I was talking to Margaret yesterday, and she told me about an article in nydailynews dot com. You can find it yourself at /life-style/eats/tennessee-distillers-warn-whiskey-shortage-article-1.1817222 or I once again pinned it in my pinterest page /spiffytgm/plum-diamond for you to look at. The quote in italics comes directly from the article. I asked Margaret, "What Would Helen Do"? and yet another story was born.
All the characters you know and love belong to Janet Evanovich. All mistakes are mine. Bummer. I hope you enjoy!
Helen Plum was not having a good week. The Trenton Times decided to do a week long series of front page stories about the enigmatic billionaire CEO Carlos Manoso and his beautiful wife, Stephanie following the birth of their son. As a further sign that it was a slow news week, the stories had been picked up by the Asbury Park Press. What that meant was that every time she picked up a local newspaper, she was assaulted by pictures of her daughter and that criminal.
She couldn't even shop in her favorite store. Whenever she walked into Giovichinni's, one of the women from the Burg would ask about her daughter and the baby. If she had to hear one more of those busybodies ask her if she had pictures of little Ricardo, she was not going to be held responsible for her actions.
Finally, Helen decided to go to the Shop and Bag so that she could pick up some groceries. Edna and Frank were supposed to come home today, and she was going to be able to cook for someone besides Joseph and Bob. While she was there, she picked up a copy of the New York Daily News. At last she would be able to read a newspaper without being reminded that her daughter just wouldn't listen to her.
Helen also stopped at the liquor store. Frank's pension check cleared and she had money to get a bottle of the good stuff. She whimpered with pleasure as she felt the familiar weight of the cool glass bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand. She must have missed a sale on it, because there seemed to be fewer bottles than usual on the shelves. She walked up to the cash register. "Hi, Helen," the cashier said. "Frank's check cleared?"
Once she got home, Helen started to prepare the roast. Frank loved her roast, and surely he missed it since he's been gone. While she cooked, she flipped the pages of the newspaper, humming to herself over the Stephanie free pages. She turned to cut the potatoes, but she dropped the knife and turned back to the newspaper. The headline read, "Tennessee distillers warn of whiskey shortage". Helen screamed a long and mournful, "NOOOOOOO", and opened her cabinet door to make sure that her bottle didn't run away at the news.
Helen took a healthy swig of her whiskey in an effort to calm her nerves. As soon as the bottle clinked on the counter, she realized her mistake. If she drank it too fast, she might never get another bottle again. Once she put the roast in the oven, she ran back to her favorite store, A-A Liquors, to pick up another bottle. "Hey, Helen. Did you forget something? You were just here a few minutes ago." Helen ignored him and walked straight to the shelves.
When Helen got home, she carefully stored all the new, calming bottles in her bedroom closet. She went back downstairs to check on her roast. Everything was cooking nicely, so she let out a sigh of relief. Picking up the newspaper, she skimmed the article once more. "It's not like you can ramp up production today and have that whiskey on the market tomorrow." Oh, no. How long would Helen have to wait until the shortage will be over? She knew that the good stuff had to be aged for years! Just as she was about to read more, the front door opened and Edna and Frank walked in. She had to hide the article. Who knew what they would think she'd do. Looking around her, the only place she could think of to put it was in the trash. Just as she was throwing out the paper, Edna walked in the kitchen. "Hello, mother. Dinner will be ready shortly." Edna looked at her daughter, but didn't say anything other than hello.
Dinner was ready at 6:00, just like always. Frank didn't speak to her at all, but that was normal. Edna spent the meal telling her about how beautiful the new baby was and how happy Stephanie and Carlos were together. Really, did she think Helen wanted to hear that? Stephanie should be married to Joseph. That should be his baby. Helen drank a little more of her "tea" to drown out her mother's chatter.
That night in bed, Helen found that she couldn't sleep thinking about what would happen if she ran out of her precious Jack Daniels.
The next morning, after breakfast was served and Frank took his cab out to pick up his cronies, Helen went to run some errands on her own. Her first stop was Good Libations. This was her second favorite store. She walked straight to the shelf and picked up every last bottle of Jack. Again she noticed that there were fewer bottles than usual. She made her way to the counter. The cashier said, "Good morning, Helen. I see you read the article in the Daily News." She just paid for her purchase and put everything in the trunk.
Her next stop was Tequila Mockingbird. Again, she walked straight from the door to the Jack, then to the register. The cashier said, "Good morning, Helen. Are you and Joe having a party again? I have more El Jimador if you need it." Helen politely declined. One tequila hangover a month was enough.
City Sliquors was the same. This time the cashier said, "Hey, Helen, aren't you going to leave any for the rest of Trenton?" This time Helen didn't dignify that with an answer. She paid and walked to her car. The trunk was getting pretty full by now, so she went back to the house. Edna would be finished with her hair appointment soon, so Helen raced up and down the stairs to put her bottles in the closet. By the time she was done, she was gasping for breath. Somehow she made her way to the kitchen and had lunch ready just in time for Edna's return.
After lunch, she went to the bank to check her balances. She was surprised to see that she only had $4.53 in checking. She transferred money from their savings account so that Frank wouldn't see that she had spent his pension check in one day. She emptied the rest of the savings account and got it in cash so that she could do a little more shopping.
The Hit 'n Run Liquor store was a little run down and in a bad neighborhood, but she had already cleaned out the good stores. As she walked her Jack to the counter, the cashier told her, "Helen, don't go drinking that all at once, I don't know when our next shipment will be coming in." That sent her into an absolute panic.
There was only one store left. She promised herself the last time she was there that she would never go in that place again. Desperate times call for desperate measures however, and she found herself walking down Stark Street towards the heavily barred windows of Dick Liquors. The cashier was a surly fellow most of the time, but he greeted her like an old friend. "Helen, didn't expect to see you until the end of the month." She just picked up the only two bottles of Jack they had and hung her head as she paid. She had blown through their entire savings account, but she had almost enough precious whiskey to last her through a Nuclear Winter.
Helen got home and once again carted boxes of bottles up to her room. Frank had moved to the guest room when she got mad at Stephanie for Marrying that thug. She opened Frank's old closet door to stash the last of the bottles, but the closet was full. She lifted the dust ruffle surrounding her bed, but there were already too many bottles under there. She opened her dresser drawers, but again, it was already filled with bottles. She looked around the room. Hamper? Full. Nightstand? Full. Finally she pulled all the books off her bookshelf and lined the bottles up. Once she placed every last one, she put the books back up. You could see the tops of the bottles over the books, and the books themselves stuck out past the edge of the shelves, but everything was put away. She idly wondered if you could drive to Tennessee and buy it by the barrel, but for now she was happy.
Across town there was a group of men gathered for their monthly poker tournament. Cards were dealt and they chatted about business. "Bob, good job spotting that article." one man said. "Yeah," piped in another, "who knew we could take a few bottles off the shelf, raise the price by fifty percent and be sold out by the next day." All the men around the tables laughed. Another man said, "How did you know she wouldn't read the entire article?"
Bob smiled and took another pull on his cigar. "This is Helen Plum we're talking about, guys. If there's an article about liquor in a New York Newspaper, she'll find it. Plus, the quote stands out in the article, so I knew she'd read that first. Once she did, she would panic instead of reading the whole thing. I can just picture her in her kitchen reading about a shortage and saying, 'Why ME?'" Everyone laughed as the Liquor store owners monthly poker tournament rolled on.