But I had been writing all morning, and Snowflake was literally screaming for attention. She paced the windowsill in front of my desk until I closed my computer and glanced up. And that’s when I noticed the scene down on Sullivan Street.
“No way,” I hissed and leaned forward to get a better view.
Candy Poppe was out walking her poodle in a purple mini-dress. Candy that is, not Puddles. But even that cute little puppy could not distract me from whom my neighbor was talking to.
“No way,” I tried again.
Snowflake stopped pacing, and together we stared aghast as Candy spun on her stilettos and pointed up to our window.
Three minutes later someone was knocking at the door.
“We’re ignoring that,” I said firmly.
“It’s me, Jessie,” Candy called out.
I eyed the door suspiciously. “Are you alone?”
“Puddles is with me.”
I opened the door, and Puddles bounded in.
Mayhem? The puppy ran to and fro, back and forth, and hither and thither, his tiny toenails pitter-pattering and clitter-clattering against the wood floors. In the space of thirty seconds he managed to find every one of Snowflake’s toys.
But the cat was not in the mood to play. She sprang to the top of the refrigerator and offered a disapproving yowl.
“Did you see us talking down there?” Candy asked me. She threw a kiss to Snowflake and commenced tossing a jingle-bell ball for Puddles. “You’ll never guess in a million years what he wanted.”
“Therefore, I won’t even try,” I said, and before she could enlighten me, I changed the subject. “I need your help tonight, Sweetie.”
I kept my plea for assistance brief for a couple of reasons. First of all, Puddles had gone a whole five minutes without piddling, and I didn’t want to push my luck. And more importantly, I didn’t think it prudent to mention the Wade On Inn at all. Despite the lack of details, or because of it, Candy was willing to help.
I glanced at Puddles, who had taken an inordinate interest in Snowflake’s scratching post. “He’ll be okay alone for the evening?” I asked doubtfully.
“Gosh, no. But Mr. Harrison just loves him, Jessie. He says he’ll babysit anytime I’m away. He says Puddles likes piano music.”
Our elderly neighbor Peter Harrison lives on the first floor, across the lobby from Karen. Once upon a time he taught music at Clarence High School. Nowadays he gives piano lessons in his home. “To stay young,” as he puts it.
I watched Puddles take yet another frenzied romp around my condo and wondered just how youthful Peter Harrison was feeling these days.
Candy and the puppy decided another trip out to the fire hydrant was in order. And while Snowflake reclaimed her toys and inspected them for damage, I called Karen Sembler. I used the same vague approach that had worked with Candy, and lo and behold, she was also agreeable. We would meet at my place at eight.
***
Sally Caperton proved less compliant, however. My hairdresser stood behind me at her station at Charlotte’s Web Hair Emporium and frowned.
“I don’t get it,” she told my reflection. “I thought we decided the blond suits you, Jessica?”
The blond did suit me, but I was due at the Wade On Inn in six hours, and this was no time to quibble. I lied and said my publisher wanted me brunette for my next book.
Sally pouted and ran her fingers through my hair.
“It’s only temporary,” I tried. “I’ll get the official photograph taken, and then we’ll go back to the blond, okay?”
Sally repeated how she hated to do it, but that it was possible. “But,” she warned, “your hair has been bleached, so I can’t guarantee how the brunette will take. It could end up extremely dark.”
Charlotte, the beautician at the other booth, scowled at my reflection as she tossed a cape over her next client. “You better want to be a brunette,” she said ominously. “I mean, really, really brunette.”
Okay, so the experts were not joking. A mere half hour later I was blinking at the new me in the mirror, marveling at how so little effort on Sally’s part could produce such catastrophic results. With my fair complexion, I looked positively ghoulish underneath this deep brunette, nay black, head of hair.
“Perpetual Pleasures Press wants me to look dramatic,” I squeaked once I had regained my voice. I appealed to Sally, and Charlotte, and the woman sitting in Charlotte’s chair, hoping someone would agree I looked dramatic.
No such luck.
And the more we stared, the darker it seemed to get. Even Charlotte’s client, a woman with sheets of foil decorating her head and smelling of peroxide, looked better than I.
“While we’re at it, Sally.” I remained resolute. “Would you comb it back, away from my face? Maybe use mousse or gel?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Dramatic,” I said firmly, and she reached for the mousse.
Five minutes later we were marveling at how much worse a little mousse could make things.
Sally managed a weak smile, and in a strained voice explained how she would eventually pull me out of this hideous hair hell. She swore that since my hair is so short, it would only take twelve weeks to get me back to blond.
“Three cuts and colors.” She held up three fingers and offered a brisk nod. “And we’ll have you looking normal again.”
I resigned myself to living with abnormal for three months as Sally whisked off my cape.
“I can’t quite place it.” She rested a hand on my shoulder to keep me seated. “But with your hair like that you remind me of a TV star, Jessica. From an old sitcom, maybe?”
She and Charlotte squinted at me in the mirror. “Someone from the sixties,” Charlotte said.
“They run the repeats on cable,” the woman in foil chimed in. “What show is that?”
The three of them kept scowling and squinting.
“It’ll come to me.” Sally twirled the chair around, and I stood up.
I paid my bill, but she wouldn’t let me leave until I promised to tell no one—no one!—who had done my hair.
***
Speaking of hideous, I also had Wilson’s truck to contend with. And no sooner had I driven home in that stupid thing, than I was facing Ian Crawcheck, my lowdown, no-good, conniving, cheating, and altogether despicable ex-husband. He was sitting on the top step leading into my building, apparently waiting for yours truly.
I stopped short at the bottom step. “What are you doing here?” I asked cordially. “And why were you harassing Candy earlier?”
He squinted for a full five seconds before curling his lip in recognition. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”
“Answer me, Ian. Or I’ll call Wilson and have you arrested.”
Wilson likely had better things to do, but Ian took the hint. “Like, duh,” he said. “I’m here to see you, Jessie. I work in the neighborhood now. When I ran into your trampy little friend this morning, I asked about you.”
“Speaking of tramps, how’s your wife?”
Ian’s face dropped, and he stuttered out something I didn’t quite catch.
“She threw you out, didn’t she?”
“How do you do that?” he snapped.
I said intuition, but truth be told, in this instance simple logic would have sufficed. Through every fault of his own, my ex had gotten himself into a heap of trouble during the past few months. He broke several laws, and who knows how many professional and ethical standards, and his CPA license had been revoked.
It really didn’t take much imagination to surmise how his lowdown, no-good, conniving, cheating, and altogether despicable new wife Amanda felt about the demise of his career and social standing.
“What do you mean, you work in the neighborhood?” I had to ask.
Ian jerked his head toward my building. “Can we go inside?”
“Keep dreaming,” I said.
But then I reconsidered the option. I had no desire to invite this man into my home, but I wasn’t keen on creating a scene outside either. We could have walked across the street to The Stone Fountain, but the thought of having a drink in my friendly neighborhood bar with Ian Crawcheck was downright nauseating.
“You look like hell,” I said as I climbed past him and unlocked the front door.
“Look who’s talking.” He stood up and followed me inside, and continued to critique my new hairdo as we climbed the three flights of stairs to my condo.
I stopped and turned at my door.
“What?” he snapped. “I’m just telling you the truth, Jessie.”
“Upset Snowflake and I will throw you out a window. Do you understand?”
He nodded, mute for a nice change of pace, and I opened the door.
The poor cat was a bit disconcerted, what with my new look and the presence of our ex, of all people. She offered him the look of sheer disdain she had been using with Puddles and found her perch on the windowsill.
“Sit.” I pointed Ian to an easy chair, took the chair opposite, and waited while he glanced around. My condo is huge, but with its open floor plan, Ian could see virtually the entire place from his vantage point.
“This is really nice,” he concluded.
“What do you want?”
He mumbled something about patience and finally told me the latest. After losing his accounting firm, he had decided to open a small bookkeeping operation. “Playing with other people’s money is all I know how to do,” he explained. “But I’ll be honest with you, Jessie. Business isn’t good.”
“What a shocker,” I said, the sarcasm veritably oozing from my voice. Call me unkind, but I have little sympathy for the man who sold confidential information about my finances at a poker game. And I’m not the only person Ian Crawcheck defrauded. Nobody in town trusted him anymore.
“Things will pick up,” he insisted.
“And you just happened to set up this promising new business in my neighborhood?”
He pointed out a window. “I’m at 209 Vine Street—the second floor.”
I closed my eyes and prayed for strength. My ex-husband’s office was within spitting distance of my condo.
“What do you want from me?” I asked for the umpteenth time.
“I need a place to stay.”
I guffawed.
“Just until I get back on my feet,” he clarified, and I guffawed again.
Then I asked if he were serious, and then I said no.
“I have nowhere else to go,” he pleaded. “I can’t afford renting this new office and an apartment right now.”
I closed my eyes again, only to notice the enormous headache I was growing.
“Come on, Jessie. You’re the only friend I have left in this town.”
Demonstrating how highly-evolved I am, I let that delusionary notion slide without comment. “Does this new office have a couch?” I asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“So then, you do have a place to stay.”
“Give me a break. There’s no kitchen, no shower, and the couch is lumpy.”
I groaned audibly, and Snowflake hopped into my lap to commiserate. I have no idea what she was thinking, but it had to be something more pleasant than the image haunting my own head. I pictured my ex-husband wandering around my neighborhood, looking and smelling like a vagrant.
Unfortunately, I came up with a solution. Why, oh why, am I such a creative thinker?
“Okay, so here’s the plan.” I stared at Snowflake but spoke to Ian. “You can come over here once a day to shower and shave. You will arrive at eleven a.m. sharp and be out of here within the hour. You will leave not one trace of your existence. And,” I added, ignoring Ian’s protests, “you will leave the bathroom cleaner than you found it.”
That last stipulation would be hard to accomplish since I keep a spotless home, but that was Ian’s problem.
“What about my stuff?” he asked. “My clothes, for instance?”
“Not my concern. Oh, and you can scoop out Snowflake’s litter box each day.”
“Eleven o’clock? Come on, Jessie. I have a business to run.”
“And I don’t? As you know, I do my best writing first thing in the morning. You,” I pointed, “will not be here.”
He huffed and puffed as I continued laying out the rules as they occurred to me. “Since you’re now in the neighborhood—my neighborhood—you might think of popping in at The Stone Fountain. Do not.”
“But that bar is where everyone hangs out around here.”
“Exactly. My friends and I enjoy it, and I intend to keep it that way.”
Ian almost—almost—mumbled out a “Bitch.”
“Wilson and his friends like The Stone Fountain also,” I informed him. “One assumes you wish to avoid employees of the Clarence Police Department right now?”
Ian curled his lip. “How’s that little May-December romance going for you?” he asked, and I reminded him I could revoke his showering privileges before they even began.
“I’ll need a key,” he said.
After another hearty guffaw I told him to keep dreaming. “Ring the bell downstairs, and I’ll buzz you in. And if I’m not here, you’ll just have to suffer.”
That time I distinctly did hear the word bitch. Snowflake scolded him, and he finally remembered his manners. In fact, he thanked me with what might have passed for sincere gratitude.
He stood up. “Can we start now?”
“No. Tomorrow.”
He began to protest, but another firm meow from Snowflake shut him up, and he headed toward the door.
“Wait,” I called out, and he turned around.
“Snowflake has one more question before you leave.”
“What, what, what?”
I took a deep breath. “She’s wondering if you have enough money for food.”
He blinked twice. “Things aren’t that desperate,” he said quietly and shut the door behind him.
I sat and stared into space for who knows how long.
Chapter 4
Seductive attire Karen Sembler-style usually means replacing her white “Sembler Assembly and Carpentry” tee-shirt for a black V-neck, no logo. But I still had to smile when she arrived at my door that evening. She had balked at my suggestion to dress provocatively for our night out. But bless her heart, not only had she changed her shirt, she had also arranged her usual tangle of auburn hair into an elaborate chignon.
I didn’t need to look down to know she was in jeans and work boots. I’ve never seen Karen in anything but jeans and work boots. Unless she’s working—in which case she adds a rather daunting tool belt to the ensemble.