Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Read online

  Joe and John finished brunch, said good-bye, left arm-in-arm and raised their sails.

  Buffed Buns next to me sighed as she watched them flutter away. “I’m seriously thinking of moving back to Arizona,” she told Titanium Thighs. “I mean, I love the Bay Area and my job, but my bio-timer? At least there are real men in Tucson.”

  Her friend nodded, took a dainty nibble of naked muffin while managing to flex a bicep. “There are men here, too, but they’re all gay or married.”

  “Or both,” I interjected. The women eyed Jan and me with distrust and lowered their voices, obviously wishing to continue their conversation in private. I grabbed the paper and sulked. People are so touchy these days.

  The spandex twins departed, prompting our waitress to look hopefully in our direction, sigh, and uncork another bottle. As she filled my glass, I was on the very verge of asking for the check when, in a tidal wave of white water, a large powerboat entered the channel and bore down upon us.

  “I hope that sucker has brakes,” I said, striving for nonchalance while mentally judging the distance to the nearest emergency exit.

  Jan looked up and eeked in alarm, but sat her ground.

  The waitress grumbled, “Idiots at the helm,” and hustled off to safety behind the bar.

  Although tempted to follow her, we were held in thrall, gaping as the boat suddenly turned and was washed against the dock by her own wake, a tsunami that sent several tons of water crashing against the building’s pilings. The restaurant swayed slightly, or maybe it was the effects of free champers catching up with me.

  “Cradle robbers,” Jan pronounced as we watched three men—one stout, one tall and lanky, one medium—and three very attractive women a couple of decades their juniors reel towards us on the wave-pitched landing. They took the table recently abandoned by the treadmill twins.

  The tallest man, a Nordic type with that big boned, square shouldered look I love, had his arm slung casually around a stunning brunette who couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five. The other two men, my piercing peripheral vision confirmed, were also fortyish. They, too, sported twenty types. And all six wore red windbreakers embroidered with the name of the boat: Sea Cock.

  “Oh, my ears and whiskers, Miz Alice,” I whispered, twitching my nose as I pictured White Rabbit would, “do you suppose there’s truth in advertising? And there, my dear girl, is why you and I are eating brunch with each other. The men we should be with want twenty-year-olds. Maybe we should start looking for a couple of seventy-year-olds.”

  “Hush, they’ll hear you,” Jan whispered. Then she added, “Besides, the septuagenarians want duagenarians, too.”

  “I don’t think there’s such a word as duagen—hey, the chubby, windburned guy in the middle is staring at you. Don’t look.”

  She never listens. Her cherry cheeked admirer gave Jan a wide smile and bid us good morning. We nodded and lifted our glasses. I bestowed the sextet with a recently bleached smile of my own, hoping I didn’t have spinach quiche or caviar stuck to my dazzling dentistry. Evidently not, for after a few pleasantries were exchanged, we were invited to join their table. A couple of the women didn’t seem all that pleased, but Jan swears I could talk myself past a White House marine.

  The waitress returned to take their orders, noted our change of locale, sighed, and with her flair for the obvious, asked if, by some wild chance Jan and I would care for another glass of champagne.

  Lars Jenkins, Jan’s hefty admirer, made introductions. I quickly dismissed the women and concentrated on Lars’s brother, Tall Nordic Bob, and Garrison, the owner of Sea Cock.

  Bob, after complaining about the prices, rudely ignored my witty badinage, preferring to converse quietly with his nestling. Too quietly, even though my acute auditory antennae were aimed in their direction. He had pulled off his Sea Cock jacket to reveal a truly ugly, polyester print shirt. For shame: poly-ugly on a guy who could wear almost anything and look good. I could forgive the shirt, but not his blatant disregard for my precious self. But so what? Who needed the badly clad Viking cheapskate? And who dressed this guy? The Salvation Army?

  I turned my attention to the more receptive and nattily attired Garrison, who at least had a boat and supported the cotton industry.

  An hour later, when our newfound friends made a splashy departure, I proffered my American Express Platinum to our long-suffering waitress. She grabbed it, rushing away to tabulate before we changed our minds.

  “My stars, Miz Jan, that was purely depressing. Here we have three perfectly good men who are chronologically, geographically and heterosexually suitable for us thirty-somethings, glommed up by Campfire Girls.”

  “I never saw any Campfire Girls who looked like that. Let’s face it, we ain’t spring chickens any more,” Jan said, “and you are swiftly taking leave of thirtyanything.” This from a thirty-five-year-old. The young can be so cruel.

  The waitress returned with my charge slip, I signed my name and then, as she hovered, I started to write in the tip, stopped, and squinted at her nametag. “Nicole,” I asked, “how old do you think I am?”

  Nicole looked at the ballpoint pen poised above the tip line, then at me. “For . . . uh, . thirty, uh, one?”

  I shot Jan a self-satisfied grin and wrote a gratuity generous enough to win a smile and a topped off champagne glass.

  “Shameless bribery,” Jan huffed.

  I sat back, watched Sea Cock power out of sight, and took the sip of champagne that tipped me into stage two inebriation: Socratic.

  “Dog years,” I slurred.

  Jan sighed. After over fifteen years of friendship, she knew whatever fell out of my mouth next could range from abjectly stupid to moderately brilliant. I could tell from the look on her face she was not going to encourage either. But, of course, that didn’t stop me.

  “Men 'n' dawgs. Dogs ain’t worth a diddlydamn until they’re five, and men 'til they’re fifty. Canine maturity must have something to do with getting their pockets picked at an early age. And they skip the infernal midlife crisis stuff. Must be why dogs don’t buy corvettes and yachts.”

  Jan giggled at my convoluted conjecture, we clinked glasses, and another profundity effervesced as I squinted in the direction of the departed Sea Cock. “Buy it and they will come,” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “Remember that movie? Where Kevin “the hunk” Costner builds a baseball diamond in a cornfield? Buy it and they will come,” I repeated. “If we had a boat, Miz Jan, we could get men.”

  2

  Our morning, before my champagne inspired and somewhat specious pronouncement about using a boat as a mantrap, started out crappy.

  “Men 'n' dawgs,” I told Jan as we sat in my living room earlier that day.

  My friend dabbed a tear and snuffled, “They sure are, Hetta.”

  “Jan, I didn’t say men are dogs. I said men and dogs. In my opinion, men aren’t worth a damn until they’re fifty. And dogs until they’re five.”

  Jan bobbed her head and said with a pout, “Nice dogs are easy to find. Not like men.”

  “So true,” I agreed. “Of course, some say that men and buses come along every fifteen minutes, but I say most aren’t headed in the right direction. That Richard of yours? He sure ain’t no first class ride, so to speak, but never fear, because,” I cranked up the CD player and sang along with Martha Wash as she belted out, “It’s raining men, hallelujah!”

  For effect, I added a few Holy Roller moves to my routine and finished by tossing a chenille throw over my shoulders à la James Brown. It was a spectacularly uplifting performance, should you ask me.

  Jan, however, gave me a dolefully and decidedly unlifted and sodden gaze while blowing her nose into her equally sodden Hermes kerchief. Critics abound. “Buh . . . but, what should I do?”

  “Dump him. BD… ” I caught myself before using my nickname for her boyfriend: BDR. Big Dick Richard. I didn’t think this the suitable moment to remind Jan of, in my opinion, Richa
rd’s sole asset. “The man is a roué. A common boulevardier. A gigolo, if you will.”

  An unwelcome image of Richard Farnsworth III—he pronounced it Reeshárd, the phony—popped into my mind. Tall, honey hued, honey tongued, and handsome. Charming in a smarmy sort of way. I slapped my mind from his crotch and concentrated on his bad points.

  “Richard Fartsworth has no job, unless you count those brief stints modeling briefs, and no prospects. He’s been mooching off you for over a year, all the while screwing some fat twenty-year-old across town. And goodness knows who else. Dump him,” I repeated, using my best “off with his head” pose and sloshing a drop or two of vodka and V8 Picante onto my peach-toned carpet.

  This she found amusing. Jan smiled crookedly at my antics and wiped salty rivulets from her laugh lines. Then, unfolding to a full five eleven, she focused her baby blues down on me and announced, “You know, you’re right. I should and will dump the sorry SOB.” Then her face fell as she plopped back down on the couch. “But then I’ll be all alone. Like you.”

  I flumped down beside her. “I’m not alone. I have RJ.”

  “Humph,” she grunted.

  “Humph, yourself. RJ has many desirable attributes. Beautiful red hair, big brown eyes with lashes to die for, keen intelligence. And he’s totally devoted to me. I can quite overlook his house rattling snores and noxious farts.”

  “RJ is a dawg,” Jan declared unkindly.

  “Yeah, well, so is BDR. At least RJ has a pedigree. Reechard’s a cur.”

  “I suspect RJ’s papers are forged,” Jan challenged. “How come a yellow Labrador has red hair?”

  “How come I do?” I asked, handing her a huge opening in an attempt to get her mind off BDR. The things you do for your friends.

  It worked. She chortled. “In your case it’s Preference by L’Oreal when you’re feeling cheap and René l’Exorbitant when you’re flush.”

  RJ, who had been following our repartee with the concentration of an avid tennis fan, thumped his tail in agreement.

  “Tattle tail,” I growled.

  Jan suddenly recalled her crisis du jour and sniffed, “Okay, so you’re not all alone. You have a dog. But you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  My hand automatically flew to the small key hanging from a chain around my neck, a reflex Jan didn’t miss. “Sorry, Hetta.”

  “No big deal.” And I meant it. I only wore the key, I told myself, as a reminder to be more careful. I also had myself convinced that I was fully recovered from my disastrous affair with Hudson “the jilter” Williams, in Tokyo five years before. Shoot, it’s not like I’d been totally devoid of male companionship for eighteen hundred and forty two days. Just sex. And that didn’t count, did it?

  Mulling over my manless state, I took another sip of Saturday morning heart starter. “You know,” I mused, “we both need a change. New horizons. First things first, though. Brunch.”

  * * *

  Our Zairian taxi driver, after politely putting up with my chatty Kathy self all the way from Berkeley, just as politely passed on my invitation to stay for a drink. He pocketed his tariff and fat tip and chugged away from my Oakland hills home in a yellow and rust clatter.

  RJ, who had been whining and snuffling through the mail slot, pounced when I opened the front door to my house. He circled, his ecstatic tail walloping the air as he sniffed for doggy bags. I scratched his ears with one hand while punching numbers on a blinking alarm pad with the other. Once the security system was disarmed, Jan began to pace and wail.

  “Are you out of your mind, Hetta Coffey? It’s a jungle out there. You can’t invite strange men into your house anymore,” she railed. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  “Oh, pshaw, Miss Kitty, I reckon I only know strange men. Besides, that hombre weren’t no danger to the likes of us.” I broke with my Gunsmoke routine and added, “Jesus, what’s the world coming to? Our mothers only had to worry about getting knocked up, then the seventies came and no one cared. Along came the eighties with herpes horror and killer sex. And I don’t mean that kindly. What happened to the good ole days when our motto was, ‘A shot of penicillin in the ass ain’t much fun, but neither is sleeping alone?’ Now you tell me I can’t talk to people?”

  Jan gave me that look, the one that says, imbecile. “Gee, Hetta, I can’t even imagine it. You’ll talk to a fence post. I mean you need to be more careful. A little more discerning, perhaps?”

  “Jean-Luc is an exchange student and taxi driver, not a mass murderer. And he isn’t from the jungle, as you would know if you’d learn to speak French.”

  “Oh, get off your high horse. Not all of us were lucky enough to learn French as a child like you did. Or go to college in France.”

  “Hey, Daddy built dams all over the world, and I was a camp follower. What can I say? I like speaking French and rarely get to, what with consorting with the unlettered and all.” Jan launched a throw pillow at me. Touchy, these bourgeoisie.

  “Jan, that’s not why they’re called throw pillows,” I said, tossing back the cushion. “And to get back to the subject of Jean-Luc, it’s taxi drivers like him who’re getting mugged. He probably figured we were gonna mug him and—zut, alor! RJ, put a brake on that tail,” I scolded, righting a potted palm that fell victim to his derriere of doom. I headed for the couch, an unrepentant and still-wriggling RJ in close pursuit.

  “You know, Hetta, he probably thought you were coming on to him.”

  “Who?”

  “The cab driver. Not everyone understands your,uh, friendliness. Especially men. You come off as sort of forward.”

  “Forward, fooey,” I said with a wave of dismissal while sinking into down-filled cushions. “I don’t know why everyone takes themselves so damned seriously. I like meeting new people. I can’t believe....” My hand settled onto the middle of a cushion. “Ah-hah! What do we have here? A warm spot? Bejeweled with goldy red hairs? On my chamois leather Roche-Bobois settee?”

  RJ averted his eyes and raised a paw, the one attached to the leg he’d broken in a dustup with a truck several years before. He’d led with his left.

  I fought a smile and asked, “Auntie Jan, do you think such a really bad dog deserves a dollop of pâté?”

  RJ’s ears moved with each dreaded word. REALLY, twitch. BAD, half-mast. DOG, flat out. He gave me his best hangdog look and inched forward.

  “How warm is the spot?” Jan asked.

  “Medium warm.”

  “Give him a medium dollop.”

  Slowly, teasingly, I dug a soggy napkin from my pocket while RJ trembled with anticipation. His patience pushed to the limit, he raided my hand and gulped down the napkin and contents, belching liver breath in appreciation.

  “Would you care for a Tums chaser with your papier-mâché treat?” I asked. He nosed my hand for more.

  “You should buy him his own couch, Hetta. Hell, you bought him his own car.”

  “I paid more for this couch than I did RJ’s Volkswagen, and I’ll thank him to keep his furry rump off my overpriced Roche.”

  “You heard her, RJ, come sit here on the floor with your favorite auntie while we watch a little tube.”

  3

  I woke to a very young, slightly fuzzy, Bette Davis wiping down the countertop in a shabby diner. Jan and RJ slept on the carpet, their heads sharing a throw pillow. The clock read eight. I screamed, “Get up! You’re late for work.”

  Jan sat up in a confused daze, then glared at me. “Hetta, you moron, it’s Saturday night.”

  The sour aftertaste of our champagne brunch verified that fact. As I made a dash for the Mentadent, I grumbled, “Then, we’re late for terrorizing some skuzzy bar.”

  “I’ve got a unique idea. Let’s stay home,” Jan said with a yawn. RJ opened one eye and moved his head into her lap. “We can build a fire, maybe pop some Orville. Caramel coated.”

  “Listen, Girl Scout, just because you have no date tonight doesn’t mean my social life has to stop.”

 
“What social life?”

  She had a point.

  We made a double batch of macaroni and cheese laced with canned Rotel tomatoes and chiles, added extra Velveeta Pasteurized Processed Cheese Spread, opened a package of Fritos and uncorked a fiasco of rotgut red. To hell with that pestiferous food pyramid.