‘Ah, Mom, you didn’t have to do that,’ my son said as he hurriedly stashed the bill in his back pocket.
‘Shoo now before they come out,’ I said, smiling at Lotta. I didn’t need to say it twice. They were off.
It was another twenty minutes before the exit doors opened to the throngs of movie-goers exiting the theater. Megan and her skater-dude were halfway back in the crowd. She wasn’t wearing the jeans and oversized T-shirt she’d had on when she left the house; no, instead she was wearing a very short miniskirt I’d never seen before, and a very tight top that showed a belly ring I’d never seen before and way too much fourteen-going-on-forty boobage. Skater-dude, his oversized shorts about to fall off, the dirty watch cap still pulled down to his eyebrows, and still wearing the shades, had his arm around my daughter in a very possessive way, fingertips only a half-inch from aforementioned boobage.
I got out of the car and walked up to them. Because of the crowd and eyes only for each other, they didn’t see me until skater-dude stepped on my foot.
‘Xuse me . . .’ he started, then looked up and froze.
Megan looked up too, and her pale skin turned a purplish shade that clashed with her red hair. She tried to pull away from skater-dude. The sudden movement started a reflexive move on skater-dude’s part, and his hand grasped Megan’s breast. She screamed and bolted and he jerked his hand away and started shaking it like it was on fire. I just stood there and watched while the dwindling throngs moved around us.
Finally I said, ‘Megan, get in the car.’ She did.
Turning to skater-boy I said, ‘At this point I don’t like you. But I know I’m just going on instinct. Come to dinner Friday night and I’ll see if I like you or not.’
‘Huh?’ he said.
I left him standing there trying to figure out what I’d said, and got in the car to drive Megan home.
‘I invited your friend over Friday night for dinner,’ I said casually as I started the car.
Megan turned all shades unbecoming and said, ‘Huh?’ Skater-dude was definitely influencing my daughter – at least her grasp of the English language.
‘Do I really have to repeat myself?’ I asked.
‘Mom, you didn’t!’ Megan wailed.
‘Daughter, I did,’ I said calmly.
‘Ground me!’ she pleaded. ‘Take away my electronics! All of it! Even my MP3 player! Beat me! Anything but that!’
I smiled. ‘We’ll all have a lovely time,’ I said.
ELIZABETH, THE PRESENT
We’re having a sort of anti-party Friday night. Sometimes I wonder about my mother. Megan lied to her, got her belly button pierced, and did all sorts of stupid things, and instead of grounding her for the rest of her life, Mom’s inviting her – excuse the expression – boyfriend over for dinner Friday night. She said we could all bring someone and it will be like a party. I’m just not sure what she’s up to, but I know it can’t be good. I’m inviting my friend Alicia to come over. Lotta got permission from her boss to be a couple of hours late to work, and Graham’s going to pick her up at her house and he’ll pick up Alicia on the way back. I’ll go with him, ’cause Alicia’s way shy and she’d feel uncomfortable with just Graham and Lotta. Oh, and Dad’s going to be home. So, everybody, including Mom, is going to have a ‘friend’ over. Ha! Ha!
Megan is totally flipping out! She knows Mom and Dad are going to do something to torture and humiliate her (one can only hope, haha!), but she’s just not sure which. And (I can’t help but laugh here – yes, I’m a bitch!) her belly button is infected! Ha! Green stuff is oozing out of the hole but she won’t take it out because he bought it for her. The reason it’s infected, I’m sure, is because it’s made out of some nasty stuff from a third world country, or he bought it out of a bubble gum machine and Meg is allergic to plastic!!!
BLACK CAT RIDGE, TEXAS, 1999
I got Bessie down for a nap in her new house and her new bed, then went back outside to pick up the Codderville News-Messenger that was sitting by the front door. I hadn’t looked at the paper since Monday, and wondered what page my friends warranted by Friday.
Page one. But at the bottom. Above the fold was an article about the death by car wreck of the beloved Mrs Olson, the counselor at the high school where Monique had attended. That article, along with one about misappropriation of funds at the Codder County Utility, had bumped the Lester family from above-the-fold status. A small article in the right-hand corner below the fold was all the news fit to print about the Lester family. ‘Police sources say they are wrapping up their case on the Lester family murders, which will be listed as murder-suicide.’
I threw the paper in the recycle bin. Nobody was going to do anything! Nobody! Four people murdered and everyone in Codderville and Black Cat Ridge was just going to look the other way. I picked up the phone and called the police station, asking for Detective Luna.
‘Detective Luna,’ she said on answering her line.
‘I read the paper this morning,’ I said.
‘I’m glad you’re able to read,’ she said. ‘It’s astounding the number of adults in this community that can’t. You should be congratulated. Possibly the Adult Literacy Program at the high school could use your—’
‘Can it, Luna,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘Is there something I can do for you, Mrs Pugh?’ she asked in a mockingly serious tone. OK, it could have been serious, but to me it sounded mocking.
‘You can get off your butt, you and the rest of the jerks at that place, and find out who killed the Lester family!’
‘Mrs Pugh, after an exhaustive investigation—’
‘Of four days!’
‘—we have discovered nothing to prove anyone else was involved in the murders of the Lester family. There was no break-in—’
‘They rarely locked their doors!’
‘—no indication of a disturbance of any kind, no neighbors heard anything—’
‘No one asked me!’
‘Did you hear anything the night before you found the Lester family’s bodies, Mrs Pugh?’ Luna asked.
‘Well, no, but that’s not the point . . .’
‘Mrs Pugh, I haven’t gotten to the most incriminating and disturbing piece of evidence to indicate this was a murder-suicide,’ she said. ‘Roy Lester was discovered with the murder weapon in his possession in a position of suicidal indication.
‘Therefore, the verdict has been handed down that Theresa Lester, Monique Lester, and Aldon Lester were murdered by Roy Lester, who then shot and killed himself.’
There was a long silence. Finally, Detective Luna said, ‘E.J., I’m sorry. I know this is not what you want to hear.’
‘Look, Detective, I know that’s what it looks like, because that is precisely what it is supposed to look like! But I’ll tell you one damn thing for sure, and you can take this to the bank: Roy Lester did not kill his wife and children!’
‘You come up with any proof of that, ma’am, and we’ll be happy to reopen the case.’
‘You know, I’m sitting here thinking what in the hell do you do when you can’t get the police to investigate a murder? Well, I’ve just figured out what it is I’m supposed to do! I just remembered. I think the Codderville News-Messenger might be interested in a little muck-raking of the police department! They might be interested in the truth!’ And with that, I hung up.
E.J., THE PRESENT
Willis and I lay in bed that night talking. It had been a while since we’d had this indulgence. He’d been working late or out of town. Any other guy and I would have suspected something untoward, but not Willis. For one thing, he’s too lazy for an affair; for another, we don’t have enough cash on hand for an affair, and thirdly, he once said to me, while watching a Lifetime movie about cheating husbands, ‘Why would you give up your whole life – your wife, your kids, your house, everything – just for a piece of ass?’ I’ll always love him for that less than tactful statement.
‘Remember when
we brought her home from the hospital?’ I said.
‘Yeah, when we thought all we had to do was get her to talk and everything would be OK,’ he said.
‘Well, we had to do a little more than that, but still. I thought it was all OK. I thought she was stable and ours.’ I felt tears spilling down my face to my pillow below. Willis must have felt them.
‘Hey, baby,’ he said, his fingers wiping away the tears. ‘It’s going to be OK.’
‘Is it?’ I asked, looking into his big brown eyes that I so loved. ‘How? Please, baby, tell me, how is it all going to be OK?’
He rolled over on his back, staring once again at the ceiling and not at me. ‘It just is,’ he said unconvincingly.
‘I need you home more,’ I said.
Again on his elbow looking down at me, he said, ‘And which of our children do you suspect will get a full scholarship to college? And which should we send to mechanics school? ’Cause without this deal I’m working, there won’t be enough money for college for three kids.’
‘Well, Bessie might get a scholarship but she’s the only one.’
‘She’s the only one who won’t need it. She’s got the Lesters’ money for college.’
‘What happened to that money we put aside for Megan and Graham? The money Terry’s mother left us?’
‘It hasn’t accrued quite as fast as a college education has,’ my husband informed me.
I sat up in bed, my stomach now upset for an entirely different reason. ‘How bad is it?’
‘A year each without them working. Maybe two if they pitch in.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me? We didn’t have to use my book check last year to go to Disney World! We could have stuck it in the kids’ college funds!’
‘Things looked OK last year. Besides, I wouldn’t give up that trip for anything,’ he said, pulling me down to lay my head on his shoulder.
‘Yeah, that was a good trip,’ I said, smiling to myself, remembering all three kids laughing so hard they almost fell down, running, teasing each other. Even Graham having his picture taken with Mickey Mouse.
We fell asleep that night in each other’s arms, both, I hope, thinking of better times, better places.
That Friday night we had a cookout in the backyard. Skater-boy turned up ten minutes early, wearing regular blue jeans and a button-down collar shirt. All but the fringes of his scraggly hair were still covered by the dirty watch cap, and he still wore the shades, but I’d give him an ‘E’ for effort. We did discover that his name was Cyril and he was a sophomore at the high school. In actual years that was only two, but the maturity level between an eighth grader and a high school sophomore is counted in dog years, which made them sixteen years apart. This is only a theory, but I’m sticking by it.
My son Graham, bless him, stared daggers at Cyril all night, barely taking his eyes off him to drool over Lotta, who appeared to be taking it in stride. Megan, however, was not, and was staring her own daggers at her brother. Willis and I just sat back and enjoyed the scene. We knew enough to be cordial if not downright friendly to Cyril, maybe even insisting Megan go out with him. Because the minute we forbade her seeing him, Romeo and Juliet would begin. Seeming not to care might, hopefully, make Cyril seem less exciting.
It didn’t work. After Graham and Elizabeth left to take Alicia and Lotta home, Megan went out to the front porch to wish Cyril a good night. And stayed out there for almost an hour, with me having to hold Willis back from going out there with his imaginary shotgun. We don’t own any guns, but he has every intention of telling any boy coming after one of his girls that he does: a shotgun, a backhoe, and a big enough backyard to bury a body.
The weeks went by with nothing much happening. Cyril and Alicia both became fixtures at our house, and Graham wanted to quit working the day camp and get a real job, but I repeatedly said no. This was what the stalker wanted: for us to let down our guard. Gus Mayhew had already resigned his due diligence, saying he had better things to do than sit in the bus all day waiting for nothing. He was much nicer about it than that, but that’s what it boiled down to.
Elizabeth became very close with Christine, Myra’s replacement, and had her over for dinner one night. I can’t say I liked her much. She definitely wasn’t Myra – not a perky in sight – but a little too butch for my taste. She did not, however, bring the infamous whistle to dinner.
I suppose she was a nice enough young woman. When she came in she was wearing khaki shorts and a pink polo shirt with Birkenstock sandals showing off pink polished toenails. She had a lot of auburn hair in a shoulder-length pageboy with bangs, dark framed glasses, and entirely too much make-up. Even so, she wasn’t a very attractive young woman, but she tried, I’ll give her that.
We’d met briefly at church that first Sunday after Myra’s accident, when she was announced as Myra’s replacement at the day camp, so when she came in, I shook her hand and said, ‘Nice to see you again.’
She smiled, showing off very white straight teeth. ‘You too, Mrs Pugh.’
‘Please, call me E.J.,’ I said, then turned to my husband, ‘and this is Willis, the kids’ dad.’
She shook Willis’s hand, said hello to various and sundry kids (which included the new add-ons: Lotta, Cyril, and Alicia) and we all sat down for dinner.
Willis had grilled fajitas and veggies outside and I served them with guacamole, tortillas, Spanish rice and black beans. Everyone dug in.
‘So how do you and Myra know each other?’ I asked Christine.
She swallowed and said, ‘We met on line. On a Christian chat room.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I didn’t know there were Christian chat rooms. ‘So how did you find out about her accident?’
‘Well, she wasn’t online for a couple of days, and I got worried and called her. We’d exchanged cell phone numbers a while back, so I had hers. And she told me about what happened. I couldn’t believe it! I’m in seminary myself but hadn’t secured a summer job yet, so I immediately volunteered to take her place. And then she volunteered her apartment for me to stay in. So it all worked out nicely.’
‘Where do you live?’ Willis asked. ‘When you’re not down here, of course.’
‘Dallas,’ she said.
‘Oh! Do you go to seminary with Myra at SMU?’ Megan asked.
Christine took a bite and held up a finger while she chewed and swallowed, then said, ‘Yes, actually. But it’s so big we hadn’t met. We had to both come here to meet!’
‘I’m so glad Myra has a friend like you. Not just to take over the day-camp job, but to be there for her when she comes home,’ I said. ‘She’s going to need a lot of help.’
Christine smiled. ‘She certainly is. And I’m glad to do it.’
‘When is she coming home?’ Lotta asked.
‘It could be tomorrow. She’ll find out in the morning. If so,’ she said, looking at Graham, ‘I might need you to cover for me while I get her out of the hospital and back to her apartment.’
‘Sure,’ Graham said. And under his breath I heard him mutter, ‘Bet I’ll get paid double for that.’ As he wasn’t getting paid at all, I suspected he was being sarcastic. I’m quick that way.
Cyril looked up for the first time since sitting down, a frown barely visible on his face. ‘You’re gonna be a preacher?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I am,’ Christine answered, a smile on her face. ‘It runs in my family.’
‘Huh?’ Cyril said, now totally confused.
Christine smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry, I meant my father was also a minister.’
‘Oh,’ Cyril said. Then added, ‘Why?’
It was Christine’s turn to frown. ‘Why was my father a minister?’
‘No, why do you want to be one? You’re a girl.’
Uh oh. The kid was now bordering on pissing me off.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘aren’t y’all – girls, I mean – usually nuns?’
Christine coughed, almost choking on whatever bite of food had been in her mouth.
I quickly took a drink, Willis found something he needed to look at on the floor, and Graham laughed out loud.
Megan turned to her – excuse the expression – boyfriend. ‘We’re Methodist. As in Protestant. Catholics have nuns and priests, and as of yet, women aren’t allowed to be priests. But Methodists have had women ministers, like, almost forever.’
‘Oh,’ Cyril said. He shook his head. ‘I dunno. Seems like a lot of work for a girl.’
Megan looked at her Lothario for a long moment, shook her head and said, ‘Whatever,’ as she bent her head to her food. I kicked Willis under the table, thinking this boy is toast.
ELIZABETH, APRIL, 2009
‘So who is this guy?’ Megan demanded.
‘I don’t know! I thought he was just a nice guy I met, but then he started this whole Aldon business—’
‘Aldon?’ Megan said, taken aback. ‘Like your brother Aldon?’ Elizabeth simply nodded her head. Megan asked. ‘What did he say about Aldon?’
Elizabeth took a deep breath and finally said, ‘That he’s him. That he’s Aldon.’
‘That who’s Aldon? Tommy?’
‘Yes,’ Elizabeth answered.
‘Aldon’s dead, Liz,’ Megan said quietly.
‘Yes, I know,’ Elizabeth said.
Megan tilted her head, looking at her sister. ‘You’re not sure?’
‘What if—?’ Elizabeth started, then stopped.
‘What if Aldon is still alive? Is that what you mean?’ Megan asked.
Elizabeth nodded.
‘Then whose grave is it we go visit every year?’ Megan demanded.
‘He said it was somebody they killed and put in his place,’ Elizabeth said.
‘Somebody who killed?’ Megan asked.
Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders.
‘Who did he say, Liz?’ Megan demanded.
‘Mom and Mrs Luna,’ Elizabeth said quietly. ‘And Dad, I think.’
Megan let out a heavy breath, her cheeks puffing up with the effort. ‘Wow, that’s pretty heavy stuff,’ she said.
Elizabeth nodded, her head bent, staring at the moon and stars on the comforter that covered her bed. Megan reached out and lifted her sister’s head to stare into her eyes.
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