Page 35 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

But nothing was sparking, so I hit them over the head with the information. “I’m Tina Mallory’s daughter, you know, Aunt Sally’s best friend?”

Realization dawned. It was the “Aunt Sally” that did it. The smiles came out, and the battleship left its berth to come hug me.

“Why, honey, I didn’t recognize you!” she said as I was attacked by a pair of gazongas as soft as your average inflated tire, and I realized she had those suckers hemmed up and packed down, so ruthlessly restrained they probably gave her whiplash when she unleashed them at night. The thought boggled. Even more frightening was envisioning the bra capable of holding them in restraint. It could probably be used as a launcher on an aircraft carrier.

The fastest way to be free of them was to show no fear, and play dead. So I stood there and let her hug me, blinking as I tried not to gasp for air, and all the while smiling the sweetest smile I could manage. When she finally released me I took a deep breath of precious air. “How could you recognize me? I’ve never been here before.”

“Honey, of course you have! Sally and your mama came by one day not long after Jazz opened the business. Sally had Matt and Mark with her, and your mama had both you and your sister by the hand, and you were the two cutest little dolls I’ve ever seen. Your sister had just started walking.”

Since I’m two years older than Siana, the visit this lady remembered would have made me around three. And she didn’t recognize me? My God, what was wrong with her? I couldn’t have changed that much between the ages of three and thirty-one, could I?

A village somewhere was missing its idiot.

“I don’t really remember,” I hedged, wondering if I should run for the hills. “I, uh, had a concussion a few days ago and my memory’s really spotty—”

“A concussion? My word! You need to sit down, right over here—” My right arm was seized and I was steered to an orange vinyl couch, where I was all but plunked down. “What are you doing out of the hospital? Isn’t someone watching you?”

Since when did “concussion” become synonymous with “irreparable brain damage”?

“I’m doing fine,” I hastily assured her. “I was released from the hospital last Friday. Uh, is Uncle Jazz in?”

“Oh! Oh, of course he is. He’s in the shop building.”

“I’ll page him,” said the other woman, lifting her phone. She punched a button, then two numbers, and a loud buzzer sounded outside. After a minute she said, “Someone’s here to see you.” She listened, then hung up and smiled at me. “He’ll be here in a minute.”

It was actually less than that, because the shop building was directly behind the office building and he had to walk maybe twenty yards. He came hustling in, medium height, bald, with the muscular build of a man who has worked hard all of his life, his face more careworn than I’d ever seen it. Before this problem with Sally he’d put on a little weight, but from what I could see now he’d lost that extra weight and then some. He skidded to a stop when he saw me, frowning in confusion.

“Blair?” he finally said, the word tentative, and I stood.

“You’re looking good,” I said, going to him for a hug, then kissing him on the cheek the way I’d always done. “May I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure,” he said. “Come on in my office. Do you want some coffee? Lurleen, is there any coffee?”

“I can always make some,” said the battleship, smiling.

“No, I’m fine, thanks anyway.” I smiled back at Lurleen.

Jazz led me into his office, a depressing space dominated by dust and paperwork. His desk was the same gray metal type as was in the outer office. There were two battered green filing cabinets, his chair—which was patched with duct tape—and two visitors’ chairs in a shade of green that almost matched the filing cabinets. There was a phone on his desk, a metal in-out box, a coffee cup that held the usual collection of pens and one screwdriver with a broken handle—that was the extent of his office decor.

Clueless didn’t begin to describe him. Poor man, he’d have been absolute putty in Monica Stevens’s hands when he’d hired her to redecorate his and Sally’s bedroom.

He closed the door, the smile vanished from his face as if it had never been, and he asked suspiciously, “Did Sally send you?”

“Good Lord, no!” I said, honestly surprised. “She has no idea I’m here.”

He relaxed somewhat, and rubbed his hand over his head. “Good.”

“Good, how?”

“She isn’t speaking, but she’ll send messages by people she knows I’ll talk to.”

“Oh, well, sorry. No messages.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He did the head-rubbing thing again. “I don’t want any messages from her. If she wants to talk to me, she can damn well act like an adult and pick up the phone.” He flashed me a guilty look, as if I were still three years old. “Sorry.”

“I think I’ve heard ‘damn’ before,” I said mildly, grinning at him. “Want to hear my list of bad words?” When I was little, I would recite all the words I wasn’t supposed to say. Even then I had lists.

He grinned, too. “I guess I’ve heard them before. So what can I do for you today?”

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