Here Today, Gone to Maui (24 page)

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Authors: Carol Snow

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“Wow,” I said, fingering the suits. “These are really cool.”
“You should see our bridal line—they’re really flying out the door. These are just prototypes of some of our new designs. Ana’s really talented.”
“I thought Ana was your secretary.”
“Administrator,”
he corrected. “She is. But she’s also the designer.”
“You’ve got your head designer answering your phones?” I asked. “Well, that explains a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ana’s phone manner is awful—completely unprofessional. Plus, she cuts people off.”
“I know.” He sighed. “But she’s been under a lot of stress. New phone system, added responsibilities . . .”
“Dead boss,” I added.
He smiled. “She loses things, too,” he admitted. “Phone numbers, contracts, customer orders. But until we get bigger, I’ve got to make it work. Anyway, I gotta run. The computer’s all yours.”
 
 
Perhaps I shouldn’t be advising someone else on his career, I thought when I opened my e-mail. Mixed in with questions about sick leave, complaints about coworkers, and the inevitable ads for Viagra, there was a memo from Mr. Wills.
 
Re: news and publicity surrounding Wills Rubber Company Dear Jane,
You have nothing but my utmost sympathy regarding the recent events concerning your relationship with your gentleman friend and his apparent deception and subsequent disappearance. All of us here at Wills Rubber Company recognize that this is a difficult time for you, and we will do our best to keep Human Resources running smoothly until you feel you can return to your job in a calm and professional manner.
In addition to my concern for you, however, is a concern for the impact this resulting media attention has had on all of us here in the Wills Rubber family. We have had numerous phone inquiries regarding both your personal and professional qualities as well as intrusive in-person interview attempts, all of which combine to create a distracting work environment. Furthermore, Wills Rubber Company has been described more than once in the media as “a rubber manufacturer,” when, as you are aware, we prefer to be identified as “an industry leader in the creation and distribution of playground flooring constructed from 100% recycled automobile tires.”
We would appreciate your effort to keep Wills Rubber from inclusion in any sensationalist media reports and in correcting the description when such exposure is unavoidable. In the meantime, all of us are hoping for a quick resolution to your current situation, and we look forward to having you back in Brea.
Best regards,
Bob Wills
I responded to all of my e-mails (
Dear Mr. Wills, I assure you that this incident will have no effect on my work performance,
blah, blah, blah) and was on the verge of searching news reports and blogs for any stories about Jimmy when I realized that only one thing would make me feel better now.
I headed for the kitchen.
Chapter 21
Trey Hollingsworth’s kitchen was, not surprisingly, far better equipped than the kitchenette at the Maui Hi. Beyond that, it had even more nifty stuff than my own kitchen at home, and I’ve got Calphalon. Among other things, Trey had professional-quality pots and pans, a heavy steel countertop mixer, and a breathtaking assortment of pale green silicone baking pans, none of which appeared to have ever been used.
First I threw together a buttermilk lemon cake, which I baked in a pineapple-shaped silicone pan. A pineapple cake would have been more thematic, but my lemon cake is truly exceptional. While that was in the oven (or should I say “in one of the ovens”), I whipped up some mango and jalapeño salsa as well as a Kulagreens salad with goat cheese and macadamia nuts; I’d toss it with a simple vinaigrette at the last minute.
It felt good to be doing something productive, to be in control of something, no matter how small. It made me believe that my life could eventually go back to normal.
 
 
“I
love
your
hair
!” Tiara said when she came into the main room.
Her own tresses looked sleeker than they had on the beach.
“Thanks,” I said, patting my head with one slightly mango-y hand.
“Did you use product?”
“Just a little mousse,” I said. “The big difference was in having a blow dryer. I didn’t have one at the Maui Hi, remember.”
“Ahhhh.” Tiara nodded sagely, as if everything suddenly made sense. “I have a lot of product if you want to borrow anything. Volumizing spray, sculpting lotion. Gel, of course. Polishing milk. Mousse can weigh your hair down.” She was wearing her black halter top again, with a black skirt this time.
“I’m okay with the mousse,” I said, wishing I’d worn something more exciting than my Lands’ End tank top, which now had a couple of lemon-batter splotches on it. Okay: wishing I owned something more exciting.
“All right. But you can always change your mind.” She tucked a product-heavy strand of hair behind her ear. Her earrings were enormous dangling things, like two chandeliers made of translucent shells.
A car pulled into the driveway, making crunching sounds on the white shells. A moment later, Michael came through the front door, cell-phone earpiece in place. “They’re here. I’ll tell them.” He stopped short and sniffed. I pointed to the cake, which was on a cooling rack on the counter.
Once he had said, “Okay—keep us posted,” I announced, “I made a lemon cake for dessert.”
He responded with, “The police know who Jimmy really is.”
We were all silent for a moment. I was afraid of what I might learn, afraid that things could actually get worse.
“His name is James Studebaker,” Michael said. “He’s twenty-eight years old.” (Younger than me but older than Tiara, I registered.)
“He was born in Texas,” Michael continued. (Tiara straightened with pride: he had told her the truth.) “But he moved to Lancaster when he was twelve.” (Yessss!) “Graduated high school, did a year of community college before dropping out. Since then, he’s bounced around the beaches—Redondo, Long Beach, Laguna. Works as a waiter, mostly—guess we knew that—plus he has a history of, well . . .”
“Faking his death?” I ventured.
“Attaching himself to wealthy older women.”
Maybe I just imagined Tiara looking at me when he said that. I was all set to say,
Thirty-two is not old!
when Michael clarified.
“Jimmy had hooked up with a string of divorcées in their fifties and even sixties,” he said. “He’s been known to ‘borrow’ credit cards before, though always from people he knew. He’s had charges filed against him but never a conviction. Still, I guess it was enough for him to want to use another name.”
“How did the police find this out?” I asked. “From his photo?” The idea of a genteel older woman recognizing Jimmy from Tiara’s mid-orgasm shot was almost too gross to contemplate.
“Nope.” Michael shook his head. “From Scott. He’s Jimmy’s brother. Police got the number off his cell phone. He probably wouldn’t have spilled everything, but he thinks Jimmy’s dead, and he’s pretty upset. At any rate, the police have scheduled a press conference for noon tomorrow. They’re going to reveal his true identity and also say that he’s probably still alive. That should take the heat off the rest of us.”
“What about your other card?” I asked. “The Amex that you didn’t cancel. Has he tried to use that?”
He shook his head. “Nope. He must be lying pretty low.” His phone purred. “Hello?” He wandered over to the French doors, chatting.
Something was bothering Tiara. “It seems wrong to let Jimmy’s brother think he’s dead. Though I guess it isn’t that long till tomorrow.”
Something else was bothering me. If Jimmy was really alive, why would he leave his phone behind when he knew it would lead the police to Scott?
Tiara leaned on the counter and chewed on her cushiony lip for a while before speaking. “Did Jimmy make many calls when you were together?”
I thought about it. “No.”
“I always thought that was weird,” she said. “That a guy with his own business would get so few calls. And he never checked his e-mail. It made me wonder if there was something a little, you know—not right.”
Huh. There had been times when I’d been concerned that Jimmy wasn’t working hard enough, but I’d never actually found his behavior strange. It was disconcerting to think that Tiara had picked up on something that I hadn’t.
When Michael got off the phone, he retrieved a bottle of white wine from a special minifridge next to the trash compactor. After a bit of digging, he found a metal corkscrew and opened the bottle without mangling the cork too badly. He poured the amber liquid into three superthin glasses.
The wine was slippery and smooth, with the faintest hint of vanilla. “Thanks for letting me stay in your house,” I said.
“It’s not my house. But you’re welcome. Thanks for making dinner.”
“My pleasure.” I pulled the fish out of the big refrigerator and put a cast-iron skillet on top of the Viking stove.
“Is there a TV in here?” Tiara asked. “ ’Cause I’d just like to flip through the channels, if that’s okay.”
There was a television over the fireplace, but I hadn’t noticed it before, mainly because it didn’t look like a television. When off, it seemed to be nothing more than a big, tasteful painting: a primitive scene of a woman in a muumuu lounging on a chaise, flowers in her hair. But when Michael pushed a secret button on the frame,
shazaam!
The painting became a flat-screen TV.
“Not to be crass, but where did your friend get all his money?” I asked Michael as Tiara flipped through the channels.
“Trey was born lucky,” Michael said. “Or rich, anyway. His grandfather, great-grandfather, whatever, was a shipping magnate. Since then, the family has invested wisely—and reproduced only in moderation. Trey works in the family business, managing their money, mostly.” He looked around the vast room. “Guess he’s doing okay.”
Tiara paused on a local weather report. (“Highs in the low eighties. Possible showers in the late afternoon.”) “There’s nothing about us!”
“Bummer,” I said.
Michael’s phone rang. He checked the display and stuck the phone back in his pocket.
“Customer?” I asked.
He shook his head. “My mother.”
“Nice.”
He crossed his arms. “She’s just going to want to know about the birthday party. And I haven’t checked my schedule yet.”
“So go check your schedule. You have a BlackBerry?”
He shook his head.
“You should think about getting one,” I suggested.
“I had one, and I lost it,” he confessed, avoiding my eyes. He looked at me, and his shoulders drooped. “Okay, actually I’ve lost two.”
“C’mon,” I said. “We’ll check your schedule right now, figure out how to make this work.”
Five minutes later, I was on his computer, booking a flight from Orange County to La Guardia (the party was in Manhattan), and he was on the phone to his mother. “Of course I’ll be there.”
“There,” I said when he hung up. “Doesn’t it feel good to have that arranged?”
Before he had a chance to tell me how wonderful and helpful I was being (or, perhaps, how anal and intrusive), Tiara burst into the room.
“The television!” she said. “My pictures! You gotta see!”
The segment was on one of those gossip programs that specializes in stories about celebrity rehab, solid gold baby strollers, and lurid crimes. When we got to the main room, there were photos of Tiara and me plastered across the (way too big) screen. And there was a headline above the pictures: PLAIN JANE AND THE LUSCIOUS LATINO.
My photograph was the one from the Maui newspaper, taken outside the police station, my hair unwashed, my face drawn, my Lands’ End clothes hopelessly rumpled. I really shouldn’t wear yellow.
Tiara’s photo was from the paparazzi session outside the Maui. She looked like she was pole dancing with a palm tree, her breasts spilling out of her halter top, her plump lips parted invitingly, her eyes half closed in delight.
The show’s host, a generic Ken doll with gobs of brown makeup, said something about, “Stay tuned for more shocking details,” before cutting to a commercial.
“That is so wrong!” Tiara howled. “I can’t believe they’d say that!”
I nodded silently, touched by her outrage.
“I’m only a quarter Cuban! And I’m proud of that. But they’re, like, totally ignoring the fact that I’m also German, Norwegian, and Filipino.”
Apparently, it was okay to call me plain: truth in advertising and all that.
Michael didn’t come out unscathed, either. Once the commercial break finished, the Ken-doll host cut to a shot of Jimmies’ “corporate headquarters,” which turned out to be sandwiched between a dry cleaners and a tutoring franchise.
“Is that in Laguna Beach?” I asked. (I didn’t think Laguna Beach allowed crappy strip malls.)

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