“Yep,” he answered. “It was one of the last models he worked on. You know, we showed it to Joaquin last night. Why does that one bother you?”
“Because of something Janie said today.” And although I had told Steven Hyatt about Stephen X’s explanation of the explosion in Italy, when I related Janie’s more simplified account, he understood why it had triggered my remembering another watered-down definition of fuel converters.
Steven Hyatt was excited now. He stood up and started to pace the room. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here, besides an implausible plot for a new movie.” And he grinned at me, putting me at ease with his jokes, reminding me that, while the subject was serious, he wasn’t going to allow it to hurt us, his wit and humor insulating me today just as surely as they had when we were younger.
“Wish I had some paper. I’d graph it out, but since we don’t, listen to this. Your father bought the patent to an automobile fuel converter. He often did that, you know. An inventor would come to him—his reputation was tops—and hire him to research an invention … or build them a model. Sometimes they just wanted to sell their idea for a little money.”
“I remember,” I said, remembering.
“Let’s say some guy came by with this fuel thing and your father bought it. And then he made this model.” Steven Hyatt strode into the next room to look for the one he and Joaquin had examined last night.
He returned with a frown on his face, but it didn’t interrupt his train of thought, “I can’t find it right now, but let’s go ahead and take this a step further, Honey. And say after researching the plans, Mr. Huckleberry decides it’s a pretty good invention, one that could really work.” He frowned. Steven Hyatt was doing some remembering, himself. “You know, I think I remember him telling me that.”
“What?” I exclaimed as excited as he.
“Hush, hush. Let me remember. Now, let’s see. I was sitting here and you were sitting there and Mr. H. was … I know … in that chair, and he said …”
I clapped my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t ask any other questions that would distract him.
“He said, ‘Steven Hyatt, if I were younger or if Miss Katherine were not so ill, I’d … I’d …’ “ He faltered but continued to wave at me to be silent. Finally the words burst through his veil of remembrance and in a theatrical, triumphant pose, he fairly shouted, “ ‘I’d go in the business myself instead of looking for a buyer. This invention really works.’ ”
He fell back on the brown beanbag chair. “By George,” he muttered.
“By George,” I echoed. “Steven, do you think he ever sold it?”
Having solved what he thought was a major part of the problem, Steven Hyatt was casual with his reply. “Nah, he would have sold it to an oil or an automobile company. And if he had—and it really worked like he claimed it did—they would have paid a fortune for it. And we all know, sweet Honey, that your lovely self wouldn’t be on the road hustling books for a living if there ….”
I hadn’t told Steven Hyatt about the money.
“Steven …” I began.
He wasn’t listening, “ ’Course that doesn’t answer why your Stephen would have found that piece of paper with ‘How Far Is It Called to the Grave?’ on it. Unless … Honey, do you think there is any way you could get Mr. X to give you that piece of paper? It might tell us more than he figured out from reading it.”
I forgot about the money for a minute. “Gee, I don’t know. You know, I haven’t heard from Stephen in two days. Maybe he’s given up and gone back to Italy.”
“He wouldn’t do that without talking to you,” Steven Hyatt insisted. “There’s got to be a connection between the instructions he found on the arsonist in his laboratory in Florence and the similarity of the inventions.”
“But …”I protested.
“Honey, this is serious. Your father is somehow connected with the deaths of Steven Miller and that unknown assassin in Italy.”
A shiver went up my spine, and I said, “Steven, Father has been dead for ten years.”
“Right,” he replied, “but it’s got to be tied up in that invention. I just feel it, Honey.” And he looked closer at me hugging my arms tight around my body to hold off the chill that his words had caused to descend on me. “You feel it, too, don’t you?”
“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know what I feel, Steven. Maybe if I saw the blueprint, I might recognize … or feel … something from it. I seem to be very good at feeling things. Its something new I’ve learned about myself. Where did you say the blueprint was?”
“I said I couldn’t find it. Or the model. Although I think I remember showing it to Joaquin last night.”
I grinned. “Steven Hyatt, you couldn’t find your head if you were carrying it in your arms. Let me look.”
We went into the smaller room where the stacked blueprints were kept, but after methodically searching for almost a half hour, both of us gave up.
“I know I saw it last night,” Steven said.
I didn’t answer him because another blueprint had caught my eye. “Steven, look at this one. It looks like … no, I’m sure it is … look, Steven, it’s the blueprint of the house. The one father made when he was remodeling. Building this third floor. Isn’t that fascinating?” I used both hands to spread the tightly curled paper onto the table. “Now maybe I can figure out some things that have always bothered me about the house.”
“Like what?”
“Like why my nightmares about it always seemed so real. I’ve found out lately—and I’ll tell you about that in a minute—that the house has been hiding some surprises. Maybe there’s something else I don’t know.”
Before he could respond, but right on cue, as if scripted for the imaginary scenario Steven Hyatt claimed he was drafting of our situation, we heard someone call my name from somewhere within the bowels of the house: a thin, reedy cry of “Honey … Hon-ney, where are you?”
TWENTY–SEVEN
I glanced quickly at the Timex on my left wrist as I bounded down the outside steps and into the house. I had forgotten about Janie.
She was descending the stairs, rubbing her eyes, which were swollen from her recent sleep. Spotting me at the curve of the landing, she started speaking to me just as if it hadn’t been almost two hours since I’d seen her. “I forget what it’s like … taking a hard nap in the middle of the day. I feel like someone has been stomping on my head with his boots on. Can I have some more tea, Honey? Hot this time? And then I’ve got to get on back.” She looked at the red teapot clock above the kitchen table and said in disgust, “And I’m going to hit the five o’clock traffic, too.”
“Don’t go,” I said impulsively as I put the filled kettle on the top of the stove.
“What?”
“Stay here with me. Have supper and spend the night. We’ll go shopping. There’s a few things I want to buy … for the house.” I kept inventing my argument as I begged her to stay. For some reason, I didn’t want be alone in the house tonight. “I’ll wake you up early,” I said. “You can open up Pages by ten as usual, if you want to.”
“Well.” She sipped the hot tea I’d put before her. “I could call my husband and tell him I’m staying for a sleepover. He won’t care.”
“It’ll be a good opportunity for me to tell you more about the house … about the aunts and all. I know you’re interested.”
Janie bargained with me. “If we go shopping, will you let me help pick out something new for your bedroom?”
“My room?”
“Yes. I was thinking before I went to sleep how nice it would look if you added just a few things. How that old furniture would come alive with the right accessories. And I know just the place to get them.” She stopped then said, “I’m sorry, Honey. I do get carried away. What I imagine in your room might be expensive. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She looked embarrassed.
Money?
“Money’s no problem,” I said, surprising myself. At her question
ing look, I said, “That is, I’ve been thinking about redoing that room, too, and I’ve put away some … a little … for redecorating. But I didn’t know where to go, and here you are saying you do.” I took a sip of my own tea, amazed at my audacity. Honey Huckleberry getting ready to throw money away. Just like she had it. Just like it was hers. “My,” I added in a weaker voice, “won’t we have fun?”
I washed the teacups while Janie went upstairs to freshen herself, and when I heard her footsteps reach the top stair, I took a deep breath and opened the pantry door. Reaching wildly inside, my outstretched fingers ultimately connected with the spidery string to the light-bulb that, when lit, dimly revealed the interior of the storage area.
It was just as I had left it—lots of gritty debris and lots of stacked hundred dollar bills. I reached under the thin, broken paneling on the floor and withdrew a healthy-sized wad. “Guess I’ll see if it’s real, anyway,” I said to the swaying cord before I pulled it again. The whole operation had taken only seconds, but I felt as winded as if I had run a race. Tomorrow, I vowed, I would have to do something about the money.
Damn, I remembered. I still hadn’t told Steven Hyatt about the money.
“Ready?” I jumped. I hadn’t heard Janie come back downstairs. My long black skirt hid the cash clenched in my hand, but I was still afraid Janie would see it.
“No, but it won’t take me but a minute. Janie, why don’t you run upstairs—outside upstairs—and ask Steven Hyatt if he wants to go with us.” I’d forgotten about him when I’d asked Janie to stay.
In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I met up with her again right outside my front door. I had run a brush through my hair and a puff over my nose. Other than that, I still looked as I had when we’d gone to Steven Miller’s funeral.
“Let’s go in my car,” I said. “I know Fort Worth, and it’ll be easier for me to find wherever it is we’re going. Where are we going, anyway?”
The two of us walked toward the clinic—Steven had politely declined the invitation—and Janie was surprised when I inserted my key and raised one of the basement-level garage doors. But she nodded understandingly as I explained the parking arrangement with the clinic.
It had been a hot day and promised to be an equally warm evening, unusual for this early in the season, but the uncommon heat was promised a wet relief by the roll of thunder in the distance. “It probably won’t rain for hours,” I told Janie as we roared out of the stuffy garage. “I noticed this morning that my air-conditioning is on the fritz, so you’ll have to roll down your window for some fresh air. Sorry about that,” I said as she complied, “but it won’t be for too much longer. I’m getting a new car … today.”
Janie looked at me funny. Out of the corner of her eyes.
“Well, I was supposed to get a new car today. A van actually. That Jimmy the Geek you noticed at the funeral this morning? He is or was supposed to bring me a new Plymouth Voyager that my business manager arranged for me.” I liked calling Bondesky my business manager. It’s funny how your vocabulary changes when a little money comes into your life. It put a whole new perspective on everything. I was dying to tell someone about my newfound wealth. Wish I’d had time to talk to Steven Hyatt before we’d left. Janie had reported that while he’d declined our offer of shopping, he said he’d meet us later for dinner.
As I drove, I glanced sideways at the woman beside me. Janie looked like an aging gnome with a satisfied, pixilated smile on her face. She had called her husband and told him of her nocturnal plans. I’m sure it didn’t surprise him. I tried to imagine someone married to this fairy godmother, murder-loving woman. Mr. Janie? I didn’t know his name and had forgotten to ask. Actually, I didn’t really care. I had money and a girlfriend. I’d never had one before. Just Steven Hyatt. It didn’t matter that Janie must be eons older than me. I was used to older people.
Janie’s little special place that she wanted to take me shopping turned out to be Laura Ashley for crying out loud. I would never have gone in there alone, but with Janie’s support, I braved the wall-to-wall floral patterns, and we strode in side by side like we knew all along that were going up the stairs to the linen department. One of us knew the way.
Actually, once I got past my initial shock of being there, I had to admit I kinda liked it, but Janie went hog-wild. “Pink and green, Honey. Pink and green.” That was about all she could say, surrounded by the plethora of colors in clever Victorian designs.
“Pink and green,” I told the salesperson, and she chose everything in the shop for me that met that dictate: comforter, sheets, duvet, duvet cover. All, including the curtains, were in a sweet little rose pattern. The towels, however, were striped but, of course, met the requisite color combination. I agreed to buy items that prior to this outing I hadn’t known existed.
Janie had the decency to gasp when my personal shopper presented me with the bill.
“Do you take cash?” I asked innocently. “All I have is hundreds.”
Celebrating what had been a tense minute for me—the time the salesperson had taken the stack of greenbacks and kept them—Janie and I ordered a double scotch on the rocks at The Original while we waited for Steven Hyatt to join us. Spending that much money hadn’t taken as much time as we had allowed for it.
“I didn’t know they delivered,” said Janie.
“They didn’t know they delivered,” I answered. “But thank heavens, we didn’t have to carry it all. But what will I do if it comes after you leave? I won’t know where everything goes.” We had only been together this day, but Janie seemed like my oldest friend. Well, come to think of it, next to Steven Hyatt, she was. Her friendship seemed to complete another gap in my childhood.
“Tell me about the house … and the aunts,” Janie said.
So, I told her about my three maiden, great-aunts. About their lovely home. Why we lived there. Correction: why I lived there amid all the Victorian folderol, real Victorian folderol. We laughed over the aunt’s eccentricities. Who was I to laugh? And we sighed over a time gone by.
“Just imagine, Honey,” Janie said. “Times were so different back then. A lady could be a real lady,” she said, implying that perhaps we weren’t.
We ordered the Roosevelt Special—that tells you how old the place is—but I declined another drink. After all, I was driving. But I’d had enough to feel a bit lightheaded when I reached out with one hand to lay it on Janie’s arm in a confiding manner. “Do you want to hear the saddest story I’ve ever heard?” I asked.
“From one of your new books?”
“No, from real life. Oh, don’t look so alarmed,” I said when I saw her expression. “It’s not about me, but it is a story about my family.
“You remember the aunts—Aunt Eddie, Aunt Allie, and Aunt Baby? Well, I told you Aunt Eddie was the oldest, didn’t I? Well, she was, but the other two died before she did, which was probably the best way for it to happen ’cause Aunt Eddie always felt so responsible for her sisters ….” My voice trailed off. “But that’s another story.
“The story I want to tell you about is what Aunt Eddie told my mother, right before she died.”
“Before your mother died?” Janie asked.
“No, Aunt Eddie. She was over ninety—ninety-two, ninety-three, thereabouts—and Father was building the addition on to the house. He knew he had to finish it because he’d started it, but Mother told me that she and Father knew they would probably never live up there on that third floor. That Aunt Eddie was very frail.”
“That is sad,” Janie agreed.
“Right, but that’s not my story, either. One day, Aunt Eddie asked Mother to fix tea for her. She claimed she remembered living in England—before the family moved to America—and she liked a proper tea. Anyway, Mother brought her the teapot—the same one you admired today—and Aunt Eddie said, ‘Katherine, did I ever tell you about my gentleman friend?’
“And, of course, Mother said, ‘No, Aunt Eddie, you never.’ Mother said she was afraid to breath
e too loud ’cause if she did, Aunt Eddie might not go on with the tale, but she needn’t have worried so; the old woman was already lost in her story.
“ ‘My mother … your husband Joseph’s grandmother … was best friends with a woman in New York. That’s where we first settled when we emigrated from England. This lady, Mrs. Albert Sims, had also arrived in the United States from Liverpool at the same time my parents and I did, and Sarah Louise—that was Mrs. Sims’s given name—and my mother found solace in one another’s company.
“ ‘After Joseph Huckleberry—he was your Joseph’s grandfather—found gainful employment in Fort Worth at the Cotton Exchange, we moved to Texas.’ ”
“Was that before or after Aunt Allie and Aunt Baby were born? And what about Joseph, Jr.?” Janie wanted to know.
Her interruption disturbed me. In telling Aunt Eddie’s story as told to me by my mother, I lost myself in time. I stared at Janie, not recognizing her for a minute, and without answering, I continued in my Aunt Eddie’s voice just as I remembered Mother doing when she related it to me.
“ ‘The two women kept in touch over the years, writing long letters in a beautiful, spidery, black script at least twice a year and, of course, at Christmas. Sarah Louise and her family stayed in New York. New York City, that is. And the women always planned to meet again someday or, better yet, in their letters they began to fantasize about a possible romance between Sarah Louise’s oldest son, Marcus, and myself.
“ ‘I remembered Marcus, although I had been so young when we landed in New York and, like mother, I began to think of him as mine and that the two of us were destined to be together. Of course, Marcus and I never communicated.
“ ‘When I was twenty-two and had taught at the Fort Worth High School for several years, Mother and Sarah Louise decided it was time Marcus and I got together, so that summer, she and I went to New York City.
“ ‘The Sims family had prospered and their lifestyle was similar to that of the Huckleberrys’ in Texas, a comfortable middle-class environment. Mother and Sarah Louise were ecstatic at being together again, and young Marcus and I were expected to resume our friendship also.
The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set Page 14