The PMS Murder (7 page)

Wonderful! Such terrific writing. Jackie Collins couldn’t have done better.”

64

Laura Levine

“Very nice, Goldie,” I managed to lie. “Although next time, it might be better to write about something that actually happened to you. That’s what we try to do in a memoir-writing class. Now, who wants to read next?”

Mrs. Pechter raised her hand. “I’ve got an
essay,
” she said. “Not a
list.
” And she proceeded to read about
My Most Unforgettable Character.
Sad to say, I’ve totally forgotten Mrs. Pechter’s most unforgettable character. I wasn’t concentrating. Nobody was. Not with Goldie Marcus in the room. All eyes were drawn to her as she sat there, fanning her impressive cleavage with her list of Favorite Things.

Finally, the last essay was read and it was time to go.

The ladies gathered their back-support cushions and headed for the door, shooting covert glances at Goldie. Goldie, meanwhile, put her Puddin’ Cup in her leopard-skin tote bag and smiled genially as Mr. Goldman volunteered to show her the ropes at Shalom.

The last thing I heard him say as they headed out together was, “Say, cookie. You like to mambo?” I drove home, rattled by the effects of Hurricane Goldie. I wondered if my class would ever be the same again. Oh, well. Maybe with Goldie around, Mr. Goldman would finally learn some manners. I pictured the two of them together, going for moonlight strolls in the parking lot. What if they got married? Then Goldie would be Mrs. Goldie Goldman.

It was with these thoughts flitting around my brain that I climbed into bed and turned on the TV. I zapped aimlessly past ancient sitcom reruns, THE PMS MURDERS

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Ron Popeil infomercials, and sweaty bodies on the Whoopsie Doodle channel.

It was only when I happened to click on the An-imal Channel that all thoughts of Goldie and Mr.

Goldman vanished into the night.

They were showing a documentary about obesity in cats. I watched, horrified, as poor overweight cats struggled to breathe. A stern veterinarian lectured on the evils of feeding your cat human food. I gasped when they showed the deteriorated liver of a cat who was fed a steady diet of Chicken McNuggets, one of Prozac’s favorite snacks. Finally, there was heartbreaking footage of a cat owner weeping at her kitty’s grave.

“If only I’d put Taffy on a diet,” she sobbed.

I watched as much as I could stand and then switched to a Lucy rerun. But even Lucy couldn’t quell my panic, which by now was in full swing. If I cared about Prozac, I simply had to start feeding her diet food again.

I picked her up from where she was sprawled on my chest and cuddled her in my arms.

“You’ve got to go back on your diet, darling. It’s for your own good. Do you want to wind up like poor Taffy?”

She wriggled out of my arms and shot me a bale-ful look.

Oh, don’t believe everything you see on TV.

And with that, she jumped down from the bed and stalked off to the living room sofa. It looked like I’d be sleeping alone. But I didn’t care. This time, I was going to hang tough. There’d be hell to pay, but I’d pay it.

What I didn’t know at the time was that when it came to troubles looming ahead, Prozac’s diet was just the tip of the iceberg.

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Laura Levine

YOU’VE GOT MAIL

To: Jausten

From: Shoptillyoudrop

Subject: Completely Bananas!

All I can say is—it’s a good thing I ordered those Stress-Less pills. I’ve been gobbling them like Tic Tacs.

Your father has gone completely bananas. Yesterday during a shuffleboard game at the clubhouse, he actually plucked a hair from Reverend Sternmuller’s head! He pretended he saw a bee on his hair and was swiping it away, but he later told me he pulled the hair on purpose to get a DNA sample. He sent it off to the FBI this morning.

And if that wasn’t enough, today we were having lunch at Mimi’s, a charming little restaurant in town, and who should be there but Reverend Sternmuller, having lunch with Greta Gustafson, who’s been shamelessly throwing herself at the poor man. I swear, Greta has cooked more dinners in the past week than Swanson’s.

Anyhow, the minute they left the restaurant, Daddy raced over to their table and took Reverend Sternmuller’s fork!

“What on earth are you doing with that fork?” I asked him when he came back with the darn thing wrapped in a napkin.

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“I’m going to send it to the FBI to check for fingerprints.”

Then he put it in his pocket, along with several dinner rolls. It’s bad enough that he insists on taking souvenir rolls from every restaurant in Florida, but to take a fork, too—well, I just about died.

And that was just the beginning. After we finished our lunch—your father insisted on ordering the bacon cheeseburger when Dr. May has told him a million times to watch his cholesterol—we were heading out the door when the manager stopped Daddy and accused him of stealing the fork.

Which, technically, I suppose he was.

He and Daddy got into a big fight, and the next thing you know Kevin (that was the manager’s name) wouldn’t let us leave the restaurant until Daddy paid him ten dollars for the fork. By now, the whole restaurant was staring at us, and Daddy threatened to report Kevin to
America’s
Most Wanted,
but Kevin just laughed, and I was so humiliated I gave him the ten dollars and dragged Daddy outside without even getting one of their chocolate mints, which I really love.

Anyhow, I’m so mad, I could just spit.

Mom

68

Laura Levine

To: Jausten

From: DaddyO

Hi, honeybunch—

I’m making lots of progress on the Hugo Boss case. Plus, I had a terrific cheeseburger for lunch today.

Your loving,

Daddy

Chapter 7

At 7 A.M. the next morning I was in the supermarket buying diet cat food. At 7:30 Prozac was waving her tush in the air as she walked away from it.

I’d sprinkled a few kitty treats on top of the Lean ’N Lively Lamb Guts to lure her in. She ate the treats, careful not to ingest any of the offending lamb guts, then began howling for more treats.

“Sorry, Pro,” I said, my voice steely with resolu-tion. “For once, I am not weakening.” She continued howling while I made my instant coffee. Then, much to my surprise, she stopped.

Usually, when she wants something she can keep up her wailing for hours on end.

But I guess this time she could tell I meant business, that I wasn’t going to cave in. Interesting how effective a little discipline can be. I really had to start being stricter with her and assert my author-ity. If she got hungry enough, eventually she’d break down and eat her diet food. It was as simple as that.

So it was with a feeling of accomplishment that I 70

Laura Levine

dropped a Pop Tart in the toaster for my breakfast.

Prozac let out an indignant meow.

You call that fair? You get to eat Pop Tarts, and I’m
stuck with Lite ’N Lively Lamb Crud?

It was then that she stalked off to the living room, treating me to that scenic view of her tush.

I gobbled my Pop Tart standing up at the kitchen sink, safely out of Prozac’s line of vision, then went to my office, otherwise known as my dining table, to check my e-mails.

Can you believe Daddy? Stealing a fork to get Reverend Sternmuller’s fingerprints? And pulling a hair from his head for his DNA? It’s just lucky he didn’t try to get a blood sample.

But I couldn’t sit around all day worrying about Daddy. That was Mom’s job.

I spent the next hour or so fine-tuning the Ackerman Awning Brochure (
With Ackerman, You’ve
Got It Made in the Shade!
), then got dressed and ran out to do some errands.

I was heading down the path to my Corolla when I bumped into my neighbor Lance.

“Hey, Jaine. How’s it going?” he said, the sun glinting off his thick blond curls. Lance is a shoe salesman at Neiman Marcus, and he always dresses the part. He flicked a nonexistent speck of lint from his Ermenegildo Zegna suit. (No, Ermenegildo Zegna is not, as I once thought, a rare skin disease.

It’s a designer label, one of Lance’s favorites.)

“I heard Prozac on the warpath this morning,” he said. “Is she still on her diet?”

“Yes, she most definitely is.”

“She lose any weight yet?”

“Well, no. She’s putting up a bit of a fight. It’s going to be a battle of wills between us, but trust me, I’m going to win.”

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“Nothing personal, hon. But my money’s on the cat.”

Then he waved good-bye and headed off to his Mini Cooper.

Well, phooey on him. I hoped his curls wilted in the smog. Really, it was most annoying how he just assumed I was incapable of putting my own cat on a diet. Well, I’d show him. Before long, Prozac would be svelte enough to lick her privates on the runways of Milan.

I got in my Corolla and was tooling off to the dry cleaners with a load of slacks and silk blouses in the backseat when I happened to pass a Goodwill store. On an impulse I decided to stop in. Sometimes I find some really neat stuff at thrift shops.

I’d pulled into the parking lot and was just getting out of my car when I saw someone familiar walking toward me from the drop-off area. It was Ashley, the big-boobed, margarita-toting gal from the PMS Club.

Suddenly I was embarrassed. I didn’t want her to know that I shopped at Goodwill. I realized I was being ridiculous. I remembered how much fun Ashley had been at the club meeting, how down-to-earth. Not the least bit snobby. She wouldn’t think less of me if I bought my clothes here. Why, lots of people think it’s chic to shop at Goodwill. But for some insane reason, I was embarrassed. Maybe it was Ashley’s silver Jaguar gleaming in the parking lot, or the multiple carats of diamonds studded in her ears.

I reached down into my Corolla, pretending to be looking for something, hoping she hadn’t recognized me, but it was too late.

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Laura Levine

“Jaine? Is that you?”

I straightened up and smiled.

“Oh, hi, Ashley.”

She hurried over, her ample boobs bouncing with each step.

“Jaine, sweetie. We’re so happy you’re joining the club.”

“Me, too.”

“You’re coming to the meeting tonight, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She glanced in the backseat of my car and saw my dry cleaning.

“You dropping off a donation?”

“Why, yes,” I said.

And then, to my horror, I realized I was opening the car door and gathering my clothes in my arms.

What the heck was I doing? Was I nuts? Why on earth hadn’t I simply told her that I was shopping there? Oh, well. I’d just walk over with my dry cleaning and then wait till she was gone and put the stuff back in the car.

But that was not to be.

“I just dropped off a bunch of slacks that shrunk in my closet,” Ashley said, laughing. “C’mon. I’ll keep you company while you make your donation and we can gossip.”

And so she walked me to the drop-off area, carrying on a stream of chatter that floated in and out of my consciousness:

“Can you believe Rochelle’s empanadas with those Mexican flags? She’s Martha Stewart channeling
Viva Zapata!
. . . Marybeth and I were best friends in college, but she can be a bit much with her yummy news. . . . Doris . . . what a hoot. I hope THE PMS MURDERS

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I’m half as feisty when I’m her age. . . . And Colin . . .

why are the cute ones always gay?” She went on and on and before I knew it, I was giving my dry cleaning to a Goodwill guy in a wheelchair.

“Don’t forget to get a receipt,” Ashley said. “Tax write-off, you know.”

Yeah, right. First you need some income before you have to worry about taxes.

I took my receipt and watched in misery as my Ann Taylor silk blouses were tossed on top of somebody’s old VCR.

“C’mon, hon,” Ashley said, taking me by the arm, enveloping me in the heady aroma of her Vera Wang perfume. “You’ve done your good deed for the day.”

We walked back to our respective cars, and at last she got into her Jag.

“See you tonight,” she called out.

I waved feebly and watched as she drove off.

The minute she was gone, I dashed back to the drop-off area.

The guy in the wheelchair, whose name tag said
Carlos,
looked up at me.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry, but I’d like my clothes back.” Carlos’s eyes widened with disbelief.

“You want to take back your donation?” His voice was a tad louder than I would have liked.

Several other workers gathered around.

“What’s going on?” one of them asked.

“She wants to take back her donation.”

“You don’t understand; it wasn’t really a donation. It was my dry cleaning.” Carlos shook his head, disgusted.

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Laura Levine

“Go ahead,” he said, pointing to my clothes, which were still on top of the VCR, “take them back.”

I felt the others shooting dagger looks at my back as I gathered my clothes.

“Why not take the VCR while you’re at it?” Carlos muttered.

“It’s people like her,” another one said, “who give charity a bad name.”

I slunk out, feeling like a cockroach in a five-star restaurant. It looked like I wouldn’t be shopping at that Goodwill any time in the next millennium.

I finished the rest of my errands and drove home, certain that by now Prozac had caved in and eaten her diet food. Well, I was half right. She’d eaten. But not the diet food. I found her sprawled on the kitchen counter, like a drunk after a binge. Somehow she’d managed to claw the lid off her kitty treats and she’d scarfed down every last one of them.

She looked up at me with what I could swear was a smirk.

Score one for the furball.

Chapter 8

When Pam and I showed up at the PMS Club that night, I knew right away there was something wrong with Rochelle. She had a wild look in her eyes that hadn’t been there the week before.