Fatally Flaky

“Charlotte, I’m almost at the spa. I’m getting ready to set up. Where are you?”

“At home, at home. Jack’s here with me, and I’m just so worried.” Her voice was mildly hysterical. “Billie’s not answering her cell!”

“Cell reception out here is pretty bad. You want me to go look for her?”

“Yes! Then call me!”

“Okay, but Charlotte—”

I’d either lost the signal or she had disconnected. Somehow, I suspected the latter. There had been no please, no thank you, just do it. As if that was what she was paying me for. One thing I was beginning to learn: where Billie got her bitchiness from.

I told Julian what was going on. He rolled his eyes and said I should go look for Billie; he would unload our boxes.

The spa had been transformed. I had to give it to Aspen Meadow Florist: They’d done wonders with the designs Charlotte had given them. Had Billie helped? I wondered.

Garlands of lights hung on every aspen and pine that surrounded the main building of the spa. Ropes of fresh white flowers and ivy had been draped at six-foot intervals under the eaves of the building, and the main door itself was also bedecked with flowers.

The dining room had undergone an even more spectacular metamorphosis. The theme of Billie and Craig’s wedding was medicine, I guess so Billie would be sure everyone knew she was marrying a doctor. Even though I thought that was as tacky as a bride, even a biting one, could possibly get, Aspen Meadow Florist had once again outdone themselves. The tablecloths had a black underskirt and a white tablecloth on top, onto which rows of buttons had been sewn, a la lab coat, with Billie and Craig machine-embroidered in fanciful black script in between. In the center of each table, stethoscopes had somehow been placed upright, and they were surrounded by lilies and ivy.

In the front of the dining room, where the ceremony would take place, bright white-and-black slipcovers festooned the chairs, which had been placed in neat rows. A new dance floor had been placed over the dining room’s old cement one, and there were more swags of white flowers and ivy between the rows of chairs. Aspen Meadow Florist must have worked all night.

But there was no one in the dining room. Specifically, there was no Billie in the dining room.

The clang of pans issuing from the kitchen told me someone was here, though, so I headed in that direction.

Yolanda, her face creased with exhaustion, was working with three other cooks. Julian, who was piling up the boxes, gave me a warning look: Don’t ask. But I was puzzled, and upset that she was even here.

“Yolanda!” I exclaimed. “You really didn’t have to be here. Julian and I already have all the food for the wedding reception made, and we have all kinds of helpers coming—”

Yolanda tossed her head. “Yeah? Well, I need to keep my job, okay? And Victor said that Charlotte, the mother of that bitch, the bride, what’s her name—?”

“Billie,” Julian and I supplied in unison.

“Yeah, well, Charlotte told Victor, who’s my pendejo boss, that I upset Billie the Bitch, so my punishment is that my cooks and I have to make three more appetizers for this stupid reception —”

“But, Yolanda,” I protested, “we’re already making two appetizers—”

“Now you got five, then,” Yolanda said. “We all got five appetizers, right, girls?” she asked her crew.

“Yeah, we got five,” they replied.

“Yolanda, I’m so sorry—,” I began.

Yolanda put her hand on her hip. “What they gonna do with five appetizers if you’re giving them dinner, too?”

I shook my head, then took a deep breath. “You happen to know where Billie the Bitch is? She was supposed to be decorating the dining room.”

“The dining room’s all decorated,” Yolanda said. “So Billie couldn’t find anything to do, or anyone to bother, and I wouldn’t talk to her, I’m telling you, when she came out here. She seemed all smug and whatnot, being happy that I had to do all this extra work, so she started asking me questions, ‘Where is this and where is that?’ But I said, ‘No hablo ingles, chingada.’ And then I just spoke Spanish to my girls here, didn’t I?”

“Si,” they replied.

I swallowed and said, “Please tell me you didn’t really call Billie a chingada.” Beside me, Julian was laughing. I sure as hell hoped Billie didn’t speak Spanish.

“Yeah, I did.” Yolanda was defiant. “And she finally left.”

“Her car’s still here,” Julian pointed out.

“I hope she’s up in the gym exercising,” Yolanda said. “And that she’s sweating so hard it hurts.”

“Better stick to Spanish,” Julian advised before he and I took off for the gym.

But the gym was locked and dark, as was the entrance to the indoor pool. The guest rooms were arrayed on three floors of large houses, or dorms, and each floor boasted a large front porch. Cleaning crews were working their way through the guest rooms, as their carts were lined up on different porches, and people in uniforms ducked in and out of the rooms. Since I very much doubted Billie did cleaning of any kind, I figured the dorms were a no- go.

My cell phone beeped: Charlotte Attenborough again. So in some spots out here, I did get a signal. I ignored it anyway.

“We should split up,” Julian said. “There are hiking trails all over this place.”

“Wait,” I said. “Did you see the sign for the Smoothie Cabin?”

“Yup.”

“Try there. It’s easy to find. I’ll go up to the hot pool. Maybe she’s relaxing, or trying to.”

Julian took off down the sidewalk that led back to the spa’s main building, while I began to negotiate the rocky path that led to the geothermal pool. Trees lined the path, and I thought that if you became really relaxed in the ultrahot water, a single misstep on the way back to your dorm could be, if not fatal, at least injurious.

Not far down the path, a thick cloud of steam billowing through the trees indicated I was getting close.

“Billie?” I called tentatively.

“Yes?” came her response. Her voice sounded, for once, positively languorous. “Who is it? I’m taking a break.”

“It’s Goldy.”

“What do you want?” she asked, back to her normal sharp-glass vocal intonation. “I’ve already checked in with the kitchen. Everything’s moving forward.”

“Your mother can’t reach you,” I replied as I finally reached the side of the pool. The steam had made the pavement slippery, so I backed off a bit.

Billie heaved a voluminous sigh. I finally saw her, naked, in the pool. Great.

“Hand me a towel, honey,” Billie said.

I looked around for a towel, then realized suddenly that she wasn’t talking to me. Craig Miller was with Billie. I could barely make him out, but it looked as if he, at least, was wearing a bathing suit.

“Here you go,” said Craig. Through the steam, he appeared to be handing her a towel.

“Take these dishes and glasses, Goldy,” Billie ordered. “Victor made us some Bellinis and sandwiches and cookies. He said he’d be back up for everything, but I don’t want him to be bothered.”

Of course, it was okay for me to be bothered. But I was used to Billie by now. I’d get her damn dishes, and soon, as Julian had pointed out, this day would be over.

“Call your mother,” I barked. “She’s worried about you.”

“She’s always worried about me. To hell with her.”

Oh-kay. No wonder Charlotte was willing to pay four mil to be rid of her thirty-six-year-old brat. This time, I noticed, Craig hadn’t been able to say he was sorry for the way Billie was acting. Too bad. Better get in the habit of always apologizing for your wife, buddy!

As Craig and Billie strolled back down the path, giggling and murmuring to each other, I edged over to the