No Such Thing As a Good Blind Date: A Brandy Alexander Mystery (No Such Thing As: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) (3 page)

“He’s not a butler, Mom.”

“Then why is he answering your phone?”

I suppressed the urge to scream and said instead, “How’s Daddy?”

“Your father’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

So what else is new?
“Why are you worried about me? I’m fine.” Jobless, penniless, but fine.

“Brandy, don’t you ever pick up the papers?”

“Of course I do. I’m browsing through the comics’ section as we speak. Did you know that Cathy and Irving got married? What’s it been, twenty years?”

“Don’t get flip with me, Brandy Renee.” Uh oh. She’s pulling out the middle name. She must really be upset.

“I’m sorry, Mom. What’s wrong?”

“Well,” she said, mollified, “It seems that there has been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood lately.”

“How many is a rash?”

“Armed robberies,” she said, choosing to ignore me. “In fact,” she added, lowering her voice to the stage whisper she usually reserved for conversations about terminal diseases, “Mrs. Edelstein’s neighbor was held up
at knifepoint in her own home,
two blocks down on Ritner. They took her jewelry and a bust of Beethoven. I just don’t want to pick up the newspaper one day and see your name listed among the victims.”

Oh why did I think it would be nice to get her that subscription to the Inquirer when she moved to Florida?

“Brandy, are you there?”

“I’m here, Mom. Listen, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m perfectly safe.”

“Well, keep the doors locked—and call your brother.” That’s my mother’s solution to everything.

She filled the next ten minutes detailing her trip to the podiatrist. I care, I really do, but I’m a little on the squeamish side. So when she started in with her toe fungus, I decided to wrap things up.

“I’ve got to run, Mom. The butler wants to use the phone.”

“Ya know the nose, ya know the man.”—Janine DiAngelo, twin sister of Franny and the definitive expert on key male anatomy.

“I’d always heard it was the thumbs.”

Janine took a swig of Rolling Rock ale and considered this. “No, Danny Margolis has huge thumbs.” She shook her luxurious auburn haired head, lost in promises unkept. “He was a big disappointment.”

Reflecting on my own meager experience in this department, I deferred to Janine’s wealth of knowledge.

It was five p.m.—Happy Hour at the Pensacola Bar & Grill, an after-work hangout for the actual employed. Young urban professionals flocked here, presumably, after a hard day at the office, to unburden themselves of the pressures of the working world. Sitting among them at the bar, munching free snacks and nursing beers, Janine and I were Happy Hour frauds.

I glanced over at my cohort in unemployment. Janine looked like a goddess in her “weather be damned” short tight skirt, which accentuated her legs, and a form-fitting turtleneck, which accentuated other parts of her near perfect five foot nine inch body. I slumped beside her in my uniform jeans and sweatshirt, looking like the shortstop for a peewee softball team.

“So how’s it going with Toodie?” she asked.

It had been a week since the big move, and I had to admit to being pleasantly surprised. He’s sweet, in a loopy sort of way, and as a plumber he knows only too well what can befall a person who doesn’t clean the hair out of the shower drain. Plus, he cooks. I reported all this to Janine.

“Brandy,” she said, one eye on me and the other on a six foot two inch suit and Armani tie that was making its way over to the bar, “don’t you think it’s a little odd that in the all the time you’ve been back, the only socializing you’ve done is with a thirty year old jailbird who still lives with his granny?” Well, when you put it
that
way…

“I socialize. Yesterday I had a dental appointment, and just last week I took Rocky to the vet’s to get spayed.” Rocky is my twelve-week-old kitten, who, judging by the hordes of Tomcats sniffing around the house, has no trouble getting dates.

The Armani tie reached the bar and slid onto the stool next to Janine. His sandy-haired, equally well-dressed friend sidled up next to him, giving me the once-over. To his credit, he didn’t try to slip me subway tokens or point me in the direction of the nearest homeless shelter.

“Hey,” he said, reading the logo on my sweatshirt. “South Street Boxing Gym. Do you know Frankie Brentano? He’s the manager there.”

Janine flashed me the “thumbs up” sign and deliberately turned her back to me.

“Yeah, I know him,” I said. “He’s my uncle.”

Uncle Frankie is my mother’s significantly younger, formerly delinquent brother and one of my favorite people in the world. “How do you know him?”

Stan, it turns out, is an avid boxing fan. He is also an accounts exec at a nearby advertising firm, a Lacrosse player, divorced from his childhood sweetheart and a former spelling bee champion. I learned all this in the space of three minutes. I also learned that Stan likes to work with his hands. One arm leaned on the bar while the other snaked up my back, rubbing concentric circles along my spine and settling around the vicinity of my chest.

“Stan,” I asked, smiling, “did we meet in a former life and it just slipped my mind?”

“I’m sure I would’ve remembered,” Stan said, smooth as snake oil. And then, swear to God, he winked at me. I gave myself points for not throwing up.

“The reason I’m asking is, you’ve got your hand practically down my bra cup, and that’s usually reserved for men I’ve known longer than six minutes.” I disengaged myself from Stan and leaned across him to tap Janine on the shoulder. She tried her best to ignore me, lost in conversation with Eric Something or Other; another accounts exec, and judging by the placement of
his
hands, a “leg” man. I tried again.

“Yo, Janine. Isn’t that Christine Yablonski over in the corner, by the plastic Fichus tree?” I waved a hearty hello in the general direction of the faux Fichus. A middle-aged woman with short, steel gray hair and a man’s suit smiled and waved a tentative hello back.

“Who?” Janine asked, clearly not playing along.

I turned to Stan and Eric. “Old friend. Would you excuse us for a minute?” I shoved Janine off her stool and herded her out of the bar area.

“Brandy, what is wrong with you? Those guys are cute, rich and interested.”

“Look, I don’t mean to sound ungracious here, but unless Stan is an undercover gynecologist, he needs to keep his hands off my boobs.”

Janine thought about this for a minute. “Maybe he’s just a really affectionate kind of guy.”

“And maybe he’s just a
perv.
Janine, we just met!”

Janine looked downcast.

“Okay, what’s going on here? Why are you pushing so hard for this?”

“Well,” Janine said, “it’s just that we’ve all been worried about you.”

“Who all?”

“Everybody.”

I felt a colossal headache coming on and with it, a minor epiphany. “Have you been talking to Carla?”

Janine refused eye contact. “Maybe.”

Unhhh! “Carla thinks I moved back here to be near Bobby. Is that what you think too? Because that’s ridiculous! Not to mention pathetic.
Do I look pathetic to you?”
My voice was starting to hit a range known only to dogs—and possibly whales.

Janine raised her arms in an “I surrender” gesture. “Okay. I believe you. You’re not stuck on Bobby. But Eric and I are really hitting it off, so could you please be civil to Stan—at least until I can get Eric to ask for my phone number?”

“Fine,” I grunted.

“Thank you.”

We headed back to the bar, my new and improved sweet-as-pie attitude threatening to hurl me into a diabetic coma. The guys had ordered drinks for us while we were gone. Clear, dark amber liquid in tall glasses, with pink umbrellas peering over the top. I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Janine kicked me under the bar.

“Too much?” I whispered. She rolled her eyes in response.

“What’s this?” I asked, inspecting the glass.

“Long Island Iced Tea,” Stan the Hand said.

“Oh, I love iced tea.”

“Uh, Bran?” Janine started, as I picked up the drink and took a huge thirst-quenching gulp. The effects were immediate, the room spinning out of orbit being my first clue.

“This isn’t iced tea, is it?”

“In name only,” said Stan.

“What’s in this thing, anyway? And by the way, it’s delicious!” I grabbed hold of the straw and began slurping it down like there was no tomorrow.

“Vodka, gin, tequila…” He reached for my glass.

“Whoa, hold on there, cowboy.”

Stan tried to pull the drink out of my hand but I was too quick for him. I downed the rest and set the glass back on the counter, grinning up at him. He had a certain
je ne sais quoi
that for some reason I hadn’t noticed before. The arm was back around my shoulder and this time I let him keep it there.

“Hey, Stan,” Janine said, eying his arm around me, “you didn’t slip a little Ecstasy in there, did you?”

“No! What do you take me for, anyway?”

I tugged on Stan’s sleeve, pointing to Janine’s drink.

“Yoo hoo, can I have another one of those things?” I asked, leaning against him. He wasn’t a bad looking guy. In fact, when I squinched my eyes closed real tight and tilted my head, he looked just like Bruce Willis in his old Moonlighting days. Before the pierced ears and shaved head.

“Ya know, you’re kinda cute,” I said. And then,
Oh God,
I winked at him.

Janine drove me home. I was a little fuzzy on the details but, apparently, Stan and Eric left shortly after I challenged the middle-aged woman wearing a man’s suit to an arm wrestling contest.

“I guess I shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach,” I said, by way of apology to Janine.

Janine laughed. “It was fun. Ya know you could’ve beat that old lady, easy, if you hadn’t fallen off the barstool.”

I thought so too. “I’m sorry about Eric.”

“Eh,” she shrugged. “Did ya get a look at the nose on that guy? Miniscule. And you know what they say? Ya know the nose…”

Janine pulled up in front of my house, turning on the interior car light while I searched for my keys. It was an unnecessary gesture, as the entire block was illuminated by the glow of Mrs. Gentile’s latest holiday acquisition; a Disneyesque nativity scene, complete with revolving wise men and animatronic farm animals that neighed, baa-ed and bobbed their little robotic heads, welcoming baby Jesus into the neighborhood.

Toodie stood on a ladder on my side of the porch, stringing Christmas tree lights along the roof; a ragged display in green and red, with gaping holes where the burned out lights hadn’t been replaced. I stood there watching him as Janine pulled away.

“Yo!” he yelled from the top of the ladder. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Neat,” I agreed. “Where’d ya get them?”

“Garage sale.” Having run out of light strings, Toodie climbed down off the ladder, leaving half the roof in darkness. We looked skyward, admiring his handiwork. While it wasn’t the extravaganza created by my neighbor, it had a kind of trailer park panache that appealed to me.

“Hey, what’s this?” An ancient piece of machinery had taken up residence on my front lawn, its carcass held together by decades of rust. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was a Harley Davidson Shovelhead, circa 1973.

“My new set of wheels—once I get it up and running.” Hope springs eternal.

“Garage sale?”

Toodie nodded.

“Maybe Paul can help you get it going.” My brother is nuts about cars, bikes, anything with wheels, chrome and an engine that predates the disco era.

I helped Toodie maneuver the Harley into the basement, which was rife with the oddball stuff he’s collected in the short time he’s been staying with me. As I pushed the kickstand down on the bike I tripped over a set of dilapidated, left-handed golf clubs.

“I’m thinking of taking up golf,” he said.

“Toodie, these are left-handed clubs. You’re not left-handed…and there’s no head on the nine-iron.”

“I know. That’s how come they were so cheap.”

We headed upstairs. Toodie’s plumbing tools were sprawled all over the kitchen floor, the cabinet under the sink wide open. “You need a new garbage disposal,” he said. “This one’s leaking buckets.”

I took this as an encouraging sign. At least the water was running again. Rocky lounged in a puddle on the floor, her gray and white fur matted into sorry little clumps. I’d always heard that cats had an aversion to water, but she thought this was great fun.

Something wonderful permeated the air. It was coming from the oven.

“I’m going out tonight,” Toodie said, “but I made you a meatloaf. And there’re some mashed potatoes in the fridge.”

I have to admit I’ve eaten pretty well since Toodie’s moved in. My dinners usually consist of cold cereal and half a box of Tastykakes or the occasional grilled cheese sandwich.

I opened the oven door and took out the meatloaf, digging in with my fingers. One nice thing about living with Toodie, I don’t have to concern myself with social amenities.

“Oh, and some guy called while you were out. Randolph…Rudolph…?”

“Adolph?” I suggested helpfully.

“Barry,” he beamed. “Barry Kaminski. Something about dinner Saturday night. He wants you to call him.”

After I ate all of the meatloaf and mashed potatoes, I called Barry back. He had a rich, mature baritone that reminded me of Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and his speech was very formal. You could tell this man worked for network news, not some crappy local station where the reporters are like stand-up comics, doing their personal “schtick” while reporting on a three car pile-up on I-95.

We agreed that he’d come here for dinner. I really wanted Barry to see that I’d gone to a lot of trouble to prepare a delicious meal for him, so that when I hit him up for a job he’d be hard pressed to turn me down. I made a mental note to call DiBruno Brothers to pre-order lasagna and stop by Perini’s for dessert.

I cleaned up the dinner dishes and flopped on the couch, flipping through the stations until I reached Nick at Nite. Roseann was on. Oh goody. I’ve always found Dan very attractive. He’s cute and solid and dependable. And he’s always there for Roseann. Not like the men in my life. Not that I’ve had so many. Just one, to be specific. And then several weeks ago, there was the promise of one more—well, maybe promise is too strong a word— okay, a faint possibility, but that didn’t pan out and I guess I’ve been in a bit of a funk about it. Maybe everyone’s been right to worry about me. It’s time I moved on. I decided to devote the evening to spiritual growth, but Full House was on next and I just love that little Michelle. I guess my path to enlightenment could wait another half an hour.