Mimi stared at Granny as though she was actually considering what she’d said. After a while, she said, “It’s those breast cancer people, I’d bet. They can’t stand some other problem getting any attention. They’ve probably joined forces with the AIDS foundations.” She gave a sharp little laugh that was practically a bark. “And don’t get me started on the ‘wipe out malaria’ people. This is just the sort of thing they’d do, though they’d probably release a swarm of mosquitoes in the middle of dinner.” She turned to the minion with the checklist—who’d been watching these events with a shell-shocked expression—and said, “Make sure we’ve got mosquito repellent.” For that one moment, she sounded totally sane and in control.
Then pacing and shouting as she waved her hands, she went back to raving, “They don’t want me to be part of their little club. They think I’m just marrying for money and social position. Well, how did they get there? Are they any better because their mothers married for money and social position? I got a billionaire interested in me. That’s an achievement.” The entire time, her eyes jerked back and forth, like she was watching her perimeter. There’d be no getting close to her anytime soon.
While she carried on ranting, I slipped around her and helped Owen up. “Are you okay?” I asked him. He had an ugly red mark on his forearm, visible where he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves.
“This is turning out to be more challenging than I anticipated,” he remarked. “But it does look like the stories about the paranoia the Eye can induce are true. We seem to be in the Lady Macbeth portion of the evening’s adventures.”
“Actually, this is normal Mimi, just amplified. When you treat people the way she does, you don’t have to be paranoid to know that everyone’s probably out to get you, or at the very least will celebrate when you fail.”
“How long did you work for her?” he asked in disbelief.
“A little more than a year. And then you came to my rescue.”
He took my hand and squeezed it. “If I’d known what you were going through, I’d have done so sooner.”
“But you didn’t even know me then!”
“I’d noticed you. If I hadn’t been too shy to talk to you, I could have saved you sooner.”
“You were still in plenty of time.”
Mimi interrupted our romantic moment, whirling to screech, “You! You’re the one responsible for all this!”
At first, I thought she was accusing me, since she was pointing in my general direction and I figured she’d already pegged me as the scapegoat of the day. But then I realized she was pointing just behind me, to the puritan minion who reeked of cologne.
“Ex-excuse me?” he stammered.
“Oh, don’t you try to play innocent with me,” she snarled, stalking toward him. She pointed at him with her left hand while her right hand fondled the brooch in her pocket. Owen and I took a big step backward to get out of her path. “It was so very convenient when my last assistant just happened to quit without notice and you just happened to be there to take the job.” Her voice had lost the shrill madness of a moment before, and now she seemed to be channeling the Eye again.
“But it was all a setup, wasn’t it?” she continued, now standing barely a foot away from the minion. Even if he had something to keep him from being affected by the Eye, he still shrank from Mimi’s power over him. “You were put in position to sabotage me, weren’t you? Who are you working for? Tell me!”
He sputtered and stammered, then finally blurted, “It’s not about you. It’s about a higher cause. You are merely the vessel to bring about a return to purity!” Then he clamped his lips shut and shuddered.
Yet again, Mimi was stunned speechless. This had to be a new single-day record. She probably would have been less surprised if he’d admitted that he’d been sent by a conspiracy of other disease-fighting groups to ruin her event. I wasn’t sure what shocked her more, the indication that he was some kind of fanatic using her event to further his cause or the assertion that it wasn’t all about her. The latter was a totally foreign concept for her. I thought we might have to explain it.
As if reading my thoughts, she whispered, “It’s not about me? Are you sure? Because I do have enemies.”
“Lady, we don’t even know who you are,” he said, sounding less enthralled. “You’re just convenient.”
That was the worst possible insult anyone could ever give Mimi. She pulled herself together, clutched the brooch in her pocket, then straightened her spine and looked down her nose at him. I halfway expected her to shout, “Off with your head!” but instead she merely said, “You’re fired! Get out of here, now, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.” Her voice rang with the power of the Eye.
