Read Online Eternally 21: A Mrs. Frugalicious Shopping Mystery by Linda Joffe Hull - Free Book Online

21.”

    Phil at the pizza place said the rumor around the food court was Laila ate something bad. Jaynie at the French fry counter figured something was bound to happen given the sheer quantity Laila apparently consumed. Amber, from Heaven’s Bakery, heard she choked and then had a heart attack.
    Maybe Laila was closer to thirty-one than twenty-one and had the appetite of a sumo wrestler, but everything I’d heard so far about her death added up to nothing more than a game of telephone through the mall. She couldn’t have choked. She hadn’t died from a broken heart. Suicide didn’t ring true. Andy’s theory about her stomach blowing up was just weird. Weirder was that no one had even mentioned my theory of drugs or alcohol.
    Someone at Eternally 21 had to know what happened. After I killed a half-hour at the food court, I’d go back up there, get my ID and some answers, then leave the mall never to return. Not until after all the current employees who knew me by name moved on to greener retail pastures elsewhere, anyway.
    Carrying my tray with both hands, I made my way over to an open two-top in front of the Ben & Jerry’s at the edge of the food court. I put the tray down with care, sat, placed my napkin in my lap, and scooted up to the table as though it were covered in white linen instead of forest green melamine.
    Before I took a bite, I reached into my purse and took two Bye Bye Fat capsules from the pill case I’d replenished that morning. While it was beyond far-fetched (as well as defeating the point) to expect that BBF’s supposed superthermogenic properties could make a pepperoni pizza, French fries, and cookies the caloric equivalent of a carrot, it certainly couldn’t hurt. I sprinkled my food and visualized the oversized capsules wearing capes, chasing the evil fat globules through my system, and neutralizing them before they could join the party on my outer thighs.
    I bit into my first fry.
    My cell phone began to ring.
    I reached into my purse fully expecting a psychic junk food intervention from trainer Chelsea, but for once her radar must have been jammed.
    Frank mobile popped up on the screen.
    I thought about letting the call go and ringing him back when I was away from the background noise of the mall, with ID in hand and resolution about Laila. I might have, but we hadn’t talked since he’d landed in Florida. Instead, I chewed, swallowed, and attempted a relaxed, easy, “Hello.”
    “Hi, hon.” His voice was as vacation breezy as the light wind in the background.
    “Hey,” I said. “Sounds like you’re outside.”
    “The only place I seem to have a signal is here by the pool.”
    If only I’d gone along with, I’d be on the lounge chair beside him, sipping a margarita. “Sounds rough.”
    “Actually, things are going very smoothly.”
    I sat up straighter. “As in?”
    “Meeting,” he said, his voice suddenly cutting in and out. “Afternoon … network VP.”
    “I’m only hearing every third word,” I said.
    “Lots potential,” he said, or else it was, “solve everything.”
    Either way, if Frank were to land a nationally syndicated show, the salary increase would resolve our monthly cash crunch. While it would take time to recover completely, his self-esteem would shoot back up with the viewers from all over the country looking to him for the sound advice that made him so popular locally. The strain of the last six months would soon fade into a new, improved, normal. “Can you move to a different location? I’m really having trouble hearing you.”
    “Gotta run,” he said in response and then began to break up again. “Call … later.”
    And he was gone.
    Frustrated by the connection but buoyed by potentially good news, I tossed the phone back into my bag. When I looked up, Nina Marino had appeared from behind the doorway beside the Orange Julius in her regulation South Highlands Valley Mall pantsuit.
    I raised a hand. “Ms. Marino!”
    Nina stopped and looked