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one
"Oh my Gawd, Darla, you gotta help me! My wedding gown I custom-ordered finally showed up. I did a fitting last night and, Darla, it was horrible!"
The nasal Jersey tones emanating from Darla Pettistone's cell phone belonged to Connie Capello, the brash Snooki wannabe who had an irritating tendency to refer to herself as the future Mrs. Fiorello Reese. The self-bestowed title had been moderately amusing the first few times Darla had heard it. But in the four-plus months since Connie's engagement to Darla's ex-almost-boyfriend, NYPD Detective Reese, she had grown a bit weary of the joke.
Suppressing a sigh, Darla stepped away from the counter where her bookstore manager, Professor James T. James, was busy ringing up an order. Conversations with Connie tended to drag on. Since Darla was the eponymous owner of Pettistone's Fine Books-a converted Brooklyn brownstone that featured the bookstore on two levels, and her own apartment on the third-she put particular stock in presenting a professional image in front of her customers. Personal phone calls were to be kept to a minimum during business hours.
"Slow down, Connie," she urged, even as she wondered why the woman was unloading on her, and not on one of her twelve-or was it thirteen?-bridesmaids. She and Connie were really no more than acquaintances, not BFFs who paged through bridal magazines together.
"It's probably just pre-wedding jitters that make you feel like that," she continued. "You showed me the sketch back in September, and it was a truly lovely dress."
"Yeah, well, it ain't lovely on. I swear I looked like a freakin' cow in it!"
Darla highly doubted that last. The woman was almost as tall as Darla's best friend, the six-foot-tall ex-cop-turned-private-investigator, Jacqueline "Jake" Martelli. And, in Darla's opinion, Connie was in perpetual need of a Big Mac or three to fatten her up. Still, she could hear the tears in Connie's voice, meaning that the bovine illusion was definitely real to her.
"It's really awful," the woman raged on. "The stupid dress makes my butt look fat and my boobs look flat, and it was supposed to be ivory, but they made it ecru. So I don't just look like a cow, I look like a freakin' corpse of a cow. And now it's too close to the wedding to get another gown special-made for me-e-e-e."
First-world problems was Darla's first thought, a notion she promptly shoved away as uncharitable.
She knew how stressful weddings could be. Heck, she'd had nightmares before her own (ultimately ill-fated) nuptials that the cake, of all things, wasn't quite right. And with Connie's fashion obsession-the woman wore heels and full makeup just to pop down the block for a latte-the perfect gown would be particularly essential. Besides, when one paid big bucks for a single-occasion dress like a wedding gown, one expected to look fabulous in it.
Managing a consoling tone, she dutifully replied, "I'm sure the gown just needs some alterations, and then it will be gorgeous on you. I know a nice little old lady a couple of blocks down who does sewing out of her daughter's dry-cleaning shop. She altered a tweed jacket I got from my sister last year, and it fits like a dream now. I can give you her address and phone number, and you can-"
"It's too late for that." Connie cut her short with another wail. "I got mad and stuffed the stupid thing in the incinerator last night, and now I gotta buy a new wedding dress off the ra-a-a-ack!"
That last pathetic howl was loud enough that Darla had to hold the cell phone away from her ear, while James and his elderly customer both shot her stunned looks.
Darla gave them an apologetic headshake and headed toward the staircase that led to the coffee bar that Darla had installed upstairs the previous spring. Her teenaged goth-clerk-turned-barista, Robert Gilmore, ran the bar with such efficiency that the add-on to her book business was already beginning to show a bit of profit. But since it was almost 11 a.m., her early-morning regulars had pretty well dispersed, leaving only a couple of stragglers until the next small rush at noon.
And since it was a Thursday, that rush was more likely to be a trickle.
By the time Darla had waved to Robert and settled at one of the wicker bistro tables to continue the call, Connie's wails had dwindled to a few sedate sobs.
"I'm so sorry," she told the woman once she was sure Connie was listening again. "I can imagine how disappointed you are. But I'm not sure how I can help you."
Then, as a thought occurred to her, she quickly added, "Wait. Maybe you could try Davina's Bridal. It's a little store maybe ten or twelve blocks from here, and they got a nice write-up in one of the city magazines recently. What did the headline call it? 'Couture Looks at Rack Prices,' or something like that. They do custom gowns, but I've looked in their window before, and it seems like they have lots of ready-made dresses in stock, too."
"Really?" The sniffling sounds abruptly ceased. "Oh, Darla, you're brilliant! I told Fi"-Connie pronounced her nickname for Reese's given name as Fee-"that you'd have the answer. I'm going to call right now and see if they can fit me in after lunch."
"Darla saves the day again," Darla muttered to herself as the phone went silent, without even a final good-bye from the woman.
Still, she smiled a little as she tucked her phone into the pocket of her khakis. Much as she probably should, she really couldn't dislike Connie Capello. Despite her often dismissive attitude, the woman had an amusingly brash way about her that Darla found-if not exactly endearing-refreshing. Of course, she could do without Connie's constant jokes about Darla's Texas accent.
And her red hair and freckles.
And the fact that she owned a bookstore.
But Connie did have her good points, Darla conceded. For one, she did seem to truly love Reese. For another, Connie had given no indication that she cared that Darla and her fiancŽ were friends. That alone gave the woman major props in Darla's book. And she was as generous with small gifts as she was with snippy digs. Darla was still using the uber-expensive red lipstick Connie had given her a few months ago.
"Hamlet, no!"
The cry came from Robert, who was busy at the sink cleaning a handful of logoed coffee mugs. Fearing the worst, she half rose from her chair to see what mischief the bookstore's official mascot, Hamlet the cat, was getting into now. Forget other people's wedding disasters. She had to contend with cat-astrophes!
Sure enough, the big-boned black feline was purposefully striding along the coffee bar's polished wood countertop. He was headed, Darla saw, toward a milk pitcher trailing leftover foam as it waited to be washed.
Rule number one, Darla reminded herself. No cats in the coffee area.
Rule number two. Cats do whatever they want to do!
Fortunately, Robert was on board with the first rule, even if a particular furry troublemaker embraced the second edict.
"No," he repeated, rushing to stick a sudsy arm between Hamlet and his milky objective. "You know better than that, little goth bro. You're not allowed to drink out of anything except, you know, your own bowls."
Darla smiled as she resumed her seat. The teen was heavily into the goth subculture: black wardrobe, dyed black hair, piercings, vampiric makeup (the latter two of which he'd willingly toned down since taking the job at Pettistone's). He'd worn his hair five or six different ways since Darla had known him. The most recent style had been one of those asymmetrical cuts, with hair buzzed almost all the way up on one side, and a long swoop of locks combed over onto the other side of his head. Fortunately for Darla's somewhat compulsive need for proportion, he'd finally tired of that look and shaved both sides, leaving a broad cockscomb of dyed black hair on top.
His ongoing joke with Hamlet was that the feline subscribed to the same lifestyle, given his inky black coat; hence, the "little goth bro" reference.
"And you're not supposed to be on the counter, either," Robert said, continuing his lecture. "The health department dude, he doesn't like cat paws on food prep areas."
At that last, Darla shot a worried look at the two current customers in the coffee bar with her and Robert. If they were anti-cat (although Hamlet's fuzzy face was all over the coffee bar's mugs, and a sign at the front door warned of a feline mascot), they might be inclined to make a complaint call to the city. Fortunately, both women appeared engrossed in their respective books and unconcerned with any cat antics.
Darla let out a relieved breath. It was physically impossible to ban Hamlet from the loft. The cat had come to the brownstone ten years earlier as a feral kitten adopted by Darla's late great-aunt Dee, who had willed the place-Hamlet included!-to Darla. And with a feline's canny intuition, Hamlet had found every secret passage between the apartment and bookstore in the old building, even finding his way outside and into the adjoining buildings. The best Darla could hope for not to run afoul of health codes was prompt and effective damage control any time the feisty feline flouted the rules.
Hamlet, meanwhile, was shooting Robert a cold green look, while irritation fairly bristled from him. While the youth was one of Hamlet's favorite people, the feline wasn't used to being dictated to. Darla could almost hear him thinking, You're not the boss of me, human.
Robert obviously caught the meaning behind the cat's stare, for he lowered his voice and assumed a conciliatory air. "If it was just me, I wouldn't care. But sometimes there are, like, rules. So hop down, and I'll put a little foam in a saucer for you."
With a grudging mm-rumph, Hamlet sprang like a small black panther from bar top to floor. Robert, meanwhile, tipped the pitcher over a small plate, the resulting mound of froth quivering as the youth lowered the crockery to the ground. Hamlet's velvety black nose quivered, too, but he waited patiently until Robert stepped away before plunging his face into the foam and lapping away.
"You know, he really shouldn't be drinking that," Darla told Robert with a tolerant shake of her head. "The dairy isn't good for his tummy, and it's fattening. I think he's put on a pound or two since we opened the coffee bar."
"Don't worry, Ms. P., it's mostly air," he assured her. "And I only give him the foam a couple of times a week."
Hamlet, meanwhile, paused and shot Darla the same look he'd earlier turned on Robert. You could stand to drop a couple of pounds yourself, she could almost hear him thinking. Unfortunately for Hamlet's snark-cred, the cute sprinkling of foam on his black whiskers overruled what should have been a peeved emerald green stare.
"Okay, but just go easy on the treats," she conceded. "I don't want him getting in the habit of begging. Thanksgiving is coming up sooner than I'd like, and it's going to be hard to keep his paws out of all the food I'll be cooking that week."
"Yeah, well, too bad I'm going to miss it," Robert replied. "But thanks for letting me have Thanksgiving week off. I talked to my dad again, and he's real excited we're going to spend the holiday together."
Darla gave him a doubtful look. "I'm glad you two are reconciling, but if you change your mind about going to Connecticut, you know you're welcome to spend Thanksgiving Day with me and Jake and the Plinskis."
"I've already got my train ticket," he reminded her. "Don't worry, it should be, you know, fun. And I'm looking forward to meeting my new stepbrothers. Pop even said I can bring Roma with me," he added, referring to the tiny gray-and-white Italian greyhound he'd adopted earlier that year.
Despite Robert's upbeat attitude, Darla wasn't quite convinced. She knew that the youth's parents had been divorced for several years, ever since Robert's mother had abandoned her husband and son to move to California. And while the elder Gilmore had fulfilled his parental obligation as far as providing food and shelter, he had remained pretty well absent from Robert's life throughout his high school years. The absence had turned to outright estrangement when he'd kicked the teen out of his house the day he had turned eighteen. Robert had been left virtually homeless until Darla hired him and arranged for him to live in the garden apartment belonging to her elderly neighbors, the Plinskis.
But just two weeks ago, Mr. Gilmore had called his son out of the blue to inform him he'd gotten remarried over the summer. He'd invited Robert to a Thanksgiving reunion of sorts so that he could meet his new stepfamily. Though wary at first, Robert had grown increasingly excited over the past few days at the prospect of potentially healing what was more than a yearlong family breach, especially since his father had also confessed that Robert had a new half brother due in the spring.
"Fingers crossed," Darla told him with a smile. "And don't worry, there should be plenty of leftovers to carry over into Black Friday, when you get back. With luck, that's going to be our busiest day this year!"
"Ugh, don't even mention Black Friday," came a woman's voice drifting up the stairway.
Robert and Darla turned to see Jake Martelli headed toward them. Though the temperature was in the forties outside, her only concession to the chilly weather was the bulky black knit sweater she wore with tight jeans and her ubiquitous Doc Martens . . . this pair bright red in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season. Not that a coat was necessary, since Jake was Darla's tenant. The trip from her place was a matter of running up the steps from her garden apartment below the brownstone and into the bookstore's front door.
A dusting of snow left over from the day's brief flurry clung to her curly black hair, so that for a moment her appearance echoed Hamlet's earlier frosty look. Then the loft's warmer temperature abruptly melted the flakes while she flung herself into the bistro chair next to Darla's.
"Hi, Robert," she said, giving the youth a wave. "Any chance you can get me a caramel latte?"
"Sure, Ms. Jake."
While Robert scooted behind the counter to fill her order, the PI turned to Darla.
"Bad news, kid," she said with a moan. "I just got an email from Ma. She decided-and I quote-there's too many old geezers wandering around Fort Lauderdale right now, so she's booked a flight to come stay with me for the Thanksgiving holiday."
