by Mary Bowers
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Sheena said, sitting back on her heels. “Me and Kevin could throw a garage sale this weekend and sell some of this stuff if you’d like. Get some money in quick. Everybody loves garage sales.”
Caught off guard, I said, “I don’t know. Check with Florence, back at the shop. It’s a nice offer and I appreciate it, but Florence might want to go through everything first.”
“Okay. It was just a thought.”
Carlene, who had been folding long dresses and placing them in a packing box, suddenly said, “Who’s that?”
Sheena and I both went to the window to look.
“Oh, him,” Sheena said. “That’s Jordan Huntington. We went to school together. At least until they shipped him off to some rich-kid academy in Tennessee.”
“Oh, that’s right. I remember him now,” Carlene said. “He must be here for the funeral.”
Sheena snorted. “Hardly.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“He’s been here for over a week. When his grandmother was in her bed dying, he was partying down by the dock.”
“How do you know?” Carlene asked.
“Everybody in town knows. He invited all his old friends, everybody that was in his posse before they shipped him off to that school. That would not have included me,” she added stiffly.
Apparently there was some history there, but I wasn’t about to ask.
Sheena went back to Vesta’s gloves and hats and jewelry, and Carlene and I took another look at Jordan.
The young man walking across the lawn toward the old barn was tall and well-knit, with dark hair, and though it was hard to tell from this distance what his face looked like, Carlene remarked that he was good-looking. She gave me an eyebrow wiggle, then looked back at Sheena. “Why don’t you like him?”
“’Cause he’s a brat. He was always too good for the rest of us. He was not,” she said with emphasis, “the most popular kid in class. He is pretty good looking, though,” she added grudgingly.
“Must take after his mother in temperament,” I commented.
“Diana’s not his mother,” Sheena said.
“Oh, that’s right.” I’d been more interested in Vesta than the rest of the family, and Graeme and Diana had been married for so long, I’d forgotten about his first wife, whom I had never met.
Sheena went on. “His real mom’s dead. Diana’s the trophy wife, though she’s not much of a prize if she treats her husband like she just treated us.”
By then Jordan had disappeared behind the barn, and we had turned to get back to work when we all froze. Diana had suddenly shouted, “Where are you going?”
“Oh, lord,” I muttered, grabbing my inventory and going out to see what was happening. If she was yelling at her stepson it was none of my business, but it sure sounded like she was yelling at somebody a lot closer than the barn.
Outside the heat was building toward evening. Sunlight made a glare on the river and came at us sideways, throwing long shadows.
“What’s up?” I said, squinting as I walked toward the house.
Diana had Kevin cornered in the breezeway and was glaring at him while he shuffled his feet and looked guilty.
“This man was trying to get into the house,” she accused.
“Where’s your buddy?” I asked him.
“Dusty went on ahead.”
“Is he in my house?” she demanded, whipping her head around to glare at Kevin, then peering into the house.
“No, ma’am,” Kevin said evenly.
“Diana, what’s going on?” said an exasperated male voice from somewhere around the corner.
A middle-aged man I recognized as Graeme Huntington came forward and stood next to his wife, saying, “He was just looking in the window, and the other young man left ten minutes ago. Did you show them around the house when they got here?”
She stared at him as if he were insane. “They’re here to haul the stuff away. They are not guests.” She glared at Kevin suspiciously.
“Hey, Taylor,” Graeme said, recognizing me and holding out his hand to shake.
I took his hand. “I was so sorry to hear about your mother, Graeme. She was a wonderful woman.”
“Thank you,” he said, meeting my gaze with frank brown eyes. He turned to his wife. “You remember Taylor Verone?”
“Oh, Graeme!” she said, exasperated.
“Diana,” he told me with a tone of quiet irony, “is taking Mother’s death very hard.”
I nodded, afraid to say anything.
“She’d been ill for quite some time,” Diana said, as if she were trying to rescue the moment. I couldn’t help but stare. “Mentally, she’d been failing for years, as I am sure you are aware.”
I blinked.
“Oh?” Graeme said. “In what way was Mother’s mind failing? Specifically?”
“Oh, Graeme,” she said, losing it. “All that talk about Egypt and the mysteries of the Great Beyond. Talking about her trained nurse – good lord, doctors haven’t sent trained nurses home with patients since the Roaring 20s, and she certainly never had one. Crashing Jordan’s parties and embarrassing him in front of his friends, not to mention boring people into the ground over her great-great-whatever uncle who went tomb-robbing –“
“It was her grandfather –“
“Whatever.”
“And he was one of the artists accompanying Howard Carter –“
“Oh, don’t you start!” She stopped and pulled herself together, shifting gears in a way that was startling. “Oh, Graeme, let’s get this over with and move to Miami. You’d like to be closer to Jordan, wouldn’t you? You said we were only going to stay as long as your mother was alive and you needed to take care of her. That’s over now. This is no place for people like us!”
She had taken his arm, and he patted her hand, then gently disengaged it. Her wrap fell to the floorboards of the veranda, and she stood close to him, her perfect body glowing with a warm tan, drops of water from the pool sliding lazily down her legs. Her brunette hair was dripping in ringlets around her pretty face and down to her shoulders.
In that moment when all possible things to say were beyond me, Kevin said, “Well, I’m outta here, folks. All loaded up. Just wanted a peek at the house. Sorry if I was outta line.”
I looked at him as if he’d just popped out of the deck. “Okay,” I said. “See you back at the shop.”
He made a Boy Scout salute and shambled off.
I looked back at Graeme, trying to forget that Diana was there. “Are you sure you want all of your mother’s stuff to go? Have you looked through it?”
He shrugged and got a strange look on his face. “No sense trying to hold onto the past. We actually have talked about moving. It’s a little too quiet here, if you know what I mean. No distractions.” He turned to Diana. “You went through her things, right?”
I wanted to scream, “She was your mother!” but I controlled myself.
Diana shrugged, and in a graceful curtseying motion picked up the wrap and tied it back around her waist. “It’s nothing but old-fashioned junk. You know how she held onto things, and her furniture is hopeless. The place has needed freshening up for ages, but I’m not sure I want to bother now. When we get our condo in Miami, I’ll really go to work decorating.”
She was off the leash – that was painfully obvious. Things were going to explode. I could just see her creating a sterile interior in some ocean-front condo: colorless walls, chunky, uncomfortable furniture, huge artwork, and a grandly gesturing decorator in a floaty scarf.
“There may be some valuable antiques,” I pointed out, flipping through the pages of the yellow legal pad I’d been using for the inventory. “You may want to have the silver tea service appraised –“
“We don’t need any of that stuff,” Diana said, staring at my messy notes. “And we’re not exactly the kind of people who have garage sales.”
She walked away.
Graeme gave me a
small, defeated smile. “We’re just not that sort,” he said quietly, a mocking smile about his lips. “Go ahead, Taylor. Take it.”
I couldn’t let it end like that. “If I find something I think you might want, I’ll be sure to get it back to you.”
“I appreciate the thought. Do whatever you think best. Mom loved animals, as you know. I think this is what she’d have wanted.”
I had to fight off a very bad feeling that was coming over me. I knew Vesta wanted to help the shelter too, but this just didn’t feel right.
“Don’t you love it?” Carlene said, coming up from behind me as Graeme walked back to the house. She was holding up an oddly-shaped, greenish pendant on a thick chain. I didn’t even look at it, but took it from her as if I’d asked for it and slowly put it around my neck. She looked startled, but didn’t say anything.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “Kevin said he was packed up. Is that everything?”
Sheena had come out of the middle cabin with one last box. She looked at Carlene and Carlene looked at her. Then they both looked at me and nodded.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Something was wrong, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was.
Chapter 7
I guess getting a donation like that is as close to Christmas as I’ve gotten as an adult. Each battered old jewelry box with the pop-up ballerina might hold a gold ring. Each flabby hard-cover book with gilded edges could be a collector’s item. Every sideboard could have a priceless stamp collection hidden in a secret compartment.
Doesn’t happen much in real life, but before you dive in and see, the possibilities are endless. It’s like buying a lottery ticket: you might win, and until they have the drawing, you haven’t lost.
I knew the glow of Christmas-in-July was going to be shining around Florence like phosphorescence, and was looking forward to it. Nothing like a little unbridled joy to wash away the bitterness I’d been seeing among the rich folks up the road.
Florence has been running Girlfriend’s since it opened in 1985, and has her own quirky way of handling inventory. Personally, I’d do it differently, but her system works, so I leave it alone. She’s an employee, not a volunteer, but the shop seems like more than a hobby than a job to her. She’s in her early 70’s, but she can work from morning till night, humming a little tune, trotting around the shop, busy at nothing all day, giving Girlfriend’s its personality.
When we get a donation, you’d think somebody had come bearing presents just for her. I think she enjoys going through other people’s stuff, and just having the temporary possession of it.
I parked behind the shop and helped Sheena with a box she was unloading, and before I even got inside, I heard Florence saying, “Oh, no, not there. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that. I’ll deal with it later. Just put it up in the attic for now. Thank you, Alvin.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kevin said, not bothering to correct her.
She was sitting on one of Vesta’s Queen Anne chairs in the back room, just watching as the volunteers brought in box after box. For once, she looked overwhelmed.
“Well!” she puffed as I came in with Sheena. “They gave us just everything of Vesta’s, didn’t they?”
I nodded. “Absolutely everything. We sure hit the jackpot this time, didn’t we?”
Florence’s face changed as she looked past me, then she dropped her eyes to where she was fiddling with some jewelry in her lap.
I turned around and there was Myrtle, glaring at me with the stone face of rectitude.
Myrtle was about three years younger than her sister and resembled her physically, but was vastly older in temperament. Unlike the sprightly joie de vivre that Florence had, Myrtle was as grim as if she’d been prematurely buried and had just now clawed her way out to look for the guy who did it.
From what I heard around town, Myrtle managed to combine total focus on everything she did with a natural ineptitude that exasperated everybody at Cadbury House except for Vesta, who didn’t care. She just liked Myrtle, and could all too vividly imagine her becoming a bag lady if she lost her job. I’d like to say that her sister Florence would’ve been glad to take her in, but it wasn’t true. Florence loved her sister without being able to get along with her. I guess every family has a Myrtle – somebody who seems to have invaded the nest in an egg from another planet.
I briefly considered offering condolences but held back, considering the jackpot thing. Instead I just said, “Hello, Myrtle,” and left it at that.
She walked past me and sank down into the matching Queen Anne chair next to Florence and looked around.
“Well, Miss Vesta’s gone,” she intoned. Then she gazed at the jumble. No doubt it had been her job to keep the jewelry polished, the clothing fresh and the furniture waxed. I felt unaccountably guilty, and I could see that everyone else did too.
Carlene was coming in the back door with yet another box, saying, “Where do you want this one, Miss Florence?” Then she stopped and said, “Oh, hey, Miss Myrtle. Sorry about your friend. She was a real lady in this town, and God knows, we could use more like her.”
Myrtle got misty and smiled at Carlene, and everybody else got busy with something – anything. Bless Carlene for knowing just what to say, even substituting “friend” for “boss,” which was nothing but the truth. I wished I’d said it myself.
“Thank you, child,” Myrtle said.
“Don’t you worry, though,” Carlene went on as she placed the box down with a kind of reverence. “We’re gonna take real good care of her things, and all the animals at the shelter are going to be better off because we got them.”
I nearly cried myself. “Listen, Myrtle,” I said, going over to her, “I know this was all very sudden, and we all know how much you loved Miss Vesta. I’m sure there were things she would’ve wanted you to have, and only you know what they are. When we get things organized, I want you to come back and take your pick – as many things as you want. I’d make us all feel better about –“ I gestured around at the wreckage of Vesta’s life – “all this.”
The tension in the room relaxed, and the sisters sat in their matching chairs like twin queens, quietly watching as we worked around them.
“Florence,” I said at last, “why don’t you take Miss Myrtle next door to Perks and get her a nice frappe or something? I’m sure this must be hard for her.”
“I want to be here,” Myrtle said in a voice from the tomb.
“Oh, Myrt!” Florence said. “Don’t be morbid.”
“No, no,” said the martyr, “I don’t want to be any trouble. Nobody needs to get me any expensive fancy coffees. Just pretend I’m not here.”
I looked at Florence and she responded by wearily lifting a hand and letting it drop on the padded arm of the chair.
I did a double-take.
“What have you got there?” I asked, coming closer.
She opened her hand and I saw an amulet.
“Isn’t it pretty?” she said, looking down at it. “I’d forgotten I had it.”
It was an amulet on a chain, an inlaid piece with colorful stones set in metal. The design was Egyptian, and I realized it must have been the show-stopper of Carlene’s coffee shop tale, because I was pretty sure it was Nekhbet, the protective vulture goddess.
“That was one of Miss Vesta’s favorites,” Myrtle said.
“Oh! Then you should take it.”
“No, you keep it. Both of you must keep the pendants.” She was looking at me, and I suddenly realized I was still wearing the piece of jewelry that Carlene had handed to me back at Cadbury House. For the first time I looked at it closely and realized it was the green figure of a cat.
It suits you,” Myrtle said. “It’s the same color as your eyes.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said vaguely.
“Miss Vesta was wearing it when she died,” she added.
Shocked, I began to take it off. “Oh, then you should definitely have it, M
yrtle!”
“No, I don’t want it. Put it back on. Keep it. Why did you put it on in the first place?” she asked, seeming genuinely curious.
I tried to think back. “I don’t know. I didn’t even look at it. Carlene brought it to me and I just slipped it over my head.”
Myrtle was nodding wisely. “You keep it. If you put it on automatically, you were meant to have it.”
“What do you mean?”
She considered briefly. “I don’t know.”
I groped for meaning. “It’s the cat goddess, isn’t it? Bastet. The protective mother.”
“Yes. Bastet.” Myrtle’s voice faded a little.
The pendant was good-quality imitation faience, a type of small glazed figure often found among Egyptian relics. I’ve seen it in museums with colors ranging from deep turquoise to pale sage green. I’ve always found the color of the green faience to be soothing and attractive.
“I remember,” I said vaguely. “Vesta told me about Bastet. I like this piece very much. I think I’ll buy it from the shop.”
“No!” Myrtle said with sudden vehemence. “It’s a gift. You do not pay for a gift.”
“A gift?”
“From Vesta.”
I began to wonder whether all Vesta’s talk about the Egyptian gods hadn’t gone to Myrtle’s head. Losing her mistress and friend of so many years must have been a shock to the poor soul; maybe she was a little bit addled to begin with, and she was clinging to Vesta’s beliefs to get her through this time. I decided not to argue with her. I wanted the pendant, and if I slipped some money into the till, Myrtle would never know. I let the cat pendant drop around my neck again, then held it a moment, absently rubbing its head.
As if summoned, the black cat came through the curtains from the shop, and simultaneously the shop’s bell jingled.
Florence got up to tend to the customer, Sheena waved good-bye, Myrtle went out to the alley, muttering, and Carlene gave me a grin, then shut the back door.
I stared at the cat and opened my mouth to speak when it miaowed at me. I snapped my mouth shut, as if I’d been shushed. The cat turned its head and looked expectantly back at the shop just as Florence popped her head through the curtains and said, “It’s Tina Armstrong. She wants to talk to you.”