Authors: Barbara Allan
I tried again. “Okay, I know
why
—but I still don’t understand it. Hurting yourself doesn’t get back at your mother. And, anyway, you always had a great life. I’m the injured party here, if there is one—I’m the foundling who grew up with Vivian Borne as a mother.”
I hadn’t meant that as a joke, but we both found ourselves laughing at it.
But the mirth was fleeting, and she said quite seriously, “It was just the final straw with Mom. I love her, but her social-climbing ways, all that status-seeking nonsense . . .
ick
! It’s a bitter pill, realizing that you don’t like somebody you love.”
Nothing there I could argue with.
She went on, “But I was injured, too. Denied the experience, the fun we would have had, growing up as sisters together.”
“Oh, Ash,” I said, shaking my head, smiling gently, “we wouldn’t have grown up together—too many years separated us.”
“I know, but—”
“If your mother had claimed me, and grown up with an illegitimate child back in those days . . . ? What a hard, rough life she would have had. She and your father may not have gotten together. And you might never have been born. Which is the kind of ‘what if’ you can drive yourself crazy thinking about.”
I should know, because I’d already dealt with such issues with my therapist.
She was thinking about all that.
I touched her hand and gave her half a smile, which seemed plenty. “And I wasn’t such a bad aunt, was I?”
She gave me the other half of the smile. “No. Not a bad aunt at all. You’ve been fun, so much fun. But
you
could’ve been happier. Aren’t you even mad at her?”
“At Peggy Sue? No.” Maybe a little. “I’ve been plenty happy in my life. And any unhappiness has been my own doing. Besides, living with your grandmother has been an experience in tolerance.”
Now her smile turned ornery. “An experience in tolerance, or an intolerable experience?”
“Six of one, sweetie. Six of one.”
We fell silent for a moment.
“Ash, will you do something for your former-aunt-now-half-sister? It would mean a lot to me.”
“You want me to call Mom. In D.C., where she lives with that man.”
After the unexpected death of Ashley’s father, Peggy Sue had reconnected with Senator Clark, after a mere thirty years, and moved to Washington to be the perfect political wife. But for this fairy tale to have its requisite happy ending, I would have to get Ashley to give her mother a second chance.
“ ‘That man’ is
her
husband and my
father
,” I said. “The senator has paid for his sins in the media. And he’s a decent, a truly decent man, Ash. Call her.”
“Brandy, I just don’t know. . . .”
“I’d really appreciate it.”
She sighed. She laughed silently, shook her head, as all the things we descendants of Vivian Borne had been through together were rushing through her mind at once.
“All right,” she said finally. “I will do it—if it’ll make you happy.”
“It will. And you know what? It just might make you happy, too.”
She rolled her pretty eyes. “And for all those years, I thought you were such a cool aunt. Now it turns out you’re just my cornball older sister from Iowa.”
“Growing up is such a disappointment, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.”
“Now, where’s a waitress?” I groused. “I’m
starving
—nineteen dollars for a turkey sandwich is starting to sound like a bargain.”
In between bites of food, we talked, falling back into our old comfortable relationship, exchanging excessively detailed accounts of what we each had been doing since we’d been out of touch. Ashley was in the middle of a funny story about her roommate, a Cyndi Lauper look-alike, when I noticed Violet and Eric coming into the restaurant through the hotel access.
Violet looked voluptuous in a black-and-white checkered formfitting dress with a wide black patent belt, black heels stark against her bare, pale legs. But the stress of holding the convention together was starting to show in her face, cracking her heavy makeup.
Eric seemed chipper, though, looking very Nordic in an Alpine gray-and-red ski sweater, black jeans, and black boots.
The two took stools at the bar, then ordered drinks from the bartender. I tried to listen in on their conversation, but the pair had their backs to me and kept their voices low, heads together. At one point, Eric slipped an arm around Violet’s shoulders—the gesture seemed consoling, not sexual.
“Are you okay, Bran?” Ashley asked.
She’d been talking, and I must have seemed distracted.
“Uh, yeah. Some people I know at the bar is all. You were saying?”
“I was
saying
,” Ashley said with a wry smile, “that I probably should be leaving. Movie date tonight.”
Now she had all my attention. “Serious?”
Ashley smiled coyly. “Early days, but . . . yeah. Pretty serious. I hope you and Grandma get to meet him before you go home—he works on Wall Street.”
Well, she’d been raised by Peggy Sue, after all. Quitting college hadn’t lowered her standards.
I raised my eyebrows. “Think he’s ready for us?” Meaning Mother and me.
“Well, it’s not like you and Grandma get to New York every other Tuesday. Better take advantage of your presence here to find out if he can take it.”
“Does he drink?”
“Well, yes. I mean, nothing that’s—”
“He’ll need to.” I reached for the check. “I’ll get this.”
“Thanks, Brandy.” A young woman eking out an existence in New York didn’t have the luxury of fighting over a check. She gathered her purse and coat. “It’s been wonderful seeing you. I feel . . . I feel better about things.”
“You and me both, honey.”
We kissed each other’s cheeks.
Then she asked, “Is Sushi along?”
“She’s not
along
. She’s
in charge
.”
“How cool! Can’t wait to kiss her fuzzy little head.”
I watched my niece/half sister leave through the Seventh Avenue revolving door, chill air reaching me a few seconds later, making me shiver.
But I wasn’t going, not just yet. Not until I’d had Lindy’s cheesecake—even if it was nine bucks a slice.
I had just dipped my fork into the creamy mass of goodness when Brad Webster entered from the lobby.
He strode purposefully toward Violet.
Like Hercule Poirot, I had learned that eavesdropping was a key aspect in the art of detection.
Brad was saying angrily to Violet, “I can’t believe you’re going on with the convention! It’s . . . it’s
ghoulish
.”
Violet turned to look at him, her gaze withering. “Could we not talk about this here? In public?”
“It’s all about the
money
, isn’t it? The money and
him
.” Brad gave Eric’s shoulder a little shove.
Eric hopped off the bar stool and pushed Brad back, the Fan Guest of Honor bumping into a passing waitress, who dropped her order. At these prices, that was fifty bucks that hit the floor.
Then the bartender was shouting for the three to leave, and Violet did so, her anger keeping back the tears, Eric running after her, followed by a disgruntled Brad.
I considered tossing some money on the table and pursuing the trio—if the confrontation continued in the lobby, I might really learn something. But that cheesecake was calling to me, and you just don’t walk away from nine-dollar cheesecake, not where I come from.
What is it about New York that makes all Midwesterners feel like they’re bit players in a bus-and-truck company of
Annie Get Your Gun
?
A little while later, I returned to the suite, bringing some leftover turkey for Sushi, and found no sign of Mother.
Which struck me as rather odd. Normally, I wouldn’t have been concerned, as she often lost track of time when she was shopping, sightseeing, or sleuthing.
But this was not serene Serenity, this was the big bad city, and a little spike of worry shot through me.
Better safe than silly
, I thought, and called her cell phone.
And immediately heard Mother’s custom ringtone for the trip (“New York, New York”) emanate from a closed bureau drawer.
Apparently
, I thought, irritated and afraid,
her vagabond shoes were longing to stray
.
She had a bad habit of intentionally leaving her cell behind should she not want to be reached. Not enough to just ignore a call like the rest of us rational folk—she had to be (as she put it) “well and truly out of pocket, dear.”
Once, when the vet put a little tracker chip in Sushi’s neck, so I could find the precious creature should she wander away, I had asked if he could do the same to Mother. He thought I was kidding.
Sushi was pawing at me, halfway up my legs, not in concern for Mother’s absence, not hardly—she wanted that Lindy’s turkey. So I fed her, then gave the little mutt an injection of insulin, followed by a bone treat for taking the shot like a trooper.
I retrieved the little recording device, and spent the next half hour at my computer in the outer room, downloading its contents, so that it could be heard through the speaker.
But I didn’t bother listening to the recording, because even if I took copious notes, Mother would
still
want to hear it herself. This assumed that Mother had not been shanghaied on a boat to China nor decided to join the Foreign Legion. She was a trifle too old for the white slavers.
I was about to turn on the TV and do some channel-surfing when a knock came at the door. My first thought was Mother, but surely she wouldn’t have left her keycard behind, too. Well, that would have been
really
out of pocket....
I crossed over and looked through the peephole, seeing what appeared to be Detective Cassato’s face via fisheye distortion. I opened the door.
Sal must have given my suspicions about Sipcowski some thought and decided that my opinions had some merit, after all. Smiling smugly to myself, I opened the door.
But the man standing in front of me in a blue NYPD windbreaker wasn’t Sal Cassato. Oh, it was a Cassato, all right, just not Sal.
Tony!
And I flew into his arms, and he took me in his, but walked me backward into the room, the door closing behind us.
We kissed. Several times.
Finally, I came up for air and blurted, “What are you doing here, you great big beautiful fool? You’re putting yourself in danger!”
He cupped my face in his hands. “Not as much danger as you’re getting into . . . you beautiful little fool.”
So he’d been talking to his brother. I guessed they were in closer contact than Sal had admitted.
We walked hand in hand into the living room area and sat together on the sofa.
“Brandy,” he said, his dark eyes locked on me, two of his hands holding one of mine, “you have
got
to stop looking into this Bufford murder. You’re going to upset some powerful
not
-nice people.”
“You mean . . . not-nice people in New Jersey?”
He nodded. “The same Mob crew who are after me. And I don’t have to tell you that they’re ruthless.”
I had been with him when the hit men they sent found Tony in Serenity. We had both barely gotten through that horror alive (
Antiques Knock-Off
).
I asked, “You think the same people killed Tommy?”
“
Had
him killed, yes.”
“By Gino Moretti, maybe?”
He let go of my hands, his eyes wide. “Are you pumping me for information?”
“Well, uh, not exactly, I . . .”
“Brandy! Stay out of this investigation or you will get seriously hurt—and that goes for Vivian, too.”
“I’m glad to hear you care so much about Mother.”
“I care about her because
you
care about her. Otherwise, I would be happy to see her get what she deserves for her busybody b.s.”
Their relationship in the past was . . . less than warm. At least on Tony’s side.
He went on, “There could even be a shooting war between Jersey and New York factions, and the last thing I want is you caught in the crossfire. Why can’t you and your Mother just come to New York and see
Wicked
like everybody else?”
“It’s in our plans,” I said lamely.
He took my hand again and squeezed it. “You’ve
got
to
promise
me that you will lay off this investigation.”
“Okay . . . I will.”
“I mean
promise
.”
“Girl Scout’s honor.”
He shook his head, glanced around. “Where
is
Serenity’s answer to Jessica Fletcher, anyway?”
“Out and about.”
“Out where? About where?”
“Visiting some old friends.”
“She has friends here?”
“Her theatrical pursuits brought her to the Big Apple, once upon a time.”
“And that’s what she’s up to? That’s
all
she’s up to?”
“Yes.” I hoped.
He sighed. “Well, do your best to keep her out of trouble, will you? I wouldn’t put it past that woman not to just waltz blithely into some Mob stronghold, all by her lonesome.”
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh?”
“She’s not
that
crazy.”
On the other hand, she had done more than her share of waltzing blithely into dangerous situations.
Mother, where are you?
He laughed dryly. “Not that those bastards in Jersey don’t deserve a strong dose of Vivian’s medicine.”
Sushi, who of course remembered Tony, had been pawing at his pantlegs since he’d come in. He reached down and picked her up, and let her settle in his lap.
“Where are you living?” I asked, tucking my legs beneath me.
Tony, scratching Sushi’s neck, said, “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Is it someplace . . . nice?”
“Not particularly.”
“Is there room for one more there?”
“What, and have your mother come track us down? No, Brandy, this is no life for you.”
“It’s not much of a life now. Without you in it.”
“I’m in it. Never doubt that for a moment. I’m in it.”