Read Online Final Curtain: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) by Ed Ifkovic - Free Book Online Page B

to Dak and tugged at his sleeve. They walked out of the café, Annika muttering something into his ear.
    From the kitchen, unseen, Mamie Trout spoke to herself. “That lass needs a truck of Bibles to bury her sins.”
    I scanned the flyer, not the flimsy throwaway paper I expected but thick, creamy stationery, rife with Biblical quotation and admonishment. An invitation to Wednesday afternoon’s twilight service at the Assembly of God, Clorinda Roberts Tyler, preacher. Do you have a soul that needs saving? Is the wrath of God Almighty at your doorstep? Then, to my amazement, this unexpected line: If you think New Jersey is paradise, you’re in for a big surprise.
    ***
    Back at the Jefferson Village Inn, George sat alone in the lobby, his face buried in Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad . He pointed to the volume. “I thought it was written about your venturing into New Jersey, Edna.” Then, closing the book, he manufactured a fatherly tone. “Just where have you been, young lady? Gallivanting around town with riffraff.”
    “No,” I countered, “I assumed you already gathered all the suspect denizens of this town.”
    He put the book on the table. “Edna, have you been snooping into peoples’ lives?”
    “Of course.” I slid into a chair opposite him.
    He stared over my shoulder, his eyeglasses slipping down his nose. “Anyway, I have news. I have good news. I have bad news.”
    “Oh God, George, I think I need a nap before I hear this.”
    “No, you don’t.” He shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to the side. “Bea called. She’s driving up tonight, so we can have dinner together. She’s spending the night.”
    “Now for the good news?”
    “Very funny, Edna. The other news is that she’s asked Evan Street to join us for dinner.”
    I squirmed. “Good heavens. Why? Was that necessary? A meager acquaintance with that lout is enough to last a lifetime.”
    “Well, he’s Bea’s good friend’s son. Obligations, et cetera, et cetera. He called to thank her, I guess. He’s good-looking and he’s a sweet talker…”
    I held up my hand. “Enough. Bea’s weaknesses mirror yours, dear George.”
    “But men have province where women and angels fear to tread.”
    I grunted. “Tell that to Bea.”
    A little tiresome, the bizarre liaisons of some of my friends. Back to the now-disappeared years of the Algonquin Round Table, George—like Dorothy Parker and her dipsomaniac husband—gleefully fell into what I believe the French term a mariage blanc . Not surprisingly, the French would have a name for this errant social lapse. To be sure, they invented dalliance and misalliance, as well as the ingesting of snails. Of course. George dearly loved Bea, as she loved him—and they happily entertained on their farm in Pennsylvania. But each sought romance—let me be euphemistic for the moment—outside the orthodox license of wedlock, George pursuing the pitiful, monosyllabic chorus girls of Broadway, all tinsel and rhinestone—and recently Hollywood, if I could believe the awful scandal with Mary Astor—and Bea entertaining the bronzed stage-door johnnies with the lascivious wink and the deep empty pockets. Prettiness was the coin of the realm. For both of them.
    “Dear George, I do hope Bea isn’t involved with this annoying lad.”
    “We don’t discuss dalliance, just household expenses.” He locked eyes with me. “Ah, Edna, you and I don’t want to have these conversations.”
    “Thank God.”
    So that night the four of us sat down at dinner at the Marlborough House, three of us spectators to a young man’s stupendous gluttony and unfettered chatter. I kept trying to catch George’s eye, which he avoided because he knew exactly what my censorious look conveyed. He looked unhappy, constantly pushing his glasses up his nose, twitching, bobbing his head, examining the silverware for dried food and poisonous bacteria, and slowly sipping lemonade. Bea, to be sure, ignored her husband’s