Killer Punch Read online

  “Eula doesn’t have an office—­we don’t really have those at the Gazette,” Bootsie said. “She shares a desk in the newsroom. Plus the painting is pretty big, and we only have seven hundred square feet of office space.”

  “If she has it, it’s in her house,” Joe said positively. “Eula’s not good at things like stashing away stolen items. That’s why she was a good class treasurer, and also, it’s why she’s no fun and needs to be sent on that two-­year-­long cruise.”

  AS EXPECTED, BOOTSIE and Gerda emerged triumphant after seventy-­five minutes of grueling tennis.

  “You played great, Lilly,” enthused Bootsie, which I found to be annoying. “Gerda and I had the height advantage, but you guys almost beat us.”

  “Your backhand is so Serena meets Venus mixed with vintage Navratilova,” Lilly sang out to Bootsie and Gerda sweetly, appearing not to mind one bit that she and Eula had lost the championship.

  Then again, why would Lilly care? She already had everything else going for her. Including, probably, an ex-­husband who wanted her back.

  Holly and I exchanged eye rolls as Bootsie, Gerda, Eula, and Lilly offered one another sporty compliments about how great they’d all played. Then again, since I don’t play tennis and my main form of exercise is schlepping antiques and mowing my lawn, maybe this was standard procedure.

  Finally, thankfully, there was a break in what was turning into an admiring verbal rehash of each point, and Joe leaped in.

  “I never told you this, Eula, but I have an obsession with your house—­I love it!” he said, with a slightly hysterical edge to his voice. “Those camellia bushes and the holly hedge and the French doors—­the place screams English country village meets Umbrian farmhouse hideaway!”

  “It does?” replied Eula, looking perplexed, flattered, and somewhat sweaty.

  “You bet your sweet self it does,” Joe told her. “It’s close to perfect as it is, but I’ve got a really cool idea for an HGTV show where I do two-­hour home makeovers that basically turn houses into the bricks-­and-­mortar equivalent of Jessica Alba blended with Cate Blanchett! I need pics of a ­couple of places this week for my pitch. I’m tentatively calling it Extreme Makeover, Storage Locker Edition.

  “Let’s go to your place right now! I’ve got rugs, pillows, and lamps in my truck right now, and this makeover can’t wait another minute.”

  Eula hesitated for a minute, then finally agreed. “As long as you don’t go upstairs,” she said. “My attic’s kind of a mess. I’ve been meaning to clean it out! Anyway, the door’s locked.”

  “Of course, we won’t go up there,” said Bootsie. Her blue eyes were bulging happily. There’s nothing Bootsie loves more than picking a lock, unless it’s rooting through a medicine cabinet. I almost felt bad for Eula as I watched her depart, Joe and Bootsie on her heels.

  “See you at my house at five-­thirty to get ready for Gianni’s super-­secret event,” said Holly, gathering up her bag and keys. Her toe was tapping and I noticed a large envelope of cash sticking out of her pristine beige Celine tote. “I might just go run a few errands. And do some organizing at home.”

  Errands? This could only mean one thing: shopping. Holly has Martha and Jared to do things like buy laundry detergent or pick up half-­and-­half. Shopping is a sign of distress with Holly. I mean, last summer she spent more than seven thousand dollars on bikinis that are still in the fancy Chanel bags they arrived in. That can’t be healthy for anyone.

  Also, when Holly starts “organizing,” entire closets full of fantastic Theory outfits are sent to the Bryn Mawr Thrift Shop. This is great for the thrift shop, but seems a little impulsive. I should have known that Holly taking on three months of co-­chairing with Eula meant she was in crisis.

  “What with the Tomato Show, we haven’t had a chance to catch up in a while,” I told her. “And if you go to Saks—­I mean, go run errands—­you might run late, and miss Gianni’s big announcement tonight.” Honestly, if Holly went on a buying bender, she wouldn’t be back till the luxury store closed at nine-­thirty, or later, since they keep it open for her as long as she’s still spending.

  I noticed a slight eye twitch that for Holly indicated an emotional spiral.

  “Howard’s due back from Eugene soon, right?” I asked gently. “You must really miss him. But I hear Oregon is a beautiful place! Maybe you should fly out and spend a week!”

  “I Googled Oregon,” she told me, “and I don’t think I get it.”

  “You don’t get the whole state?”

  “The only approved activities are fishing and hiking,” she informed me. “Even Howard, who likes it there, said that’s pretty much it.”

  I thought for a second, then remembered I’d had wine from Oregon once at the Pub.

  “They have wineries!” I told her encouragingly. “That could be fun.”

  “I know of very strict spa out in Oregon,” Gerda put in, as she zipped a tracksuit jacket on over her tennis outfit.

  Holly perked up a little.

  “This spa is run by Austrians,” Gerda told her. “They give you, like, one kale smoothie a day and you get a handful of nuts at bedtime. The hikes are straight uphill for hours and they berate you till you cry if you don’t keep up!

  “You leave this place, your skin glowing and you weigh almost zero,” Gerda added. “Maybe I go with you, Holly.”

  I could see Holly getting seriously interested. Despite her love of luxury, when Holly’s depressed, she goes quickly from binge shopping to excessive working out and dining on a few sprigs of arugula. I sighed.

  Who knows, maybe a week with Gerda would make Holly appreciate her cushy existence.

  “What about phones and iPads?” Holly asked breathlessly. “I like the sound of the kale and the crying, but I might need access to technology.”

  “Austrians don’t mind technology,” Gerda told her. As if to prove this, her phone dinged, and she rooted through her tennis bag and eyed it.

  “I had feeling Barclay was gonna be back today!” she barked. “Find My Friends alert me that he’s heading back here on the A.C. Expressway. I gotta go. I gonna break my own rule and pick up a lot of booze and carbs for him so I can break the news that I’m opening new Pilates studio. I know Barclay—­when I go out and get successful, he gonna be real mad.”

  BACK AT THE store, I hung up Sophie’s caftan, put on my Bermuda shorts and Old Navy tank, and was about to head home with Waffles when Joe called.

  “Nothing,” said Joe when I answered. “Eula’s got nothing incriminating in her house other than a bathrobe she stole from a W Hotel. Bootsie got into the attic, but it was just a bunch of musty old canvases. A few were painted over with Eula’s version of, like, the Mona Lisa, but we didn’t find Honey’s painting.”

  “Could one of her Mona Lisas have the real Heifer underneath Eula’s paint job?” I asked.

  “They were all much smaller, and none of the canvases we saw had a big gold frame like the one Heifer was in. Anyway, I’ve got to finish decorating Eula’s living room in twelve minutes, so I gotta run,” he said, and hung up.

  I CHECKED MY phone for the millionth time that afternoon as I steered my rusty Subaru out of my driveway at five-­thirty and turned toward Holly’s place. I’d considered canceling on the Gianni event, but it sounded too depressing to stay home alone knowing my boyfriend was somewhere in town . . . and hadn’t even bothered to pick up his dogs! All five mutts had eaten, run around the yard, and were back inside on the sofa, with the windows open to the summer breeze, but the gorgeous weather didn’t do much for my mood.

  Not even a text from John! He was probably clinking glasses right now with Lilly at her mom’s fancy monogrammed house on Camellia Lane, caressing his ex’s dewy, glowy cheekbones while they planned a tennis-­themed wedding. Lilly would probably tell him he had too many dogs and they shed too much, and I’d end up
having to adopt them all, spending the rest of my days alone but for a panting pack of beige fur.

  And what about that drink Mike Woodford had mentioned? He could have called to make good on the offer he’d extended this morning, but so far my phone was completely silent.

  My spirits lifted slightly when Holly’s white Colonial house came into view after a lengthy meander down her driveway. Since she bought the place after old Mrs. Bingham died a ­couple of years back, she’s had the Colketts installing roses, peonies, and hydrangeas in amazing profusion, and the result is spectacular.

  Sure, I consoled myself as I pushed the gleaming doorbell, my boyfriend had been too busy playing tennis and hanging out with his ex-­wife to call me, but at least I could be sure that Holly had a great outfit picked out for me to borrow while my heart crumbled into a million painful pieces.

  “We’re ready for ya!” sang Sophie as she opened Holly’s door as soon as I rang. Behind her, Gerda nodded to me. “Just because you schlep antiques for a living doesn’t mean you have to look like one!”

  For her part, Sophie’s tiny form was encased in a backless black silk frock that could only have been designed by Donatella Versace, her hair was swept up in the front in a poufy up-­do, and she had on teetery six-­inch gladiator heels.

  For a girl who still hadn’t wound up her divorce and might have broken up with her boyfriend, Sophie looked fabulous.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked her. “Because you look great!”

  “You know what, I’m doing awesome!” Sophie shrieked bravely. “Joe tried to stifle my mojo, and now I’m back and better than ever!”

  I followed Sophie into Holly’s minimalist foyer, which contains only a modern white light fixture, a low white marble table, and an expensive modern painting. The living room is similarly chic, which is why Howard has a clubby man cave in the basement where he can drink beer and eat nachos. Luckily for Howard, their housekeeper, Martha, cooks a lot of breakfasts and lunches when he’s in town, since obviously Holly isn’t going to make, say, pancakes. And fortunately for the rest of us, Martha loves to whip up magazine-­worthy meals which Holly refuses to eat, so we get to enjoy amazing things like eggs Benedict on the patio all summer.

  Actually it smelled like something fantastic was cooking in here right now . . . was there a casserole in the oven? I love casseroles! They’re big around Bryn Mawr, and this one was emitting delicious aromas of chicken and cheese throughout Holly’s art-­gallery-­looking house. Maybe Howard was coming home and Martha was baking said cheesy, carb-­filled dish for him. This would be great news, since Holly’s a lot calmer when Howard’s around.

  I quickly lost focus on the scent of baked goodness when I got upstairs to the guest room. There were three awesome dresses hanging on the closet door for me to choose between.

  “I’d go with the slinkiest one,” Sophie advised me. “ ’Cause I tried to tone down my outfits for Joe, and where did it get me? Exactly nowhere!”

  With this, Sophie did a foot stamp and added a toss of her piled-­up blond hair. “Plus all the Versace I had in my closet is back in business, starting tonight!”

  TWENTY-­FIVE MINUTES LATER, Sophie had aimed Holly’s megawatt blow-­dryer at my hair with surprising skill, and was applying some kind of super-­thick mascara that extended my eyelashes about two inches.

  Holly, who had on an amazing white silk caftan, waved aside my protests about borrowing her clothes and told me that Gianni had insisted we get to his restaurant by six-­thirty, and to hurry up and put on her pick for me, which was a Tibi yellow silk halter number.

  “That dress is perfect for you,” she told me. “On me, it looks like an omelette.”

  “It looks expensive—­maybe you can return it!” I told her, feeling guilty about wearing her clothes for the millionth time. “I can take it to the Pack-­N-­Ship when I work next Sunday.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t do returns,” she told me airily. “Also, I’ve tried mailing things back at the Pack-­N-­Ship, and it never works. Last week, I ran into Leena at the Pub wearing a Phillip Lim cropped blouse I tried to send back weeks ago.

  “She looked good in the shirt, though.” Holly shrugged.

  WE ARRIVED AT Gianni’s restaurant to find two party buses idling outside and a crowd of well-­dressed Gianni customers and investors climbing aboard.

  No one was excited about the buses, especially since we didn’t know where they were going. What if a two-­hour schlep awaited us? I noticed that Gerda looked particularly leery as she tromped over in her BCBG jumpsuit and pair of Birkenstock sandals.

  “I don’t like buses,” she announced.

  “Come on, Gerda!” Sophie told her. “This is gonna be fun!”

  “I don’t like fun,” Gerda said grimly.

  “Sophie!” yelled Gianni, giving the Versace-­clad girl a hug and managing to grab her tush in the process. “Holly! I got a fabulous night ahead for you girls. We going to special location for a fabulous dinner. Gianni has new business venture—­out in the campagna!”

  “Am I late?” said Bootsie, suddenly popping up at my elbow and scaring me.

  “Don’t sneak up like that!” I told her.

  “I see trays of crab puffs being carried onto those party buses,” Bootsie told us.

  Just then, I noticed waiters carrying big silver buckets of iced champagne onto the idling vehicles.

  “Let’s go!” yelled Bootsie.

  Chapter 20

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, the tipsy crowd piled out of the two buses and onto the stone walkway of a beautiful, tiny stone farmhouse.

  We’d headed west for two exits on the Turnpike, then due north on a winding country road that also headed to my fave Chester County flea market, Stoltzfus’s.

  Luckily, Gianni himself had jumped onto the first bus, while Bootsie, Sophie, and I rode in the second vehicle. Luckily, just a few miles off the Turnpike, the buses turned right and braked to a halt on the long, oak-­lined driveway of a pretty stone farmhouse. The sun was setting, but a few artfully placed spotlights illuminated the tall trees around us, and dozens of strings of white party lights hung from branches above two long white-­clothed tables set with Mason jars filled with white roses and peonies, and about seven hundred white votive candles.

  “Hey everybody, I going to make a speech now!” said the chef, who was waiting at the head of the driveway, the waiters and party staff assembled in black and white outfits behind him.

  All the guests looked askance at the prospect of a monologue by Gianni, who isn’t known for brevity. However, things looked up when four waiters started quickly handing everyone glasses of tasty-­looking red wine. Thankfully, the speech itself was on the short side.

  “Benvenuti to Gianni’s new business venture!” said the chef, his bald dome glinting in the glow of the candles. “And hey, look back there, past that rose garden behind me.” He indicated some buoyant bushes in full pink and red bloom about twenty feet in the direction of the little stone house and a barn. “The Colketts put those roses in today, and by the way, Colketts, you mess up! That’s not enough bushes, I told you to do like four hundred roses, you guys fucked up again! Anyway,” he continued, while the Colketts’ faces turned from proud to crestfallen, “Gianni got big announcement. Already I having a great year with new restaurant and hit show on Food Network, and I meet a lot of celebrities and probably gonna join Leonardo DiCaprio’s posse on his yacht next summer! But tonight, I got different news.

  “Behind the rose garden is pasture, and you see animals in it?”

  We all peered through the dusk, and small faces with wide-­set eyes, huge ears, long noses, and a sweet and slightly sleepy expression were visible, lined up along a wood fence. They resembled in stature a good-­size dog, but appeared to be . . . Wait, were those . . . They kept nibbling the grass, munching the wood of the fence, and were sticking their heads thr
ough to try to eat the roses . . .

  “Gianni is starting an artisanal goat cheese farm,” shouted the chef. “These little suckers gonna make thirty-­eight-­dollar-­a-­pound goat cheese for Gianni. Gonna be my greatest moneymaker yet!”

  “SOPHIE! KRISTIN! OVER here,” sang out Tim Colkett, who was adjusting some huge orange trees in terracotta pots over by an outdoor bar. The fresh cocktail in his hand had apparently numbed the sting of the chef’s diss about his rose garden, and the Colketts looked back to their usual upbeat selves.

  And honestly, the setting was so delightful that it immediately lifted the mood. A jazz trio was playing under a grove of birch trees, sous-­chefs were hovering over a grill that was currently occupied by huge hunks of fragrant meats, and waiters were passing tiny crab-­and-­chevre puffs.

  The scene was honestly pretty spectacular. I had to hand it to Gianni—­the man knew how to throw a party.

  “Did we do an amazing job with this place or what?” said Tom Colkett, giving us all hugs. “There was nothing here this morning but grass and goats. Seriously, we’ve outdone ourselves—­again!”

  “Did you notice the orchids and lanterns suspended from the sycamores in the manner of a free-­form sculpture?” added Tim. “It’s the newest thing in flower design. Fruits, vegetables, candles, you name it—­if you can wrap it in twine and dangle it from a branch, or a fence, you’ve basically nailed that whole InStyle back of the magazine, celebrity party thing. I mean, would Sofia Vergara have a party without orchids à la branche? I don’t think so.”

  “The other genius trend we’ve basically invented—­well, maybe we weren’t the absolute first to do this, but we were early adopters—­is the party shed,” Tom informed us.

  “Voilà!” He pointed to what seemed like a place to store rakes—­a cute wood and stone structure that might have been a spring house in an earlier incarnation—­and flung open the door. “You’re welcome!”