- No Such Thing as a Good Blind Date
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When childhood friend and recent parolee, Toodie Ventura, suggests he exchange his plumbing services for the spare room of twenty-eight year old Brandy Alexander's house, the out-of-work new homeowner thinks it's a pretty good idea.
That is, until she discovers a dismembered body in her basement freezer and the suspect topping the list is the now missing Toodie.
Brandy refuses to accept that her old friend is a cold-blooded killer and with the help of her ex-boyfriend, Detective Bobby DiCarlo and the sexy mystery man, Nicholas Santiago, she sets out to prove Toodie’s innocence.
Soon, Brandy finds herself up to her neck in stalkers and deranged killers, all the while juggling some of the worst blind dates ever!
What the critics say:
"Brandy is a fun, feisty narrator with a big heart...and the plot is brisk and lively" ~ChickLitBooks.Com
No Such Thing as A Good Blind Date by Shelly Fredman
Prologue
My name is Brandy Alexander and I am a recently reinstated native of South Philadelphia; more specifically, the proud new owner of the house I grew up in. Until five weeks ago I was the “puff piece reporter” for a local morning TV news show, out in Los Angeles. My job was to act perky and look like I was having the time of my life while reporting on “special events” around the L.A. area. There’s really only so much enthusiasm a person can whip up for the Pacoima Chili Cook-off and the job fell a tad short of my dream of becoming the next Diane Sawyer, but it kept me off the streets and out of debt.
I’d left Philadelphia for the most cliché’d of reasons - a broken heart. (I’m a firm believer in running away from one’s problems. It’s a great strategy, right up there with denial. Plus, it’s the only exercise I get.) You’d think that my four year stay in the land of a million therapists would have taught me to confront my feelings head-on, but as my dad would say, I’m a tenacious little bugger. I stick with my game plan no matter how dysfunctional.
Then one day my best friend, Franny DiAngelo, called to say she was getting married, and there was a bridesmaid’s dress down at Mama Mia’s Bridal Shop with my name on it. She had launched a pre-emptive strike and there was no way I could refuse her. So with much trepidation I packed up my emotional baggage and hopped a plane to Philly.
I didn’t even realize how much I’d missed my hometown until I was back in the heart of it. My brother and my best friends in the world all still lived in the neighborhood. Sam Giancola still made the world’s best hoagies, and the crazy guy in the top hat who sells Italian ice on Market Street still remembered that my favorite flavor is cherry.
My career in Los Angeles was stalled in the 6:00 a.m. “filler” slot of a third rate news station. My social life was non-existent, since I’d gone on a grand total of six dates in the entire time I’d lived out there. I missed the sights, the smells and the sounds of my neighborhood. I missed who I was and how I felt being surrounded by the people I love.
In the two weeks I’d been back in Philly, I had reconciled my differences with (if not my feelings for) my ex-boyfriend and could finally take a walk down memory lane without bursting into tears. In short, the time was ripe for a change. So when my parents announced they were selling our family home and moving to Florida, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to buy the house from them. My boss at the TV station argued that it wasn’t very mature of a twenty-eight year old to run back to the metaphoric womb, but nobody likes a know-it-all so I decided to ignore her advice. Had she pointed out that the metaphoric womb was over sixty years old, with really bad plumbing, she may have gotten my attention.
Chapter One
“Well, now here’s your problem.” Russell Hannigan, reigning expert on clogged pipes, waved a metallic snake-like object in the air. Speared on the tip sat a soggy oblong wad of cotton.
Eeww. I blushed in recognition.
“How many times do I gotta tell you women not to throw this crap down the toilet?”
“It’s not mine. I think Mrs. Gentile was in here the other day.” I was not above blaming my geriatric neighbor for anything embarrassing retrieved from the depths of my toilet bowl. “Um, do you mind just throwing that away?”
Russell gave a disgusted shake of his head and tossed the culprit in the trashcan. “Ya know these pipes are ancient. They’re gonna give you a real headache if you don’t replace them.”
I sighed. “How much?”
“It’s gonna cost ya.”
Big surprise.
“Russell, you up there?”
“Yeah, Toodie, come on up.”
Toodie? Toodie Ventura? I craned my neck over the railing as a lanky, red haired bundle of manic energy bounded up the stairs. Toodie was two years ahead of me in elementary school, the same class as my brother, Paul. By the time I”’ graduated high school he was one year behind. Toodie reminded me of an Irish Setter puppy, all arms and legs and big dopey smiles. He laid one on me now and I couldn’t help but smile back.
“Yo, Brandy. I heard you were back in town. Me too.”
Toodie had just returned from an all expense paid vacation, courtesy of the Pennsylvania penal system. He’d been convicted of stalking his ex-girlfriend, Ilene, and burning cigarette holes in the crotches of all her panties as they hung on the line to dry in her back yard.
Toodie’s grandmother was convinced it was all just a big misunderstanding, but the dead rats he’d left in Ilene’s oven, along with the note that read: “Bon Appetit, you fucking bitch. Love, Toodie” cleared up any lingering doubts the judge may have had. Okay, so the “puppy” had a dark side.
Russell cleaned up his tools and headed downstairs. That left just me and Toodie, and I wasn’t sure why he was here in the first place.
“I’m working for Russell now. He needed help with the overflow.” Standing ankle-deep in toilet water, Toodie considered what he’d just said and cracked up.
I helped him mop up and we made our way downstairs. Russell was under the kitchen sink, banging away on the pipes.
“You’ve got a leak the size of Lake Erie. Ya don’t do something about it, it’s gonna ruin the drywall.”
I did a quick mental calculation. Eighty-five bucks an hour plus materials came to more than an out-of-work new homeowner could afford.
“Can’t do it, Russell. At least not until I get a job,” which, at the rate things were going, could be never.
In the five weeks since I’d been back, I’d been on nine interviews at various news organizations, starting with the most prestigious and slowly working my way down, until yesterday, I found myself answering an ad for a new show called The Nosey Neighbor.
Basically, the job consists of a pair of binoculars and a cheap digital camera with which I’m supposed to spy on people in the neighborhood and catch them in embarrassing situations. Hilarity ensues. I told them I’d think about it and they told me not to wait too long, there’s a real market out there for this kind of stuff. And there are still people who think we couldn’t possibly be descended from apes.
Toodie hung back as Russell pulled away from the curb. I live in a predominantly Italian neighborhood on a narrow street filled with small, attached houses called row homes. My house is at the end of the block. The mezuzah on the doorjamb reflects my dad’s half of my heritage, while the statue of the Virgin Mary peering out of a second story window represents my mother’s.
Eighty-year-old Doris Gentile and I share a common wall. Mrs. Gentile hates me. It started with the decades-old feud she’s carried on with my mother, over some holiday lawn ornaments. In Mrs. Gentile’s world grudges are transferable and they pick up steam as time goes by.
At the sound of Russell’s van, Mrs. Gentile poked her head outside “to see who was making all that ruckus.” Like there was any doubt in her mind. She sniffed the early December air as if she smelled something distasteful on her shoe and glared down at me. Suddenly her eyes clamped onto Toodie and she furrowed her unibrow in recognition.
“Toodie Ventura, is that you?”
“ Yes, ma’am.”
“Shoo. Shoo!” she scowled, willing him gone with a flick of her wrist.
Toodie remained rooted in place.
“What’s with her?” I asked.
“She’s mad at me because I threw snowballs at her cat when I was six.”
“Oh.”
Mrs. Gentile gave up and slammed her door.
I looked at my watch. I was late for an interview and didn’t have time for small talk, but I didn’t want to appear rude.
“Toodie, it was good to see ya.”
“So Brandy, I was thinking. You need some plumbing repairs and I need a place to stay until my granny gets back from her trip to the Bahamas..”
Oy, I could see where this was heading. “Toodie, why can’t you just stay at her place while she’s gone?”
“She says I can’t stay there alone since I accidentally set her rug on fire with my wood burning set. But that’s just because I was high at the time. I don’t do that shit anymore,” he added, but he didn’t look me in the eye so I wasn’t all that convinced.
“Gee, Toodie, I’d like to help you out and all, but I’m not looking for a roommate right now.” Especially a pyromaniac girlfriend-stalker, no matter how tempting free plumbing is. I started backing away towards the house.
“Okay, so like if you change your mind, give me a call. You can reach me on my cell. It’s 570-1250.”
“Will do, Toodie.” I made a big show of memorizing the number.
Back inside, I raced to get ready for my interview. I turned on the shower and jumped in, letting the warm water spray my five-foot-two-inch frame. Belting out the theme song from Friends, I slathered massive amounts of grapefruit-scented shampoo on my shoulder-length brown hair and scrubbed hard.
It wasn’t until I was ready to rinse that I discovered a noticeable decrease in water pressure. Uh oh. I cranked the faucet handles to the max, but the pressure just kept getting lower and lower until, finally, all that came out was a pathetic little dribble. And then it quit altogether.
The shampoo had stayed in my hair for too long and my head was starting to itch. I climbed out of the shower and wrapped my soap-encrusted body in a towel. After checking the water pressure on every conceivable faucet in the house, I threw on my dad’s old raincoat and snuck around the outside of the house until I found Mrs. Gentile’s garden hose. I bent over and turned it on full force. Freezing cold water hit the top of my head as I scrambled to rinse myself off before she discovered me pirating her supply. Turns out, Mrs. Gentile was the least of my worries.
“Hi, Brandy.” I looked up, half naked and turning blue with cold.
“Oh, hi Henry.” Henry is our mail carrier.
“Is this some sort of TV prank? I know you were famous for that kind of thing when you worked on that morning news show out in Los Angeles.” Henry stepped closer to get a better look and I took a reflexive step back.
“No, Henry, this isn’t a prank.”
He didn’t look like he believed me.
“Uh, this is a little awkward, so if you don’t mind, I’m just going to hose off and get back in the house.”
“Sure thing, doll.”
Henry took out a bundle of envelopes from his mail sack and began stuffing them into my neighbor’s mailbox. I waited a beat, and when I realized he was in no rush to leave I didn’t bother getting the rest of the shampoo out of my hair. I straightened up and tightened the belt on my dad’s raincoat. Then I dove back into the house and called Toodie.
“Honey, what in the world did you do to your hair?”
I was sitting in the window seat of Carla’s beauty shop, studiously avoiding the mirrored wall in front of me.
“It’s a long story.” Actually, it’s a short story, just eternally embarrassing.
Carla is the manager of the salon and my Uncle Frankie’s longtime girlfriend. She’s only thirty-seven, but she’s more of a mother hen to me than a contemporary. She plunged her hands into the frozen bird’s nest sitting atop my scalp.
“Smells like grapefruit.”
“Good olfactory recognition. Can you help me? I’ve got an interview five minutes ago.”
“I’m going to have to cut it,” she said.
“No, Carla, please!” I begged, as if I’d just been told they were going to have to amputate a limb. “Anything but that.”
Carla eyed me critically, her sixties style beehive encased in multi layers of hairspray. She was either hopelessly out of date or retro chic.
“You’re not too good with change, are you?”
We compromised. She took me in the back, where Gladys (her ancient employee, who is rumored to be constipated, hence her unnaturally surly attitude towards the rest of human kind) spent fifteen minutes holding my head under water and dousing me with bottles of creme rinse. My head felt like it was coated in salad dressing and it didn’t smell too good either.
“Just a little trim,” Carla said, when I was back in the window seat again for all the neighborhood to see.
“Okay, but no more than an inch - and leave the bangs.”
Carla sighed. “I should shave you bald and dye your scalp bright purple.”
“But you’re not going to, right?” I knew it was an empty threat, but it still made me nervous.
The door opened and in walked a young woman about my age - very pretty, with long, dark, tangle-free hair and flawless Latina features. Carla looked up and nodded hello. “Be right with you, honey.” She glanced back down at me and tensed.
“Who is she?” I mouthed into the mirror.
“Bobby’s wife,” she mouthed back, apology written all over her face.
I never believed that turning “white as a sheet”, was an actual physical possibility until it happened to me.
Robert Anthony DiCarlo and I had been friends since the day he swaggered into town, a sixteen-year-old kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of Detroit. I was fourteen and thought the sun rose and set on his magnificent Irish-Italian head.
Over the next two years I pined away for him as he treated himself to all that South Philadelphia had to offer in the way of pubescent female companionship. But on the night of my sixteenth birthday I claimed Bobby as my own. We sealed the deal behind the dumpster, in back of the South Street Boxing Gym, where Bobby used to hang out. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the most romantic place to consummate two years of unrequited love, but I knew that night that we’d be together forever, and anyway, I wasn’t all that picky.
Bobby remained faithful to me for close to a decade, but we were young, and eventually, there was a parting of the ways. Wish I could say it was mutual - or that I even saw it coming. The breakup hurt, but the lies were devastating. I’d lost so much more than a lover. I’d lost my best friend.
A year and a half after I moved to Los Angeles I heard that Bobby had gotten married. It’s not a happy union, but a two-year-old daughter keeps them together. After the upbringing he’d had, Bobby would never abandon his kid.
Bobby and I got a chance to talk things out when I came back to town for Franny’s wedding. I thought we’d reached a point where we could call each other friends again, but in the five weeks since I’d moved back I hadn’t heard a word out of him.
I looked up and found the woman staring into the mirror at me. I get really self-conscious when anyone inspects me too closely. I start feeling like I’ve got something hanging out of my nose or stuck in between my teeth, which I probably do.
I turned away and she began checking out the hair products that were for sale behind the cash register. I wondered if she knew who I was. As if she’d read my mind she suddenly appeared at my side.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking directly at me.
Carla sprang into action. “Marie, this is Brandy. Brandy - Marie.” No last names; keeping it anonymous, like an AA meeting.
“DiCarlo.” Marie said pointedly. “Marie DiCarlo.”
Okaaay. I get it.
“Bobby’s wife,” she added, just in case I didn’t.
“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled.
Marie heaved a begrudging sigh. “I’m sorry about my brother.”
Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding, about a month ago her brother tried to kill me with a hatchet.
“Oh, that’s all water under the bridge now,” I said. “So how is your brother?” I smiled my most ingratiating smile. See, we can all be friends.
She didn’t smile back. I honestly don’t know what she was so bent out of shape about. I thought I was being really nice about the whole hatchet-wielding-brother incident. She turned to Carla.
“Put these on my tab, please, Carla.”
“Sure thing, hon.” Carla took the hair products out of her arms and went to get a bag.
Marie leaned into me. She was so close I could smell the Winterfresh gum on her breath. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Bobby and I are very happy together.”
“I’m glad for you.”
“Are you?” She straightened up and walked out of the salon, leaving her purchase at the counter.
“What was that all about?” Carla asked.
“Beats the hell out of me.”
“She didn’t threaten you or anything, did she?”
“No, why?”
Carla began combing my hair. It was so greasy the comb kept slipping out of her hand. She bent to pick it up, her spandex clad butt perched high in the air.
“Everyone knows that marriage is going south, sweetie. And you moving back to the neighborhood didn’t help any.”
“Carla, Bobby and I are over. I never even think of him that way anymore.” I gave a surreptitious look heavenward to see if God was paying attention to my lie.
“Prove it.”
“How can I prove it? That’s ridiculous.” A diversionary tactic I’d learned from my mother.
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
I groaned, my intestines constricting into one gigantic knot. “Carla, I don’t want to be fixed up. Don’t I have enough to contend with right now? If you want to do me a real favor, get me a job.”
“If you play your cards right, you could have both.”
My eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do you mean?”
“This guy I want you to meet.”
“How do you know him?”
“I don’t - exactly. His mother comes into the shop. She says he’s a real sweetheart, rich, successful and handsome too.”
“Then why does he need his mother to get dates for him? Forget it, Carla. There is no such thing as a good blind date.”
“He’s some high power guy at The News Network.”
Wow. I’d been trying to get an interview with them since I got back to town.
“He sounds perfect. Can’t wait to meet him.”
Carla smiled triumphantly. Okay, I can be bought. So sue me.
Toodie’s old Toyota pick-up was parked in front of my house when I got home. I pulled in behind him and got out of the car, careful not to scrape the door on the curb. I was driving my brother Paul’s car. A mint condition, 1972 metallic blue Mercedes SL convertible – “a classic”, he’s quick to remind me. I knew I’d have to give it back to him one of these days, but I was reluctant to plunk down my practically non-existent savings on a new set of wheels.
Toodie leaped out of his truck, balancing a large carton on his shoulder. He galloped towards me, dragging an extension cord behind him.
“Hi, Roomie,” he beamed.
I truly wished I shared his enthusiasm.
“Toodie,” I said, grabbing my keys out of my pocketbook, “this is just temporary, remember? Until your granny gets back from the Bahamas.” I pulled open the storm door and let him walk ahead of me into the living room. “When is she coming back, anyway?”
Toodie set his carton down and shrugged. “Dunno.”
“She is coming back, though, isn’t she?” Visions of my new “roomie” burning down my house with his woodworking set before I even made the first mortgage payment danced through my head.
“Oh yeah. She’ll be back. He nodded his head vigorously, a gesture obviously meant to reassure. It didn’t.
I showed Toodie to his room and laid out some clean towels for him.
“Just one thing, Toodie. This is a drug-free zone. Oh, and if you’re planning on entertaining anyone, I’d rather they didn’t spend the night.”
Toodie’s eyes grew wide. He sat down on the bed and patted the seat next to him. I reluctantly sat down too.
“Brandy, if this roommate thing is going to work, we’ve got to come clean with each other.” His voice gentled. “Are you like “hot” for me?”
Before I could ask him if he had completely lost his mind he continued. “Because I like you, Brandy. I really do. But I have to be honest. I don’t think of you that way.” He stared at me with baleful eyes. Pity. The man pitied me!
“Toodie, I can assure you that’s not what I meant! And what do you mean, you don’t think of me that way? What’s wrong with me?” Seriously, what’s wrong with me? I felt insulted that a man with the IQ of a basset hound was spurning my affections. AS IF!
“Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re great. But you and John Marchiano are a terrific couple, and I wouldn’t want to, ya know, come between you two.”
John Marchiano is my oldest and dearest friend, but he doesn’t have a shred of sexual interest in me. John climbed out of the womb wearing Chanel and singing show tunes, a fact that has somehow eluded Toodie.
“Well, I’m glad we cleared the air on this, Toodie. I promise I won’t make things awkward by coming on to you.”
“Thanks,” he said with the utmost sincerity.
I stood. “Come on, I’ll make you some lunch.”
Lunch consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk. We split a Family Size Hershey Bar for dessert. Chocolate and I have a spiritual connection. It fills me up, makes me happy and never lets me down. If it were legal to wed an inanimate object, I’d ask it to marry me.
After lunch Toodie dragged his toolbox in from his truck and buried himself under the kitchen sink. I sat at the dining room table, licking melted chocolate off the candy wrapper, the employment section of the newspaper spread before me. What is it that Franny is always saying about positive thinking? That you should start by envisioning the thing you want, make it real in your mind. “Okay,” I thought. “I’ll give it a try.” I shut my eyes, the words formulating in my brain.
NOW HIRING: Investigative Reporter for nationally acclaimed news program. Little to no experience necessary. Great salary. Benefits. I opened my eyes. Toodie was staring at me.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m envisioning.”
“Is it working?”
I scanned the employment section for my ad. “No.”
The phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” Toodie reached for the receiver. “Alexander residence,” he said in a ridiculously phony British accent. “This is the butler speaking.”
I don’t know why but I thought it was hilarious.
“Whom shall I say is calling?” He paused dramatically. “One moment please. It’s your mother,” he said, handing me the phone.
I made a face that any normal person would have interpreted as the “I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-my-mother-now-tell-her-I’ll-call-her-back-face”. But Toodie is guileless and doesn’t read social cues. I put the phone to my ear.
“Hi Mom.”
“Since when do you have money to squander on a butler?”
“He’s not a butler, Mom.”
“Then why is he answering your phone?”
I suppressed the urge to scream and said instead, “How’s Daddy?”
“Your father’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
So what else is new? “Why are you worried about me? I’m fine.” Jobless, penniless, but fine.
“Brandy, don’t you ever pick up the papers?”
“Of course I do. I’m browsing through the comics section as we speak. Did you know that Cathy and Irving got married? What’s it been, twenty years?”
“Don’t get flip with me, Brandy Renee.” Uh oh. She’s pulling out the middle name. She must really be upset.
“I’m sorry, Mom. What’s wrong?”
“Well,” she said, mollified, “It seems that there has been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood lately.”
“How many is a rash?”
“Armed robberies,” she said, choosing to ignore me. “In fact,” she added, lowering her voice to the stage whisper she usually reserved for conversations about terminal diseases, “Mrs. Edelstein’s neighbor was held up at knifepoint in her own home, two blocks down on Ritner. They took her jewelry and a bust of Beethoven. I just don’t want to pick up the newspaper one day and see your name listed among the victims.”
Oh why did I think it would be nice to get her that subscription to the Inquirer when she moved to Florida?
“Brandy, are you there?”
“I’m here, Mom. Listen, I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m perfectly safe.”
“Well, keep the doors locked - and call your brother.” That’s my mother’s solution to everything.
She filled the next ten minutes detailing her trip to the podiatrist. I care, I really do, but I’m a little on the squeamish side. So when she started in with her toe fungus, I decided to wrap things up.
“I’ve got to run, Mom. The butler wants to use the phone.”
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