Dead to the World

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  ‘How would I know you worked here?’ Megan demanded. ‘I was told this was a good place. I don’t usually wear plus sizes, but I thought I’d give it a shot. Do you have anything smaller than a fourteen?’

  ‘No, we don’t. And you’re not a fourteen! You’re in here after me, and I don’t know why! What do you bitches want?’

  Preening just a bit by Harper’s declaration that she, Megan, wasn’t a size fourteen, she said, ‘Don’t be so rude!’ She tried to hide the smile of satisfaction that threatened to overtake her face. ‘I’m not after you for any reason! I’m just doing some window shopping!’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Harper said.

  ‘Are you pregnant?’ Megan blurted out, pointing at Harper’s belly. ‘Or just trying to get into some of these clothes?’

  ‘Fuck off, Pugh! And get out of my store!’

  ‘Is this your store? Or do you work for someone? Do you think the owner would be happy knowing her clerk was shooing customers away?’ Megan said.

  Harper walked up to Megan and grabbed her arm, twisting it. Megan jerked away. ‘Jeez! You and your brother! Definitely violent types!’

  Harper stopped in her tracks. ‘So that was you last night! I knew it! There aren’t many threesomes that look like you and your so-called sisters! A midget, a scarecrow, and you – Godzilla!’

  ‘Again, you are being very rude. And it’s not nice to talk that way around your baby. It’ll come out mean-spirited.’

  Harper shook her head and moved back behind the counter where she managed to get onto a high stool by the cash register. ‘Whatever. My feet are killing me! And I don’t need this shit! Are you going back to BCR and telling everybody I’m preggers?’

  ‘Not if you don’t want me to,’ Megan said, moving to the counter and resting her elbows on it. ‘But accusing Logan Harris might get the word moving around.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if Logan says anything, my brother’s going to kill him.’

  ‘Before or after he marries you?’ Megan said.

  Harper sighed. ‘I’m not marrying Logan! Geez. Would that be a boring life or what?’

  ‘You say he’s the father—’ Megan started.

  Harper jumped up from her stool. ‘Yeah. He is. Now get the hell out of here. Like now! Or I’ll—’

  ‘You’ll what?’ Megan said, sneering at her adversary.

  Harper grinned. ‘I’ll call the cops and tell them I caught you shoplifting.’

  Megan thought about it. Heading for the door, she said, ‘We’ll finish this conversation later.’

  As she passed through the doorway, Megan heard Harper’s parting shot: ‘I doubt it!’

  We heard Miss Hutchins calling from the foot of the staircase. ‘Soup’s on!’ And by the smell wafting up the stairs it was a soup I could surely get my tongue around. I went to Diamond Lovesy’s door and knocked.

  ‘Diamond, it’s time for lunch,’ I said.

  ‘Not hungry!’ came the shouted reply. I wondered if her way of getting rid of the cocaine was to stuff the rest of it up her nose. I would say that normally Diamond had a healthy if not abundant appetite.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ I said. ‘But something smells wonderful!’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ she screamed.

  So I did. Willis and I went downstairs to see the dining table set for four. ‘Miss Lovesy won’t be joining us,’ I said as Willis pulled out a chair for Miss Hutchins. He never pulled a chair out for me – ever. I opted to say nothing.

  There was a soup tureen in the middle of the table and a platter of cold-cut meats next to it, with a basket of assorted breads on the other side of the tureen. There was also a platter of cut vegetables and fruits. I was thinking seriously of moving in here permanently. Miss Hutchins lifted the lid off the tureen and the smell of the soup was almost overpowering. ‘Beef barley,’ she said. ‘Homemade.’

  ‘Will you marry me, Miss Hutchins?’ Willis asked reverently.

  She giggled. ‘I think E.J. might have something to say about that!’ she said.

  ‘No, no! It’s OK. As long as I get to live with the both of you!’ I said, ladling out half as much soup as I actually wanted. I know, I’m a slave to my body image. I also grabbed one slice of sourdough bread (a little on the large size), ham, roast beef and turkey (for the protein, OK?), two kinds of cheese (more protein!) and just a little mayonnaise, and made myself half a sandwich. I grabbed more fruit and veggies than I should have, but hey, they’re good for me, right? I figured, all in all, I would only gain maybe five pounds from this lunch. I could go for a walk after.

  ‘Miss Lovesy really should eat something,’ Miss Hutchins said.

  Willis laughed. ‘With what she’s stuffed up her—’

  I coughed loudly. ‘I’m sure she’s just grieving. I understand that takes your appetite away.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it does!’ Miss Hutchins said with some fervor. ‘When Daddy died – the first time – Mama was just inconsolable. She wouldn’t eat anything! All she ever did was sleep for the longest time, then she just stayed in her room. I brought her up soup and such, but she never ate much. And when I lost Mama, I didn’t eat for a week.’ She stopped for a moment, staring off into space. ‘Funny thing, though. When Uncle Herbert died, I didn’t lose my appetite at all. Quite the opposite,’ she said.

  ‘I think we can give Miss Lovesy some slack,’ I said.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, daintily sipping her soup. I wish I could do that daintily, but I tend to slurp with my intent to get everything in my mouth as quickly as possible. I know, not healthy. But at least it’s efficient.

  I caught my husband’s eye over Miss Hutchins’ bowed head. He winked. I winked back. Best Miss Hutchins didn’t know about the drugs that might still be in Diamond Lovesy’s room. After lunch, before my possibly imaginary walk, I was going up there and making sure there was nothing left of the coke.

  But immediately after lunch I found myself helping Miss Hutchins clear the table and wash the dishes. So I got Willis aside for a moment and asked him to go check out the cocaine situation in Diamond’s room.

  ‘She’s going to yell at me,’ he said, sounding somewhat distraught.

  ‘You’ve been yelled at by women before,’ I said, reassuringly patting him on the arm.

  ‘Only by you!’ he said.

  I continued patting. ‘There you go!’ I said with a big smile. ‘After me, Diamond Lovesy should be a cinch!’

  My poor, beaten-down husband sighed and headed for the stairs while I headed into the kitchen to help Miss Hutchins.

  1942–1943

  Edgar tried shaving his thick beard with a sharpened flat rock, but all he ended up doing was irritating his sunburned skin. If he saw the girl again, he thought, he’d follow her, to see where she went. If the soldiers were really gone, then maybe he could stay with her – and her family, of course – and maybe find a razor or at least some scissors! But then he had to wonder … When she’d said, ‘Soldiers gone,’ had she meant the Japanese soldiers or the Americans? Because he already knew the Americans were long gone. He was too selfish a person to wonder where they might be or how they might be faring. It would be years before he would hear about the Bataan death march or the inhumanities of the POW camps run by the Japanese. When he did hear about it, his only reaction would be pride in himself that he’d had the wherewithal to run away.

  Ten days after seeing the Filipino girl for the first time, he saw her again, wearing the same garment and heading for the hot springs. But this time she wasn’t alone – there was an older woman with her. He hid in the trees for a while, wondering what he should do. Would the older woman be as friendly as the girl had been, or would she immediately turn him over to the Japanese? He was pretty sure the ‘soldiers gone’ comment the girl had made referred to the Americans and not the Japanese. But he was hungry, and itched from all the hair on both his head and face. And he was lonely. And then, of course, he was horny. If he couldn’t have the girl then hell, he thought, he’d take the old lady.
So he came out from behind the trees.

  The girl saw him first and broke into a smile. ‘Ed-gur!’ she said.

  ‘Hi, Lupita,’ Edgar said, smiling at her.

  The woman had whirled around when the girl spoke and was staring at Edgar. She rapidly shot off some of that gobbledygook to Lupita, who gave a rapid-fire response. Then to Edgar she said, ‘My mother.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, ma’am,’ Edgar said, smiling and nodding at the older woman. She continued to glare at him.

  Deciding to treat the woman like he would a wild animal, he sat down on the grass surround of the hot spring, crossing his legs and putting his hands on his knees, palms up. The woman’s glare dimmed a slight bit. To the girl, Edgar said, ‘Lupita, I need a shave and a haircut.’

  Lupita cocked her head but said nothing. Edgar knew this meant she didn’t understand him. So he put his hands to his face and scraped at his beard, then put his hands to his hair and mimed cutting it. The old woman smiled and got excited, rapidly saying something to Lupita in their language. Lupita smiled and mimed cutting her hair, repeating the words her mother had used.

  Touching his face, Edgar said, ‘Shave …’

  Lupita copied him and said, ‘Shave …’

  Then touching his hair, Edgar said, ‘Haircut.’

  Lupita repeated what he’d done.

  They smiled at each other, then Lupita turned to her mother and spoke. The mother smiled and nodded at Edgar, then said, ‘Shave. Hair cut.’ Edgar nodded and smiled back.

  Then Lupita held up her sliver of soap and mimed washing and pointed at him. ‘Yes, ma’am!’ he said at once, and took off his raggedy shirt.

  After he was sufficiently dry and Lupita and her mother had talked at length, the two women rose from the grassy surround and Lupita said, ‘Stay!’ and pointed at him.

  He nodded and the two women headed into the forest.

  Twenty minutes later Lupita was back, hauling a Marine-green blanket being used as a sack. She lowered it to the ground and dropped the sides. She sat on the ground and handed things to him. First an old straight-razor with a blade so thin it was almost translucent. She cocked her head as she handed it to him, and he said, ‘Razor.’

  ‘Razor,’ she repeated, then handed him a knife with a very sharp blade. She motioned to his hair. No scissors, he thought. So he said, ‘Knife,’ and she repeated it after him. Then she handed him a shirt. It was a man’s shirt and looked a little small for him – at least it would have been before he’d started starving to death. It might fit him now, he realized. He smiled his thanks and said, ‘Shirt.’ She repeated it and handed him a pair of pants, which he named and she repeated. They continued this throughout the contents of the blanket sack, which included a bowl of rice wrapped in a cloth, a small sack of beans that he discovered from the smell were coffee beans, some fruit he’d never seen before and a silver cross on a chain. He tried to hand that back but she wouldn’t let him. Instead, she leaned forward and clasped it around his neck. ‘Jesus save,’ she said. Then she jumped up and handed Edgar the blanket. ‘Keep,’ she said, then ran back into the forest.

  This went on for the next several months. Every week or ten days, Lupita and her mother would come to the hot springs, bringing with them small gifts of bowls of cooked rice, pinto beans, already cooked, and an occasional new fruit. These were a great addition to the stash of game he had at his campsite. One day, finally realizing that they never brought him meat, which could mean they didn’t have any, Edgar went to the hot spring with a large leg of pork and presented it to Lupita’s mother. He saw tears come to her eyes when she accepted it. The next time Lupita came to the clearing, she was alone. Edgar, of course, thought if he’d known that would happen, he’d have brought the old lady meat the first day!

  And so he was alone with the girl. He could tell she was smitten with him, and it didn’t take too long for him to bed her. She appeared willing, if a little unwise as to the procedures.

  This went on well into 1943, and by the middle of that year it was pretty obvious that Lupita was with child. Her mother came with her to the clearing to emphasize that point. She pointed at her daughter’s enlarged stomach and spat out a stream of her language, in no uncertain terms accusing him of causing this problem. He couldn’t very well deny it. He’d followed Lupita home one night, unbeknownst to her, and found her little village to be all women. There were no men anywhere. He’d had a bad feeling that they’d either all been subscribed by the Japanese, or just killed. So there didn’t appear to be anyone else to point a finger at. Two days later Lupita, her mother and another woman met him at the clearing. The mother handed him another set of clothes. This time the shirt was white with white embroidery around the hem, and the pants were also white, with embroidery on the hems of the legs. She also brought him shoes, like beach shoes at home. They were sandals made of bamboo with thongs between the toes that came up the sides and were covered in brightly colored silk. The mother washed his feet then slid the sandals on him. Then pointed at where he should stand. He stood, with Lupita at his side, while the woman he didn’t know spoke their gobbledygook at him, made a few gestures that he didn’t understand, then turned and left.

  Edgar looked from Lupita to her mother and back again. Now what? he thought. Something told him he might have just gotten married, but he doubted it would transfer back to the States.

  NINE

  BACK HOME

  ‘He is not boring!’ Bess said with some authority after Megan recounted her conversation with Harper Benton.

  ‘Well, he is cute,’ Alicia said, ‘but not exactly the brightest bulb in the box.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Bess demanded.

  ‘He totally flaked on your reference to Catch-22,’ Alicia said.

  ‘Well, it’s an old book,’ Bess countered.

  ‘No, it’s a classic. Anyone with any smarts has read it by our age!’ Alicia said.

  ‘I haven’t read it!’ came from Megan.

  Her sisters looked at each other, and in almost perfect unison, said, ‘Exactly!’

  Megan waved her hands as if to erase the earlier conversation, and said, ‘I think we should stay on topic. The topic being Harper and her baby bump. I don’t know much about pregnancy, but I’d say she’s into her second trimester, at least.’

  ‘No, more than second,’ Alicia said with some authority. Bess and Megan looked at each other then at her.

  ‘So tell all!’ Megan said.

  Alicia humphed and rolled her eyes. ‘How many foster homes do you think I’ve been in, huh? Enough. I had three so-called “moms” who got pregnant while I lived there, and two other foster “sisters” who got pregnant.’

  ‘You mean another one besides the one who got knocked up by the foster dad?’ Bess said, eyes wide. ‘Was she diddled by a foster dad, too?’

  ‘No, it was the birth son of the foster family. They, of course, threw her out immediately.’

  Bess and Megan looked at each other, both with sorrowful faces. ‘I’m so sorry you had such a terrible life,’ Bess said, tears stinging her eyes.

  ‘Thank God you got us as a family, huh?’ Megan said with a big grin. ‘Like what’s that old saying? Your boat finally came in?’

  ‘Ship,’ Bess said with a sigh.

  ‘Whatever,’ Megan said. ‘But don’t worry, if Graham were to knock you up, Mom and Dad would more likely throw him out than you.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Hey! They already have, right? So you’re OK!’

  Alicia sighed. ‘As you mentioned, let’s get back on topic. Harper definitely claimed Logan was the father of her baby?’

  ‘Yep,’ Megan said. ‘But she said she wouldn’t marry him because that would be boring—’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned that!’ Bess said with some heat.

  ‘I’m just trying to make sure I got the whole conversation out there!’ Megan said.

  ‘So now what?’ Alicia asked.

  ‘Logan said he’s going to tell his folks if we don’t
come up with something by nine tonight,’ Bess said.

  ‘Maybe that’s for the best,’ Megan said.

  ‘Will his folks believe him?’ Alicia asked Bess.

  Bess shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I’ve never met them. I think Mom and Dad would believe us if we told them something like this—’

  ‘Oh, Mom!’ Megan said in a high falsetto. ‘This girl says I knocked her up!’ In her regular voice, she said, ‘Yeah, I think they’d believe me over the girl.’

  ‘I meant – oh, jeez, just never mind!’ Bess said.

  Alicia reached forward from the second row of seating and patted Bess on the arm. ‘I know what you’re trying to say.’

  ‘Well, that makes one of you,’ Bess mumbled.

  ‘Do you think Harper’s mom is still at home?’ Alicia asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t know how many cars they have. Why?’ asked Megan.

  ‘I just wonder if we might get further with her than Harper?’

  ‘Hum,’ Bess said, starting the engine of the minivan. ‘What harm could it do?’ she said, pulling out and turning around to head back over the river.

  ‘Her room stinks,’ Willis said when we met up in our bedroom. ‘She says she flushed away the rest of the coke, and I couldn’t see anything just lying around. But I wasn’t about to go messing around in her drawers.’ He stopped, then said, ‘So to speak.’

  ‘How was her demeanor?’ I asked.

  ‘Hostile over grief-stricken.’

  ‘I wonder why she’s so hostile toward us?’

  Willis shrugged. ‘’Cause she knows we don’t buy her “medium” act?’

  I shrugged back. ‘Possible.’ Thinking for a moment, I then added: ‘Do you think it’s possible she had anything to do with Humphrey’s death?’

  ‘I think that depends on whether his death and the sounds we heard that got us downstairs in the first place are connected,’ he said.

  I tried not to grin. It’s been a slippery slope at best for the last few years regarding my penchant to get involved in murders, but he seemed to be into this one. Of course, this was the first time he was directly involved in finding a dead body. Kind of gets your juices flowing. So to speak. ‘I don’t see how they aren’t connected,’ I said, sitting down on the bed beside him. ‘But does that connection automatically rule out Diamond?’