1~
The hostess, a wealthy woman, one of several in Crystal Cove's moneyed section of town, raised her crystal glass in celebration of the party she was hosting.
After the perfunctory applause, another woman, Rebecca Lander, was having a conversation with Nan Blake. She took a sip of her Merlot and placed her glass down on the coaster that protected an antique table. She then straightened the portable oxygen tank that was painted to match her dress and that she wore over her shoulder like a purse, then took a deep breath from its mask.
Nan Blake gracefully plucked a glass from the wandering butler's silver tray, then glanced admiringly at the tank.
"I have to say, Rebecca," she commented. "Not many people can wear hospital equipment well, but you actually pull it off."
"Well, I figure, if I have to wear this thing to help me breathe, it might as well be fashionable," the woman said before taking another draw from the mask.
"Blasted asthma. I swear," Lander muttered. "But nevermind me. Has your, oh, which one is it? Oh, Daphne, that's the one. Has she ever come back home?"
Nan's face fell a bit from the reminder, but she remembered the setting she was in, so she brightened and casually laughed out an explanation.
"Oh, no. She hadn't come back, but she does get in touch with Barty and me, every so often."
Inwardly, Nan felt pleased that what was said was buoyed with some measure of confidence, in that it wasn't a lie. She appreciated the invite to the party, but Lander didn't need to know more than that, she felt.
She adored all of her daughters, whether they seemed like complete lay-abouts, or, like Daphne, had the real potential to make something of herself, but it continually stunned her as to the reason for the sudden departure.
It could never be adequately explained to her or her husband's satisfaction when Daphne would call them. Some nights, it felt like it took everything she had not to call the police, the FBI, or her therapist when she thought of her youngest child.
Nan stopped her troubled train of thought when she thought that she heard Lander say something to her.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say something, Rebecca?"
"Your daughter," Lander replied. "Wasn't she going to marry that boyfriend of hers, uh, Freddy James?"
"Jones, dear," Nan corrected. "She was, but that might be why she went with him. So they could see if they were ready or not. Best to shake the cobwebs out, before the 'I do's', I suppose."
Nan inwardly shrugged at that explanation. It sounded as good as anything else she had heard from Daphne, so far.
'For someone who's short of breath,' she thought. 'She certainly has enough of it to ask a lot of questions.' She just wished the old busybody would change the subject and move on to mingle with the rest of the other filthy rich guests.
Lander opened her mouth after a lungful of air and was ready to ask another question in the quest to be sociable, when Nan's prayers were answered in the form of the hostess's butler approaching her from the spacious kitchen.
"Yes, Baker. What is it?" the hostess asked.
"Ma'am," he reported. "I do believe that we're out of those dipping chips that you love so much. I do apologize for not buying enough, Ma'am."
The hostess gave a confident chuckle, more to give the air of being in control of the party than anything else. "That's quite alright, Baker. There's more in the pantry. It's my personal stash. I'll get them."
After the issue had been resolved, Miss Lander decided that she wasn't going to get any more gossip from Nan, so she finally excused herself. "I'll be right back, Nan. Have to mingle, and all of that, and then we can get back to chatting about your family."
Miss Lander then walked away from a grateful Nan Blake, who then decided to actually follow the other woman's example and glided deeper into the mingling groups of the soiree'.
The hostess walked into her tastefully built and full appointed kitchen, thinking of how she would present her secret stash to the guests. Would they appreciate them? What to say when she brought them out. Everything had to be as it should be. Flawless in presentation.
'Ah,' she thought. 'A crystal bowl for my lovelies. Nothing but the best.'
With a satisfied smile on her lined face, the hostess approached her pantry.
Nothing but the best.
She turned the handle. The door swung open to the appearance of a literal cascade of cockroaches that proceeded to fall on her screeching body and flow across the kitchen's tiled floor.
Again, the hostess cried out in horror, risking some of the insects to fall into her open mouth as she backed away, shivering as she tried to brush and jump to loosen the grip of the little offenders and shake them off her, otherwise, glamorous evening dress and hair.
Almost insane with the purest of disgust, the hostess would have said, if she wasn't screaming for her butler and watching the cockroach army already making camp in the kitchen and heading out for the living room and elsewhere to thoroughly ruin her social standing in town, that this party was anything but the best.
Marcie, in a striped bikini, looked up at the ceiling, trying to blank her mind as she rested on a soft, floating, inflatable bed while she drifted slowly across the Blakes' indoor pool.
With its outdoor columns, small arcade, topiary, and a mammoth, golden head propped up at one end of the pool to keep watch over all that transpired, Marcie's always ticking mind couldn't help but think that the decor was done in a subtly tasteful Mediterranean style.
"The party was a total disaster," Nan gossiped to her daughter, Daisy, while she lounged on a comfortable deck chair. Daisy hung onto every word while she stood in the water and hung onto the edge of the pool.
"Can you imagine it?" Nan continued. "Roaches everywhere. In the china, in the crystal...in the food! People were dancing all over the house and the music wasn't playing, if you know what I mean. Stamp, stamp, stamp. Stamp, stamp, stamp."
Instead of revulsion, however, Daisy laughed it off. "Ha! You should see some of the things I ran into when I dumpster dive. I've seen worse."
Her mother still held onto her abhorrence and shook her head in decision. "Well, I'm not taking any chances. I hired the best exterminator in town. He shows no mercy to those creatures and he's here to give our home a clean bill of health. That why I invited you and Marcie here to the pool with me while he worked."
"Well, I certainly appreciate it, Mrs. Blake," said Marcie, bobbing along. "But, y'know, Mrs. B, if you ever do have pests in your house, I can whip up an insecticide that'll have them meet their maker at least forty-six percent faster than the leading chemicals used. And since I live in town, you can have it for free."
Nan, not understanding, gave Marcie a troubled glance at her from underneath her sunglasses. Obviously, Daisy's little friend had a lot to learn about this wide, wild world of theirs.
"Dear," Nan "educated" her. "Free is nice for...some people, but what's the point of having money if you can't buy the best?"
Marcie took what was said in stride and shrugged. Here, in the Blake Mansion, it was a rich person's world and she was just floating temporarily in it.
Just then, a jumpsuited man marched through the pool's entrance. He looked for and found Nan, then said, "Ma'am, I finished checking the mansion. No bugs in here, at all. You're a clean as a whistle."
Nan tilted her head casually at the exterminator and gave him a satisfied nod. "Wonderful. My husband will write you a check right away."
"Hey, Mrs. Blake," Marcie said. "Why don't you call that hostess and suggest that she hire him? If he's good enough for you then he should good enough for her, right?"
The exterminator stood a little taller from the unexpected endorsement and gave Marcie a friendly thumbs-up.
"Thanks, kid," he said. "I could do with a few more rich customers, but I heard that some other outfit beat me to it and checked her house before her shindig. From the way things went down last night, that lady would've been better off with a can of bug spray and an old shoe."
Pleased with his witty bon mot, he regarded Nan once more. "Well, I gotta go. Take care, Mrs. Blake," he said with visions of a fat paycheck dancing through his head. He then left the women to their lounging.
Nan looked down towards her daughter and asked, "Daisy, could you be a dear and drive by the hostess's house, just to check on her. The poor dear's been through a lot."
Daisy started to sulk a little in her spot in the water. She liked it here and couldn't think of any reason to leave it. In fact, if her mother hadn't suggested that they come with her to the pool at the last minute, she would have turned it into a pool party and invited everyone she knew, especially Red Herring.
That thought brought a slightly naughty smirk to her lips and she found herself disregarding her mother's errand, imagining, instead, the chesty, muscular red-head in the tightest swimwear she could conjure up in her mind.
"Dear," Nan said, noticing the glazed gaze in her daughter's eyes. "Did you hear me?"
"Huh?" Daisy shook her head, exorcising the spirits of lust from her mind. "Ugh! How come I have to go?" she sighed.
"She's a dear friend of mine and I want her to know that even though her party self-destructed in the worst possible way and chances are high that no one will ever accept one of her invites again, I still understand, as a good friend should," Nan explained smoothly.
"Then, why don't you go?" Daisy asked.
Genuine shock shone on Nan's face. "And have people see me with her? Are you kidding me?" Daisy rolled her eyes.
"So much for solidarity," she muttered, then glanced over to her still reclining friend and sighed, "C'mon, Marcie. Let's go."
Marcie, with reluctance, rolled off the bed into the water and swam across the pool to catch up with a disinclined Daisy as she climbed out.