Shop Till You Drop: A Dead-End Job Mystery - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

On Wednesday, Helen met a woman who could not frown.

The frownless female was another amazing customer at Juliana’s. The store was on Las Olas Boulevard, the fashionable, palm-fringed shopping area in downtown Fort Lauderdale. After working two weeks there, Helen thought she’d seen every kind of expensive kept woman.

The woman who could not frown did not seem all that different from the other customers who were buzzed inside. You could not simply walk into Juliana’s. The elegant green door was locked to keep out undesirables: sunburned tourists in “I Love Florida” T-shirts, harried mothers with sticky-fingered children, and the hopelessly unfashionable.

This exclusive policy was never stated, but everyone on Las Olas knew it. Some women walked on by, never ringing Juliana’s doorbell. They knew the green door would not open for them.

Woe to those who tried and failed. A woman turned away from Juliana’s might tell herself that the clothes were overpriced and made for skinny little bimbos. That was true. But it was also true that Ms. Reject had been publicly branded as without style, and worse, that Juliana’s could not help her.

This added to the thrill of those who were admitted by Christina, the head saleswoman. When the green door swung open, some women had the same celestial look of relief and joy that wavering saints must wear when admitted into heaven.

But Brittney, the woman who could not frown, did not register any emotion at all, not even when she squealed “Christina!” and air-kissed her.

Brittney was a longtime customer and a big spender. Helen could tell that by the way Christina had moved across the room, like a quick cat pouncing on her prey. She even hugged Brittney. Christina only touched people who spent lots of money.

As they stood implant to implant, Helen thought the two women looked enough alike to be sisters. Both had long blonde hair (dyed), plump pouty lips (collagened), and sapphire blue eyes (contacts). It went without saying that they dieted to starvation.

They were dressed alike, too. Both wore casual clothes that cost a fortune and stayed in style about two and a half seconds. By next season, Brittney would have given her thousand-dollar outfit to the maid, and Christina would have sent hers to the consignment shop.

Before she worked at Juliana’s, Helen had only seen these styles on MTV. Christina and Brittney wore low-rise pants tight enough to show the freckles on their butts, high heels and low necklines. Both bared their shoulders and flat tummies pierced with silver rings.

But Christina looked like Brittney’s older sister, although Helen suspected they were the same age. Brittney belonged in those revealing clothes. Christina looked a little too old for them. Maybe it was the lines running from her nose to her mouth or the fine furrows in her forehead. The nights she spent crawling the South Beach clubs were starting to show in Christina’s skin.

Brittney didn’t have any wrinkles, and she hadn’t had a facelift, either. Helen had worked at the shop long enough to know what good and bad facelifts looked like.

“Let me see. Let me see,” Christina said, examining Brittney’s smooth oval face. “It looks perfect.”

“It worked,” Brittney said, in a soft, sultry voice that sounded like a sigh in a seraglio. “I’ve met a wonderful new man. He has a house in Golden Beach.”

Golden Beach was aptly named. Oceanfront homes there started at just under three million dollars. Brittney had a rich catch. She presented Christina with a small gold gift bag, packed with crimson tissue paper. “I brought you a little present.”

Many of Christina’s customers brought her little presents. Helen thought they were trying to curry favor, so that green door would always open for them.

Christina’s long, slender hand rustled around in the tissue paper like a small predator and pulled out a Movado watch with a mother-of-pearl museum dial and a matching lizard strap. “Pink! The new color. Although my favorite color is green,” she said, and laughed.

Brittney did not laugh. Maybe she couldn’t, Helen thought.

“Come on back and sit down,” Christina said, as if she was inviting a friend into her home for a chat. Helen was relieved when she saw Brittney head for the sitting area. Juliana’s sales associates were only allowed to sit if a customer sat first. If there were no customers, they had to stand. The owner spot-checked the security camera tapes to make sure that rule was followed.

Christina offered Brittney a drink.

“Evian, please,” she said, in that velvet whisper.

The super-skinny ones always wanted water. Christina hurried to the back room for Evian water. Helen and Brittney strolled past a single Hermes scarf draped on a mahogany sideboard that had once been in a Rockefeller mansion. (“This isn’t a rummage sale,” Christina had told Helen. “Never put out a pile of anything.”)

They passed two pale blue six-hundred-dollar blouses on a dark, sleek wood rack. Hanging next to them were the matching jackets. They were two thousand each.

Brittney spotted a spaghetti-strap knit top on a rosewood wine table. It was a turquoise knit edged with hot pink crocheted lace. Made of viscose and polyester, the scrap of cloth weighed little more than a Kleenex.

“How much?” Brittney said. Juliana’s never used price tags.

“Three hundred fifteen dollars,” Helen said. She could say that now with a straight face. When Helen first saw the top, she thought it looked like a Kmart special, and that polyester and viscose belonged on trailer trash. Now she knew what it could do for the right woman. So did Brittney.

“It’s adorable,” she said, and draped it over one arm.

“We have the pants to go with it,” Helen said. Brittney didn’t reply. Her attention was captured by a snakeskin handbag. “How much?” she said, stroking it with exquisitely manicured fingers.

“Four fifty,” Helen said.

Brittney draped the turquoise top over the snake bag and carried both to the back of the store. Three black silk-satin loveseats formed a triangle in front of a gilt-framed triple mirror. Behind the loveseats, on a black marble pedestal, was a porcelain vase filled with fashionable flowers that looked like sex toys and bath brushes.

Helen, a solid size twelve, sank into the loveseat. Brittney was so tiny, she barely disturbed the surface. Even her couch doesn’t wrinkle, thought Helen.

Helen wanted to hate Brittney, but she couldn’t. She liked the woman. There was something winsome about her. Brittney didn’t ignore Helen, the way some customers did. While she waited for Christina to return, Brittney said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. You are?”

“Helen Hawthorne. I’m the new sales associate.”

Brittney held out her hand, and Helen shook it. It felt soft but strong. Brittney’s skinny arms were corded with high-priced gym muscle.

“How long have you lived here?” asked Brittney.

This was the polite greeting in South Florida. Almost no one was from here. No one you wanted to know, anyway.

“Not too long,” Helen said.

“She moved down here from the Midwest,” Christina said, coming back with Evian and a chilled crystal goblet.

“Oh,” Brittney said. No one ever cared enough to ask where in the Midwest. Fort Lauderdale was a suburb of New York, which had no interest in the nation’s boring midsection. The Midwest was the land of pot roasts and pot bellies. No one went there. No one would pry into Helen’s secret.

“And what did you do there?”...