“Get out, Charley.”
Grinning, he saluted, then deposited the toothpick on the counter. For occasions like Charley’s visits, I keep a box of moistened Steri-wipes on hand.
Derrick just laughs when I complain about him.
Determined to protect Stella from punky predators like Charley, I wrote out a sales slip for one green scarf, $75, cash transaction. I took $75 from my wallet and put it into the cash register to cover a one-time aberration. I owed her that.
When she came in the next day, she smiled at me with the warmth formerly shown to headwaiters and doormen in her movies. I believed that Stella knew that I had done her a service.
“And what is your name, my dear?” she asked in a voice only slightly huskier than in her screen roles.
“Vera, Miss Stanley,” I answered in a little-girl voice.
“Ah, you’re a fan.” She smiled. “And if you’re a real sweetie, I’ll give you my autograph before I leave.”
“S-super,” I stammered, exhuming the word from my teenage lexicon.
“Now, I’ll just toddle over to the racks and see what other lovely fashion knockoffs you have.”
“S-swell. I’ll be glad to help you.”
“Oh, no, sweetie, that’s not necessary. Trying on clothes is such a private thing, except when one has one’s dresser with her. And I, alas, do not.”
Dismissing my help with a wave, she advanced on three-inch heels toward the Size 6 rack. Most likely, I thought, she doesn’t want anyone to see a body not as taut as it used to be. Since no one else had arrived at the store, I enjoyed watching her for a while fingering the selections and draping three dresses over her arm until she sent me a look worthy of her annoyance with her maid in Rich Girl, Sad Girl. Embarrassed, I turned away.
Fortunately, Eunice McGovern, a good customer, came into the store looking for mauve sling-back shoes and gloves. I busied myself with her, going into the back room for her size. While I was ringing up the sale, Stella breezed by, blew me a kiss, and said, “Next time I’ll give you the autograph. Sorry I didn’t find anything today.”
But she did. As I watched her leave the shop, I noticed a periwinkle fabric that had slipped past the flowered print skirt of the dress she was wearing. Miss Stanley hadn’t wanted me in the dressing room because she had put her own dress over one of ours.
“Oh, goodness,” sighed Eunice. “That was Stella Stanley. I loved her pictures. I’m so glad she said she’d be back. I’ll have to tell my bridge club.”
After Eunice left, I went to the rack and saw that the periwinkle silk sheath was missing. Price tag: $745. I didn’t have that in my purse.
Dejectedly, I waited on more customers until a very plain woman in her fifties, dressed in a brown polyester pant suit, came in and followed me around the store. Not at all in the mood to cater to someone who obviously needed a major fashion makeover, I snapped, “I’m very busy right now.”
“I’d just like a word with you, please. Somewhere private.”
She moved toward the door marked Employees and I followed, certain that she was police and that she knew about the green scarf. I was going to be arrested for aiding and abetting a crime. Charley Sutton, I thought, had watched the whole episode. He had probably drilled a spy hole in the wall of the next-door coffee shop so he could truck more garbage to the tabloids. By the time we reached my office, I was ready to hold out my wrists to be cuffed.
“Sorry about the cloak-and-dagger stuff.” She smiled, extending her hand. “I’m Brenda Miles, Stella Stanley’s Girl Friday, Saturday, Sunday, et cetera. I noticed a new green scarf on her bureau last night with the tag from your store. Tell me, did Miss Stanley pay for it?”
“No, she didn’t.”
Ever the fan and not revealing the star’s latest acquisition of the silk dress, I offered, “Perhaps an oversight?”
“Hardly. Stella has a shoplifting problem. Although she’s had treatment, she can’t give it up completely. She has latent periods, but I suspected there’d be a flare-up after we moved into our new place and I saw your shop.”
“The poor woman. I suspected kleptomania.”
Brenda brushed a limp strand of hair from her eyes. “Either that or a deep-rooted sense of entitlement. For so many years, husbands or studios or the designers she publicized picked up the tabs. Now they’re gone and she tries to delude herself into thinking she still deserves star privileges.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Sad also for you. I try to go shopping with her, but yesterday and this morning I was too busy with the new place. The best I can do is track down the items and pay. You paid for the scarf, right?”
“Yes.”
“And she lifted something else even more expensive today, right? Something you can’t afford to pay for?”
“Yes. I’ve been trying to think what to do.”
“Thanks for not going to the police. Just call me if it ever happens again.”
After writing a check to me for the scarf and one to the store for the dress, she handed me a card with her new number penciled in.
To take my mind off the sad plight of Stella Stanley, I plugged in the vacuum. A tap on my shoulder sent a shiver down my spine. When I turned around, I saw Eunice McGovern and Muriel Harvey, another of our regulars.
“Sorry if I scared you,” Eunice twittered, “but I told Muriel about seeing Stella Stanley here and we’re dying to know if she comes in regularly at any set time so that we can discreetly arrange to be here.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
Muriel set her still-pretty face into a pout. “Oh, fudge. Well, then maybe you could call either Eunice or me when she does come in and we could rush right over, after we call the rest of the bridge club, of course.”
“Sorry.”
I believe “withering” aptly describes the looks they gave me as they flounced out of the store. So properly withered was I that I flipped the Closed sign on the door and headed toward my office for an aspirin and a bit of a rest. Stella Stanley had entered my life not as a fading star but as a flaming meteorite that was pocking my landscape. Because of her, Charley Sutton would be lurking, as would Eunice, Muriel, and the others in the bridge club.
Someone will surely spot the shoplifting, and I can’t let that happen to Stella, I thought. What a movie: me, Vera Lyons, starring in The Rock and the Hard Place Boutique! If I fend off Charley, I might find myself in The Dis List, as “Boutique Manager, V.L., high-wired on espresso from Le Cafe, insults noted local journalist.” If I don’t alert the bridge club about Stella’s visits, I might lose thousands of dollars in sales. And the worst choice of all, if I tell Stella Stanley that I know her secret and refuse to allow her in the shop, I might destroy her fragile ego.
I put my head down on my desk and within minutes my headache was gone and I had the solution! No, I didn’t hear tinkling from Jimmy Stewart’s angel, Clarence. I’m sure my husband George had sent me an inspiration. We’ve always been on the same wavelength, although it’s quite a bit longer now. I’m going to arrange a Stella Stanley night. She can model the fashions she loves for my regulars, by invitation only, along with wine, hors d’oeuvres, and autograph signing. Once again, Stella will be a star, and I will let her choose any outfit she wants as her fee. My plan will even make an honest man of Charley Sutton. I’ll invite him to cover the event for the newspaper. And Eunice, Muriel, and the bridge club can spend time with the star and get autographs.
“Thank you, George,” I sighed, and immediately called Brenda Miles, who loved the idea and knew Stella would, too.
Even the arrival of Derrick, bellowing about the Closed sign on the shop door and my coolness to his buddy Charley, didn’t dampen my enthusiasm.