by Mary Campisi
“You need to find something that lights you up.”
“And lose my wardrobe!” She plucked the sleeve of her green scrubs. “That’s thousands of dollars right there.”
“You’re a very attractive woman, Shea Donovan, and you shouldn’t be hiding under a green tent.”
“I like these clothes. They’re functional, cheap, and they hide a multitude of sins.”
“They’re horrible.”
“Well, thank you,” she said, her face burning.
“Let me work with you. We could find the right colors for you. The most flattering styles—”
“I’m not a project. I don’t need fixing.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“What way did you mean it? Let me help you because you’re a fat, middle-aged woman in need of an overhaul?”
“Of course not.”
“I like myself just the way I am and I don’t care that some instrument playing hair cutter finds me offensive. My husband can’t stand the sight of me either. Maybe that’s why he’s living with his girlfriend, whom I might add, is pregnant. I’m pregnant too, and I am so not in the mood for this shit, so just back off and leave me alone!”
Chapter 10
“You did what for whom?”
“I matched the animals’ outfits to their owners,” Derry said, shrugging. “This Senator’s wife likes Versace and Prada? Fine. The white Pomeranian gets a Versace sweater and a Prada collar.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in all of my years on this earth,” Tula Rae said, sipping on a glass of homemade Chablis. “Someone should’ve reported it to the papers.”
“They did. Glamour carried an exclusive, and guess what? People weren’t outraged, well, except for maybe a handful, but you know what the majority said? Where can I get one?”
“Them’s crazy people,” Tula Rae muttered, hacking a Vidalia onion with her cleaver. “Damn crazy.” She and Derry were making bouillabaisse, just the way Earl Gray liked it.
“This is his favorite. It was his mama’s recipe, handed down from her mama, and all the way back four generations.”
“You ever going to let him make an honest woman out of you?” Derry asked, peeling a shrimp.
“Honey, there’s no more honest woman than Tula Rae, but I had no luck with husbands. Four dead. That’s God’s way of saying, ‘You aint’ meant to be married.’”
“I think marriage should be a contract, renewable every five years. At the end of the fifth year, you renegotiate. If you want another five, you sign up.”
That made Tula Rae laugh. “So, if you get your eye on some other woman’s husband, you just wait until the contract’s up and then grab him? Sounds like an invitation to a hell of a lot of cat fights.”
“Unless you’re the one trying to get rid of the husband.”
“Ah, I see how it is. Hurt’s an awful thing, but losing ‘em for good, that’s a worse pain. And if you let pride push ‘em away, that’s the worst kind of hurting you can imagine. Even worse than death, ‘cause you know you did it.”
“What if they’ve done the hurting? Doesn’t it make it easier?”
“No.” Tula Rae chopped the Vidalia onion into tiny pieces with her stainless steel cleaver. “A while back, Earl Gray asked me to marry him and I told him I didn’t need no man, least ways one fourteen years younger than me. I booted him out of my life.” Whack! She slammed the cleaver into the onion. “And right into the arms of a she-devil. It wasn’t ‘til I started cleaning out the drawer by the phone and found this recipe for his mama’s bouillabaisse, that I realized what I’d done.” She looked up and her eyes glistened with tears. “There was no way to fix it, ‘cept to bury my pride and go to him. And that’s just what I did, seven years ago this past July.”
“What if the hurt’s too deep?”
“No hurt’s too deep if the love’s strong enough,” Tula Rae said, matter-of-factly. “You just have to decide, one way or the other”—she leaned over and her silver earrings dangled against her bronzed face—“but don’t wait too long because a person can only take so many ‘no’s.’ If you lose him, you might not get him back.”
Earl Gray’s strong laugh filtered through the screen door. Tula Rae lifted her bony shoulders and smiled. “Here he comes now, the old codger.” Her face shone when he opened the back door carrying four roses, three pink and one red. “Pink for the ladies and red for my lady,” he said, brushing a kiss on Tula Rae’s lips.
Derry hadn’t spoken to Alec in twelve days, since the night she’d had sex with him. Did he miss her? Did he even think about her? Had he discovered her wedding ring, thrown in the back of the toothpaste drawer?
Charlie called her every night at 7:30. She didn’t ask about his father anymore, not since the first night when Charlie told her, Daddy went out wearing that smelly stuff.
Maybe Alec had already found his own she-devil.
So what?
Tula Rae yanked Derry from thoughts of Alec. “Tomorrow, we’ll make sushi, like my third husband, Raymond Nudel taught me to do.”
“Which husband was Italian?”
“Cici, number four.” She smacked a loud kiss with three fingers. “Best stromboli you ever tasted.”
And thus, continued the culinary education of Derry Rohan.
***
Katherine Rosemary Cintar spoke complete sentences at age two. By age three she read Golden Books and at seven she competed in the county spelling bee against twelve and thirteen year olds.
Her parents, eager for her to utilize all possible brain power on more cerebral tasks, excused her from the mundane duties of picking up the litter of shirts and jeans on her bedroom floor, loading her own cereal bowl in the dishwasher, or cleaning her toothpaste spit out of the bathroom sink. The education of Katherine Cintar continued as she learned French, Spanish, and Japanese, all introduced before age eight.
Her younger sister, Janie, though not quite as academically inclined as Katherine, possessed more street smarts. She learned early on that parents could be conned. A pretend sore throat got Mom to rush to Fresh Mart for Push Ups and chocolate ice cream. A crying spell would convince Dad that his little girl really did need an extra half hour of television to unwind.
And on life went, with Katherine, aka Kiki, (because her sister couldn’t spit out that many syllables at age three), believing she would be the first female president, and by virtue of this position, never have to pick up her own socks. Janie grew determined to create a job where she made and changed the rules.
No one faulted Sam and Cyn Cintar’s overzealous expectations for their daughters. The girls were smart and special. But everyone traded whispered bets on the inevitable downslide of the Cintar sisters.
Why?
Because smart still needed to wash a dish and take out the garbage. And savvy shouldn’t be excused from vacuuming carpets and scrubbing toothpaste from the sink. Kiki and Janie’s reality shock hit three years ago when their parents recognized their mistakes and attempted to teach them basic living skills.
Kiki resisted. Janie cried.
Sam got angry and Cyn, the weakest link, dropped from parent monitor to child facilitator, making the rules and then more often than not, completing the tasks she’d assigned.
Until now.
Cyn perched on the craggy rocks of Ogunquit, the wind sifting through her red-tinged hair, canvas on her lap, palette at her side. Derry bought her the artist’s tools because as she said, “How do you know what you’re good at if you don’t start trying something?”
Last week, inspired by the torment of the ocean, Cyn attempted to write a few lines of poetry. Disastrous. She’d turned the lines into the opening of a short story, which, while not half bad, wasn’t anything she’d sign her name to either.
The sky rolled into the ocean, lapping over it in calm waves of color, as seagulls and fishing boats trolled along the coast. The perfect artist’s backdrop. But Cyn knew before she took the first stroke that sh
e was no artist, knew too that coming here had nothing to do with finding herself and everything to do with working up the courage and a game plan to tell Sam the truth about these last five months. But she couldn’t explain that to Derry or Shea, so she just pretended to really care about discovering her untapped talents.
All she really wanted to do was go back to the way her life used to be. Before the lies.
And knowing that only made her thoughts race faster, center around the current crisis which happened to be Kiki and Janie’s angry silences. Janie had called twice, once to ask what spot clean meant and another time to inform her that the shower had clogged again. Kiki called one time, with nothing to say, a call most certainly coerced by her father.
And Sam? He said less and less each night. Did he suspect? Had he uncovered something? She’d been so careful…
“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”
She looked up to see a man standing a few feet from her. He was tall and tanned, fifty or so, with cinnamon eyes and a Robert Redford boyishness about him. He carried a very high tech looking camera in one hand and a tripod in the other
“No, of course not.” She slid along the rock. “I was just getting ready to leave anyway.”
“Don’t go.” His smile slipped over her, wide and disarming. “I was watching you just now, sitting so still, your hair blowing behind you, the sky almost the exact same shade as your jacket, and I thought what a beautiful shot that would make.” The smile spread. “I’m always in search of the perfect picture.”
“You’re a photographer?”
He nodded, his thick, sandy hair blowing about his forehead. “People Magazine when I’m on the clock, the real world when I’m not.”
They both laughed and he sat beside her on the huge rock, close enough for her to smell his cologne, a spiced musk that reminded her of Sam’s Lagerfeld. “Steve,” he said, extending a hand.
“Cynthia Cintar. My friends call me Cyn.” She shook his smooth, uncalloused hand.
“Cyn then.” He rested the tripod next to him. ”You’re not from here, are you?”
“No, just visiting. I’m from Northern Virginia, Reston, actually.”
He removed the cap from his camera lens, inspected the lens. “You here by yourself?”
“No, I came with two of my friends. It was a last minute idea, not planned at all, which is so unlike me, but we decided it was something we really wanted to do and here we are.”
His gaze slid over the ring on her left finger. “No complaints from your husband?”
“Not really.” She forced a small laugh, and said, “My daughters were the ones who had the issues. They’re teenagers, what can I say? They only live in the world of their own needs, no one else’s.”
“How long are you here?”
“Until the second week in October.”
“Perfect time. Are you staying nearby?”
“We’re at The Bird’s Nest, a quarter mile or so from here.”
“Tula Rae’s place.”
“You know her?”
“I know of her.” He laughed. “Everybody knows about Tula Rae.”
“She’s a character all right. I’ve never met anyone quite like her.”
“Just be careful what you eat.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t heard the stories?”
“No.”
“It’s all hearsay, but half the town thinks it’s the truth. Then there’s the other half that thinks she’s Mother Teresa in spandex.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They say she poisoned one of her husbands.”
“What?”
“Sliced up another with a cleaver. Drowned one in a tub.” He adjusted the lens of his camera, closed one eye and added matter-of-factly, “And shot one at point blank range.”
***
“Cyn, what are you doing?”
“We’re getting out of here.” Cyn stuffed a handful of underwear in her suitcase. “Where’s Shea?”
“Helping Tula Rae in the garden. Why? Did something happen with one of the kids?”
“It’s Tula Rae,” Cyn whispered. “She killed her husbands.”
“What?”
“Poisoned one, chopped one with that cleaver she’s so damned fond of, drowned one, and shot one.”
“Where’d you hear that bullshit?”
“A man told me.”
“Who?”
“Steve.”
“Steve? Steve who?”
Steve who? While she’d been shooting off enough information to fill a directory, Cyn hadn’t gotten much from him. “I didn’t get his last name.”
“Cyn, we’ve been here twelve days. We’ve sat at Tula Rae’s table, eaten her food. You’re still breathing aren’t you?”
“If it’s arsenic, it could be a slow death, several more meals before it gets us.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, does she seem dangerous to you?”
“No, but neither did Ted Bundy.”
“You should’ve been a writer with that imagination.”
“Think about it. Isn’t it always the least likely ones? Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, even Jeffrey Dahmer seemed like the last person you’d ever imagine whacking somebody.” Cyn grabbed her hair dryer and deodorant. “I think we should get out of here. There are plenty of places for rent around here.”
“Tula Rae is one of the best parts of this whole trip. Just because she can wield a cleaver like the Iron Chef, and some man you just met, whose last name you didn’t get, made a few outrageous accusations, doesn’t mean she’s a murderer.” Derry laughed. “For God’s sake, Cyn, do you realize how ridiculous you sound?”
Cyn stuffed a handful of socks into the side of her bag. “She’s had four dead husbands.”
“So, she’s got the best of both worlds. She got their money and she didn’t have to put up with them when their prostates go haywire.”
“I want to leave.”
“Wait a minute. Just stop, okay?” Derry pulled a bunch of socks from Cyn’s suitcase. “What if we find out how the husbands died?”
“And just how would we do that?”
“How else?” Derry threw one of Cyn’s shirts at her. “Ask her.”
Chapter 11
Derry heaped a slice of vegetable lasagna on Earl Gray’s plate. “There you go. And don’t forget the pepperoni and asiago bread.”
“Little Miss City Girl made it herself,” Tula Rae said.
“With a little instruction.”
Tula Rae tossed her a grin, the creases around her eyes fishing out in all directions. Tonight she wore a yellow and purple caftan with rows of wooden fuchsia buttons clustered along the hem. Her wrists jangled with stacks of bracelets, also fuchsia, and long, wooden beads dangled from her ears. Fuchsia, of course.
“This is delicious.” Cyn took the tiniest nibble, her gaze darting from Tula Rae to Derry as if to say, Ask her, right now. Ask her.
Shea had nothing to say. She was still caught up in the loser husband drama. But she did have on the pink velour sweat suit. It was a start.
“Tula Rae, how’d your husbands die?” Watch this Cyn. You’re going to feel like a fool.
The older woman pointed her fork at Derry. “Poison, hacked, drowned, shot.” Her eyes gleamed as she looked around the table. “Someone’s been talking.”
“How?” Cyn pushed out one, small word.
“One was pure foolishness,” she said, piercing a chunk of eggplant. “One was bad timing, one was bad luck, and one was”—she shrugged, met Cyn’s startled gaze—“an accident.”
Silence. So thick Derry could hear the rooster clock perched on the oak mantle in the living room.
“I guess I can’t leave ya’ll hangin’ now, can I? Earl Gray’s heard this story more times than he likes to think about. It’s one of the reasons I won’t marry him.” She shot him a matter-of-fact look and said, “He’d just end up dead.”
“I’m willing to take my cha
nces.”
“I’m not. You’d end up dead before we celebrated our first anniversary.”
“How did they die?” Cyn again, staring at Tula Rae. Even Shea had perked up, her body bent into the conversation, as if to get closer to the truth.
“All Eddie Mame ever wanted was to be a farmer.” Tula Rae shook her head, and went on, “He was born in New Jersey where there’s more cement than fields. He wasn’t no farmer, didn’t even know a dandelion from a mustard green. But Eddie thought he did and there was no telling him anything. So, one day he went out in the woods behind our house and started picking mushrooms. I love mushrooms. He probably was picking them for me.” She sighed and her cinnamon eyes glistened. “The dogs found him around supper time, blue as a herring, lying face down in the dirt, a satchel of mushrooms beside him. They was all poison ones, damn idiot.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Damn fool idiot.”
“I’m sorry,” Shea said, her voice trembling. “I know how terrible it is to lose someone you love.”
You mean Richard, Shea? Or the first asshole?
“Fredo Lay was just awful bad timing. I was raised on a farm, so by the time I turned ten I could fire a shotgun when the fox tried to steal the chickens and I could skin a rabbit better than my older brother, Clyde Gene. Fredo grew up in an orphanage with the nuns of St. Rosita. Closest he came to a weapon was whacking a set of rosary beads around like them numchucks the Chinese use. He was learning, though. I was teaching him how to handle a machete.” She shook her frizzy head. “I went to the neighbor’s to borrow two cups of flour for the tortillas I was making him, and when I got back, there he was, sliced in the gut and bled out like a skinned deer. Five minutes sooner, I mighta saved him.”
Derry shifted in her chair and hazarded a glance in Earl Gray’s direction. Unless he had a serious Death Wish, maybe he should rethink the marriage thing.
“And then came Raymond Nudel, six years later. Handsome rascal with those slanty eyes and that black braid hanging down his back. Sassy and stubborn to boot.” Her thin lips turned up in a smile of remembering. “We’d been living in Ogunquit for about a year. Raymond went down for an early morning swim and that was the last I saw him until they pulled his body out of the water three miles down.”