Shop and Let Die (20 page)

No sooner had I pulled
into the parking lot of the department store, then my phone rang
again. Deb.

“
Hi Deb. I’m on spy duty
in about two minutes, so make it quick.”

“
Molly.” Deb’s voice
sounded odd.

I went cold. “What’s the
matter. Is it that serial killer again? I’m not at the mall, I
promise.”

The words pulled out of
her like taffy, stiff and sticky. “No. It’s the FBI.”

She had to be joking, even
if she didn’t sound like she was joking. “Did Celeste put you up to
this?”

She sighed. “Molly. The
FBI is here in the department. Some guy named James Connery.” She
sounded more like herself, annoyed with my questions.

Still, fearing a practical
joke, I tested her. “Is he movie star handsome?”

She sounded puzzled.
“Yes.”

“
What color are his
eyes?”

Exasperation tinged her
answer. “Green.”

Damn. “No.”

“
Yes.”

I looked at the clock. “I
can’t do this right now. I have an appointment.”

“
Okay. Swing by the
department when you’re done, okay?”

“
I guess so.” I added,
“Can you find out what he wants from me, and text me, so I have a
heads up, at least?”

There was no way they
wanted my help on the serial killer thing. Unless… Could Deb have
told them I was a secret shopper, like one of the
victims?

“
Will do.”

I tried to remember to look calm, collected, and
like I used a personal shopper all the time as I raced through the
nearly empty store aisles to the area where I knew the personal
shopper held court. I had memorized my instructions earlier, thank
goodness, because I had no time to review them as I swept through
the door. “I’m so sorry I’m late.” I greeted the
receptionist.

The receptionist did not
look as though she had been waiting for me. In fact, she clearly
had no idea I was expected. Apparently unaware of the terrible
cliché, she finished filing one long elegant nail—before she
deigned to take up the appointment book in front of her and ask,
“Your name, please, ma’am.” Her’s was currently unavailable,
covered by a long curling lock of golden-hued hair (most likely not
natural, but I’m not good at telling unless the hair in question is
blue or purple or a shade of red that doesn’t exist in
nature).

It didn’t bode well that
the receptionist was this snooty. I don’t like snooty
people—perhaps I was bitten by one when I was young and
impressionable.

My favorite people were
the ones who treated you like you were their best friend the minute
they set eyes on you. I knew, in my heart, that they were no doubt
savagely rending apart my every flaw behind my back—with perfect
strangers, none the less. But I didn’t care. I still preferred them
to the hoity toity ones who seemed to feel that speaking to me was
as distasteful as scraping their tongue along the bottom of my
boots.

“
Serena Robichaud.” I’d
had to give a fake name, so I’d given Serena’s, since I felt as if
she were a part of me now.

The company, obviously in
paranoid mode, had provided me with a credit card to be used for
this occasion only (apparently it was flagged to deny any other
charges, or so Sue had taken pains to assure me when she asked for
my name and told me where to pick it up the necessary
card).

Wise of them to limit the
card, because the snooty greeting gave me an urge to spend in front
of her nose so that she might unbend enough to offer me a cool
hello rather than a deep frozen question.

“
Ms. Robichaud,” she
replied, still with frost on her breath, “Your aesthetician will be
Callie DuCharme. Would you like Earl Gray or a cappuchino
today?”

The question was asked on
a frosty breath, but I was much impressed with the way the
hand—with beautiful nails—gracefully indicated the little silver
pots sitting behind her. I had seen espresso makers in the movies,
and on counters of a few foreign university faculty, but I’d never
had one made for me. “Cappuchino, please.”

I watched in fascination
as she deftly ground the beans and steamed the milk in front of my
eyes. Some people lived high. I wonder if she minded getting coffee
the high-class way and remembered that some of my secretarial
colleagues when I was working my way through college steadfastly
refused to make coffee, considering it to be beneath them,
professionally.

Times changed, I guess.
Now they probably assume the typewriter is beneath them—computers
have spoiled so much for us these days—not only can many people
draft their work on their own computers these days, leaving many
secretaries out of work, but that means that some of the tasks that
are more tedious make up a bigger part of the job for those still
stuck with the job.

Glad I’m out of it now and
into the glamorous and rewarding motherhood profession. Although
technology certainly complicated that profession as
well.

I sipped my
cappuchino—delicious. I assume it was perfectly made, but I had
nothing to compare it to. The receptionist did not look like the
type to do anything less than perfectly, if she set her mind to it,
judging by her nails. I had a wicked desire to confide that there
was an FBI agent who wanted me to help on a case. Would it impress
her? It terrified me.

There was some kind of new
age music playing, and I enjoyed the waiting time in order to make
some notes on my shop. The waiting room chair was comfortable, the
lighting low enough not to hurt my eyes and high enough that I
could read one of the catalogs that were splayed attractively on
the little iron table in between the two chairs.

Apparently, there should
not be more than two chairs, any bright lights—and no other tea
offered than Earl Gray. Normally, I’d expect to be asked whether
there was any trash on the floor, but I’d never been asked to
verify that the carpet could be pushed down an inch by direct
pressure of the toe of my shoe. I didn’t have a ruler, but I felt
certain this carpet pushed down at least an inch. I could have
slept on it in a pinch.

The waiting room spoiled
me for any other waiting ever again. Unlike the doctor’s office,
where I was always surrounded by people sneezing, coughing, or
holding a sneezing, coughing child, this room made me forget time
was passing. Music, lighting, lovely cappachino—even the catalogs
which made me feel that I was gazing upon the possible perfection I
would enjoy when my appointment ended—left me feeling I had nowhere
else to go and nothing else to do but sit and sip and enjoy the
music.

Callie, naturally thin and
stylishly chic in a way I could not pull off in a million years,
swooshed into the room in an elegant royal blue suit with the
pencil skirt and short flared jacket that made me look like an
improperly stuffed sausage and made her look like she could twirl
the world on one finger while handling a fashion crisis with the
other. She stuck out her hand. “Hello, Ms. Robichaud. I’m Callie.
Please, come with me.”

Efficiently, she took the
cup from my hands and the receptionist appeared beside her to
magically whisk it away from her.

“
Thank you Sarah,” Callie
said, and just like that, I had the name for my report. Which,
bathed in new age music and refreshed by cappuchino, I had almost
forgotten was the reason I had come here in the first
place.

As we entered Callie’s
sanctum, there was more music playing in the background, not loud
enough to make us raise our voices, but pleasant and guaranteed to
mask any noises that might remind me I was in a department store
with hundreds of people shopping all around me.

Callie took an assessing
look at me and reached for a tape measure from an elegant
silk-lined basket. “Since you’ve never been here before, I want to
start with the basics. If you wouldn’t mind taking off your
clothes?”

Mind? Of course I minded.
Compared to slim, elegant Callie, I was a cow and I knew it. I
hadn’t anticipated this.

Callie, well trained as
she was, smiled at my hesitation and said, “I have a robe if you’re
worried you’ll be chilly.” With one elegant hand, she indicated
what I had thought was a thick white towel draped over the back of
the leather easy chair behind me.

I reminded myself I was
someone else today—a typical mantra for whenever I started feeling
like I was going to lose the shop or fall on my knees to out myself
and beg for forgiveness and escape.

But Callie was not only
stylish, she knew her stuff. After a quick assessment, she said,
“You have beautiful legs, we’ll need to show them off.”

I liked that, straight to
the positive, damn the negative, like the rolls of flab that peeked
over the waistband of my one good black skirt, my anthill-shaped
boobs and my pancake-flat butt.

“
You’re looking for a nice
dinner ensemble, yes?” Callie consulted her chart. “You’d like
basic black, for flexibility.”

A little black dress. I
hadn’t had one of those since college. It had been a wonderful
polyester blend that refused to wrinkle and repelled stains—perfect
for the girl who went straight from the frat party to church on
Sunday morning.

Not that I ever did. Frat
parties, with unlimited beer and brainless brawn was not high on my
list of must dos. But the girl who’d picked out my dress for me had
been that kind of girl, and a pretty savvy shopper to
boot.

I was wearing that dress
at the dance when Seth spotted me. Fate and a little black dress.
Seth and I have made it this far, but the little black dress was
sacrificed to make a witch’s costume for Anna when she was five. I
hadn’t owned one since—and hadn’t felt the absence until dinner
with the Dean and his wife. I bet Dierdre has a closet full of
little black dresses.

“
My husband is doing a bit
more hobnobbing than he used to,” I confided, sticking as close to
the truth as I could—best policy for mystery shoppers, you never
know when you’ll do a return visit, or bump into someone you’ve
shopped at the grocery store or the dentist.

“
Excellent. There’s
nothing that helps a man hobnob like his wife making all the other
men jealous.”

Right. Other men didn’t
notice me, and that suited me just fine. I had my hands full with
Seth. I didn’t need anyone else’s attention.

“
I’ve taken the liberty of
assembling a few things for you to choose from.” She pressed one of
the wood panels in the dressing-cum-fitting room and voila, out
popped a rack of dresses, jackets, and skirts in every shade of
black. There were blouses and scarves in a rainbow of colors,
too.

With a professional air,
she pushed through the clothes and selected several items. “Here,
these should be just the thing.”

I slipped into her first
choice, a rather tight fitting sheath dress and looked around for
the mirror, wondering if I really wanted to see what I looked like,
or if my imagination could be any worse than reality.

With a little sigh, Callie
pressed another panel and a three way mirror appeared. I stepped
in, surprised to see that my imagination
was
worse than reality. Although
every lump and bump showed. Still, I looked human and that was an
improvement over my imagination.

“
I think this is what you
need.” Callie popped open a previously unnoticed drawer from the
magic room and handed me a—

“
Girdle! I don’t—” I held
up my hands to ward it off with horror.

“
No, no. I don’t believe
in girdles. This is a softly shaping helper. It will…” She paused
and smiled helpfully, “…contain those little jigglies that happen
at your waistline.” When I still didn’t try to squeeze into
the—softly shaping girdle—she continued, “If you’d prefer to wear a
thong, or go without underwear…”

I didn’t wait for her to
finish the sentence, I stepped into the girdle, pleasantly
surprised to find that I didn’t need to wiggle. The garment was
easy enough to get into and, as promised, all my jiggly places
looked as firm and smooth as if I’d worked out in the gym two hours
a day. Amazing.

The three way mirror
confirmed I looked as amazing as I felt—at least, from the neck
down to the knees.

Callie just smiled and
pulled a pair of silk stockings from her magic drawer. Actually,
she pulled two pair, one with a shimmery sparkle and one that was
the slightly tanned color I always wished my fish-belly white legs
would turn in the summer sun. The SPF 45 always seemed to interfere
with that wish, though.

Callie held each up to the
light. “Do you want to impress, or leave speechless?”

“
Leaving speechless would
mean I’d need to lead the conversation,” I said truthfully.
“Otherwise I’d pick that one.”

“
Are you certain?” She
held the sparkly ones against my bare arm, so that I’d know exactly
what I was passing up. “Sometimes leaving men speechless and
walking away to refresh your drink is a woman’s best weapon in the
social wars.”

“
It might work for someone
like you,” I said. “But I’d be guaranteed to walk away and find out
later that I’d flashed everyone a glimpse of white thigh where the
run in my stocking had gaped open.”