Клео Коул - Through The Grinder

“What? Through the main ballroom? Like this?”

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of — ”

Oh, good god.

“Besides, compared to the women out there serving drinks, you’re dressed modestly. Anyway, there are two hundred people in the Skylight Room who are going to see you in that getup, so you might as well get used to it. There are a lot of celebrities upstairs, too, so don’t lose your cool.”

He pushed the kitchen door open. “Right through the middle of the room to the door on your right, then up the elevator to the top. Speak to Ellie at the bar up there, and she’ll get you a serving tray.”

I didn’t want to do it, but it was the only way to get to Joy. So, after a deep breath, I took the plunge.

The floor of the brilliantly illuminated main ballroom was jammed with elegant partygoers drifting gracefully between the columns to the strains of harp music, the men in black tie, the women in floor-length gowns or skimpy haute couture. Jewels dripped from throats and sparkled on ears and fingers. Even the lingerie models who drifted across the hardwood floor serving refreshments looked somehow in character with the décor, like delicately flitting fairies in a Victorian painting.

Only two things ruined the picture perfection of the scene.

Hanging from the main ballroom’s sixteen-foot ceilings were huge, bloody sides of beef, shanks of lamb, whole, gutted suckling pigs, and hundreds of dead chickens. Though it didn’t take me long to figure out that, mercifully, all the animals and animal parts were fake — rubber chickens, luridly painted plaster of Paris shanks, etc. — the message was far from subtle.

“A little much, don’t you think, Brooks?” I muttered, frowning at the collection of fake dead fowl.

The second disturbing element was the beautiful couple posing on pedestals near the ballroom entrance across the room. They were two of the most perfect physical specimens I’d ever seen. The man wore nothing more than a Speedo, the woman a thong and skimpy bikini top. Their muscles were toned and tight, their flesh smooth and healthy — and divided by bold black ink into their various cuts of meat, just like the poster for this event.

I got about halfway across the ballroom when I heard a woman’s voice slurring a familiar name.

“Oh, Maah-Teyyy-Oooooh.”

I turned to find Matteo, wearing velvet slippers, silk boxers, a look of stunned terror — and nothing else. He was obviously rushing to get my attention when an older woman had intercepted him, her spidery arm locking itself around my ex-husband’s bicep.

I recognized her at once. It was Daphne Devonshire.

Well, well, well, Daphne, whaddya know.

The last time I saw Madame’s friend, she was a well-preserved glamour queen who had gotten into the habit of luring my husband to a seaside love nest in Jamaica. But that was almost fifteen years ago and those years had not been kind. Daphne’s once classic features now appeared frozen in a plastic surgery and Botox-induced death mask. Her skin, once tanned and healthy, took on the sallow look of a heavy drinker and excessive smoker. Worst of all, her lycra, strapless number was far from figure flattering. Daphne still looked shapely, but that gown was made for a twenty-five-year-old built like Pamela Anderson — not a woman in her late sixties.

“Matteo, darling! It’s so wonderful to see you,” Daphne cried, air kissing him. Her arm never loosed its iron lock around his bicep. As she talked she spilled some of her drink. “Remember what I used to sing to you down in Jamaica, mahn? ”

Now she was affecting a Jamaican accent, a really bad Jamaican accent.

“Maah-Teyyy-Oooooh, Maah-tey-eh-eh-Oooooh. Daylight’s gone and you’re comin’ to me home…”

Matt looked at me with desperation. His eyes were imploring.

“Joy’s upstairs,” I told him. “I’ll see you up there.” Then I blew him a kiss and moved on, leaving Matteo to extract himself from his ex-lovebird’s death grip all by his little old self.

I hadn’t gone far when I heard a familiar female voice call my name.

“Clare, my dear, that’s quite a daring outfit, though I must admit you carry it off well.”

I turned to find Madame, my ex-mother-in-law and owner of the Blend, standing in front of me. She was arm in elegant arm with a “special friend” she’d met a few months ago, Dr. Grey Temples — a.k.a. oncologist Gary McTavish.

Standing there, feeling half naked, I think I may have blushed.

“You remember Dr. McTavish,” Madame said, deftly covering my discomfort.

He smiled and took my hand. “You look stunning, my dear.”

“Yes, she does,” said Madame critically. “Though a little jewelry would have made her seem a little less…naked.”

Madame gazed past me, searching. “Are you here with anyone in particular?”

I bit my tongue about the murders and Brooks Newman and my trying to get to Joy. I’d sound like a raving lunatic blurting it all out for one thing, and it would just waste more time for another. Neither was this the time or place to give Madame a heart attack over the safety of her granddaughter. I just needed to extract myself politely and get my drafty rear upstairs.

“Matteo,” I replied quickly. “I’m here with Matt.”

Madame’s eyes lit up.

“That boy of mine,” she said. “He’s been back from Africa for days and hasn’t visited me yet. Where is he?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Well, I…”

Madame frowned when she looked around the room and found her son, still trapped with her old friend, Daphne Devonshire. (Really, an ex -friend ever since her fling with Matteo.)

“Oh, god, Clare,” Madame said with a sad sigh. “Why did he ever get involved with that woman?”

“We weren’t getting along. It was the early nineties. Rap was eclipsing New Wave…”

“He was using drugs!”

“That too.”

Madame shook her head. “Cocaine is a terrible thing.”

“Perhaps you should rescue him,” I suggested, ready to bolt.

“Perhaps we should let him lie in the maid he’s bedded. Perhaps — ”

But Dr. McTavish took Madame’s hand. “Perhaps we shall,” he said, then led her across the floor and toward her son.

I reached the elevator to the Skylight Room without further incident. As I expected, the security person guarding the door saw my outfit and nodded, assuming I was part of the staff, and waved me on. I boarded the empty elevator and rode it upstairs.

When the doors slid open a handsome young sandy-haired man in black tie was standing in the hallway. He looked very familiar.

“Have a nice evening,” he said as I stepped out of the elevator and he stepped in. The deep, resonant voice triggered my memory, and I realized I had just passed Pat Kiernan, Esther’s and Joy’s favorite morning anchor for New York’s basic cable Channel 1.

I turned, but the doors had already closed. “Well, I sort of met him,” I murmured, plowing ahead. “I’m sure Esther and Joy will be impressed.”

Up ahead, loud voices and bursts of laughter poured through the wide open doors to the Skylight Room. I moved quickly into the throng and toward the bar. Someone was taking so many pictures that the flashes made it impossible to make out many faces.

“Ms. Cosi! Is that you?”

The shocked voice belonged to a young man standing near the bar, a classmate of Joy’s named Ray Harding. He’d been by the Blend several times with Joy, so he knew me well, but poor Ray was used to seeing his classmate’s mother in a giant blue apron, not a Victoria’s Secret nightgown. He appeared embarrassed. Well, kid, join the club.

“Have you seen Joy?” I asked.