by Anne George
I drove them to my house. I would call Liliane from there and she could come get them. Fortunately, neither of them used the towel on the way over the mountain.
“Who?” Fred said. “Who’s in your car?”
“Claire Moon’s sisters,” I explained again. “They were drunk at the library and I couldn’t let them drive home.”
“Well, why didn’t you take them home?”
“I don’t know where their aunt Liliane lives, Fred. I’m going to look it up and tell her to come get them.”
Fred pushed his glasses up and pinched his nose exactly like Miss Boxx had done in my dream. “I’m going out to get them,” he said. “They can’t stay in the car.”
“Just throw a blanket over them,” I said.
“No. I’m going to tell them to come in the house and have some coffee.” He started toward the door. “I don’t understand, Patricia Anne, why this particular family has latched on to you.”
“They haven’t latched on to me.”
“Well, you could fool me.”
By the time he was back without the twins, I had discovered that Liliane Bedsole had an unlisted number.
“Shit, shit!” I said to the recording.
The expression on Fred’s face had softened. “They look like identical dolls,” he said. “I decided not to wake them up.”
“Identical drunks. Take a blanket out like I told you. I’ve got to find out how to call their aunt.”
“It’s not listed?”
“You got it.”
“Maybe Mary Alice knows it.”
“She wouldn’t have any reason to.”
“The social director of the world? Hah. Give her a call, Patricia Anne.”
I did and got the same “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” message. “She’s not there,” I said to Fred as he came through the den with a blanket.
“Then try somebody else.”
Easier said than done. I tried Bonnie Blue and got Abe, who said she wasn’t home and he didn’t have the pictures so just get off his ass.
“What?” I asked. “What?”
“Leota?”
“It’s Patricia Anne Hollowell, Mr. Butler.”
The phone went dead.
“So much for Southern gentlemen,” I muttered. I got the phone book and looked up Thurman Beatty. He was listed, but I got an answering machine with Mercy’s voice telling me she couldn’t come to the phone right now, leave a message.
“No kidding,” I said, startled. The sound of her voice reminded me of the grim way she had died. It also reminded me of the way Thurman had rushed off from the clinic when I mentioned the twins. I hung up the phone.
“That was eerie,” I told Fred, who came in from covering the twins. “Mercy’s still on the answering machine at their apartment.”
“You can’t get hold of anybody?”
“I’m not sure that I should. You know?” The shock of hearing Mercy’s voice had nudged me into caution. “I mean, how well do we know any of these people? Even the aunt.”
Fred sat down in his recliner and looked at me in amazement. “You don’t trust Thurman Beatty?”
“I don’t know Thurman Beatty, Fred, and I don’t know those girls out in the car. All I know is two people are dead and one is missing and they’re all connected somehow. I say let’s just let the twins sleep.”
Fred nodded.
“Let me try one more time to get Bonnie Blue. She might be down at her brother’s.” I looked James Butler’s number up, dialed it, and a small child answered who assured me she was two years old.
“Where is your daddy?” I asked slowly.
“I’m two years old.”
“Is your mommy there?”
“I’m two.”
I gave up on that one, told the child bye-bye, and hung up. “No luck.”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re fine for the time being. Don’t look real they’re so pretty.”
“Oh, they’re real, all right. Wait until they wake up sick as dogs.”
Fred smiled slightly, but for only a moment. Then he looked worried again. “You think they do this often?”
“What? Get drunk? I hope not. I don’t know.”
“They’re so beautiful.”
“You said that already. You want waffles for supper?”
“Sure.” He pushed up from his chair. “I’m going to take another blanket out. They look so fragile.”
I got the waffles and bacon from the freezer. The bacon is the cardboard kind old folks should eat because of cholesterol. I wrapped the strips in paper towels and slapped them into the microwave. “Nuke ’em,” I said, hitting the start button. The waffles I put into the toaster. Some things, I had to admit, had gotten easier in the last sixty years.
The phone rang just as Fred came back in. He answered it and handed it to me. “It’s Mary Alice.”
“Where have you been all day?” I asked, wiping my hands on a paper towel.
“It’s Christmas, Mouse. I was at parties. A brunch, a lunch, and an open house.”
“My, aren’t we popular.”
“I assume from that tone of voice that you weren’t invited anywhere today to celebrate the season.”
“I went to the library.”
“Whoop-de-doo.”
“And picked up the Needham twins, drunk as coots. They’re out in my car right now, passed out, and I don’t know how to get in touch with their aunt Liliane.”
“Are you serious?”
“Fred threw a blanket over them. They’re dead to the world.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll tell you the whole story later. Just give me the phone number.”
“I don’t have Liliane Bedsole’s phone number. Why should I have Liliane Bedsole’s phone number? Why don’t you look it up?”
“It’s unlisted. And you have everybody’s phone number.”
“Call Thurman.”
“I did. Mercy answered the phone.”
“Mercy?”
“It’s your fault.”
“It is not!” We were both quiet for a moment. “What’s my fault?” Mary Alice asked.
“That the twins are passed out in my car.”
“I’ll have to think about that one,” Mary Alice said. “By the way, Bubba’s feeling better. James said I could pick him up tomorrow. You want to go?”
“I’ll have to think about it. I’ll call you in the morning.” I hung up the phone and turned to Fred. “It really is all her fault,” I said.
“I know,” he agreed.
Thirteen
Around ten o’clock, Fred and I went out, untangled the twins, and helped them walk on rubbery legs into our guest bedroom. They collapsed on the bed and went back to sleep immediately.
“Well, we couldn’t leave them in the car all night, Patricia Anne,” Fred said. “They’d catch pneumonia.”
“I don’t think so. They’re well fortified against the cold.” I looked down at Glynn and Lynn. They were lying on their sides facing away from each other. Their black hair curved against their cheeks just as Claire’s had done when she lay on my sofa.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such black hair,” Fred said. “Looks like a crow.”
“The name on the bottle is probably Raven.”
“Patricia Anne!”
“Don’t you Patricia Anne me. Their sister Claire’s got the same black hair and eyelashes and she’s a dishwater blonde. That’s one reason I didn’t recognize her.”
“You’re kidding.” Fred leaned over the nearest twin and looked at her hair. “Are you sure?”
“I could have hair like that tomorrow.”
Fred eyed me speculatively. “You could?”
“A quick trip to Delta Hairlines,” I added.
He shook his head. “Nah. It wouldn’t look the same.”
I stomped into the hall.
“I meant it wouldn’t be the same you, honey,” Fred said, following me. “I love your gray hair, every
curl.”
By the time we were ready for bed, Fred had put his foot in his mouth so many times, he was sputtering. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
During the night, I heard one, or both, of the twins being violently sick in the guest bathroom.
“I’m glad we left the light on for them,” I said. But Fred was sleeping. Worn out. I slipped from the bed and went down the hall. I could hear the shower beginning to run.
Their bed was empty, but the bathroom door was wide-open. One of them lay on the bath mat in a fetal position, the other was, apparently, in the shower.
“Are you all right?” Stupid question.
“We are not feeling well,” said the twin on the mat. She opened her eyes, shaded them with her hand, and looked at me. “Mrs. Hollowell?”
“What? You want me to get you something? Some Alka-Seltzer?”
She slapped her hand against the shower door. “Glynnie, we are at Mrs. Hollowell’s.”
“Is that good?” A weak voice from the shower.
“I don’t know. It’s just where we are.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll get each of you a robe and see if I can find something to settle your stomachs.”
By the time I got back with an old robe of mine and one of Fred’s, Lynn had made it into the shower and Glynn sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel, shivering.
I handed her the robes and went to the kitchen to fix some Alka-Seltzer. When I returned, both girls were sitting on the edge of the bed, still shivering in spite of the warm robes.
“Think you can keep this down?” I asked.
“We can or we can’t,” one of them said. They both took the glasses and drained them.
“Thank you,” they said together.
“Try and go back to sleep.”
“Lynnie was the designated driver,” Glynn said.
“Shut up, Glynnie. You’re always whining.”
“Well, you were.”
Sisters. If they felt like fussing, they would be okay. I told them good-night and went back to bed.
“You all right?” Fred murmured.
“I’m fine.” I snuggled against him and put my cold feet against his leg.
“I love you,” he said.
What a man.
I awoke to an empty bed and to the smell of coffee. Fred was going out of the back door as I walked into the kitchen.
“Don’t do anything to your hair today, Patricia Anne. It looks great just like it is, gray and all.”
I promised that I would not be a brunette when he got home.
“And get rid of those twins. Those folks aren’t any of our business. They’re just bad news.”
“But so beautiful.”
Fred’s face softened. “Well, yes, they’re that, all right.” He didn’t say anything else because I threw a spoon at him.
“Men can be such pains in the butt,” Mary Alice said when I called her to tell her I wanted to go get a Christmas tree for the den regardless of what Fred said, that the one in the livingroom could stay, smelling of formaldehyde like it did, and be his. I would just close the door. So if she was going to go get Bubba, I wanted to go to Harpersville.
“Fred thinks the twins are beautiful,” I added.
“Figures.”
“I don’t think they’re going to be beautiful this morning, though, and I’ve got to take them home. I’ll call you when I get back.”
I peeked into the guest room and the sleeping twins didn’t move. I got dressed and went out to walk Woofer. There was fog this morning settling in the valleys. This was the kind of weather I wanted my plant stand for, the one Fred was making me that would roll outside. My ferns would love it.
Lynn and Glynn were sitting at the kitchen table when I got home. Each was holding a glass filled with a lot of ice and what appeared to be Coke against her forehead.
“Headache,” one whispered. I opened the cabinet and handed them the bottle of aspirin. Each took three and looked at the tablets for a moment before gulping them down.
“Glynn?” I said. The twin in Fred’s robe looked up with bloodshot eyes. “You need to call your aunt Liliane. She’s probably worried to death about you.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t get home last night. That’s why.”
“You brought us here,” Glynn said.
“I thought I could call your aunt Liliane to come get you, but her number’s not listed. And God knows, you were in no condition to drive.”
“Glynnie is always the designated driver,” Lynn said, her forehead propped in her hands.
“Enough of this!” Both twins jumped. “Get up off your butt, one of you, and call Liliane. If she can’t come get you, I’ll take you home.”
“We’re not staying with Liliane,” Lynn said. “We’re staying at the Tutwiler.”
“What?” The Tutwiler Hotel is catty-corner from the downtown library.
“We saw you cross the street and Glynnie said, ‘Let’s go see Mrs. Hollowell,’ only we waited and waited and you didn’t come out.”
“We were in the bar.” Glynn sighed. “For a long time.”
“We even went looking for you and there you were, drooling on newspaper clippings about Betty Bedsole.”
“So we went back to the bar to wait.”
“For a long time.”
I pulled a chair out and sat down at the table. The noise of the chair scraping made the twins cringe. “You mean you didn’t have to drive anywhere? You’re staying at the Tutwiler?”
“Did we say that, Glynnie?”
“Of course, Lynnie. It’s true.”
“So I made you get in my car because I didn’t want you driving and you were right where you were supposed to be.” I began to grin. “I’ll be damned. I kidnapped you.”
Lynn snickered slightly and then pressed her fingers against her forehead. “We won’t press charges.”
Glynnie also rubbed her forehead. “We just wish you hadn’t stayed in the library so long.”
“Don’t blame me for your drinking,” I said.
“No. It was Betty’s fault.”
“We went in the bar to watch her leave and she looked so sad.”
“You are talking about Betty Bedsole, aren’t you? The woman you called a slut?”
Glynn looked at Lynn. “Did you tell Mrs. Hollowell Betty was a slut?”
“Did I?” Lynn asked me.
“The lack of underwear was mentioned,” I said.
Lynn nodded. “True. But she was very sad. We had a drink because Betty looked so sad when she got in the taxi.”
“I’d say you had quite a few drinks because Betty looked so sad. I don’t suppose it occurred to either of you that drinking is one of the reasons she looks so sad.”
“Mrs. Hollowell will preach now, Lynnie.”
The rolled-up newspaper was lying on the table, and I would have loved to have swatted Glynn hard right on her aching head. Instead, I got up, poured myself a cup of coffee, and announced that I would take them back to the hotel in fifteen minutes.
“You made her mad, Glynnie,” I heard Lynn say as I headed down the hall. “Claire will not like that.”
It was almost an hour before we headed downtown. The twins insisted on changing the guest room bed and cleaning the bathroom. Whether it was remorse over making me angry or over their binge, they wouldn’t leave until everything was spotless. When we left the house, sheets and towels were chugging away in the washing machine and the physical effort of the cleaning seemed to have made the twins feel better. Before we went out of the back door, I had one of them write down their aunt Liliane’s phone number and address, which I stuck up on the refrigerator. I almost asked why they weren’t staying with her but decided it was none of my business.
It was a quiet ride back to the hotel. Glynn sat beside me but closed her eyes and seemed to be dozing. Lynn stretched out on the backseat. They both woke up, though, when I came to the corner of the library and slowed.
> “We’ll get out here,” Glynn said. “Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell,” Lynn echoed.
The light changed just as they got out, so they crossed the street in front of me. Wilted as they were, they turned the head of every man they passed. I wondered, idly, what possessing that kind of power would be like. Or if they would have the same impact away from each other. The person behind me blew his horn and I realized the light was green. I waved an apology and headed home.
It had been the twins who had spirited Claire from the hospital. I was more convinced of that than ever. Lynn’s remark, “Claire will not like that,” sounded as if they were in close touch. A taxi pulled up into the lane beside me, reminding me of what the twins had said about Betty Bedsole. How sad she looked. I thought about the picture of her as a debutante, eighteen, beautiful, with her adoring father looking down at her. Had Claire and the twins’ mother also been beautiful? Probably. For a while. Before abuse and alcohol. Damn. Let the twins’ getting drunk the night before be an isolated incident.
The sheets and towels had finished washing when I got home. I put them in the dryer and checked my messages. Bonnie Blue had called; she was on her way to work but would call later. That was it. No invitations to brunches, lunches, or open houses to celebrate the season.
“It’s because you’re so unsociable, Patricia Anne,” Mary Alice said on the way to Harpersville. We were going to get the tree first and then pick Bubba up on the way home. “When have you had a dinner party?”
I tried to remember. “Last January?”
“There. You see? And that was just some couples from the neighborhood.”
“Frances Zata came. You came.”
“And the memory, pleasant as it is, is becoming dim. Why don’t you do it again?”
“After Christmas. I can’t afford Tiffany and the Magic Maids and caterers like you can.”
“They’re not necessary for a nice party.”
“How come you always have them, then?”
“I said they weren’t necessary. I didn’t say they weren’t wonderful.”