Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel (16 page)

Nikki swallowed her suddenly too dry toast and nodded. The phone rang just then, and Mrs. M answered it. There were a few polite comments, but Nikki could tell that she was irritated by the call.

“Go on ahead,” said Mrs. M, covering the mouthpiece. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Nikki walked slowly along the hallway, her shoes making no noise on the thick carpet. The only sound was the rustling of paper from inside the office. The door was open a crack, and Nikki pushed it open and entered unannounced.

Inside, Valerie Robinson was elbow deep in Mrs. Merrivel’s desk drawer.

“Jeez,” said Valerie, withdrawing her hand. “What is this? Carrot Top investigates?”

“I prefer to think of myself as more of a Nancy Drew,” Nikki said, raising a defensive hand to pat her hair. During the war games seminar she had been given plenty of time to examine Mrs. Valerie Robinson, but once again she was struck by the woman’s boundless confidence, careless élan, and perfect physique.

“Nancy Drew was a blonde,” said Val, returning to the interrupted task of rifling through Mrs. Merrivel’s desk.

“In the original books she was Titian haired.
Titian
meaning red.”

“Well, I suppose only Ned Nickerson knows for sure,” Valerie said.

Nikki almost gasped out loud. Slandering the sainted Nancy Drew was like eating potato chips in church: the crunch really echoed, everyone noticed, and it was somehow deeply satisfying.

Val had just completed her search of the desk and was in the process of lighting a cigarette when Mrs. Merrivel entered. Val clicked the lighter a few times before the flame ignited, pretending not to see Mrs. Merrivel in the doorway.

“Really, Val!” Mrs. Merrivel exclaimed, standing on the threshold, one hand on the knob. “Do you have to smoke in my office?”

“I’ll open a window,” replied Val around her cigarette. She opened one of the large bay windows and flicked her ash onto the neatly trimmed hedge below. With a wordless frown, Mrs. M handed Valerie an ashtray.

“So what’s new, Miranda?” Valerie asked, sitting on the sill and bracing one foot against the window frame. Nikki had never heard anyone but Mr. M use Mrs. Merrivel’s first name.

“Many things, and don’t put your feet on my white woodwork,” said Mrs. Merrivel sourly, taking her place at the desk. Valerie shrugged and swung her foot out the window. She took a last drag of the cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray with a neat twist, so that the cigarette butt collapsed into a neat spiral of filth.

“So, Nikki,” said Mrs. Merrivel, and Nikki snapped her attention back to Mrs. M. “You must have met our always charming Mrs. Robinson at the War Games seminar. You won that, didn’t you? I hope you’ve been getting reacquainted.”

“Um, yes?” Nikki guessed, feeling that some response was expected of her.

“I’m glad. It’s so much better when partners get along,” Mrs. M said without turning around, and Val froze mid-drag on a cigarette and then began to cough.

“You know, Valerie, I don’t think you would cough so much if you didn’t smoke.” Mrs. Merrivel’s tone was saccharine sweet, but Nikki was starting to wonder how well she and Valerie Robinson actually got along.

“I don’t need a partner,” Val said. “You’ve said yourself that I work better without one.”

“No, I said it was better that you work without a partner than lose any more consultants.” Mrs. M beamed at Nikki, and Nikki started to feel very nervous. She didn’t want to be the dead meat partner to anyone’s Dirty Harry, no matter how cool they were. “But now,” Mrs. M continued, “I think I’ve found someone who’s up to the challenge.”

“Who? Little Nancy Drew over here?” Valerie gave Nikki a once-over and a skeptical shake of the head. “Just because she won the War Games?” She didn’t do it, but Nikki sensed the finger quotes around “won.” They both knew Nikki wouldn’t have won without Val’s interference.

“She also beat your time on the final test,” said Mrs. Merrivel, as if she were commenting on the weather.

“She did not!” Valerie looked outraged.

“By three minutes and three point two seconds,” Mrs. Merrivel said, opening her Day-Timer. Valerie examined Nikki again, this time with narrowed eyes. Nikki flinched a little under the examination.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” said Val. “I’ve always said I could beat that time.”

“You’ve also been saying for years that you wouldn’t mind working with someone if she didn’t slow you down.” Mrs. Merrivel was jotting a few things down in her planner, apparently divorced from the entire argument, except for the fact that she was a main participant.

“So she can jump through a few hoops. It doesn’t mean she can do the work.”

“She’s passed all of her tests, Valerie. I believe that it is the general purpose of those tests to prove that she
can
do the work.”

Valerie made a snorting noise of disbelief and left the sanctuary of the windowsill long enough to scoop up her pack of cigarettes from the desk, before retreating to the window to renew the complex rite of lighting a cigarette. By the time she exhaled the first lungful of smoke, she had apparently reached a decision.

“All right, I’ll give her a try.”

“Well, that’s all settled, then,” said Mrs. M, smiling. “I believe Lillian has some new details for you on the smuggling case you’ve been working on. You should give her a call when we’re done here. She’s expecting Nikki as well, so don’t worry about that. You won’t mind having her stay with you until she finds a place, will you?” Mrs. M didn’t wait for Val to reply, but turned her full attention to Nikki. “Val will take you into town and get you geared
up. They will fill you in on everything at the office. I look forward to seeing your progress.” Mrs. Merrivel stood up and extended her hand to Nikki. Nikki shook it, but was at a loss for what to do next. Val walked to the door.

“Um, thank you,” said Nikki, barely avoiding making it into a question, and Mrs. M smiled and added a quick hug.

“Good luck,” she said. “To the both of you,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

Already walking down the hall, Val gave a half wave without turning around. Nikki gave a last smile to Mrs. M and then followed Val out of the office.

CALIFORNIA XII

Killer Queen

Nikki lugged her backpack downstairs and hugged Mr. M goodbye. Valerie was standing on the porch silhouetted by the sunshine streaming through the open front door.

“Don’t mind Val,” Mr. M whispered to Nikki. “She’s stubborn, but stick to your guns and she’ll respect you.” Nikki nodded and trudged toward her future.

She stopped next to Val and heaved her backpack up onto one shoulder. Six months of training had only added to its contents, and now it seemed to bulge at the seams. Staring out at the immaculate green vista of the Merrivels’ lawn, Val stood ritually smacking her soft pack of cigarettes against the palm of one hand. Eventually, she gave the pack a shake, ejecting one cigarette from the hole at the top, and lit up.

“Sorry if it sounded like I didn’t want you in there,” she said, blowing out a steady stream of smoke. “But you have to argue. If you don’t argue they think they can always have everything their
own way. And we don’t want that.” Val fixed Nikki with a keen eye and added a ghost of a smile.

Nikki smiled tentatively back.

“Come on,” Val said. “We’ve got places to be.”

She led the way to a sky blue Chevy Impala convertible. Nikki stared at the car in surprise. It wasn’t the car she would have imagined for Valerie. Although, now that she’d seen them together, she really couldn’t imagine anything else that would fit.

“Nice car,” she said, offering a sincere compliment.

“1967 Chevy Impala. It’s a piece of shit, but it attracts guys. I’m thinking of trading it in.”

“Oh,” said Nikki, not sure what to do with any of that information. She looked at the car again. She had never really thought of a vehicle in terms of attracting men.

“You coming?” asked Valerie, the door open, one foot in the car.

“Yeah, coming,” said Nikki, breaking from her contemplation of the car. “I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she said, gathering her courage as the car crunched down the gravel drive. “Is your name really Mrs. Robinson?”

Valerie laughed, throwing her head back and releasing the sound from her gut. “I got two things out of that marriage, Red,” she said. “A really excellent name and a cat that pisses in my shoes. But you might as well call me Val. I’ve never really understood the Carrie Mae obsession with proper titles.”

“It does seem anachronistic,” said Nikki, and then she remembered the rest of Val’s statement. “So a cat that pees in your shoes . . . I take it we’re going shoe shopping then?”

The wind whipped Val’s hair into her face and she gave a slightly surprised smile.

“You got a problem with that?”

“Nope,” said Nikki. “But my sponsor in Shoe Shoppers Anonymous might.”

Valerie drove downhill, passing neighborhood parks and cul-de-sac turnoffs. Every yard was green, displaying the owner’s ability to pay a ludicrous water bill. The houses got smaller as they drove down, though not any less nice. The stucco was pristine, and the tile roofs were all in an orderly gentleman-rancher red.

“How’d you beat my time on the final?” Val asked abruptly.

“I got lucky.”

“Huh,” Val said, giving Nikki a narrow-eyed stare. She lapsed into silence and they drove on farther, finally approaching the mall on Magic Mountain Parkway.

“It’s hard to take a street named after an amusement park seriously,” said Nikki, staring at the street sign.

Val chuckled. “That’s California for you. If it makes money, it must be important. They aren’t very original about things like names. This is Town Center Mall. See what I mean?”

The mall had been laid out in an architect’s rendition of a small-town center. One of the roads was even called Town Center Drive. The architect hadn’t wanted anyone to miss his vision. Like the streets, it was very clean. Nikki couldn’t help feeling it was a little too clean.

“Is it just me or are the Stepford Wives going to come and get us?” she asked, as Valerie pulled the car into an angled parking slot.

“Yeah, I know,” Valerie said, getting out and feeding quarters into the meter. “It’s kind of like it ought to have a sign that says,
DECORATING BY THE GAP
, with all their built-in bits of ‘flair’ and ‘ethnic character.’ But they do have a Nordstrom’s, and that means shoes. I mean it’s not Rodeo Drive and they don’t sell any Manolos, but shoes are shoes, even in the boonies.”

Valerie led the way into the obviously new Nordstrom’s build
ing, and Nikki was glad she was wearing her “nice” outfit. Nordstrom’s clerks were notoriously snobby to the poorly dressed. Nikki had once asked a perfume lady about a particular scent and had been answered with “We don’t sell that perfume. Maybe you should try Kmart.” Since then, Nikki had been slightly paranoid about shopping there.

“So,” Valerie said, modeling a pair of beige snakeskin stilettos in a foot mirror, “how’d you get to be Mrs. Merrivel’s pet?”

“What?” Nikki exclaimed, stopping with a foot halfway into a pair of brown patchwork leather boots. The boots had a thick, nearly platform sole, and Nikki had been considering what she would wear them with before Val had made her egregiously incorrect statement about Nikki’s status.

“Oh come on, Red,” Val said with acerbity. “Never kid a kidder. You are staying at her house and you started training late. Someone did some serious sucking up.”

“I did not!” Nikki protested.

“And hey,” continued Val, “you got partnered with me. And trust me, that’s not normal.”

“That doesn’t mean she likes me,” Nikki said.

Val laughed. “OK, you’ve got a point. In that case, what’d you do to piss her off?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Nikki mumbled, blushing scarlet.

The sales clerk arrived, carrying a stack of boxes. “I want these in a size smaller,” Valerie said, handing him the stilettos. The clerk disappeared again.

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Nikki said when the clerk was out of hearing range.

“She’s not your godmother or anything? Not childhood chums with your mum? You didn’t graduate from the same finishing school or something?”

“I went to public school,” said Nikki. “I never met Mrs. Merrivel before . . .”

“Before what?” asked Val, stopping to stare at a woman who was browsing too close for her comfort. After a few agonizing moments of scrutiny, the shopper hurried out of the shoe department.

“Before the Carrie Mae recruiting speech,” Nikki said, happily skipping the entire Canada issue.

“Huh,” Val said, pulling on a pair of boots similar to the ones Nikki had discarded. Nikki thought they looked better on Val. “What about her friend?”

“What friend?” Nikki looked up and found Val watching her through skeptical eyes. Nikki returned the look with the ease of the completely uninformed.

“She’s up to something,” Val said.

“Mrs. Merrivel’s friend?” Nikki was lost.

Val rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Merrivel, you dope. The woman makes Machiavelli look like a used car salesman when it comes to scheming. I know she’s up to something. I just don’t know what. She didn’t tell you anything?”

“I don’t think she’s up to anything,” protested Nikki. “She didn’t say anything to me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say anything to you if I were her, either,” Val said, flopping down into a chair and unzipping the boots.

Nikki pulled on a pair of white espadrille sandals with a wedge heel and lace-up straps that wrapped around her ankle and considered how to respond.

“Personally,” Val said, leaning back and flexing her perfectly pedicured toes, “I think she’s angling for Lillian’s job.”

“Who’s Lillian?” asked Nikki.

“Dr. Lillian Hastings, director of the West Coast branch. She
and Miranda have been enemies for longer than you’ve been alive probably, but it wasn’t a problem until Miranda got assigned to overhaul the training program on the West Coast. Lillian was not amused.”

“And you think Mrs. M wants to be the West Coast Director? I don’t see how I could help with that.” Nikki frowned thoughtfully at the espadrilles, pleased at how thin they made her ankles look.