Smart vs. Pretty (21 page)

A
manda reached out to clasp Matt’s hand. It was warm, but not clammy. “You’re remarkably dry,” she whispered to him.

She couldn’t say the same for herself. A flop sweat caused a string of beads to sprout across her forehead. The knife in Sylvia’s hand gleamed, as if she’d scrubbed it clean with a steel-wool pad before coming after them. Amanda assumed she’d gotten the restaurant-quality knife at the Heights Cafe—it was too large and sharp for home use. If Sylvia had picked up that knife at the restaurant on her way over here, she would have seen Frank. Where was her sister? Amanda wondered. Where was the money?

Matt whispered, “I can take her.”

Amanda wasn’t so sure. Matt might be scrappy, but Sylvia had the glimmer of desperation and dementia in her gray eyes. The restrained terrier, Rover, tugged menacingly against his leash. For a medium-size woman and a small dog, they were an intimidating, even gruesome twosome.

“Sylvia, deep in your heart you know Paul doesn’t really love me. You’re the mother of his children,” Amanda said.

“Yeah, think of the children,” added Matt.

Sylvia walked through the maze toward the cowering couple. She said, “I’m going to think of myself for once.”

“But Paul doesn’t love me!” repeated Amanda. “He might be attracted to me in a base, hormonal way, but his heart is all yours.”

The blond knife-wielder asked, “You think this is about my husband?”

Amanda nodded. “What else?”

“I can’t let you pay back my father. I’ve been waiting patiently for over a year now. I want that store. It belongs to me. I deserve it, and no one is going to keep me from getting it.”

Her father was giving her the store? Amanda was surprised. She’d naturally assumed Todd would sell the place and make a mountain of profit for his fifty-thousand-dollar investment. “A café of your own?” Amanda asked.

“I couldn’t care less about coffee. As of five-thirty tonight, I’ll be the owner of Sylvia’s Jewelry Nook, located on the former site of Barney Greenfield’s coffee bar.”

“You’re a designer?” asked Amanda, trying to soothe her.

Didn’t work. Sylvia waved the massive knife as though she were testing the thickness of the air. She said, “Nobody moves for another forty-five minutes. Both of you! Sit!”

No one sat, except Rover. If Amanda were to be a woman of action, this was the time. How could she extricate herself?
Throw something
. The two thousand dollars in her pocket? Amanda closed her eyes and tried to clear her brain to let the ideas come.

Matt said, “Not a good time for a nap, Amanda.”

Sylvia leaned against the metal bar of the ATM maze. She said, “It’s the perfect time.”

Suddenly Matt sprang as if on hind legs and lunged at Sylvia. She flicked her slender wrist. The overhead lighting reflected on the knife blade, momentarily blinding Amanda. When she could see, Matt was on the floor, a seam of blood coloring his cheek red. He touched the wound as he scrambled to his feet. His lunge had accomplished one thing: he was now closer to the door. He fumbled, trying to unlock it. Sylvia was on him in a flash, jabbing him in the leg. He crumpled to the floor.

“Don’t push me!” yelled Sylvia. “I’ve killed one man already, and I’ll kill you, too, if you blow this for me.”

“I think you’ve blown things for yourself,” said Amanda. “Matt may be seriously hurt. We have to get him to a hospital.”

Matt was pale, but he wasn’t bleeding too heavily. A woman outside climbed the ramp to the ATM vestibule entrance, found the door locked, and left. Amanda remembered that the doors were tinted on the outside like a two-way mirror. They could see out, but no one could see in. So much for the Good Samaritan escape plan.

“I’m okay, Amanda,” said Matt, trying to sit up. “She didn’t hit a vein.” Dark blood seeped through his jeans. “Or maybe she did.” Matt shuddered a bit and then fainted, his head hitting the floor with a thud.

Amanda breathed rapidly in and out. She had to get Sylvia to drop the knife.
Talk
. Amanda was a good talker. She scrambled for words. “You’ve killed one man already?” she asked. Not the least inflammatory choice.

“Chick. The Coffee King guy,” said Sylvia.

The woman who’d identified Benji in the police lineup said she’d been walking her dog. Sylvia had killed Chick and tried to frame Benji. Just so she could assume ownership of the café? It hardly seemed reward enough. She and Frank had been willing to live and die for the store, but they wouldn’t have killed for it. “Chick was harmless,” Amanda said, feeling tears in her eyes.

“He was rich. He could have helped you.”

“He wasn’t rich.”

“Everyone in the neighborhood knew about the man with the golden beans.”

Quite a turn of events. She’d killed Chick, believing his yarns, only to find out this late in the game that another man had come through with the cash. “Aren’t there other storefronts you could rent?” asked Amanda, one eye on Matt to see if she could detect breathing.

“It’s not any store; it’s
your
store. You Greenfield girls have goaded me my entire life. And now it’s my turn to win.”

“I don’t even know you!” They were close in age, but Amanda was sure no Sylvia Phearson went to the Packer Collegiate Institute, the sisters’ private school on Joralemon Street.

Sylvia said, “Every time my dad would come home from an evening at your parents’ apartment, I’d get an earful of ‘Francesca Greenfield was valedictorian at Packer’; ‘Amanda Greenfield makes her own clothes’; ‘Francesca Greenfield got into Dartmouth’; ‘Amanda Greenfield is modeling at Bloomingdale’s.’ I’d never done anything except graduate public high school and get married to Paul. And Dad doesn’t even like Paul.”

Her parents had bragged about her to Todd? Bragged about Frank? That was so beautiful it hurt. Amanda couldn’t remember her parents telling a single story about Todd’s daughter. “You have two beautiful children,” said Amanda. She noticed that Matt’s head rolled from side to side as she spoke.

“My accomplishments are my kids?” asked Sylvia. “Do you know how insulting that is? You went to college. You had a job in the city. After your parents died, you got to run a store. I’ve had nothing for myself. Nothing. Not even my husband. I’m a slave to those kids. They own me. I want something to own.”

Matt was fully conscious now, inching toward the door. He was behind Sylvia. She wouldn’t notice him as long as she was talking to Amanda. “I wish I’d gotten married and had kids,” she said.

“No, you don’t."

“I do.”

“Someone like you could never handle the responsibility.”

“I happen to be very responsible.” Starting to be, anyway. “As God is my witness,” she said. “I will never be flighty again.”

Sylvia said, “My mother was right about you Greenfield girls. She knew you were godless creatures.”

“I believe in God,” said Amanda.

“Mom couldn’t stand hearing about you two from Dad either. And I swear, the strain of his expectations of me destroyed their marriage. The fact that she spends more time in your café than she does with her own grandchildren hasn’t endeared me to you, either.”

“Do I know your mother?”

“You don’t even know who she is, do you?”

Matt was inches from the door now. If he could just get a bit closer, a bit higher, he could reach the lock and call for help.

“Who is your mom?” asked Amanda.

“Her name’s Lucy Phearson.”

Lucy? The crabby old editorial-page writer? Lucy of the light Brazilian roast? Couldn’t be. But it was. Sylvia nodded as she watched Amanda. “That’s right,” said Sylvia. “My daughters think she’s a nutcase.” The acorn hadn’t fallen far from the nutcase tree, thought Amanda.

Rover, who’d been sitting and panting at Sylvia’s feet, started barking loudly. He was barking at Matt, now on his knees, struggling again with the door lock. Sylvia screamed and darted toward Matt, but not before he’d swung open the bank door and screamed, “Help! We’re being held hostage by a vengeful housewife!”

Matt’s body was lying half-in, half-out of the bank door, making it impossible for Sylvia to shut it while holding both the knife and the dog’s leash. She dropped the lead and started tugging at Matt’s belt to yank him back inside. He grabbed at her knife hand and struggled with her. “Help!” he yelled again. “Manic domestic run amuck!”

Amanda raced to the door to help Matt, but Rover leaped at her leg, sinking his teeth into her pants. She wasn’t sure if he’d broken her skin—the adrenaline kept her from feeling pain. She tried to shake off the dog, but had to kick at him with her free foot, yelling, “Off! Off! Get off me, you stupid dog!”

“What is going on here?”

Amanda, Matt, Sylvia, and Rover looked up. It was Frank, holding the bank door wide open, a large black tote bag on her shoulder. Amanda yelled, “Frank, she’s got a knife!”

Frank instantly swung her bag at Sylvia. It had to weigh a lot: Sylvia was thrown backward on impact, the knife clattering to the floor at Amanda’s feet. She picked it up and bopped the dog on the head with it—he let go and ran whimpering to his fallen human companion.

Matt stood up, favoring the nonstabbed leg, and leaned against the wall. Amanda ran to her sister and enveloped her in a tight hug. Frank asked, “Who’s she?” She pointed at Sylvia, who sat on the floor in shock.

Amanda said, “Matt’s family is rich and he gave us enough money to save the store. That’s Sylvia—Todd’s daughter, Paul’s wife. She tried to kill Matt and me so she could have the store for herself. And she killed Chick, too, because she thought he had money. But he didn’t at all. And Mom and Dad were very proud of us!”

Frank said, “Piper tried to kill Walter. But he’s alive and in love with me!”

Amanda said, “That’s wonderful!” They hugged. Matt, wanting in on the action, encircled the two women, making it, officially, a group hug. An orgy of hugs. Amanda felt tears welling.

Frank looked at Sylvia and her dog. “I’m not entirely clear who you are. But we have an appointment. You’ll have to excuse us. Amanda. Matt. We’re off.”

S
isters Amanda and Francesca Greenfield sat next to each other on vinyl-covered chairs inside their co-owned Brooklyn Heights café, sipping their coffee and staring at the busy city street. That each sister was pretty would be plainly obvious to any stranger, though both women seemed to share a certain sharpness around their eyes—a curious complement to their smiles.

“What about that one?” asked Amanda, pointing at a man on the street. “Tall, scruffy, yet affable. The beat-up jeans and tattered coat signs of purposefully hidden extreme wealth. Husband potential?”

Frank laughed. “Father material?”

The man in question walked into the Romancing the Bean coffee bar, shivering slightly from the February cold. He approached the sisters at their Formica-topped window table. “Is this how you run a business? Sitting here like lumps? There’s work to be done. Get up. I’m serious. Let’s move!”

Amanda said, “Shall we snap to?”

Matt Schemerhorn sighed. “I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’ve become everything I hate. In two weeks I’ve gone from apathetic to apoplectic.”

“I liked apathetic better,” said Frank. “But since you’re so motivated, why don’t you walk the dog?”

Rover, the first official Romancing the Bean mascot, ran in circles at Frank’s feet. When Sylvia had been arrested, the dog became an orphan. Apparently Sylvia’s two daughters and Paul had always hated Rover. Lucy, who was moving in with her granddaughters (much to Paul’s dismay—karma coming home to roost, Amanda said), had no intention of cleaning up after the mutt. Todd Phearson would have been delighted to euthanize the little carpet-defiler, but Amanda couldn’t stand the idea of being the indirect cause of the animal’s death, even though Rover’s bite had left a scar on her leg. So Frank suggested adopting him. Amanda was shocked by her generosity. Frank thought it’d be nice to bring another personality into their lives (what was one more orphan in the household?). Matt, who’d moved in semipermanently, welcomed the additional male presence, what with both sisters spending so much time in the bathroom lately, forever experimenting with that blow dryer.

“Walk the dog?” Matt threw up his hands. “Why do I have to do everything around here?”

The sisters couldn’t help laughing at his distress. Amanda said, “You’re so cute when you’re angry.” She stood up and gave Matt a big, tight squeeze and a sloppy kiss on the lips for good measure. “I’ll take Rover for a walk. A pet is a big responsibility, and, as you both know, I’m the queen of responsible.”

Amanda walked to the back of the store to find the leash. Matt, still recovering from the kiss from his beloved, followed after her as if she had a leash around
his
neck. Frank noticed that Matt’s limp improved each day. Rover bounced along at Amanda’s heel. Watching the three of them—her freshly expanded family—Frank caught a small sob from escaping her lips.

She’d been crying sporadically over the last couple of weeks, since the horrible day with Sylvia at the bank. The only bright spot of that mad, scrambling Monday was dropping the bundle of cash on Todd’s lap, and then informing him that his daughter was a murderer. Frank had been careful to ask for a receipt.

To Frank and Amanda’s horror, Todd seemed happier to have his money than he was upset to learn the truth about Sylvia. He insisted that he had no intention of ever giving Sylvia that retail space. He’d just made that promise to shut up her repeated requests.

Todd did make good on his bet to serve the entire neighborhood free dinner that night. As the sisters stuffed their faces, trying to eat Todd out of business, Amanda said, “It’s no wonder Sylvia hated her father and herself.”

Frank nodded as she scarfed lobster tails (the most expensive item on the menu). “We have to find a new lawyer.”

Matt, with a mouthful of meat loaf, said, “My father can give us a referral.”

And he did. Pam Schneiderman was a godsend. She came into their lives like a human mop and cleaned up the mess. She dealt with Todd, and she acted as liaison with the police in the as-yet-unresolved Piper Zorn slander suit (Pam assured the sisters that they could expect a significant punitive settlement with the
Post
). She also brokered a deal with entrepreneur/coffee grower Bert Tierney in Vietnam and Patsie Strombo to create a line of super-caffeinated coffee cakes and snacks (final papers still pending). The samples were still on ice in Patsie’s bedroom freezer. The fledgling partnership/company would go by the name Chick.

Matt’s father, such a nice man, was so taken with Amanda (what a few phone calls will do—Frank was convinced that her sister could transmit prettiness over phone lines) that he paid off their remaining mortgage. The sisters now owned the building outright (with a hefty tax bill to pay next April). Their bag-lady fears were put to rest—scratch that one off Frank’s mental list of anxieties—and the new relaxed attitude made Romancing the Bean the café of choice in the neighborhood (Moonburst, under new management, managed to stay afloat, unfortunately).

Frank wasn’t exactly sure when Matt and Amanda had hooked up. She assumed it was sometime between his dad paying off their mortgage and Amanda deciding to take control of her life instead of being swatted about by external forces. Amanda hadn’t mentioned Chick Peterson’s name in days. Frank assumed her sister had resolved those issues, and that stirring the pot by bringing him up would be counterproductive.

For her part, Frank was struggling to regain control of her wildly leapfrogging feelings. The events of the past month had served to unplug her emotional cork. The ensuing overflow kept Frank from making even the smallest decision without being knocked over by a wave of tears, of joy and pain. She’d had to delegate a lot to Matt. He was understanding. Frank knew this period of loose-cannonness was temporary, that in time she’d be able to feel like a normal person without being bowled over by gladness, sadness, anger or fear. But until then she had to tread lightly or she could make crucial mistakes. Mistakes were not to be tolerated.

“Watch it, Frank. It’s that kind of rigidity that got you stuck in your brain in the first place,” said Amanda as she walked toward her sister with the dog on a leash. Amanda was wearing Frank’s puffy down jacket.

“Reading my thoughts again?” asked Frank. “Why, I oughta—”

“Look at that one,” said Amanda, pointing out the window again. “Sculpted cheekbones, sign of obvious intensity and intelligence. Long sideburns show he’s a nonconformist, a breaker of rules. The crutches and leg cast—a sign of true dedication to style.”

The older sister said, “You don’t have to sell me. I know what he is.” Frank had to suppress another sob. This was so embarrassing, she thought.

Amanda grinned. “I like you so much better this way. Let’s hug.”

“Will you leave now?” asked Frank. Matt appeared, all bundled.

“Leaving,” said Amanda. She took Matt’s hand and they left with Rover. As they exited the café, the handsome man with the long sideburns came in. He smiled at Frank and kissed the top of her head.

“Who do you have to sleep with to get a cup of coffee around here?” he asked.

“How’s the leg?” she asked, rising to help him sit.

Walter Robbins sat down in the chair and propped his crutches against the table. “Unemployed.”

“Don’t you get grumpy on me.”

Walter had to laugh. “This coming from the mildly discontented woman I fell in love with?”

“I’ll break your other leg,” she said as she walked behind the counter and fixed him a cup of hearty Costa Rican. She brought the coffee to Walter. He drank too quickly and burned his tongue.

He said, “Valentine’s Day is coming up.”

Frank blushed furiously. She realized that this would be the first Valentine’s Day in years that she would spend with a man she loved passionately. The thought made her cry—again.

He reached out and rubbed her shoulders. “I’m supposed to ignore that, right?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Francesca?” a customer called from across the café. “Should I leave my money on the counter?” She was a regular, the forty-year-old woman with a kind, open face. Frank had had a few chats with her over the last couple weeks, and they were just starting to share some intimate details of their lives. Frank dared to think of it as a blossoming friendship.

“Sure. Thanks.”

“I’ve left you two dollars for the cup,” said the customer.

“It’s only a dollar fifty,” said Frank.

The customer smiled and waved her hands. “Why don’t you keep the change?”

Frank said, “I’ll do my best.”