An Affair to Dismember by Elise Sax Page B

Her point was taken. She was slender and fit. She was a poster child for the Spit It Out Diet, whatever that was.
    “You put it in your mouth for a taste, and if it’s not worth the calories, you spit it out,” she explained.
    I tried to hold back a look of disgust.
    “She does it all the time,” said one of the hairdressers.
    “Here, let me show you,” Bird said. She took a bite of a doughnut and spit it out in the trash can. “Ta-da!” she shouted triumphantly.
    I tried to hold back my gag reflex.
    “Everyone is a skeptic,” she said. “Try it. You’ll see.” Bird shampooed me and started on my trim. There was no jiggle in her upper arms as she wielded the scissors, and it made me think that maybe she had a point.Maybe there was something to her Spit It Out Diet. If I was going to give myself a makeover, shouldn’t I try her diet?
    “Hey, don’t you live next to that guy who was murdered?” Bird asked.
    The back of my neck tingled, and I sat up straighter in the chair. “I live across the street from an old man who died after he slipped and hit his head on the kitchen table,” I said.
    “That’s weird. I heard he was murdered. Hey, Joyce, wasn’t that guy murdered?”
    Joyce, the manicurist, nodded.
    “Where did you hear he was murdered?” I asked.
    “Here.” Bird scanned the salon. “It wasn’t my client. Whose client was it?”
    Joyce shrugged.
    “I think it was Sandy’s client,” said Bird. “I don’t know her name. But Sandy isn’t here today.”
    “She was the dead guy’s daughter,” said one of the hairdressers.
    “Yes, the blond one,” said Bird. “The blond daughter said her father was murdered. She said it matter-of-factly. You say it was an accident?”
    “SO WHAT do you want me to do?”
    “Talk me down. Talk me out of this. At least talk me out of the bushes.”
    “How did you get in the bushes in the first place?”
    That was a complicated question. I had wandered home in a haze. I couldn’t remember my haircut, the blow-dry, or paying Bird. My brain was working overtime, trying to recall which of Randy Terns’ daughters was blond, and it had no room to think of anything else.
    Walking down my street, I had seen movement infront of the Ternses’ house. I had ducked into the bushes in order to stake them out without being seen, just as Rob’s car drove by and slammed into Peter’s Porsche. Peter ran screaming out of the house toward his car. I waited for nearly an hour for the sisters to come out of the house, but there was no sign of them. Instead, the brothers continued to study the damage and yell at each other. I had no graceful way of exiting the bushes without revealing myself as the buttinsky spy that I was.
    I sat with my cellphone glued to my face. Bridget had few words of wisdom.
    “Gladie, why are you staking out the Ternses’ house?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I can’t remember which daughter was blond. I want to find out. I want to know why she thinks her father was murdered. For some reason, Randy Terns’ death has wormed its way into my psyche. I’m on the precipice of obsession. Help.”
    “Couldn’t you just have knocked on their door to see if they needed anything? That way you could see who was blond,” Bridget said in her usual logical manner.
    “I don’t want them to know I’m curious. I don’t want to get involved.”
    Peter stood by his Porsche, taking a break from yelling at his brother. He focused his attention on my grandmother’s house. He looked like he was deciding on something.
    “I definitely don’t want to get involved,” I hissed into the cellphone. “I don’t like death. I don’t like dead people. They creep me out.”
    “Gladie, you used to work in a funeral home.”
    “Only as the receptionist. And I didn’t actually make it to work. I passed out on the steps to the building. I saw a wreath of black flowers being delivered and lost consciousness. Does that sound like the kind of person who should get