Killer WASPs (17 page)
Authors: Amy Korman
“Roast beef tonight, Mr. Best?” asked Ronnie. Jimmy nodded happily, rubbing his hands
together with glee. I loved the fact that Jimmy, who had almost no money, was being
so well taken care of in a club where ninety percent of the members were enviably
rich. Jimmy’s long-standing membership and no-bullshit style had clearly made him
a staff favorite of the waiters and barmen, and of course he’d always flirted relentlessly
with the sixty-year-old waitresses, to their delight. Most of the
members
hated Jimmy, but he didn’t give a fig about that.
“Are you staying for dinner, Kristin?” Ronnie asked politely.
“No, thanks,” I told him. “I have an, um, appointment tonight.” I looked at my watch
surreptitiously. I still had thirty-five minutes before my rendezvous with John.
That should be enough time to convince Jimmy to forgive Hugh and go home.
On second thought, maybe not. Jimmy was as cozily settled in here as Hugh Hefner on
movie night at the Playboy Mansion. He clinked my glass from his perch on the sofa
as I sat down on the red chintz chair. “He’s a reliable bastard,” he said fondly about
Ronnie, as the barman silently disappeared. “Good bartender, too.”
“He does always seem to know just when you need a drink,” I agreed.
“Now that you’ve found me,” said Jimmy, waggling his bushy gray eyebrows at me, “what
do you plan to do with me?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Maybe have another cocktail?”
“I
’D LOVE TO
look through these boxes with you, Jimmy,” I said, sipping chardonnay and feeling
the delightful California grapes surging through my bloodstream. Jimmy’s good mood
was contagious, and Ronnie had delivered another round without being asked. I pushed
the glass of wine away and focused on the stuff from the Bests’ house that Jimmy wanted
me to look through. “I only have ten minutes before I have to leave, so I’ll have
to make it quick,” I told him.
Jimmy had transported several incredibly dusty boxes and an old leather suitcase to
the club from his house, which he told me he planned to have me sell at The Striped
Awning or take out to Stoltzfus’s flea market, and the stuff was currently shoved
into a corner of the Conwell Suite. My white dress (well, Holly’s white dress) would
be ruined if I unpacked these musty old boxes without some kind of protection, so
I asked Jimmy if I could put his on his bathrobe over my dress to protect it from
smudges. He agreed affably.
“Might give old Ronnie fodder for the club rumor mill if he sees you in my robe,”
he said with some interest as I shrugged it on and rolled up the long sleeves.
Borrowing a pad and paper I’d noticed on the sideboard where the Amaretto bottle was
perched, I sat down cross-legged on the floor, and began to open one of the old cardboard
moving boxes. I didn’t feel comfortable selling any of the Best heirlooms without
first asking Hugh, but I could at least look through the stuff while I was here.
“You’ll probably really miss Hugh by tomorrow,” I told Jimmy without much conviction,
as I pulled out old newspaper that was stuffed into the box to protect its contents.
Jimmy stared at me with utter contempt. “I don’t think so, darling,” he finally said
from the sofa, swirling his Dewars disdainfully. “Been living with him for most of
the last seventy-plus years, except when I was married, and haven’t missed him once.”
Inwardly, I agreed with Jimmy. It seemed like they could really use a trial separation.
But Hugh was so worried about his brother, it would be cruel to keep him in the dark
about Jimmy being found safe.
“You have to at least let him know that you’re safe,” I pleaded. “And you two have
to figure out
together
what to do about your house and moving to Florida. And what your plans are for all
this stuff you brought here.” I wasn’t sure how Jimmy had ever gotten all this stuff
out of the house by himself, but there I sat, making a quick mini-inventory of the
silver and china in the box in the short time before my cute-vet date. It was your
basic WASP hodgepodge: There were mismatched Limoges plates, and two ancient leather-bound
Nathaniel Hawthorne books coated in pale dust. There was most of a silver tea service
in urgent need of polishing, and old leather photo albums, a beautiful but tattered
family Bible, and a set of gilded salt cellars. I was touched by seeing it all spread
out around us, elegant reminders of when the Best family had been more prosperous,
gathering for black-tie dinners and roast pheasant suppers in the proper old Philadelphia
way. It was familiar, and oddly reassuring, to see the remnants of this charmed and
long-gone style of living.
While I made notes, Jimmy munched his way through the bowl of nuts and told me about
the last two days, which had been spent watching porn and baseball (Ronnie had wired
the old TV in the bedroom into the club’s satellite dish), gulping cocktails, and
inhaling fatty foods.
“I check out the tennis on the lawn in the afternoon,” he added gesturing toward the
window seat, with its view of the grass courts, “though I must say the players here
aren’t exactly Maria Sharapova in the looks department. And last night at eleven,
I snuck down and bowled a few frames in the basement. Easy to wander around here at
night, since the old bastards who belong here all have dinner at six. Boring fuckers,
really.”
There was no way Jimmy could stay for too much longer, because even if the club still
allowed members to move in—which it didn’t—he’d never be able to afford it. And
why would the staff hide him for more than a day or two? It’s not like Jimmy was Anne
Frank. And he had to tell his panicked brother where he was. Or at the least, he had
to tell him he was alive.
“Jimmy, you have to get in touch with Hugh,” I told him. “If you want, I’ll tell him
that you’re fine, but aren’t ready to come home yet, and that you’ll get in touch
with him in a couple of days, okay?”
“Fine, fine,” he muttered, picking up a
Racing Form
and rolling his eyes.
I kept unpacking his stuff, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the things
I’d uncovered so far, while loaded with sentiment and charm, wouldn’t bring more than
a hundred bucks all told at The Striped Awning. Maybe I’d have better luck with the
contents of the battered old leather suitcase. The top layer of old newspaper contained
some ancient and not very clean fish forks held together by a rubber band. Next was
a bunch of embroidered linen napkins, and underneath those, a faded black leather
box about the size of a box of animal crackers.
The leather was fraying at the edges, peeling away from the parchment and wood that
formed the box, but the S-shaped catch opened easily. Inside, the interior was lined
in velvet that had once been black, and was now faded by the years. There was a ring
nestled in the velvet, and I lifted it out of its snug place and held it up in the
light still flooding in through the windows. The ring was set with a huge dark red
stone surrounded by tiny white diamonds set in white gold or platinum. While the jewel
was darkened by age, it was still stunning. I don’t know much about jewelry, but this
elegant knuckle-grazer seemed like it must be of some real value.
“Jimmy, this ring is gorgeous,” I raved. “Was it your mother’s? I love it!”
“Cocktail ring,” said Jimmy, looking over his newspaper with his reading glasses halfway
down his nose. “Looks pretty snazzy, I agree, but not worth much. Came down through
Mother’s side of the family. She had it looked at some years ago—well, quite a few
years ago—back in the sixties, as I recall. Took it to an antiques market in the
city and they said it was basically worthless. Semi-precious stone, apparently.”
“It’s really beautiful,” I told him, disappointed for the Bests’ sake that it wasn’t
worth more. I slipped it on my right hand ring finger and admired it. Then I caught
sight of my Timex, which looked seriously outclassed by the dramatic ring, and noticed
it was 6:24 p.m.
“Shit!” I said to Jimmy. “I’ve gotta go.” I looked down at the other unopened cardboard
box in front of me and had a brainstorm. “Can I take this box with me? It might make
Hugh feel better if I bring a few things home. Then I’ll come back here tomorrow,
and we can look through the rest of this stuff, and figure out when you’re going home.”
“Suit yourself,” said Jimmy. Then he gave me a grin. “Why don’t you wear the ring
tonight, darling? It hasn’t seen the light of day in forty years. It might be fun
for you. You can always give it back to me tomorrow.”
“I’d love to!” I said. I hung up his bathrobe, washed my hands in his ancient white
porcelain bathroom sink in the bathroom off the Conwell apartment’s bedroom, taking
care not to ding the cocktail ring, grabbed the box, and waved good-bye as Ronnie
opened the door bearing a tray with Jimmy’s dinner, which was being kept warm under
a silver dome.
I
DASHED DOWN
the steps and was trotting down the first-floor hallway of the club, when I nearly
ran smack into Bootsie.
She stared at the cardboard box tucked under my arm.
“What’s in the box?” she demanded.
I ransacked my mind briefly.
“Some old silver the club wants to sell off,” I lied. “They never use it, so I’m going
to sell it at the store to raise money for the, er, club maintenance fund.”
“Oh,” she said. Luckily, Bootsie was totally bored by this misinformation, and turned
to scan the scene on the porch through a south-facing window, missing the cocktail
ring on my finger, which was mostly blocked by the dusty old box. “Want to have a
quick drink?” she asked, adding, “I’ve got some time, my doubles match was canceled.”
“Oh, sorry, I have to take care of these boxes,” I said. “But I can’t wait for our
tennis lesson tomorrow!”
“Okay,” she said. “Remember, 7:30 a.m. sharp. Early tennis is always fabulous!”
“Great!” I yelled over my shoulder as I headed out the front door toward my car, where
I quickly stashed the box in the trunk of my car. It was 6:29 p.m., so I dialed Hugh
Best as quickly as I could on my cell phone.
“Your brother is fine,” I told him.
“Oh, thank heaven,” bleated Hugh.
“He’s safe and he has all your family heirlooms, but he refuses to come home right
now, and I promised him I wouldn’t tell you where he is for at least a couple more
days. I think I can talk him into it very soon. Are you okay with that?” I asked Hugh
hastily.
“I suppose I have to be,” he sighed fussily. I could hear him uncorking a decanter
and sloshing Scotch into a glass. “Stubborn bastard,” he added.
“I’ll stop by your house first thing tomorrow morning,” I promised. I hung up, did
a lip gloss and hair check, and inspected the white dress, which was blissfully smudge-free.
My Timex read 6:31 p.m., so I took a deep breath and got out of the car, wondering
how I could somehow convince John that we should eat inside the club, hidden in a
dark corner of the empty dining room, when everyone else was having a fabulous time
outside on the porch on this beautiful night. I just couldn’t conduct a date with
the vet under the watchful eye of Bootsie. And even worse, what if Honey Potts, or
the dreaded Mariellen—the vet’s
mother-in-law
—were here tonight, Mariellen sitting and angrily smoking her Virginia Slims on the
porch? She seemed to be here every other night of the year.
I looked up and there in front of me in the parking lot was John, in a sport coat
and khakis, looking tanned and lean.
“Hey, there. I had an idea,” he said with a smile. “Would you like to go to that new
place, Gianni? I get a little tired of eating at the club sometimes.”
J
OHN DROVE TO
the old firehouse, where I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t run into Holly, Joe, or
Bootsie. I knew Holly wouldn’t eat anything on Gianni’s carb-and-meat-laden menu,
and Joe was likely too weary to go out after his day of redesigning with Sophie. I
was fairly sure that Bootsie was still trolling the club for someone to drink with.
However, everyone else in Bryn Mawr seemed to be at Gianni tonight: The bar was packed,
and nearly every table was full, too. Wow,
this
was the suburbs on a Tuesday night?
There restaurant buzzed with a Tuscany-meets-Beverly-Hills vibe. The place smelled
heavenly, and a well-dressed crowd was eating pasta with the gusto of dockhands,
happily sucking down red wine and pinot grigio. I had to hand it to Chef Gianni: Even
though he was still stuck in the hospital, his restaurant was doing really well.
As the hostess walked us through the crowded restaurant to a table on the shaded patio,
I noticed that she was about twenty-four years old and had an enviable Olivia Munn–style
body in her tight all-black outfit that would leave most forty-year-old men with
their tongues unfurling from their mouths. But John, I noted approvingly, merely followed
her through the dining area. Okay, he shot her one quick glance, but honestly, what
guy wouldn’t? He looked great, I thought, in his sport-coat-over-a-polo-shirt
outfit, and the light-colored jacket in a subtle check set off his great tan and
his blue eyes. He turned to smile at me as we walked along behind the Olivia Munn
look-alike.
Just then, a woman at a table in the center of the restaurant clutched my arm with
a coral-manicured paw. “Kristin,” she sang out. “How are you, dear?”
Uh-oh. It was Bootsie’s mom, Kitty Delaney, who was wearing a shocking-lime-green
shift dress with pink ribbon trim, and a pink headband on her graying bob. Kitty is
a nice woman, but it’s from her side of the family that Bootsie inherited her insatiable
taste for gossip. Kitty’s base of gossip-erations is the porch off their house, over
near their tennis court. She has an old green telephone out there, set up on a table
with the vodka and mixers, and spends all day chatting and sharing information with
her extensive network of bridge-playing friends, before they all meet up for cocktail
hour at the club.
Bootsie’s dad, Henry, who doesn’t talk much, gave me a friendly grunt while he continued
to eat what looked like delicious gnocchi.
“And who’s your charming friend?” Kitty pressed on, her eyes gleaming with unbridled
curiosity and a slight Stoli haze at John. I made some hasty introductions, and we
continued loping after the hostess to our table.
Well, that was that, I thought, smiling in what I hoped was a relaxed and carefree
way at John as we walked out onto the patio and reached our white-clothed table.
As we sat down, my mind raced through the ramifications of a Kitty Delaney run-in.
Bootsie had known I was interested in the vet, but I hadn’t told her we had an actual
date tonight. I was going to have to tell Bootsie everything about my date in painful
detail tomorrow (or tonight, if Bootsie could reach me on my cell phone, which was
currently on silent).
I glanced back over my shoulder at Kitty, who had produced her own cell phone and
was furiously punching buttons on it. Was she
texting
? Bootsie must have finally convinced her mom that she needed to be able to receive
and dispense information wherever she went. In fact, I’d be lucky if Bootsie didn’t
show up in the next fifteen minutes, and bribe the waitress into giving her and her
husband, Will, the table next to ours.
“I hear the tagliatelle is great here. Even though the chef’s not here tonight, he’s
got a couple of guys who trained in Italy who make it by hand,” John was saying amiably
as he took off his sport coat and hung it over the back of his chair.
Wow!
I screamed inwardly, checking out his arms under his white polo shirt.
While we unfolded our starched white napkins, I noticed two people lurking at the
end of the large terrace. The pair was behind some potted ficus trees that the Colketts
had banked at the end of the patio to camouflage a kitchen door. I caught a whiff
of cigarette smoke coming from that direction.
I realized the smoker was a petite blonde in towering heels, who was huddled in close
conversation with a tall guy in chef’s whites: Jessica, the young and gorgeous girlfriend
of Gianni, and Channing, the muscular cook, I realized. Were they
kissing
between puffs of her cigarette?
Flustered and having flashbacks to my high school days watching
The Young and the Restless
, I nodded when John asked me if I liked Italian wine. As he ordered a Montepulciano,
a collective murmur came from inside the restaurant. All of us on the patio turned
to stare through the screened doors toward the hostess desk, where a tattooed, muscular
man in a hospital gown and Crocs had just limped in.
“I am back!” announced Chef Gianni, brandishing his crutch triumphantly. “Gianni’s
enemies cannot keep Gianni away from his restaurant!”
As the dining room broke out in admiring applause, the ficus trees parted, and Jessica
rocketed from behind the hedge and back into the restaurant, where she silently appeared
next to Gianni, taking his arm supportively while grinding out her Marlboro Light
on a passing waiter’s tray.
Meanwhile, Channing hotfooted it around the side of the building toward the side entrance
to the kitchen. I wondered if John noticed any of this, but his back had been to them
and he seemed oblivious. He good-naturedly joined in the applause, then asked me
in an upbeat way, “So, how do you feel about gnocchi?”
F
ORTY MINUTES LATER,
I took a bite of homemade spaghetti pomodoro. I’m pretty sure it was the best thing
I’ve ever tasted. This isn’t saying all that much because I don’t cook, and the menu
at the club, where I usually dine out, hasn’t varied in the last thirty years. It’s
basically limited to Reubens, prime rib, and crab salads. But this pasta was a revelation.
And, actually, so was the hot vet. It turned out that he asked about the gnocchi because
he wanted to order something that
I
liked, so he could share it with me. He put a generous little pile of gnocchi on
my bread plate before he even tasted his dinner (light, buttery sauce with herbs and
feather-light pasta), and was telling me about his job as a vet. It turned out that
most of his work these days was out in Lancaster County, with all its farms, since
Bryn Mawr was getting too crowded with people and houses to leave much room for cows.
“There’s still a herd at Sanderson, of course,” John said. “You know the property,
right?”
“I live right across the street.” I nodded, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t bring
up the Barclay Shields incident. He didn’t, but what came next was even worse.
“Honey Potts is lucky. She has a great guy who manages her place, and it’s hard to
find that these days,” John continued. “Mike Woodford. Have you ever met him?”
I choked on a gnocchi, gulped water, and while John patted my back, I croaked, “I’m
okay!” and took a gulp of Montepulciano.
“Is there any, um, pepper on the table?” I added in a desperate non sequitur. John
hailed a passing waiter, who ground pepper industriously over my plate for a moment
and then disappeared. “So yeah,” John said, “Mike Woodford is Honey’s—”
A pair of muscular shoulders and beautifully gleaming teeth flashed in front of us.
“Hey, Doc Hall! It’s me, Channing,” said the sous-chef, smiling at us in all his
tanned Armani-model gorgeousness. “I thought I saw you out here. How’s your pasta,
dude?” he said to John, and then noticed me.
“Hey, I know you!” he said to me, recognition dawning in his dimwitted but dreamy
navy-blue eyes. “Met you at Mrs. Shields’s place!”
“Nice to see you,” I said, which was true.
“Great pasta,” John told him.
“Dude, thanks,” Channing said. “The secret is to make the gnocchi fresh throughout
the night. Can’t be more than ten minutes from rolling pin to boiling water.
“Anyway,” concluded Channing cheerfully, “I gotta get back in the kitchen. The chef’s
got that bum ankle, so he can’t stay on his feet all night. See ya.” He made his way
inside toward the kitchen door, women in the restaurant suddenly abandoning their
forks and craning their necks to watch his broad-shouldered handsomeness as he passed.
“Channing used to work for Honey Potts, too,” John explained to me. “While he was
attending culinary school, he helped out part-time at Sanderson.”
Was there anyone in Bryn Mawr
not
connected to Sanderson? I wondered. Everyone either lived near it or wanted to visit
it. And those who didn’t wanted to buy up some of Sanderson.
And I couldn’t help thinking that if Channing was a former Sanderson employee, he’d
definitely know his way around the place, and was certainly strong enough to have
dragged Barclay under the hydrangea bush.
But then, what would Channing gain by attacking Barclay Shields? I turned my attention
back to the vet and his chiseled features and friendly eyes. Let the police figure
out what happened to Barclay—I was on a date.
Over the wine, John told me about his love of traveling to Italy, his summer weekends
spent fishing in the Chesapeake Bay, his herb garden, and his new hobby of cooking.
He didn’t take himself too seriously, admitting that he’d recently made a lasagna
so bad that he’d offered it to his dogs, but they had steered clear of it.
“None of them would eat it,” John was saying after he’d paid the check and we walked
to the car. “I’ve seen them eat deer shit, so I was a little insulted.”
As we were about to get into John’s car, I saw a huge SUV pull in, and a tall girl
with a blond bob launch herself athletically out of the driver’s seat.
Bootsie.
It was dark out, of course, since it was close to nine o’clock, but there were several
lanterns illuminating the restaurant’s gravel parking area, and my date and I were
directly in front of one of them. Luckily, Bootsie’s gaze was fixed for the moment
on the entrance, but I knew she’d scan the parking area before she went in.
As John beeped open his car door, I rushed over, yanked the passenger door open, and
jumped in before Bootsie could spot me. Looking quizzical, John quickly slid into
the car and shot me a glance. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Anything wrong?”
“No—just tired!” I said, crouching down a little in the front seat. He smiled at
me, with an expression that I interpreted as his thinking I’d had too much Montepulciano.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said. “Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow morning and
drive you to the club to pick up your car?”
“I can walk to the club to get my car tomorrow, but thanks. It’s only half a mile,”
I assured him.
Several minutes later, the vet dropped me off at home, where he walked me to the backyard
gate, leaned down, and gave me a sweet, avuncular peck on the cheek. Luckily, the
bulb on my porch light had burned out, so at least John couldn’t see how badly the
house needed painting, I thought, as I considered this ill-fated farewell. There’s
nothing worse than a cheek kiss at the end of a first date. It’s literally the kiss
of death for future dates. Obviously, the vet would never call again, which I told
myself was okay. I didn’t need any more toxic stares from Mariellen Merriwether. Feeling
downcast, I jumped into bed, where I found some comfort in the presence of a snoring
Waffles at the foot of the mattress. Before my head hit the pillow, I removed the
huge cocktail ring and dropped it on a tray on my dresser.
The ring was too glamorous for me, and so was John. Clearly he was destined for Merriwethers,
not girls who sold antiques and were obsessed with a basset hound.
T
HE TENNIS LESSON
was horrible.
At seven the next morning, Waffles and I trotted the short distance to the club to
pick up my car. In khaki shorts and sneakers, I zoomed over to Bootsie’s parents’
house, with its roomy yard and clay court, where Bootsie was waiting in full tennis
regalia.
“I thought you said you were going back to The Striped Awning last night,” she said,
glaring at me. “Then Mummy texted that you were at Gianni with that vet! But when
I went to join Mummy and Dad for dessert you were gone.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll tell you all about it while we play,” I told her. I figured I’d combine
the misery of the tennis and her interrogation. Faster that way.
For the next forty-five minutes, Bootsie ran me like Louis Gossett Jr. in
An Officer and a Gentleman
. While we did drills, sprints, and rallies, she grilled me mercilessly about my date,
lobbing Wilson balls and questions at me with equal vigor. I told her the truth—that
once I’d learned about John’s first marriage, the date seemed like an exercise in
futility, which is why I hadn’t mentioned it to her.
Bootsie, undeterred, continued to question me about what we’d eaten, about Gianni’s
dramatic mid-meal arrival, and whether John had brought up the fact that he was still
legally married to Lilly.
“No, he didn’t,” I admitted ruefully. “It just didn’t come up, and it seemed too awkward
to ask him.”
“At least you did something right,” Bootsie informed me. “Don’t ask him about his
divorce. I’ll find out for you. And look out, here comes my backhand.”
Thwack!
A Serena Williams–esque shot from Bootsie narrowly missed knocking my right shoulder
out of its socket, and crashed into the wire fence behind me.
“Why shouldn’t I ask him?” I said, running for the next ball and actually making contact
with my racket. It sailed over the net to Bootsie, who hammered it back at me.
“Because men hate those kind of questions,” she said sagely. “You just work on your
tennis.”