Cheap Trills, page 11
I stepped out on my terrace and looked down at the two pools on the edge of the cliff. As gorgeous as they were, I wasn’t going to risk leaving my room unattended. It’s not like I could really take advantage of the water, anyway. After my near-drowning in Australia, I’d promised Sister Ellery I’d take swimming lessons at the Y, but they didn’t give them in the winter in Bay Ridge, so I remained a danger to myself and others. Especially in an infinity pool.
I figured I could sit on the edge of my small, private one, at least. I positioned myself with an intruder-convenient view of the path and lowered my calves into the water. Heaven. I heard a knock on the door and threw on my robe.
I slipped my pepper spray into the pocket and looked out the window. It was Reggie, this time in a fitted, light gray suit and a tasteful pink and turquoise striped tie.
I cracked the door open and pulled my robe tight against my neck. “Good morning. I’m not quite dressed.”
“I won’t disturb you then. I was just concerned, as you’d left several messages. I wanted to deal with any problems personally. What has happened?”
I told him as much as I knew.
“Cyd. I am horrified. Absolutely horrified. I apologize to you personally, and formally, on behalf of the Hanging Vines. I assure you, all guests’ names and room numbers are private. I don’t know how this could have happened.” He asked me for a description of the men and said he would investigate.
“Do you think you can move me to a different room? Or a different level?”
“Of course. Allow me to return to the office and see what is available. Again, a million apologies. And of course I will put any new accommodation under an alias, just in case.” He bowed and left.
I called Lu. “Should I wear my sarong to the party?”
“You haven’t told anyone, have you? Some of the women don’t want their husbands to know.”
“Of course not.”
“Good. I think everyone would love to see what you’d wear to one at home.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you at reception. Mum’s the word.”
At home, I might take hours choosing the best possible Tupperware outfit—cute, but not too cute, professional, but affordable, and loose enough not to be threatening. The most important thing was to make the other women feel good about themselves and about all the ways Tupperware was going to make their lives better. The last part was easy—it improved my life every day. The fashion part was harder. Bay Ridge was a tough crowd.
But at least at home, I had options. Given the demands of carry-on-only travel, my sixties hostess outfits were limited. I rarely wore black, but I was sweating through three outfits a day here and at least my black boatneck linen shift—which hit just below the elbow and kneecap—would camouflage the worst stains.
Normally, I’d wear it with a bright scarf, but here I would either suffocate from the heat or Isadora Duncan myself into an early death on the scooter, so I threw on the three turquoise necklaces my Uncle Ray and Aunt Noni had given me from my grandmother’s closet, and my trusty nude patent-leather kitten heel sandals. I stuck a crushable sun hat in my purse, donned Jackie O sunglasses to hide my lash-deficient eyes, zipped up my carry-on, and rolled it out the door.
I looked both ways for the creepy duo from last night, then hurried to the funicular stop. I was ready to give Wayan a piece of my mind, but there was a different man running the railway today, so I merely smiled and bowed my head as I entered, and then exited just by the bar, where a Peggy Newsome-esque blonde was flirting with the bartender. Blondes. They were everywhere.
I arrived at reception to find another stunning woman with shimmering hair who said she would summon the management.
In my experience, summoning rarely worked, but I kept my mouth shut out of politeness.
Reggie emerged and shook his head. “I’m afraid I have some bad news, my dear. We can move you to another villa, one of the deluxe ones, but not until the day after tomorrow. Are you comfortable staying in your current room until then?”
“No, not really.”
“Perhaps we could book you some kind of excursion?”
My phone rang. It was the Redondo Travel number. I looked at my watch. It was ten at night in Bay Ridge. “Would you excuse me, Reggie?”
I walked outside. “Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel.” It was Sister Ellery. Traitor.
Chapter Twenty-four
“What are you doing in the office?” I asked.
“I had to be here for the locksmith. He’s changing the lock back.”
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“I know. Your Uncle Ray did.”
“At ten o’clock at night? What? Why?”
“You’re out of the loop.”
“I can’t be out of the loop. I am the loop.”
“Not today. Even the Catholic Women’s League has nothing on the inmate grapevine.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Uncle Ray called you from prison? Why?”
“He can’t make long-distance calls from jail. He heard something and he was worried. Wanted me to get a message to you. There’s a bid on two buildings in our block. Ray says someone’s trying to buy the whole thing. He heard they’re going to demolish everything and build mixed-use high-rise housing or some bullshit.”
“What? No! No one on the Avenue would sell up for that. That would ruin the whole town.”
“Maybe the buyers lied. Or the sellers don’t know that’s what’s happening. No matter what, it’s fishy. So he wanted somebody in the office while you were gone, to keep an eye on things. You’re welcome.”
“Fine. Who’s the buyer?”
“He had your Uncle Guido Jr. do some research. It’s a shell company—DD&D. Diana Development and Design.”
“Diana?” No! Diana Development and Design, my foot. Dollars to donuts that was Peggy fricking Newsome. That might explain why she was so keen to bankrupt us. Maybe she didn’t just want our clients. Maybe she wanted the building too. But why? And how could she afford to buy a whole block?
Sister Ellery cleared her throat. “Any instructions?”
“Don’t send anyone else to Bali, period. And thank you, I guess. I’ll call you back.”
At least I knew where Peggy was, the witch. And she didn’t know I knew. I walked back into reception. “Reggie? Do you know of any places to stay in West Bali?”
“There is one private resort near there I could recommend. I’m sure they’d be happy to host you for a night or two. Should I arrange it?”
Reggie sorted out the reservation and gave me the address and phone number.
“Do you need a car?”
“Let me check something first.”
Scott had also put his number in my phone. I don’t know why I was nervous about using it. I thought about Peggy Newsome’s signature hair flip and dialed anyway.
“It’s Cyd Redondo, Redondo Travel. Sorry to bother you.”
“Cyd? Hi. What happened?”
“It’s a long story, I’ll explain later. I want to take you up on your offer to fly me to West Bali. Today. Obviously I’ll pay for the fuel if there’s anywhere to land there.”
He said he was tied up until four but if I could get to Ubud, he could meet me at the helipad there and fly me over, weather permitting.
“That’s great. Thank you so much, seriously.”
Just then, Lu appeared. She took one look at me, and turned to Reggie. “Have you been up to your old tricks?”
“Absolutely not! I gave you my word. Cyd needs to go to West Bali and I’ve been arranging it.”
She shook her head, then looked at me and gestured at her watch. I wondered what happened to jam karat.
Reggie came forward. “Would you like to leave your luggage here, in my care, of course?”
“No, thank you. If it’s all right with Lu, we’ll go straight to the helipad. Thank you, Reggie.”
The back of the Kijang was full of baskets. Lu put my carry-on in the spare tire compartment and I kept my Balenciaga with me in the front seat. As we were pulling out I spied the two burglar suspects walking toward reception. I leaned out the window and took a picture of them, then told Lu to step on it.
She did. “Who are those men?”
I told her.
“What else just happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a man glow. It’s Reggie, isn’t it? Is it Reggie?”
“What? No. I mean he’s very charming, but no.”
She elbowed me.
“It’s not him, stop it. Why?” I saw her blush. “Oh. You like him?”
“We have, well, a history. But he is an inveterate flirt, plus I’m promised to someone else. We must hurry. We’ll address your glow later.”
“Good, because my archenemy has gone too far and I have to think.”
“Your enemy is my enemy.”
I grinned. “Is there an offering for that? Or a curse?”
“You bet. But we’ll need equipment.”
“Great. Also, I need you to get me to the Ubud helipad by four. Will that work?”
“With time to spare.”
As Lu navigated the road into Ubud I asked her why the women kept their Tupperware party a secret?
“It began in Jakarta, where many Muslim men do not allow their wives to work. The men were not threatened if women gathered for an arisan, for gossip. So the first parties were underground there. In Bali, it is different. Women already do all the cooking and the offerings and run all the food stands and handle all the money, while their husbands lounge around, stroking their cocks.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Lu pointed to two men standing by a food stand. Each was petting what looked like a huge rooster.
“Oh.”
“Why do they carry chickens around?”
“They are their most treasured possessions.”
I just stared at her.
“For cockfighting.”
“There’s cockfighting here? Wow. It’s totally illegal in the U.S.”
“But it still happens, yes? Technically it’s illegal here, too. That is why they do it in the temples.”
“In temples? Holy Toledo.” It was her turn to stare. “It’s a town in Ohio. I have no idea why we associate it with surprise.”
“Ah, saya tidak percaya itu!”
“Right.” Actually my knowledge of the language hadn’t advanced to that phrase, but I was good with context. “So why is it a secret here?”
“Depending on a woman’s family situation, it may be beneficial to make their own money.”
“Understood. I’m ready to seal in the freshness.”
Lu laughed. “Jill said you were all right.”
“Nice of her.”
“Yes.”
After twenty stop-and-go minutes, we pulled in front of a walled compound with bicycles and scooters lined up outside. Lu handed me a few of the baskets from the back, grabbed two more, and locked the Kijang. I took white gloves my grandmother insisted I always carry out of my bag, put them on, and hooked the baskets on my non-purse shoulder. Lu gestured me ahead toward the entrance, just as it started to pour rain.
I went through the opening and promptly smashed into a wall.
“What the hell?” I stumbled back into Lu.
Just inside the entrance was a random piece of wall about the size of a large headstone. Who would build an entryway that ran straight into a mini-wall?
Lu laughed. “It’s to confuse demons. Apparently works.”
“Ha. Why does it confuse them?”
“Demons can only go in a straight line.”
“How can anyone possibly know that?”
She shrugged. “Observation.”
“That reminds me, as a card-carrying demon, do I need to cover my hair?”
She regarded me. “Can you?”
I took out my crushable sun hat, uncrushed it, slopped my hair on top of my head and rammed the hat on. With the hat and gloves, I truly was the ghost of Tupperware past.
We negotiated around the obstacle wall and moved toward a shrine already peppered with petals. Lu removed one of her baskets, took several beautiful offerings of palm leaves, flowers, and rice, and placed them down.
Lu gestured for me to follow her around a gargantuan banyan tree and toward an open-aired structure in the middle of the compound. I could see groups of women chatting, perched on benches or pillows, and a few tables with oversized floral arrangements. Like everything else in Bali, the whole scene looked like it had been set-decorated. Even the tropical rain shower was straight out of a movie. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about sweat stains.
I could see it was not the Tupperware party of my youth—no Talbott’s suits or shirtdresses, no pumps, or pearls—and, to my surprise, no sarongs. All the women seemed to be in Western clothes in what I guessed must be the Balinese equivalent of business casual.
I could hear Indonesian, but no English. I might miss most of what was said, but under the squeal of children and the squawking of birds, I could hear a language I did understand—the reassuring burp of Tupperware. It didn’t matter that there were no credenzas and too much rice, these were my people.
Still, as Lu and I climbed the stairs of the party house, I was suddenly self-conscious. The chatting had stopped and everyone was staring at us.
I looked down, out of embarrassment, and saw the arrangements on the table weren’t floral. They were plastic, or more specifically, polyethylene slag, a World War Two by-product, bought up and made fabulous and indestructible by Earl Tupper. But this was Tupperware like I’d never seen—unrecognizable shapes in unfamiliar colors—purples and roses and deep turquoise-blues, rather than the pastels and vague fluorescents I was used to. The items were arranged and stacked in a design that defied gravity—until I waved at everyone, careening my Balenciaga into an elaborate, architectural, yet burpable, structure, and demolished the whole thing, sending bowls, cups and covered ice trays flying.
I moaned in horror as I watched one bowl execute a rubbery bounce all the way down the steps, boomerang off the roots of the banyan tree, and ricochet toward me. Then everything went turquoise.
Chapter Twenty-five
When I came to, I was lying on my back in a puddle, my black dress splattered with mud, front and back. Lu, laughing, helped me up, leaving my hat in the mud. Someone gasped. Of course. My demon hair. I rammed the filthy hat back on, making everything worse. I shook myself off, got up, and, shaking my head, met her on the stairs.
Lu took my hand, led me back up and turned to the women, speaking in Indonesian. I caught a few words: “United States, Tupperware Salesperson of the Year. 1987 through 1995!” How she knew this, I’d never know. There was another long speech, including the name “Brownie Wise,” which made them all laugh. Then, in English, “Please welcome Cyd Redondo.”
“Redondo Travel,” I whispered.
“Of Redondo Travel.”
There was laughter and applause and many of the women put their hands together in front of their chests and faces and bowed their heads. I did the same.
“I am so, so sorry about ruining your gorgeous arrangement. Please tell them, Lu!”
The women nodded. “Nothing lasts in Bali,” Lu said.
I picked up a deep red Slim Drink Container with Pour Safe Seal that had landed upright on the stairs. “Except Tupperware.”
“Except Tupperware. Maybe.”
“Is there anywhere to clean myself off?”
“I suggest standing in the rain and letting gravity do its work.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. Think of it as romantic.”
It might sound romantic, but in reality it just turned me into a mosquito buffet. Still, I got most of the mud off. After I’d repositioned my hair and hat with my now fawn-colored gloves, I realized I couldn’t see my Balenciaga.
Not on the ground, not on the steps. It was bad enough that it must have gotten drenched, but gone?
The last five minutes seemed like a sweepstakes win next to losing my purse. Every inanimate object I treasured in life, including my dad’s Wilcox Crittenden compass, was in that bag. It had never really been out of my sight in the four years I’d had it, at least while I’d been awake. And I’d never be lucky enough to get another one.
And then I heard a collective “ooohhh” and saw it, miracle of miracles, safe, dry, and sitting on a table in the middle of the room. I almost fainted with relief.
I dripped my way back into the room, dodging children as they collected rolling sippy cups and cookie cutters.
Lu came up beside me and pointed at my bag. “Your bag is worth more than these women make or see in five years.”
“I know. Me, too, really. I couldn’t afford it. It was a gift.”
“Or,” Lu said, “for the purposes of today’s Tupperware recruitment, it might be something you rewarded yourself with after a couple of good party years.” She winked at me and asked the women to bring me my bag. I was instantly surrounded by the swish of silk and the smell of new Tupperware, which beat new car smell, any day.
Lu clapped her hands and we all gathered around a woman who was taller than the rest, with a calm, regal demeanor. I sat next to Lu, hoping she would translate, as the woman moved toward the Tupperware table. She lifted a beautifully carved bowl, and handed it to the woman nearest to her, who took it, put a few rupiahs inside, and passed it on.
Having been a Catholic all my life, I recognized a collection plate when I saw one. I elbowed Lu. “How much?”
“Whatever you can spare. We donate so our newest member can have a full set of whatever they need. We do this every meeting for one of our guests. Tupperware is too expensive, sometimes, for young wives.”
“What a great idea!” I put in a large handful of rupiahs as the bowl went past, which helped with some of the women who were still glaring at me. I decided to look at the stacks of Tupperware as the collection plate went around.
