Back in Abby’s apartment, we finished dressing and checked out each other’s appearance. Terry looked fantastic in Uncle Morty’s classic black tux. It fit him almost perfectly. The pants were just a tad too short, but with his glorious white hair and sparkling blue eyes it was a cinch nobody would be looking at his feet. Abby looked even more fantastic. She had swept her hair up in a sleek French twist and then coiled the long ends around the top of her head in a smooth ebony crown. Her face was beautiful, her black and white dress was beautiful, her long black gloves and her milky white shoulders were beautiful. She looked like Ava Gardner on a really good night.

I, on the other hand, looked like Milton Berle in a hand-me-down prom frock. The dress fit me okay, but it was ugly. And heavy. I felt like I was wearing a bathmat with a skirt attached. And there was nothing “slight” about the gravy stain on the hideous pea-green sash. It was as big as my palm and in a very prominent place. I took one look at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of Abby’s coat closet door and shuddered in horror.

“This is awful!” I cried, glaring at Abby. “I don’t believe this is the best thing you could come up with for me to wear. You’re just getting even with me for Muffy Gurch!”

Abby laughed. “That’s crazy talk,” she said. “This is the only fancy dress I have that’s sure to hide your unsightly legs.”

“My legs aren’t half as unsightly as this dress!” I exclaimed. “Quick! Get me the scissors!”

Shooting me a questioning look, Abby took the shears out of the sewing kit sitting on the coffee table and handed them to me. “What are you going to do?”

In the interest of cutting time (okay, cutting short Abby’s possible objections), I decided to show instead of tell. I slipped the open scissor blades down over the waistband of the sash and snipped clean through it. Then, grabbing the ugly thing by its big fat ugly bow, I yanked the whole darned gravy-stained sash free of the dress’s belt loops and tossed it on the couch. I cut off all the belt loops, too.

“Oh, that’s so much better!” Abby cried, not the least bit upset by my violent attack on her dress. “Why didn’t I think of that? You look really groovy now. All that’s needed is the necklace.”

She opened her pantry and took out the canister of sugar. Then she opened the canister and took out the tin foil-wrapped package of diamonds. Prying the edges of the tin foil apart and plucking Judy’s necklace from the jumble of Tiffany jewelry inside, she walked over to me and fastened the two-tiered string of oh-so-valuable gems around my oh-so-humble neck.

Transformed, I wasn’t. I didn’t like wearing the diamonds any more than I liked being harnessed with the gravy-smeared sash. I may have been the only woman in the Western world (besides Judy) who would ever have felt this way, but I found the necklace to be garish and unseemly. I thought it made me look tacky and-strange to say-cheap.

Abby couldn’t have disagreed more. “Ooooooh!” she squealed, practically passing out from the thrill of the glistening vision. “I’m kvelling all over the place! You look regal! Like a fabulous fairy-tale queen!”

“Yeah, well…” I didn’t tell her that I felt like a royal ass. Do people really kill each other over this useless sparkly stuff?

“You look beautiful, Paige,” Terry said, moving close to me, cupping my chin in his big warm hand. “I wish Bob could see you now. He would be so proud.”

I was grateful for the compliment, even though I knew it wasn’t true. (Bob would never have been proud of me for wearing diamonds. As a man of very simple tastes, he’d been most impressed when I was wearing nothing.)

“Thanks, Terry,” I said, blushing. I could feel the pinkness wash across my face-and the sadness wash across my heart. Looking to change the subject before the mirage of Bob’s loving smile caused me to wash the floor in tears, I mumbled, “So is everybody ready? It must be time to go.”

Abby looked at the clock on her kitchen wall and gave a start. “We’re running late, kids!” she cried. “Let’s goose it.”

Chapter 26

HEY, DID YOU EVER SEE THE MOVIE THE Thing? It came out about three years ago. Actually, the whole title was The Thing from Another World, but everybody just called it The Thing. It was about a being from outer space, the pilot of a downed spaceship, who is found frozen in ice at the North Pole, and then thawed out-much to the horror and dismay of the isolated band of scientists and military personnel whose blood, it turns out, the hungry spaceman (actually he’s a hungry spaceplant!) must feed on.

I mention this movie, not as a science fiction film buff who wants to bend your ear about the scientific-or, in this case, truly unscientific-details of a certain film, but as the pilot of a downed spaceship who wants to relate, as accurately as possible, her observations and impressions of the alien world in which she suddenly-at 9:06 P.M. on Christmas Eve, 1954-found herself defrosted.

The Smythe penthouse occupied the entire top floor of the elegantly appointed twelve-story building. We stepped off the elevator, walked across a small beige marble foyer, and entered the apartment through two colossal, wide-open, hand-carved wood doors. A butler greeted us at the door and two maids helped us off with our coats, whisking them away to an unknown location down the gold-veined marble hall to the left. Not knowing what we were supposed to do next, we stood like sticks in the enormous entrance hall, gaping at the six-foot-high floral arrangements positioned around the marble walls, and gazing up at the colossal crystal chandelier, which hung down from the center of the cavernous ceiling like a cluster of shimmering stalactites. The large round gilded table in the middle of the entrance hall was topped with a beautiful gold Christmas tree. Its only ornaments were hundreds, maybe thousands, of perfect red rosebuds.

We had definitely landed (okay, crashed) on a foreign planet. Due to the fragrant roses, and the tinkling crystal, and the celestial music wafting in from another room, I figured it was Venus.

“Well, what are we standing here for?” Abby croaked, breaking us out of our collective spaced-out trance. “Let’s go find the booze.”

“Down the hall to your right,” the butler announced, in a deep, echoing, butler-like voice.

Terry and I followed Abby through the entrance hall into another hall, turned right, and then headed down that hall in the direction of the music. Eventually we came to the large arched doorway to the living room-the passageway to the party. Gregory Smythe was standing just inside the doorway talking to a lovely older woman in a navy satin gown, but ogling a much younger woman in red chiffon who was standing nearby.

“Mr. Smythe!” I said, walking right up to him and holding out my hand. “How nice to see you again.”

He grabbed my hand and started fondling it, even though he clearly didn’t remember who I was. “Oh, hello, Miss… uh… Miss…”

“It’s Mrs. Turner,” I said quickly. “We met in your office yesterday, when I came to see you about a recent inheritance.”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Turner!” he exclaimed, bowing to kiss my hand. After he gave it one smooch, I snatched it away and hid it behind my back.

As soon as he was upright again, I stuck my neck out (literally) and said, “We still have some unfinished business to discuss, Mr. Smythe. Do you think we might have a brief private talk later?”

“By all means, Mrs. Turner!” he said, grinning lasciviously and giving me an overt wink. Smythe was the kind of fool whose feelings were always flashing on his face. I fingered the diamonds around my neck and watched for his reaction, but he gave no sign of even noticing the necklace, let alone recognizing it.