All Bernie ever did was complicate things.
“After all,” Bernie said, “what’s the worst that can happen? That we’ll be thrown out of here, and isn’t that what you want anyway?”
“I hate when you do this,” Libby told her.
“Do what?” Bernie demanded.
“Twist my words back at me.”
“I’m not twisting anything,” Bernie said as she moved toward the door. “Except maybe my ring. I was just repeating what you’ve been saying the whole day, which is that you don’t want to be on the show. Right?”
Libby had to concede that was true.
“So it doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does,” Libby said. She knew Bernie’s reasoning was faulty; she just didn’t know why. “Wait,” Libby cried as Bernie grasped the doorknob.
“It’ll be fine,” Bernie assured her. She pulled.
The door flew open. As Bernie walked in, Libby caught a glimpse of Consuela Batista bending over a file cabinet.
Bernie stopped short. She didn’t know what she’d expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t a view of Consuela’s ample derriere. Some people, she decided, shouldn’t wear pants with large tropical flowers on them.
“What are you doing?” Bernie demanded, not that the answer wasn’t fairly self-evident.
As Consuela turned and straightened up, Bernie frowned slightly. She knew she’d seen her before in another context, with a different name, but try as she might, she couldn’t remember. The question had been bothering her since she’d first seen the feature about Consuela in Food magazine last year. Then she’d forgotten about it until she’d seen her name on the list of contestants.
“Me?” Consuela replied. “Me? How about you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bernie said.
“I’m not the one who’s ridiculous,” Consuela shot back.
Bernie watched Consuela narrow her eyes. She’s good, she thought appreciatively. Given the circumstances, most people would have looked at least a little guilty or startled, but not Consuela. No, siree. She was practically vibrating with indignation. She looked like a hen about to peck someone to death.
Of course, the way Consuela was wearing her hair might have inspired her behavior, Bernie mused. Over the years, she’d noticed a correlation between bad hairstyles and bad behavior. Bernie was trying to figure out how Consuela had managed to achieve that look—Bernie was guessing paste—and why she’d want to, when Consuela opened her mouth and began shrieking for help.
Again, this was not what Bernie had expected. For a moment, Bernie was rendered speechless as she listened to Consuela’s screams. They were, Bernie reflected, impressively loud screams. In fact, they were the kind of screams that nineteenth-century novelists might describe as bloodcurdling, although how blood could actually curdle was something Bernie had yet to figure out. Obviously, blood could boil being a liquid and all. But curdle? No. Bernie didn’t think so. As far as she knew, only milk curdled.
“Stop,” Bernie shouted; but as she did, she realized that her lungs were no match for Consuela’s, who was now shrieking away like some sort of demented banshee, although here again, on reflection, Bernie wasn’t sure that banshees shrieked, so this was another infelicitous phrase.
From what she’d read, banshees were supernatural beings in Ireland and Scotland who took the shape of old women and moaned or sung outside of houses where people were going to die. So then where had the expression “shrieking like a banshee” come from? It was probably from a piece of literature. She was trying to figure out which story it could be when the door that led to the other kitchen banged open. Eric Royal, Hortense Calabash’s personal assistant, came running in.
Bernie decided he looked like a crane. Now this was a man who needed to update his look. His bowl haircut pointed attention to his large, curved nose, and his clothes, tight bell-bottom jeans, single-button lavender velvet jacket, and white shirt made him look even skinnier than he already was. The whole sixties thing definitely wasn’t working for him. But what would? Bernie wasn’t sure.
“What is going on?” he demanded.
Consuela stopped her screaming, pointed her finger at Bernie and Libby, and announced, “I caught them snooping around in here. They were looking for the file with the ingredients.”
Unfrigginbelievable, Bernie thought. Talk about chutzpah. Talk about unmitigated gall. She was just opening her mouth to say something when out of the corner of her eye she saw Libby moving past her.
“She’s lying,” Libby yelled as she shook a finger at Consuela. “She was the one looking in the file cabinet.”
“Me?” Consuela drew herself up. Bernie was interested to see that Consuela’s heels were higher than hers. “You’re accusing me?” Consuela asked. “That is ridiculous. I do not need to cheat to win this contest.”
“And you’re saying I do?” Libby spat.
Consuela shrugged and inspected her nails. Bernie noticed that each one had a silver star in its center.
“Think what you want,” she told Libby.
Eric Royal cleared his throat. “Ladies, ladies,” he said as he reluctantly moved forward into the fray—a fray it was perfectly obvious to Bernie he didn’t want any part of.
Consuela snorted and turned away from him while Libby didn’t even look up. Poor sap, Bernie thought as she laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze, and stepped out in front of her.
“So you’re accusing us?” she asked Consuela.
“What did I just say?” Consuela replied.
“Frankly, I’m not sure what to think,” Bernie answered. “I’m really quite shocked at this show of perfidy.”
“Perfidy?” Consuela repeated uncertainly.
“That’s what I said,” Bernie told her as she reflected that it appeared as if Mrs. French, her fourth-grade English teacher, had spoken the truth when she’d said, “Children, trust in a large vocabulary. It will always serve you well.”
“You’re nuts,” Consuela retorted, gathering steam again.
As Bernie listened to Consuela rant on about how terrible Bernie was for using a word like that, it occurred to her that the more wrought up Consuela became, the less Spanish her accent sounded and the more New Jersey it became; suddenly she knew where she remembered Consuela from.
“You went to school in Hoboken,” Bernie told her, breaking into Consuela’s ravings. “Your name used to be Darlene Brown.”
Bernie was interested to see that Consuela shut up. Instantly. Bernie could see a flicker
