New Year's Eve Murder. Leslie Meier
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pulling to the side of the road. “Your asthma medicine? Your contacts?”
“Water.”
Lucy couldn’t believe her ears. “Water?”
“Yeah. In the last issue of Jolie they said you should take it along whenever you fly. Flying is very dehydrating and you need to drink lots of water.” Elizabeth flipped down the visor and checked her reflection in the mirror. “Especially if you’re older, Mom.”
Lucy signaled and eased the Subaru back onto the road.
“We’re not going back for water. You can get some at the airport.” She turned onto the ramp.
Elizabeth’s eyebrows shot up and her voice became shrill. “But I bought a gigantic bottle of Evian. That’s what the models drink, you know. It cost a fortune, and those weasely little worms will drink it.”
“Please don’t refer to your sisters as worms.” Lucy checked her mirrors: not a headlight in sight. The road was clear and she accelerated, speeding down the empty highway as fast as she dared. “And why would they drink your water when there’s perfectly good tap water?”
“Just to spite me.”
“It would serve you right for wasting money like that. Our water comes from our own well, you know. It’s perfectly pure and good.”
“It’s not Evian.”
“It’s probably better.” Lucy sighed. “Besides, I’ve heard they won’t let you carry liquids onto the plane. There are all these new security rules, you know.”
“That’s ridiculous! Water’s harmless.”
“So are nail clippers and tweezers, but you can’t have them, either. And how are they supposed to know it’s really water? It could be some explosive or poison, cleverly disguised in a water bottle.”
Elizabeth yawned. “You’re getting paranoid.”
Lucy checked the speedometer and slowed to a speed ten miles above the legal limit.
“I’ll tell you what I’m paranoid about,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’ve heard they actually have machines that can see through your clothes. And sometimes they do strip searches.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Mom, nobody is going to strip search you.” Lucy was wondering what exactly she meant by that when Elizabeth chuckled. “But they probably will confiscate that lobster watch. They’ll call the fashion police.”
“Very funny,” said Lucy, flipping on the windshield wipers. “Do you believe it? It’s snowing. Again.”
When they arrived at the airport they discovered all flights were delayed due to the weather. The snow was accumulating fast, and the runways had to be plowed and the wings de-iced before any planes could take off.
“How long is this going to take?” fumed Elizabeth.
“As long as it takes,” said Lucy. “It’s never the thing you’re worried about, is it? I was worried about getting through security but that was a breeze. I never gave a thought to the weather.”
“How come they can send robots to Mars, but they can’t get our plane in the air?”
“Dunno,” said Lucy, propping her feet on her carry-on suitcase and opening her book. “There’s nothing we can do about it so we might as well relax.”
For once, Elizabeth was taking her advice. She was already slumped down in the seat beside Lucy, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. Lucy decided it was as good a time as any to break the news about the increased tuition.
“Chamberlain sent a revised financial aid statement along with the tuition bill,” she said, getting straight to the point. “It came Christmas Eve.”
Elizabeth sat up straight. “What did it say?”
“That we have to pay sixteen thousand dollars for next semester.”
“That’s crazy!”
“You don’t have to tell me,” said Lucy, checking the flight status monitor hanging above them. Their flight was still delayed. “I’m going to call the financial aid office and beg for more help, but there’s a real possibility we can’t afford to send you back. They cut your aid by ten thousand dollars, and we just don’t have it. To tell the truth, the six thousand I was expecting to pay will pretty much wipe out our savings.”
Elizabeth was frowning, concentrating on her Ugg boots. “You might as well not bother calling. People always try, but they never get anywhere.”
This was heresy to Lucy. “Of course I’ll try. A lot of it depends on federal guidelines and stuff. Now that your father’s not working we probably qualify for a Pell grant or something.”
“Trust me, the most you’ll get is a loan application.”
“That might be doable,” said Lucy, eager to seize the slimmest excuse for hope. In her heart she knew it was unlikely that the family would be able to afford a college loan, and Elizabeth was already saddled with thousands in student loans.
Elizabeth continued studying her boots. “How much do we need?” she asked.
“Ten thousand.”
“That’s weird.” Elizabeth was sitting up straighter. “That’s really weird. I didn’t tell you before, but this makeover thing is also a contest.” The usually sullen Elizabeth was practically bubbling with excitement. “The best mother and daughter makeover team wins ten thousand dollars.”
The view through the plate glass windows of the terminal was dark and snowy, but Lucy felt as if it was morning and the sun was shining. “Really? That’s fabulous. It’s like fate or something.”
Elizabeth was actually smiling. “I know. Like it’s meant to be.”
“All we have to do is be the best makeover?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy felt her optimism dim slightly. “How do we do that?”
“I don’t know. I think the editors vote or something.”
“They’re probably looking for the most dramatic change,” said Lucy. “We might be at a disadvantage, I mean, we’re pretty cute to start with.”
Elizabeth turned and gave her mother a withering glance. “Mom, you’re wearing duck boots, a plaid coat and a green fake fur hat—I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
Lucy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d chosen her outfit carefully and thought she looked fabulous. It was her best coat, after all, and only six years old. The hat had been an impulse purchase and the boots, well, come winter in Maine you didn’t leave the house in anything else. “Well then,” she finally said, “that’s good, isn’t it?”
It was well into the wee hours of the morning when the plane landed at New York’s La Guardia Airport and Lucy was congratulating herself on her decision not to check their luggage. She was bone tired and didn’t want to waste precious sleep time standing around a balky carousel trying to decide which black suitcase was hers. Fortunately, however, they were supposed to be met by a limousine that would, in the words of the official makeover itinerary, “whisk them into the world’s most glamorous city for a magical three-days of luxurious pampering and personal consultations with top fashion and beauty experts.”
Disembarking from the crowded plane seemed to take forever as passengers wrestled with the maximum number of bags allowable, all of which seemed much larger than the prescribed dimensions. Lucy and Elizabeth finally broke free from the shuffling herd and ran through the jet way, towing their neat little rolling suitcases. There were a handful of people waiting in the arrivals hall, holding placards with names, but none of the names was “Stone.”
“The