“Nicki’s an asshole.”
“Rowan! You’re not making this any better for yourself. Tell me why you hit her.”
Rowan shook her head and then shrugged. “What did Fines say?”
“She said, ‘Nicole and Rowan had a disagreement and Rowan struck Nicole in the face.’ And when I asked what the disagreement was about, she suggested I ask you, that it was personal.”
She put her hand on Rowan’s shoulder. “What was it about, honey?”
“Nicki said you were a stripper.”
It was Paula’s turn to be speechless. And when she didn’t respond, Rowan looked at her, concerned. “You’re not, are you?”
“No. No. Rowan, you know I’m not. I’m a waitress. Lots of women are waitresses—”
“Not here.”
Touché. Paula stood up. “Go get your stuff. I’ll meet you out front.”
Without discussion they took the long way home, down Cascade Street, past the library and the big Whole Foods that they went to around Christmas time. Neither of them was anxious to get back to the crummy apartment.
For most of the walk they were quiet. Then Paula said, “I’m still surprised you hit her, Ro. You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Paula couldn’t help it, and laughed a little. Of course she didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did Paula, truthfully. But she had to say something.
She took a breath. “I wish I was a lawyer or a doctor or something great like that, but I got pregnant and had you, and I had to choose. I wanted to be your mother more than I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer.”
It was true, after a fashion. Paula had been lost in those days, heartbroken, angry. She had been only sixteen, practically a child and pregnant with one. Her father had just died. What had surprised her most of all was her mother’s solution. At a time when they should have needed each other most, her mother had sent her away, to the same school Rowan was now suspended from. Maybe it had been too much for both of them. Their house had become unbearably sad, grief seeming to echo off every wall.
Paula had been full of secrets that she couldn’t share. Sometimes she suspected that her mother knew that. But neither of them said anything then, and they had said nothing since about those days. Bad times, but a long time ago.
Rowan snorted, and that took Paula by surprise. “What?”
“Maybe it would have been better if you’d been doctor or something. Look at us now—we’re all broke and crap. We don’t even have cable any more.”
“Oh, please—”
“Maybe you should have gotten a better job or gone to a better school or something. Instead, now we’re stuck and you can’t even make it better!”
“First of all, I went to a very good school—the same one you just got booted out of. I don’t have to explain my choices to you, Ro.”
“Why? Aren’t you always asking me what I think about life and telling me to be honest? Well, are you a stripper? You could be, right? I mean, you had me and you weren’t married or even with a boyfriend—”
“Rowan! What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know! I just wish—we were normal. I don’t have a dad, I don’t have a sister or a brother … I don’t even have a grandma! All the teachers call you Mrs. Wittmore and I don’t tell them you’re not married … but everybody knows—” Rowan’s forehead was sweaty, as it always got when she was upset, and her bangs clung.
“You have a grandmother, Ro. She pays your tuition, remember?”
“But I don’t see her,” she said, petulantly. “Is she ashamed of me?”
Paula reached out. “Rowan, of course not! She loves you. She’s just not … that kind of grandmother. Come on, you’re upsetting yourself. Let me take your bag—”
She jerked away. “No! I’m going home—you walk too slow!”
“Jesus, Ro—” she said, but Ro was leaving. She’d adjusted her bag on her tiny shoulders and was actually stomping away.
“Do you have your key?” Paula called.
She spun back to face her mother. “Yes, I have my key. Of course I have my key. I always have my key—I’m a latchkey kid!”
“You’re not a latchkey kid, Ro. You go to the lunch program.”
“I am at night!”
“Rowan, please—”
When Paula got back she found an envelope taped to the apartment door. Paula Wittmore was written in pencil on the front in Andy’s handwriting.
Paula unstuck the envelope, then let herself into the apartment. She could hear music, a little too loud, coming from Rowan’s room. She was grateful not to have to face her. Paula would have to say something about her job situation
(which did not bear thinking about just yet)
and they would have to plan for the days of school Ro would miss. She dropped her purse and tossed her jacket onto the sofa, where the blanket from the night before was still where she had left it. She took the envelope over to the kitchen counter, stuck her finger under the flap and tore it open.
The cheque was for five hundred dollars. Double what she was expecting. There was no note. Guilt money
(and she didn’t care)
and she noticed that the message light was blinking on the archaic answering machine.
Paula pressed Play.
“Paula? This is a message for Paula—” and even as she heard the voice, her heart nearly stopped in her chest, and everything else about the day slid off her.
“Dear, it’s Izzy Riley, from Haven Woods? I’m sorry to tell you, but your mother has taken ill. She’s in the hospital here. I hope you’ll come home. I know you and she haven’t been so close these past years, but she’d love to see you. And your daughter.”
Her mother was ill, badly enough off to be in the hospital in Haven Woods. That crummy little hospital. She and Rowan had been back home to visit only once, and Rowan had gotten so sick they had to go back to the city—there was no way she was taking her baby to the Haven Woods emergency room.
Her mother had come to see them maybe twice since then and actively discouraged any suggestion from Paula that she and Rowan come home.
And now … Izzy Riley.
Paula dropped to a chair beside the table and tried to take that in. Last time she’d seen Izzy she’d been standing outside the church after David’s funeral. Izzy had turned and looked over her shoulder just as the Wittmores got into their car. A quick glance and then she turned back to talk to someone. That was the last time Paula had laid eyes on a Riley.
Rowan’s other grandmother. Not that Izzy knew that.
She would go home. She and Rowan.
Her mother was ill: Audra was ill. Old Tex, the dog—he would be sixteen, seventeen? She pondered that, considered that he might be dead. The house would be empty.
Haven Woods, a million miles away from Blondie’s, St. Mary’s Academy; a million miles away from where she was now.
A million miles away.
TWO
What was I thinking? Izzy Riley was thinking how long the day had been already, wondering how much longer are these people going to stay?
It was a full house. Of course it was. It was a monumental occasion, the dispensing of one of their own.
The three oldest of them all, Aggie, Tula and Bella, had grouped together in the corner and were downing wine, shooting shifty-eyed and half-terrified glances to wherever Izzy was in the room, as if she were going to bite them.
If only she could.
They had reason to be looking like frightened dogs; they all did. What Chick had done—Izzy grimaced at the thought of Chick, dead or undead—had upset the balance, and no one knew what would happen next or, more pointedly, to whom it would happen.
But they were all there to see her off. The oldest of them and the youngest, the generation of Izzy’s daughter, and of course Izzy herself, the only one of her own generation still standing, now that Chick was dead and Audra was … had fallen ill. That was the way to say it: ill, ailing.
And in deep, deep trouble.
She peered into the sitting room from the kitchen, where she was temporarily hiding, wishing everyone would just go away. She longed to escape to her basement room, where she could figure out the length and breadth of this particular situation and further damn Chick to hell. Audra too.
They were all talking talking talking in the other room, mostly in hushed funereal tones, but she could hear them well enough, and her head pounded. Ugh. She would like to strike them all mute. The thought made her smile.
Izzy had done hostess rounds already, once with a nice bottle of wine and then again with coffee. She was in the kitchen now under the guise of putting trays of dainties together. She was visible but mostly inaccessible. Her favourite state.
In front of her on the kitchen counter, beside the tray of stuffed mushrooms someone had brought
(full of cheese and sodium, ugh)
was her address book, open to Chick’s page. She tapped the edge of the counter with a pen until she caught the eye of her cat, Tansy.
“Up,” she demanded. “Up.” The cat blinked twice, not wanting to appear eager, and then jumped, landing softly.
“Good girl. Pretty girl.” Izzy rubbed the cat’s head. From the pocket of her very good suit she produced a tiny treat. She gave it to the cat, who ate it, lovingly, from her fingers. “That’s my girl,” she whispered, and the cat arched under Izzy’s hand.
She picked up the pen and scratched a line through Margaret Henderson. She had not liked “Chick” and had never called her old friend that. At one time she’d tried to get Margaret to give up her nickname. She wouldn’t.
Yet another good reason for her to be dead.
The line through the name became two, and then absently Izzy scribbled hasty loops over her own handwriting, completely obliterating her old friend’s name.
Under Margaret’s name and address was more useless information:
Husband Bill.
She drew strokes through that too. Bill was dead too. Just last week. They say that couples who are close in life also die very closely. Chick—stupid stupid stupid—had done her horrible, selfish deed the day of Bill’s funeral. Everyone out there was all poor thing couldn’t live without her Bill. Gawd, wasn’t everyone’s husband dead, for chrissakes? Izzy’s Roger, Audra’s Walter. Aggie’s husband had been dead so long Izzy could barely remember if he’d been an Alfred or an Edward. Aggie’s husband had been the first to die, and Aggie hadn’t torched herself. No, she picked up and went on to a better life.
Audra should have told that to Chick. You move on.
“Mother?” Izzy’s daughter, Marla, carried a handful of dirty cake plates into the kitchen. Small forks jutted out the sides like porcupines.
“What?”
“Shouldn’t you make another appearance? I think Chick’s son wants to thank you.” She set the plates in the sink with care, but the forks still clattered on the ceramic.
Izzy sighed.
Marla arranged the dishes in the sink. “What’s going to happen to Chick’s house, do you think? Will they just tear it down?”
“Why on earth would I know that?” Izzy said.
“Lighten up, Mother. You’re so angry.” Marla looked at her watch. “Well, I have to leave.”
“No, you can’t go. I need you here. I hate this.”
Marla ran a finger around the edge of one of the plates and scooped up a bit of icing. She stared at the frosting on her perfectly manicured finger. “Timmy has a baseball tryout.”
“Don’t you have a husband? Why can’t he take him?”
“He’s making us rich, just the way you taught me a good husband should do. So I’m on baseball duty.” Marla scratched behind Tansy’s ears.
“Stay a little longer. I really do hate this.”
She shrugged. “No, you don’t. You like this, having everyone where you can see them.”
“But I have something to tell you.” Izzy raised her brows invitingly as Marla met her eyes, and for a moment Izzy was struck by how soft Marla’s cheek and jaw were, how dewy still. More and more, lately, Izzy noticed such things, getting mushy in her old age. She was fifty. A gorgeous fifty, as she was fond of telling people. Her daughter was prettier than she had ever been, though.
“What?”
“You’ll like it.”
Marla grabbed for her jacket, a lilac thing that matched her skirt. She had not worn black to the funeral. “Tell me fast, because I’m leaving.”
“A good friend of yours is coming home. Her mother is ill.” That got Marla’s attention, as Izzy knew it would.
Marla’s face relaxed into something genuine and she smiled. “Paula?”
“Yes. She’s coming back to see Audra.”
Marla frowned briefly, considering this, then smiled again. “Really? Well, I can’t wait to see her again.” She clapped her hands in excitement. “She’s never even seen the kids! I’m going to have her over for dinner. This is—”
Izzy grabbed Marla by the arms. She gripped her hard. “We are in the middle of a dilemma, Marla. This isn’t a reunion of old school chums … Do you hear me?” She held her tightly a minute more and then let go. Marla jerked back.
“I know. I just haven’t seen her in so long I got carried away.” Her eyes narrowed and she shifted her gaze to avoid eye contact with Izzy. “Wait until she finds out her mother isn’t really sick.”
Izzy moved more dishes from the counter to the sink. She could hear people talking in the main room and she lowered her voice. “Her mother really is sick. She’s in big trouble. Don’t go spilling the beans to your old friend.”
“Really, Mother. I have to leave. Tim’s tryouts are in half an hour and I have to be there to cheer him on.” She slipped the jacket over her shoulders and pulled her hair out from under it, prettily.
“Wish him luck from Grandma,” Izzy said. “Paula is bringing her daughter with her.”
There was a pause and then Marla laughed softly. “Really.” She turned to stare contemplatively at her mother. “You’ve never met Rowan, have you? That will be interesting …” She grinned, the expression incomprehensible to Izzy.
“It will be necessary.”
Marla’s grin disappeared. She opened her mouth, but for a minute the words wouldn’t come. Then she said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I have to go, I really do.” She picked up her purse, a shade that matched her jacket, and slid it over her shoulder. Just before she went out the door, she shot Izzy a look that was also incomprehensible.
Izzy stood there for a minute after her daughter had gone, then sighed deeply and poked her head into the living room. “Tula, can I have a quick word?”
The old woman looked up from her drink with a nervous expression, then got up out of her chair and made her way around the guests to the kitchen, carrying her wineglass.
Izzy waved her over to the back door. “Get to the hospital. Audra’s been alone for hours. Who knows what trouble she might have gotten up to.”
“I can’t imagine she could get up to much,” Tula said.
“Just go. I’ll be along shortly.”
Tula nodded and plunked her glass on the counter. Red wine sloshed over the edge. Izzy stared at the old lady, disgusted.
“Sorry,” Tula said quickly, then grinned. “Glass is half full, eh?”
“It’s half empty, Tula. Now go, please.”
Tula picked up her purse from a pile of others by the coat rack near the kitchen door, and scuttled out of the house.
Izzy rubbed her forehead. She felt a headache coming on, but she plastered a broad smile on her face—entirely inappropriate for the circumstances—and breezed into the living room, where the guests were subdued, mournful, bereft.
“Who wants another drink?” she said.
Everyone.
THREE
IZZY WAS TALL FOR A WOMAN, with striking features that had just begun the process of gentle aging. The lines around her mouth and eyes were still soft; she looked
elegant, like a woman of a certain age advertising cosmetics. Middle age suited her, as her height suited her. She used both to full advantage whenever necessary.
Standing over Audra’s
(poor Audra)
bed, Izzy felt powerful, and very, very healthy. Being in the presence of illness gave her such a feeling of vitality.
Audra’s eyes were closed. Izzy leaned over and lay her cool hand on Audra’s forehead, tenderly.
“Poor Audra,” she purred. “Wake up.”
The woman’s eyelids twitched and Izzy suspected she was faking. But then she opened her eyes. The whites were lightly yellowed, as if from jaundice.
“Hello,” Izzy said. “Hate to say it, but you don’t look very good.”
Audra rolled her eyes away from Izzy and tried to sit up. This appeared to cause her pain, and she dropped back with a groan. Her voice was raspy, like bees and sandpaper, the sounds from a throat not just dry but red and tortured. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Well, you’re not well, are you? Has something recently happened that made you ill?” But Izzy didn’t want to be so sarcastic, at least not yet, so she changed the subject. “You missed Margaret’s funeral today—Chick’s. I know how close you two were … Anyway, it was a beautiful service, blah blah blah.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed, not bothering to mitigate her weight. The bed shifted, and Audra with it, eliciting another groan.
“Closed casket, of course, since she was crispy-fried. You know, if you are going to light yourself on fire, I swear, do not use hairspray first. Ugh.”
Izzy had rushed to the funeral home, daubing her eyes with a handkerchief, had insisted on seeing her friend. The kid on duty had finally allowed her a peek
(wasn’t he surprised when she ceased her weeping and looked upon the blackened remains of her friend with a sardonic twist of the lips)
Audra clutched her throat. “Get me some water, will you?”
“What the hell were you two thinking?” Izzy said, unable to play the role any longer.
“I didn’t have anything to do with Chick’s … with the—” Audra’s eyes puddled with tears. She snuffled thick mucus up her nose. “I don’t want to hear—”
The Thirteen Page 3