Monet Talks (3 page)

Mercifully, the shop phone rang. I ran to get it.

“Hello?” I said, hoping it was the police, telling me they were just seconds away.

“Is this Mrs. Timberlake?”

“It's Washburn now, but yes, this is the place that was burgled. I know it was just a bird, but I feel violated—”

“Do you want Monet back?”

“Excuse me?” I stared at the caller ID box. The number was blocked.

“If you want him back, Mrs. Timberlake, then you have to give me the real Monet.”

“Who is this?”

I got a dial tone in reply.

T
he Charleston police force has officers who number among the finest in the world, but none of them were on duty that day. Officers Tweedledee and Tweedledum could not get it into pumpkin heads why I should be so upset over the loss of a bird. A real bird pooped, they bothered to inform me. At least a stuffed starling couldn't spread disease. Nevertheless, they dusted for prints between calls on the loudest walkie-talkies on the planet. The only way I could get the cops to leave was to toss a box of day-old Krispy Kremes into the street.

After I locked the door behind them, I tried calling Greg, but by then he was well out into the ocean and couldn't be reached. I needed comfort then, not harebrained schemes, so the next person I called was my best friend, Wynnell Crawford (I have several best friends, by the way). Wynnell is also an antiques dealer, al
though her shop, Wooden Wonders, is in West Ashley, not on the peninsula.

“That's terrible,” she said, after I explained what had happened. “Abby, you must feel so violated, having your shop broken into like that.”

“That's exactly what I feel. But the police didn't seem to care about that. All they wanted to do was flirt with C.J.”

“Let me guess…Officers Tweedledee and Tweedledum?”

“You got it. Wynnell, it makes me sick to my stomach to think that someone not only has the key to my shop, but knows my security code.”

“Abby, do you know that for sure?”

“The lock wasn't forced. And it was locked again when C.J. arrived this morning. I guess it's possible I forgot to set the alarm last night, but you know how I am.”

“One check short of obsessive-compulsive?”

“And that phone call—it didn't make a lick of sense. The
real
Monet. I've never had a Monet painting in my shop, and I've certainly never owned one. And that creepy stuffed starling.” I shuddered. “Wynnell, what kind of demented person would do such a thing?”

“Is that a question, Abby, or do you just want to be heard?”

“Both!”

“Well, I hear you. I'm also afraid you're not going to like what I'm about to say.”

I sighed. “You're not going to blame it on a Yankee, are you?”

“They're a strange bunch, Abby. Just yesterday a group of Yankee tourists came into my shop. They were headed out toward Middleton Plantation but had gotten lost. Of course I gave them directions, but do you think they bought anything? All they did was use my bathroom.”

“To be fair, Wynnell, you only sell furniture. And you don't ship. What did you expect them to buy?”

“Just the same, never trust a Yankee, my daddy always said, and he was right. I bet you dollars to doughnuts it was a Yankee who stole your bird.”

“As long as we're being fair, Wynnell, your daddy's mama was a Yankee.”

“You don't need to be insulting,” she said, and hung up.

I waited by the phone while I counted the seconds. It rang precisely at ten.

“Hello.”

“Sorry about that, Abby. I know I'm kinda touchy on the subject, seeing as how I'm not a purebred Southerner like you. But back to your problem. You need to change the locks, of course, and your security code. Also, I don't think you or C.J. should work alone until you learn what kind of kook you're dealing with.”

“Good advice. Maybe I'll just close the shop altogether for a few days. Mama's been want
ing me to spend some time with her, and C.J. has been asking for some beach days.”

“It must be nice,” Wynnell said pointedly.

When we both lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, we were more or less on equal footing. But now I'm an S.O.B. and Wynnell is a W.O.T.A. That is to say, I live South of Broad Street on Charleston's coveted lower peninsula, and my buddy lives West of the Ashley River. There is nothing wrong with being a W.O.T.A.—some of the best people are—but the area South of Broad is said to contain the fifth highest concentration of wealth in the nation. Sure, I would lose money by closing my shop, but it wasn't going to make much of a dent in my personal finances.

“Business has been slow,” I said, lying through recently capped teeth.

“Whatever. Abby, promise you'll call if you need me?”

“I promise.”

“I gotta go. Some customers just walked in.”

Before I hung up I heard her talk in the high-pitched voice she uses when she's pretending to talk to customers. Before I locked the doors to my shop for the next few days, I would put a sign in the window directing my customers to Wynnell's shop, Wooden Wonders, well West of the Ashley.

 

I was still upset when lunch rolled around, so some of my other best friends, the Rob-Bobs, insisted on taking me out to eat. Their shop, The Finer Things, is doing so well that they now have an assistant, Simone Dupree. The girl speaks perfect English, but can put on a French accent at the drop of a syllable. If she tilts her nose skyward, the Rob-Bobs' sales head that way, too. FYI, the lunch offer was just for me, which was just as well, because C.J. was already out on Folly Beach, searching for skin cancer.

I suggested Sticky Fingers on Meeting Street as our lunch spot. You can get just about any style of ribs there, but the very best, in my opinion, are the Memphis Dry. They are so good your tongue will reach out and slap your face silly. The meat is served with side orders of baked beans and cole slaw. Perhaps it was not their intention, but the owners of Sticky Fingers have hit upon a formula that ensures their delicious meals will be remembered for the rest of the day.

At any rate, the Rob-Bobs' real names are Rob Goldburg and Bob Steuben, respectively. Rob is tall, handsome, and in his early fifties. Bob is—well, he's still in his thirties. Rob, who hails originally from Charlotte, is the epitome of a Southern gentleman. Bob is from Toledo, Ohio. Rob is
the
antiques expert in Charleston. Bob fancies himself a gourmand.

After we'd ordered our drinks—sweet tea all around—Bob complained, as usual, that we weren't eating lunch at their place.

“It wouldn't have been any trouble, Abby. You know how I love to cook.”

Knowing what was coming next, whether I invited it or not, I humored him. “What would have been on your menu?”

“Poached quail eggs on toast points with hollandaise sauce, chilled asparagus aspic, and a piping hot sweetbread soufflé.”

“He means thymus glands,” Rob growled. “From calves. We had them last night.”

“From calves? Aren't you afraid of getting mad cow disease?”

“Moo-ve over,” Rob said, and poked his partner good-naturedly. “You're taking up too much table space.”

“I don't get my sweetbreads just anywhere,” Bob said. “I special order them from a ranch in Argentina, where mad cow disease has never been found.”

“He also orders rhea meat from that ranch.”

“What kind of meat?”

“Rhea,” Bob said. “It's a large, flightless bird, kind of like an emu or an ostrich. In fact, it's the largest bird in the Americas. Gets up to five feet tall. I've been ordering just the steaks so far, but I'm thinking of ordering a whole one for Thanksgiving. Yes, I know, the air freight will be a killer, and I'll have to hunt around for an
oven to fit it—maybe a bakery, or someplace like that—but just think, I'll be able to invite everyone I know over to dinner.”

“For their last meal,” Rob quipped. “Remember what happened when you made the eel flambé?”

“That was a fluke.”

“No, that's when you served whale. Maybe you should order a live rhea, and Abby can ride it to dinner.”

“Guys, I appreciate your attempts to distract me, but I can't stop thinking about the break-in. It gives me the heebie-jeebies when I think of how I might have been in the storeroom at the time. And that horrible stuffed starling. This is a sick person.”

“Or a student from the College of Charleston.”

“You're kidding—aren't you?”

Rob shook his head. “It could have been an initiation prank. School's just starting. This city is flooded with kids. And then there are the Citadel cadets. If I was thirty years younger—”

“Which you're not,” Bob said.

“But it couldn't be kids,” I protested. “How would they know my alarm code?”

“Are you positive you set it?”

“Of course I am. You know that I make a ritual out of it every night, unless, of course, it's C.J.'s turn to close. And last night was mine—oh my gosh!”

“Abby, you're pale as a sheet. What is it?”

“Mama came in right before closing. We got to talking in the storeroom, and I remember thinking about closing—intending to close—but then I walked Mama out to her car, and then I got in mine, because I was so distracted by the thought of crashing—uh, never mind. I guess maybe I didn't. Set the alarm, I mean.”

“Whoa,” Rob said, and waved the waiter away. “Back up a bit there, girl. What were you so distracted about?”

“Do you have to know?”

“Absolutely,” they said in unison.

“Mama wants us to crash the St. Ophelia Ball.”

Rob whistled in admiration. “She's something else, that Mozella.”

“We have a friend who crashed the St. Ophelia Ball,” Bob brayed. The man has a bass voice that is the envy of bullfrogs everywhere. “He said it's a cinch if you smell like mothballs and don't move too fast.”

“Did he crash it by himself?” I asked. “I thought only couples were allowed.”

“Maynard's a ventriloquist. He took a mannequin. He had it—he calls it Sheila—strapped to his shoes.”

“Very funny.”

“Bob's not joking, Abby. They won a trophy for best-looking couple. They would have won
another one for best dancing, but one of Sheila's feet came loose and dragged around the dance floor. At a very slow pace, of course.”

“I don't believe you guys, but thanks for trying to cheer me up.”

“That's what friends are for, Abby. And quit worrying so much about that stupid prank—because I'm sure that's what it was. When I was in college, we went into town and borrowed a toilet from a plumbing store, which we then put in a fountain in the middle of campus. But first we stuck an effigy of the college president on the john.”

“When he says ‘borrowed,' he means swiped,” Bob boomed, which got the entire room's attention.

Rob frowned at his partner. “Anyway, you shouldn't worry about your alarm, either. It wouldn't hurt to get the number changed, but I bet anything it was a simple case of forgetfulness. It happens to me all the time.”

“Amen to that,” Bob said, at only slightly diminished decibels.

“Yeah?” Rob said. “Well, I'm still trying to forget what you served me for supper last night.”

I waved the waiter back over.

 

One might think it would be hard to plan such an elaborate charade with a live husband in the
house, but Mama and I managed to pull it off. It definitely helped that Greg works hard outdoors all day and generally isn't interested in going out unless I drag him. We told him we were going to an opera at the Gaillard, and when he politely asked the name of the production, I told him “The Man from La Mannequin.” He told us to have a good time and went back to watching a taped baseball game.

We're not stupid; we changed into our ball clothes at the Rob-Bobs'. Rob has acted in community theater from time to time, and he fancies himself an expert at stage makeup. When he was through trying to turn Mama into a 102-year-old woman, she looked like the victim of a hit-and-run graffiti artist.

“Don't you think those lines on her face are a little wide?” I asked gently.

“Maynard said they use only candlelight, because it makes everyone look good. If I made Mozella's lines any thinner, they wouldn't show up.”

“Maybe if she was on a stage,” Bob whispered in my ear. He was in charge of plastering my short but very thick hair to my head. He'd run out of mousse halfway through and switched to Vick's VapoRub. At least my sinuses weren't going to bother me.

“I heard that,” Rob said. He turned and gave me the once-over. “Abby, your hair isn't the only thing that needs flattening.”

“I'll take that as a compliment. But I'm sure that when I put the tux jacket on, you won't even notice.”

Bob sighed. “My two favorite people—all dressed up and ready to knock Charleston dead.”

“Careful,” Rob said. “Some of those people there tonight might be closer to death than you think. Some of them played with God as a child, and from what Maynard says, some of them are richer. Are you good at mouth-to-mouth, Abby?”

“Only with Greg.”

The doorbell rang. Bob ran to get it and returned a moment later with C.J. loping along behind him. To my astonishment, the big galoot was wearing a purple ball gown and matching high heels.

“So I was thinking,” she said, as she teetered into the master bedroom, “that we could all chip in and buy Abby another mynah. It wouldn't have to be a
Gracula religiosa
, of course, but Abby's not very observant and she'd never notice—” She lumbered to a stop. “Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you had company.”

“We don't,” Bob said. “It's only—”

“Mrs. Cotton Crustopper,” Rob said, bowing to Mama, “I would like to present Jane Cox—C.J., this is Mrs. Crustopper and her escort for the evening, Reginald Stiles.”

C.J. offered Mama a mitt the size of New Jersey. “I remember you. We sat beside each other at the Daughters of Fine Lineage Hat and Chat Luncheon last summer.”

Mama looked stunned. We both knew that C.J., despite her country-bumpkin persona, had relatives as inbred as the best of them. But I'm sure neither of us dreamed that she belonged to the Daughters of Fine Lineage and was a member of the St. Ophelia Society to boot. She'd never talked about any of it.