Grave Apparel (2 page)

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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanking
everyone
who has helped
keep
my spirits up, answer my questions, and inspire me in the process of writing this book
would
be impossible. Please
know
that I am grateful to you all. First I must thank my patient husband, Bob
Williams,
who is my number one helpmate, friend, and
supporter.

My sincere thanks go to Mary Ann Grena
Manley
of Project
Northstar,
and
to
“Breezy,”
for
giving
me
insights
into
the
plight of the homeless and children at risk.
Any
factual
errors are mine alone, of course. I am also grateful to my
editor,
Anne
Bohner,
and my agent, Don Maass, for their guidance.

I
want
to
make
a special
acknowledgment,
which I
neglected
to
make
in an earlier book, to the teacher who
first
interested me in Russian
history.
Reg
Holmes made the Russia of Peter the Great and
Ivan
the
Terrible
come to life with a great deal of detail and
humor.
He is not responsible for
any
factual
errors in
Raiders
of
the
Lost
Corset
,
Lacey’s
previous
adventure,
but
the book
benefited
greatly from his inspiration

Chapter
1

It
was
bad
enough
that
everyone
in
Washington,
D.C.,
was
blaming
Lacey
Smithsonian for that notorious editorial in
The
Eye
Street
Observer
.

For
the record,
Lacey
did
not
write the tirade that started the tempest in a Christmas teapot that came to be
known
around
The
Eye
as
“Sweatergate.”

Sweatergate.
The
editorial
that
viciously
bashed
all
lovers
of
“festive
yet
fatuous”
seasonal Christmas
wear,
the
“egregious”
necklaces
of
twinkling
Christmas
lights,
the
redandgreen
mufflers
with “tinkling bells that
jingled,”
the garish holiday
cardigans
overrun
with
Santas
and
elves
and
snowmen
and
tiny
electrified
reindeer that made the
viewer’s
eyes
“throb
like
a vi
sual toothache from one too
many
sugar
cookies.”

Yes,
it
was
bad enough being blamed for attacking that in nocent seasonal
fashion
icon, the Christmas
sweater.
But it
was
the whispers in the
newsroom
that
Lacey
Smithsonian
was
“ru ining Christmas” that really singed her curls.

If
I’m
ruining
Christmas,
Lacey
thought,
heaven
knows
I’ve
got
help.

During the holiday season, the
showy
sections of the District of Columbia were at their glittery best. From Union Station, with its enormous wreaths beribboned in red, to
Georgetown,
with
every
lamppost
decked
with greenery and gold
bows,
the
Nation’s
Capital
looked
festive,
happy,
and welcoming. It
was
the season of peace on earth, goodwill
toward
men. That,
how
ever,
was
not the case at
The
Eye
Street
Observer
, the
city’s
thirdtier
newspaper,
where
Lacey
Smithsonian pounded a
key
board.

The
newspaper
had donned its holiday
finery
in the lobby

for all the
Washington
world
to see, with wreaths of green and a
lavish
tree in white and gold.
However,
upstairs in the
offices
overlooking
Farragut
Square, the paltry poinsettia plants scat tered around the
newsroom
added mere spots of
color,
register
ing nary a blip on the peace and
joy
scale. It
was
the
newspaper
business
as usual,
but
a little
worse
than usual. Reporters torn between pressing deadlines and the need to
take
care of holiday errands and attend
family
events
were snappish and unseason ably tense.

Even
without
the
specter of
Sweatergate.

Editorial writer Cassandra
Wentworth
was
the real author of
those
rancid
antiChristmas
sentiments.
But
she
was
doing
nothing to dispel the widespread suspicion that it
was
Lacey
who had rained curmudgeonly curses on
every
wearer of a fes
tive
Christmas sweater and
every
bearer of seasonal
cheer.
After all, if
anyone
made
snarky
comments in print about what
any
one else in the
Nation’s
Capital
was
wearing, it had to be
The
Eye
Street Observer
’s
resident
fashion
reporter.
Didn’t
it?

The editorial landed
Lacey
smack in the middle of a grudge match between her
two
leastfavorite
people in
The
Eye
’s
news
room: food editor Felicity Pickles, the brawny queen of
the
bakeryandbistro
beat, and Cassandra
Wentworth,
the
scrawny
voice
of the politically ultracorrect who wielded the unbylined poison pen on
The
Eye
’s
editorial page.

Lacey
wondered
idly who
would
try to kill whom
first.
If this were a boxing match, she thought, bantamweight contender
Wentworth
would
be
glowering
and spitting in one corner and
heavyweight
champion Pickles fuming and
pawing
the
canvas
in the
other.
Lacey
would
be the
unhappy
referee caught in the middle.

Cassandra
was
a
firstrate
ruiner,
a
onewoman
holiday de
stroyer
who
wouldn’t
be
happy
until
every
sugarplum
was
pick
led and
every
candy cane
was
crushed.
Figuratively
speaking, of course.
For
Cassandra, no one should be
happy
until
every
one in the
world
was
happy.
As that
was
unlikely,
no one de
served
to be
happy
at all.
Ever.
Not
even
a little. Nope. No
way.
Just
look
at
the
facts,
people,
the
situation
is
too
dire
to
indulge
ourselves
in
frivolity
and
twinkling
lights
and
mere
holly
jolly
happiness. Put down
those candy
canes,
people,
these
are
des
perate, miserable
times!
Act
like
it!

Ms.
Wentworth
lived
her life as an eternal penitent, apologizing for crimes she did not commit. She wept for whales and thought globally and
walked
for the cure, and she
was
always
on the
lookout
to stamp out the politically incorrect thought, in herself and in others.

But
why
did
Wentworth
have
to
make
everybody
else
so
mis
erable?
Lacey
found
herself
thinking.
Couldn’t
she
at
least
keep
her
miserable
opinions
to
herself?

Of
course
that
was
why
The
Eye
employed
both
Lacey
Smithsonian and Cassandra
Wentworth.
For
their opinions.

As
far
as Cassandra,
avenger
of all wrongs,
was
concerned,
“Jingle
Bells,”
colored
lights,
and
all
other
holiday
gaiety
paved
the
road
to
hell.
The
gaudy
and
conspicuous
consumption
of
the
season depressed
her.
She tried to bear up,
but
Christmas got under her skin,
like
a tag digging into the back of her neck until she had to rip it out.