Shop Till You Drop

Chapter 6

The rest of the afternoon, Christina and Brittney plotted revenge against Joe. The two women huddled on the black love seats like sorceresses casting spells, furious and beautiful and frightening. If Joe, or any other man, had walked into the store, they would have torn him apart with their teeth and nails.

At least they can’t turn Joe into a toad, Helen thought. He already is one.

Helen didn’t want to listen to their plots. But their soft, insinuating whispers were somehow louder than ordinary conversation. Helen caught about every third sentence, no matter how much she tried to block it out.

She heard them say, “Turn him into the IRS . . . reward . . . How about Immigration? No, not them. Bad idea. . . . Some guys in Miami would like to know what he’s up to, though, and they aren’t as nice as the IRS. . . . Brittney, what about your old boyfriend, Vinnie? . . . When I finish, Joe will wish he was never born.”

Helen wished a customer would come in, but no one did. She wished the phone would ring. That wish was granted. Even better, the caller was Sarah, the woman Christina had declared too fat to enter Juliana’s.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get back with you sooner,” Sarah said. “I was on vacation at Atlantis in the Bahamas.”

“Very chic. Also, very expensive. Did your boyfriend take you?”

“What boyfriend?” Sarah said. “I took myself. I met a guy while I was there, though.”

“Anything serious?”

“No, thank God.”

Juliana’s world of desperate, dependent women fell away. Helen was talking with a working woman now. This was her world, and she knew the rules.

“If you can afford Atlantis, you must be doing well,” Helen said. “Where are you working?”

“It would take too long to explain. Why don’t you come to my place on the beach for dinner tonight?”

“I’d love to, but my car’s in the shop,” Helen lied. She was too proud to admit she didn’t have the money to fix it.

“Then I’ll pick you up after work,” Sarah said. “I’m doing research at the downtown library this afternoon. I can swing by Juliana’s on my way home. I’ll fix dinner. Nothing fancy. Do you like Florida lobsters?”

“Love them,” Helen said. “I think they’re tastier than Maine lobsters. What can I bring?”

“Just yourself.”

Helen walked over by the Federal Highway and spent her lunch money buying flowers from the young Cuban woman who sold roses and sunflowers on the street corner. She’d fill up on rice cakes.

At six that night, Sarah pulled in front of Juliana’s in her new green Range Rover and honked. Helen ran out with her flowers. She invited Sarah inside, but was relieved when her friend said no. Helen didn’t want to argue with the witchy Christina about the fat and unfashionable.

Sarah lived in Hollywood, a beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Hollywood Beach was lost in the Fifties. The beach was lined with pastel two-story motels and tiny Deco beach houses. Sarah lived next to the Bel-Aire Beach Motel in a five-story condo right on the ocean.

The condo was pretty, but the ocean view was stunning. The turquoise-blue ocean melted into the deeper blue sky streaked cerise and gold by the sunset. The sunset turned the sand a golden pink.

The beach was nearly empty. But below Sarah’s deck was a wide strip of asphalt with a continual parade of people. “They are my entertainment,” Sarah said. “It’s better than TV.”

While Sarah and Helen ate chilled lobsters and salad on the deck, they saw a man ride by on a fat-tired bicycle, a big blue macaw sitting solemnly on his handle bars. He was followed by a woman in a motorized wheelchair, sailing majestically down the boardwalk. Her black-and-white Boston terrier stood in the front of the vehicle like a figurehead on a ship. A Cuban family giggled and ate drippy ice-cream cones. Roller bladers in black spandex skated around children on scooters.

“This is charming,” Helen said. “And there’s not a liposuction or a facelift in the bunch.”

“Not around here,” Sarah said, patting her generous tummy. A charm bracelet jingled cheerfully on her shapely wrist. “Want to go for a walk after dinner?”

They joined the throng, passing dozens of little restaurants: Angelo’s Corner, Ocean Alley, and Istanbul, a Turkish restaurant.

At a T-shirt shop, they read the shirt slogans. “We divorced for religious reasons. My husband thought he was God,” one said.

“That describes my ex,” Sarah said.

“Mine thought he was the devil in bed,” Helen said. “I came home from work early one afternoon and caught him with our next-door neighbor. Right in the act.”

“That must have been awful.”

“It was. I never realized Rob had such a hairy butt,” Helen said.

“I hope you screwed him back in the divorce,” Sarah said.

“I just wanted to get away from him,” Helen said, truthfully. “Listen, I need to apologize about what happened at Juliana’s last week. There was no excuse. It was rude.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I know the store doesn’t want a large woman like me in there,” Sarah said. “I’m bad for Juliana’s image.” Helen looked at her curly-haired friend in her cool white linen jacket and felt worse.

“That’s stupid. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sarah said. “It’s not important to me. I heard you were working there, and I wanted to stop by and say hello.”

“So what do you do these days?” Helen asked. They’d talked too much about her.

“As little as possible,” Sarah said, and grinned.

“No, seriously.”

“I live on the beach. I made some money in investments, and I don’t have to work fulltime. I take a few consulting jobs when I feel like it. But I’ll never have to wear pantyhose again. And you know what? I don’t miss the office one bit. I originally moved to Florida to take care of my mother. She had cancer. I nursed her for two years. She died in February of 2000.”

“I’m sorry,” Helen said.

“I am, too. I miss Mom. When she passed away, she left me some property, including this condo. I wanted to live here, but her tenant’s lease wasn’t up until last month.”

“So that’s why you left the Coronado,” Helen said.

“Yeah, I liked it there, but I wanted my own place. I sold Mom’s other property and sank the money into Krispy Kreme stock.”

“Doughnuts?”

“I love those suckers. You can tell that by looking at me,” Sarah said. “When I bought it, all the financial advisors said that Krispy Kreme was expected to be a poor performer, but I thought anything that good was sure to succeed. I put all my inheritance into Krispy Kreme stock. Bought it at the IPO price of twenty-one dollars.”

“Did you just say IPO?” Helen said. “The women I hang around with now think that’s a French designer.”

“Nope, it was a tasty deal,” Sarah said. “Stock shot up like a rocket. I sold it when it hit sixty dollars a share. That was a good time to get out. It started tumbling soon after. I kept a few shares for sentimental reasons. Then I took most of that money and sank it into adult diaper stock.”

“From doughnuts to diapers? Why?” Helen said. “That’s a weird choice.”

“Not at all. When my mother was sick, I couldn’t get this one brand, because it was so popular. I had friends on the lookout for it all over the country. They would ship it to me. I figured anything so in demand was only going to go up. Besides, none of us boomers are getting any younger. Adult diapers are a growth industry. So I bought diaper stock and made more money. Then I sold it again.

“I only bought companies I liked—and sold what I didn’t. It was such a satisfying way to do business. When my old ink-jet printer died, I bought this highly recommended laser printer. It was a turkey. I was on the phone all day, arguing with customer service. I sold that stock the next day. Good thing, too. The company announced major lay-offs a month later, and that stock went down the tube.”

“They all went down the tube after September eleventh,” Helen said, with a sigh.

“I was mostly out of the market by then and into nice, safe T-bonds,” Sarah said. “I hope you weren’t caught in the crash.”

“I had airline stock,” Helen said. “And Enron.”

“Oh,” Sarah said. There was nothing else to say. Helen didn’t mention that the stock market crash made it hard for her to pay her lawyer. That’s where most of her money went—to the man who abandoned her in court.

The two women watched a father and his son fly a dragon kite on the sand. Some college kids were playing Ultimate Loop Frisbee.

“So you owe this fabulous life on the beach to Krispy Kreme doughnuts?”

“That’s right,” Sarah said. They looked at the sea and sunset. The evening clouds were whipped-cream mounds tinged with lavender. The air smelled of salt and coconut suntan oil.

“All this talk of Krispy Kreme is making me hungry,” Sarah said. “Want to go on a doughnut expedition?”

“Sure! Let’s make you richer,” Helen said.

Imagine, someone who didn’t agonize about eating a doughnut, Helen thought. She had to get out of that store and spend more time with normal people. She wasn’t sure the Coronado crowd counted.

The closest Krispy Kreme was twenty minutes away. As Sarah’s Range Rover pulled into the lot, the neon sign was flashing.

“Fresh doughnuts!” Sarah said. They raced for the store, laughing all the way. Inside, Helen breathed in the sugary, grease-perfumed air. They ordered a dozen glazed and ripped open the box in the parking lot. When Helen bit into the first warm glazed doughnut, she said, “I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

“So what’s it like working with Charlie’s Angels?” Sarah said, through a mouthful of doughnut. “How can a smart woman like you stand those bimbos?”

“They’re not bimbos,” Helen said, wondering why she was defending them. “That’s the sad part. They’re smart. I would have hired any of them at my old company. The problem is they don’t value their intelligence, and neither do their boyfriends. Beauty and money are the only standards that count. In their world, Albert Einstein would be pitied as a guy with a permanent bad hair day.”

Both women reached for another doughnut. “OK, they’re not stupid,” Sarah said between bites. “They’re shallow, which is worse. You’re too smart for them, Helen. Let me make some phone calls. I know several companies that would love to hire someone like you.”

“No!” Helen said, hoping she didn’t sound as panicky as she felt. She couldn’t work for a corporation. The court would find her for sure. She could never tell Sarah why. Instead, she gave her another half-truth.

“I’m burnt out,” she said. “I hit my head hard on the glass ceiling at my old job. I was sick of the pointless meetings and memos. I’d rather work at Juliana’s. Except something odd is going on there.”

Sarah was a good listener, or maybe Helen was high on sugar and grease after rice cakes, the only snacks Christina allowed in the store. By the fourth doughnut, Helen was talking about Christina’s suspected skimming and the purse full of pills.

At the half-dozen mark, Sarah looked serious. “Helen, something is way off in that store. You’ve got to get out of there. You saw that woman skim thirteen hundred dollars in one day.”

“But I’m not sure I saw anything. That’s the problem,” Helen said, waving a half-eaten glazed. “I have no proof. Maybe Christina saw Lauren shoplift that blouse and belt and I didn’t. Maybe there’s some FedEx rate I don’t know about.”

“And maybe she’s selling candy in those purses,” Sarah said. “Bull. You’re a numbers hound. If you could figure out actuarial tables, you can spot a scam. You may not know about implants and eye jobs, but you know Christina is crooked. She’s skimming and dealing drugs. You’d better get yourself a new job.”

“Why? What’s the use?” Helen said, hopelessly. “The only job I could find that paid anything was a lingerie model in a geezer bar. The good jobs are rare. They have so many people after them, I don’t have a chance.

“I guess I need to try harder, but I can’t seem to get up the energy to look for another job on my day off. I’m tired all the time. I have to stand all day. My feet hurt and my back hurts. When I get home, I just want to go to bed.” She downed another doughnut for comfort.

“I said I’d help you find a better one,” Sarah said, chomping yet another Krispy Kreme. Helen backpedaled furiously, while reaching for one more glazed doughnut. The dozen seemed to be disappearing fast, but Helen could not remember how many she’d eaten.

“I’m just whining,” she said. “I really don’t want to go back to an office. Juliana’s pays the rent. The work isn’t that bad. At least I don’t have to say, ‘You want fries with that?’ ” It was hard to say with a mouth full of doughnut.

Sarah did not laugh. Instead, she dropped her doughnut and fixed Helen with her serious deep brown stare. “Listen to me, Helen. Christina is ripping off some rich, powerful people. They won’t take it kindly if they find out what she’s doing. She’s mixing sex, money, and male egos. Mark my words: Murder’s next.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Helen said. “I appreciate your concern, but you’ve had too much sun.” She reached for another glazed doughnut. They were all gone.

Sarah would not hear of Helen taking a cab home. She drove Helen to the Coronado.

As Helen settled into her creaky bed, she decided she liked Sarah a lot. But the woman had a melodramatic streak. Murder at Juliana’s, indeed. Christina would wear flip-flops first.

The next day, Helen heard Christina plotting a murder. For a lot of money.