Joan Hess - Maggody In Manhattan

"A week ago. I'm the new kid in the office, so I'm given all the assignments no one else wants. Have you ever tasted this Krazy KoKo-Nut? It's so nasty I almost barfed. Now I'm obliged to chirp its praises to the media, when I'm dying to do nothing more than lie in the chaise at the summer house. It's simply not fair!"

Before she could do a rerun of the previous night's tears, I said, "I have a question about the incident the night before last, Geri. According to Durmond, he was mugged in the stairwell and lost consciousness when he fell. Someone carried him to Ruby Bee's room, although I can't see one person handling him. My question is this: Who called the police, and how did they know to go to Ruby Bee's room?"

"I have no idea," she admitted, frowning.

"Is someone trying to sabotage the contest?"

The frown disappeared and she gave me a pitying smile. "Please, Arly, this is the national Krazy KoKo-Nut cookoff. Why on earth would anyone bother to sabotage it? I'm knocking myself silly trying to get anyone at all to even notice it. I had to go through my father to speak to the food editor at the Times, and I've never been so embarrassed in my life when she finally stopped laughing and declined to be a judge. Travel and Leisure couldn't find so much as an assistant to an assistant editor who was willing to set foot in this place, much less sample food containing coconut-flavored soybean flakes. I couldn't bring myself to call an old friend at Gourmet. If anyone had the decency to sabotage this contest, it would be I.

I was about to agree with her when the door opened and a woman entered the lobby. Cambria staggered after her with four large, worn suitcases and a plastic cosmetics case. The woman had pale, thick hair and a kittenish face, and she wore a black leather miniskirt, a pink blouse that neared translucency, and fringed boots. Her makeup was more suitable for a stage than a street, although it wasn't challenging to imagine her conducting business on a street corner…near Times Square.

"Mr. Cambria, you are such a doll," she said, giggling at him. "I am so flattered that you remember me from that show at the Blue Heaven! The boss pointed you out to us girls, but there were ten or maybe more of us in the line. You are a regular sweetheart."

"I should forget legs like yours?" Cambria responded gallantly. "I have thought of nothing else since then, not even in my dreams."

Still giggling, she kissed him on the cheek and gave him a little wave as he went outside, then spotted Geri and me and waved at us. "I'm Gaylene Feather. Are you in the contest, too? Isn't this exciting?" She spoke with a heavy New York accent, forming the words in the front of her mouth and sending them up through her nose like cigarette smoke.

"I'm Arly Hanks, daughter of a contestant," I said.

"Arly?" she repeated, her finger on her cheek. "I don't guess I've ever met anyone with that name before. It's kinda exotic, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, I do." I looked down modestly, not inclined to lie and claim kinship with the sprite in The Tempest, nor to be truthful and admit I'd been named Ariel, albeit with a glitch in the spelling, after a photograph of Maggody taken from an airplane. Geri introduced herself and acknowledged that she was the coordinator from the marketing agency. "We were expecting you yesterday evening, Miss Feather, but it's just as well you waited until today."

"Please, you should call me Gaylene. My real name's plain old Gail, so I changed it a while back when I began my career. I heard about the man getting shot." She sat down across from us, her heavy eyelashes fluttering like convulsed spiders, and added, "I had to work last night, anyways, so I couldn't have come. My boss is real upset about me missing the next few nights. I have to admit I'm losing money by doing this, but maybe the publicity will help my career, and a trip to Vegas can't hurt."

Geri raised her eyebrows a polite millimeter. "And what might this career be?"

"I am a dancer. I worked at the Blue Heaven for two years, then Mr. Lisbon offered me a better deal, so I'm now appearing nightly at the Xanadu, which is named after a fancy hotel in a poem."

"No kidding," Geri said as she made a notation on the clipboard and stood up. "You'll be in 213; the manager will give you the key. I'm going to use his phone to see if I can't find at least one paper willing to report the contest. Maybe Mother knows someone who can help." She went down the hallway to the office, and as the door closed, I heard her mutter, "If she's a dancer, you can call me Prancer!"

"I'm only doing this for the publicity," Gaylene confided to me as if we were bunkmates at summer camp. "I don't really like to cook, but like my boyfriend says, surely I can follow a recipe." She offered me a piece of gum, and when I shook my head, popped several in her mouth. "I have to make Krazy KoKo-Nut Kabobs. You roll strawberries in sticky jam, then in the flakes, and put them on long wooden toothpicks. I tried it at home, and it was real good. The package says the stuff is less fattening, and we girls have to keep an eye on that, don't we?"

"We certainly do," I said. "I'll leave you to check in. I need to see if my mother and her friend are up yet."

"Is she the one who shot the guy?"

Shrugging, I went to the elevator. As I reached for the button, the door wheezed open and Ruby Bee and Estelle stepped out. They were dressed in their Sunday best, and each had a massive, bulging handbag supported by a shoulder strap.

"In case some criminal tries to snatch it," Ruby Bee said, noticing my gaze. "I put some rocks in the bottom. I can swing it hard enough to make him see stars until springtime. We ain't gonna take any foolishness from these folks."

"That's good," I said weakly. "Where are you going?"

Estelle took out a travel book riddled with markers. "We're going to the Statue of Liberty first and then the Empire State Building. We talked about going on one of those tour boats that go around the island, but we decided to wait until another day for that."

Ruby Bee brushed past me. "Come on, Estelle, we can't waste our time if we want to see Macy's, Tiffany's, that Trump man's building with the waterfall, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the Bronx Zoo. It's already nine o'clock, and we're supposed to be back here at four. I am, anyway. It doesn't matter if you're here or not."

"Wait a minute," I said as I trailed them across the lobby. "How are you going to get to all those places and be back at four?"

Estelle, still rankled by Ruby Bee's remark, said, "We plum forgot our mules, so I suppose we'll have to find other means of transportation, Miss Travel Agent. We ain't got all day, Ruby Bee. Have you got the map?"

"What map?" I asked.

"The map of the subways," Ruby Bee said, flapping it at me. "We weren't born yesterday, missy, and we don't aim to spend a fortune on taxicabs when we can take these trains all over the city."

"You two have fun," Gaylene called from the sofa.

Ignoring my admittedly incoherent sputters, they sailed out of the door, consulted Cambria, and took off down the sidewalk as if they were heading down the road to Jim Bob's SuperSaver Buy 4 Less.

For those who are a mite confused by all the comings and goings of people in the oddly parallel universes of Manhattan, Maggody, and Tennessee (or maybe Kentucky by now), rest assured that everyone was pretty much in place for the duration.

The fifth and final contestant, Gaylene Feather, had arrived and was in her room unpacking while she listened to a talk show that concerned the secret lives of transvestite Episcopalian priests. Down the hall from her, Durmond was wincing as he dressed. Brenda and Jerome were in their room; he was dealing with work he'd brought and she was fretting about the time zones and her daughter's lackadaisical attitude about picking up the telephone.