Party Crashers

somebody, then he stole your car?"
    Jolie wet her lips. "Actually...I don't believe he killed anyone."
    "You think it was an accident?"
    "I don't know," she said, weighing her words. "Gary had friends in high places. I'm thinking maybe he got in the middle of something, maybe he was...set up."
    Carlotta's jaw dropped. " Christ , this is like something on TV. Are you on a mission to clear the name of the man you love?"
    Jolie squirmed. "Well—"
    " Christ , the police don't think you're involved, do they?"
    "Well—"
    "They do?"
    "Not directly. But the detective who questioned me practically accused me of giving Gary my car to get away."
    "Christ, Christ, Christ." Carlotta bounced in her seat. "Your life is more exciting than mine!"
    The woman's exuberance alarmed her. Jolie looked all around and lifted a quieting hand. "Carlotta, please...I need the job at Neiman's. If Michael or anyone else there thought I was somehow linked to a murder—"
    "Say no more." Carlotta said, suddenly sober. "I hear what you're saying about the people you work with knowing your personal business."
    Jolie remembered the quiver of fear in Carlotta's voice yesterday in the conversation she'd overheard from the dressing room, and wondered if she should tell Carlotta that she'd inadvertently overheard. But since she wasn't in a position to help the woman monetarily, she felt sure that Carlotta would rather not know that she knew.
    "Thank you for understanding," was all Jolie said.
    "So are you hoping to run into Roger LeMon again tonight, ergo the disguise?"
    "Right. I shouldn't have given him my name. If I do see him, I'm hoping he won't realize I'm the same person he talked to the other night."
    Carlotta tilted her head, and the tip of her tongue appeared. "Hmm . I know!" She pulled out a small case. "Wear my green contact lenses. They don't have a prescription, and they've just been cleaned."
    Jolie hesitated. "I don't know...having something in my eye."
    It's like a tampon, you won't even know it's there."
    Although the imagery did not soothe her qualms, Jolie agreed to try them. Carlotta coached and after much poking and blinking and tearing, they were in. She stared in the mirror, marveling how much the color did change her appearance. "My mascara is a wreck, though," she said, pulling her makeup kit from her purse.
    "Do you have an eyebrow pencil?"
    Jolie checked. "I have mascara, powder and lip gloss."
    "Lip gloss? What are you, in the sixth grade? Here." Carlotta removed a makeup case the size of a loaf of bread from her purse and unzipped it. She rummaged, then withdrew a gold-tone case and twisted up a lipstick the color of cinnamon. "Try this."
    Jolie eyed her bag. "That's some arsenal."
    "Don't underestimate the power of the right shade of lipstick."
    After smoothing on the color, Jolie had to admit Carlotta was right.
    "Now, about your eyebrows . . ."
    Jolie frowned. "What about my eyebrows?" They were pale, practically nonexistent.
    "Eyebrows are the most distinctive feature you have. Did you know that your eyebrows keep their basic shape from the time you're born until you die unless you pluck them?"
    "No."
    She held up a brown pencil. "Give me a couple of minutes, and I promise, no one will recognize you."
    Jolie acquiesced and a few pencil strokes later, sported darker, fuller eyebrows with an artful arch. That did it—she did indeed look like a different person.
    Carlotta clapped her hands. "What else can I do to help?"
    "Do you recognize anyone else in the picture?"
    Carlotta turned on the overhead light and studied the photograph again. "No...wait, this woman looks familiar," she said, tapping the face of a smiling brunette standing on the end. Pretty, with a mod haircut.
    "You don't know her name?"
    "No, but she might be a customer. That's a seven-hundred-dollar Ralph Lauren Black Label sweater."
    Jolie peered at the woman's yellow sweater—beautiful, but brand-unrecognizable to her untrained eye.
    Carlotta drew the picture closer to her blue, blue eyes. "Hmm."
    "What?"
    "That picture on the wall behind them—I've seen it before."
    Jolie studied the picture, which appeared to be an illustration of a pig wearing a suit—a page from a children's book? "Do you remember where? Was it a bar, or someone's house?"
    Carlotta frowned, then shook her head and handed back the photo. "I can't remember."
    "Okay," Jolie said on an exhale. "Well, I've held us up long enough. I have no idea what I'll say to Roger LeMon if I see him,