Now Zoe was completely confused. “Her eyes?” She threw Carmela a questioning glance.
Carmela, who’d never had an implant or a collagen injection in her life, just nodded. “Had ’em done two years ago,” she said. “Love ’em.”
Ava lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Carmela was born with brown eyes. Didn’t the surgeons do a fabulous job?”
Zoe’s pouty mouth formed a perfect O. “Oh yes, they did,” she marveled. “And I had no idea they could even do a transplant procedure like that. Wow.”
“Biosynthetics,” purred Ava. “Isn’t medical science amazing?”
“Yes, it is,” said Zoe, feeling that she’d developed a real kinship with the two women.
“You’re evil,” Carmela told Ava as Zoe headed back to her table. “Pure, unadulterated evil.”
“And you’re not?” asked Ava. She gave a slow wink.
“Having fun?” she asked.
“I am now,” said Carmela. But ten minutes later, Shamus was back in her face, begging for help.
Carmela stared at him, wondering where he found the nerve. “You want my help?” she asked. The man was certainly born with an extra helping of chutzpah.
“There’s a problem with Glory,” Shamus hissed, plucking at Carmela’s sleeve. “Hurry up! We’ve got a dire emergency on our hands!”
As Shamus pulled her across the ballroom, Carmela noted that suddenly, somehow, Shamus considered the two of them complicit again. Now we have an emergency. On our hands.
Glory Meechum was slumped in her chair, one chubby hand still stubbornly clasped around a glass of bourbon. Her older brother, Jeffrey, a pear-shaped banker in a drab gray suit, stared at her helplessly. Two useless banker cousins sat nervously twiddling their thumbs.
“She just drank too much bourbon!” exclaimed Carmela as she surveyed the situation. Over the past couple years Carmela had seen Glory sock it away pretty good, but she’d never seen her this drunk. Glory’s face was doughy and slack, her lipstick smudged and smeared. Not a positive sign.
Shamus put a hand protectively on one of Glory’s broad shoulders. “That’s not the real problem. She only had a couple drinks this evening, but she’s been taking this new medicine for her OCD. My guess is the combination of booze and pills must’ve packed a real wallop.”
“That lady’s stoned, all right,” said Ava, who had followed Carmela to Shamus’s table. “She’s stoned out of her gourd.” Ava peered into Glory’s glazed eyes. “Oh yeah, look at her pupils. She’s gone.”
“She’s gone,” repeated Sweetmomma Pam, who had tagged along as well.
“Carmela, do something!” wailed Shamus.
Startled, wondering why this little family emergency had suddenly been thrust on her shoulders, Carmela whipped her head toward him. “Face it, Shamus, Glory’s zonked.”
“Carmela… please! You’ve got to do something,” Shamus begged as Baby and Del, curious as to what was going on, sidled up to the table as well.
“The woman’s clearly stoned, Shamus, what do you want me to do?” Carmela snapped. “Fire up the light show and throw some Jefferson Airplane on the turntable?”
“You don’t have to be so nasty about it,” grumped Shamus.
Carmela hesitated. Shamus was probably right. She was being a tad bitchy. But wasn’t she enjoying this little spectacle as well?
Oh yeah. What goes around comes around, Miss Glory Meechum. Spread enough bad karma around and it’ll come back and chomp you in the butt.
“This is Glory’s big night,” pleaded Shamus. “She’s supposed to receive her Founder’s Award!”
“Might I offer a suggestion?” said Baby. She stood on the sidelines, looking cool and somewhat detached in her Marie Antoinette costume, but also helping to block this rather embarrassing scene from other prying eyes.
“Whaaaa?” mumbled Glory, rolling her head. Neither eye seemed to be able to focus on the same thing. With her head sunk on her chest and her eyes looking wonky and rolling out to the sides, Carmela thought Glory resembled a Mississippi channel catfish.
“Now mind you,” said Baby, “not that I know this first-hand. But I did attend college in the late sixties.”
Ava gave an encouraging nod. “Lots of psychedelics back then. Powerful stuff.”
“And I did hear rumors… realize, these were only rumors,” said Baby, “that several spoonfuls of sugar dissolved in a glass of orange juice could bring a person down from a nasty high. Something about increasing glucose and balancing blood sugar levels.”
“Kind of like a diabetic,” breathed Ava. “That’s good.”
“Shamus, go tell Monroe Payne to hold off on that Founder’s Award presentation,” announced Carmela. She narrowed her eyes, appraising Glory like she was a science project. “Let’s go ahead and try Baby’s sugar and orange juice suggestion. Glory’s in no condition to walk out on a stage. Let alone stumble through an acceptance speech.”
“I don’t know,” said Baby, “I’ve seen lots of men do it.”
“But that’s men, honey,” interjected Ava. “In the South men are expected to get a little tipsy at social occasions. It’s their birthright.”
“Hear, hear,” said Baby’s husband, Del, grinning.
Chapter 21
“CARMELA,” said Gabby, her face scrunched into a worried grimace, “I think Stuart’s havin’ one of his low blood sugar attacks.”
“Um… didn’t Stuart just eat, Gabby?” Carmela had just poured glass after glass of sugar-enhanced orange juice down Glory Meechum’s gullet to revive her, and now Gabby was pressing her about yet another health crisis. What am I? An ER doc?
Gabby gestured helplessly at her husband, who was sprawled in his chair, staring up at Ava with a foolish grin. “He didn’t eat that much,” explained Gabby. “He was pretty busy jumping up and down, gallivanting around to neighboring tables, and saying how-do to folks.”
“Uh-huh,” said Carmela. “Trying to sell cars?”
“Lester Dorian did mention that he might be trading in his Cadillac, and Stuart was trying to get him to go for the big Toyota.”
“With the luxury package,” said Carmela.
“Of course,” said Gabby. “And the GPS. Anyway,” she continued, “the food’s all cleared away and since you’re personally acquainted with the caterer and his head chef, I thought maybe you could… you know…”
“Get some food for Stuart,” said Carmela.
“Could you do that?” asked Gabby. “I really hate to leave Stuart sitting here all by himself. He’s so shaky and rambling. You never know what could happen.”
Right, thought Carmela. Stuart might get spirited off by forest elves. Or, worse yet, rival car dealers. “Okay, Gabby, but just hold on a minute, okay?”
“How come everybody’s droppin’ like flies?” asked Ava as she dug in her evening bag for a packet of Clorets. “It’s like we’re on one of those big cruise ships or something.”
“That’s right,” said Carmela, “the Voyage of the Damned. Now, for the pièce de résistance all we need is a rousing case of Legionnaires’ disease.”
“Chew this,” Ava instructed Stuart as she shook a Cloret out of the package and handed it to him. “No, honey, don’t just swallow it in one gulp, it’s not a pill.” Ava sighed mightily as she passed him another Cloret. “Here. Try it again. And this time chew!”
Carmela checked her watch as she sped across the ballroom. Five minutes to nine. Where had the evening gone? Had she even had a few moments to relax and have a bit of fun? Hell no.
In fact, she was beginning to feel like some poor shlub in a Marx Brothers comedy where everything was spiraling out of control. Not only did she have to find a couple bites of food for Stuart, preferably something sweet and chewy, she had to surreptitiously meet Billy Cobb at the side door, try to locate Lt. Edgar Babcock, and then see if she could engineer some sort of truce between Billy and the New Orleans Police Department. Could she really pull all that off? Only if she was suddenly brandishing a bright blue Superwoman cape and a pair of silver bracelets.