I Scream, You Scream

by Watson, Wendy Lyn

I waited until the whine of the blender died. “I called Finn on the way home and asked him that very question. He said, basically, one’s actionable; the other ’s not.”

  Bree expertly rimmed a margarita glass with salt. “What does that mean?”

  “It means, if the police call me a suspect too early in the game, I could maybe sue them. But as long as I’m just a ‘person of interest,’ they can destroy my reputation with relative impunity.”

  “Great.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  Bree strolled over to the dining table and handed me my margarita, and we clinked glasses in a wry toast.

  “What about me?” Alice asked.

  “You want to be a suspect?” Bree quipped.

  “No, I want a margarita.” Alice sat at the far end of the table, surrounded by open books and note-pads. She tapped her government textbook with the eraser end of her pencil. “According to my book, the drinking age was raised to twenty-one in response to lobbying by special interests.” She drew out the words lobbying and special interests to illustrate their evilness. “Fight the power, Mom, and let me have a drink.”

  “Baby girl, around here, I am the power. And I say you can’t partake of the demon spirits until you’re much, much older.” Bree sat down across from me and took another sip of her margarita, giving her daughter a wide-eyed look over the rim of her glass.

  “That’s so unfair,” Alice argued, raising her childlike chin in defiance.

  “Life is unfair,” Bree responded with a shrug. She picked up her reading glasses and her cross-stitch and set to work. “Just ask Miranda Jillson. Cut down in her prime because of—drum roll, please—alcohol.”

  “Aha,” Alice said, narrowing her eyes as she prepared to make her closing argument. “But Miranda Jillson wasn’t drunk. She was just an innocent bystander. Wrong place, wrong time. The irresponsible person who got drunk and drove his car was—how old?”

  She looked at me for an answer. “I don’t know,” I said as I slit open the statement from the electric company. “Thirty-five? Forty? He had kids in middle school; I remember that.”

  Alice preened. “See, I rest my case.”

  Bree squinted as she threaded a tiny embroidery needle with butter yellow floss. “I don’t know that you made much of a point at all, child of mine. But in any event, this wasn’t a debate. No margaritas for you.”

  Alice blew out a frustrated breath through her nose and began tapping her eraser on her book again.

  “It’s weird,” I said, hoping to diffuse the tension. “I haven’t given a thought to Miranda Jillson in twenty years, and now, in the past few days, it seems like everyone has a story to tell about her.” I scrawled my signature across the last check for October’s household bills and tugged it out of the book.

  “Oh, wow,” Alice said. “Baader-Meinhof.”

  “Gesundheit,” Bree quipped. She never took her eyes off the delicate needlework in her hands, one of a set of floral fingertip towels she planned to give to her mother, my aunt Jenny, for Christmas. My hell-raising cousin, with her sin-colored hair and skintight T-shirts, looked remarkably old-fashioned with her rhinestone reading glasses set low on her nose and her embroidery hoop held in one dainty hand. Of course, when she paused to take a sip of her cocktail, she pretty much ruined the image.

  Alice groaned. “Very funny, Mom. Seriously, we learned about this in my psychology class a couple of weeks ago. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. It’s like when you learn a new word and then, in the space of a couple of days, you hear the word again and again.”

  “So is it some kind of woo-woo sign or something?” I asked as I stuffed the check and payment coupon into the envelope, fussing with it until the address for the municipal electric company was neatly centered in the plastic window.

  “No. You hear the word because you know it. Like, you probably heard the word all the time before, but you didn’t know what the word meant so your brain filtered it out. Now you know the word, so your brain pays attention.”

  I sealed and stamped the envelope, then tapped all the bills into a neat stack for the next day’s mail. “But I’ve always known who Miranda Jillson was. She’s not new to me.”

  Alice pondered that a minute, her delicate features scrunched up in thought. At that moment she looked exactly as she had when she was four years old and trying to puzzle through the words of her Dr. Seuss ABC book. I fought an overwhelming urge to hug her tight and never let her go.

  She made a little clicking sound with her tongue and teeth. “Ah. You knew who Miranda Jillson was, but she didn’t have any significance for you. But then you had lunch with Mrs. Jillson and talked about her daughter, and now it matters to you. Information only has meaning if you have a context for it.”

  She laughed mischievously. “It’s like you probably always knew who Cheryl Ladd was, but you never noticed that the clerk at the post office is named Cheryl Ladd until after we watched that Charlie’s Angels marathon last summer.”

  We both giggled at the memory of me making a total fool of myself at the post office, grinning like an idiot when I put two and two together and then asking the sixty-something-year-old clerk if she’d been named after the younger model.

  “So it’s not a sign, just a coincidence.”

  “Not even that,” she said. “Just a fluke of what gets caught in your sievelike brain.”

  “Alice Anders! Respect for your elders,” Bree chided, pausing in the act of drawing her needle up at the end of a stitch.

  “It’s not disrespectful. Everyone’s brain is like a sieve.”

  “Let me guess. You learned about it in psychology class?”

  “Yep.”

  “So that’s what we pay for? To have some egg-head professor teach you that folks ain’t bright.”

  Alice sighed dramatically, just as the oven timer began to buzz. “That’s wrong on so many levels. First, you don’t pay for my tuition. I have a scholarship. Second, it’s a lot more complicated than ‘folks ain’t bright.’ ”

  “Oh, lighten up, Saint Alice. I understand. Your poor old mama isn’t that backwoods.”

  I detected a note of real pain beneath Bree’s teasing. In high school, Bree joked about blowing off papers and failing classes, but it was all an act. Beneath the big hair and cleavage, Bree was a smart girl. She got As in most of her classes and even started quietly gathering brochures from colleges, until a pregnancy scare led to a shotgun wedding her senior year. She lost the baby a week after the wedding and lost the husband six months later, but she never managed to revive the dream of college.

  Bree didn’t begrudge Alice the chance to shine academically, but I had to think she was a little green-eyed about it, too.

  “Okay, you two. Enough already.” I pushed back from the table, set the bills and my checkbook on the corner of the nearest counter, and slipped on my oven mitts. I pulled the pan of enchiladas out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. The narcotic scents of cumin, chilies, and chocolate—the secret ingredient in my enchilada sauce—filled the air and calmed the tempers of my prickly little family. For the next few minutes, we did the dinner pas de trois: Alice putting away her books and setting out the silver, Bree filling water glasses, and me dishing up the grub.

  “Alice,” I said as I settled into my seat and spread my napkin in my lap, “you may be right. I feel like I’m getting bits and pieces of information about Brittanie Brinkman, but I don’t have any context for most of it. It’s like trying to put together a puzzle without having the picture on the box.”

  Bree opened her mouth to comment, but just then the doorbell sounded. After my conversation with Cal that afternoon, I was as nervous as a cat, but I steeled my spine and went to answer the door.

  In the living room, I twitched aside the sheer curtain and peeked out the sidelight window. Wayne Jones stood on my front porch, as bold as brass.

  I had to yank on the handle to pry open the heavy front door because the wood had swollen in th
e recent damp and it stuck something fierce.

  That sturdy door, nearly as wide as it was tall, was one of my favorite parts of the house. Clary Jenkins, who lived next door and fancied herself the neighborhood historian, called my door a “coffin door,” said they made it wide enough to carry in a coffin back when folks laid out their dead in their front parlors. Alice didn’t like that morbid explanation and declared it a “Christmas door,” wide enough to carry in a Christmas tree without losing any needles.

  The door popped free of its frame with a soft whump.

  “Hey, Wayne. Come on in.”

  He took a few halting steps into my living room, looking around curiously. Wayne attended the closing for the house and handed over the check to the harried soccer mom who had inherited the house from her dad when he passed, but he’d never actually been inside. From his expression, I could tell he didn’t know quite what to make of the haphazard thrift-store furniture and the signs of recent construction—a cordless drill, a paint-spattered stepladder, a pile of vinyl tile scraps—that littered the floor.

  I shut the door behind him, and he started. “We were just sitting down to dinner,” I said. “Want to join us?”

  He inhaled deeply. His face went slack and his pupils dilated. Wayne loved enchiladas.

  But then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said. “I really shouldn’t.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s plenty.”

  A rueful smile teased the corners of his mouth. “That’s the problem. I’m trying to cut back.”

  “On what?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

  He looked annoyed. “On food,” he snapped.

  “Really?” I had never known Wayne to deprive himself of anything in his life.

  “Back when I went out with the crews myself, I could eat whatever I wanted. But now I’m just a desk jockey, and all the booze and desserts have caught up with me.” He patted his gut like a favorite dog.

  I sighed. “I know, Wayne. I bought your pants, remember? But you can’t be too tough on yourself. Getting a little soft around the middle is just part of getting older.”

  He frowned. “Brit put me on a diet. Said I had to drop a few if I was going to keep up with her. I’ve been taking special pains not to eat too much dessert, because you know that’s my big weakness.” He sighed. “Don’t suppose there’s much point in sticking with it, now she’s gone. But I’m gonna try to make her proud.”

  I never expected to feel sympathy for Wayne, and it rattled me a bit. Unsure how to respond, I patted his arm in commiseration.

  He looked away into the middle distance and pressed his lips together tight, then cleared his throat. “She made me a better person,” he continued. “She helped me increase profits by almost five percent this year, when everyone else in the industry suffered a loss.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to point out that being a better businessman was not the same thing as being a better person. But, for Wayne, the two were pretty darned close, so I just bit my lip and kept quiet.

  “I loved her,” he said, so low I almost didn’t hear him. “I was going to marry her. Ordered the ring from Sinclair’s last month.”

  That knocked me back a bit. I already knew he was infatuated with her, smitten, but marriage meant so much more. It meant Brittanie was at least as important to Wayne as I had once been. I had been well and truly replaced. I took a deep breath, held it till it burned, and let it out slowly.

  “So that was the hinky credit card charge Brittanie was angry about? An engagement ring?”

  His gaze slid sideways, met mine, and bounced away. “Yeah. That’s right.”

  Uh-huh. Wayne might have bought Brittanie an engagement ring at Sinclair’s, but something told me that wasn’t all he bought. And the rest of his purchase he wanted kept private.

  “I’m real sorry,” I said. I meant it, too. For better or worse, my ex loved Brittanie Brinkman. To him, she was more than just arm candy.

  A muscle running the length of his jawbone clenched and released. “I wanted to propose at the luau, in front of God and everyone, but then that night the time never seemed right. You know?”

  I did know. A public proposal was always a dicey plan, but when both parties were wasted and the potential bride was pitching a jealous fit, it seemed particularly ill-advised.

  “Now she’ll never know how much she meant to me.”

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between us as I tried to look anywhere but at Wayne. Maybe I just wasn’t grown-up enough, but I didn’t really want to watch my ex get all schmaltzy about another woman.

  “So, uh, if I can’t interest you in dinner,” I said, “you want to have a seat in here?”

  Wayne sniffed and nodded his head deliberately. “Thanks.”

  He took a spot on the sofa, tugging his pants up at the knees as he lowered himself onto the faded patchwork quilt draped over the seventies-era upholstery. I settled into my favorite bentwood rocker and waited for Wayne to spill his guts.

  But he didn’t say a word.

  “Listen,” I said, hoping to bridge the gap. “I’m sorry if I caused you grief by telling Cal we weren’t together the night Brittanie died. I hope you understand why I had to tell the truth.”

  He nodded.

  “You should really come clean with Cal,” I urged. “That old saw about honesty being the best policy? It really is the truth.”

  Wayne didn’t look convinced. “I’m working on it,” he said.

  Figuring I wouldn’t be able to get a more solid commitment from him, I got to the heart of the matter. “So, what’s on your mind? What can I do for you?”

  He sighed. “I just wanted to see you. I . . .” He trailed off, and he pooched out his lips as if he were chewing on something, deciding how to put it. “I miss her, Tally. I know she wasn’t an easy person, but neither am I. And I liked having her around. She made me mad sometimes, but she also made me laugh. She was just so darned spunky.”

  “Wayne,” I said carefully, “I’m not sure I’m the best person to reminisce with about Brittanie’s good qualities.”

  His chin dropped to his chest. “I know. I’m real sorry about that. But I don’t have anyone else I can talk to. Her parents never warmed up to me much, and her mom falls to pieces every time I say Brit’s name. And everyone else thinks I killed her. It’s . . . awkward.”

  No kidding.

  I knew Bree would accuse me of being a martyr again, but I couldn’t turn Wayne away. I could only imagine how lonely he must have been, forced to grieve publicly yet entirely alone. And besides, I told myself, it wasn’t as if I still carried a torch for Wayne. After catching him in flagrante delicto with his secretary, how much could the details of his relationship with Brittanie really hurt me?

  I mentally considered and rejected a half dozen possible questions in rapid succession before settling on the tried-and-true. “So, how did you two meet?”

  A faint smile lit his face.

  “She was interning in the mayor’s office one summer when I was serving as the liaison between the city council and the chamber of commerce. She looked so cute in her little suits, her hair pinned up like a schoolteacher’s. She didn’t have to do much—hand out the agendas and fill up the water pitchers—but she took it all so serious.”

  I gritted my teeth and refrained from pointing out that Wayne and I had still been very much married that summer.

  “Course, I didn’t get to talk to her much at those meetings, what with her working and all. But then the end of the summer, the Jillsons had that dinner to celebrate the new shopping center on FM 410, and she was there. Since I was flying solo . . .”

  Wayne looked up at me, all sheepish. I guess the penny had dropped, and he’d realized that he was basically admitting to starting his romance with Brittanie long before our divorce.

  I smirked, but then waved my hand to indicate he should continue.

  “Well, uh, since I was by myself, I got seated with Brit at
dinner. We talked about her internship, and what she had planned for her senior year in college. What she wanted to do when she graduated. And she asked me all sorts of questions.”

  He cleared his throat. “I gotta say, it felt pretty good to have someone ask my advice about business. Like I was wise or something.”

  I felt a pang of guilt. I don’t know that I ever loved Wayne in a sort of fairy-tale romance sort of way, but I had certainly had great affection for him, had been willing to build a life with him. But I couldn’t say that I’d ever really respected him. I never thought I was a perfect wife, but at that moment, I saw with crystal clarity one way in which I had obviously let Wayne down.

  And maybe it was that guilt—that sure evidence of my own contribution to the collapse of our marriage—that compelled me to get in a little dig at Wayne.

  “You know, Honey and I were talking about that dinner just the other day,” I said.

  Wayne looked surprised. “Really? When?”

  I shrugged one shoulder as though it were no big deal. “Oh, the other day when we had lunch together.”

  “You and Honey Jillson had lunch?” Now he looked—and sounded—disbelieving.

  I bristled.

  “As a matter of fact, we did. She mentioned the chamber of commerce dinner. Said you got drunk, made an ass out of yourself.”

  Even in the dim glow of the table lamps’ forty-watt bulbs, I could see the flush blossom on Wayne’s cheekbones.

  “I did not get drunk.”

  “Honey says you did.”

  “Bullshit. How was I gonna get drunk when Honey Jillson won’t let booze in her house? She’s been a teetotaler ever since that drunk driver killed her daughter.”

  “Doesn’t mean you didn’t get ripped before you showed up,” I countered.

  “Dammit, Tally, I’m not stupid. I’m not gonna show up for an important dinner like that drunk.”

  “Then why were you slurring your words?”

  “For your information, I had an allergic reaction. The caterer—that Deena Silver woman—used pineapple juice in the glaze for those stupid itty-bitty chickens she served. I told everyone what happened. Hell, don’t you remember me coming home will my face all swoll up?”