LITMIR.BIZ

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comb-over bent down a little to give M.J. his condolences. His eyes were on her boobs, which are original issue, contrary to what most people think. He handed her his card. “If I can help you in any way.”

      After he wandered away, Bitsey took the card from M.J.’s vodka-numbed hand. “A lawyer,” Bitsey muttered, glaring at his retreating back. “How positively gauche to hand the bereaved widow a business card at her husband’s funeral. Is there even one person in this entire state who was taught a modicum of manners?”

      “She’s going to need a lawyer,” I whispered over M.J.’s head, hoping the vodka had deadened her hearing. “Frank Jr. isn’t going to let her get away with one thin dime of his daddy’s money. Her clothes, yes. Her jewelry, maybe. In a weak moment he might even let her keep the Jag. But the house? The money?” I shook my head. “No way.”

      “Shh,” Bitsey hissed. “Not now.”

      M.J. turned her big, fogged-over blue eyes on Bitsey. “I need to use the little girls’ room.”

      “Okay, honey.” Bitsey patted M.J.’s knee. “Do you need help?”

      Somehow we guided M.J. through the crowd without it being too obvious that her feet weren’t moving. Good thing she’s only about a hundred pounds. The girl is as strong as an ox, thanks to Pilates three days a week, cross-training two days and ballet the other two. But she doesn’t weigh anything.

      Instead of the powder room, we took M.J. to the master suite where we surprised Frank Jr.’s wife, Wendy, scoping out the place. The bimbo didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed that we’d caught her in the act of mentally arranging her furniture in M.J.’s bedroom.

      But when I spied the delicate ceramic bunny rabbit she held in her greedy, sharp-nailed clutches, I saw red. Bloodletting red. Bitsey had made that rabbit in the ceramics class where she, M.J. and I first met. She’d given it to M.J., and a cat figurine to me. I glared at Wendy until the bitch put the bunny down and flounced away.

      Bitsey gave me a scandalized look. “Please tell me she wasn’t doing what I think she was doing.”

      I rolled my eyes, hoping M.J. was too far gone to have noticed her stepdaughter-in-law’s avarice. But as M.J. kicked off her shoes and staggered to the “hers” bathroom she muttered, “Wendy wants my house. Frank Jr., too. She’s always saying how a big house like this needs kids in it.”

      M.J. paused in the doorway and, holding on to the frame, looked over her shoulder at us. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She was gorgeous even when she was drunk, miserable and crying. If she wasn’t such a lamb, I’d hate her. “Like I didn’t try to have children,” she went on. “I always wanted children, and we tried everything. But…” She sniffled. “I just couldn’t get pregnant. She always lords that over me, you know. We’re the same age, but she’s got three kids and I don’t have any.” M.J. went into the bathroom and closed the door.

      Bitsey looked at me. Her eyes brimmed with sorrow, but her mouth was pursed in outrage. “And now Wendy wants her house?” She fished the lawyer’s card out of her pocket.

      I snatched the card and tore it in half, then tossed it in a garbage basket. “No. Not that lawyer. If he’s here at Frank’s funeral it’s because he’s a friend or business acquaintance. Some kind of way he’s connected to Frank Sr., and therefore Frank Jr. When M.J. gets a lawyer, we have to make sure it’s someone who doesn’t have any ties to the Hollander clan.”

      “You’re right. You’re right,” Bitsey conceded. “You have a very suspicious mind, Cat. But sometimes that’s good.”

      “A girl’s got to watch out for herself.”

      Bitsey gave me a warm, soft hug. “And for her friends.”

      M.J. went alone to the reading of the will. We found that out later. I would have canceled my appointments to be with her if she’d asked. Bitsey would have gone, too, not that she would have spoken up against a room half full of lawyers—all men—and the other half full of relatives—all bloodsuckers. But at least M.J. would have had one person on her side.

      M.J. went alone, though, and when I called her that afternoon to see if she wanted to have dinner, all I got was the answering service. Even the housekeeper was gone. That’s when I knew something was wrong. Ever since the funeral, M.J. hadn’t left the house except for her exercise classes. I called Bitsey.

      “Maybe she’s taking a nap,” she said. Bitsey is big on naps.

      “Or drunk.”

      “Or drunk,” Bitsey agreed. “We should go over there.”

      “What about Jack? Isn’t it his dinnertime?” I tried to keep any hint of scorn out of my voice; I’m not sure I succeeded. The thing is, Jack Albertson is an overbearing jerk. Bitsey is the perfect wife, but nothing she does is ever good enough to suit him. She’s Julia Child and Heloise rolled into one: perfect meals served in a perfectly kept house. I helped her decorate it, but she keeps it up herself. Even their kids are perfect, good grades, no car wrecks or illegitimate babies—no thanks to Jack. But does he appreciate any of Bitsey’s good qualities? Not hardly. In his book she’s too fat, too permissive, a spendthrift and a brainless twit. Oh yeah, and did I mention? He thinks she’s too fat.

      Sometimes I hate the jerk. But then, I’m beginning to think that maybe I hate all men.

      “Jack’s working late tonight,” she said. “His division is entertaining a group of businessmen from South Korea and they’re pulling out all the stops to impress them.”

      What I heard in her determined explanation was, “He’s nothing like Frank Hollander, so just turn off that suspicious little mind of yours.” For her sake I did.

      “Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll meet you at M.J.’s in, say, twenty minutes. We’ll take her out to dinner.”

      Twenty minutes later nobody answered the door, so we went around to the back. The gate was locked, but through the iron fence and tall border of variegated ginger and papyrus plants we could see M.J. lying on a chaise longue on the far side of the pool. She was asleep. At least, I hoped she was asleep.

      When we were hoarse from trying to rouse her, I swore. “That’s it. I’m going over the fence.”

      It would have been easier if I was twenty years younger or ten pounds lighter, or both. I had on high-heeled mules, ivory silk cigarette pants and a sleeveless black turtleneck. Very chic and severe, as befits an interior designer to the quasi rich and famous of Bakersfield, California. But it was lousy rock-climbing garb, and by the time I tumbled into a bed of pothos and aluminum plants, the whole outfit was ruined. “Hells bells. I think I broke something.”

      “No you didn’t. Open the gate,” Bitsey demanded. So much for being motherly.

      We hurried over to M.J.; for once Bitsey moved faster than me.

      “Please, God,” Bitsey pleaded. “Don’t let her be dead.”

      “Don’t say that. She’s not dead,” I muttered. “Dead drunk, but not dead.”

      I was right, but barely. The last bit of margarita in the pitcher next to M.J. would definitely have finished her off. She was breathing but not responsive beyond a few indecipherable mutters.

      “We should take her to the hospital,” Bitsey said as we wheeled her inside on the chaise longue.

      “She’s just drunk. Look how big that pitcher is. She drank almost all of it.”

      “What if she took something else?”

      “Like what?”

      “I don’t know. Sleeping pills. Painkillers. And look how sunburned she is. She must have been out there all afternoon.”

      M.J. woke up when we turned a cold shower on her. “Stop. Stop!” She covered her face with her hands and curled on her side in the group-size shower stall.

      “Mary

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