CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE

by Julie Mulhern

  “Where did the person in the hall go?”

  “They must have run toward the family stairs.”

  There were three staircases in Corinthian Hall—the majestic front stairs where Robert’s bust had shattered, the servants’ stairs that provided my escape from Joan, and the family stairs. Those ran from the first floor porte cochère all the way to the third floor.

  The lump on the back of my head throbbed.

  “Who wants you dead?”

  I didn’t have an answer.

  Max and Grace wandered into the kitchen. Max rubbed his head against my leg. Grace asked, “What are you doing home?”

  She didn’t need to hear about my brush with death. “What do you say to your aunt?”

  My daughter grinned. Just yesterday, Grace and Sis had taken one look at each other and settled into a relationship as comfortable as well-worn shoes. “Hi, Aunt Sis.” She opened the refrigerator and surveyed its contents. “So, why are you home? I figured you’d be there till the bitter end.”

  “Your mother was injured.”

  Grace turned away from the fridge and regarded me, concern wrinkling her brow. “Are you okay?”

  “It was just an accident.” My expression dared Aunt Sis to disagree. “I’m fine.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “A statue fell.” I spoke quickly, not allowing Aunt Sis time to spout her attempted murder theory. Grace had been through enough. She didn’t need to worry that someone was trying to kill her mother. “I’ve just got a bump on my head. That’s all.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “What are you doing home? I thought you and Donna were going to a movie.”

  “It was sold out.” Grace closed the refrigerator door. “We have nothing to eat.”

  Nothing but a refrigerator full of fruit, vegetables, cheese, cold cuts, and Aggie’s chicken salad. “Is Donna here?”

  She nodded. “She’s spending the night.”

  No surprise there. “There are lemon coolers in the cookie jar.” I kept a large supply of Donna’s favorite cookie on hand.

  Grace grabbed a plate from the cabinet and transferred most of the contents of the cookie jar to it. “Thanks, Mom. You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She picked up the plate of cookies and paused. “You’d tell me if anything was wrong, right?”

  “Of course.” My nose itched like hell. I tightened my grip on my glass of water and smiled at my daughter. “I’m going to go to bed early. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

  Grace took her cookies and returned to the family room.

  “You’re not going to tell her?” I could hear the disapproval in Aunt Sis’s voice.

  “I am not.”

  “It seems to me the truth would be the best policy.”

  I snorted. An omission—especially one that kept worry wrinkles off Grace’s face—was a better policy.

  “She’s a tough kid.” That was indisputable. Between her father’s death and recent events, Grace was a walking billboard for Nietzche—that which does not kill us makes us stronger. “You could tell her.”

  I shook my head. “Not now.” Not ever.

  We stared at each other for a moment, then she shrugged. “She’s your daughter. Who was that horrible woman who grabbed you in the foyer?”

  “Joan Hanes.”

  “She looked very angry with you.”

  “I wouldn’t give her a painting for a charity auction.” Surely turning down her request wouldn’t equate to attempted murder.

  Aunt Sis took a long drink from the tumbler of wine. “Well, I’m going to call Detective Jones in the morning and tell him what happened.”

  Holy hell.

  “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Why?” Aunt Sis tilted her head as if she couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to call a homicide detective about an attempted murder.

  There was a question I didn’t care to examine.

  I donned a look which I hoped said please, please, please don’t tell Anarchy about this. “Maybe someone just wanted to ruin Mother’s party. Maybe someone didn’t like the expression on Robert’s face. Maybe…” I ran out of maybes. “Please don’t.”

  She huffed. “Fine. But if anything else happens, I’m calling him.”

  “Fair enough.” After all, what could happen?

  Four

  Max woke me up. The last time the dog awakened me by pacing in front of the bedroom door, someone died in my hostas. I glanced at the clock and groaned. Three? Sleep is slow in coming when you’re trying to figure out who might want you dead. At two, I’d finally come to the tired conclusion that Mother had more enemies than I did. No one tried to kill me with Long’s bust; someone had wanted to spoil her party. Simple as that.

  It had to be.

  Max growled again, low and menacing. The sound sent a shiver down my spine, and I reached into my bedside table for my gun.

  Once I’d thrown on a robe, my fearless pooch led the way into the hall. He walked slowly, deliberately, with a ridge of hair standing at attention down the length of his back.

  Who was it who said, déjà vu all over again? Yogi Bear?

  I followed Max to the dark kitchen, empty and silent except for a scratching sound on the outside door. My fingers tightened on my gun and my heart thumped in my chest. For a moment I didn’t move. The certainty that the person making those scratching sounds meant me harm froze my limbs. A smart woman would have learned by now—call the police first; go downstairs second. Not me.

  I swallowed around the dryness in my throat and yelled, “I called the police.”

  The scratching stopped.

  “They’re on their way.” A justifiable lie if ever there was one.

  “Why’d you do that?” My sister’s slurry voice was loud enough to carry through a closed door—loud enough to wake my neighbors. Mrs. Hamilton next door would call the police, and I’d get a citation for making too much noise.

  I put the gun on the counter, hurried across the kitchen and opened the door before Marjorie could yell anything else.

  She stood on my back stoop with her dress askew, her mascara smeared, and her hair a mess. Vapors of sex and gin rose off her like mist from a lake at dawn. She clutched the front door key in her hand and gazed at me bleary-eyed, seemingly surprised the door had opened without her inserting the key in the lock.

  Oh. Dear. Lord.

  Max seemed to agree with my assessment. He growled deep in his throat and his doggy nose wrinkled.

  “Where have you been?” My words and tone belonged to Mother.

  “Out.” Her word and tone belonged to a surly teenager. She held up her key. “This doesn’t work.”

  “Wrong door.” My whole body vibrated with tension. I’d nearly been flattened by a statue and she stayed out until the wee hours then scared me half to death? What was she thinking? “With whom?”

  “None of your bithness.”

  An answer guaranteed to set my teeth on edge. But my sister was right. Her…her sex partners were none of business. I really didn’t want to know who’d dropped her on my back stoop. Well, maybe I did—a little. I drew air deep into my lungs and straightened my spine. “I don’t care who you sleep with. But as long you’re staying with me, and as long as Grace is in this house, do not come home at three o’clock in the morning looking like some drunk floozy.”

  She stiffened, raised her chin, and looked down her nose. “I’ve never looked like a floozy in my life.” Then she hiccupped.

  Where’s a hand mirror when you need it?

  “You’re acting like Mother.”

  Six months ago, such a comment might have wounded me. Now, it glanced off me unfelt. Mother and I might not see eye to eye on some things—most things—but she had her good points. Comparing me to her wasn’t th
e insult that Marjorie intended.

  “What happened to you?” I didn’t mean that night. It was all too obvious what had happened to her—probably more than once. I meant in the larger sense. Where was my golden-girl sister who’d been touched with a magic wand of good fortune? She’d wanted and got a handsome, successful husband (yes, he sold and manufactured condoms with lurid names but no one is perfect). She had lovely, well-behaved children. She lived in an enormous house. She volunteered at the right places, sat on the right committees, and attended the right parties.

  Aside from the condoms, Marjorie had the life Mother wished for both of us.

  So why was she on my back steps stinking of gin and sex with a man not her husband, wiping her eyes and pretending that adultery was the moral equivalent of a speeding ticket?

  Pity ate at the edges of my annoyance. “Come inside. I’ll make us some coffee.”

  “Decaf?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have cream?”

  “Of course.”

  “And raw sugar? I only use raw sugar.”

  What the hell was raw sugar? Did she want to gnaw on sugar cane like the boy in the C & H commercial? Whatever raw sugar was, I didn’t have it. It probably didn’t matter. Marjorie was so far gone I could put salt in her coffee without her noticing. I nodded. “Of course, I have some.”

  “You’re sure about the sugar? The raw stuff is healthier.”

  If you ask me, sugar is sugar. As for the pity I felt, it melted away like…like sugar in a cup of coffee.

  I set her at the island, filled Mr. Coffee with decaffeinated grounds and water, and pushed his button.

  “You want to tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She rubbed her eyes and the circles of smudged mascara expanded. “Life isn’t what I expected.”

  I said nothing.

  “Don’t judge me!”

  “I wasn’t.” I was.

  “You were too. You think I’m being whiny and self-indulgent.”

  If the shoe fits…

  She dropped her head to her hands. “There has to be more.”

  So wife, mother and community volunteer wasn’t enough for her. Fair enough. “Have you thought about getting a job?”

  The look she gave me…I might have suggested she grow a third arm or have her face lift loosened. So, no job.

  “It’s so easy for you to say that. You have a skill.” Was it resentment or liquor that put the edge in her voice?

  “Get a skill. Go back to school.”

  My sister curled the corner of her lips and sneered at me. “You have no idea what it’s like to be the sum of other people’s parts.”

  Like Frankenstein? “What do you mean?”

  She donned that put-upon look only older sisters can pull off. “I’m Greg’s wife, Thea and Porter’s mother, the Junior League’s vice-president…When do I get to be me?”

  “The kids will be in college soon.”

  “I am not waiting five years,” she snapped.

  “Well, I’m pretty sure sleeping with other men isn’t going to help.”

  “What do you know?”

  A lot. I knew that her adultery wouldn’t just hurt Greg, but also my niece and nephew. I knew the man who dropped her off without making sure she was safely inside wasn’t worth destroying her marriage. And I knew she couldn’t fill a hole in herself with other people. I poured her a cup of decaf with cream and regular sugar and handed it to her. “I’m here if you need me.”

  Marjorie groaned.

  Max growled.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He regarded me with amber eyes then sat himself in front of the back door.

  “Nope, mister. You are not going out to chase squirrels in the middle of the night.”

  He growled again, deeper this time.

  I crossed to the back door, locked it, and wagged a finger at him. “Absolutely not.”

  A light flared outside. I squinted and pressed my nose against glass that reflected the cheerful kitchen rather than revealing the happenings in my back yard.

  The unexplained light raced toward me. What the—? The sound of breaking glass echoed across my patio followed by a burst of flames.

  Max barked wildly.

  I threw open the back door and ran outside. Fire climbed the side of my house like a trellis, bearing white and yellow roses of flame and acrid black smoke.

  “Call the fire department!”

  Max raced past me and disappeared into the darkest corner of the yard where his barks grew more frenzied.

  I grabbed the garden hose, turned on the spigot and aimed what seemed a pitifully weak stream of water at the base of the fire.

  Marjorie appeared, phone book in hand. “What’s the number?”

  Was she kidding? “Call the operator. She’ll connect you.” My sister was lucky the house needed the hose’s spray. Otherwise she’d have found herself on the receiving end of a stream of water.

  Bang!

  A bullet ricocheted off the bricks.

  I ducked. I cursed. And, were my house not on fire with my daughter inside, I would have run for cover. Instead I tightened my grip on the hose and took cover behind a wrought iron settee.

  Marjorie disappeared into the house. Seconds later she was back, clutching my gun. She lifted the weapon.

  “No! You might hit Max!”

  She turned, regarded me with bleary, slightly crazed eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet whizzed well wide of me and headed toward Margaret Hamilton’s house. Even above the fire, I heard glass breaking. The woman was going to hex me for sure.

  “Put down the gun!”

  “But…” Marjorie swung the .22 wildly and I crouched closer to the ground.

  In the darkness behind us, Max offered up a last outraged bark. Whoever had tossed a firebomb at my home then shot at me was gone.

  “Put the gun back on the counter. Please.” A drunk woman with a fire arm could only make a bad situation worse. “Go wake Grace, Donna and Sis. Get them out of the house.”

  With a snap, crackle and pop, the window sill burst into flames. I aimed the water there. At least the smoke no longer seemed so thick and oily.

  Grace and Donna appeared in the backdoor, their faces marked by fear. “The noise woke us. What happened?” asked Grace.

  “What can I do?” Aunt Sis stood next to her.

  There was only one hose. “Make sure Marjorie put my gun down and see if she called the fire department.”

  The distant sound of sirens suggested someone had.

  “What else?” asked Aunt Sis.

  “Go meet the firemen in the front yard. Show them where to come.” She went and I lifted the nozzle and sprayed water at a second floor shutter that was smoking as if it intended to burst into flames. Thank God I lived in a brick house. Thank God whatever had hit the house hadn’t sailed through a window. Thank God Mother wasn’t here.

  Two out of three ain’t bad.

  Mother and Daddy charged around the side of the house. Daddy’s salt and pepper hair stood up in tufts and Mother’s hair was a bit flat on the left side. Daddy saw us and his tight expression relaxed. Not so for Mother, the expression on her face somehow combined outrage and extreme annoyance.

  “What happened?” she demanded, her tone suggesting I was somehow to blame.

  “Someone firebombed the house.” Marjorie sidled past Grace and Donna and joined us on the patio then hiccupped. Loudly.

  Mother stared at her for a few seconds then added deep disapproval to her expression. “Where have you been?”

  “Out.”

  “With whom?”

  Their conversation sounded all too familiar.


  “I reckon that fire is out, Ellie.” Daddy stepped forward and took the hose from my hand. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  Because if I sat, I might not be able to get up again. I was familiar with adrenaline rushes. When this one passed, I’d be weak as a kitten. “Who called you?” I asked. “How did you know to come?”

  Daddy jerked his chin toward Margaret Hamilton’s house. “She says someone shot at her.”

  “Marjorie was returning fire. She shot wide.” Very wide. Wrong direction wide.

  “Returning fire?”

  “Someone shot as us.” My sister giggled. “Ellishon hid behind the settee.”

  Really, Marjorie should never drink.

  Daddy glanced at the lacy iron of the settee then held up his hand for silence.

  Marjorie donned a sullen (or maybe shullen) expression. The look on Daddy’s face—well, it was almost as disapproving as Mother’s. And all that disapproval landed on me. “Let me understand this. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail at your house?”

  “Yes.” Clear, assured, succinct—that was me.

  “And even though you knew there was an arsonist in your backyard, you ran outside and grabbed the hose?”

  “Yes.” Still clear, less assured, very succinct.

  “And someone shot at you?”

  “Yes.” More of a mumble now.

  “That’s when your sister returned fire?”

  I barely nodded.

  “So, just tonight, there have been two attempts on your life?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Mother scowled, no doubt remembering the disruption of the benefactors’ party.

  “What’s the name of that detective? Smith?”

  “Jones.” Mother pronounced Anarchy’s name as if it was a flesh-eating disease.

  “We need to call him.”

  Oh dear Lord. Daddy and Aunt Sis were on the same page. Anarchy was as good as called.

  Daddy shifted his gaze to Marjorie. “Marji, go inside and clean yourself up.”