by Anne George
That was another thing I had forgotten about having a two-month-old baby. Some things just can’t wait.
“Tell the twins that Teeny sends kisses.” Mary Alice had already opened the first book and now she said, “Wow.”
“How’s Larry Ludmiller, Mama?” Debbie was putting on her coat.
“Not good. But isn’t it great about your sister getting married?” She turned the page. “Look at this strapless one. Do you think I could get away with that?”
Fred came into the room just then. Mary Alice held the book up for him to see. “Do you think I could get away with that, Fred?”
“Well, it sure wouldn’t fall off you like it’s about to do that girl.”
“True.”
I walked Debbie to the back door and promised to call her if I heard anything about Larry. “Or anything else for that matter,” I added. I also added my kisses for the children to those that “Teeny” had sent. One of the joys of Sister’s life is being called “Teeny” by Fay and May, something that we’ve never figured out. Richardena, the nanny, is “Deeny” so maybe there’s some connection there. Who knows. For a second I wondered what Joanna would call me and felt a little flutter in my belly.
When I looked back into the den, I saw something that I never thought I would see. Fred and Sister were sitting on the sofa looking at the bridal gowns, discussing the pros and cons of each one.
“Look at this one,” Fred was saying. “That woman’s skinny, and she looks like a lard-ass with all that material in the back.”
“But if she really had a lard-ass, nobody would know. They’d think it was the material.”
“True.”
I left the amazingly congenial duo to their fashion perusal and set the table and put supper out.
“This one is amazing,” Fred was saying when I called them to supper. “Look, honey.” He showed me the book. “Isn’t that amazing?”
The dress consisted of about a hundred yards of material covered with net that was caught up in places by bouquets of white roses and lace. Ribbons fluttered from the bouquets. I checked to see if Fred was serious. He was.
“Amazing,” I said. I went into the kitchen thinking that no matter how long you’re married to a man, he can still surprise you. And that’s not bad.
Like I said, supper was quiet. We talked about Marilyn and Charlie Boudreau and how we hoped they would be happy. “A proper conduit, anyway,” Fred said, grinning. Then he asked what we had been doing today. I explained about the rocking chair, told him it was outside in Sister’s car. Sister described Maurice, the grizzly bear, which got a chuckle out of Fred. While we were eating chocolate Popsicles, the only dessert I could find, the phone rang. Sister jumped up, claimed it was for her, and disappeared down the hall. Fred didn’t think this was at all unusual. I had trouble swallowing my Popsicle, though, until she came back and said that it was the Hannah Home and their truck would be on our street picking up discards on Wednesday. She had told them we didn’t have anything to discard.
I thought she was telling the truth until Fred went into the den to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. She leaned over and whispered loudly that the caller had been Tim Hawkins and that he would talk to me in the morning. She had told him I suspected Day, though.
Suspected, hell. I knew she had done it. And I had gotten arrested for it.
“Here’s a pretty one, Mary Alice,” Fred called from the den. I glanced around the door and saw that he was looking at the bridal designs again. The man had lost his mind. Sister went galloping in to see what he had found, and they spent another hour engrossed in the dresses. Amazing.
It was drizzling rain when Sister left, a book propped on each hip. She said that she would keep the chair in her car, and we could take it over to Philip’s house the next day. “And I’ll call you if I hear anything about you know who.”
“Who?” Fred asked as the door closed.
There’s a big difference in keeping something from your husband and straight out lying to him. “Larry Ludmiller,” I confessed. Which meant that I had to tell him the whole story.
“Damn, Patricia Anne,” he said. “Damn. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
He frowned at me.
“Besides, I just did. I told you everything.”
He picked up the newspaper. “I’m going to bed.”
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you.”
“I’m just put out.” He disappeared down the hall.
Fred seldom gets mad at me, so seldom that I fall apart when he does. I finished straightening up the kitchen, watched the ten o’clock news, took another antibiotic and aspirin, and kept hoping that he would come back in and say he was sorry. He didn’t. Around eleven I tiptoed into the bathroom, put on my nightgown, and slid into bed beside him. I’m not sure if he was asleep or not, but he didn’t turn over or tell me good night.
There was no way I could sleep. I finally went into the den, picked up Carolyn Hart’s Sugarplum Dead, and tried to lose myself in the Christmas adventures of the Darlings. But not even Max and Annie Darling could keep my mind off the day’s events. Larry Ludmiller, crumpled and bloody, kept getting between me and the pages. Surely he would be out of surgery by now, or they would know something. I finally got the phone book, looked up University Hospital, and reached the intensive care waiting room’s number from the operator by telling her I had a family member in intensive care. Well, it wasn’t much of a lie.
Hoping that I wasn’t waking anyone up, I dialed the number. A woman answered, and I asked if Virgil Stuckey was there. When he came to the phone, I apologized for calling in the middle of the night but told him I couldn’t sleep because I was worried about Larry.
“He’s still in surgery, Patricia Anne,” he said. “They just don’t know.” There was a long pause before he said, “They’ve given Tammy Sue a sedative. She’s dozing a little.”
“I hope I didn’t wake her up.”
“No. It’s fine. I appreciate your calling. Mary Alice has already checked in a couple of times.”
So Sister was having trouble sleeping, too.
Virgil’s voice was shaking when he said, “Keep us in your prayers, Patricia Anne.”
I promised that I would, and I meant it. After I hung up, I went back to bed and whispered to Fred’s back that I loved him and had just been trying not to worry him. Finally I slept.
Fred was gone when I woke up. In spite of so little sleep, I realized that I felt okay. The antibiotics had kicked in. I opened the blinds and looked out. It was a perfect spring day, sun gleaming on leaves wet from the night’s drizzle.
I dialed Sister’s number, and she answered on the first ring. Larry had made it through surgery. Virgil had just come in and was drinking some coffee. Tammy Sue wouldn’t leave the hospital.
“The prognosis?” I asked.
“Still questionable. But he at least made it through surgery. Wait a minute.” I could hear a man’s voice. “Virgil says to thank you for calling last night.”
“Tell him he’s welcome. Does one of us need to go stay with Tammy Sue?”
“Olivia’s there. You know, Larry’s sister. And Buddy—Virgil, Jr.”
“Okay. Call me if you need me. I guess I’ll have to stick around here for Timmy Hawkins.”
I got a cup of coffee and checked my e-mail, hoping to hear from Haley. I had three messages. One said SEX SEX SEX, another asked if I was interested in working at home, and the third was from Martha Stewart. Dear Patricia Anne wasn’t interested in those giant cookie cutters today. Instead, I typed in Haley’s e-mail address and told her there was no news and that we were fine. She was in Warsaw and pregnant. What could she do about our latest escapades but worry? I had turned off the computer before I remembered that neither Marilyn nor Debbie might have e-mailed her about Marilyn’s marriage. Maybe when Fred got home we’d call her.
I waited for an hour for Timmy’s call. Nothing. And it was a beautiful day o
utside. I finally got Woofer’s leash and left for a walk. Sister had told him basically all I could tell him the night before. I certainly had no proof that Day was the culprit. He could leave a message.
It was so good to be feeling better, so good to feel the freshness of a morning after rain. Woofer felt the same way, scampering from tree to tree, barking wildly at a squirrel. We walked all the way to Homewood Park, where I sat on a bench in the sun and Woofer lay on the ground beside me, wagging his tail at the few people who walked by pushing strollers or jogged by, everyone saying, “Good morning.”
I closed my eyes. I could sleep here in this peaceful park with its huge old shade trees sprouting new green. For a few moments, Larry Ludmiller wouldn’t be fighting for his life, Day Armstrong wouldn’t be dropping knives in my purse, Fred wouldn’t be angry with me. Sunlight, dappled by new leaves, made shadows across my closed eyes. I sighed and relaxed.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hollowell.”
I must have dozed off because I jumped.
“Sorry I scared you.” Timmy Hawkins sat down on the bench beside me. “I was driving past the park and saw you.”
I rubbed my hand across my mouth, hoping it hadn’t been open, and I hadn’t been drooling—a bad habit of mine when I doze.
“Morning, Timmy,” I said, wondering if he was on duty. He had on jeans and a University of Alabama sweatshirt with a red elephant holding a megaphone and declaring ROLL TIDE on it. On his feet were brown boots that had seen much, much better days.
“I was on my way to your house. Actually I was on my way to the Piggly Wiggly. It’s my day off, and I thought I’d stop by if you were home.”
“Sister said you were going to call.”
“I was.” He reached down and patted Woofer, who rolled over in delight. Good thing Timmy wasn’t some mugger. “But I was going by anyway.”
“Well, she told you about Day Armstrong, that she had the opportunity to drop the knife in my purse.”
Timmy nodded. “Tell me about it.”
So I did, adding that I didn’t want to believe it, but I did.
“How do you suppose she got the knife?” Timmy asked.
I looked into his guileless blue eyes. “Don’t hand me that, Timmy. The same way you think she did. Picked it up off the floor of the stage. Or walked out on the stage with it. God knows. But I’m telling you this. Larry Ludmiller’s in the hospital maybe dying because whoever killed the guy at the Alabama thinks Larry saw him. Or her,” I added.
The eyes weren’t guileless now. “What makes you think that?”
“He told us. Larry did. He said he turned around and got a glimpse of someone behind the line of Elvises just as Griffin Mooncloth began to sag. It was just a glimpse, mainly because Larry’s blind as a bat without his glasses, but the person back there couldn’t know that. For all she knew, Larry could identify her. Or him.”
Timmy nodded. “Makes sense.” He reached over and patted Woofer again. “Anything else you can tell me, Mrs. Hollowell?”
“I wish you could question Day about the knife without mentioning me. I don’t want her mother to know I’m the one who told you. She’s a friend of mine.”
Timmy stood up. “Now how am I going to do that, Mrs. Hollowell?”
“You’ll figure something out. Just like you figured out how to get someone to write your research paper on Chaucer for you.”
I swear Timmy blanched. “You knew about that?”
“Of course. Just do the best you can, Timmy, to keep me out of it.”
“Yes, ma’am. I will.”
I watched him walk toward his car, his shoulders slumped. “Woofer,” I said, “it’s incredible how often that works.”
Mitzi was spreading bonemeal on her iris bed when we walked past. I opened my gate, gave Woofer a treat, and let him in. Then I walked over to tell Mitzi about Larry Ludmiller.
She was kneeling on a plastic bag and had on gardening gloves. Mitzi is in her early sixties but has had gray hair as long as I can remember. More white now than gray, I realized, looking down at her as she pushed her bangs up with her arm. I would never be that lucky. Strawberry-blond hair, streaked with gray, looks orange.
“Your hair is beautiful,” I said.
“Thanks.” She smiled and pulled a plastic bag out of a box for me to sit on. “What’s going on? You look like you’re feeling better this morning.”
“I am. But I just squealed on Day Armstrong, somebody nearly killed Virgil Stuckey’s son-in-law yesterday, and Fred’s mad at me.”
“I believe the first two things. Not the third.” She stuck her trowel into the sack of bonemeal and worked it lightly into the ground around an iris that I knew would be blooming within a month and that I would enjoy from my kitchen window.
“Believe it.”
“Tell me.”
Mitzi worked as I talked. Woofer came over and lay down by the chain-link fence, watching us, half-dozing.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked. “Day did have the opportunity to put the knife in my purse, didn’t she?”
Mitzi nodded. “I guess she did. She wasn’t there but a minute, though, Patricia Anne.”
“That’s all it would take.”
Mitzi pushed herself up from her knees, groaned, and moved the plastic bag farther down the flower bed. “Lord, I’m stiff as a board,” she said, kneeling again. She stuck her trowel into the dirt and frowned. “Tell me again about the divorce bit, about Dusk being in trouble.”
I told her what Debbie had said, that it was illegal to marry someone just so they could become an American citizen.
“But would Day have killed someone to protect her little sister?”
“I don’t know. But I think she may know who did.”
A car pulled into my driveway. I looked up and saw it was Fred.
“I think that’s the end of your third problem,” Mitzi said.
Fred got out of the car and came over to where we were sitting. “I just thought I’d come home for lunch today,” he said.
Mitzi grinned as I got up. “Bon appétit.”
Making up was nice. I explained that I was trying not to worry him, and he explained that it worried him more to know that I was trying not to worry him. I promised not to do it again. At the time I meant it.
Later, we had tuna fish sandwiches for lunch.
Seventeen
E-mail from: Haley
To: Mama and Papa
Subject: Occupant
Guess what! Joanna’s moving. I’ve been feeling some flutters for a few days that I was suspicious of, but today, there was a definite bump. Philip is sitting right by me waiting for me to say, “Now,” so he can feel it. But tonight she’s quiet. We’re starting to read to her, though, and to play music. Tonight he’s going to read Goodnight Moon. Isn’t it incredible?
Love from the three of us,
Haley
“Mouse?” Sister called from the kitchen.
“At the computer. Come on back.”
She walked into the room saying, “I’m scared to come into your house anymore since that husband of yours had such a hissy fit about his privacy.”
What she was referring to was a day a couple of months ago. Fred had just gotten out of the shower and, holding a towel around him, walked into the kitchen. Mary Alice and Miss Bessie were sitting at the table eating Keebler chocolate chip cookies and drinking Cokes, very much at home.
Fred, totally startled, dropped the towel and fled. All he remembered, he said later, was the Keebler chocolate chip cookie bag and a pink crocheted hat, and those two images were burned onto his retina. “Take the damn key away from her, Patricia Anne.”
I didn’t, of course, but I did ask her to be a little more discreet.
“I don’t know why,” she said. “Wasn’t like he had anything to hide.”
“Pitiful,” Miss Bessie agreed.
Needless to say, I didn’t pass their opinions on to Fred. No use pouring salt onto wounds. I did, however, remind t
hem that he had just gotten out of the shower and they had scared him.
Both of them said, “Huh.”
“What have you got?” Sister asked now, looking over my shoulder.
I moved so she could sit down. “Look at this. It’s wonderful.”
She read the e-mail and said, “How about that. Let’s see. Haley’s four months pregnant now. How big do you suppose Joanna is? Big as a cantaloupe?”
“I doubt it. They do most of their growing in the last two months.”
“You always looked like a stick with a knot on it when you were pregnant, and I looked like I’d swallowed a pumpkin.”
“Mama said you just carried yours high.”
Sister nodded and tapped the screen with her fingernail. “Pregnant’s nice, you know, Mouse? If it hadn’t been for my husbands all dying and stretch marks, I might have had some more. I hope Marilyn gets pregnant soon.”
“So do I. And I wish Freddie would get married and settle down.”
“He’s happy. You want to print this?”
“Absolutely. I’m going to make her a scrapbook.”
Sister clicked the mouse, and the printer came on. “I’m going to the hospital. I thought you might like to go with me.”
“Is there any news?”
“Not really. Virgil’s hoping I can talk Tammy Sue into coming to my house for a while and resting some. He’s worried about her.” She reached over and got the piece of paper that the printer had spit out. “I figured maybe you could help me.”
“Larry’s the same?”
“Hanging in there. Here.” She handed me the letter. “What did your policeman say when you told him about Day Armstrong?”
“My policeman said he would look into it.” I folded the letter and put it into a box in the corner that had “Haley” written on it. “I told him to keep me out of it.”
“That’s going to be hard to do.”
“I know.” I closed the box. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll go with you.”
“Virgil says she hasn’t eaten a bite since yesterday.”
I took a quick shower and slipped on some light gray wool pants and a sweater.