Chopping Spree

way Rob my ex did, but close. And get this! On the way over here, I stopped at Goodwill, and left them two hundred and fifty-nine sweaters!”

The group clapped wildly. Carole, blushing and triumphant, reached for another cream puff.

“I’m Jack and I’m an image spender,” a lanky fellow with gray hair offered. “Can’t say I’m doing as well as Carole, sorry. Last week my ex-wife wanted to have a lunch meeting with our attorneys. This should have raised a red flag, but it didn’t. I suggested we make it easygoing, you know, something modest, both lawyers and the two of us. At Duccio’s.” This time I gasped along with the group. Minimum tab at Duccio’s on the Sixteenth Street Mall in downtown Denver, for one person having lunch, without liquor, would run about forty dollars. Add a single glass of wine, coffee, dessert, and tip, and you were looking at twice that. I had the feeling that Jack, in his gray pin-striped silk suit, Italian leather shoes, and imported tie, didn’t know the concept of a modest lunch.

“Of course,” Jack went on, “it turned out to be a terrible meeting, full of wrangling over child support and visitation issues. Oysters and two bottles of Chateau Lafitte didn’t help make things jovial, either.” He sighed. “I’m twenty-two thousand dollars in debt, which Gail knows but pretends not to.” He gave the group a rueful grin. “Still, when the check came? I grabbed for it. I mean, I had to! It was like an unseen force pushed my hand to reach out for that slip of paper!” He paused. “Now I’m twenty-two thousand, four hundred and ten dollars in debt. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought a case of peanut butter. On sale.” The group sighed. “But you all are here,” Jack concluded with a wide grin. “And at least I can have free pastries on Thursdays!”

“See, that’s what bothers me!” Page Stockham burst out savagely, as the group murmured encouragement to Jack. There was a collective gasp. “People always angling to get free stuff,” she added, her tone hostile. An uncomfortable silence ensued, interrupted only by the sounds of pastry-eating.

“Uh, my name is George, and, Page, remember that we have a format—”

“My name is Page and I have a sister problem. I’m here because my therapist said it might help.” The members squirmed. I peeked over at Page, who tilted up her chin and gazed defiantly down her nose at the group.

“My sister has always been a taker,” Page told us bitterly. “She gets into relationships with people by adoring them. These people are never low-income types, I should add. As soon as they start spending money on her, she adores them even more!” Page examined her manicured fingernails. “So rich folks, mostly guys, get addicted to being loved by my sister. Then she starts freeloading. First she gives them some sob story, of course. ‘I just need to borrow your car because mine’s not working.’ Two weeks later she’s all ‘Your stepson wants this car back? What am I supposed to drive? Besides, you have five cars, can’t he drive one of those? Don’t you care about me?’ Then she cries and withdraws affection from the rich guy, who feels guilty and finally gives her his damn car. She’s a horrible flirt, of course. And a slut, I should say.”

For the first time in the meeting, no one was reaching for pastries. The members sat without moving, concentrating on appearing neutral, although frowns and pursed lips indicated creeping discomfort. You need help, girl, their expressions said. Jack, for his part, looked downright disgusted. Maybe he’d been seduced by Pam, too, and had bought her lunch at Duccio’s.

“OK,” Page snarled, “I probably do shop too much. But I need to. My husband used to buy me nice things, and now he takes me for granted. I have to buy stuff for myself. Meanwhile, my slutty sister has a new boyfriend, or she had one, anyway, and she got him to give her discounts, big ones, on all kinds of stuff.” Her voice turned shrill. “Another one of her boyfriends sweet-talked the dean at… his former college, so my sister could get into a special scholarship program to go to night school for her degree. Free! This new guy gave her furs and jewelry from… vendors or reps or whatever they’re called. And then he bought her a round-trip ticket to Hawaii for next Christmas, because he knew the travel agent here in the… well, here.” Her voice ramped up a few more notches. “This boyfriend even got Pam a fifty percent discount on… a piece of jewelry. Not to buy, but… to rent. And he leased it for her!” Page screamed, “And then this same guy…fired my husband, so we suddenly had no income! I was so furious I couldn’t sleep! Couldn’t eat! Couldn’t drive!” She leaped to her feet. “That son of a bitch ruined our lives!”

Page ran out of the room.

Silence fell over the group.

George said, “Next?”

I wanted to follow Page, but my inner voice warned me to stay put. At this juncture, she’d be in no mood to chat. So I listened sympathetically to two more people talk, or as they called it, “share.” One man was a bargain- hunter with six storage sheds full of stuff he never used. He said the seller always represented his mother, who’d withheld love from him as a child. By ruthlessly bargaining, he tried to outsmart the seller, so he could “get love for free.” Except he never got the affection he needed, just lots of fishing rods and motorcycle parts. The final speaker, a very large woman with a pointed chin, announced that she was a codependent spender. She fingered her plastic dark glasses and tried to straighten her very crooked curly-haired wig. She said she had a compulsion to spend money on others. By giving people huge gifts, she was hoping they would love her. The previous year, she’d won fifty thousand dollars in the lottery, now all gone on presents for which she had not received a single thank-you note. Now she had to work a crummy job that caused her no end of stress.

I squinted at her thoughtfully as the group broke up. “Why, Rhonda!” I whispered to myself, then hightailed it out of there.

In the mall, shoppers scurried or moseyed past, many of them with that hungry, pinched look that said they were rushing for a bite to eat. Monday morning, I’d bemoaned the fact that I never had time for lunch out with Marla; now I was so stuffed with pastries and water that the idea of a midday meal made my very full stomach holler in protest.

I pulled off the crocheted hat and found a chair. I needed to sit and think. Just down the staircase, the window of Westside Music displayed a painted banner: Open Late! With a start, I recalled that Arch’s birthday was tomorrow. Tom had bought him a new lacrosse stick, helmet, and official-size goal, which he planned to put up in our backyard, snow be damned. He’d also promised to look for another guitar, since the much-desired one was dented, and not done being inspected by the cops. Still, I knew Arch well enough to be sure of this: The gift he would most cherish would be to have Julian at his party. So it was in the free-Julian department that I needed to continue to bend my efforts.

I ran my fingers through my hair and reflected on the shopaholics’ meeting. Page Stockham had confessed to a sister problem, a problem that appeared to have been very much aggravated by the presence of discount-supplying Barry Dean. My mind circled back to one of its many questions. Had Tom spurred the investigators to find out exactly where Page—and Ellie too, for that matter—had been after the two women split from Marla? Would the desires to a) have revenge on the man who evicted her husband’s profitable store, and b) deprive a sibling of her ride on the gravy train, be sufficient motive to kill Barry?

There was one person I had not been able to talk to, but who, in light of the shopaholics’ meeting, I now desperately needed to see. I headed toward Prince & Grogan. With Julian facing formal charges the next morning, I might have to buy a hundred dollars’ worth of nighties from Barry Dean’s onetime girlfriend. But wait—there was one detail of Page’s story that I needed to check out first. I turned and quickly headed toward the mall management office.

Heather the receptionist looked quite a bit cheerier than when I’d seen her earlier in the week. She’d had her hair colored with bright pink streaks and cut in a new, spiky do. New fluorescent pink nail polish and lipstick matched her hair. She looked like an ad for pink lemonade, which she happened to be drinking from a plastic cup. When I entered the office, she set down the lemonade by her half-eaten personal pizza, which, I shuddered to see, was topped with ham and pineapple.

“The caterer!” Heather exclaimed, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oops! Did I forget to call you?”

For a horrid, sinking moment, I thought Rob Eakin, the interim mall manager, might have changed his mind about the canceled prospective tenants’ lunch, originally scheduled for that day. If so, and Heather Featherbrain had forgotten to notify me, then all my worry about success would be something I’d laugh about as my business went under. You simply do not fail to show up to cater an affair.