Killer Pancake

“Well,” Dusty said, scrutinizing my face, “how about some Ageless Beauty/Endless Appeal night cream for when you’re getting an that extra sleep? What kind of skin regimen are you using for your face?”

“No regimen.” I gestured at the stacks of glistening bottles arrayed on the glass countertop. “Nothing, really. I don’t want to buy anything, Dusty. I just wanted to check on you. Because of Claire.”

She shook her head. “We have a new line of—” she began.

The man at the counter cleared his throat loudly; Dusty glanced nervously at him.

“Go help him,” I pleaded. “I’m really just looking.”

“Okay,” Dusty said with a hasty look back at the ledger book. “But I doubt he’s going to buy anything.”

I moved away from the blushes and scanned a pyramid of Carefree Color lipsticks. Cherryblossom Cheesecake. Fudge Soufflé. Rose-hips Revolution. The person who named Mignon lipsticks must have been a dessert caterer.

Dusty greeted the balding customer and nodded knowingly. She became animated, or pretended to be animated, when he started to talk. Tall, mid-fortyish, good-looking, he was the kind of fellow I saw at high-society catered events all the time. I squinted: Maybe I’d even seen this guy at some catered event in the Aspen Meadow Country Club area. He picked up bottle after bottle and examined it, asking questions the whole time, as if the shape of the container were more important than what was in it. Then he put down the bottle, leaned in to Dusty, and said something. She reared back and replied. Their conversation appeared to be veering toward an argument.

“Don’t act ignorant, Reggie,” Dusty said loudly to her customer. “We saw you. You are going to get into so much trouble!”

I touched the tops of the lipstick tubes. Trouble? What kind of trouble? Who saw him? Saw him doing what? I peered at a display of blushes near Reggie, and then moved toward it as if I’d finally discovered what I’d come for.

Reggie, whoever he was, waved off Dusty’s concern and pointed to a large white bottle. “So what are your sales projections on the new moisturizer?” he asked. Farther down the counter, Harriet Wells gave Dusty and her inquisitive customer a disapproving glance.

I picked up one blush after another—Sensuosity, Valentine Kiss, Lustful Gaze. No thanks. I peeked sideways: Dusty and Reggie were standing with several trays of mascara between them. Yes, I was eavesdropping, I could imagine myself admitting later to Tom. I wanted to hear what Dusty had to say to Reggie, the guy who was going to get into trouble.

“I noticed they changed the packaging for the compacts,” Reggie was observing.

“Yuppies don’t want white,” Dusty informed him airily. “White reminds them of old ladies. So Mignon changed it to navy-blue and gold and we’ve sold a zillion of them.”

“Don’t use the word zillion, Dusty, it’s not specific. And I can’t imagine that you were selling lots of them. You said you were behind the last couple of months.”

“Don’t be a prick, Reggie, or I’ll tell the world the truth.”

“You wouldn’t do that. Now, listen,” he went on, “just tell me if they’ve set their sales goals for this new line they introduced yesterday, before all hell broke loose.”

“Yes, of course they have, you know they always set goals. Twenty-three hundred a week for the full-time people.”

Reggie considered this, “What did they send you to advertise them?”

Harriet had finished with the white-haired woman and was heading back toward the center of the counter. For the first time, I realized that although she was short, the way she held herself revealed she was either a former model or dancer. Instead of coming to me, however, Harriet walked straight up to Dusty and her male customer, Reggie-the-troublemaker.

“Mr. Hotchkiss,” Harriet said with a tiny, wicked smile, “are you actually going to buy something today?”

“Buzz off, Harriet,” Reggie Hotchkiss said loudly. “Look.” He gestured in my direction. “You’ve got a customer. You can’t keep up those hefty sales numbers if you ignore a customer, now, can you?”

Harriet lifted her chin and walked past him to me. Like Dusty, her face sagged with fatigue, but she did not look quite as disheveled. “Ah, Goldy. The caterer. You heard, I suppose …?”

I nodded.

“So tragic. That girl had a future in cosmetics, she was a natural. We’re all going to miss—” Her voice broke, and she stopped to reassert control. Her large blue eyes appealed to me. “Is your boy all right? It must have been a terrible shock for him.”

My watch said 4:05. “Yes, thanks. Julian is my helper and he’s fine. But I have a friend in the hospital, and she’s quite ill. I’ll … see you tomorrow.”

“Then why are you—”

But I waved and hightailed it out of the store, past the demonstrators, through all the cars, and to my van. Revving my vehicle over to the hospital, I was obsessed with wondering who Reggie was and why he was going to get into trouble for being seen. Reggie Hotchkiss, Reggie Hotchkiss.