Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth
Killer Cocktail (4 page)
“But before we eat, we must hear from the man himself. Paul?”
Mr. Vincent, smooth and practiced, was already making his way up to the bandstand. He took the microphone from his sister. “My sister’s generosity is legendary, but she’s outdone herself. Thank you, Cynthia.”
Aunt Cynthia flapped her hands in mock annoyance at the applause, sending her armful of gold bangles bouncing up and down, but the smile she gave Mr. Vincent seemed genuine. They were very different, but they were still brother and sister.
“This weekend, we celebrate the addition of a glowing jewel to the Vincent family crown,” Mr. Vincent continued. “David and Lisbet honor us by sharing their happiness with us. Congratulations and best wishes to them and
bon appétit
to us all.”
bon appétit
to us all.”
Tricia seemed surprised. “That’s actually sentimental, coming from my father.”
Mr. Vincent handed the microphone back to Aunt Cynthia. She tossed it to the startled keyboard player and stepped off the bandstand with her brother. But as he returned to his table, she made a beeline for ours.
“Incoming. Brace yourselves for impact,” Tricia warned, but Cassady and I weren’t in any danger. Tricia was the one enveloped in the silk tornado and crushed to the bony bosom. I worried for a moment that Tricia might be squeezed into the rib cage and be entrapped there forever,
but after a moment, Aunt Cynthia released her and parked herself in the next chair.
but after a moment, Aunt Cynthia released her and parked herself in the next chair.
“Well.” Aunt Cynthia thumped the table, her bangles jangling noisily. The impact was enough to separate the kissing couple and get the young turk off the phone, but Aunt Cynthia didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy frowning at Tricia.
“Aunt Cynthia. You remember Cassady and Molly,” Tricia said.
“Nice to see you, girls. Is my niece behaving herself?”
“A lady never tells,” Tricia answered for herself.
“Except in a deposition. Have you spoken to either of your brothers? I’m not sure which one of them is demonstrating the greater lack of character.”
“Whose idea was the necklace?” Tricia asked.
Aunt Cynthia flipped her hands skyward in dismissal. “I’m sure David was trying to make a point to Richard. They’ll never outgrow that. Have a nice meal and we’ll talk again later.” Aunt Cynthia arose and swirled off, leaving us staring after her, which was, I’m sure, the desired effect.
Dinner was served. The Asian-French fusion menu was elegant and delicious, the wine and champagne were superb and plentiful, and the tablemates were shrill and annoying. We were with two of David’s college buddies who, Tricia whispered from behind her napkin, she had seen drunk and naked far too often while visiting David at Brown. Brent was an investment banker who kept leaving the table to scream into his cell phone, so he didn’t really even count as a tablemate.
Then there was Jake Boone, a documentary filmmaker who kept trying to explain his vision of “wordless cinema
du monde,”
which sounded suspiciously like silent movies. And his Portuguese girlfriend and camera assistant, Lara Del
Guidice, who kept interrupting Jake every time he approached making a point. Usually, she wanted to expound on some obscure cinematic theory that baffled even him. I began to understand the appeal of silent movies for Jake: He clearly had a very noisy home life.
du monde,”
which sounded suspiciously like silent movies. And his Portuguese girlfriend and camera assistant, Lara Del
Guidice, who kept interrupting Jake every time he approached making a point. Usually, she wanted to expound on some obscure cinematic theory that baffled even him. I began to understand the appeal of silent movies for Jake: He clearly had a very noisy home life.
I could tell Cassady had already decided she didn’t like him at all because she kept asking him questions, just as he was about to put food in his mouth. Between Lara and Cassady, the guy was going to starve to death. Unless pretension can sustain life by itself.
“Then, your ‘wordless’ cinema,” Cassady prompted, just as Jake got a dumpling all the way to his lips, “emphasizes image over story.”
The fork hovered in front of Jake’s mouth for another split second, but the temptation to talk overrode his hunger. He put the fork down and began to pontificate. “The image is the story.” He was momentarily distracted as Lara picked up the fork, ate the dumpling, then started drawing on the tablecloth with the fork. “That allows the story to transcend image and makes words irrelevant,” Jake pressed on. “Words are weighed down by their emotional connotation and distort the true expression of ideas, which is found in the silent image.”
Lara fed him a dumpling and took over. “Jake’s vision for cinema recharges film with its mythic power by stripping away the verbal. Words, unlike images, have no existence beyond their immediate function in film. Their relationship is syntagmatic and not paradigmatic.”
I’ve often wondered if people who are full of hot air are aware of it and just don’t care. Maybe they just can’t help themselves.
“Any form of communication that relies on words is inferior,” Jake informed me when Tricia explained what I did for a living.
“So this conversation is useless,” I said, as pleasantly as possible.
“It will suffice, but it will not transcend.”
I was considering showing him how my middle finger could communicate and transcend, all without words, but I didn’t want to help him make his point. “You’d prefer that I draw people a picture?” I tried to imagine the pictographs that might answer some of the letters I get, particularly the ones about love triangles gone bad. On the other hand, there’d be a great after-market in the modern art world. Hang that over your sofa, baby.
Jake shook his shaggy head with great disdain. “I want people to escape the tyranny of the word by rejecting their media-dominated lives and embracing the purity of noneditorialized experience.”
“For a guy with no faith in words, you sure talk a lot,” Cassady pointed out.
“Words can be a beginning. Foreplay. But for the union of thoughts and passions to truly illuminate, it has to live in a space beyond words. Not everyone’s equipped to dispense with words, but we’re moving there. Now, it’s cell phones with cameras. Soon, it’ll be motion-capture gloves and 3-D visors so we can make art on the move. In the streets. Without words.” Jake leaned over, trying to get closer to Cassady, apparently operating under the delusion that he was winning her over.
His moment was derailed by the semigrand appearance of a brunette beauty with her breasts barely corralled within a neckline that made Cassady’s look tame. As she leaned over to kiss Jake, all I could think was,
Avalanche!
Avalanche!
Lara, surprisingly, did not interrupt as the woman and Jake exchanged a disconcertingly sloppy kiss. She simply moved her hand, holding the fork, under the table.
“I didn’t realize tongue was on the menu,” Cassady said, not as quietly as she might have.
What tender piece of meat Lara speared with the fork I can only imagine, but Jake sat up rather abruptly, nearly knocking his new visitor over as he wrenched his mouth away from hers.
“Hello, Veronica,” Tricia called with forced brightness.
“Hello, Tricia!” Veronica cooed. She leaned over again and for a terrible moment, I thought she was going to chew on Tricia for a while, but Tricia turned her cheek so all Veronica kissed was air.
Lara placed the fork back on the table and Jake wiped his mouth with his napkin while Tricia made gracious introductions. Veronica Innes was an actress who had done a short film with Jake last year—an “experimental deconstruction of the musical experience” that Jake said led him to develop his wordless cinema theory. Didn’t say much for the songwriting, I thought. Or for Veronica’s singing. Now, she was Lisbet’s understudy off-Broadway My concern for the quality of the play increased immensely.
“I love your work!” Veronica gushed when Tricia identified me.
I resisted sneering at Jake and thanked her. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen yours.”
“Sure you have.” Holding her arms parallel to each other, Veronica framed her bust. “Victoria’s Secret. Mainly the underwire styles.”
“Wise choice,” Cassady nodded.
“Play your assets where you find them, girlfriend,” Veronica said. “It’s a waste, otherwise.”
“A very generous outlook,” Cassady replied.
“Veronica’s a generous girl,” Jake leered.
Lara reached for something and I was ready to hand her
the fork myself, but she grabbed the digital camcorder off the table instead, aiming it at Jake and Veronica. “How interesting when ancient, dried-up paths cross again. Let me take a picture of old friends.”
the fork myself, but she grabbed the digital camcorder off the table instead, aiming it at Jake and Veronica. “How interesting when ancient, dried-up paths cross again. Let me take a picture of old friends.”
Veronica didn’t appreciate being characterized as an “old” anything, it was clear, but she still kicked on the smile for the camera. She leaned in and I wasn’t sure if she was going to kiss Jake, Lara, or the camera, but I knew I didn’t want to see it.
This pivotal moment in cinematic history was interrupted by Aunt Cynthia announcing that we should adjourn to the great room for dessert and digestifs. Tricia, Cassady, and I almost scaled over the backs of our chairs in search of more entertaining company.
The great room, despite its elegant decor, could be pressed into service as a town hall in the event of a civic disaster. The outside wall was a series of floor-to-ceiling French doors that provided a heart-stopping look at the ocean without completely distracting you from the crystal chandelier that glowed overhead or the Monet above the fireplace.
The combo moved inside with us and shifted to the dance section of their playlist. A few new arrivals drifted in, mainly guys who looked to be buddies of David’s who had underestimated the time it would take to drive down from the city and had missed dinner. That swelled the ranks of guests to about fifty, with even more people expected to join in over the course of the weekend.
Glasses of champagne were distributed to all in preparation for toasts by Mr. Vincent and others, but the glasses quickly were supplemented by entire bottles, all bearing the label of the upstate vineyard Aunt Cynthia had acquired as a parting gift from ex-husband number two.
“Richard and Davey must have found the cellar keys,” Tricia said.
“Your aunt doesn’t seem to mind,” I pointed out, watching Aunt Cynthia work the room and encourage people to partake.
“She believes being sober after dinner is a breach of etiquette.”
“Who are we to insult the hostess?” Cassady asked, snatching a bottle from the tray of a passing waitress.
So it was left to Lisbet to come up with the memorable breach of etiquette. While the postdinner partying had been proceeding along at a civilized pace, the champagne had pushed the fast-forward button. Lisbet had now slid a champagne flute down the front of her dress, which was quite easy to do, given that the dress didn’t really have a neckline so much as it had an open pathway to her sternum. There were so many women at this party on the verge of flashing their breasts, it was like being at a David Letterman taping.
Somewhere under the few pieces of fabric that did attempt to keep Lisbet clothed, there was apparently sufficient underwiring to press her breasts together firmly enough to keep the glass in place. It was this marvel of engineering, perhaps previously modeled in an ad by Veronica, which had caught the full attention of quite a few men and several women in the center of the room. Then Lisbet started charging the glass with the bottle that dangled from her hand and challenging each to figure out the best way to drink from the glass while spilling the least champagne.
“Oh, look,” Cassady hissed. “Dinner and a show.”
Richard and Rebecca stood next to Tricia’s parents, Rebecca with an unmistakable pucker of disapproval on her face. Could she be seriously trying to reform? Had losing Richard shaken her up sufficiently to make her want to
change? Why else would she be sneering at Lisbet and cozying up to her mother-in-law, whispering quietly into her ear? Six months ago, she would have been encouraging men to line up for their shot, passing out numbers and offering tips for success.
change? Why else would she be sneering at Lisbet and cozying up to her mother-in-law, whispering quietly into her ear? Six months ago, she would have been encouraging men to line up for their shot, passing out numbers and offering tips for success.
For the moment, Jake was the only one taking a shot. He and Lisbet were grinding against each other with NC-17 fervor and both had seemed to forget the objective was to empty the champagne glass. I hoped for an objection from Lara, but she was filming the whole thing, occasionally calling out in Portuguese either instructions or curses, I couldn’t be sure which.
The group of friends standing around them laughed and clapped in encouragement, but you could feel the tension mounting in the rest of the room. Mr. Vincent took a step forward, but Mrs. Vincent put her hand on his arm and he stopped. Did Mrs. Vincent want Lisbet to embarrass herself, assuming that was possible, or was she concerned that a more painful scene would ensue if Mr. Vincent stepped in?
“Where’s Davey?” Tricia asked, scanning the crowd anxiously. “This is no way to start the weekend.”
“Want me to look for him?” I volunteered. There were a number of people in the room growing increasingly uncomfortable with the floor show, but everyone was deferring to Mr. and Mrs. Vincent about interceding. David would be able to call a halt to the proceedings with the least amount of political repercussions.
“Davey or Aunt Cynthia,” Tricia agreed. She started for the door, making urgent little circles with her hands to indicate that Cassady and I should walk with her.
We weren’t more than a dozen steps along when Aunt Cynthia and David entered of their own accord. Well, Aunt Cynthia did, anyway. She had David by the elbow, the instinctive
pincer hold women use when they’re guiding a small child or an unwilling man.
pincer hold women use when they’re guiding a small child or an unwilling man.
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