Antiques Roadkill Read online

  She nodded. “Or Chanel nail polish in ‘Vamp.’”

  “Or another Pandora charm.”

  Right now we were wearing identical Danish bracelets—demonstrating how Tina and I were always on the same page, right down to the paragraph … sentence, even.

  When “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover” morphed into a nearly unrecognizable “Hey, Jude,” we made a face at each other and headed into the nightclub to find better ear candy. And maybe some eye candy, too.…

  The Octagon, we quickly realized, had two separate watering holes: a bottom floor for smokers, and an upper one for those who valued their lungs if not their brain cells. We entered onto the smokers’ floor, which seemed to be an older crowd, the decor disappointing: black walls trimmed red, standard small round tables, a few booths, a perfunctory bar in back; nothing that cigarette burns could damage too much (hookah bars have not yet caught on in middle America). Next to a postage-stamp-size dance floor, a band called Geezer was playing—four older guys doing Weezer songs, and not too badly.

  I liked the music but not the literal atmosphere. Before the smoke had a chance to permeate our hair and clothes, we hurriedly followed some other females, who seemed to know what they were doing (compared to us, anyway), up a flight of stairs to a red vinyl-padded door meant to keep the fumes out.

  Pounding dance music assaulted us as we stepped through, the room crawling with yuppies and guppies, and Xers and Yers. Obviously, this was where the owners spent the bulk of their budget: subdued deco lighting, rich cherry furniture, Parisian dance-hall wall prints. The focal point was an elaborately carved, eight-sided bar in the middle of the room, mirroring the shape of the building. Tract lighting aimed at the large octagonal wineglass holder above the bar—where hundreds of crystal bats hung by their stems—made an incredible chandelier.

  As we worked our way through the crowd, a couple slid off stools at a high-top table, and we grabbed it, beating out others in what seemed like a game of musical chairs.

  With the dizzying din of music, it was hard to think, much less talk. A waitress in a white tux shirt and black tux pants came over, and we shouted our order: splits of champagne.

  I leaned in to Tina’s ear. “See anybody you know?”

  She shook her head. “Old married lady—been off the circuit too long.”

  Our champagne came, and we drank and giggled and drank awhile and giggled some more.

  Then I spotted an old childhood friend, Mia Cordona, standing among the crush at the bar. Even though I hadn’t seen her for years, that long chestnut hair, those dark sultry eyes, high cheekbones, and full-lipped mouth were unmistakable. Mia’s once skinny-as-a-toothpick figure, however, had blossomed voluptuously, putting a strain on her red spandex dress.

  Mia had grown up across the street from me. Naturally, I gravitated to the girl closest to my age in the large Hispanic family. The Cordonas ran a Mexican restaurant catering to the ever-growing number of immigrants who’d come north to work in the corn and tomato fields near Serenity. Mia was so much fun, always up for some harmless mischief, which we’d then blame on one of her numerous siblings.

  I loved going over to the Cordonas’ rambling clapboard house, filled as it was with constant commotion, kids practically hanging from the rafters, one or another constantly in the “time-out” corner. The decor was so different from ours—brightly colored tablecloths, pottery, hand-carved Spanish furniture … and always some wonderful south-of-the-border food cooking on the stove.

  Sometimes, after I’d already eaten at my house, I’d tie a scarf over my light-colored hair and go over to Mia’s, and sit among the mob at their table, unnoticed (or so I thought).

  Mia’s parents spoke only Spanish (their kids, of course, were bilingual), and on several occasions I ran across the street to get Mr. Cordona to help me with Mother when she was having a particularly bad spell. His gentle manner and lyrical speech had a calming effect on Mother, and the fact that she couldn’t understand a word he said helped create enough distraction for me to go and get the doctor.

  My favorite memory of Mia is of her at about age twelve, jumping on her bed like a trampoline, singing “Turn the Beat Around.” Sadly, the family moved across town, and because I was older than Mia, we rarely saw each other.

  “I’m going over to talk to Mia,” I said in Tina’s ear.

  Her brow furrowed. “You know that girl?”

  Tina’s expression made me ask, “Why?”

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Heard what? I’m a stranger in town, remember?”

  Tina’s expression grew uncomfortable. “When she was on the police force—”

  “Mia’s a cop?”

  “Was a cop,” Tina corrected. “She got kicked off.”

  “Why?”

  Tina shrugged with her eyebrows. “Some confiscated drugs came up missing … and she was in charge of the evidence locker. She never got formally charged with anything, but she was fired for malfeasance, and since she didn’t fight it or anything … well.”

  I stared across the room at my childhood friend; her devoutly religious, upstanding parents must have been crushed.

  Mia seemed to be hanging on the arm of a really cute guy.

  I said to Tina, “I’ll be back,” and slid off my stool.

  Pushing through the boisterous throng, getting some flirty self-esteem-boosting glances from guys, I made my way to the bar.

  “Mia!” I smiled. “Hi!”

  She turned, recognition slow in coming. Her smile seemed halfhearted. Polite. “Oh. Brandy, right? Hello. Didn’t know you were back in town.”

  Not that she seemed to give a damn.

  The frantic dance music turned to a slow syrupy song, giving everyone a chance to talk, and for some reason, I didn’t accept her near brush-off.

  “I’m back living with Mother,” I said, hanging in. “Nasty divorce, you know, that kinda thing … maybe we could get together some time?”

  “I’m pretty busy,” Mia said.

  I just stood there awkwardly with my hurt feelings hanging out. She hadn’t even bothered to say, “Cool, yeah, we’ll have to do that,” and turn away.

  She had really changed.

  But the guy she was with was giving me a look that said he, at least, was interested.…

  Just to be ornery, I gave her my least sincere smile and said, “Mia—why don’t you introduce me to your friend?”

  Her “friend” was of average height, nicely put together, with carefully mussed hair, and dark, penetrating eyes.

  When Mia didn’t answer, I stuck out my hand. “Brandy Borne.”

  “Todd.” His hand was warm, his grip firm, his smile easy. But he didn’t offer a last name.

  Working my voice over the music, I said, “Mia and I grew up across the street from each other.”

  Todd’s mouth smiled but his forehead frowned as he said, “Funny, I thought I knew all of Mia’s friends.” He looked chidingly at her. “Sometimes I think you keep things from me.”

  Mia reached for her drink on the bar and took a sip. I might as well not have been there. The slow number ended and an oldie-but-goodie disco song filled the room.

  Raising his voice over the pounding bass, Todd said to me, “Mia’s in one of her moods tonight … maybe you’d like to dance?”

  Was he trying to make Mia jealous?

  I looked at her; she shrugged indifferently, and faced the bar, her back to us.

  I said to Todd, “I didn’t come here to sit!”

  Was I trying to make Mia jealous?

  He took my hand and led me through the crowd to the dance floor, where we carved out a spot. He pulled me roughly to him.

  Todd was a great dirty dancer, his pelvis grinding against mine … and, noticing Mia glancing at us occasionally, I gave as good as I got. Whether I was being bitchy to my old friend who’d snubbed me, or just horny, who can say?

  We stayed on for a slow number, and he held me tight, his lips brushing my ea
r, then my cheek, before landing fully on my mouth, his kiss wet and hot. An electric jolt surged through my body—a feeling I hadn’t had in a quite some time.

  After the song, I signaled to Todd that I wanted to leave the dance floor, and he walked me off.

  “See you later?” he asked.

  Maybe I should play hard to get.…

  “Sure. I’m in the book—it’s under Vivian Borne.”

  “Got it. You’re a great dancer.”

  If “dancing” could be defined as allowing him to press himself up against me, I was terrific.

  I made my way on rubbery legs to the ladies’ room. Part of it was the champagne. But partly it was that guy—something exciting, even dangerous about him.…

  I was fixing my makeup when I saw Mia’s reflection in the mirror behind me.

  Her voice was cold. “Stay away.”

  “From you?”

  “From Todd.”

  Confrontations in bathrooms seemed to be the norm with me these days—particularly with women whose men I’d gotten too friendly with.

  I said, “Hey, you were there. He asked me to dance. All I did was say yes.”

  Mia put her hands on her curvaceous hips. “Next time say no.”

  “Don’t you mean … just say no?”

  She got the drug-reference dig and her upper lip curled.

  Before she could speak, however, a toilet flushed. We held a momentary truce as a brunette exited a stall, and hurriedly washed her hands and scurried out of harm’s way.

  Mia stepped closer and shook a long-nailed finger in my face. “I mean it, Brandy—don’t even speak to him again … got it, girlfriend?”

  What, was I on Jerry Springer suddenly?

  Still, I had to wonder if Mia could still beat the tar out of me, which even when she was skinny she did with ease … and I didn’t care to find out.

  “Okay … okay, I hear you. I guess I was just a little … hurt.”

  Eyes flared. “Hurt?”

  “We were friends once upon a time.”

  “That fairy tale’s over,” Mia said, and whirled and was gone.

  I leaned against the counter and looked at myself. I was pretty cute, and maybe a little drunk, and definitely a lot embarrassed. Gathering what remained of my dignity, collecting a few shreds of what had been my poise, I exited the ladies’ room.

  Returning to my table, I could tell Tina was peeved by my extended absence. I took her by the arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Good call,” she snapped. “Do you know how much fun it is, being married, and sitting by yourself in a singles’ bar, getting hit on, and fueling rumors?”

  “Not much?”

  “Not much.”

  Neither of us spoke again until we got inside the car; then I asked sheepishly, “Could we go to the Holiday Inn—like we used to?”

  Tina bestowed me a small forgiving smile. “All right.…”

  “Thank you, honey.”

  “Shut up.” But she was smiling.

  The Oasis was a typical hotel cocktail lounge, cozy, dark, blandly anonymous. Dead tonight, but for a pair of businessmen in Brooks Brothers, at the bar. And us.

  Tina and I slid into a semicircular padded booth off in one corner, to be by ourselves. When a barmaid in a red vest and white shirt and black slacks came over, we both ordered coffee.

  When she’d gone, I said, “I don’t ever want anything to come between us, Teen.… I’d rather cut off my arm than have you mad at me.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Let’s face it, things are different now. I’m single, you’re married. I don’t want the dynamics to affect our friendship.”

  Tina nodded in agreement. “We can stick to shopping and movies.… Your friend Mia’s single, though, right?”

  “Friend is not exactly the word.”

  I told her about my little encounter.

  “Weird,” she said.

  The coffees came. For my penitence, I paid.

  Tina took a sip, then set the cup down and gave me a quizzical look.

  “What?” I asked.

  She crinkled her nose. “You’re not going to start seeing that guy, are you?”

  “What guy?”

  “That Todd character.”

  “Him? No. He doesn’t exactly seem to be available.”

  “Since when did that stop you?”

  I gave her a hurt look.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad Mia told you to stay away.”

  “Why?”

  Tina waited a moment. Then, “Let’s just say, if you had any pharmaceutical needs, and didn’t have a prescription? That Todd could probably fill them.”

  Too bad. Todd might have been worth pursuing, otherwise; plus, it seemed to confirm the drug rumors about Mia. People sure could change when you left town for a while.…

  Tina was shaking her head and lost in some private thought.

  “What are you thinking, Teen?”

  “Just … what I don’t understand is … after what happened to her brother? How Mia could get mixed up with a guy like that.”

  “Which brother, and what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know his name, it was just something I saw in the paper, when she got fired and lots of ancient dirt got stirred up … but I believe he died from an overdose.”

  “Oh. Jeez. What of?”

  She shrugged with her eyebrows. “Does it really matter?”

  No. Dead was dead.

  I stared into my coffee cup, hoping the overdosed Cordona brother wasn’t Juan. In my mind’s eye, I could see him, a few years younger than Mia, gazing at his sister with pure adoration. And, although she never alluded to it, Juan was clearly her favorite. If drugs had taken him from her, she’d have been devastated. But Tina was right—how could she go down that path herself, then?

  Sorrow and rage can do funny things to a person.

  I switched the subject. “What do you think about what I told you before? On the phone?”

  Tina’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “About Mother—about these traumatic events, all this murder talk—I’m afraid it’s put her in a bad place.”

  “Mentally, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “In a maybe-she-needs-her-meds-upped kinda place, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  I blinked. “No?”

  “No, I think your mother’s right—it is suspicious. That Carson guy was … Remember Perry Mason?”

  “Sure. We used to watch reruns over the supper hour, Mother and Peggy Sue and me. I loved that show.”

  Tina nodded, indicating this was yet another shared experience. “Well, remember how there was always somebody so despicable in the first ten minutes, he or she was sure to get killed?”

  “Everybody and his duck had a murder motive. Sure.”

  Tina was nodding some more. “Well, that’s Clint Carson. And you attacked him in public the day before he was killed.”

  “I didn’t attack him.…”

  “Verbally you did. You, and your mother, with her well-known … problems? You’re perfect patsies.”

  “You did watch Perry Mason.”

  “Sure I did. I also watched Nancy Drew. I’m not against you snooping a little.” She sipped her coffee and shrugged. “You need help, just say the word. Every Holmes needs a Watson.”

  “I’m already Watson,” I said with a smirk. “I’m living with Sherlock Holmes in a red hat.”

  The barmaid delivered two glasses of white wine … compliments of the two businessmen. We guardedly smiled at them, but they didn’t come over and hit on us.

  Sometimes people do things just to be nice.

  Or maybe they were just gay.

  I was rudely awakened Sunday morning by Mother singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,"off-key, at the foot of my bed. (Musicals were not her forte.) (Not that that ever stopped her.)

  Still, I was pleased to discover her in such
good spirits … but couldn’t I, for once, sleep in? I would have belted back “Oh, How I Hate to Get up in the Morning,” but I had a frog in my throat, not to mention a haze in my brain, and not a “bright, golden” one, either.

  “Brandy, darling, come along,” she chirped. “We’re going to church.”

  Then, after I didn’t stir, she gave me the singsongy final wake-up call notice I’d heard since I was a child: “Up-ie, up-ie, up-ieeee!”

  “I’m not three!” I whined.

  “No, you’re a big girl now,” she said, and pulled off the covers.

  There was no arguing with Mother when she decided she needed a shot of religion, which (thank God) was irregularly, at best.

  When I was growing up, Mother and I didn’t belong to any one churchly persuasion, much less individual house of worship; but you might say we belonged to all of them, at one time or another: Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon … we even went to synagogue (Jewish weddings were my favorite). Mother said she believed in God in heaven, but she was looking for just the right earthly fit.

  Me, I didn’t mind, because at least church never got boring, which was a common complaint from other kids, condemned to weekly bouts of the same old unison chants and dreary hymns. We always signed in as “visitors,” Mother putting what she could (or what she considered fair exchange for an hour of “enlightenment and entertainment”) in the collection plate. Everyone was always so nice to us, because we were potential converts.

  I struggled out of bed and headed for the shower (no time for a leisurely bubble-bath), to wash the product out of my “club” hair.

  In record time I was out the front door, wearing a denim DKNY skirt, white lace poncho—already passé—over a pale yellow top, pink Minnetonka moccasins, minimal makeup, and my damp hair left to dry on its own devices (which could be scary).

  Mother was waiting for me out on the sidewalk, and I fell in beside her, as we began the ten blocks or so to the church.

  After all those years of religion-hopping, we had finally joined the New Hope Church in my eighth grade year of junior high. The church was aptly named, but even more apt would have been the Church of Common Sense and Mild Scoldings. The (also aptly named) pastor, John Tutor, had been a minister at another local church, but when told by the national church-type powers-that-be that he was getting transferred to another state, Tutor balked. When his holy superiors insisted, he left, formed New Hope, and took half the congregation with him.