Cloaked in Malice (2 page)

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Vintage Bag Tips

Operation Petticoat

One

The man who invented the zip fastener was today honored with a lifetime peerage. He’ll now be known as the Lord of the Flies.

—RONNIE BARKER

My name is Madeira Cutler, and I’d like to invent a ghostly tracking device. I mean, there’s nothing like a dead person dropping into your personal space to set you up for the day. Or to knock you off your Jimmy Choos.

“Dante, you scared the wits out of me.” My heart raced beneath the red madras, Claire McCardell shorty playsuit I’d worn to work, Vintage Magic, my very own designer vintage shop, empty except for me.

“My apologies,” said my dapper, Cary Grant clone, dressed for the Ritz, “but I just saw a ghost.”

I set my hands on my hips. “You
are
a ghost.”

“Semantics.” Dante had the wisdom to put some distance between us. “Nice legs.”

I posed in the daring forties outfit, however timely for August, and turned an ankle to show off the matching red sling-back platforms by Yves Saint Laurent. “Hey, stop trying to sweeten my mood,” I said. “I’m miffed at you, McShadow.”

“Why?” he asked. “You’re used to having me around. I introduced myself before you ever moved into my eternal restless place.”

I smoothed and folded the Hermès scarf I’d crushed to my breast at the minor fright. “It’s Saturday, the shop’s barely open, and this is the one day of the week my customers have the good grace to sleep late. I was minding my own business, sorting vintage clothes, thinking about—”

“Nick?”

“Shush. Then suddenly you appear for an unexpected face-to-face. I’m here to tell you: Being startled in that way can scar a girl, ghost or not.”

“Think about how I feel,” my hunky ghost countered. “From an upstairs window, I see a girl crossing your parking lot, who—I swear—lived a long time ago. When she comes in; you’ll see,” he said.

I raised a brow.

He bowed. “But from the depths of my heart, my apologies, though you did set up a designer vintage dress shop in a carriage house formerly owned by a funeral home, thereby surrounding yourself with horse-drawn hearses, caskets, and the basement embalming room that you haven’t seen.”

“Wait, this isn’t about me,” I said, ignoring his insinuation that I might be afraid of the embalming room, which I was. Sure, I’m bold, and I can fix anything, but I’m not stupid. “This is about you, a ghost, being freaked by a ghost. Surely, Mr. Undertaker Underhill, you’ve seen your share?”

“Not like this one.”

The bell on my shop door rang as a flip-haired young Marilyn Monroe type entered, attired in an earth-toned sixties A-line tent dress—Butterick Pattern 2919, a classic favorite. The outfit gave away the stranger’s hobby as a talented seamstress, one with a most unique slant and tint to her wide baby blues, the likes of which I had never—

Well, actually, I believed that I had seen eyes like hers before. But where?

I shivered, deep on the inside, and Chakra, my psychic psycho cat, catapulted into my arms to soothe where she soothed best—at my solar plexus chakra, hence the feline wonder’s name.

“Welcome to Vintage Magic,” I told my new customer, stroking Chakra’s butterscotch-swirl fur.

The blonde, whom Dante couldn’t take his gaze from, systematically devoured my shop’s treasures, looking like a tot in a candy store, her eyes big with a glint of hunger, even greed. “I’ll take one of everything,” she said, proving my point. “I could swoon over your vintage fashions.” She looked down at her dress. “I guess I match this special style of yours. Who knew?”

“You didn’t
know
you liked the style of clothes you’re wearing?”

“Not until I walked in here.” She sighed, showed a dimple, and clutched her large hobo-style tapestry bag behind her back.

What an odd statement. “Where have you been? In a nunnery?”

“What’s a nunnery?” She eyed my amazing merchandise and lifted the sleeve on a cut velvet evening coat. She was
in love
with vintage…but hadn’t known it.

I didn’t doubt her possible swoon. She wore her emotions on her capped sleeves for the world to see.

“This place is fantabulous,” she said, walking along the “avenue” between my named nooks, her expression brimming over with a determination to take on the style as her very own, like this very minute. “Oh, look, your cubbies have street signs. ‘Mad as a Hatter, Little Black Dress Lane, Paris When It Sizzles.’” She chuckled and turned back to us—I mean, she turned back to
me
. Yes, Dante stood rooted beside me, entranced by the sight of her, but
she
didn’t know he existed.

“What do you think?” he asked, elbowing me, more or less, since we couldn’t really touch. “Is she a dead ringer or what?”

I wanted to shush him. It’s difficult to carry on different conversations at the same time, one with a ghost, one with a stranger who had a pulse. Worse because my customer
couldn’t
hear or see the hunk in top hat and tails—his
work clothes. Yes, Dante died of a heart attack during a funeral. Go figure.

Evidently, one wears for eternity what one dies wearing. Note to me: Designer originals, always—couture, if possible—even to bed.

Since my mother had been a witch, I waved a virtual wand of positive vibes toward the universe from whence my gift, or curse, of psychometry had come.

“Harm it none, heed my gesture, never dress me in drek polyester.”

No, I don’t quite dabble in magic…yet. I have a lot to learn. But I do take liberties. I mean, I would never
wear
polyester, unless comatose, and a hospital twit, or worse, a mortician, dressed me in it, so I was taking no chances.

My dear friend, Dolly Sweet, very nearly one hundred and four, planned to die in the Katharine Hepburn gown I gave her, the one like Tracy Lord’s wedding dress. So, of course, I had heart palpitations every time she wore it.

Now she wanted a Philadelphia Story–themed birthday party—and I prayed for her to survive this event like every other when she’d worn the dress. Plus I told everyone to go with a forties theme, accent on Philadelphia Story. To be fair to the residents, the forties allowed for a wider range of choices.

Not to confuse you, many of us who work in Mystic, Connecticut—of Mystic Pizza Movie fame—live a hop, skip
and a jump to the north in Mystick Falls, the governing body for the district. You see a century or more ago, our forefathers dropped the “k” from the Native American version of the seaport town’s name, and those who objected built Mystick Falls and took half the townsfolk with them

And though we lived there, we would celebrate Dolly’s birthday, here, upstairs, so Dante, my ghost who couldn’t leave the building, and Dolly’s first love, could attend.

Nobody could see him but me, Aunt Fiona—not really my aunt but really a witch—and Dolly, who’d had an illicit affair with Dante more than half a century ago, a tidbit that was arguably the area’s biggest secret.

Both their love and the gossip had survived for decades. At the time of their “courtship,” Dolly had been young, beautiful, unmarried, and—shall we say?—unsullied.

Dante, a renowned rake, was, and still is, drop-dead gorgeous. That he looks like Cary Grant is not an exaggeration. He’d been years and years Dolly’s senior at the time of their fling, and the last living heir to the wealthiest dynasty in Connecticut.

Fact is, the gossip might have gone down in history as speculation if Dante had not bequeathed Dolly his fortune, this building included, which she sold to me for the cost of taxes. I love them both dearly, and I love that they’re still attracted to each other, he a debonair fifty-year-old ghost; she a wrinkled centenarian in the prime of
her life. To this day, they dallied, every chance they got, in their favorite corner of my shop: turning a sizzling Paris into more of an inferno.

So why could Dante not take his gaze from a young stranger off the street?

Sure, she had an hourglass figure with the kind of boobage anybody would envy, especially me. But that wasn’t it. I knew Dante the rogue, and he was
not
present at the moment. If I didn’t know better, I’d think my eerie friend here better embodied Dante the smitten, a readable emotion he reserved for Dolly, and Dolly alone.

I honestly wished I could ask him, but my new customer gazed at me with expectation. So I extended my hand. “I’m Madeira, call me Maddie, Cutler, and this is my shop. Welcome.”

“Nice to meet you.” Her grip was firm, eye contact on target, nothing to hide. “My name is Paisley Skye. Sounds fake, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all,” I said, taken by surprise and hoping my lie rang true. Frankly, though her question jarred me, I found the image inspiring, in a fashion-designer sort of way. If the sky were paisley, the grass would have to be…dotted swiss.

The bell above the door jingled again, and Dolly Sweet and her widowed daughter-in-law, Ethel, came in. They were regulars and very early risers, no matter what day of the week. During the course of my life—like since I could walk, I’d often counted on them for an early
homemade breakfast full of sugary carbs, love, and friendly chatter.

Dolly’s eyes brightened to a mirror image of smitten when she spotted Dante behind the counter.

He winked as only he could, his signature “melt your drawers” gaze still the talk of the senior center, usually inspired by Dolly’s presence.

“Check out Mad’s customer, Doll,” he told his old flame, “and tell me she
doesn’t
remind you of someone.”

“Dolly,” I said, ignoring him. “This is Paisley Skye. Paisley, this is Dolly and her daughter-in-law, Ethel.”

“Hello, Dolly,” Paisley said, her chuckle reminding me of Dolly’s, in tone and cadence, though their voices sounded nothing alike.

“Paisley Skye, you say?”

“Yes, I came looking for the Mystic Photography Studio, but it’s closed.”

“Dolly tilted her head. “Ethel,” she said. “Does this young woman remind you of someone?”

“Like who?” Ethel asked.

Dolly turned to Dante, her look both knowing and inquiring.

“You,”
he snapped. “She looks like you did.”

“It’s true,” Dolly said, her mind clearly working. “Ethel, does she remind you of me when I was a girl?”

Dolly’s eighty-something daughter-in-law/housemate snorted, a form of disdain she’d perfected, especially when aimed Dolly’s way. “How would I know, Mama, what
you looked like as a girl? You must have been pushing seventy when I married your son.”

“I was
a young
fifty-six.”

“Same difference.” Ethel turned to Paisley. “We used to think fifty was old. But my mother-in-law, here, age-wise, she’s running neck ’n’ neck with the earth’s core.”

“Thank you, dear. You’re standing at the cusp of its gravity pull yourself.” Dolly gave great snark. I know. I learned it at her knee.

Dante’s chuckle practically charmed the cherries off Dolly’s straw hat, a highly entertaining sight as Dolly’s cheeks turned a charming pink.

Paisley’s smile so like Dolly’s, and her unique eyes, the same bright periwinkle blue as Dolly’s, swayed me to agree with Dante. “You know, you two do look like you could be distantly related.”

The hand Paisley raised to her temple trembled. “You know, I’ve dreamed all my life of hearing somebody say that.”