Chapter Three

The next few hours passed in a blur. I rented out tiger, fairy, and princess costumes to little girls, valiant knights and firefighter costumes to young boys. And to the adult sector: witches and warlocks, adult-sized babies with big diapers and pacifiers. Old ladies with curlers. Pirates waltzed out with maidens. Pumpkins shimmied away with belly dancers (not from the lingerie shop, but the kind that hid at least some of the human anatomy while still being sexy). I also did a brisk business from the boudoir, including three leather bustiers and a riding crop, with feathers in black to complement the metallic silver of the handle, that went flying out the door.

Yikes!

But I kept telling myself, “It pays the bills,” as I rang up each nasty little purchase. Although when I sold a fat old man a wrestling-style banana hammock in sparkling pink, I felt my gorge rise. You could not pay me enough to see the end result of that costume.

As I mentioned before, we weren’t a large town, and so there weren’t many duplicates, but I did have two separate orders for flapper costumes. Strange, maybe it was a vintage thing. So I rummaged around in the storeroom—another room I’d found at the top of a set of stairs when Kitty pointed—where I finally found the fringed skirts.

There were three of the skirts in the frigid attic. As I looked through more boxes to find the headdresses, one of the skirts kept drawing my eye. It was beautiful, a soft lavender, with sparkles in the fringe that picked up the meager light filtering through the grimy upstairs windows. I imagined myself in the skirt, sashaying my way into the big Harvest Halloween Ball at the Community Center. My invitation had arrived in the mail three days ago, and I’d decided to go. It was good for business, I told myself. Really, though, I wanted to meet some men. I’d been working so hard for the last two weeks—moving, then waiting through the probate, I’d hardly seen anyone, much less any eligible males. Despite Bella’s snort when I’d asked about the single male population of Martha’s Point, I still hoped some were here and available.

My legs would look really good in the costume. I’d been running around so much lately—as opposed to all the sitting I’d done as a secretary—surely I must have shed a few pounds in two weeks. Plus not having to cook for my dad was an added bonus to the move to my new beloved town. He was a meat-and-potatoes man, and now I could make a salad. And if the salad was all I wanted, I didn’t have to suffer through making his dinner anymore. His favorite beef stroganoff was filled with fattening egg noodles that constantly tempted me to taste-test.

It was after eight and the sky was black by the time I trooped down from the attic. I laid out the individual pieces of the flapper ensembles on the counter in the now quiet shop. We, Kitty and I, had closed around six, at her insistence. Why I let her tell me what time to close is still a mystery to me. This was my store.

“It’s five after six,” she’d said with a pointed glance at her imitation leather-banded watch. I could tell time with the best of them, and the large grandfather clock in the far corner had gonged out the hour just minutes ago. I knew what time it was.

“Gertie always closed at precisely six. People set their clocks to the door locking and the lights going off here.”

Blah, blah, blah. I ignored her as I continued to polish the counter, hoping she would go away.

Not thirty seconds passed before she started up again. “You know, we won’t get any more customers this evening. We’ve always been done and gone by six. No one will come by after six.”

“Kitty, you are more than welcome to go.” And never come back. “I still have some things I want to do here, but I don’t want to keep you past your normal time.” Heaven forbid her meatloaf didn’t make it to the table when expected.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that to you, dear. I wouldn’t feel right leaving you here all by yourself. What if you didn’t lock up the store properly or couldn’t get the day’s receipts to balance? Besides, we girls have to stick together. We really should be going. People will think something’s wrong if we stay any later. And gracious, someone might actually go so far as to call the police to make sure everything is all right. I bet they’ll think a burglary is in progress because the lights are on in here and it’s…” She gasped after looking at her watch again. “It’s almost six-thirty.”

Obnoxious poop. So it was six-thirty. Surely the National Guard was not going to come out because my store was still open. I wanted to tell her to get the hell out, but two things held me back. First, the wuss gene reared its ugly head and I backed down. And second, I didn’t know enough about the store yet to take over running it completely without her help. I was in a bind, and you don’t bite the hand that rings up the sales. That blasted antique register still baffled me.

After a lot of coaxing, Kitty finally left on her own, without me having to toss her out on her old, flat butt. I tried to subtly insert a little something like, “You’re on my turf, playing by my rules,” into our brief conversation, but I fumbled. Again.

Once she was gone, I locked the doors and fielded a call from the cops, who were checking to make sure everything was okay and did I know it was after six? Argh. I told them I’d be in the attic until about eight. And that’s precisely what I proceeded to do. I did not want some patrol guy to come over to make sure I wasn’t stealing from my own store.

I wish someone would put out a catalog filled with things like brass balls and steel backbones. I’d order in a heartbeat.

I jerked myself out of remembering Kitty and the annoyance that seemed to go hand in hand with her. Instead, I concentrated on the pieces and parts of the costumes laid out on the counter in front of me. I set to work on finding any rips or tears—imperfections—in the garments. One fringed top needed mending at the shoulder, but otherwise I was in business. I put the separate pieces into a bag marked with the word CLEANERS and took a soft paintbrush from under the counter to clean the feathers on one of the headpieces.

Anyway, at least now I had the place to myself. And after poking around in the nooks and crannies of The Masked Shoppe, I fell in love. The bustle and noise had died, and in its place was a quiet Celtic soundtrack playing through the speakers in the rafters. I’d found the coolest old stereo in the boudoir’s closet, with a stack of tapes. The system was completely pre-CD. The toe of my shoe tapped out the hypnotic rhythm of the music on the wood flooring.

An okay first day, I thought, and hummed to the music as it whispered across the deserted main room. I’d left the candles burning throughout the day, and they still gave off the welcome smell of apples. Black apple candles. Go figure. Cream-tinted I could see, but Kitty told me a local candle maker would put any dye color on a chosen scented candle for a little extra. Wonder if I paid for those candles? Petty, I know, but I vowed to keep a closer eye on things now that I knew I was not the only one with a key.

And that reminded me about the lack of a return call from my esteemed attorney. Well, I’d worry about it tomorrow. My first day as a proprietress had been worse than I expected. My optimistic side said tomorrow would be better. I snorted at that side, but inwardly still found a little hope that it was right.

Of course, that’s never the way things actually work. Instead of a day that could only top the one before, I walked into chaos of a different kind on my second day.

Setting my alarm clock for five, I chose another brown outfit for the day, this one a straight dark chocolate skirt paired with a silk blouse. The skirt brushed my ankles and managed to slim down the overly abundant curves I owned. Tiny leaves in all the colors of autumn floated down from the rounded neck of the silk shirt. I looked good, not that the Bouquet would agree, since it was still brown, but they weren’t here.

So back to the chaos. I didn’t notice anything at first, because the front of the shop was in perfect order: costumes and props hanging from silver bars attached to the wall, big wardrobe filled with ball gowns and evening formal wear hanging in a straight row, unlit candles ensconced in pretty puddles of black. Perfect, right?

The trouble started when I opened the small door to the broom-closet-sized room that led into the boudoir. The royal purple material, draped so becomingly yesterday, hung slightly askew. Not a big deal. Maybe someone brushed up against it on their way out yesterday. Maybe Jackie had jerked the material in her huff to get away from the likes of me. Who knew? Although I thought I would have seen it before leaving last night.

I had my answer when I walked into the main part of the boudoir. It looked like a freaking cyclone had hit Frederick’s of Hollywood. Bras and crotchless panties hung from the previously romantic sconces, like leftovers from a bachelor party. Thigh-high stockings and garters littered the floor. After I did a thorough check, I found every single piece of lingerie, every sexy outfit, every panty or bra, was out of place.

The strangest thing about all this was it appeared all the inventory was there except items over a size fourteen. Weird. Not a single plus-sized bra or panty lay among the ruins of the room. No sexy nightgowns with X-anything on the tags. Nothing. It appeared someone had broken in and made off with all the lingerie for the full-bodied woman.

“What the hell is going on?” I said aloud to the wrecked room. As if on cue, the bell tinkled above the door I’d purposely locked behind me when I came in.