I So Don't Do Mysteries (8 page)

“Just a sec!”
I yell over my shoulder, while
racing back into the arrivals building. Into the newsstand store. Over to the cash register. I know
exactly what I want. Where is it? Where is it?

Head swiveling and eyes scanning, I'm like Robocop, only way better-looking.
Left, right. Up, down. Listerine strips. Certs. Altoids. Talk about your national bad-breath crisis. Still
looking. Still looking. It's gotta be here. We cannot miss our taxi turn because of me.

Ah-ha. There it is, hanging from a silver hook. I snatch a package, throw some money
on the counter, then zip back to the taxi stand.

Amber and Junie are tossing their bags into the trunk of a waiting cab.

Junie eyes what I'm carrying, then silently points to my suitcase, which lies like
roadkill on the sidewalk.

Amber's eyebrows are plucked into the shape of McDonald's arches.
Now she raises them really high, practically to her hairline, and shoots me a killer look of disdain.
“You rushed off for sunflower seeds?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Sherry,” Amber says as we all pile into the backseat, “quit
being such a weirdo.”

I don't answer. There's really no response to such rudeness.

The cabdriver, a woman, slams down the trunk, then hops in the car and resets the
meter.

I rattle off my great-aunt's address on Coronado Island.

“Welcome to America's Finest City.” The driver clicks on her
signal.

Amber takes out a thick, striped emery board and goes to work on her left hand.

Junie stares out the window.

I fiddle with the sunflower-seed package.

We nose into the carpool lane and head over the Coronado-Bay Bridge. “Look
off in the distance,” the driver says. “See the white building with the red roof and
turrets? That's the Hotel del Coronado—the Del, to us natives. Your condo's
down the beach from it.” She brakes at a stop sign. “They're filming a murder
mystery between your condo and the Del.”

Amber stops filing and leans forward. “Who's in it?”

The driver taps her fingers on the dash. “The guy from
Death for Two
.
And—”

“Damon Walker!” Amber squeals. “I'm still in shock he
didn't get an Oscar for
Death for Two
.”

Say what? He wasn't even nominated. Because he's a bad, bad actor.
Shoulda-stuck-with-modeling bad.

“Who else? Who else?” Amber bounces on the seat like she just
swigged a two-liter bottle of Coke. “Who else is in the movie?”

“I can't remember the name of the actress.” The driver switches
lanes. “She hasn't been in much. I know she did a documentary in Africa.” She
looks in the rearview mirror. “Something to do with rhinos and extinction.”

I sit up straight.

“Kendra Phillips?” Junie asks, the resident public-TV viewer.

The driver snaps her fingers. “Kendra Phillips. Yup. That's the
one.”

For the rest of the ride, the driver indicates places of interest. I barely listen; all the little
rhino connections are jumbled up in my mind like some bizarre dot-to-dot.

When we get to the condo, I find the fake rock my dad described and reach inside it for
the key. Bingo. In the dusk, though, I have trouble fitting the key into the lock.

Behind me, Amber groans.

“Let me try,” Junie says.

I hand her the key and wait while she slides it in and turns. She pushes open the door
and steps back to let me enter first.

I feel along the wall for the light switch and flip it on.

Gasp
.

Gasp
.

Gasp
.

That's a gasp from each of us.

The entryway is totally pink: ceiling, walls, tiles. We venture down the hall into the living
room to discover more of the same: pink furniture, pink lamps, pink cushions. It's like
we're trapped in a giant Dubble Bubble bubble.

“What kinda freakin' genius lives here?” Amber smacks her
forehead.

“The Pink Panther.” Junie flops down on the pink couch. “I feel
queasy.”

“I love it.” Amber dances around the room, oohing and ahhing.
“Check this out.” She rubs a lamp. “It's the exact shade of cotton
candy. And dusty rose carpet, flamingo walls. Incredible.”

Junie closes her eyes. Her face is Shrek green.

Amber reads aloud from a coral wall plaque, “ ‘Pink Lady Award,
Margaret Jackson of San Diego County, Most Mary Kay Sales After the Age of Seventy.'
” She whistles. “Very cool.”

“You love all this?” I ask Amber. “For real?” I
can't read this girl.

“Yes.” She sighs. “What a great surprise.”

“This isn't the surprise. It's supposed to be on the
counter.”

Amber and I head over to the (yes, pink) counter to find a (yes, pink) envelope with
Girls
written on it.

Amber rips open the envelope. She pulls out a bunch of tickets, glances at them, then
tosses them up in the air. As they feather-float to the carpet, she announces, “They're
all yours, Sherry.”

I kneel to pick them up. Beige passes to the Wild Animal Park.

“I'm starving,” Amber announces.

“I can't eat here,” Junie says. “Much more time in this
Pepto-Bismol pit, and I'll throw up.”

“How about the Hotel Del?” I suggest. “They gotta have a
restaurant or something.”

So the three of us end up walking along the beach toward the hotel.

“What a spectacular view.” Eyes wide, Junie ogles the horizon.

Yowser. Wowser. Personally, I'm not much into nature. Well, except for boys.
But the sunset
is
totally awesome. The sun looks like a huge golden jawbreaker hanging in a
purple-and-orange-striped sky. We stand there, gazing. Then, all of a sudden, the sun dippity-dips into
the ocean. And, gulp, it's swallowed up.

The beach is dimmer now, with only a little light spilling onto the shore from nearby
hotels and condos. I breathe through my mouth to avoid the yucko smell of salt water and
seaweed.

“I'll meet you guys there.” And Amber takes off.

Lips turned down, Junie watches her cousin. “I guess she's afraid
we'll cramp her style.” She walks over to a rock and sits. She wiggles her fingers in a
shallow tide pool. “Brrrr. This water is frigid.”

I perch on a boulder beside her. I kick off my sandals. In the damp sand, my
fluorescent-mulberry toenails glitter like gems.

We sit quietly, side by side. Niceness vibes are oozing out of my pores like sweat on a
hundred-degree day. I'm truly the perfect example of an easy-to-get-along-with friend. The type
of friend you want to solve a mystery with to save her ghost mother from being expelled from the
Academy of Spirits.

A male voice pierces my thoughts. “You can't go to the Wild Animal
Park tomorrow. I need you here, Kendra.”

I squint into the dark. Silhouetted against the night sky, a guy and girl are meandering
along. They stop about twenty feet from us.

The girl says gently, “But, Damon, I'm the rhino spokesperson. And
tomorrow is the Save the Rhinos ceremony.”

Damon? As in Damon Walker? I squint harder. He's even better-looking in real
life. He's tall. He's gorgeous. He's the kind of guy you want taped to your
bedroom door. A poster of him, that is.

Standing beside Damon is a girl who must be Kendra Phillips. I've never seen
her in anything. She's pretty, with shoulder-length reddish hair. But he totally, totally outshines
her in the beauty department.

The couple begins strolling again, then stops. Right in front of us. It's like me
and Junie have front-row seats to
The Damon and Kendra Show.
I freeze, trying to
shadow-meld into a boulder.

Kendra says, “And Gina hasn't had her calf yet. Sue called me today,
and it doesn't look as though it's going to happen tonight.”

“Who's Sue?”

“You know. The head rhino keeper?”

“I don't keep track of your rhino friends.” Damon shrugs.
“Quite frankly, I'm tired of always coming in second to them and those
animals.”

“That's not fair.” She reaches out to touch him, but he steps
back.

“This movie's very important to me,” Damon says. “I
really want you on the set tomorrow when I do the stunts.”

Kendra looks down. “I'm not in any scenes until the end of the week. It
won't affect the shoot at all if I'm at the Park.”

“Be honest.” Damon's arms thump to his side. “You
never wanted to do this picture. You think you're too good for it.” He runs his fingers
through his hair. “Maybe we should take a break from each other when we're finished
with this flick.”

Kendra's face turns glow-in-the-dark white. “You mean a lot to me,
Damon,” she says with a catch in her voice. “But I have a commitment to the Park too.
Let's talk later, when we're both less emotional.” She turns and tramps away,
head down and shoulders slumped.

He watches her for a moment, kicks the sand hard, like he's trying to toe-dig to
China, then storms off in the opposite direction.

I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding.

“What a jerk,” Junie says. “Amber's mother was
married to a guy like that for a while. He always threatened to leave when he didn't get his own
way. Then one day he did leave. It was really tough on Amber.”

I feel bad for Kendra. For Amber too. Almost.

We follow in Kendra's footsteps. She's ahead on the beach, shoulders
still rounded.

Junie glances over at me. “Your rash is gone.”

I run my fingertips along my chin and neck. Beautifully bump-less.
“Yay.”

“Your skin looks good.”

And then, because we're sharing a friendly moment and because I've
been incredibly nice and likable, I open my big, fat mouth. “Did you hear how rhino stuff came
up again?”

“Don't start with me, Sherry.” Junie picks up the pace.

Fine. Just poke me in the eye with a piñata stick.

Junie and I plod along the beach, not speaking. Eventually, we meet up with a sidewalk
that winds past lit tennis courts and dumps us in front of a Hotel Del Café sign. A crimson
painted arrow indicates the restaurant is at the top of some wooden steps. We start climbing.

At the landing, we're greeted by an incredibly adorable waiter in a white apron
over a charcoal T-shirt and shorts.

“Good evening, ladies.” He smiles with big dimples. “Are you
here with Amber?”

“Y-y-yes,” Junie stammers.

I mean, she actually stammers. What's that all about? And she's
gawking at him. The kind of gawking she usually saves for the computer aisle at Fry's
Electronics.

“Follow me,” he says.

High above the dim, dank beach, the restaurant is an oasis of light, heat and delish food
smells. I salivate as we wend our way to Amber.

She queen-waves at us from across the room, where she's not sitting alone but
with a dark-haired cutie-pie. That girl does not waste time.

Junie slides into a chair next to Amber, and I sit beside Junie.

Amber points a glittery fake nail at the waiter. “This is Ben. He's a
college student at San Diego State. He works here part-time and surfs when he gets the chance.

“And this is Rob.” She squeezes the arm of the cutie-pie.
“Rob's a reporter. Real important at the newspaper where he works. Lives
alone.”

Excuse me. Did I make a wrong turn and wind up on the set of some tacky cable dating
show?

Amber nods in our direction. “This is my little cousin, Junie, and her little friend
Sherry.”

Major gag.

Junie crosses her arms and zings daggerish looks at Amber.

Ben pulls a pad and pen from the front pocket of his apron and says to me and Junie,
“Something to drink?”

“We'll take a pitcher of Coke,” Amber says.

I want to slap that bossy girl. Instead I contradict her. “Sprite for
me.”

“Me too,” Junie says.

“I'll be right back,” Ben says, then looks at Amber. “Let
me check on the nachos.”

She tilts her head to the side, her straight blond hair swaying. “Okay,
Ben.” She turns to us little people. “I ordered a huge plate of deluxe
nachos.”

My stomach grumbles.

Junie gapes at Ben like she's stranded in the desert and he's a bottle of
sparkling water.

Rob clears his throat. “I write for
the
San Diego daily paper—the
Union-Tribune
.” He straightens the collar of his short-sleeved white button-down.
“Or the
Trib,
as we say in the biz.”

He looks young to be a reporter. Like in his twenties. And, while he's extremely
gorgeous, I can't help but notice that his thick hair is overgelled. I give a subtle sniff. A little
too flowery.