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Authors: Sarah Strohmeyer

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BOOK: The Cinderella Pact
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“The spitting image,” says Sandy, who seems not so sure. “Are you the one who knows Belinda Apple?”
This is destined to be my role in life, I see now. In my obituary they will write:
Nola Ann Devlin, who knew Belinda Apple, died yesterday. Belinda Apple was not by her bed.
Perhaps it will be carved on my tombstone.
“I'm her editor at
Sass!”
I say.
“I
love
that magazine,” Bubbles squeals. “You know what article I liked the best?”
“ ‘Which Nail Polish Makes You Lucky'?”
“No. Though that was a good one, even if no way does Purple Passion help you win the Lotto. Trust me. I've been wearing it for years and all I've ever won is a Megabucks fiver. Anyway, it was that piece about that
New York Times
reporter's eighty-five days in prison.”
I must admit I am taken aback by this. “Bubbles used to be a hairdresser,” Sandy offers. “But now she's a journalist.”
“Where?” I ask, thinking,
The Playboy Channel?
“The
News-Times
, our local paper,” Bubbles says. “Mr. Salvo, he's my editor there, he wants me to read more articles on newspaper reporting. Usually, they're as dull as overprocessed hair unless they involve some celebrity who's suing the
National Enquirer
. Anyway, that article gave me chills because what happened to her almost happened to me. A judge threatened to put me in jail for not turning over my notes.”
Wow! I am impressed. And humbled. Shows you should never judge a book by its cover or, in this case, a floozy by her lumpy mascara.
“I mean, in prison you're only allowed a five-minute shower every other day. It takes me ten minutes just to get a good lather. Isn't that like a violation of the Geneva Convention or something, Sandy?”
Sandy gives me a knowing look.
“There you are, Nola.” My mother in her trademark denim jumper and booster pins is coming across the lawn. “Oh, good, you brought the cookies I ordered.”
“She must have been baking all morning,” Bubbles says.
Mom stares at her.
“Mom,” I say, “this is Bubbles.”
“Yes. Everyone knows Bubbles.” Mom takes the tray out of my hand and does the old grip on my elbow. It is the grip that she has used since I was in kindergarten to get across that I am in deep dirt. “Can I talk to you privately?”
Mom doesn't wait for me to say good-bye as she drags me over to the garbage cans. “Where is Belinda?”
“In England.”
“I know that.” Mom heaves her shoulders. “I mean, it's Eileen's birthday.”
Still not getting it. “And . . .”
“And, you promised Belinda would call.”
Oh, crap. I completely forgot. With all the craziness going on, my exploded car and Deb's weight-loss surgery, the investigation and the lusciousness of Chip, making a fake phone call to my sister has moved to the bottom of my to-do list.
“It's supposed to be her birthday present, a personal phone call from a big important celebrity like Belinda.”
“I'm sorry, Mom. I forgot to ask her.”
“You forgot!” Mom lifts the tray as though she's about to hurl the cookies at me. “How could you forget?”
“I was . . . busy.”
“Geesh, Nola. You can be so self-centered sometimes. You're hitting middle age. You have to learn to start putting other people first, or you're going to grow into one of those selfish old spinsters who frets over every little thing. Like Aunt Gerta who used to throw a fit if the label of her tea bag fell in the cup.”
What she's saying is wrong on so many levels, I can't even respond.
“Eileen's going to be heartbroken. She told everyone that Belinda would call. She's counting on it.”
It's a moment like this when I'm glad I bring Belinda's cell phone wherever I go. “All right, Mom. I will try Belinda in London and ask her to call Eileen. I'll need to, um”—I glance at my rental—“drive up the block to the hill because there's better reception there.”
My mother nods in agreement. I love telling her bullshit technical stuff like this because she has no clue, though she pretends to be hip. “That's a good idea, Nola. Yes, the hill. Better reception. Try it. I'll tell Eileen to stand by the phone just in case.”
No pressure there.
Chapter Fourteen
I hand my mother the book, slip out the gate, grab Belinda's phone, and run smack into Jim. Eileen's Jim—aka the Jack Russell terrier.
Here's the thing about Jim. Besides being a reincarnated wire terrier—which in itself makes you want to put him on a leash and tie him up outside—he has a shtick. A stupid human trick. You know how some grown men pull pennies from behind children's ears or can turn their eyelids inside out? Jim's shtick is that he can guess people's weight—to the ounce.
I kid you not. It's freaky. It also makes you want to strangle him.
“Two hundred and . . .” He puts his finger to his temple like his brain is a calculator.
I can't let him go on. I can't bear to hear the number spoken out loud. “Nope. Not today, Jim,” I say, cutting him off.
I try to move past him, but Jim blocks me on the sidewalk. He is a good two inches shorter than I am and is wearing a navy-blue-and-white Adidas tracksuit. I don't think I've seen him in anything else. “Not so fast, Nola. Now that we're alone, tell me, how's that diet I gave you working out?”
“Uh . . .” I have no idea, because I threw it in a trash can in a rest area off I-78.
“Have you been staying off the carbs like I told you?”
“You see . . .”
“ 'Cause it's the carbs that will kill you. That and the hidden fructose in everything that's processed. Goddamn corn lobby.” He smacks a fist into the palm of his hand.
Jim is obsessed with the corn lobby triumph of 1980, which he claims was able to successfully remove fructose as a sugar from nutrition labels. That's why Americans have been fat ever since, according to him. I don't dare tell him that I was fat long before 1980.
“You've got to keep drinking your water. Sixty-four ounces, minimum. That and walking five miles a day, though picking it up to a jog wouldn't hurt. And don't eat anything white except boiled egg whites. Those you can have until the cows come home.” He nudges me. “No puns intended.”
Jim's plan, I am ashamed to admit, was the inspiration behind Belinda's miraculous weight loss. I stole it and then I didn't follow it and then I wrote that a fictitious person lost tons of weight on it “painlessly.” After all that, I tossed it in the I-78 rest area trash bin.
I am not proud.
“I've really got to go, Jim. It's a bit of an emergency.”
“No sweat,” and he shoots me with his finger. “Then again, no sweat means no muscle. Anytime you want to get serious about fitness, you call me. I got a program that will trim you down in six weeks.”
You and everyone else I know. “Will do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He sizes me up. “Man. You could be so pretty if you dropped the weight.”
“Thanks,” I say, though between you and me if I never hear that line again it will be too soon.
 
I pull into the crowded parking lot of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at the top of the hill and run through my usual pre-Belinda preparations, taking deep breaths and being British.
Love Actually
. Hugh Grant.
Bridget Jones. Monty Python
. Tea at Harrods. When I'm ready, I take a deep breath, imagine a pickle up my ass, and dial my younger sister.
“Hello?” Eileen answers on the first ring.
“Hello. I'm looking for an Eileen Devlin. Have I rung the right number?”
“This is her!” Eileen lets out an
eeek
. “Is this who I think it is?”
“If you think it is Belinda Apple, then you are correct.”
“Oh my God!” Eileen does a lousy job of covering the mouthpiece. “Ohmigod, guys, it's her.” There is a chorus of questions—many having to do with Belinda's trademark pink cowboy boots and if she and Nigel are getting it on. “I'm going to take this in the other room. Sorry.”
I hear what I assume to be the bedroom door slam behind her and Eileen breathing heavily. “I can't believe you called. When Mom said you would, I was so excited but then hours passed and—”
“Yes, so sorry about that. Had a bit of a
shh
edule mix-up, you see. Anyway, happy birthday and all that.”
“Uh-huh. Well, to tell you the truth, that's not why I wanted you to call. I have a big problem.”
Immediately a million possibilities flood my thoughts, most having to do with Camaro repair and nail-polish removal. “Oh?”
“It's pretty personal and I don't want anyone to overhear.” Eileen lowers her voice. “My boyfriend and I have been dating for three years . . .”
I stifle a groan. Please, please tell me that Eileen is not going to confide some serious sexual problem. Wait. What if it's a performance issue? What if Jim the terrier can't get it up after all those eons on steroids? Or maybe he'll only do it doggy-style.
“... and it's been great.”
“Great?”
“Yeah. I mean, we are so in love. Jim's like the best. I wish you could meet him. I'm sure you'd love him right off like everyone does.”
“Yes, I'm sure I would.”
“He's very kind. Very smart in a businessman kind of way. Manages three gyms in the Lehigh Valley area. Handsome. Ah . . . tall, sort of.”
“I see.” Blatant lying, apparently, is a Devlin family trait.
“And he's dynamite in bed.”
Nope. Not gonna go there. “So what's the problem?” I say, directing us back on course.
“It's my family.”
Shit. Now I know I'm about to hear something I shouldn't. I keep silent.
“They hate him. Especially my sister.”
I say nothing. What can I say? She's right. Well, perhaps not
hate
. Hate's such a nasty word. Dislike very intensely, yes. The way one dislikes, um, terriers.
“Promise me you won't say anything to Nola.”
“Of course not.” Never.
“But between you and me . . . I think she's jealous.”
I grip the side of my seat and focus on being Britishly reserved—Emma Thompson, Julie Andrews—because otherwise I am afraid I will blurt,
Are you out of your fucking mind? Jim foams at the mouth. Why would I be jealous that you're dating a rabid mutt?
“Jealous, you say?” I fake serene.
“Extremely. I mean, have you ever actually
seen
my sister?”
Oh, brother. This is going to be bad, isn't it? “No, but from what everyone tells me, she's very stylish, extremely pretty.” Hah! Take that, baby sister.
“She could be.”
“
Could
be?”
“If she took care of herself. Listen, Belinda, my sister is over two hundred pounds. Jim, who's a weight-loss professional, can guess people's weight to the ounce. The only person he's never been honest with is Nola. If he told her the truth, she'd faint.”
“What do you mean, ‘the truth'?” I accuse, my British accent totally out the window.
“That she's pushing two-fifty.”
My lower jaw involuntarily drops. “Am not!”
“Huh?”
Suddenly I see I've stepped out of line. “I'm sorry. We appear to have been cut off. I said I
am not
surprised.”
“Gee. You are good. You knew that about Nola without meeting her?”
“Funny, really. Suppose that's why I'm in the business of dispensing advice, isn't it?”
“Anyway,” Eileen continues, unsure what I mean by that, “I'm afraid that when we announce we are getting married . . .”
“Married!” I scream before I can help myself.
“Yes, married. Why? Is there something wrong?”
“It's so . . .” I search for rational reasons why a British advice columnist would even care that Eileen is getting married. “Why, you're so young.”
“I'm thirty-three. As of today. That's not young. By this age my mother had both her daughters.”
“But in today's world women are putting off marriage for years and years.”
“I don't see the point of waiting. I love him. He loves me. What's the big deal?”
Everything, I think, closing my eyes, envisioning little Jims and Eileens flexing their barbells and making personal comments about ninety-eight-pound weaklings, lifting their legs and peeing on Mom and Dad's furniture.
No, hold on. That's not fair. Eileen's right. She's past thirty. If she wants to marry the vicious terrier, she should. It should be a splendid union . . . provided she's had her shots.
“Brilliant,” I am able to squeak out. “Just as long as you two are really, really sure.”
“We're sure, all right. Jim's been married twice already. He wouldn't jump from the frying pan into the fire, as he says, if the fire weren't so damn hot.” She giggles.
Someone yank that man off the stage. “Let's recap,” I say. “You love each other. You want to get married, despite Nola's so-called jealousy, so why are you two having problems?”
“I'm afraid that when we make the big announcement today, Nola will flip. Nana Snyder says it's wrong for a younger sister to marry before the older one. But how long will that take? I mean, Nola doesn't even have a boyfriend. I'm not sure she dates or goes out, even. She's like a . . . a bookworm or something. A permanent spinster.”
BOOK: The Cinderella Pact
5.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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