The Mutual Admiration Society by Lesley Kagen
FACT: Painting hard-boiled eggs is a normal hobby to have during Easter time, but it’s a very weird way to spend your leisure hours during other parts of the year.
PROOF: I am definitely sending this story into Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
After hearing the back-to-school news, I usually would’ve joined in the rumble, but considering what our principal did for Birdie, and that I regular-promised her brother that I would try to go easier on her, I did not pelt Sister Margaret Mary with potato pancakes after she made the announcement at the Friday Fish Fry tonight, so I did not get instantly expelled the way half of the juvenile delinquents did, including that maniac Butch Seeback, thank you, sweet Jesus.
Because I am working very hard to follow Mr. Lynwood “My friends call me Woody and my enemies call me their worst enemy” Bellflower’s detecting directions to the letter, I reach under my pillow and pull out my detecting notebook and stubby pencil. In Chapter Seven of the best book ever written on the subject, he wrote, “Once an investigation has reached a conclusion, it is important to create a case file,” so by the light of my Roy Rogers flashlight, I jot down most of everything that happened tonight.
FACT: I bumped into Kitten Jablonski in the little girls’ room and after I stepped back far enough to make sure one of her pimples didn’t parachute down to my face, I told her what Sister Margaret Mary wrote in the note Sister Prudence found, but not why she wrote it, because her hurrying over to the cemetery to talk to her brother about the stolen Pagan Baby collection money is none of Kitten’s damn business. I just left it at, “Sister had an emergency situation to attend to.”
PROOF: Of course, my confidential informant didn’t apologize for daring me and putting me under so much pressure, because her saying she’s sorry for anything, well, that’s not one of her business policies. What she did was punch me in the arm and tell me, “I absolve you of the dare, Finley,” and then she made sure that her snitch, Linda O’Brien, who is a slave to the nuns this week for telling her mother that she didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground the way Charlie said she was, told every single kid that passed in front of her in the cafeteria line to get two fish sticks slapped on their plates, “Finley completed the dare so lay offa her, and if ya say one word about this hairnet, you’ll be eating your perch with a busted lip.”
FACT: What’s-his-name will not be coming around and beeping the ah-OO-ga horn of his souped-up Chevy every morning, or keeping our mother out late at night, not for a while at least, because I did #4 on this list:
JUST DESSERTS
1. Find out where the numbskull lives and smear black shoe polish on his Chevy’s whitewalls.
2. Put a bag of burning dog doo-doo on his porch, ring the doorbell, and run.
3. Call him at his “alleged” job at the American Motors plant and use that impression you learned from watching gangster movies where wops are always threatening their enemies: Dis is Three-Fingered Louie Galetti and you-a better stay away from that doll Louise Finley if you-a don’ wanna be fitted for a cement raincoat, ya goomba.
4. Doctor up his food, if you ever get to meet him face-to-face.
PROOF: After all the folderol during THE CASE OF THE TROTS, if there is anything that Louise Finley does not want to be associated with it’s a bad case of diarrhea, and I mixed up so many ground-up Ex-Lax pills into Leon Gallagher’s tapioca pudding dessert when he was hypnotized by Louise’s bouncing bosom that he got too pooped to participate the rest of the night. (Joke!) He didn’t even make it to the little boys’ room. (Ha . . . ha . . . ha . . . Gotcha!)
FACT: Louise doesn’t need his “alleged” American Motors paycheck ASAP anymore, so she told Birdie and me that we can start calling her Mom again. She sang “Some Enchanted Evening”—hers and Daddy’s song—the entire walk home from the fish fry, which I found a little annoying, but I guess it’s better than having to listen to her sing the blues. (Birdie will take Louise up on her offer to call her Mom, but I won’t. I think you need to have a really bad memory like my sister’s if you want to forget and forgive somebody.)
PROOF: Louise had a very good reason to feel enchanted, because Mr. Fleming, the father of Mary Jane Fleming, who has been calling our mother every day from his desk at the First Wisconsin Bank to tell her that she better make a payment on our house or else, told Louise at the fish fry that a mysteriously large amount of dough turned up in her checking account late this afternoon, which should take care of matters.
FACT: I have already solved THE CASE OF THE MIRACULOUS MORTGAGE MONEY.
PROOF: Mr. James “Jimmy/Good Egg” McGinty got plenty of dough from his rich departed uncle to do as many charitable acts as he wants, and I’m pretty sure our godfather would really miss the Finley sisters if we had to move out of the neighborhood and into the poorhouse.
FACT: The Pagan Baby election has been called off and a winner declared, due to the niceness of another mysterious do-gooder who pleads the Fifth.
PROOF: Some genius kid waited until Gert Klement left to set up for the fish fry this afternoon, and then she stuck her weird sister in front of the Motorola television and her game shows and some Hershey’s kisses that she found under her bed. She then rode her Schwinn bike up two streets to Kenfield’s Five and Dime on North Ave. to buy the biggest piece of poster board she could find—she only paid for it because she couldn’t stick it under her T-shirt without getting caught—then she five-fingered a thick black marker and a pair of red pom-poms and she rode a block over to Melman’s Hardware. This is where she sliced open a bag of cement in aisle seven with her father’s lucky Swiss Army Knife and scooped some of it into a brown paper bag. The last stop she made was at Dalinsky’s Drugstore for more candy and Tums and Ex-Lax.
When the same smart kid finished her errands, she came home and refilled a bowl to the brim with Hershey’s kisses and set it down in front of her sister, who was happily watching The Price Is Right. Then she popped into her garage and mixed up the cement in a coffee can and printed a huge sign with her left hand so no one would recognize her excellent handwriting. After that, once she made sure that nobody was around to wonder what the hell she was doing, she ran down the block.
She was not at all worried that she would get seen by Mrs. Nancy Tate. Due to her excellent investigative skills, she knew that gal was up at Rhonda’s Beauty Parlor getting a permanent wave, when she stuck the sign in the hole she made in the Tate’s front lawn, along with some of the cement to prevent easy removal:
ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!
DON’T BE A BIG FAT BORE!
GET YOUR POM-POMS OUT AND CHEER!
FOR THE HOOVER SALESMAN OF THE YEAR!
(MR. HORACE MERTZ MAKES EVENING HOUSE CALLS.)
Considering how strongly that kid feels about an eye for an eye, in her opinion, that patchwork-quilting, pagan-baby-torturing holy roller who slid her vicious little foot-long dog through her rumpus room window the night two snooping sisters spied her hoochie-coochie dancing for a vodka-on-the-rocks-swilling traveling vacuum cleaner salesman got off easy.
FACT: You should’ve heard some of the other slogans that kid came up with.
PROOF: WHORE also rhymes with FOUR.
After about a hundred of the busybodies who had seen the new advertising sign on her front lawn came up to Mrs. Nancy Tate at the fish fry to ask her why she was so nuts about Mr. Horace Mertz, my mother’s opponent rushed right over to Gert Klement and told her that she changed her mind about running for treasurer and withdrew her name. (That same kid might’ve also paid two dollars to the loudest and most obnoxious kid in the church choir, baritone Bertie Buss, to follow Mrs. Nancy Tate around the cafeteria shaking those two red five and dime pom-poms while singing “Rockin’ Robin,” in case the gigantic poison-pen sign cemented into her front lawn wasn’t enough to make that lame duck waddle out of the fish fry with her tail between her legs.) (Joke!)
FACT: I think Charlie is about ready to set a date.
PROOF: He kissed me longer this time on
FACT: Mrs. Gert Klement is not happy.
PROOF: Sure, she’s glad that she got her Pagan Baby money back, but I could tell that she was crushed that she didn’t get the chance to call the cops and get Birdie and me sent away to “homes,” for now, anyway.
So all and all, as I lay here now next to my always-sweet-smelling, snoozing partner in crime, I’m thinking The Mutual Admiration Society did okay on our first kidnapping and murder case. Our investigation wasn’t perfect, but from years of experience and all the time Birdie and me spend in Holy Cross, I have long suspected that not just the Finley sisters or my Charlie, but nobody gets those and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after fairy-tale endings. We must all BE PREPARED to have a little Grimm mixed in. (No joke.)
Until Butch Seeback gets moved permanently to the juvie home after he commits some awful Ed Gein crime, I will always have to keep my eyes out for him, and my poor sister will probably always be a weird loonatic, and buttinsky and battle-ax Gert Klement will never bury her hatchet, and Louise will more than likely start dating what’s-his-name again after his trotting clears up, and I will always miss Daddy with every beat of my heart, every breath, every lightning bolt, and every joke. Not a minute will go by in the day that I won’t wonder how I’m going to live to the next minute without him, and every single night when I stand in front of our bedroom window, I will cry when I see the curve of his headstone under the cemetery’s flickering streetlights.
On the other hand . . . like Daddy always told me when he was punching his bag and making our basement floor slippery with sweat, “No matter how bad things get, Tessie, you gotta always remember, come Hell or high water, a Finley never, ever throws in the towel.”
So . . . in the spirit of things (Joke!) I already got my brand-new list ready and raring to go when the sun peeks through the cracks of my sister’s and my bedroom window shade:
TO-DO
Take tender loving care of Birdie.
Make Gert Klement think her arteries are going as hard as her heart.
Practice your Miss America routine.
Learn how to swim.
Be a good dry-martini-making fiancée to Charlie.
Do not get caught blackmailing or spying.
Just think about making a real confession to Father Ted, before it’s too late.
Stop at Bloomers for pink roses for Daddy.
Test Birdie again to make sure that she really does have ESP and her guessing every single one of those numbers that I was thinking of tonight wasn’t half-Irish luck.
Beat Jenny Radtke to the top of the Finney Library Billy the Bookworm chart or just beat her.
Tell Birdie you found one of Louise’s L&M cigarette butts at Daddy’s pretend grave.
Learn Morris’s Code.
Steal new Halloween costumes for Birdie and me from Kenfield’s Five and Dime.
Go see Suzie “That French Slut” LaPelt at Lonnigan’s so Birdie and me can sing the “Sisters” song on the bar and play the Arabian Nights pinball game and talk to her about Daddy, and as long as you’re there, ask her for a demonstration of this ooo-la-la kissing you are hearing so much about.
Stay back after school on Monday and find Gracie Carver so you and Birdie can tell her all about what happened while she was gone. She will get such a kick out of it and laugh that relaxing Southern way.
Keep your eyes peeled for a dead body. Current second-place winner in the “Best Mourner” in the parish contest Mrs. Sophia Maniaci, who is a Sicilian—an especially vengeful type of Italian who everyone in the neighborhood knows you shouldn’t cross—hissed out to the current first-place winner, Mrs. Ann Tracy, when she was leaving the fish fry, “Il bacio della morte,” which is the kiss-of-death curse, so it shouldn’t be long before The Mutual Admiration Society has another great-good-luck murder case on our hands.
The End
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Deepest thanks to the wondrous souls who make me laugh, crack the whip, swipe off my tears, and encourage me not to throw in the towel:
My forever-loved brilliant and hilarious son, Riley, my guiding light and muse. Casey, my daughter and best friend whose strength, intelligence, love, and sassiness are truly something to behold. Her husband, John-Michael, “Big Daddy,” one in a million. And our gifts from on high, Charlie and Hadley, the grandest of babies, possessors of magic and the kindest hearts, who inspire us to be our best selves.
Kelli Martin, the charming and talented-beyond-words fairy godmother who waved her magic wand over the story. Should all writers be so lucky to work with an editor of her caliber and grace.
The Lake Union team, including copyeditor Deb Taber, proofreader Johanna Rosenbohm, and cover designer Rachel Adam, who provided me with the kind of publishing experience that I’d only dreamed of. It was a privilege to work with every single one of them.
My literary agent, Kim Witherspoon, whose insight has proved invaluable over the years.
Star authors who offered such lovely praise—Mary Kubica, Heather Gudenkauf, Cassie Selleck, and Barbara Claypole White—you are the bomb.
Dear friends Beth Hoffman, Fran “Elfie” Wagner, Bonnie Shimko, Emily Lewis, and Dr. Meagan Harris. I have been informed by sources that I’m currently not at liberty to discuss that they’re all going to Heaven for reading early drafts.
Social media manager extraordinaire Susie Stangland, and Maddee and Jen at Xuni.com, who work wonders on the internet and beyond.
Love to Rebecca Winner for her continued generosity and kindness.
And to you, and all the readers who allow me to be part of their lives, I remain forever honored and grateful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2011 Megan McCormick/Shoot the Moon Photography
Lesley Kagen is an actress, voice-over talent, speaker, and award-winning New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Undertaking of Tess. Her work has been translated into seven languages. A mother of two and grandmother of two, she lives in a hundred-year-old farmhouse in a small town in Wisconsin. Visit with her on Facebook and at her website, www.lesleykagen.com.
Lesley Kagen, The Mutual Admiration Society