Dress 2 Impress: A Jennifer Cloud Novel (Jennifer Cloud Series) Read online

  I was pretty sure Gertie wouldn’t mind going with me because she was always after me to travel. We took the truck to my house, and once again, Aunt Itty overshot the driveway and ended up in the field behind my house. We drove the rest of the way home and parked under the carport. There was just enough room to squeeze in the truck next to my Mustang and Gertie’s BMW. The truck backfired as Aunt Itty pulled it into park.

  Gertie came running outside in her pink bathrobe. Her long red hair was pulled back in braids, Hello Kitty pajama pants extended out from under her robe, and she had blue-striped water socks on her feet.

  “What the hell, Jen?” she said, holding her hand over her heart. “It sounded like a gunshot out here.”

  I frowned at her. “So you came running out here?”

  She frowned back at me and then saw Ace and Aunt Itty. “Who are y’all supposed to be?” she asked, pointing at our trench coats.

  “Don’t you recognize us, love? We’re the new backup singers for Miley Cyrus. We’re all wearing knickers under these.” He grabbed his coat and flashed Gertie. She yelped and threw her hands over her eyes, laughing as she saw he was joking.

  “Hey, Ace.” She gave him a hug, and he introduced her to Aunt Itty.

  “Aunt Itty is THE fairy godmother at Wonderland,” I said to Gertie.

  “I always wanted to know a fairy godmother,” Gertie said, genuinely intrigued. “Can you conjure me up a handsome prince?”

  “NO!” Ace and I shouted in unison.

  Aunt Itty looked a little taken aback at our lack of confidence. “I’ve been known to make a wicked love potion that can turn a few heads.”

  I hurried everyone inside before Gertie and Aunt Itty could continue the conversation. I hung up the coats, and Gertie made us some hot chocolate. Aunt Itty took a seat on the sofa, and attack cat jumped on her lap. I rushed over to take action in case he dug his claws in, but he rolled onto his back, and she scratched him under the chin.

  “What a good little pussy,” she cooed.

  That figures, the traitor. If it had been me, he would have snuck up behind me and made me spill my chocolate.

  “So what are you up to?” asked Gertie, passing out the mugs of cocoa. “Are y’all on a secret mission?”

  “Sort of,” Ace responded first. “We need a favor from you.”

  “From me?” Gertie looked excited and took a seat next to Aunt Itty on the sofa.

  “Yes, dear,” Aunt Itty jumped in. “You see, Caiyan is my nephew, and he’s stuck in 1985. We need you and Jennifer to go get him.”

  Gertie looked at me and blinked like a deer in headlights. “Me?”

  “Yeah, don’t you think it would be fun to go back to 1985?” I asked.

  Gertie set her hot chocolate down on the coffee table and smoothed the bathrobe out over her knees. She started to bite on her index fingernail, and I knew it was all over.

  “I really don’t want to go back in time again,” Gertie said.

  “Why not?” Ace asked. “I thought you wanted to travel with us.”

  “I do,” she answered, finger still in her mouth. She moved her hands to her lap. “I want to go to Paris or London, now, in the present. I don’t want to go back in time to 1985. What if we get lost or stuck in the past?”

  “We won’t get lost,” I said. “I’ve gone back three times now, and I have always come back.”

  “I don’t know—Caiyan is stuck, and he’s a good traveler.”

  I couldn’t argue with that statement. Caiyan had a lot of experience, and I couldn’t explain why he went back at the end of a travel cycle instead of waiting until the next full moon.

  “Gertie, I really need you to come with me. You can learn about 1985 faster than I can, and I need your knowledge.”

  “Is Ace going?” Gertie asked.

  “No, he’s too old,” Aunt Itty said.

  “Marco is going,” Ace told Gertie. I gave Ace a dirty look. We didn’t know for sure we could change his mind.

  Gertie looked a little bit more confident, and then she got a gleam in her eye. “I’ll do it on one condition.”

  “Sure, you name it, love,” Ace said.

  “I want a date with Brodie.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Ace and I sucked in air.

  I wasn’t sure Brodie would oblige. The last reference he made to Gertie was, “She’s a royal pain in the arse.” I looked over at Ace.

  “It’s a deal,” Ace said. “In fact, Brodie was telling me the other day he wished he could see you again.”

  “He did?” Gertie’s eyes glazed over, and I wondered how Ace was going to pull off two miracles.

  Ace leaned back and finished off his cup of chocolate with a smile on his face. I wondered what in the devil he was up to, and I thought I needed something stronger in my cocoa.

  Ace and Aunt Itty were giving instructions on things we needed to learn about 1985. “Make sure you know who the president is,” Aunt Itty said. “I think it was that nice actor fellow.”

  I huffed. There was a lot of information to learn in such a short time. Ace wrote down a few websites for Gertie and me to look up. He explained they gave a brief synopsis of history based on the year. Since we weren’t sure who Caiyan was with, but we knew he was in LA, we should brush up on anything that had happened in that area. He suggested reading old newspapers and magazines.

  Gertie became excited. “I have an entire room of periodicals. I can check out magazines and books. The newspapers have been converted to the web.”

  Ace told us he would clear everything with Jake, and we would meet in the parking lot in Brooklyn where Aunt Itty had accidentally landed when we went to meet Marco the first time.

  “Why there?” I asked. “If you’re going to convince Marco to come with us, why not bring him to Gitmo?”

  “Marco may not be very cooperative for what I’ve got in mind,” he said, and a wicked little Grinch grin spread across his face.

  “Ace, you’re not going to do anything illegal, right?” I asked. Gertie and Aunt Itty stopped discussing important political leaders to listen.

  “I’m just going to be a little creative. Don’t worry, love.” He patted my knee, and I was positive I needed to switch my drink to something stronger.

  “I think I’ll have a glass of wine,” I said, standing. “Would anyone else like one?”

  “Wine!” Aunt Itty sat bolt upright, and attack cat skirted off her lap. “Oh, horsefeathers!” she said, fingering her key under her sweater. “I’m supposed to be at the royal wine tasting tonight. I’ve got to get home and whip up a bottle of my famous Fairy Godmother Sparkling Pinot Noir.”

  Ace and I looked at each other as if doing a mental coin flip on who was going to see if she might need some assistance transporting home.

  “What’s the matter?” Aunt Itty asked, because everyone was staring at her.

  “Well, Aunt Itty,” Ace began. “Do you need me to ride home with you?”

  “Of course not. I am perfectly capable of getting home by myself.” She stood and smoothed down her top. I handed her the trench coat she had worn, and we followed her outside.

  “Tootles, Jen,” she said as she climbed into her vessel. She put her truck in reverse, slowly backed it out of the carport, and cranked down the window. “Nice to meet you, Gertie, dear.” She motioned Ace toward her truck, and he moved to stand by her window. “Ace, let me know when you’re ready to go snatch that blond god. Bye-bye, kids.”

  A loud backfire and enough smoke to make an elephant disappear erupted from the tailpipe of the truck, and she was gone.

  “Holy smoke,” I said, coughing and fanning the smoke away from me. “Do you think anyone saw that?”

  When the smoke cleared, I could see that Ace got the brunt of that backfire. He had soot on his face and splotched randomly on his favorite jeans. The s
kull on his shirt looked like Kanye West. “I think she did that on purpose.”

  “What did she mean by ‘snatch the blond god’?” I asked, hands on hips.

  “Just a figure of speech, love.” Ace called his vessel and headed home. Gertie and I went back in the house, and I passed on the wine for another cup of cocoa laced with two shots of Irish whiskey.

  Gertie did the same, and we sat in the comfy chairs in the den, surfing the Internet for information on 1985.

  Chapter 13

  The next two days flew by as I struggled through learning about 1985. Jake was e-mailing me tons of information. I was preparing for my first solo trip back in time. Well, sort of solo. Gertie would be with me and Marco. At least I hoped Marco would be joining me. I felt confident that Gertie and I could find Caiyan, but I would feel better if we had Marco. Every time I texted Ace to see if he had convinced Marco to travel, he replied, “It’s all in the bag, love, no worries.”

  I didn’t have time to dwell on the problem. I was going with or without Marco’s help. Jake’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me I was not going without Marco. We would see about that.

  I went into work on Monday morning to work half the day and then start my massage interviews. At least that’s what Jake thought. It didn’t matter because the two I had interviewed early were duds. I had one interview today that I hoped would work out because I would be out of town so to speak for the next three days. If everything worked out, I should return from my travel only a few hours after I left, and then I would take a day to recover, be back at work on Wednesday, and no one would be the wiser.

  Mr. Crane had made another appearance at the clinic to see if the acupuncturist had returned. When Mary told him Su Le was still overseas, he pounded his giant fist on the counter and demanded his money back. Mary tried to refer him to another acupuncturist, but he refused. She was in the process of explaining that he had already received the treatments and she couldn’t give a refund when I entered the front office. He looked up at me with those beady eyes and immediately left the clinic.

  Mary turned and looked at me. “If I’d known your presence would get him out of here, I would have you working the front desk.”

  “I don’t know why he gets so grumpy when I’m around,” I replied.

  I helped Eli with patients, and by noon I was jumping around like a jackrabbit. I was nervous about the upcoming travel. I could barely get in the car and drive to my massage. I told Eli I had three scheduled for Tuesday. It was just a little white lie. Mamma Bea says sometimes you have to tell a little white lie to keep things right in the family. I guess not telling Eli I was time traveling in Aint Elma’s outhouse was keeping things right, because he would probably have me committed. Truthfully, I just wanted to get the massage over and get ready for my trip.

  I left the office and drove a mile up the road to a business center. The center consisted of four groups of buildings clustered together in a square. I drove around back to the address Eli had given me. Apparently, Mary’s cousin’s friend had a massage here last week, and the girl was really good. I didn’t know the friend, but I was beginning to wonder about her standards because the address was a tattoo shop called the Snooty Parrot. As I entered the shop, the smoke was so thick I thought I might need to pull out my GPS tracker to navigate my way through. As I moved farther into the shop, pictures of body parts with tattoos materialized on the walls in front of me. The woman at the desk was heavyset with red hair and very large breasts. She was wearing a purple V-neck top that clashed with her hair. A large tattoo of the Rolling Stones tongue logo was stretched across her ample bosom. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. “You wanna get some ink?” she asked.

  “Uhm, no,” I answered, tearing my eyes away from her chest. “I’m here to see Helga.”

  “She’s in the back.” She pointed at a door behind her. I thanked her and entered the back office. There was more smoke, and a group of tattoo artists sat at a table smoking and playing cards. I guess the tattoo business was slow on Monday afternoon. They turned to look at me as I entered. “You want ink?” one of them asked me.

  “No, no,” I stuttered. “I’m just looking for Helga.” My inner voice was telling me to get the hell out of there before I ended up with arms like Kat Von D.

  “I Helga,” said the woman who had her back to me. She unfolded from the chair and stood to over six feet tall. “You get good massage wit’ Helga.”

  The other two people at the table snickered. I followed Helga down a hall into a room at the back. My inner voice was whispering, Keep your undergarments on, and make sure she’s a woman. Good grief, how was I supposed to do that?

  I was used to the protocol by now. I undressed and got comfortable under the sheets. Surprisingly, the room smelled of lavender. There was an air purifier in the corner, and the soft hum of the hot rock machine took away the concerns my inner voice was having. Helga reentered the room, punched a few buttons on her radio, and the entire room filled with the sound of ocean waves. She began massaging my back with firm strokes from my shoulders, down the muscles that surround my spine, and to the base of my back. I relaxed a little more, and Helga added some hot rocks. She laid them down my back and covered me with a warm towel while she worked all the kinks out of my neck and my arms. She followed the procedure with my legs and ended with a light mist of lavender to the air above me that fell in tiny droplets on to my neck and face. The entire massage was heaven, and I couldn’t believe my good luck. Now I could concentrate on my travel. My inner voice sighed and said she knew this was going to be a good massage. I rolled my eyes at her as I got dressed. After paying Helga, I let her know we would be in touch. She smiled and thanked me, telling me she really vanted to get away from de smoke.

  As soon as I got into the car, I pulled out my cell phone and let Eli know we had a possible candidate. I reminded him I still had a few more massages (white lies), but I would have a definite candidate when I returned to work on Wednesday. I put my car in gear and headed home. On the way I made a detour through Starbucks because if I got stuck in 1985, I wouldn’t be getting my skinny vanilla bean Frappuccino with caramel drizzle for a long, long time.

  I was hanging up my coat when Gertie came bursting through the front door, struggling to carry a large cardboard box. “JEN! JEN!” she hollered as she came into the den and set the obviously heavy box down on the floor with a loud bang.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, heading to the kitchen for a drink.

  “Come here quickly,” she said. “I know where Caiyan is.”

  I grabbed a bottle of water and went back into the den.

  “He’s stuck in 1985,” I said.

  “No, I mean, I know that, but I know who he’s with.” She threw her coat onto the couch, covering attack cat, and started rummaging through the big box. I set my water bottle down on the side table.

  Gertie pulled a magazine from the box. Then she hesitated. “Promise not to get mad, OK?”

  I frowned. “Why would I get mad?”

  “I’m sure he’s doing it for the good of time travel.” She bit her bottom lip, as if in afterthought this wasn’t such a great idea.

  “Gertie, let me see,” I demanded.

  “Look,” she said proudly as she handed me a copy of Tiger beat magazine. The teen magazine from 1985 had pictures of celebrities and the gossip about them. On the cover was a picture of a gorgeous blonde, wearing a black leather bustier and leopard hot pants. Around her neck was Caiyan’s key.

  “What the hell, Gertie?” I asked as I sat down haphazardly on the sofa, making sure my butt hit cushion and I didn’t land on the floor.

  “Yep, check out page six. I dog-eared it for you.” She came and sat beside me.

  I fumbled to page six, and there was the blonde. She was getting into a limousine, and helping her into the vehicle was Caiyan. He had that mad look on his face he gets when he is on protect
ion mode, and it looked like he was shouting at one of the photographers who were crowded around the limo. The caption under the black-and-white photo read, “Who is Rocksanna’s mystery man?” The little blub stated she had been seen out and about with this hunky dark-haired man, but they didn’t have any information on the stud. There was a rumor this eye candy could be husband number three, as they were seen canoodling at Spago on Thursday.

  Rocksanna was a rock legend, and she was also killed in a car accident. It happened before I was born, but people still listen to her music and talk about her sex appeal.

  I felt my face drain of all color, and my palms became sweaty. I focused on the reality of the situation. She had his key. He couldn’t return if he wasn’t wearing his key, and he couldn’t summon me for help.

  “Gertie, this is bad.” Gertie bobbed her head in agreement. “This is the only article I found so far, but I brought the rest of the magazines home from that month that I didn’t have time to read.”

  “I need to call Jake,” I said. My hands trembled as I made the call. Was this what everyone had warned me about? Caiyan the bad boy. Caiyan sleeps around. Caiyan the playboy. My inner voice sat shaking her head sadly, bidding farewell to the great sex Caiyan dished out. I disregarded her for the moment and focused on my call to Jake. I explained what Gertie had found. He exhaled slowly, and I knew he was trying not to say I told you so.

  “I’ll do some research on the situation,” he said, and I could tell he was running his fingers through his hair. Then he dropped his voice low. He used this comforting tone when he knew I was upset. “You don’t know what’s going on, so don’t make any assumptions.”

  I nodded my head, holding back tears.

  “Jen, are you still there?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, regrouping. This was my job. If I wanted to be good at it, I needed to put all my emotions on hold and focus on getting Caiyan home and identifying Traveler X. Besides, he couldn’t stay in 1985, so he must have a plan.

  “I don’t think you should go,” Jake said. “Things may not turn out exactly like you want them to.”