Chapter Six
It takes eight strategically placed pins to make it look like I do not have bangs. The disguise requires twenty-six minutes to perfect, and I skulk into the Junk Yard on Monday breathing a sigh of relief that you can’t tell I’ve butchered my hair.
Brandy notices immediately. “You gave yourself bangs.”
“Things going that bad at home, huh?” Zach adds.
“I used to have bangs.” I touch my forehead self-consciously.
My forehead is the first thing I criticize when I look in the mirror.
Is it normal-sized? Oilier than most? Foreheads are all I see now.
Over the weekend I’ve come across nothing but pictures of beautiful women online and none of them have bangs.
I only see pictures of beautiful women with bangs when I do not have bangs.
I Googled how to grow them out faster and ordered an emergency shipment of Mane ’n Tail shampoo and conditioner. I’m taking prenatal vitamins because a forum recommended it for rapid hair growth.
“I like my bangs,” I announce. “This is the new me.”
“Look out, world,” says Brandy, my co-pilot on this adventure into delusion.
Melissa looks at me and bites her lip to suppress a smile.
Zach nudges her shoulder and they share twin snickers.
For the thousandth time, I wish that Melissa and I were still friends.
I love working here, but I loved it even better before introducing Melissa to the man who broke her heart. She’ll never stop punishing me for it.
In spite of her, I still feel lucky that I landed this job.
I’d plastered the county with applications but didn’t hear back from anyone except for Mr. and Mrs. Howard.
Nicholas kept saying I didn’t need to work, but after being laid off from my old job at the hardware store (which closed down), I got bored piddling around the house all day and needed purpose.
A conduit through which I could channel all my free-floating energy before it started shooting randomly off the walls and ricocheted back to blast me.
Mr. and Mrs. Howard were both here for my first day, to oversee my training.
It led me to believe they’d be here every day, and when they barely ever showed up again it left me confused as to who I was supposed to be reporting to.
So I asked Zach, who seemed friendly, and he had me convinced he was my boss for three months straight.
That asshole had me scrubbing toilets for his own sordid entertainment.
Without the owners here to keep us in line, the atmosphere is lax and easygoing.
Even though Melissa can be frosty sometimes, our odd group has fun together, goofing off and doing nothing.
And I mean nothing, because business is flatlining.
Whenever a customer comes in, we end up eagle-eyeing them so intensely that they get weirded out and leave.
One week, we were freakishly busy and high-fived each other when the shift ended with a fat cash register, thinking the ship was getting turned around.
But nope, everywhere I look there are icebergs.
There are holes in the ship. We’re sinking.
I know the Howards can’t hold out much longer.
They’re going to put themselves in debt just to make sure the five of us get a paycheck.
We all feel bad about it, but we also want to keep our jobs for as long as possible, so none of us are willing to quit even if it means extending life expectancy for four other jobs.
It’s been brought up a few times, usually by Brandy, and we all fidget and avoid eye contact.
Today, it’s me, Zach, Melissa, and Brandy on the schedule.
Leon works by himself tomorrow, since he’s the only one who prefers working alone.
He isn’t much of a talker, and embarrasses easily.
I think maybe we overwhelm him, horsing around with taxidermied roadkill and quizzing each other to find out Which Sexual Position Are You on BuzzFeed.
About thirty minutes after I walk in, I’m proving my value to this company by fashioning paper clip necklaces for everyone (I make a lot of jewelry out of odds and ends here to pass the time) and listening to Melissa and Brandy negotiate the music schedule.
Brandy usually chooses the music on Mondays, but Melissa’s not going to be here for her turn on Friday so she’s trying to get Brandy to switch.
To her credit, Brandy isn’t budging. I like to think I’ve been just the right kind of bad influence on her.
The bell to the front door dings and we all orbit to gape at whoever’s come in. It’s an eccentric billionaire who’s going to save us. He’ll buy out everything on our shelves and demand that the Howards replenish them. He’ll pay us double what we’re asking.
Actually, it’s a gangly, pimpled boy no older than twenty, and he’s pushing a cart of flowers. There are at least ten bouquets in plain glass vases, filmy red cling wrap protecting them from the rain.
“Naomi Westfield?” he asks, consulting a clipboard.
Brandy picks up my hand and holds it aloft. I can’t speak. I have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and don’t know why.
“These are for you.”
When I don’t move, he hesitates fractionally and then starts depositing bouquets on the counter. Melissa’s face disappears behind a forest of green plumage and white petals.
The deliveryman leaves and still none of us have moved. I spot a white card sticking out and examine it. It’s supposed to contain a message like I LOVE YOU or SORRY I’M SO AWFUL AND WRONG.
It’s blank. But I know who these are from, and I’ve gotten his message, all right. He might as well have put it on a neon sign. HERE ARE THE FUCKING FLOWERS YOU NEEDED SO MUCH. ENJOY.
“What’s the occasion?” Zach asks.
My mouth is dry. “Just because.”
“This is . . . ah.” Melissa grasps for words.
“Excessive,” finishes Zach. “For a ‘just because.’”
“How lovely! What kind are they?” Brandy asks me this like they must be my favorite. I don’t have a favorite type of flower. I definitely have a least favorite, though.
“No idea.”
We safari through our new botanical garden, but there isn’t any information attached. Not even one of those little tabs they stick into the potting soil that tells you how frequently you’re supposed to water it.
“Looks kind of like oleander,” says Melissa warily.
Zach cocks his head. “Isn’t oleander poisonous?”
Suddenly the flowers make sense. It’s an assassination attempt. We all whip out our phones and start looking up pictures of oleander, and it’s true, I can see a resemblance. Five white petals, slightly pinwheeled, in clusters of greenery.
“Why would a flower shop sell poisonous plants?” I ask. “Is that legal?”
Melissa points out that we don’t know for sure these even came from a regulated flower shop. None of us can remember if the delivery boy was wearing a particular kind of uniform. He could’ve been anyone. Maybe Nicholas hired him off Craigslist. WANTED: MURDER ACCOMPLICE.
We give our fingers a workout with frantic Googling.
My ominous delivery sure does look like oleander to me, but it also looks like a million other types of flowers.
They all look the same. We discover it would be really easy to kill someone with this kind of plant, and according to IMDb that very plot happened in a movie with Michelle Pfeiffer.
Michelle’s character used them to kill her lover, a man named Barry. I’m being Barry’d.
Oh god. I hear the pun and nearly faint.
“According to the language of flowers,” Melissa says, “presenting someone with oleander is a way of telling them to watch out. Like, in a threatening way.”
“‘Watch out’ like we’re gonna die, watch out?” My voice is exceptionally high.
“I’m freaking out,” Brandy cries, wringing her hands. “I’m freaking OUT, you guys. Are we sure it’s from Nicholas? I mean, he seems . . .” She cuts me a sheepish look. “I’m sure he’s nice.”
“Of course it’s from Nicholas,” Zach bites, “and no, he’s not nice. Dentists are monsters. He’s probably still pissed that I won every round of Clue. When you’re a monster, it takes nothing at all to trigger your dark side.”
“You yelling at him in the dentist’s office that one time could’ve been a trigger,” says Melissa, who needs no convincing. “That’s why you’re on his list.”
“And you’re his friend’s ex. You know how people are about their friends’ exes.” He points at me. “You’re a loose end. Maybe he’s cheating.”
“What about me?” Brandy asks.
“He’s got an insatiable taste for murder by now. You’re collateral damage.”
Brandy looks a bit disappointed that her demise isn’t more personal.
I should be alarmed that we’ve devolved into Nicholas is a cold-blooded killer this rapidly, but weird, melodramatic afternoons are our normal.
When you never get any customers, boredom creeps in and conspiracy theories sprout out of any tiny event, which we pass around until mass hysteria takes over.
Zach is always the instigator, and he always turns out to be wrong, but the hysteria still catches on every time.
When he waves his hands to gesticulate, all wide-eyed and passionate, he can make any bonkers theory sound plausible.
“The oleander,” I whisper. “In the Junk Yard. By Dr. Rose. That’s what this is! It’s some kind of calling card, like all the big-league serial killers use. He’s the Clue Killer.” I inspect the blank message card again. No florist logo. It might as well bear Professor Plum’s demented smile.
“He wants to kill us all because he lost Clue?” Brandy says doubtfully. “This can’t be right.”
We dive back into our research.