by Sandra Balzo
‘Understandable,’ Rudy said, opening up the door to the hall and ushering us out. ‘Why don’t you and Luc go back to Goddard’s and get warm? I’m going to my barbershop to see if I can find anything we can burn in Gloria’s wood stove. Whatever we could dig up outside would be too wet to burn, anyway.’
We separated in the back hallway, Rudy turning toward his shop, Luc and I heading in the opposite direction toward Goddard’s. The pharmacy was somber as the two of us entered.
Sarah and Mrs Goddard were with Oliver. A year ago, I would have said Sarah was the last person I’d want trying to give support to a boy who had lost both parents in the space of a few hours. But I knew first-hand that I’d been wrong about that.
When Patricia Harper, Sarah’s good friend - and Caron’s and my partner in Uncommon Grounds - had been killed the morning the store opened, Sarah had taken in Sam and Courtney, Patricia’s children. The real-estate broker had turned out to be just what they needed. And vice versa. In fact, the last phone call that actually connected from Uncommon Grounds had been Sarah’s to her two teenaged charges, making sure they were both home and safe.
Now she and Mrs G were sitting with Oliver by the dwindling fire of the wood stove, each in a beach chair with an umbrella over it.
‘So, do you think you’ll sell the mall?’ Sarah was asking Oliver. ‘I can probably get you a good price for the property.’
‘Sarah, for God’s sake,’ I said, grabbing her shoulder. ‘Please tell me you’re not hustling business from a seventeen-year-old, who’s been orphaned within the last twenty-four hours.’
‘Hey.’ She pried my fingers off her arm. ‘Oliver asked me.’
‘He’s probably in shock.’ Or, perhaps, coolly assessing his inheritance.
‘No.’ Sarah rubber her palms on the thighs of her slacks. ‘Oliver is a young adult with no visible means of support. His parents are dead and he doesn’t know where his next pair of jeans is coming from.’ Sarah rose and walked over to the lunch counter.
‘Mrs Thorsen, I don’t want to sell Benson Plaza,’ Oliver said, angling the chair’s umbrella so he could see me. ‘On the other hand, though, I know it takes money to keep things going. Thing is -’ he shrugged helplessly, and I realized he had tears in his eyes - ‘I just don’t have any.’
I sat down in the chair Sarah had vacated. It was good to be close to the fire so my clothes could dry, but that wasn’t my main purpose. ‘You don’t have to worry about that right now, Oliver.’
‘But he does,’ Mrs G said. ‘When Hank died, I had to think about all sorts of problems. Taxes, insurance, even the money for burying him. People kept saying don’t worry about it, but they were wrong. Dead wrong.’
‘I’m sure it’s been tough.’ I didn’t know if she would tell me about the foreclosure on their home, but I figured I’d give her the opportunity if she wanted to take it.
She didn’t. ‘I’m doing just fine now,’ she said, patting Oliver on the hand. ‘It’s Oliver I want to make sure is protected. Right?’
She looked at Oliver. ‘Right?’ she repeated, still without receiving any answer.
‘He’s asleep,’ I said.
I was trying to remember if it was the guilty or the innocent who were able to fall asleep in their cells.
It was supposed to be a ‘tell’, like something an opponent does during a poker game that tips you to the fact they’re bluffing. Tapping their cards. Rubbing their eyes.
Or, in my case, sweating bullets.
I sighed and looked around for Eric. The store was quiet, everybody unusually subdued. Or maybe they were just afraid to talk to the wrong person and, thereby, end up dead.
Beyond that, though, the air was getting colder and the lights were growing noticeably dimmer. The generator must be running on fumes. Even our battery-powered Japanese lanterns seemed to be waning.
In the lessening light, I saw figures ransacking shelves two aisles over. I started to excuse myself to see what they were doing and then realized Mrs G was asleep, too.
Sarah, on the other hand, was already up and heading for ‘Seasonal Items’ in the corner of Goddard’s.
‘They’re like locusts,’ she said surveying the swarm as we turned the corner. ‘They’ve taken everything.’
The shelves were indeed empty, but I couldn’t imagine what had been on them that anybody would want to seize. ‘Took what?’
‘Lawn chairs, of course, though Gloria, Oliver and I got the best ones, thank God. Still, I really wanted a tablecloth. Aha!’ She pulled out a folded square of red and white checked plastic that had been shoved in the back of the bottom shelf. ‘Got one!’ she said, waving the package triumphantly.
I looked at her.
She looked at me. ‘I mean, unless you need it.’
‘Enjoy your bounty, however unexpected,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Just consider the “flannel no-slip backing” a gift from me.’
I looked around at where people had ‘set-up camp’ - some in pairs and others alone, but all protecting their turf.
But no sign of my son. I was getting worried.
‘Have you seen Eric?’ I asked Sarah.
‘He was heading to the men’s room with a magazine as I came in,’ Sarah said distractedly. ‘Moving fast, so I thought it best not to stand in his way.’
Good thinking. Eric took after his father that way. One did not disturb the Thorsen men and their reading in the bathroom. If I’d known how educational the location was, I would have sent Eric there instead of summer school when he fell behind in second-grade reading.
Though how in the world could anybody stay in the mall bathroom for any length of time, given the lack of water for flushing or washing?
‘I handed him a pine-tree air freshener to hang in there,’ Sarah said, as if, yet again, she’d read my mind. Now about ten feet down the aisle, she was letting some of the air out of a beach ball that looked like a yellow cat’s eye marble.
‘Pillow?’ I guessed.
‘Shh,’ she said, her finger to her lips. ‘Everybody will want one.’
They could have mine. I looked around.
Caron and Bernie’s little piece of paradise was in the cosmetics aisle. Naomi Verdeaux had made herself comfortable in a private room - the photo department. The smell of rotten eggs emanating from the vats could have been caused by the film- processing chemicals, or maybe the egg salad was making an unfortunate encore performance. Either way, I thought Verdeaux could be fairly certain no one would breach her walls voluntarily.
Just to be sure, though, Jacque stood guard at the photo check-out counter, examining photos by fading lantern. Tien and Luc were tending the stove, feeding it brown grocery bags from their store and slats of wood from the crates that the tangerine-like mandarin oranges called clementines come in.
Meanwhile, Rudy wandered the male enhancement aisle.
‘Lord of the Flies transplanted to a strip mall,’ I muttered to Sarah.
She looked at me quizzically. ‘The movie where the plane crashes and the kids have to fend for themselves?’
‘Kind of,’ I said, ‘but you’re talking about the second screen adaption of the original cult novel by William Golding. In the book, itself, it’s British school kids shipwrecked on an island.’
‘Ohhhh, you mean the one where the boys, believing the rest of the world has been destroyed by the atom bomb, despair of rescue and create their own micro-society in which there are two factions, one civilized and one savage, who battle each other with tragic results?’
‘Umm, yeah,’ I said. ‘That would be the one.’
Sarah shrugged. ‘I’m not sure that egg salad and Caron filching drinks quite cuts it,’ she said, reclaiming the chaise lounge I’d vacated. She covered herself with the tablecloth she’d appropriated and gave me the thumbs-up before settling back on the beach ball pillow. ‘If anybody butchers a pig, though, be sure to let me know.’ Her eyes closed.
I was still trying to get over a deflation worse tha
n even the beach ball had suffered at my friend’s hands, when Eric stuck his head in the door.
‘Want to talk?’ I asked him softly.
He looked uncomfortable. ‘Not now, Mom. I mean, with everybody...’
I held up my finger to indicate Eric should wait and I returned to the photo counter. Naomi Verdeaux had let herself into Way’s office. That meant she had a key.
Jacque was gone from his post at the counter, but his ex-wife was perched on the photo technician’s stool, her head on the big film-processing machine’s keyboard. I’d have worried that she was going to break the thing if I didn’t know it hadn’t worked in years. I’d also be worried the wheeled stool was going to slide right out from under Verdeaux, but...I honestly didn’t give a damn.
The sign at the counter said ‘Ring for service’ so I tapped the reception-style bell lightly to get Verdeaux’s attention. No response, so I smacked it a little harder, only to be rewarded by choruses of ‘hey!’ and ‘quiet!’ from every corner of the pharmacy save the photo area. So much for service.
I walked around the end of the counter and tapped Verdeaux, instead of the bell.
But, still, ominously, no sign of life.
Chapter 16
Please, God, I thought, please don’t tell me I’ve stumbled on another body.
I considered walking away. Let somebody else ‘discover’ this one. Later.
I mean, I said to myself, it already smells bad in here. Who would notice?
The corpse opened one eye. ‘Go...a...way,’ Verdeaux said stiffly. Succinctly, too.
‘I need the key to Way’s office.’
‘Too bad.’ The eye closed again.
I was in no mood to play Odysseus to the other woman’s Cyclops. Though I’d have dearly loved to shove a pickle spear through her eye.
I shook Verdeaux by the shoulder. ‘The key,’ I demanded.
She growled and shifted slightly, causing the stool to roll. I blocked its progress with my foot. ‘Again, the key.’
She propped her head on one hand and eyed me. ‘The door’s open.’
That seemed un-Way-like. ‘Do you mean you left it unlocked?’
The growl looked to become a snarl. I let my foot slide and Verdeaux went with it.
Naomi grabbed either side of the desk to keep herself from falling. ‘Damn it, what is your problem?’
I wanted to say, ‘You are my problem,’ like we were squabbling twelve-year-olds. Instead, I decided to rise above such.
‘You,’ I said. ‘You’re my problem.’
That’d show her. ‘Now tell me,’ I continued, ‘which door is open, the outside one or the back one? Because if you left it unlocked, I want the key so I can secure it. There’s a murderer running around and I’d prefer not to give him unfettered private access, you know?’
I also preferred not to walk into Way’s office with Eric, without knowing if my intruder had circled the mall and come back in through Way’s office.
I looked toward my son, who was staring at the floor. Something was really wrong. Was Eric sick? Flunking out? Or was he thrown out? Maybe in the context of trouble with the law?
All the bad things that could happen to my nineteen-year-old son, all the ways a young life could be ended or changed forever, were racing through my head.
Oh, my God: was I going to be a grandma?
‘Now!’ I screamed at Verdeaux. ‘I need to have the key now!’
Every sleepy visage in the place popped up over its respective store shelf. When each saw who I was brow-beating, though, they stuck their little turtle-heads back into their shells.
Verdeaux, probably assuming I was a psycho, also must have sensed a decided lack of support from her fellow travelers. As a result, she became more forthcoming.
‘The back door, damn it. What do you think I did, go outside in this crap?’ She gestured toward the window, the growl now a defensive snarl. ‘The door from the service hallway was sitting open so I went in.’
‘It was open?’ As I’ve said, it wasn’t like Way to leave either of his office doors open. God forbid we should be able to share and compare leases or something.
‘Open. Ajar. Whatever you want to call it. I never had a key. And I sure as hell don’t have one now.’
Oh.
‘Well, thanks,’ I said.
I walked back to the rear door, thinking. If the hallway one was open, maybe something had happened to make Way leave it that way. Could he have been forced to retrieve something from his office before he was killed?
But that made no sense. Why would the killer have Way don a coat and start up the snow-blower before killing him? Wouldn’t it have been easier to murder Way in his office without a winter coat to slice through? By the time anyone found our landlord’s body, the bad guy could be long gone.
‘Let’s go to Way’s office,’ I said to Eric, as I commandeered a lemon-yellow lantern. ‘We can talk there.’
He just nodded and followed me down the hall. Sure enough, the door was still open. Leave it to Verdeaux not to close the door after herself.
I made Eric wait and stepped in cautiously, holding the lantern out in front of me to illuminate the space. Assuming the outside doors were all locked, there would be no way for my attacker to get back into the mall and the office should be safe. That was a big assumption, though.
I held the lantern out and swung it around slowly, illuminating the office section by section. Way’s mahogany desk and matching leather chair. The two pieces were much too big for the space, but given the gigantic fireplace that took up one entire wall of my blue stucco living room and my super-sized sheepdog, I had a bit of a glasshouse problem there.
The only other furniture in the office was a bank of file cabinets along one wall and a reception desk piled high with newspapers. Oh, and a leatherette visitors’ couch. I hated to think what kind of action the thing had hosted.
‘If these walls could talk,’ I said under my breath as I moved aside to let Eric in.
‘Do they have walls that do that now?’ he asked, looking at me with new-found appreciation. ‘Did you see those mirrors that turn into flat-screen televisions?’
Eric is so far ahead of me, technologically-speaking, that I’ve given up even trying to keep up.
Cool,’ I said, which should give you an idea of which millennium I’m still stuck in.
Before I could stop him, Eric sank on to the couch, which had probably seen more traffic than the street outside. Ah, well. Way probably had a cleaning service.
I sat down next to Eric.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
All those awful things started going through my head again. Early grandparenthood was starting to look mighty good.
‘Give,’ I said, after a moment.
Eric’s eyes filled with tears.
With a rush, I put my arm around his shoulder. He laid his head on my shoulder. Then he started to sob.
I rubbed his back and repeated all those things I crooned to him when he was nineteen-months, not nineteen years, old. And every time he was sick or hurt. Every time I hugged him, every time I bandaged an elbow or made macaroni and cheese - they all came roaring back.
‘Whatever it is,’ I whispered in his ear, ‘we’ll take care of it together. You and me. No matter what.’
He pulled away and closed his eyes. Then he took a deep breath.
‘Mom, I’m gay.’
Chapter 17
‘Oh, thank God!’ I practically passed out with relief.
‘You mean it’s OK with you?’ Eric asked, his face a mix of relief and disbelief.
‘OK with me? This is about you, not me. And whatever you do, so long as you act responsibly and stay safe, is OK with me.’
I put my hands on his shoulders and forced him to meet my eyes. ‘You are “OK” with me.’
He looked away. ‘Dad told me it’ll kill Grandma Thorsen.’
My first thought was, Eric told Ted before me?
&
nbsp; My second thought: The old bat’s eighty, if she’s a day. Besides, she’s had a good life.
Nevertheless, I told Eric, ‘Grandma is tougher than Dad thinks.’ I took a deep breath. ‘And I have a feeling her reaction will be the same as mine.’
And if not, she’ll go quickly and Eric won’t hear the details.
‘If Dad ever tells her,’ Eric said, with a little laugh. A very little laugh, but it was the first ‘old Eric’ I’d seen since he’d arrived at the mall.
‘God, Eric.’ I pulled him toward me. ‘I thought you were going to tell me you were dying. Or maybe failing.’
A full-out laugh now. ‘You’d rather I be gay than flunking out?’
I thought about it. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess - no, I’m sure I would.’
We both laughed.
I held my son, each of us quiet for a moment. ‘You know that this isn’t the easiest path, right?’ I asked him finally. ‘Even these days?’
He nodded his head. ‘I know. But it’s the only...path for me.’
I got that. ‘How long...I mean, when did you know that...’ I realized I was making a mess of this.
Luckily, Eric saved me from myself. ‘I’m not sure, honestly. I guess it just always...was.’
I got that, too. I also got that there had been a whole lot of ‘ellipsis-ing’ going on between us. Not that we were leaving things unsaid, so much as that we were saying them carefully.
But this wasn’t the time or the place for twenty questions. Except for one, maybe. ‘You’re being safe?’
‘I’m not an idiot, Mom,’ Eric said, and in that moment we were back to our normal relationship. Nagging mother, teenaged son.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I matched his tone. ‘So when are you going back to school? Exams next week, you know.’
‘Have you noticed it’s snowing?’ Eric pointed out the window. ‘Who knows when I can get back?’
‘It’s Thursday,’ I said, standing up. ‘It’ll melt tomorrow and you can drive back this weekend.’
A sudden thought struck me. ‘Is there something else you haven’t told me?’ I asked. ‘You drove all the way down here. Was it just to tell -’
‘That’s it,’ Eric said, and then he turned sheepish. ‘The thing is that I told Dad over the phone and it didn’t go all that well. After that disaster, I thought I’d better see you in person.’