Club Dead

vamps don’t show up till they’ve had some blood, picked up their dates, done some business. We should get there about ten. So we’ll go out to eat about eight, if that suits you?”
    “Sure, that’ll be great.” I was at a loss. It was only two in the afternoon. His apartment didn’t need cleaning. There was no reason to cook. If I wanted to read, I had romance novels in my suitcase. But in my present condition, it was hardly likely to help my state of . . . mind.
    “Listen, would it be okay if I ran out to visit some clients?” he asked.
    “Oh, that would be fine.” I thought it would be all to the good if he wasn’t in my immediate vicinity. “You go do whatever you need to do. I have books to read, and there’s the television.” Maybe I could begin the mystery novel.
    “If you want to . . . I don’t know . . . my sister, Janice, owns a beauty shop about four blocks away, in one of the older neighborhoods. She married a local guy. You want to, you could walk over and get the works.”
    “Oh, I . . . well, that . . .” I didn’t have the sophistication to think of a smooth and plausible refusal, when the glaring roadblock to such a treat was my lack of money.
    Suddenly, comprehension crossed his face. “If you stopped by, it would give Janice the opportunity to look you over. After all, you’re supposed to be my girlfriend, and she hated Debbie. She’d really enjoy a visit.”
    “You’re being awful nice,” I said, trying not to sound as confused and touched as I felt. “That’s not what I expected.”
    “You’re not what I expected, either,” he said, and left his sister’s shop number by the phone before heading out on his business.

Chapter Five
    J ANICE HERVEAUX PHILLIPS (married two years, mother of one, I learned quickly) was exactly what I might have expected of a sister of Alcide’s. She was tall, attractive, plainspoken, and confident; and she ran her business efficiently.
    I seldom went into beauty parlors. My gran had always done her own home perms, and I had never colored my hair or done anything else to it, besides a trim now and then. When I confessed this to Janice, who’d noticed I was looking around me with the curiosity of the ignorant, her broad face split in a grin. “Then you’ll need everything,” she said with satisfaction.
    “No, no, no,” I protested anxiously. “Alcide—.”
    “Called me on his cell phone and made it clear I was to give you the works,” Janice said. “And frankly, honey, anyone who helps him recover from that Debbie is my best friend.”
    I had to smile. “But I’ll pay,” I told her.
    “No, your money’s no good here,” she said. “Even if you break up with Alcide tomorrow, just getting him through tonight will be worth it.”
    “Tonight?” I began to have a sinking feeling that once again, I didn’t know everything there was to know.
    “I happen to know that tonight that bitch is going to announce her engagement at that club they go to,” Janice said.
    Okay, this time what I didn’t know was something pretty major. “She’s marrying the—man she took up with after she dumped Alcide?” (I barely stopped myself from saying, “The shape-shifter?”)
    “Quick work, huh? What could he have that my brother doesn’t have?”
    “I can’t imagine,” I said with absolutely sincerity, earning a quick smile from Janice. There was sure to be a flaw in her brother somewhere—maybe Alcide came to the supper table in his underwear, or picked his nose in public.
    “Well, if you find out, you let me know. Now, let’s get you going.” Janice glanced around her in a businesslike way. “Corinne is going to give you your pedicure and manicure, and Jarvis is going to do your hair. You sure have a great head of it,” Janice said in a more personal way.
    “All mine, all natural,” I admitted.
    “No color?”
    “Nope.”
    “You’re the lucky one,” Janice said, shaking her head.
    That was a minority opinion.
    Janice herself was working on a client whose silver hair and gold jewelry proclaimed she was a woman of privilege, and while this cold-faced lady examined me with indifferent eyes, Janice fired off some instructions to her employees and went back to Ms. Big Bucks.
    I had never been so pampered in my life. And everything was new to me. Corinne (manicures and pedicures), who was as plump and juicy as one of the sausages I’d cooked that morning, painted my toenails and fingernails screaming red to match the dress