Bubbles in Trouble, by Sarah Strohmeyer, published in 2002 by Dutton in New York, New York, hard cover, 277 pages, $22.95.
reviewed by Jennifer Hersey
What happens when a hairdresser and sometimes freelance reporter heads for the Amish country in search of car thieves, possible murder suspects, and a runaway bride, turned from the alter by a karaoke rendition of “Free Bird?”You’ll just have to read Bubbles in Trouble by Montpelier-based author Sarah Strohmeyer to find out.
Wearing spandex, pumps, and lots of makeup, Bubbles Yablonsky, an attendee of Two Guys Department Store Community College, romps outrageously through the pages of Ms. Strohmeyer’s second book.
The book opens in the middle of a classic Bubbles fantasy:“This is how Steve Stiletto, drop-dead gorgeous, globe-trotting photographer, finally got me, Bubbles Yablonsky, Pennsylvania hairstylist and occasional newspaper reporter, to break my chastity vow.”
After waking from her glorious fantasy, Bubbles realizes that in the course of the previous evening, she had played air guitar atop the pool table whilst singing “Free Bird” at her friend Janice’s bachelorette party.
That morning after slipping into her Bo Peep bridesmaid outfit, she makes it to the wedding only to find the bride missing, and herself to blame for so shamelessly singing such a freewheeling song.After going to Janice’s, only to find her uncle Elwood dead on the bathroom floor, the victim of a heavy object wielded by an unknown assailant, Bubbles is once again on the trail of a hot story and an escapee bride.
The characters readers meet along the way are just as odd and kooky as Bubbles herself.Take LuLu, Bubbles’ “wider-than-she-is-tall” mother, for example.Lulu is going through a Jackie O. phase, complete with tortoise shell sunglasses, silk scarf around the head, and too-tight Bombay jodhpurs, which she wears in an effort to “recapture the lost glamor of yesteryear.”
Then there’s Fast Car Carmine Humphries, a dapper gentleman in whom LuLu is infatuated.Bubbles, still in full Bo Peep regalia, says, “They made an elegant couple, he in his leather driving outfit and she in her Chanel.Trotting behind them in the pink flounces from Miss Petunia’s Wedding Emporium, I felt like their slightly off, slightly dim-witted charge out for her daily constitutional at the insane asylum.”
Sandy, the boss at the House of Beauty, is always telling bizarre stories of her wild husband’s exploits:“The other night Martin and I went contra dancing at the Elks in Allentown.I left at nine to go home to bed, but Martin was so taken with a new mouth harp one of the boys had, he stayed up until midnight learning how to collapse his cheeks to play ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken...’Whoo.What a crazy night that was.”
The musket-carrying Genevieve, best friend of LuLu, has a large girth and a penchant for conspiracy theories.“She hadn’t brushed with fluoride toothpaste since the beginning of the Cold War and drove miles out of her way to avoid high-tension power lines.”
Bubbles has a daughter, Jane, who, when not busy making out with her boyfriend, known only as “G,” helps out with man troubles and news story investigations.
Investigating this story takes Bubbles and company to Whoopee, Pennsylvania, right between Intercourse and Paradise, where she must eschew makeup, halter tops, capri pants, and her Valentine-red Super Wonderbra in favor of the more traditional Amish costume in order to go about her business undercover.It turns out that the vanished bride is Amish, lapsed, of course.
This revelation is a shock to Bubbles who thinks back to what she believed were idiosyncrasies of Janice’s.“And all those talks we had about sex!I slapped my cheek.No wonder the poor girl had been as startled as a deer in headlights when I detailed for her my past experiences in the backseat of the Camaro with Ken the RadioShack woofer installer.”
Through Genevieve and LuLu, Bubbles finds an Amish family to stay with while on assignment.In that short time she manages to explode gallons of root beer and enrage a heifer by washing her with shampoo and hot oil.
The investigation puts her in danger with a marijuana-whoopee-pie-baking mechanic named Wolf, a mythical band of hellions called The Pagans, the aptly named Nimrod who calls her “Tastykakes,” and of course, the irresistible Steve Stiletto.
In one of the funniest parts, she and Steve discover that the whoopee pies are chock full of marijuana after she eats one.Bubbles uncharacteristically quips, “‘Say, look at the moon.The reflection it’s casting on the water is perfectly parabolic.And I mean that in a purely aphoristic sense.’That struck me as side-splittingly funny and I tittered with laughter.‘That’s a double entendre, you see.Parabolic being a synonym for allegorical.”
Turns out, pot makes Bubbles smart.
Throughout the book are homemade recipes for many ailments, including Sandy’s “Bad Girls” Hangover Remedy and Genevieve’s Miracle Spray.
Bubbles in Trouble is on shelves now, and is a classic summer read not to be missed.And if people give you funny looks for laughing out loud on the beach, ignore them.Bubbles wouldn’t care.
