by Nancy Bush
After I accepted Jazz’s invitation, he told me he would pick me up in a little over an hour. I next called Dwayne who said he would be happy to watch Binks at my place. I didn’t know what to say. Though I much preferred keeping Binkster in her own home, right now having Dwayne in my space seemed like a bad idea. But to do the right thing by my dog I reluctantly accepted Dwayne’s offer. He said he’d be at my house in an hour.
Sixty minutes…
I took a hard look at myself in the mirror. Good…God. The bruise on my cheek had ripened into an underlying violet with an alienish green tinge. My ear had a red cut nicked out of it. The hot curling iron burn on my neck was starting to scab but it looked like it might hang around a lifetime. My hair needed to see a brush, and my eyes were dull as dirt.
I had a thought of myself standing next to Jazz and I tore into a frenzy of personal beautification. Dragging out the bottle of liquid cover-up, I smeared it over my face. It pretty much took care of the bruising and turned the neck burn into a faintly bumpy discoloration. I went for the heavy, sparkling tannish eye shadow and dark brown liner. My lashes got a healthy layering of mascara. Examining my teeth, I brushed them for about the fifth time that day. Something about throwing up that makes the mouth crave peppermint or wintergreen or cinnamon for days after. I dug through the drawer and found a bottle of pinkish blush loaded with little spark-lies. Dabbing some on my cheeks, I then pulled out my favorite lipstick. Actually, it was the closest tube I had at hand. I put it on, thought the color was pretty good, smacked my lips and examined my results.
Huge improvement. I brushed my hair hard and covered my nicked ear.
Finding clothes was another matter. I looked at my wedding and funeral dresses and blew a big raspberry. Binkster sat in her little bed in the corner of my bedroom. Her head was damn near swallowed up by the contraption keeping her from doing her canine best to heal herself.
I said to her, “I wore my good outfit yesterday and we both know how that turned out.”
In the end I pulled out a pair of black pants—the dressy ones only used for special occasions. This was it. The last item of good clothing I possessed. If I saw Jazz after this, it was recycle time. Since Binkster had taken care of my strappy sandals I tugged on Cynthia’s boots one more time. Okay, they’re brown, not black. To combat this fashion faux pas I teamed the pants with a dark tan blouse made out of stretchy material that makes my breasts look bigger than they are. I rarely wear it because…well, I don’t know why, really. Am I afraid of false advertising? Like, who’s gonna care but me?
I stuck out my chest and looked at the dog. “See anything you like, sailor?”
My eyes took in Binkster’s shaved, swabbed and stitched hind leg. It hurt to see her injury. She wagged her tail at me, and I felt terrible again.
I spent ten minutes rubbing her head and ears, petting her, and doing the coochy-coochy-cutie-doggy-goo-goo stuff that used to make me groan and roll my eyes upon witnessing it in others. Binks flopped over on her side and sighed contentedly. Okay, I can still make my dog happy. What’s that line about aspiring to be the kind of person your dog already thinks you are? I was going to do my darnedest to make sure I never let her down again.
Dwayne knocked on the door and I yelled at him to come in. I was all about pretending nothing had happened between us. Just good old Dwayne. No need to answer the door. Let him come on in, make himself at home.
Binkster scrambled to her feet and tottered out to see him. Her affection for Dwayne is a source of concern to me; one I’m not sure what to do about. But for today I was going to be magnanimous and let them be all smoochy with each other and not care. Binkster deserved all the attention and Dwayne, well, I just wanted him to be distracted. I was pretty sure nothing sexual had transpired between us, but there had been a subtle shift in our relationship nonetheless, and I didn’t know how to handle it. Answer: act like it doesn’t exist.
“Hey,” I said, coming out of the bedroom, affixing an earring. I hadn’t planned to wear any, but it seemed like a good idea to be in the process of doing something when I saw him. Another form of distraction. It hurt my ear some, but I didn’t care. I was all about appearances.
Dwayne was squatted down, petting Binks with one hand, holding a box of some kind of frozen food in the other. I realized it was mochis, a Japanese dessert, ice cream with a rice-gum and powder skin. It was something he kept on hand, and something Binkster had discovered to her ever-loving delight.
Unlike me Dwayne hadn’t bothered with the dressing up thing. He was in his jeans, cowboy boots and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, exposing tanned forearms. Binkster was licking him and wiggling ecstatically. Dwayne glanced over. Sometimes he wears a cowboy hat but he’s got great hair. Light brownish and sun-streaked. He gave me a sideways look out of his blue eyes that made it hard for me to breathe. Those eyes swept up the length of me, then he turned back to Binkster.
“So, this little Purcell wingding is a ‘welcome home’ party?” he asked as he walked into the kitchen and shoved the mochis into my freezer.
“I guess so.”
“You never said what you learned at the sanitarium.”
“It seems kind of unimportant now.”
“Does it? Why?” He came back into the living room and gazed at me directly. I found it kind of unnerving.
“Well, Orchid’s back. The family has her signature on a power of attorney. Whatever their problems are, they’re their problems. Every family has them. You said yourself that you’ve got a lot of family issues.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to see my relatives much. No wonder the Purcells are nut cases. They have to live in each other’s pockets.”
The sound of wheels crunching on gravel announced Jazz’s arrival. Both Dwayne and I turned toward the door. I felt absurdly shy all of a sudden. This was so dumb. Neither of them was my boyfriend, or lover—please, God, let it be so—so I was overreacting and feeling weird for no reason.
Jazz knocked at the same moment I turned the knob. He smiled at me and the light hit his eyes as if it were set for a photograph. His hair was combed from his face in a smooth, casual style. He wore a cream shirt and taupe chinos with Italian leather shoes. His scent was now familiar to me. He looked and smelled like money.
“These are for you,” he said, and he held out a bouquet of a dozen yellow roses.
“Thank you.” I could feel Dwayne behind me and heat crept up my neck. Oh, Lord, I was blushing. “Let me put these in water,” I said, ducking from Dwayne’s scrutiny as I race-walked to the kitchen.
I heard Jazz introducing himself to Dwayne and vice versa. I yanked down a vase from the cupboard above my refrigerator. It’s the only one I have and I thought it might be a tad too small for the roses. I shoved them in anyway, avoiding the thorns, and ran water about halfway up the vase’s neck. They were stunning, really, so I brought them out to the coffee table.
“What happened to your dog?” Jazz asked.
“Car accident.” I found myself unable to explain more. It just made me feel so terrible.
“I’m the dog sitter,” Dwayne said, his drawl more pronounced than ever.
I didn’t look at him as Jazz and I left. Jazz tried to quiz me a bit on Dwayne, but apart from saying that he was basically my boss, I avoided the topic altogether. Dwayne was a worry, one I didn’t want to look at too closely just yet. I was afraid, at a gut level, that I may have blown it with him and the delicate balance of our relationship. I didn’t know what to think about that.
My anxieties over Dwayne made me overly attentive to Jazz. I wasn’t trying to play some kind of game, but my fear was driving me in a way that defied rationality. I was scared and, unfortunately, kind of excited; every nerve ending felt raw and alive.
Jazz seemed to eat it up. “I’m so glad you came,” he said enthusiastically. He dropped a hand over mine and I smiled at him. Part of me wanted to clasp that hand, another part didn’t want to start something I wasn’t prepared to finish. Ap
parently he was over being upset about my trip to River Shores.
“So, that guy’s your boss?” Jazz asked.
“Yes. Sort of. I work independently, but he’s the one who connected me with you, actually. He was working for your cousin. Cammie.”
Jazz thought hard for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s not there. One of those missing pieces, I guess.”
I explained about Cammie hiring Dwayne to check up on Chris, wondering if I should go into the particulars of Chris’s second family. It wasn’t a secret, but it was apparently all new to Jazz. I expected him to have some follow-up questions, but instead he reached an arm around the back of my seat and turned to me as we pulled up to the Purcell mansion.
“Before we go in, tell me the truth, Jane. Why were you checking up on my mother?”
Okay, he wasn’t over it. “The truth?” I asked.
“Why did you go to the sanitarium?”
“Ummm…”
“You said it was for Nana, but I was wondering…was it for me, too?” He was engagingly expectant. I just kind of stared at him. The man was damned attractive, and I didn’t want to burst his bubble so I just shrugged, letting him think what he would. “I’m glad you haven’t given up on us,” he said, almost shyly. “I was afraid, now that the money issue is settled, that you would walk out of my life.”
I smiled for an answer and thought about last night in bed with Dwayne. Naked. Drunk. It felt like this massive betrayal, and it bugged me no end that I’d gotten myself into this situation. “The money issue’s settled, then?”
“Dahlia has the POA. Nana doesn’t even seem aware of it, right now. We’re all kind of relieved that that’s been taken care of. So, anyway, the sanitarium? Who did you talk to? Did they tell you anything about my mother?”
“Like I said, they’re going to need you, or a member of your family, to be the one to ask for information.”
“But you learned something. You said she wasn’t meek.”
“The records imply that Lily suffered from hypersexuality,” I said reluctantly.
“That’s right. That’s what it was. Sorry. I can’t hold onto anything sometimes.” He shook his head. “But it’s not true. Nana—everyone—talks about my mom’s meekness.”
“I’m just saying what was in the file.”
“Do you have that file?” Jazz asked.
“That would be stealing,” I pointed out. Those papers were still stuffed in my purse. I suddenly had worries of the authorities chasing me down, yanking them from me and booting me into jail. I know this is fanciful, but I do fear incarceration. It keeps me semiresponsible in my job and life.
“I’d like to talk to someone there,” Jazz said, taking me by surprise. “Will you go with me?”
“Back to River Shores?” He nodded. I’d opened the floodgates, apparently. Now he wanted to know everything there was to know about his mother and the secrets surrounding her. “Sure.” Jazz didn’t hear my lack of enthusiasm or chose to ignore it.
As we were getting ready to enter the house, Logan came out. He saw me with his father and his face darkened. “I’m not sure I’m going to let you into my house,” he said, reaching for humor but coming off sounding bratty and spoiled.
“Logan.” Jazz gazed at him as if he’d never seen him before.
Logan was too young to have the good sense to quit before he made things worse. “Well, it’s mine, isn’t it? Nana said so.”
Jazz said to me, “Nana told him last Christmas that he was her heir. It’s not really true.”
“Yes, it is. I’m her favorite,” Logan insisted. “She’s leaving everything to me. She said so.”
“You bothered her with this?” For the first time I could tell Jazz was growing angry with him. Personally, I thought it was high time the kid was taken down a peg or two.
“Nah. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. They’re all going in and out of her room. ‘Nana, would you like some tea? Can I get you anything? Let me get you a blanket. Can I kiss your butt?’” Logan snorted in disgust.
“Stop being rude and give Nana some space.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. You sound like all the rest of them.” He flounced off, heading around the side of the building, toward the front of the house.
Thinking about Orchid, I asked, “Does Nana ever talk about the playhouse?”
Jazz gazed at me oddly. “Why?”
“Someone said she seemed haunted by it.” I wasn’t going to invoke Eileen’s name as anything about her seemed to be dismissed.
“Haunted by it,” he repeated. “That’s one way to put it, I guess. Sometimes she says things about it.”
“What kind of things?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite remember. Maybe you should ask James.”
“Why James?”
He lifted his hands in a kind of surrender. “It just seems like you should.”
We entered the house. Music was emanating from the main salon, a Frank Sinatra song. It was just ending as we joined the others and another one was beginning: “High Hopes.” We were apparently listening to a CD compilation of Sinatra favorites. I guessed he was a favorite of Nana’s.
The family was there in force, except for Orchid herself. Garrett explained that his mother was napping, that they were planning to wake her soon but that they were all so relieved that she was fine that they’d started the party early. There was a crystal decanter of port or sherry on the coffee table. Upon seeing me, Dahlia hurried to pour me a demi-glass. Her eyes were bright, and I wondered if she’d been imbibing heavily. I shuddered at the thought of even putting my lips to the rim. There was no way I was ready for any alcohol, after praying to the porcelain god early this morning, but I accepted the glass just to hold. Behind Dahlia, Satin moved over and poured herself a refill. There was something secretive in her movements and I realized she was hoping the family’s attention would stay on Jazz and me and no one would notice.
Cammie was sans Rosalie, who was also napping. “She’s sleeping too late, and she’ll be a bear when she wakes up, but what are you going to do?” She shrugged, took a sip of her drink and made a face. “Port. Yuck.” She set the glass on the coffee table.
“Reyna’s making Mother’s favorite,” Garrett said. “Southern fried chicken with biscuits and gravy. Personally, I’d rather have a steak, but I guess I’ll survive.” This was his little joke. I was kind of surprised he had any sense of humor at all.
James said, “Maybe we should wake her.”
Satin floated by and Cammie said, “Yeah, before Mom gets to the bottom of the bottle.” Satin flushed and sank into a chair. “Did you think I didn’t see you pick up my glass?” Cammie asked.
“Leave your mother alone,” Garrett ordered.
Benjamin viewed them with a jaundiced eye. He refilled his own glass as did Roderick. Father and son clinked rims. Dahlia gazed at Benjamin with a mixture of motherly love and possessiveness.
Jazz said, “I’ll go get Nana.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, setting down my untouched drink. I glanced toward Satin, whose eyes were focused on my glass.
I was following Jazz upstairs when he suddenly stopped at the landing, turned around and looked down at me. “Let’s not stay for dinner,” he suggested. “After we take Nana downstairs and hang around for a little bit, I want us to go out somewhere. Just you and I. We can celebrate together. How does that sound?”
“Great.”
We smiled at each other and then Jazz pulled me close and pressed his lips to mine. He took me completely by surprise, and therefore I was a little slow to get into the moment. I had to force myself to relax, but I managed. As kisses go, it wasn’t bad: soft and searching, full of the promise of something deeper, more dangerous. I responded carefully. Jazz took his time but in my head I kept worrying what would happen if any of his family suddenly appeared. By the time he released me I needed to suck in a deep breath.
“Whew.” I smiled. “That was interesting timing.�
��
He laughed. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but somehow it never seemed like it was going to work.” At that moment, the back door opened and Logan entered. He glanced up at us. Whatever he saw caused a stunned look to cross his face. Jazz moved away from me. “I’d better go check with him. He can be so sensitive.”
I nodded. Yeah. About as sensitive as a Paloma bull.
“Go on ahead,” Jazz said. “I’ll be right there. Nana will be glad it’s you.”
I wasn’t even sure Nana knew my name wasn’t Eileen. But I sure as hell didn’t want to be with Jazz when he had a powwow with Logan about what he may, or may not, have seen us doing on the landing.
I started thinking about Binkster as I walked toward Nana’s double doors. I couldn’t get my mind off my dog for long. I wouldn’t mind getting something going with Jazz, but I was currently more interested in Binks’s welfare than about anything else. This could be looked at as a flaw on my part, but I didn’t care. Jazz was an iffy proposition; The Binkster was a member of my family.
I knocked, but Orchid didn’t immediately invite me inside. I waited a couple of seconds, knocked again, and called, “Nana?” in a tentative voice I despised. I was going to have to give up and just call her Orchid, no matter what she wanted. I just couldn’t do it. Nana was just too uncomfortable and rang false.
When there was still no response I tested the knob. I half-expected them to have locked her in now, after her grand escape, but I guess they felt they were all on alert now, all in the house, all aware of the exits.
The door opened and I stepped inside.
For a nanosecond I didn’t notice anything off. Then my eye jumped to the mantel. A smear of blood. Then to the hearth. Orchid lay on her side in a heap, blood pooling beneath her left temple.
I stumbled forward and saw that her eyes were open and staring. I sucked in a startled breath.
Those electric blue eyes were sightless now. In disbelief I realized Orchid Candlestone Purcell was dead.
Chapter Thirteen