by Chassie West
The glass-shelved étagère could stay, another piece we’d picked out together. The least I could do was fill it with my knickknacks.
I massaged my knee for a moment. All the furniture arranging had put more stress on it than it liked. I’d be paying for it the rest of the day. And night. Poor Duck. Our first night living together and I’d be reeking of Ben-Gay.
His guest room, which he’d used as a workroom during his ceramics and pottery period, contained the remainder of the items moved from my apartment, most packed in boxes stacked against one wall. I squeezed my way around my little desk and two kitchen chairs, grateful that Duck had been smart enough to put all the cartons marked “Fragile” on the top layer. The one I needed was also labeled “My Babies,” since it contained my collection of crystal owls and dolphins. I might have overdone it with the Magic Marker, but there was no doubt as to what was in what.
I found it easily enough, bless Duck, moved it from a stack and set it on my desk to get a better grip when a subconscious nudge from somewhere prodded me to examine those stacks again. It took me a couple of seconds before the reason surfaced. The last time I was in here, the boxes had been stacked like stairs, one lone carton on the left end, two next to it, then three, then four, etc. Now the configuration was one, two, three, four and four. A box was missing.
In search of it, I slithered around my den furniture and the chest of drawers we planned to leave in here. No box. Duck, in one of his cooking moods, had asked me which one contained the wok he’d given me in hopes I’d fall enough in love with stir-fry to use it. Perhaps he’d unpacked the whole thing. But no, there it was. “Pots, Pans, Wok” printed clearly on the two sides I could see. So which one was missing?
Knickknacks forgotten, I went in search of the errant carton, Clarissa’s tuneless humming from the bathroom grating on my nerves. Nothing in the kitchen or shallow pantry. I didn’t bother with the bedroom; I knew it wasn’t in the closet. Where else could he have put it?
“Oops.” Clarissa, a pair of sheets draped over one arm, caromed off me as she exited the bathroom. “Hope you don’t need to use the facility for a few minutes. Floor’s wet. I declare, I don’t know why Dillon bothers to keep me on. This place is always as clean as an operating room. But then, after y’all get married, you probably won’t. Need me, I mean.” A wistful expression softened her features. She resembled an elderly baby.
I couldn’t do it, damn Duck’s butt. He’d known it too.
“Duck is genetically disposed to be neat,” I said. “I, however, am not. I’m a clutterer from way back. After a month of my being here, you’ll probably demand a raise.”
She smiled so sweetly I felt like hugging her. “I’m glad. Not about the raise; he’s already paying me too much, considering how little there’s been to do. It’s just a joy to work for him. He’s such a nice child. Sister just loves him.” She clamped her lips together, as if afraid she’d said too much again.
“Your sister’s met him?”
“In passing. The thing is, he reminds me of my boy. He’s crossed over now, killed in a construction accident. Likes to eat, just like my Shelton did. Your Dillon, I mean. I made some barbecue last night. Brought some for lunch and a couple of helpings for him.”
Mention barbecue and I begin to drool, mentally. It must have shown.
“You cotton to barbecue? Not the Texas kind,” she added. “Nothing against it, but I prefer the way they make it in North Carolina where you take the pork and—”
“Don’t, please. All I had for breakfast was a corn muffin and a banana.”
“You poor child! Why don’t I warm you a little barbecue soon’s I finish in the bedroom? I brought rolls and everything.”
I couldn’t have said no if you’d paid me, even though, truth be told, the only reason I hadn’t eaten more for breakfast was because I’d been a little queasy. Perhaps the three-fire-alarm chili and Zinfandel Janeece and I had feted with last night hadn’t been the best combination.
“By the way, Duck hasn’t stored one of my boxes in the linen closet, has he?” I peered past her into the bathroom.
“No, ma’am,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing in there but sheets and towels and the like. Can’t find your knickknacks?”
“I found them all right but a box is missing and I can’t imagine where he might have put it.”
“It’s bound to be around here somewhere,” she said, with a pat of assurance on my arm. “Let me go change these sheets and dust so I can feed you. Shouldn’t take me two shakes.”
Suddenly, her left hip began to trill “America the Beautiful.” She grinned at my surprise and dug into her pocket, pulling out a tiny cellular phone. “Just my way of waving the flag,” she said and flipped open its top. “What, Sister? I’m busy.” Executing a perfect about-face, she hurried into the bedroom.
I left her to it and went back into the kitchen. I hadn’t checked under the cabinets. I knew which ones contained the holy Calphalon. No point in looking there. No room. The others were empty, waiting for my assortment of cooking utensils. Frustrated, I grabbed the tea kettle, filled it, and put it on to boil, then just in case I should have enough for two, stuck my head in the bedroom door.
Clarissa, smoothing the bottom sheet with one hand as she circumnavigated the bed, barked into the phone. “No, ma’am, I will not sub for Geneva Ladyslipper tonight. You know what she’s got her students reading? War and Peace, for Lord’s sake! I agree they ought to be introduced to the classics, but Tolstoy? They aren’t ready for that. What’s wrong with Hemingway or O. Henry?” Spotting me, she blinked. “Hold on a minute. Need something, sugar?”
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you’d like a cup of tea.”
“That would be nice. I’ll be done shortly. Sister, I’ve got to go or I’ll never finish this bed.”
Back in the kitchen, I found the tin of tea bags, the conversation from the other room drifting across the hall.
“Yes, she’s as nice as can be and looks just like her picture. She likes to shove furniture around, just like you. Even moved the sofa. You wouldn’t think somebody as little as she is could even budge it.”
I glanced down. Granted, I’d lost some weight over the last month, worrying that my backside would strain the seams of that blasted wedding suit Janeece had talked me into buying. But “little” is not a term I’d ever associate with my one hundred and thirty-something pounds. Even my height wouldn’t qualify. I was five-six, and that’s average in anyone’s book.
Determined not to eavesdrop, I returned to the guest room. I had to figure out which box was missing or go nuts. Rifling my desk, I found the detailed list I’d made of what was in what. It was supposed to make unpacking simpler. The boxes were numbered as well as labeled, most on all four sides. One or two near the bottom, of course, were not, their marks facing the wall or the one adjacent.
After checking off the numbers of those I could see, I grabbed the top layer of the first stack, moved them to the floor to get to those on the bottom, in the process dropping one. Fortunately, it wasn’t marked “Fragile.”
Clarissa appeared in the doorway. “What was that? Are you all right?” She still held the phone to her ear. Evidently her conversations with her sister amounted to telethons.
“Fine. Just lost my grip on this boy,” I said, nudging it aside. “Trying to figure out which one is missing.” I waved the list.
“Nothing serious,” Clarissa pronounced into the phone and backed out. “Trying to solve the mystery of a missing box. She’s so organized, just like you. Has a list of the things.”
I turned the bottom one around, checked off its number.
“Ask her what?” Her voice drifted back down the hall, and when she didn’t return to ask me whatever, I tuned out.
At the end of the exercise, the only one left unchecked was the carton with the contents of my desk drawers. Granted, I wouldn’t need them any time soon, but it was the principle of the thing.
>
It occurred to me that I should check the tea kettle. I hadn’t heard the whistle, but it was past time that the water should have come to a boil.
I found Clarissa in the kitchen, the table set for two with plates, flatware, and all. “Sit yourself down,” she ordered. “The barbecue’s in the microwave. I was just waiting until you finished.” Punching in the time, she pushed start and stood back to make certain it would. “Um, how’d you and your list make out?”
I explained the problem. “I’ll give Duck a call later. Maybe he put it in the storage room off the balcony. Can’t imagine why he would, but it’s the only place left to look. I don’t have the key or I’d do it now. By God, if he took that box to the Dumpster with the stuff of his he threw out, I’ll sue his pants off. All my financial records are in it.”
Clarissa stiffened, then turned to watch the window of the microwave as if she could see what was going on under the lid of the bowl. “So it’s just one box? And you’re sure it’s not back at your place? Or still in your car or something?”
“Positive. It was in that room the last time I was here two weeks ago. I think I’ll have Lemon Zinger.” I got up and poured the water in both cups since Clarissa seemed to be determined to babysit the barbecue. “I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation with your sister.” She stiffened again, and I rushed to explain. “When I came to ask you whether you wanted tea. You’ve been a teacher? Clarissa? What’s wrong?”
She hadn’t moved but her olive complexion had paled a couple of tints. A pudgy hand covered her mouth, and she turned away.
“Uh . . . I’m not feeling very well. I’ve . . . I’ve got to go.” She rushed out of the kitchen.
I followed her to the living room and watched, concerned, as she wrestled her shoes onto her feet. She pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse, her hands trembling.
“Is there something I can do to help?” I asked. “Would you like a ride home?”
“No. No, thank you,” she said, bustling to the door. “Tell Dillon he won’t have to pay me for today. Maybe I can come back tomorrow. I . . . I’m sorry, I just . . .” She gave up on whatever she’d intended to say and turned to fumble with the deadbolts.
“Here,” I said, coming to her rescue. “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well. It was nice meeting you.”
Her hazel eyes widened, and she emitted a sound somewhere between a moan and a whimper. “Yes. Yes. Nice to meet you too.” She practically ran to the elevator. She pushed the call button, then, not waiting, shook her head and took the stairs.
I stood in the doorway, wondering. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked about her having been a teacher, although I couldn’t imagine why. I rewound my mental tape, trying to figure out what I’d said wrong. One thing I was sure of. Clarissa wasn’t sick. Something I’d said had pushed her button, the one marked “Panic.”
5
“YOU SURE YOU WOULDN’T LIKE A LITTLE pick-me-up in your tea?”
Gracie Poole hovered over me, a bottle of Jim Beam in one hand, a delicate cup and saucer in the other. My stomach was still feeling iffy, but I’d had to agree to have some Constant Comment since it seemed so important to her. Now that I saw that she used more than sugar, cream, and/or lemon in hers, I understood now why she’d been so insistent. And it wasn’t even noon! I’d known Gracie for several years and never suspected that any of the empty liquor bottles I saw going out with the trash on Tuesdays were hers.
“No, thank you, Gracie. It’s a little early for me.”
“Oh, well. Chacun à son goût.” She sat down opposite me, a butler’s tray coffee table between us, and poured a splash of the bourbon into her cup.
I found myself a little disoriented by her apartment. The floor plan was a duplicate of my old unit, but that’s where the similarity ended. Our building was itself a senior citizen, built in the forties by someone trying to harken back to an even earlier day when high ceilings, deep-set windows, fireplaces with marble surrounds and mantels, and hardwood floors were de rigueur. Gracie had taught art history for forty years, and her love of the Old Masters formed the basis of her decor. Prints of Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, you name it, filled her walls ceiling to floor in frames that had probably cost more than the prints. Miniatures of well-known statuary served as her knickknacks, although in my opinion the six-foot-tall replica of Michaelangelo’s David in the corner was a bit much, certainly more masculinity than would be good for my libido.
Fortunately, Gracie’s living room furniture, while ornate, with gracefully curved arms and legs, was a dark wood upholstered in a neutral fabric, leaving all the prints and the thick Oriental area rugs to supply color in the room. Even her draperies, which swept to the floor under matching pelmets, and must have cost a mint, were a pristine snow-white. The effect was stunning and I liked it immensely. The only other contribution to color was her complexion, a delicate pink that matched the rosebuds on her cups and saucers.
“Gracie, you have to have the most beautiful apartment in the building,” I said, with genuine admiration.
“Well, it’s home.” She patted her lips with a white linen napkin before folding it neatly across her lap. It seemed to disappear, since the pleated caftan she wore was also white. “Now. You’re interested in the members of my little class who were here yesterday.”
“Yes. You can understand why.”
“Of course, Leigh. I’m so sorry about what happened to you. You must have been terrified. Lord knows the sight of all those policemen bursting into the lobby terrified us. It took a whole bottle of my Jim Beam to calm everyone down. But I’m sorry, I’m not comfortable giving you the list I gave to the policeman. It’s one thing to give it to him since he asked for it in his official capacity. But you’re no longer a member of the police force, so I simply can’t. Privacy issues, you understand. But I can assure you, none of my students would do anything so vicious.”
“You know all of them well?” I asked, disappointed but determined. More than one way to skin a cat.
“Well enough. Most of them have been with me since I started teaching at the Seniors’ Center, and that’s been six years. Some come and go because of their health, a few have died, but there’s still a nucleus of a good dozen that are regulars.”
“So no one new?”
“In my class? No, but as I told the nice young man last night—such a gentleman—several of my students did not come alone. I won’t use their last names, but for instance, Willa’s sister, Mary, came with her because Willa doesn’t drive any longer. Ina and Phyllis invited friends. I did tell them they were welcome to do that. What I’m saying is that there were a number of faces I didn’t recognize. I’m past the age where I remember names of people I’m meeting for the first time, so I couldn’t add those to the list. But some of the students were still here when the officer came up, and they supplied those names they knew. I gave the detective a list of the ones who had left and a description of whoever came with them.”
“And all the unfamiliar faces were accounted for? As far as who they came with, I mean.”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t say that.” Gazing into the middle distance, she tapped the rim of her cup in thought. “There was the man in the Santa hat. He was a stranger to me, but he had a conversation with Neva, so I assume she knows him. And a teenager, a lovely girl. Georgia Keith. You can understand why I’d remember her name, so close to that of one of my idols. The granddaughter of someone on the fifth floor, according to Phyllis. They were untangling tinsel together. Phyllis is good with young people. Oh, yes, and the woman with the lovely accent. Jamaican, I think. I’m not sure how she was connected to anyone. Perhaps a friend of the Winstons.”
That would be easy enough for me to follow up. Libby Winston and I had become cozy over loads of laundry, and I knew all my fifth-floor neighbors well, so I could track down whoever Georgia Keith belonged to.
An hour and a half later, the only person I’d managed to identify was th
e man in the Santa hat.
“Al?” Neva’s broad face beamed. “He’s Cholly’s brother-in-law, the only one in his family I can tolerate. Lord, they’re snooty. Al’s a minister, teaches at Howard’s School of Religion.”
I’d checked on him out of curiosity more than anything else.
None of the neighbors on my floor who were at home laid claim to the teenager. I’d have to catch the others once they came in from work. Which meant calling them, I reminded myself. By this evening, I’d be in Southwest D.C. at the condo, not here.
I returned to Janeece’s, set about finishing the rest of the packing, and was trying to find the end of the tape on the roll when the phone rang. My morning had been interrupted by two wrong numbers and one heavy breather, so I admit I answered with an attitude. “Yes?”
“Good afternoon, Leigh. I must say you do sound out of sorts.”
Oops. “Grandmother! Hello!” I curled up on the futon, wondering how long it would take me to get used to having grandparents. I cleared my throat, realizing it felt a bit prickly. “I’m sorry. I was losing a fight with a roll of packing tape. How are you?”
“Quite well, thank you.” Elizabeth Ritch was, if nothing else, proper, as my Nunna would say. “I won’t keep you, dear. Is there any possibility you could come to see me sometime today? It’s quite important and really shouldn’t be put off any longer.”
“Is something wrong?” Two trips to Ourland/Umber Shores in two days? We’re talking eighty-something miles round trip and fifty minutes each way in non–rush hour traffic. I really didn’t feel up to it, in fact was feeling worse by the minute. I was definitely coming down with something.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” my grandmother was saying. “In fact, it might be something to your advantage. Wayne and I had planned to inform you before your wedding, but as it’s been postponed twice already, he and I felt it might be best if we take care of this matter now. Of course, if you’re too busy . . .”