Behind the Seams

while I was in the store. I realized I’d heard some ringing but never associated it with my phone. When I told Mason the problem, he grinned and asked for my BlackBerry.

“I can fix that.” He walked away for a few moments and I resumed crocheting. When he returned, he handed back the phone and told me to bury it in my purse. Then he punched in the number.

Suddenly a high-pitched voice started squawking from my purse. “Hey, get me out of here. Help me, please! Somebody, pick me up. Hurry before it’s too late.” We both laughed and Mason explained he’d used the feature to record your own ring along with his best impression of a cartoon character in distress.

“Well, I certainly won’t mix that up with other people’s phones,” I said, taking the phone out and making the “ring” stop. “Thanks, I guess,” I said with a grin and a roll of my eyes.

“Why are you sitting here alone?” He slid into the chair next to me. I recapped the chain of events that had gotten me there, and Mason asked to see what I was making. As I held up the swatch of yarn, he caught my hand and looked at it.

“Still empty, Sunshine? The detective must be upset that the ring is still in the box hidden away somewhere.”

I pulled my hand back. Mason was a high-powered criminal attorney and my good friend. Though good friend sounded kind of weak. He was so much more than a friend. Unlike Barry, who always told me to stay out of things, Mason helped me get information and even helped in my sleuthing activities. When Barry and I had broken up, Mason and I had almost gotten together, but our definition of relationship had been different. He kept telling me that his definition wasn’t written in stone, but by then it was too late. Like Barry, Mason was divorced, but unlike Barry, he wasn’t looking to get married again. He had a solid build, earthy brown eyes and brown hair sprinkled with a little silver, a lock of which usually fell across his forehead, giving him an earnest look.

I was glad when he dropped the subject. I knew I was going to have to do something about the ring in the drawer eventually, but in the meantime, I didn’t want to think about it. “Why were you looking for me?” I asked.

“Oh, just to see what was up with you. If any dead bodies had fallen in your lap. If you wanted to get a cup of coffee.”

“So you just wanted to see me,” I said, and he nodded.

“And hopefully without an entourage,” he added with a grin.

“Molly, they’re turning off the lights,” Jeffrey said as he joined us at the table. He noticed Mason and they traded nods of acknowledgment. They knew each other from numerous get-togethers at my house. Both of them looked disappointed at seeing the other.

CHAPTER 3

“PINK, I THOUGHT YOU WEREN’T GOING?” ADELE said with a mixture of surprise and disappointment, leaning over the seat of her Matrix as I followed Dinah and got in the backseat. Sheila was already sitting on the passenger side in the front. The Hookers who were going to the show had decided to carpool and arranged to meet in front of the bookstore. Rhoda and Elise opted to take Rhoda’s car rather than have four of us squashed in the backseat. Adele sensed there was something up and grilled me until I admitted that CeeCee had asked me to come. I mentioned that she wanted me to be there to coach her, just in case. I did not mention that CeeCee had really been more concerned about me keeping the Hookers, well, Adele in line.

Doing this show was a big moment for CeeCee. It signified that she was back in the main spotlight.

I hadn’t been to a TV show taping in years, and I’d always gone with Charlie when he was there in a business capacity. That meant special parking, going in the backstage entrance, and hanging out in the green room, with its array of drinks and snacks, while Charlie schmoozed with his client. It was a little different when you were just going to be part of the audience.

We had to park a million miles away and didn’t even go inside the studio grounds. We had to line up on the street in front of the audience entrance. I must admit the Barbara Olive Overton show had everything well organized once we got inside. First up was signing a release that said we agreed to be seen on TV with no remuneration.

As we moved along the narrow hallway, we were relieved of our coats and purses and given a claim number. There were signs all over saying, “No phones, cameras or recording devices allowed in the show.” Still, when we went through the metal detectors, a number of them showed up. Excuses were mumbled as the staff member took them and promised to return them after the show. Personally, I was glad not to have mine and have to worry about answering it. Adele was in line ahead of me. It was hard to miss her. She didn’t wear clothes so much as costumes. Often I was inspired to give them names. Today’s was clearly ode to crochet. Adele never seemed to get that less was more. If the jacket had been black with granny-square pockets, it would have been striking, but instead, the whole thing was made of the squares, which had multicolored centers surrounded by black. She looked like she was wrapped in an afghan. Adele liked hats, they just didn’t like her. She’d worn a wide-brimmed black hat she’d made by mixing a strand of suede yarn with one of worsted-weight acrylic, so it had body. She’d trimmed it with a circle of loose-hanging hot pink pom-poms that bounced whenever she moved.

“Uh-oh,” Dinah said, and we watched as Adele went through the metal detector. We both held our breath, expecting some kind of alarm to go off because I was sure she had some metal crochet hooks stashed in her pocket. But she was all smiles and there were no pings or beeps.

After our trip through the metal detector, Dinah followed me into a narrow room with chairs around the sides, or what appeared to be the green room for the audience. Dinah glanced around. “Hmm, I guess we don’t get any perks.” I’d told her about my backstage experiences.

“What do you mean?” I joked, pointing toward the drinking fountain and restrooms. During our brief stay in the room, I noticed Adele showed off her outfit to several people. I nudged Dinah.

“Adele seems to be more out there than usual and I have a bad feeling. I don’t want anything to wreck this for CeeCee. She’s got enough worries keeping her bowls straight. If I sit next to Adele, maybe she’ll behave.” Dinah saw my point, and when we finally stood to file into the studio where the taping was done, she stayed behind with the other Hookers as I pushed ahead and more or less cut in line to get next to Adele.

I had promised CeeCee I’d try to sit in the front. It was no problem now that I was shadowing Adele. She charged through the crowd with me in close pursuit and nabbed seats in the very first row.

When everyone was seated, a guy in jeans, high-top sneakers and a suit jacket came out to warm up the audience. He told a few jokes, then launched into the rules. He tried to be funny as he listed them, but basically there was no talking during the taping. During the question-and-answer segment, anyone with a question was to raise their hand, then wait until someone came with a microphone.

There was a moment of silence afterward as everyone waited for Barbara to come out. It was as if everyone sucked in their breath at once. No sooner had she walked out onto the stage when everyone started booing her. What was going on? The warm-up comedian seemed unconcerned as he left the stage. And the dark-haired woman with soft curves smiled at the crowd. Was she smiling to hide her embarrassment? I almost choked when Adele started pumping her fist and yelling along with the rest of the crowd.

I grabbed Adele’s arm to make her stop and she shot me a dark look. “What’s your problem, Pink?”

“My problem? You’re the one who’s booing the host of the show.”

Adele rolled her eyes. “Pink, you need to get out more.” She pointed toward the name of the show being projected on the blue wall at the back of the stage. “Barbara Olive Overton or BOO for short,” Adele said, shaking her head at my obvious stupidity.

Okay, I got it, but I didn’t join in the BOO-calling and was glad when it stopped. Adele had certainly snagged us good seats. We were so close I could see the white’s of Barbara’s eyes and figure out that all that poufy hair probably wasn’t hers.

Adele was twitching in her seat, and it was making me nervous. She had something up her sleeve, but what? Maybe she was jiggling to keep the bright pink pom-poms on her hat bopping around to get people’s attention.

The audience cheered when CeeCee came out and cheered again when the host talked about how CeeCee’s career had been on the sidelines but now had come back full force.