Vows, Vendettas And A Little Black Dress

In what couldn’t have been more than ten seconds later, the bell of the elevator rang again and this time it was my sister, Leah, who walked out holding what might have been the biggest gift basket I have ever seen. She had to strain her neck to see over the large purple-and-white ribbon. She raised her eyebrows up and down in what could only be described as a facial wave when she saw me.

“I think I just saw Rick Wilkes getting out of the elevator while I was getting on,” she said once she had made it to my side.

“Yep, you did.” I sighed. “He’s such a jerk.”

“We were at his house last year for Mary Ann’s surprise party. You appeared to like him well enough then.”

“That was before I knew he was a cheater.”

“That’s right, I forgot about that,” Leah said in a voice that implied she wasn’t all that interested in remembering. “Anatoly told me I’d find you here. What did you bring Dena? It wasn’t spa products, was it?”

“I brought flowers,” I said as I tried to count the myriad number of spa products in the leather basket. “But I forgot to bring a vase.”

Leah rolled her eyes. “Typical. You know what else is typical? It’s typical that I had to find out about this through Anatoly. Of course I was listening to Mornings on Two while making breakfast this morning and they reported that someone in the Lake Street area was shot last night, but they weren’t releasing names and it never occurred to me that I might know the victim! Why didn’t you call me, Sophie?”

“You don’t even like Dena.”

“I disapprove of her,” she corrected. “There’s a big difference.”

“Is there?”

“Absolutely. I can honestly say that Dena is the only brazen hussy I have ever genuinely liked.”

It was a joke meant to lighten the mood but the worry in her eyes undermined it. Even her most recent Botox injections couldn’t hide her distress.

“Look, Dena’s getting examined or something right now. Why don’t we grab a cup of coffee down in the cafeteria?”

“I don’t eat in hospital cafeterias,” Leah said distractedly. “Is there a waiting room around here? We could talk there.”

A little shudder went up my spine as I remembered last night, sitting in that awful room waiting for news on Dena. “There’s a Starbucks a few blocks away.”

Leah sighed. “You can’t expect me to lug this all the way to Starbucks. Which one is her room?”

“That one but—”

Leah marched over and used her foot to knock on the door. I watched as the nurse opened the door and then after a moment let Leah in. I hesitated before approaching the door myself, but Leah walked out before I got there.

“The nurse is about to help her to the bathroom,” Leah said, her voice slightly less assured than it had been a minute ago. “And after that she’s going to be meeting with a physical therapist.” She looked down at her hands. “Why don’t we go for a walk? We need to talk.”

When we got outside I noticed that a slight wind had picked up and I had to work to keep my hair out of my face as we walked down the sidewalks of Parnassus. Leah’s hair, which was plastered with God-only-knows-what hair products, stayed stubbornly in place.

“Where’s my favorite nephew?” I asked. Four-year-old Jack was my favorite as he was my only nephew. I’d love him more if he would just stop trying to kill my cat.

“He’s at a morning playdate right now. I’ll pick him up in an hour.”

“Nice that you get a break.”

Leah stopped and turned to me. “Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t the one who was shot.”

“You could have been.” She reached over and plucked out a small leaf that had secretly blown into my hair. “You were so close, Sophie. Only a room away!”

“I might as well have been in another city. I didn’t even see who did the shooting.”

Leah hesitated and then seemed to decide this was an acceptable enough answer and started walking again. A passing truck driver called out something suggestive but neither of us bothered to turn our heads.

“We could walk to your house from here,” she noted.

“We could. But I’d rather not, seeing that both our cars are in the hospital parking lot.”

Leah nodded and picked up her pace, forcing me to do the same. It was a few more minutes before she spoke again. “What if I told you that I might know who did this?”

“What?” Now it was my turn to stop.

“I don’t know for sure,” Leah said quickly. “It’s just a possibility. An unlikely possibility at that.”

“Leah, what are you talking about?”

Leah hesitated and then pointed to the Starbucks across the street. “Maybe we should get coffee after all.”

CHAPTER 5

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Of course I don’t have to worry, since my intentions are usually pretty messed up.

–Fatally Yours

Leah refused to talk any more about it until we were both seated across from one another at a corner table. I allowed her this because I had my doubts about how useful her information was going to be.

There was no one at the neighboring tables but she still took the time to look over both her shoulders before leaning forward to reveal her secret.

“Remember when that horrible little group of protestors stood outside Dena’s store a few years ago? They called themselves Moral Americans Against Pornography?”

“Are you talking about MAAP?” I asked. “They’ve protested twice. I think it might even become an annual event. Dena loves it. Each time they’ve shown up she’s called all her customers and offered them what she calls the Wrath-of-God discount. That’s fifteen percent off any item in the store that’s provocative enough to piss off an antiporn picketer.”

“In other words, everything in her store.”

“Exactly. It’s her busiest day of the year.”

Leah smiled. “It’s just impossible not to admire her ingenuity. Anyway, the woman who founded MAAP is Chrissie Powell. She serves on the San Francisco symphony fundraising board with me. She’s nice to the people she needs to impress but no one else. Wretched woman. Would you believe that she wouldn’t even hire me to plan her wedding? She actually told me that she wasn’t sure if I was qualified to handle such a big event! I have organized corporate parties for five hundred people. I’ve planned the bar mitzvahs for the children of some of the most respected families in this city! Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins are still talking about the twenty-fifth anniversary party I threw them—”

“Leah,” I said irritably and motioned for her to get on with it.

“Right,” she said, only slightly chastened. “Chrissie founded MAAP on the pretense that the group’s purpose is to fight against all pornography.”

“It’s not?”

“Hardly. Perhaps that’s what some of the members believe, but Chrissie formed the group for one reason. She wanted to torment Dena.”

One of the baristas behind the counter turned on the blender and the grinding whine of the appliance played devil’s advocate to the mellow notes of Paul Simon coming through the speakers. “Why would anyone form an entire group just to torment one person?” I asked. “It’s not like Dena’s a politician or even a real pornographer. She just sells sexy lingerie, toys, a few naughty books and a couple of adult videos. Is that really so offensive?”

Leah cocked her head to the side. “You do realize that literary erotica and adult videos are the very definition of pornography, don’t you?”

“Yeah, okay, but she’s not making the videos. She’s just selling them.”

“I see. So if you’re just selling the cocaine but not actually growing the coca plants, are you really a drug pusher?”

“Can we not get nitpicky about this?”

Leah rolled her eyes. “It’s not really about what she sells in her store anyway. Chrissie’s trying to get back at Dena because approximately two years ago Dena slept with Chrissie’s husband, Tim.”

I nearly dropped my plastic cup. “What? Did Dena know the guy was married?’

“He wasn’t. Not at the time. They were just engaged. Whether or not Dena knew he was engaged is anyone’s guess, although I don’t see how she would have. Engaged men don’t wear rings, and it’s not as if Dena asks a man a lot of questions before inviting him into her bed.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s completely fair. But if it makes you feel better, let’s say she did ask him if he was involved with anyone else. What are the chances he would have told her the truth?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But…you just said this was before they got married?” A couple took the table next to us and I scooted my chair closer to Leah so we could continue our conversation in quieter tones. “If she knew her fiancé was messing around, why did she go through with it?”

“Apparently Chrissie didn’t find out about what Tim did until after the wedding. God only knows how it all came to her attention. Of course if she had hired me to plan her wedding, I would have been able to alert her to the problem. I can always spot a cheater.”

“Leah, you were married to a cheater and you didn’t have a clue until he announced he was leaving you for a twenty-two-year-old.”

“Well, I learned from that,” Leah snapped. “Now I can spot a cheater from a mile away. Of course, I didn’t get within a mile of Tim. I’ve never even met the man. But if I had been allowed to plan the wedding I would have seen right through him and then—”

“And then there wouldn’t have been a wedding to plan,” I said irritably. Listening to Leah chastise another woman for marrying a cheater was like listening to Lindsay Lohan complain about reckless drivers.

“Perhaps there wouldn’t have been,” Leah said with a shrug. “On the other hand, perhaps they would have worked it out. It’s not as if she’s left him now that she knows.”

“And yet she’s still after Dena?”

“Yes.” Leah fingered the stiffly starched collar of her pale blue linen shirt. “That part’s understandable.”

“How? Dena’s not the one who cheated. Tim is!”

“Yes, but Chrissie’s not married to Dena,” Leah pointed out. “If Chrissie puts all the blame on Dena’s shoulders she doesn’t have to worry about finding a good marriage therapist or divorce attorney. Focusing all her bad feelings on Dena helps her salvage the good feelings she has for Tim. Really, Sophie, it’s Psychology 101.”

“Leah, I took Psych 101. There isn’t a textbook in the world that names scapegoating and the displacement of blame as good coping strategies.”

“All right, fine. But are you honestly going to tell me that you’ve never done it? You’ve never blamed your ex-husband for all of your problems?”

“That’s different!” I shot back.

“Why?”

“Because…because he’s fair game. Ex-husbands were put on this earth to be blamed for things. That’s just the way it is.”

“Really?” Leah asked, raising her eyebrows. “Did they teach you that in psych class?”

“Oh, shut up,” I responded without any real vehemence. “How do you know all this anyway?” I asked as I took a sip of my drink.

“Two years ago, only about a month before she put MAAP together, Chrissie cornered me after one of our board meetings. She said she had been researching Dena Lopiano and apparently she found a picture of me standing next to her on a Google image search. She wanted to know if I was aware that the woman she presumed to be my friend was really a home-wrecker.”

“And what did you say?”

Leah shrugged. “I told her that Dena wasn’t anything of the sort. She’s just a tad slutty, that’s all.”

“Leah!”

“Are you honesty going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“You can be extremely promiscuous without being a slut.”

“According to what dictionary?”

I gripped the edge of the table and then quickly drew my hand away as I discovered the hardened lump of someone’s old gum. “Oh, that’s great. Do you have one of those antibacterial wipes?” I asked as I examined my fingers with disgust. Leah wordlessly pulled out the requested item. That’s the thing about moms: they’re always prepared for the yucky stuff.

“I’ll wait while you throw that away,” Leah said, pointedly staring at the used wipe.

I wrinkled my nose at her before dutifully getting up to find a trash can for the wipe. When I got back Leah had her iPhone out on the table.

“Tell me more.”

Leah brightened, clearly happy that she would be allowed to continue to dish. “After confronting me about the whole picture thing, Chrissie told me that she had recently learned about the little tryst Tim had with Dena. I assured her that the affair couldn’t have been long-lived since, until her recent arrangement, Dena has never stayed with a man for longer than one full moon cycle. But Chrissie went ahead and put together MAAP anyway.”

“Okay, but Dena’s been faithful to her polyamorous relationship for…well… about a year and a half now, so whatever was going on between Dena and Tim is over. Shouldn’t Chrissie be getting over it, too?”

“One would think,” Leah agreed. “But it would appear that time hasn’t healed this wound. At. All. In fact it appears that Chrissie’s wound is ulcerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“Chrissie’s been upping the stakes of the battle.” Leah picked up her iPhone and started punching things into it. “Last week she posted an article on a conservative online Web site called The Virtuous Journal. Now, you know I have nothing against conservative magazines. I’ve voted Republican all my life. But this particular site is…to the right of Rush Limbaugh.”

“I didn’t think that was possible.”

“And yet it is.” Leah was still madly pecking and stroking her iPhone. “And can you believe that Chrissie actually sent me a link to the article she wrote for them? Ah, here it is. Take a look.”

She handed the phone over and on the screen was the article. I started to skim it but the pure acidity of the words slowed me down. “Oh. My. God.”

“I told you she was wretched.”

But I wasn’t really listening to Leah anymore.

Miss Lopiano and her fellow pornography peddlers have made it their life ambition to make smut a major part of the American way of life. She has purposely chosen to be a social liability; a disease we should try to cure ourselves of.

I stopped reading and stared at Leah. “She’s flat-out telling her readers that the world would be a better place without Dena!”

“That does appear to be the point.”

“And she only wrote this a week ago?”

“And yesterday Dena was shot.”

“Oh. My. God!”

“To be honest, I had a hard time picturing Chrissie killing someone. She prefers emotional brutality to its physical counterpart, so she probably didn’t do it. Still, you have to bring this to the attention of the police just in case,” Leah said, taking another sip of her tea. “I’d do it, but I thought you might want the honor.”

“Bull. You just don’t want anyone to think you would report a fellow board member to the cops.”

“That’s unfair,” Leah protested, but the faint sound of guilt echoed around her voice.

“I want to talk to this woman.”

Leah choked on her tea. “What? Why? Just go to the police! It’s their job to question her, not yours.”

“The police will mess it up.”

“What are you talking about? This is what the police do! When they go to the academy they are specifically trained to do two things—question people and shoot them.”

“And arrest them and search a crime scene and…”

“Yes, yes,” Leah said with a dismissive wave of her hand, “but I’m sure that all takes a backseat to the time they spend in the interrogation room and the shooting range. Leave this to them. All you need to do is sit by your friend’s bedside and bring her the occasional flower arrangement…with a vase of course. How you could have forgotten that—”

“Leah, I can’t leave this to someone else. Dena is more than a friend and this bitch may have tried to kill her. And if she didn’t kill her she probably incited someone else to do it!”

Leah narrowed her eyes. “Look, we don’t even know if she’s really guilty. I’d say there’s at least a ninety percent chance that she has nothing to do with what happened to Dena.”

“Ninety percent?”

Leah thought about this for a moment. “All right, maybe more like an eighty-five…or eighty-two…yes, I think there’s an eighty-two percent chance that Chrissie didn’t try to kill anyone this week.”

“But if she did,” I persisted, “I’m going to find the evidence to hang her with and then…”

“And then?”

I pressed my lips together. I didn’t know what would happen then. The truth was that I wanted to…no, not wanted, needed to see this Chrissie person. I needed to look into her eyes and see if I could detect the evil that had seeped out into that article. It wasn’t logical, but that didn’t matter.

“I just need to talk to her. You have to help me set it up.”

Leah folded her hands in her lap. “Why on earth would I do such a thing?”

“Because…” I searched my mind for a way to finish that sentence. What could I promise her that would be appealing enough to make her abandon both common sense and caution? I could promise to babysit her son! No, I couldn’t do that. I was desperate, not masochistic. Besides, Leah hadn’t even wanted me to babysit my nephew since that time that I let him paint his face with her lipstick. I glanced out the window and spotted a woman with a ruby-red tote bag hurrying down the sidewalk. Ruby like Mary Ann’s ring. “Because,” I said with a smile, “if you do I’ll convince Mary Ann to hire you as her wedding planner.”

Leah’s lips parted slightly and then her mouth gradually opened into an O as what I had said sank in. “Mary Ann is getting married?”

“She is.”

“But I thought her boyfriend was gay!”

“Why would you think that?”

Leah raised her eyebrows. “We’re talking about Monty, right? The man who invented the samba-dancing seal cub?”

I hesitated. “Okay, I can see why you might have gotten a gay vibe, but he really is straight.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“And they’re really getting married?”

“It’s going to be a huge event.”

“Well, then of course I’ll plan the wedding!” Leah brought her hands to the table with a thump. “You won’t have to convince her of anything. It’s a given.”

“Nothing’s a given. Trust me when I tell you that Mary Ann is going to want the full fairy tale wedding. She’s going to want everything to be perfect and she’s not going to want to leave it all in the hands of an amateur.”

“A what! Sophie, did you not just hear me tell you about the bar mitzvahs? Leon Panetta was there for God’s sake and he said the whole thing was fabulous. Fabulous, Sophie! How many times do you think Leon Panetta has used that word?”

“Look, I know you’re qualified but you’ve never been hired for a wedding before. It’s not on your resume and Mary Ann doesn’t know you that well, so…”

“But she knows you. If you tell her I’ll do a good job she’ll believe you!”

“Yes, she will,” I said with an overly sweet smile. “If I tell her.”

Leah’s eyes widened with horror. “You’re evil.”

“No, just mildly devious.”

Leah tapped her nails against the faux-wood table. “You’ll tell her to hire me if I set up a meeting between you and Chrissie?”

“I can’t tell her to hire you. It’s her wedding and ultimately her decision. But I’ll suggest it…strongly. And as you pointed out, with Mary Ann my opinion has weight.”

Leah did some more tapping. “Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll call Chrissie. Perhaps I can even get her to see you within the next day or so. That way we can get this horrid business over with. I’m sure Mama will take Jack for the time it takes to deal with this mess.”

I smiled to myself as Leah dialed. There were lots of things that bugged me about my sister, but I did love her efficiency.

CHAPTER 6

I like to hang out with secretive and dishonorable people. Their flaws are the perfect complement to my superiority complex.

–Fatally Yours

It took Leah a total of five minutes to call Chrissie and get her to agree to see me. She told her I wanted to join the fundraising board for the symphony and was hoping that after meeting me Chrissie would be willing to help Leah persuade the other board members to accept me. It seemed like a weak cover, but Chrissie accepted it immediately. We were to come to her apartment at four o’clock the next day to talk about my suitability.

In other words it was too good to be true. I mentally analyzed all the new information as we walked back to the hospital. Why would Chrissie write that article two years after Dena’s supposed offense? It’s not as if Tim had walked out on Chrissie. He did marry her after the fling with Dena. Maybe Leah was wrong. Maybe MAAP really was formed to fight pornography in general. The article Chrissie had written had included disparaging mentions of several of San Francisco’s strip clubs as well as a few nationally published adult magazines.

But Dena was the only individual she had actually named, and what she had said about her…

“I’m not going to have time to visit with Dena this morning,” Leah grumbled, interrupting my thoughts. “I have to get Jack.”

“You’re sure Mama will take him tomorrow?” I asked. As much as I wanted Leah to introduce me to Chrissie, I really didn’t want to bring my nephew to the home of a potential psychotic. I was pretty sure that was something most of the parenting books would frown on.

“Actually she already offered to watch him but I’ve been leaving him with the nanny a lot while I work and I was worried we were having too much apart time.” She glanced at her watch. “It’ll be fine. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three-thirty at your house. Be ready.”

“I’m always ready.”

Leah gave me her give-me-a-break look. “Tell Dena I’ll try to be back tomorrow, and, for God’s sake, go to the gift shop and buy her a magazine or something. The woman can’t be expected to spend the entire day watching game shows and soap operas.”

I smiled to myself as Leah turned on her heel and headed toward the parking lot. The thing about my sister was that she was totally self-absorbed and totally considerate at the same time. I realize that isn’t possible, but it was an impossibility that Leah seemed to manage well.

I went back in the hospital. I had a lot to do but today I would spend at the hospital. I just wanted to be by Dena’s side and remind myself that she was alive.

The day crept by at a snail’s pace. Marcus stopped by for a while but seemed somewhat unnerved by the hospital setting. Mary Ann and Jason were a constant presence and Monty brought Dena’s parents to see her. Her parents didn’t say much. Her father stood a few paces behind her mother as she asked Dena a few clipped questions about how she was doing. It would have been nice if she had shown a little warmth, but Dena’s mother didn’t do warmth, and her father didn’t do anything but stand in her mother’s shadow. In an odd way her parents modeled the master and servant relationship that Dena occasionally played with in the bedroom. That was a rather disturbing thought and I quickly decided not to dwell on it.

When they left Mary Ann walked out with them, promising to be back in less than half an hour. That just left Jason and me sitting in Dena’s room as she stared moodily at the ceiling. Jason’s eyes were on the brown swinging door that Isa, Dena’s mother, had just gone through.

“What the fuck’s up her ass?” he asked.

“She’s pissed,” Dena said with a shrug.

“Why?” I asked incredulously. “She mad at you for getting shot?”

“Not really.” Dena picked up the remote control to the television and turned it over in her hands. “For my mother being pissed isn’t so much a mood as it is a permanent state of being.”

“Oh, got it.” Jason let out a long sigh of relief. “I thought maybe she didn’t like me or something.”

“You’re not the one she doesn’t like,” Dena said shortly.

I smiled and settled myself into the chair by Dena’s bedside. I knew Isa didn’t like me. For one thing she thought I was going to hell because I was a Jew. It’s always hard to have a positive relationship with someone who thinks you’re going to hell. I also suspected that she was clinging to not just a few racist sentiments…not that she ever came out and said so. It was just the way she always seemed surprised that I spoke grammatically correct English and didn’t have any friends in prison that tipped me off.