The Good Girl's Guide to Murder (3 page)

“Yes, sweetie, I did.”

“
Muh-ther
. How
could
you?” I whined like a two-year-old, despite my best intentions. A well-modulated voice was often my best defense. When I sounded like Minnie Mouse with nasal blockage, I knew she had me licked. “Don’t you think you should’ve called and asked me first?”

As soon as I’d said it, I realized how insane that question was.

“She’ll actually
pay
you, Andrea.”

I tried not to flinch as she took a jab at my penchant for doing so much pro bono web work, mostly for local charities. Often, my only compensation was the satisfaction I got from a job well done. Something I figured she’d have understood, considering the uncountable fundraisers she’d chaired over the years. She should’ve been proud of me, happy to think that, in some way, I’d followed her example.

Sure, Andy, sure. And Ivana Trump shops at Wal-Mart
.

It was something I’d mulled over a million times only to reach this conclusion: the difference between my work and hers was that she’d married young and had a child by the time she was my age, and I was still unattached, despite my sparkling personality and the healthy—and mostly untouched—trust fund Daddy had left me. (I tried to use it only for emergencies.)

That had to be the gist of it; why she didn’t accept my career as something I was passionate about, something I took very seriously. If I had a husband, nothing I did would rub Mother quite so wrong as my unforgivable state of singlehood.

“She’ll pay you
money
,” she enunciated carefully as if I hadn’t understood. As if that was the cause of my pink-cheeked frustration.

“That isn’t the point,” I insisted, knowing it was useless to explain. Because I’d tried more times than I could remember. How I wished she’d stop making decisions for me and realize I was old enough to live my own life.

Ha
.

As if that would ever happen.

She’d been ruling my world since I’d emerged from the birth canal, dressing me in Florence Eiseman and enrolling me in Little Miss Manners classes before I’d graduated from kindergarten, so that five-year-old
moi
would know how to say “please” and “thank you” to well-to-do strangers who doled out extravagant birthday gifts at the lavish parties she’d arranged, ensuring that I’d develop a second nature about what fork to use in posh restaurants, when all I’d ever really wanted was a Happy Meal at McDonald’s.

That I was an adult, sitting on the cusp of thirty, meant nothing.

I fiddled with the napkin in my lap, twisting it into tortured knots, determined to keep my voice under control.

I would not let her get to me
.

But I was already grinding my teeth.

“You should have had Marilee call me, Mother, because I’ll just have to phone her and tell her I can’t take the job. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” I told her definitively, meeting her eyes without flinching, as if that would be the end of it. Wishful thinking.

She gently touched the nickel-sized freshwater pearl clip on her right ear, a finely plucked brow rising neatly over a clear blue eye, as she said ever so sweetly, “I’m told that Molly O’Brien’s doing very well over at Terry Costa. They’ve had her cutting patterns, but I believe they’re considering a few of her designs for next summer’s collection.”

Ah, geez
.

My chest constricted when she brought up Molly’s name, because it showed me how dead-set she was on bending my will to suit hers, yet again.

“Oh, and here’s some more good news you haven’t heard. Little David’s been enrolled at St. Mark’s this fall. On a full scholarship.” She wiggled her slender fingers dismissively. “Don’t look so stunned. It was nothing, really. I just had to talk to a few people, press a few buttons to put things in motion.”

Talk to a few people? Press a few buttons?

David was Molly’s six-year-old son. And St. Mark’s was a private boy’s prep school with a waiting list a mile long. I wondered whose string my mother had yanked—and yanked hard—in order to pull off such a coup. And to think that she’d done something so unbelievable for the child of “that scholarship girl” showed that Cissy had endless surprises up her silk sleeve.

Too many for me to anticipate.

It was maddening. Infuriating. Discombobulating.

And oh-so typical.

I was tempted to wave my twisted napkin in surrender, because I knew—right then and there—she’d scored a TKO.
And the winner is Cissy Blevins Kendricks in the pink Chanel trunks!

“Wow,” I squeaked, surprised that Molly hadn’t told me. That is, if Mother had even informed her of the news before springing it on me (probably not). “That was very”—
oh, rats
—“generous of you.”

Generous was another talent Mother had honed to perfection. Only she usually expected something in return, particularly when her generosity involved friends of mine. Her good deeds had a way of turning around and smacking me upside the head at the strangest times.

At such moments, I thought of her as a subversive Mother Teresa without the vow of poverty and the ugly outfit.

So what could I do?

I opened my mouth, wanting like hell to say that I wouldn’t be blackmailed, that I wasn’t going to cave. But the only sound that emerged was a sigh of defeat.

“All right, all right,” I moaned. “I’ll fix the Web site for Marilee.”

“And you’ll attend the unveiling of her studio.”

It wasn’t even a question, not the way she said it. “Yes, I’ll go.”

Doomed, I tell you
.

“Don’t pout, Andrea sweetie. I’m sure there’ll be eligible men there to make things more bearable for you.” She had a familiar twinkle in her eye, the hopeful glint of a nearly sixty-year-old mother who wanted to live to see grandchildren.

Eligible men?

Good God, not this again, too?

I felt a headache begin its gentle throbbing at my temples.

It didn’t seem to bother her that I’d been seeing someone steadily. A fledgling defense lawyer named Brian Malone who worked for the firm that handled all Mother’s affairs. It was clear we were moving too slowly to suit her. I mean, it
had
been several months and my third left finger was still bare. Which Mother assumed made me fair game for her insufferable matchmaking.

“I’m not looking for eligible men at the moment,” I reminded her. “Does the name ‘Malone’ ring any bells?”

“Not the kind of bells I’d like to hear,” she said dolefully, and I was surprised she didn’t start humming Wagner’s “Wedding March” to rub it in.

Subtle.

“How fickle can you be?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
Very
. “I mean, you’re the one who threw us together, remember? And you liked Brian well enough then.”

“Darling, you’ve got it wrong. I like Mr. Malone very much . . .”

“But?” I prodded.

She sighed, giving me a very motherly look of concern. “But I don’t like that he’s taking advantage of you.”

“Taking advantage?” What on earth was she talking about? Brian didn’t borrow money from me. He had his own job, his own apartment, paid his bills on time (so far as I knew), and hadn’t broken the law lately.

She glanced around, before bending nearer the table and lowering her voice. “Penny George tells me she’s seen Mr. Malone’s red car parked in front of your place.
Overnight
.”

Penny George was one of my elderly neighbors, a busybody who served on one of Mother’s church committees. I rolled my eyes. “Doesn’t she have anything better to do than spy on me? It’s none of her business besides.”

“But it is mine, because you’re my daughter.” Cissy sighed again in that disappointed way of hers. “I thought you were smarter than that, Andrea. Surely you realize that men won’t buy the cow if they can get the milk for free.”

“For God’s sake, Mother.” Not that tired old analogy.

“Do you really want to drag God into this, sweetie? Because I don’t think he’d approve, either. Nor would your father.” She suddenly became fascinated with her wedding band, doing a little finger wiggle so I wouldn’t miss it, diamonds gleaming. “Your daddy was a gentleman, Andrea, and I was a good girl. He never would have considered dallying with me, not before our engagement.”

Dallying?
Is that what she thought Malone was doing? Being ungentlemanly, getting the milk for free, tarnishing my sterling reputation?

Yeesh
.

I reminded myself where she was coming from, an era very different from this one, full of traditions that had been trampled in the last few decades. Still, the fact that she was holding me to her impossible standards didn’t sit well with me.

I looked her squarely in the face. “Mother, it’s the twenty-first century. Queen Victoria is dead. My relationship with Brian is mutual. No one’s doing any dallying.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.”

She smoothed the napkin in her lap, murmuring, “Free milk is free milk, no matter the century.”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

Let it go, Andy, let it go
.

“Can we talk about something else?” I begged, because sex was the last thing I wanted to discuss with my mother.

“Something else? Well, hmm, let me see.” She drummed her French manicure on the table. “All right, how about an interesting item I read this morning in the
Park Cities Press?
”

Neiman’s at NorthPark was having a sale? A-line skirts were out of style? Collagen had been banned by the FDA? Ralph Lauren had been elected governor of New York?

I could hardly wait to hear.

“There was a rather large announcement on the wedding page,” she began, cocking her head the way she did when she wanted to study my reaction, like a scientist intent on a petrie dish full of staph infection. “Seems your old friend Cinda Lou Mitchell just got remarried. That’s number four, if I’m counting correctly. Amazing how some women can make commitments over and over while others”—she sighed and continued to fiddle with her earring, though her eyes didn’t leave my face—“just keep draggin’ their feet.”

“Please, don’t go there again,” I moaned, thinking that hot bit of news hardly qualified as a change of subject. Though I realized it was merely her way of reminding me that my former Hockaday classmate—not someone I’d exactly call a “friend”—had managed four weddings and quite a few funerals (including geriatric hubbies number one and two) while I had yet to take a single stroll down the aisle as anything other than a bridesmaid.

“You really need to get out more, Andrea, instead of staying cooped up in your place with your paints and your computer. Practically the only men you ever see are the gas station attendants.”

“I use self-serve.”

“See what I mean?” She plucked at nonexistent lint on her blouse. “It’d be good for you to go to Marilee’s party and meet people.”

Meaning, go solo.

Malone-less.

I tossed my battered napkin on the table. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it, if it’ll make you happy.” And settle the score, I nearly added.

Besides, unless I acquiesced, she would continue to torture me with tales of oft’-married, heir-bearing school “chums” with whom I’d purposely lost touch.

“I’d be pleased as punch.” Her Cheshire-cat grin beamed across the table. She looked so damned self-assured that I knew she’d never doubted for an instant that I’d crumble under pressure. It was how things worked between us, more often than I wanted to admit.

And so it went.

That lunch was two weeks ago and as fresh in my mind as this morning’s breakfast. (A wheat bagel and low-fat cream cheese.)

I scratched an itchy spot on my elbow, thinking maybe, if I did have hives, I could get out of this mess and stay home this evening, curled up with a pizza and Brian Malone.

Though I sensed that Cissy would drag me to Marilee’s studio covered in calamine if she had to. It was embarrassing how easily Mother could manipulate me when it suited her, despite my best efforts.

I stared at the invitation to Marilee’s party, stuck with a magnet to my refrigerator door. The elaborate creation of calligraphy, tissue paper, and handmade parchment looked out of place beside my grocery list and menus from Take-Out Taxi.

“Sucker,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Chicken.”

Telling my mother, “no,” was a Herculean task. One I seemed to fail at, time and again, no matter what else I accomplished.

Though I knew I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.

Cissy Blevins Kendricks wasn’t the queen bee of Dallas society for nothing. The woman could make Ebenezer Scrooge open up his rusty lockbox for one of her many worthy causes. If ever the U.S. government could bottle her powers of persuasion, it would eliminate the need for tanks and bombs and still cause plenty of “shock and awe.”

“The gal’s got it,” as my father used to say.

And now she’d “got” me yet again, doing a job that I wasn’t so keen on doing—attending a party I’d rather skip—because I couldn’t turn her down.

Oh, and I was already suffering the consequences. Painful ones. From the moment I’d taken on Marilee’s web design project, the woman had become a big fat boil on my derriere.

I’d had to put aside my other jobs in order to cater to Marilee and Marilee alone, as she demanded the upgraded site be ready to launch by the gala. I’d been working on it night and day, and I’d just finished the last of the major tweaks. She’d wanted lots of splashy effects, including flash animation and hues outside the “web safe-color palette” that would make it hard for viewers with older browsers to load or read correctly. She’d insisted on pages so full of data that it would’ve made for slower loading than I would have liked, and it took all of my reserve of tact and patience to work something out with her that seemed do-able to us both. There were times when I wanted to follow in the footsteps of her last six web gurus and quit cold turkey.

In calmer moments, I imagined killing the woman with my bare hands, though I realized I’d have to take a number. From what I’d seen on my visits to Marilee’s studio the past few weeks, I wasn’t the only one who envisioned her face on the target of a dartboard. She had earned her reputation as a difficult boss, often reaming people out in front of a crowd of others. Though I’d gotten off easy with minor nitpicking, probably because I was the daughter of her only true friend.