The Five Strangers, page 9
Chapter 14 – True Colors
I unlocked the front door of Girlfriend’s, disarmed the alarm again and gestured grandly for Sheila to enter. She stepped inside and gazed around as I turned the lights on.
Since I was too dense to understand exactly what it was this genius at retail design had in mind, I went behind the counter and sent Florence a quick text so she wouldn’t be startled that my car was behind the shop so early in the day. I also warned her to gird the loins. Sheila Colson was also in the shop, and she was taking a close look at our inventory for the first time. I wasn’t expecting her to hold back when it came to the nasty little pseudo-jokes.
I pretended to be busy fooling around with the counter’s jewelry display, but really I was watching Sheila moving about, picking up various items and frowning at them. Every now and then she’d murmur something negative or shake her head no, or both. I didn’t comment. Whatever she was working herself up to, I began to hope she would get on with it before Florence came in the back door with Abraham.
If somebody had bet me a dollar that I couldn’t sense the exact moment Sheila would blurt something out, they would have lost. I lifted my chin inquisitively before she even opened her mouth.
“Don’t you have any –” she began, sounding frustrated, “I don’t know – medicine cabinets or shadowboxes or very large conch shells – even an old toolbox I can refinish and display open with the jewelry draped over the compartments?”
Well, even I could think of unique displays like that. I’d seen them in gift shops all over Florida. I refrained from mentioning this and said, “I’m afraid what we have out is what we have, unless you want to come into the back room and look through boxes of donated items that we haven’t sorted out yet.”
At that moment, I heard Florence unlocking the back door and Abraham bounded through the backroom curtain, looking more alive and energetic than I’d ever seen him before. Apparently the two-block walk from Florence’s house had invigorated him. Then he saw me and gave me a freezing look. I wrinkled my nose at him and said, “Good morning, Abraham. Yes, it’s me, the boss lady. I’m the one who buys the kibble, so have a little respect.”
He immediately put both his nose and tail in the air and strolled over to the beachy display by the front door. Florence had sorted out the seashells, and he pushed them aside again and got himself settled.
Then he noticed Sheila. In a silent-movie pantomime of outrage he reared his head back and stared, then ostentatiously circled around to put his back to her.
“That’s our shop cat, Abraham,” I told Sheila as Florence came in through the curtains. “His job is to make the customers feel welcome. And this is my manager, Florence.”
“Yes,” Sheila said. “We’ve met. Hello again, Florence. You still haven’t fixed your sign, I see.”
“Our sign?” Florence said, blinking.
“The apostrophe.”
“We like our apostrophe and it’s staying in,” I said before turning to tell Florence good morning. “Sheila is looking for clever ways to display old jewelry. You’re so good at design, maybe you can help her out with some ideas.”
“Not old jewelry,” Sheila said. “Vintage. Unique things, with lasting value.”
“Yeah, unique stuff,” I echoed with a slight edge to my voice.
Florence gave me a warning look and redirected her attention to the customer.
“You’re in luck,” she told her. “We just got a standing jewelry cabinet in mahogany. In fact, I haven’t even priced it and put it out on the sales floor yet. It’s still in the back room. It’ll be just the thing to place among your antiques.”
She went into the back room and returned with a small cabinet on long legs with many shallow drawers, one of which was missing its drawer pull. The plummy finish looked foggy and had been scratched here and there, but there was nothing that couldn’t be touched up before a good revarnishing, and after all, Sheila was looking for a display case, not something to sell.
She came across the shop floor and took a closer look, and I could tell just by the look on her face what she thought of it.
“What a unique idea,” she sniffed. “Displaying jewelry in a jewelry case. Still . . . .”
Florence went into detail. “Just open the drawers in a little descending pyramid and drape things over the edges, maybe leave bits showing to intrigue the customer, get her to open the drawer a little further.”
“Obviously.”
Sheila mulled it over, then stood up, saying, “Well . . . it wasn’t what I had in mind, but I’ll take it anyway. Maybe I can do something unexpected with it. Is that how you display your jewelry?” she said, looking at our front counter.
“Yes,” I told her. “That is, in fact, jewelry.”
She came closer. On one corner of the wide checkout counter, we had a standing earring rack. Next to it was a footlong wooden bar with wedge supports that had about twenty bracelets strung along it, and under the glass countertop there were necklaces and rings in velvet-lined trays.
“Well,” Sheila said, staring down at the rings, “I was trying not to be boring, but I think I’ll go ahead and at least take the earring rack.”
“Oh, Sheila dear,” I said, growing ever sweeter, “that’s not for sale. We need it for our own display. Obviously.”
“Oh, of course,” she muttered, turning around. She continued to look over the shop in general, frowning. Finally, she noticed the beachy table and began to move toward it.
“Now this would be more original,” she said, showing enthusiasm for the first time. “A play on the beach – sand, seashells, maybe some sunglasses. Do you have any larger seashells? I’m thinking about a conch shell about the size of a punchbowl.”
Looking over everything else on the table but never looking directly at Abraham, she put her hand out and pushed him aside. He tumbled lightly onto the floor.
Florence gasped. I stopped breathing.
“Don’t worry,” Sheila said without bothering to look. “She won’t be hurt. Cats always land on their feet. I just need to get a better perspective on what I can do with this theme.”
Sheila had no idea how dead she was.
In a frozen voice, Florence said, “Abraham is a tomcat. He’s not a she.”
Sheila gave Florence a look of complete incomprehension and said, “What’s that?”
“Don’t bother,” I muttered to Florence as I advanced upon the battlefield, batting my eyes and smiling.
* * *
There was no actual violence. It’s doubtful that Sheila even noticed the change, but Florence and I shifted into full Southern Sweet mode. You know – an avalanche of flowery talk, a stream of personal endearments, (we particularly like Honey), and a veritable ballet of graciousness. It’s a skill we Southern belles have, and it has nothing to do with being phony. It’s dead serious. If you ever notice this kind of behavior in the lady you’re with, look out.
The jewelry cabinet hadn’t been valued yet, and the asking price quietly doubled. Sheila displayed her lack of bargaining savvy by paying full price without an argument. Yet another reason her shop isn’t going to make it, I thought as I smiled brightly: she doesn’t have the first idea what the value of this chest actually is, or how to negotiate price.
She topped it all off by asking both of us if we’d seen Jasper lately. I’d seen him just ninety or a hundred minutes before, but I just batted my lashes at her and asked, “Why?”
“Dusty seems like he’s going to be a lot of help, but he’s not a professional, like Jasper. If either one of you sees him, would you let him know I’m willing to raise the hourly rate if he’ll come back?”
“Oh, we certainly will,” Florence said, with the kind of overdone solemnity for which liars are famous.
We were just finishing the transaction and getting rid of her when Dusty walked in the door.
“There’s my boss lady,” he said, smiling warmly. “Gardner and I have a question, and I thought I’d save time by just walking over here and asking.”
“I’m finished here,” she told him. “We can walk back together. Or . . . did you say you wanted to buy some new clothes? What I mean is, some of what they have here?”
“I’ll come back later.”
“No, no. You’re here now. Go ahead and shop. I’ll go back and deal with Gardner. You need some new clothes, I can see that, and we may be working late tonight. That is, if you’re available?”
“I’m all yours, ma’am. I can work late every day but Friday. I’m able to stay as long as you want today, though.”
“Oh? What are you doing Friday?”
“I’m working at my other job, but that won’t be till after seven.” He grinned around at us like a man with a delicious secret. “This town is being so friendly I’m beginning to think it wants to keep me.”
“What’s the other job?” I asked.
“Why, ma’am, I expected you of all people would know that already. I may do a little of this and a little of that, but basically I’m a musician. I did an audition over at Flounder Bob’s and they’re going to give me a tryout as the warm-up act on Friday, see how it goes, maybe give me a regular gig.”
“That’s great!” I exclaimed. Flounder Bob’s was one of the local watering holes especially favored by Breezers for its relaxed atmosphere, the live entertainment from local favorites, its view of the ocean, and its low prices.
Only Sheila didn’t seem impressed. “When you come back to Beloved,” she told him, “you can carry this little cabinet back with you. I just bought it. Taylor, Florence, thank you for all your help.”
Simper.
We buried her in sugar again and never let an iota of what we were really thinking show in our faces.
She left, and I belatedly introduced Dusty to Florence. I was getting used to the instant effect he had on people, and when she fluttered and fluted and began to act girlish I hardly even noticed.
“Now what kind of clothing are you looking for, exactly?” she said to him, coming out from behind the counter and accompanying him to the racks.
“Nothing fancy,” he told her. “I’m not a fancy man.”
I let them go and puttered around over by the check-out. Girlfriend’s was a happy place once again, and I was happy just being there.
Then I heard a distinct thump. Looking up, I saw that Abraham had jumped down from wherever he’d taken himself while Sheila was still around, and was now rubbing his shameless self all around Dusty’s legs.
“Well aren’t you a handsome fellow?” Dusty said, reaching down to stroke the cat.
“His name is Abraham,” Florence said, her voice thick with pride, as if she were introducing her own darling child. “I named him that because he’s long, black and dignified.”
“Like the president of honored memory,” Dusty said, getting it right away.
Watching this heartwarming tableau, I took a moment to be profound, all by myself, leaning on the front counter.
I believe in animal instinct.
I mean that literally, not the feeling a lone girl in a bar gets when a potential serial killer wants to buy her a drink, but the instinctive reactions of our animals, our pets. Abraham had been right about Sheila, even before she’d shoved him off the table. He hadn’t liked her, he knew it right away, and he hadn’t bothered to hide it.
Whatever doubts that might have lingered in the back of my mind about this peripatetic philosopher, (or as Jasper would have it, guardian angel), evaporated. Abraham, a cat who didn’t deign to open his eyes and swish his tail for the boss lady was already following Dusty around the store, thoroughly smitten, rubbing himself up against a stranger and fatuously waving his tail around in the air.
Of course, it wasn’t long before we all found out that Dusty wasn’t who we thought he was at all.
Chapter 15 – Ed. Again.
“Are you alone?”
I took a second to stare at my phone, then put the thing against my ear again and said, “Why, Ed?”
“I just want to know if you are situated so that you can talk freely. Openly. I mean, if there are other people around, we may not want them to catch onto what we’re discussing. It’s a confidential matter involving a client.”
“You mean Jasper?”
There was a fraught silence. Ed takes his profession very seriously, and when he thinks he’s onto something big he can be a bit cloak-and-dagger. I don’t always treat these revelations of his with the proper gravity.
In the years of my association with Ed, I must admit I’ve seen a few things I hadn’t been expecting. I had an ordinary middle-class, down-to-earth childhood, and our house was not haunted. Our neighborhood did not have witches or wizards. Ed has occasionally managed to come up with something epic, but not very often. When that happens he’s always too stunned to speak, so I figured if he was speaking now it couldn’t be anything all that earth-shattering.
“I’m behind the front counter at Girlfriend’s,” I told him, “but Florence is here with a customer so she can take over if a sudden buying frenzy erupts. I’m walking through the curtains to the back room now. Okay, I’m walking around two large boxes of stuff we haven’t sorted out yet. I’m approaching the shipping desk – there, I’m sitting down. I’m all alone. I can talk now. Freely, even openly.”
I guess I overdid it, because even Ed noticed the levity.
“Very amusing, Taylor. This is serious, but you will have your little joke. It’s a coping mechanism, of course. I’ll go into it in depth with you some time, but now is not the time. You mentioned a customer. Someone you know?”
“Dusty. He’s buying some new-old clothing.”
“Ah, Dusty.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Keep your voice down, then, and mention no names.”
“Not even Mother You-know who? You were throwing the name around in front of him on Sunday. Starts with an S . . . .”
I’d gone too far.
“Facetiousness, Taylor, is the hobgoblin of the clown and the jackanapes,” he told me sternly. “Will you please be serious? I’d appreciate it. You know, everyone is amused by The Three Stooges, but nobody wants to be in the same room with them. Or in this case, on the phone with them.”
I deserved that lecture, but I couldn’t help smiling. Ed is just so . . . Ed.
I heard Florence give a bright tinkle of laughter in the showroom, underlined by Dusty’s warm baritone, and I just couldn’t be short with Ed. Joy was all around me.
I apologized and got serious, and he cleared his throat for emphasis before going on.
“You refer to Mother Shipton, of course. A thing you shouldn’t do lightly, but in this case, as it turns out, it’s neither here nor there. Naturally Mother S. was also an herbalist, but her real claim to fame was prophesy, and nobody’s prophesying anything here. The simple hex-and-go scenario I was hoping for isn’t what I believe Jasper is experiencing. I’m leaning more toward possession now.”
“Wait – you think Sheila is trying to possess him?”
“No. Good grief, Taylor, try to concentrate. Jasper is wrong about that lady, of course, but then you knew that. I’m talking about what’s been going on . . . at his house.” He said it so suggestively, so darkly, that I let my mouth drop open and said nothing.
“I think you know what I mean,” he said next.
“You’re not buying into all that nonsense about vampires, are you?” I asked.
“Is it?” he said provocatively. “Is it nonsense?”
“Yes! The twins told me all about it. Some road-doggie friend of his from long ago dropped in to say hi, that’s all. Probably also wanted to cadge a beer and a free meal. Probably – wait.”
“Ye-es,” he said, spreading the word out with satisfaction as the silence on my end lengthened. “You’re getting it now, aren’t you? Because whatever it is that’s bedeviling our Jasper, I’ve confirmed to my own satisfaction, through irrefutable sources, that nobody has put a spell on him. Somebody has possessed him, and he may not even understand that himself. Those accidents he’s having – they’re all with his own equipment. I believe he’s being controlled, being forced to cause those accidents himself. I’m not absolutely sure who’s pulling the strings or how they’re doing it, but I’m confident enough that I thought I should let you know. He should be discouraged from handling heavy machinery – sharp implements, gas-powered motors, et cetera, et cetera. In short, he needs to take a vacation and refuse all work until we get this sorted out.”
“Oh, Ed, no!”
“I’m quite serious. Jasper knows that something is different, but he doesn’t know what it is. It frightens him. He reaches out for help. He just wants things to go back to the way they were. Taylor? Are you there? I’m counting on you, as a friend to Jasper and a colleague of my own, to contrive a plan of action. We need to decide how to explain all this to him without . . . without . . . .”
“Freaking him out?”
“Succinctly put. Without freaking him out.”
“He’s already freaked out.”
“There is that. Perhaps our new friend Dusty can be of assistance? Jasper seemed to trust him.”
“Wait. Let me think.”
While Ed had enlarged on his possession theory, I had been stuck on one simple idea: Jasper was attracted to Dusty exactly the same way everybody else was. And Dusty had arrived within days of Jasper deciding his life was in jeopardy.
Or had he? Nobody had bothered to ask where Dusty had come from, and more to the point, whether or not he had really just arrived in Tropical Breeze that day he drew a crowd on the beach. Where had he come from? Where was he going to? Did he just happen to stumble into Tropical Breeze while he wandered around aimlessly, or had he come here for a purpose?
“I had a talk with Jasper about Dusty this morning, while I was driving him into town. He thinks Dusty is some kind of emissary from above, sent out on special assignments like some kind of good fairy commando. He said that Dusty didn’t have to go looking for work, that work came to him. His own special kind of work.”
