter such a pointed slur (no matter how accurate) about the Michaels family pride and joy? “Did you just call Frank a—”

“Marriage is the magic of two hearts joining as one,” Mr. Piggledy continued. “It creates a new light and space within which you both will live beyond your soon-to-be-shared cage …”

I couldn't believe I'd spent the better part of a week trying to avoid being alone with Joyce, anticipating what she might say in defense of her wayward son and what I might say in response, only to have her come out and completely bash him during a wedding.

Mr. Piggledy turned to the candelabra behind him. “Higgledy and Birdie, the two candles now lit before you symbolize each of you individually. The larger candle, still unlit, is to symbolize your unique union.”

At Mr. Piggledy's cue, Higgledy climbed into Mrs. Piggledy's lap and Birdie hopped back onto Pete's shoulder. Pete pushed the flower-covered wheelchair over to the candelabra.

“Fire! Fire!” the bird said in her guttural, pre-recorded-sounding avian voice and flapped her wings.

A charmed
ahhh
went through the crowd as Higgledy slipped a comforting arm around his bride-to-be.

“May the eternal flame of your love continue to burn brightly for as long as you both shall live,” Mr. Piggledy said.

“You know Frank cries to Barb on a regular basis?” Joyce whispered as Mrs. Piggledy and Pete helped their respective pets light the unity candle. “And he must be a glutton for punishment, because she does nothing but assure him he's getting what he deserves.”

“I don't know what to say,” I finally said, as Pete and Mrs. Piggledy returned to their sides of the aisle and a salesgirl I recognized from Whimsey's Accessories stood and made her way to the microphone.

“I didn't know what to say when my darling Gerald stepped off the curb, either.”

My heart, already thumping, began to pound in my chest. “What?!”

“Dear,” Joyce said in a tone that was equal parts comforting and condescending, “they all do it at one time or another.”

I glanced back at a blissfully unaware Gerald, who, despite his present mild senility, had been as upright and respectable as he'd been handsome and dashing.

The salesgirl began to belt out an a cappella version of Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together.”

“Men will be men,” Joyce added, smiling in her husband's direction. “Let's face it. They're just weak at their core.”

“But …” I finally managed despite feeling like my mouth dried shut.

“But you've certainly been playing it just right.”

“Joyce,” I whispered, “I haven't been ‘playing it' at all.”

“Kicking him to the curb without kicking him out of the house so he'd see what he'd soon be missing forever was brilliant.” She patted my knee lightly. “I've never seen that boy so utterly down and out.”

I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't really just having a dream in which my cheating husband's mother bad-mouthed her son at the commitment ceremony of a primate and a tropical bird. “Given our finances, it wasn't like I've had a whole lot of choice in the matter,” I whispered, feeling the sting from my own pinch.

“You certainly do now.”

“Meaning what?”

The song ended, the salesgirl returned to her seat in the front row, and Mr. Piggledy returned to the makeshift pulpit.

“Higgledy
,
do you take this bird to be your partner, to share your life openly with her, to love, honor, and comfort her, in sickness and in health for all time?”

Higgledy hopped up and down and emitted an undeniably affirmative
hoo-hoo.

“Birdie do you take Higgledy to be your partner, to stand beside you always, in celebration and sadness, for richer and for poorer, to love and to cherish, for now and forevermore? If so, say I do.”

“I do,” she mimicked.

“I love you both,” Joyce whispered. “And I want what's best for everyone.”

“Which is what?” I asked, more confused than I'd been in months.

“The giving and receiving of rings symbolizes our love for one another, which like the circle, knows no end, but given the unique nature of our ceremony—and something of a tendency for escape on the part of both of our participants—we've opted for matching tracking bracelets.”

A man wearing a veterinarian's lab coat stood and approached the altar bearing a pillow with two animal tracking devices.

Joyce flashed the giant marquis diamond I remembered Gerald giving her for their thirty-fifth anniversary. “It was well worth the temporary trauma.”

“Temporary trauma?” I heard myself repeat as the veterinarian began to affix the bracelets onto the ankles of Higgledy and then Birdie. “You got that ring as an apology gift?”

“Not to mention my convertible, a pair of opal earrings, the condo in Palm Springs, and our annual Thanksgiving cruise,” she said. “All of which have given me great satisfaction over the years.”

“Higgledy and Birdie, please face each other.”

Since they couldn't exactly take each other's hands, Higgledy grasped the edges of Birdie's wings.

“Oh Lord, give Higgledy and Birdie the willingness and patience to fulfill their commitments to one another and fill them with freedom and happiness even while sharing cages.”

He turned to the audience.

“Will each of you do all that is in your power to encourage them in their commitment and to support them in the promises that they make here today? If so, please indicate by saying
we will
.”

“We will,” the audience said in unison.

“You have Frank over a barrel,” Joyce whispered.

“May this day shine forever in your lives. May you give cheer and strength to each other. May your life together be a source of inspiration to yourselves, your families, your friends, and to all whose lives you touch.”

“This is no time for a divorce,” she continued quietly.

“With the promises they have made to one another, and by the power of their love, I now pronounce Higgledy and Birdie to be joined in spiritual union. You may kiss the bride.”

“Kiss! Kiss!” Birdie said.

The crowd was already clapping and hooting as Higgledy leaned in and planted a wet one on Birdie's beak.

Mr. Piggledy beamed. “Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to be the first to introduce Mr. and Mrs. Higgledy and Birdie Piggledy!”

_____

“Are you all right, dear?” Mr. Piggledy asked as I made my way through the receiving line and stopped to give him a congratulatory hug.

“You look pale,” Mrs. Piggledy said from beside him. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“I'm fine.” That was, if being downright shell-shocked and numb was fine. I leaned down to hug her. “I'm just glad you're okay. The ceremony was amazing.”

“Wasn't it?” She gazing admiringly at Mr. Piggledy. “Went off without a hitch even with my bad wheel.”

Mr. Piggledy beamed. “If I learned anything in my years at the circus, it's to expect and be prepared for the unexpected.”

I grabbed a plastic pineapple from a passing waiter with a drink tray and toasted that thought by sucking down the tropical, rum-infused concoction.

Gerald led Joyce out to the dance floor and they began to tango together in what seemed to be perfect step.

What if Frank was, as she said,
over a barrel
and guaranteed to behave
as long as we both shall live?
Would it be easier to stay married knowing I had a new, improved version of the man I'd fallen in love with rather than face an unknown single future?

The rest of the evening was a blur of music, rum drinks, jungle-themed appetizers, and small talk.

That was, until everyone gathered to watch Birdie climb onto Higgledy's shoulder, and with the help of Pete and Mr. Piggledy, cut the cake.

And Barb appeared out of nowhere beside me.

“You okay?” she asked, as Birdie pecked lovingly at the first piece in Higgledy's outstretched hand.

“Fine,” I said, adding, “I hear the cake is supposed to be fantastic. Banana chocolate chip with banana filling.”

“I can't wait to try some,” she said spinning around to face me. “And, by the way, I know you're not okay.”

I grabbed another beverage from a passing waiter. “Why's that?”

“I know my mother got to you.”

“Got to me?”

Barb looked into my eyes. “Definitely.”

All I could think to do was take a nonchalant gulp of my drink.

“I'm not sure why she decided she needed to lay it all on you in the middle of a wedding.” Barb shook her head. “But I suppose time is of the essence.”

“She told you she was going to talk to me?” I asked, not even attempting to mask the incredulity in my voice.

“I could tell just by looking at your reaction as she whispered into your ear during the ceremony.”

“And you also know
what
she told me?” I asked, locating the nearest restroom since throwing up suddenly seemed to be in the realm of possibility.

“I'm guessing
men will be men
and
temporary trauma
ring some bells.”

“I just can't believe she—”

“Told you about Dad's indiscretions, or that she told me?”

“Either.” My voice cracked. “Both.”

“Believe me, I was more than a little shocked to find out that Dad …” She hung her head for a second as if to regain her composure. “But I really wished I'd listened to her and not gotten divorced myself.”

“Your husband was playing around?”

“As she said, they all do. Although I can't say if that's why Craig got divorced, for the record.” She sighed. “But I should have just let him know he'd best keep it in his pants, and then forgiven him.”

“But—”

“I could have reaped the spoils like Mom did.” She looked over at the dance floor where her young daughters were clustered together on the sidelines. “And the kids wouldn't have suffered nearly as much.”