Excerpt
This is an excerpt from the first in Louise Gaylord's
Allie Armington mystery series, Anacacho:
CHAPTER 1 - Section 3
The morning dawns gray and humid. By the time I arrive
at the fashionable uptown restaurant my hair has seized-up into “brand-new-perm” mode.
That and the fact that I’m ten minutes early and I know Reena
will be her usual twenty minutes late puts me in a sour mood.
The maître d’ gushes when I mention Carpenter.
A regular for years, he says. So lovely.
Damn. If Reena’s been a regular at Rudi’s
for years. Why did it take her so long to track me down?
He leads me through the dimly lit room to a table
in the far corner. Refusing the offer of a glass of champagne,
I spend the next few minutes composing myself and dealing with
that cold stone at the bottom of my stomach that is fast becoming
a boulder.
Reena has arrived. A buzz rolls through the crowd.
She unloads five Neiman Marcus shopping bags on the hapless maítre
d’, then threads her way through the gawkers toward me.
She is still devastatingly beautiful, a startling
clone of Farrah Fawcett who paraded across the UT campus some twenty
years before we did. No wonder the Tri Delts were thrilled to pledge
Reena. All the Greeks were after her. It didn’t matter she
hailed from a hole in the middle of the road, they knew she would
be the talk of the campus and she was. Susie and I were simply
drawn along in her wake.
Not that there weren’t plenty of benefits. Reena
played a role in every prank the guys thought up, so Susie and
I not only visited every fraternity house on campus, but went on
more beer busts than I care to count.
She gives me an air-kiss, settles in the offered
chair, then leans across the table to cover my hand. She rasps, “I’ve
missed you, Allie. Please say you’ve missed me. Just a little?”
I only hesitate a nanosecond. “I haven’t
had much time to miss anybody.”
It’s almost the truth. My dogged pursuit of
the law and my burgeoning career saved my sanity. After I lost
Paul, I buried myself in a three-year grind at University of Houston
Law including summer internships and Law Review. Now, the job with
the DA and my blooming relationship with Duncan have almost filled
the gaping hole my first love left.
I see Reena’s smile brighten to a full ten on
the sparkle-meter. It’s her Farrah Fawcett number, aptly dubbed
by my sister Angela who noticed the resemblance the first time
she came to visit. Susie added validity when she caught Reena looking
at one of the movie star’s pictures in a magazine, then practicing
in the mirror. I grin to myself remembering how Susie and I shortened “Farrah
Fawcett” to “Double F” so Reena wouldn’t catch
on.
Suddenly anxious to put a quick end to this meaningless
charade I say, “Maybe we should order.”
When the waiter arrives, Reena orders vodka-on-the-rocks
and, seemingly oblivious to his presence, bends forward as her
face collapses. “Oh, Allie, seeing you is the best thing that’s
happened to me in years.” She pauses to let a single crocodile
tear roll slowly down her cheek, dabs it away with her napkin,
then blurts, “Lately, my life has been one living disaster.”
Above us the waiter clears his throat. “And
what about you, ma’am?”
I flash him a knowing grin. “My life is fine,
thank you.”
Reena glares at my small joke and I order a white
wine. When he walks away, I say, “What do you mean disaster?
You have a huge mansion with staff and a Citation jet to boot.”
Those limpid pools dry to dark holes and she hisses, “Don’t
believe everything Susie Baxter tells you.”
I start to add that Darden is now Susie’s last
name, but think better of it.
We trade trivia until the drinks arrive.
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