Nightmare in Shining Armor Page 3

  “Party?”

  “Darn it, Mrs. Timberlake, you’re going to force me to use stronger language.”

  I sighed. “Okay, so I’m having a little get-together. But it’s only for a couple of close friends.”

  “Lynne Meredith is your friend?”

  I gulped. “You know Miss Meredith?”

  “We met in your shop, Mrs. Timberlake. You introduced us. Thought we might know each other because we’re both from beyond the pale.”

  “The pale what?”

  “The pale, as in—oh, never mind. My point is she’s just another collector. Isn’t that right?”

  “Captain, I fail to see how this is your concern.”

  “It is my concern because my wife and I are big customers of yours as well, and we didn’t get invited. We bought that Queen Anne period walnut secretary from you last week. The one with the Boston provenance. Didn’t you joke that you could send your son to Harvard with your profits?”

  “Did I say Harvard? I thought sure I said Yale.”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, this is no laughing matter. My wife is sitting here weeping as I speak. She’s convinced her position in Charlotte society has been permanently stunted thanks to you slighting us.”

  I was both stunned and thrilled. I’m just a little old gal from the backwaters of Rock Hill, South Carolina. I’m a relative newcomer to Charlotte myself. I barely know the boundaries of Charlotte society, much less have set a toe in that exclusive realm. I certainly—and you can bank enough to send your child to Harvard on this—am not in a position to influence anyone else’s standing in the community.

  “Captain Keffert, I have not slighted anyone. And I’m sure your wife’s standing in Charlotte society has not been affected.”

  “Ha! That’s easy for you to say. You rub elbows with the elite on a daily basis, while we, just because of our transplant status, must content ourselves with the hoi polloi.”

  I didn’t know which misconception to address first. In the end I decided not to dissuade the captain of his conviction that I hobnobbed with the crème de la crème of Charlotte society.

  “Sir, I assure you that your immigrant status has little to do with your position. This is Charlotte, after all, the banking center of the southeast. All you have to do is buy your way in. It is only in Charleston—and that’s in South Carolina—that you have to be born to the manor.”

  He seemed to cogitate on that for a moment. “How do I do that?” he finally asked. “I mean, buy my way in.”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Not having done it myself. But I can make some guesses.”

  “Please,” he begged, “tell me what you think.”

  I love giving solicited advice. “I think you might consider donating a large amount to some charity. Maybe several charities. And join the right church, of course.”

  “Episcopal?”

  “Close. Episcopal is front line in Charleston, but second line here. First line here is Presbyterian.”

  “Well, I guess we could manage that. Anything else?”

  “Do you belong to a country club?”

  “Neither of us plays golf.”

  “Oh dear. You’re missing the point. You need someplace to eat Sunday lunch. Some place to be seen.”

  “There is a nice restaurant on the lake we’ve been meaning to try.”

  “Heavens,” I said in mock horror, “that won’t do at all. It can’t be a public restaurant. The hoi polloi eat there.”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, are you making fun of me?”

  “Perhaps just a little,” I confessed. “Look, Captain, it’s been interesting, but I really have to get back to my guests.”

  “Ah, your guests. Mrs. Timberlake, for my wife’s sake is there any way I could get you to reconsider? You know, to expand your guest list.” He started to whisper. “For a reasonable fee, of course.”

  I was shocked. The nerve of that man trying to buy his way to my party! Okay, so I was flattered as well, but I really couldn’t accept paying customers at my party. Who knows where that trend could lead? And yes, I know, I could have just capitulated and told the couple to hustle their bustles over, and that I wouldn’t charge them a farthing, but I hate being bullied.

  “Captain Keffert, the answer is no, and I’m afraid this conversation is over.”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, I hope you realize that you just may be losing a customer.”

  “Is that a threat?” I snarled. I really try to mind my manners, but enough is enough.

  “It’s more than a threat, Mrs. Timberlake. This is the end of our doing business together—well, almost the end. The end will be Monday when I return that Queen Anne period secretary.”

  I gasped as he hung up the phone. I gasped again a second later when it rang a second time.

  “You can just forget my next party, too!” I barked.

  “Abby? Is that you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said warily.

  Malcolm Biddle is Buford’s junior law partner. Buford Timberlake may be as treacherous as a snake, but Malcolm is as slippery as a slug soaked in olive oil. While we were married, whenever the snake went on a business trip, he’d have the slug call me. The purpose of the call was ostensibly to check on my welfare, but I knew Buford’s main concern was whether I was cheating on him. What Buford didn’t know was that what Malcolm really did was hit on me.

  “You don’t sound fine, Abby.”

  “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day. Is there something you want, Malcolm?”

  “I hear you’re having a party.”

  “Yes, I am. It’s an absolutely delightful party and you’re not invited.”

  “Abby, is that nice?”

  “Was it nice of you to ask me to bed when I was married to your boss?”

  “I think it was. Abby,” he purred, “there’s no reason to sleep with the rest when you can sleep with the best.”

  “Malcolm, this conversation is over.” I started to hang up but stopped when I heard the intensity of his protest. You might think it was foolish of me to engage him in conversation again, but there was a slim chance Malcolm was charged with delivering a message from Buford. One that somehow involved our two grown children. Just for the record, you never stop being a parent.

  “Abby, you still there?”

  “Yes. But you have exactly three seconds.”

  “It’s about Tweetie.”

  “What about her?”

  “Is she there?”

  “Aha! So now Buford has you checking on her. Are you going to make a pass at her as well?”

  “Abby, don’t be silly. She’s just a little girl.”

  “Yeah, a twenty-four-year-old one with a forty-inch bust.”

  “That means nothing to me. It’s a woman’s brain I find sexy, and you, Abby, have a—”

  “Bye-bye, Malcolm.”

  “Don’t hang up! Just tell me if she’s there.”

  I sighed. “Yes, she’s here.”

  “Did she come by herself?”

  “She came with a sheep.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “This is a costume party, Malcolm. The little girl came as Little Bo Peep.”

  He laughed. “This sheep is some shaggy-haired dude, right?”

  “No, it’s a sheep. Baaaaaaa.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Look, Malcolm, tell your boss his bimbo is safe and sound, and unless that sheep turns out to be a ram, she’s probably chaste as well. Also tell him that if the beast eats my camellias, I want replacements.”

  Malcolm laughed again, but promised he’d pass on my message. He also made a very obscene suggestion. I’m pretty sure, however, that I managed to slam the phone receiver down hard enough to do some damage to his ear.

  The party went downhill from there. C. J. and Sergeant Bowater decided they were tired of being Mama’s white steed and preferred to be a bucking bronco. Unfortunately Mama was still astride the pair when they leaped into the air
, but alas, not for long. Mama was sent flying across the room, landing in Geppetto’s lap. Neither of them was hurt, but Mama became tangled in Pinocchio’s strings, and in the process of extricating herself ripped her flesh-colored body suit. Unfortunately her faux blond locks came just down to, but didn’t cover, her ample Wiggins bottom.

  The sight of Lady Godiva’s real derriere caused the Statue of Liberty to drop her torch. Unfortunately Miss Liberty, AKA Irene Cheng, had disobeyed my order, and while I was upstairs with Wynnell and the Rob-Bobs, she’d relit her pyrogenic prop. Although my fire-retardant carpet did not go up in flames, it did start to smoke. Lynne Meredith, the mermaid, was well-meaning when she slapped the smoldering spot with her tail, but she only succeeded in fanning the fibers into a proper flame.

  It was Moses who saved the day. He beat my Berber with his tablets of the law, and when that failed to extinguish the fire, he dumped the bowl of nonalcoholic punch on the conflagration. This not only put out the fire, but produced a pleasingly pink stain about three feet across. Along about this time my smoke alarm finally kicked in.

  Instead of frightening my guests, the smoke alarm’s shrill sound sent them into paroxysms of laughter. A few incorrigibles, like Mama, tried to outshriek the device. By then I’d had it.

  “Everybody out!” I screamed. “Out, out, out!”

  They ignored me, although the smoke alarm eventually listened.

  “Y’all can hear me now!” I screamed again. “The party is over!”

  Alas, no one paid attention to the harried O’Hara.

  “Greg, do something,” I begged.

  My fiancé didn’t hear me because he was too busy singing a duet with Barbra Streisand. I turned to Rob for assistance, but he was so jealous of Greg—quite needlessly, I might add—he didn’t even know I was there.

  “C. J.!” I wailed. “You’re my friend. Make them listen.”

  But C. J. was still coupled with Sergeant Bowater in the stallion costume, and obviously still quite in character. She neighed and pawed the air with a rubber hoof, which only provoked fresh peals of laughter.

  I was at my wit’s end. I had no choice, therefore, but to resort to drastic measures.

  5

  I’m not proud of what I did. But as I see it, I really had no choice. At any rate, the Charlotte police were very responsive and arrived within five minutes of my call. The second the two young officers strode into my great room, the ruckus ceased. The rumblings, however, persisted well into the night.

  “I can’t believe you did that, Abby!” Mama had tied one of my aprons around her waist, the skirt to the back. Strangely, she looked more provocative that way than she had with her derriere exposed.

  “I warned y’all, Mama. What else could I do?”

  “You could try treating your little old mama with respect.” Mama flipped a strand of the coarse wig away from her face and in the process inadvertently hit me in the eye again. “Come on,” she said to the others, without bothering to apologize to yours truly. “The party is reconvening at my house.”

  You would have thought by their responses that each of my guests had won the lottery. They flocked around Mama, cheered her, and Greg, who didn’t know what was good for him, hoisted her back onto the hokey horse.

  Then the crowd—and there were far more present than the aforementioned—danced out of my house in a joyous procession. As the merrymakers passed me, more than a few paused just long enough to assault my ears with vicious accusations.

  “You’re a real spoilsport,” Moses said gravely. “I drove all the way up from Charleston and spent good money on a motel for tonight. Don’t expect me to return the favor next year by inviting you to my party.”

  I nodded, on the verge of tears.

  The Rob-Bobs, good friends that they were, didn’t even notice my vulnerable state. Bob boogied past me without making eye contact, but Rob gave me a pitying look.

  “This could be bad for your business, Abby,” he said. “Really bad. That couple in the dice costumes are Jerry and Lizelle Wentworth.”

  The tears began to fall as Rob rejoined his partner in what was virtually a conga line. The Wentworths were one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, of the many nouveau riche families the Charlotte economy had spawned in the last several years. Not having inherited any antiques from their blue-collar ancestors, the couple was buying up area antiquities like they were shares of Microsoft stock.

  Mama, seeing my tears, bade her steed to halt momentarily. “Abby, your mascara is smearing. You better fix it before you start looking like a panda bear.”

  “Mama! Don’t you have anything comforting to say?”

  Apparently she didn’t, because she whacked Sergeant Bowater with her crop and the traitorous trio galloped on into the foyer.

  Lynne Meredith, whose fins had fanned the fire, and who was therefore partly responsible for the debacle, had the nerve to verbally accost me next. “You’ve seen the last of my business,” she snarled. “I can’t recall the last time I’ve been treated so rudely. And I thought you Southerners were gracious.”

  “We are!” I wailed. “We just don’t like having our new homes destroyed.”

  “Sherman had the right idea,” she whispered behind a webbed hand.

  I reeled with shock.

  “Scrooge,” Neptune said as he whisked the mean mermaid away before I could recover enough to retaliate.

  “Wrong holiday!” I shouted after the aquatic duo.

  The Larkins, who had lived in the South long enough to learn good manners, proved not to be apt students. Geppetto stood passively by while Pinocchio punched the air with a faux wood finger as she delivered each scathing word.

  “You owe your mother an apology, Abby. I can’t imagine throwing mine out of my house. For shame, for shame, for shame!”

  “Does your mama show up at parties in a nude body suit?” I demanded.

  Before the pushy puppet could reply, Ireng Cheng, the woman who had started the fire, stepped between us. Her crown was askew, her book bent, and her robe smudged. Her torch, thank heavens, was still extinguished.

  “Abby, do I still have my job?” It sounded more like a demand than a question.

  I tried to glare at Lady Liberty, but lacked the spirit. The woman might be a menace at a costume party, and is as stubborn as a room full of two-year-olds, but she is a very competent shop assistant. If I sacked Irene, I was going to have to hustle more than I cared to, or else break in a new assistant. The latter was a prospect about as daunting as my impending marriage.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m eager to wed Greg. It’s just that I’m set in my ways, both at home and in my shop. And while I may be only in my late forties, I’ve grown accustomed to the luxury of a slower-paced life that only good help can bring. Did I really want to get up each morning in time to open the Den of Antiquity, and if I didn’t, was I willing to live with the lost revenue?

  “You have your job,” I said through clenched jaws. “But I have half a mind to garnish your wages for the damage you did to my carpet.”

  Irene had the temerity to smirk. “Which you wouldn’t do, of course, on account of it was not a work-related accident.”

  “It wasn’t an accident of any kind,” I snapped. “I told you to put the flame out before you came in. But of course you wouldn’t listen, so not only did you ruin my carpet, you ruined my party.”

  Irene rolled her eyes. “I didn’t dump the punch on it. Moses did.”

  “To put out the fire you started!”

  Irene adjusted her crown in the mirror behind me. “My, aren’t we shrill.”

  “Shrill?” I shrieked. “Do you want to hear shrill?”

  “Hey, Abby,” Greg said, “take it easy.”

  I stared up at my intended. “I think I’m taking it very easy considering the circumstances. Heck, I’m practically comatose.”

  “Kicking everyone out is hardly taking it easy.”

  “It isn’t your house that’s been ruined. And yo
u had no business encouraging Mama.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You put her back up on that silly horse, didn’t you? What do you call that?”

  “Abby, simmer down.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Greg.” There was enough ice in my voice to push the season forward by two months. Irene Cheng, along with the rest of the conga line stragglers, wisely took a clue and slipped out the door.

  My fiancé spread his large hands in a gesture of mock compliance. “Hey, I’m only trying to appeal to your reasonable side.”

  “My reasonable side? If you had a shred of loyalty you would have stuck up for me. I wouldn’t have had to call your buddies in blue if you’d helped tone things down a bit. But oh no, you had to belt out a Streisand tune at the top of your lungs while—”

  “Abby,” he said sharply, “I’ve had enough of this for tonight. When you’re ready to discuss things calmly, give me a call. I’ll be at your mother’s.”

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” I said and gently pushed Rhett Butler out the front door.

  I didn’t have the energy to clean up the mess that night. Instead I took two aspirin and—okay, so it wasn’t aspirin I took, but Xanax. But it was just one very small .5mg pill. I don’t normally take drugs to help me sleep, but this was, you’ll have to admit, a special occasion. The medication was, by the way, left over from a small dosage prescribed by a doctor two years ago when I found a body in an armoire.

  At any rate, still dressed as Scarlett I teetered in to check on Wynnell before going to bed. To my surprise, I found the room empty.

  “Well, if that doesn’t beat everything,” I said aloud. “First Mama, then my boyfriend, and now my best friend.”

  “What about me?”

  I whirled, and in the process lost my balance. The fancy little jig I did to stay upright was a wonder to behold.

  “You scared me half to death!” I said between gasps.

  “I only went to the bathroom, Abby. Say, where is everyone?”

  “They, uh, they went home.”

  Wynnell yawned and glanced at the dresser clock. “So early? You mean I missed the entire party?”