There are all sorts of useful tidbits in the Girdner database.
There have to be some connections between these people at the party.”
“It’s a start.” Margery’s mouth was no longer a straight line. She’d unfolded her arms. She was coming around.
“Here’s my plan,” Sarah said. “I’m taking Helen to Jimmie’s in Dania Beach. She can use a little chocolate therapy.”
Sarah looked like a bonbon herself in a pink caftan frosted with a white turquoise necklace.
“I’ve already had Godiva.” Helen pointed to the gold wrapper on the TV tray.
“Chocolate isn’t like booze. You can mix,” Sarah said.
“And Jimmie’s chocolates are pure South Florida.”
When they were in Sarah’s Range Rover, Helen said, “I’ve been eating a lot of junk lately. I’m not sure —”
“Oh, please, Helen, don’t fall into the great American pastime of obsessing about food. I may be fat, but I’m not boring.”
“You’re not fat,” Helen said. “You’re just you.” Sarah, like Pavarotti, looked best as a person of size.
Jimmie’s was in a little pink house with a candy-striped awning. Above the door, an evergreen wreath framed three white plastic swans. Pink flowers bloomed everywhere.
“This place looks like it was made out of gingerbread, Helen said.
“Are you going to be the witch?” Sarah said. “Jimmie’s has champagne. I think you need some.”
“Is that chocolate-covered, too?”
“Just breathe in the air. You’ll feel better.”
Helen had never seen so much chocolate, ribbons and flowers. It was as if her favorite maiden aunt was a chocoholic. There were mounds of rum, pina colada and key lime truffles. There were shelves of dark chocolate turtles, hand-dipped Oreo cookies, and chocolate-covered pretzels. Rows of chocolate-covered fruit: kiwi, pears, oranges. The chocolate-dipped strawberries were big as peaches.
“They’re dipped first in white and then in dark chocolate,” the salesperson said.
“Try the chocolate-covered orange peel,” Sarah said. “It’s tart—a word that seems to describe you lately.”
Helen made a face, then took a bite. The orange peel was not sweet. It was rich, with a nifty little zing that was almost alcoholic. “Oh, my. If I had Jimmie, I wouldn’t need other men. This is better than...”
“Sex?” Sarah said.
Helen thought of Phil, the visible non-pothead.
“Almost anything else,” she said.
“OK, who is he this time?” Sarah said. “Let’s go over to the cafe side and discuss this.”
Sarah ordered champagne and more chocolate, which gave Helen time to collect her thoughts. A waitress brought two glasses and a cold bottle of champagne.
“Nobody,” Helen said. “My romance was over before it began. I took your advice and went out with a guy from the boiler room.”
“Not the boiler room.” Sarah slammed back a surprising gulp of champagne. “I wanted you to meet a decent man.”
“Well, I didn’t. I need a chocolate-covered strawberry before I can go any further.”
Helen told Sarah about Jack the bailiff boy between bites.
The story didn’t seem so bad. Champagne was the right accompaniment for a romance gone wrong.
“I am sorry,” Sarah said. “But you handled the whole thing well. Your exit line was perfect. Besides, you don’t sound too broken up. I know there’s someone else.”
“I’m not dating him. I just saw him.”
“Who?” Sarah’s champagne glass hung in midair. “Don’t let me sit here sounding like an owl.”
“I’ve finally seen Phil the invisible pothead.”
“After all this time? I want details.”
“He looks like a rock star. Dark-blue eyes, slightly crooked nose, long hair, lean face, nice muscles, good tan.”
“All this and a druggie, too,” Sarah said.
“But he’s not. It’s an act. He’s undercover. Margery knew all along he wasn’t a pothead. That’s why she rented to him.
She won’t tell me which agency he’s with. She says he’s single, straight and dangerous.”
“Sounds like your kind of man.”
“Not according to Margery. You disapprove, too, don’t you?”
“You’d be bored with a nice, safe man,” Sarah said. “If he’s good enough for Margery, he’s good enough for you.”
“That’s practically an endorsement,” Helen said.
They clinked champagne glasses.
“Always agree with the customers.”
Vito was giving another pep talk in his dingy office. He was the televangelist of telemarketing, exhorting his ragtag flock to salvation. If they didn’t sell more, they were damned to eternal unemployment.
“If someone says, ‘I don’t buy over the phone,’ what do you say?”
The boiler-room crew looked up hopefully.
“You say, ‘I agree, ma’am. You don’t buy. First, you use our product for thirty days. Then you buy it.’ See, you’re agreeing with them.”
Helen was fascinated by Vito’s round head and spherical muscles. He was a bundle of ovoid energy.
“If they say, ‘I can’t afford it.’ You say, ‘I agree. You can’t afford it. But you can’t
Keep moving that argument.”
Vito raised his muscular arms toward heaven—or at least the cobwebs on the ceiling. “Now, go out there and sell. And remember, never, ever give out our toll-free number.”
When Vito finished talking, Helen wanted to buy the product, and she didn’t even have a septic tank. She made six sales that morning, beating her all-time record.
Vito sent her to survey heaven. She could do her research on the Mowbrys’ party that night.
It was easy work on the survey side. Helen had to sign up people with in-ground swimming pools. In Florida, everyone who was anyone had a concreted, chlorined hole in their yard. Helen was back in the A-list, the richest of the rich. It was her natural hunting ground. But she couldn’t start checking the newspaper yet. She had to sign up survey customers first.
She read the personal information on the first pool subject on the computer screen:
“Angela Hawson. Birth date 2/16/76. Single. No children.
Occupation: Tax lawyer. Income: $100,000-plus. Number of computers in home: Three. Number of swimming pools:
Two, one indoor. Pets: Two cats. Cars: Drives a 2002 Lexus.
Suffers from depression. Takes Prozac. Has a weight problem.”
Helen was amazed what people told survey takers. She’d tear out her tongue before she’d tell a stranger she was taking mood-altering prescription drugs. But phone-survey takers heard more secrets than priests in the confessional.
People told her they were in rehab, bipolar, being treated for venereal disease. Helen thought they were too trusting.
“Hi, Angela. This is Helen with Girdner Surveys. We’re conducting a swimming pool survey that pays—”
“I told you to take my name out of your database,” Angela said. “I don’t want your annoying calls.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll make a note of it.”
But I won’t take your name out, Helen thought. I couldn’t, even if I wanted. Angela didn’t understand that once she gave her name to a survey taker, it was in the database forever.
