Liz Talley - His Uptown Girl

She snorted as she grabbed her toothbrush. “God, you’re acting like an old person, Elle. In bed by ten o’clock is sealing your doom, baby.”

She didn’t respond to her own taunts. What could she possibly say? Then the cell phone sitting on her dressing table buzzed. She picked it up and eyed the number. Margaret. Again. Shouldn’t her mother-in-law be in bed?

She tossed the phone down, peeled off her underwear and put her hair in an old scrunchy. No friggin’ way would she let Skeeter’s mother ruin the most precious time of the day: her cocktail bath.

Grabbing the highball glass, she sank into the tub and used her big toe to turn off the hot water.

“Ahhh,” she said to the wall on her right.

The wall said nothing in return...as well it shouldn’t. After all, she’d only started on the drink.

The swirl of the water around her felt like a sweet embrace as she slid down, burying her nose in the soft bubbles as the phone jittered again. And then again. Then the home phone jangled in the hallway.

“I’m not answering you, damn it!” she called out, studying the chipped polish on her left toenail as she took a sip of her vodka tonic.

Vodka tonic—one of the many good things her late husband Skeeter Theriot had taught her to love. Every night before they’d gone out to art exhibits or political fund-raisers, they’d indulged in the drink and conversation about what they should say, who they should pander to and why they needed to keep the goal in mind.

Ha.

An illusion built like a house of cards.

But the past didn’t bear dwelling upon, did it? All that hurt and bitterness was supposed to be locked up, chained with determination and dumped in the nearest pit of forgotten dreams.

Eleanor closed her eyes and focused on the good things she had in her life—a store, a healthy daughter, another year before she turned forty. And Nutella. A whole new jar in the pantry.

She’d just grabbed the handmade green-tea soap and a soft cloth when the doorbell rang.

“Really?” she said to the ceiling, blowing an errant bubble off her shoulder. “All I want is a bath. And a drink. And some blasted peace!”

She stood, grabbed her plush terry-cloth robe and padded to the door, not bothering with the water streaming down her legs. She’d mop it up once she dealt with whatever person continued to lean on her doorbell. Eleanor stomped down the stairs, shouting, “Coming!”

When she peeked out the door peephole, her heart stopped.

A uniformed police officer stood beneath her gas lantern porch light, hat in hand. A cruiser was parked in her drive.

With a shaking hand, Eleanor set the crystal tumbler on the late-nineteenth-century telephone table next to the door. A cannonball landed in her stomach; her mouth suddenly became a desert. Last time a policeman had stood on her porch, she’d learned her husband had been murdered...by a mistress she hadn’t known existed.

Please, dear God, don’t let it be Blakely. Please.

Eleanor tugged the belt tighter and turned the lock, pulling the door open. Cold crept in, matching the fear in her heart. “Yes?”

“Eleanor Theriot?”

“Yes?”

“We’ve been trying to call you on your cell and home phone,” the officer said, his dark eyes shifting away from her disheveled appearance.

“Why? What’s happened?”

He read her fear. “No one’s hurt. Nothing like that—”

“What then?” Eleanor fussed with the collar of her robe and peered around the police officer as if he might be hiding something horrible behind his back.

“Someone vandalized your store. Some guy from one of the other businesses hit gave us your numbers, but you didn’t answer. I was in the area, so dispatch sent me over.”

Sweet relief stole over her. Blakely was safe. This was not about her daughter. But then realization hit her. Her store had been vandalized. What did that mean? Broken windows? Items stolen? Her heart skipped a beat. “I’ll head down there. Thanks.”

“Dispatch said other merchants are on-site, so you have time to, you know...” he stammered, nodding toward her. She looked down at where her robe gaped and jerked it closed.

“Thank you for coming by,” she said, as he backed down the front porch steps and turned toward the open door of his police car. She shut the door, twisted the lock and scrambled up the gleaming stairway.

Fifteen minutes later she pulled her Volvo to the curb in front of her store and hopped out, clad in an old sweatshirt of Skeeter’s and a pair of jeans. Her teeth chattered as she approached the glass glittering beneath the streetlights.

“Damn,” she breathed, surveying the damage. Whoever had vandalized the store had done a bang-up job. Like serious bang-up. How had no one seen him...or them?

“Got me, too,” said a voice over her shoulder. She turned to find Dez Batiste standing behind her. He wore a beat-up army surplus jacket and straight-legged jeans that fit him like sin. In the lamplight, his skin seemed darker, making him appear more dangerous, and it finally hit her who he resembled—that wrestler-turned-actor who’d done a movie in a tutu. She couldn’t recall his name, but she and Blakely had gone to the movie a few years back.

She peered across the street to the spidered glass in Dez’s window. “How did this happen? And why didn’t my store alarm go off?”

“Don’t know,” Dez said, his gray eyes probing the depths of her store. “You sure you set yours?”

“Always,” she said automatically, even as her thoughts tripped to the actual process of locking up. She always set the alarm before slipping out the back and slamming the dead bolt into place. But she’d been distracted by a last-minute customer who wanted a rush delivery...and by her failed attempt at stepping outside herself to flirt with a man she opposed enough to pen a letter to the city council, a man who now stood before her very much doing his part within the community she wanted to protect. She swallowed the guilt. “At least I usually do.”

Dez propped his fists on his hips, making his shoulders look even broader. The planes of his rugged face were exotic in the glow of the streetlight. “Wouldn’t have mattered. They think it was kids driving by and shooting pellet guns, so an alarm wouldn’t have changed the outcome. Mr. Hibbett has a street cam, so maybe the police can get the license plate off the tape or something.”

Maybe they would...or not. Didn’t really help the short-term situation. She needed lumber to cover the gaping holes and prevent the current open invitation to her stock. After Hurricane Katrina, and the looting that had followed, she was more cautious than probably necessary, which was why the whole not-setting-the-alarm thing didn’t make sense. She slid her phone from her back pocket and started dialing Pansy’s number. Her husband sometimes helped with big deliveries and lived close by. Eddie would have plywood ready for storms in his storage shed. He would let her use some until she could get the glass company to come out in the morning. “Better see if I can get some lumber to patch this up.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got plenty left from the remodel,” Dez said, jerking his head toward his bar across the street.

She hung up before the call could connect, and nodded. “I’d appreciate it. It would keep me from troubling Pansy and Eddie. And since we’re already up...”

Mr. Hibbett approached carrying a toolbox. “Sons of bitches busted my stained-glass rooster. If I get my hands on those little bastards, I’ll plant them in Cemetery No. 1.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hibbett, but Eddie can probably fix it. Let’s see how many whole pieces we can salvage and we’ll call him tomorrow,” she said, giving Mr. Hibbett a pat on the shoulder. The older man had been on Magazine Street for over twenty years, and ran one of the best pastry shops in the Crescent City. Butterfield’s, with its sunny decor, delicious cupcakes and strong coffee, was a local favorite, and the stained-glass rooster had been created by Eddie, who was a glass artist. Somehow the fearless visage of the fowl was welcoming.