So it seemed only right that I be the Black Hole in her solar system.
Someone had to do it.
Particularly since she was like the Hubble telescope in my Milky Way: not always functioning the way I wished she would and constantly keeping an eye on me, despite a view that was so often distorted.
Cissy had an opinion on everything, from my hair—“sweetie, if you’d just let Roberto give it some shape, you wouldn’t have to wear it in a ponytail everyday”—to my car—“Jeeps are for teenaged boys, darling, so don’t you think it’s time to get something with four doors and a trunk?”—to my love life—“I do like Mr. Malone, very much, I’m just worried he’s takin’ advantage of you. Don’t you know that men won’t buy the cow when they can get the milk for free?”
To misquote that famous Valley Girl, Moon Unit Zappa, “Gag me with a silver spoon.”
Scowling, I tugged the dress over my head, getting caught inside the stretchy fabric and batting at it, feeling trapped in more ways than one.
Though fighting was useless.
It was so true that you could pick your nose, but not your family. I was living proof.
Didn’t matter from which angle I viewed it. Plain and simple, I was stuck.
With a grunt, I finally pushed my head through the neckline, feeling like a diver coming up for air.
The static electricity set my hair to standing on end, and I cursed in a very unladylike fashion as I put a little spit in my palms and tried to smooth it down.
Hopeless, I tell you.
I looked like Alfalfa in drag.
Though it could’ve been worse. On rainy days, my hair leaned toward the finger-in-socket ’do made famous by the brilliant but aesthetically disinclined Al Einstein. I could forget ever being a Breck girl.
Ah, to heck with it, I thought and grabbed a clip from my bureau, pulling the rat’s nest of brown into a ponytail.
I realized I was grinding my teeth and forcibly relaxed my jaw, letting out a slow breath. My dentist had threatened me with a plastic mouthpiece if I didn’t shake the bad habit, as I was apparently making mincemeat of my molars and bicuspids. But it was my instinctive response to anxiety. That and a stiff neck.
Which is why Malone had bought me a book called Stress and the Single Girl. It had plenty of chapters on dealing with a controlling mother, among other nerve-wracking scenarios like being held hostage or getting caught in traffic.
“You’re going to have to cope with Cissy for the rest of your life . . . or hers, anyway,” he’d said, as if I needed reminding. “So, unless you want to end up a toothless middle-aged woman with high blood pressure, you’d better learn how to shrug her off.”
Shrug off Mother?
That was rather like asking someone infected to “shrug off” malaria.
The book had gone untouched for weeks. But I’d reluctantly begun to thumb through it the night before and had gotten so far as attempting the first of the “Six Simple Ways to Lower Your Stress Quotient,” which advised that I “embrace high anxiety moments with a wide grin or belly laugh.”
Though I wasn’t sure if any semisane person would ever “embrace high anxiety,” I figured there was no time like the present. So I let loose a loud, “ha ha ha!” before I turned away from my reflection in the mirror.
Geez, I felt better already.
Not.
On my hands and knees, I located my black slides beneath the unmade bed and slipped them on to my bare feet. Mother might have a cow that I wasn’t wearing pantyhose, but early September in Dallas generally meant temperatures in the low nineties. Not even threats at gunpoint would get me to put on a pair of L’eggs when it was that warm. Heat and nylons were completely incompatible.
Retrieving my purse and car keys, I gave my place a quick once-over on my way toward the door, checking the kitchen to make sure I hadn’t left the stove on and seeing if the red light was blinking on my CallerID, in case I’d missed someone while I was in the shower, like a client or a road-tripping boyfriend (I hadn’t).
It wasn’t yet nine o’clock, though the air outside already felt like a sauna set on well done. The sky stretched blue as far as the eye could see, not a single smear of white to soften the pervasive yellow sunbeams. Even as I headed toward my Jeep, I felt a trickle of sweat wend its way down my back, and my armpits grew sticky.
One thing was for sure, I thought, as I climbed into the Wrangler and started the car with one hand while rolling down a window with the other, Dallas was no place for sissies.
Nope, the sissies moved to the Hill Country.
Driving south on Hillcrest, I left the radio off, staring at the cars on the street ahead of me, wondering if any of them were headed to a funeral on this cloudless Saturday morning and wishing I weren’t. Malone had gone out of town to do more prep work for a case—all the way to Galveston for an entire weekend—and I suddenly regretted my decision not to go with him. Just the thought of a choir singing “Amazing Grace” (which, of course, they would) tied a knot in my belly. Not that I didn’t find the hymn quite touching, but its touch felt more like a punch in the belly. It brought back such vivid memories of the day we buried my daddy. The darkest day I’ve ever had, so far, and it pained me, in any small way, to repeat it.
Didn’t seem to matter that it had happened a dozen years before. Moments like that stayed fresh in a person’s mind. It still made my heart ache to think of it.
I wondered if Cissy felt the same, every time she heard “Amazing Grace” or “Jesus Loves Me” or the oft-repeated psalm about “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Did she mourn my father all over again?
Sometimes I forgot the fact that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost a best friend, a cheerleader and moral compass. I’d never discussed with Cissy how she felt, if she still suffered much. My mother wasn’t keen on opening up, at least not to me. Was it because she chose not to, or because I hadn’t given her the opportunity?
Oh, boy.
I was waxing philosophical, a sure sign that this was all too much. I felt positively maudlin. Death wasn’t a comfortable subject for anyone, was it? Except, perhaps, for casket salesmen and morticians.
I sniffled and wiped a sleeve beneath my eyes, decidedly blue despite the sunshine around me.
How I hated funerals.
I had the strongest urge to turn around, go back home, and crawl under the covers.
But bailing on Mother wasn’t an option. I couldn’t let her down, not in this type of situation and certainly not on this particular morning.
So I gripped the steering wheel tighter, catching a glimpse of my eyes in the rearview mirror. My squint rumpled my forehead into deep lines of worry, and, out of nowhere, I heard the whisper of Cissy’s voice, admonishing, “Don’t frown, Andrea darlin’, or you’ll cause wrinkles. Then it’s Botox for the rest of your life, and I know how you hate needles.”
Nothing like my mother’s beauty tips to cheer me up.
I switched on the radio, hitting buttons until I stumbled upon the guitar-driven chorus of “Jump,” one of my favorite Van Halen oldies. I turned it up as loud as I could stand it, leaving no room for the emotions that threatened to climb from my chest into my throat or out my tear ducts.
Another fifteen minutes of retro rock and roll, and my spirits felt mildly buoyed as I descended into University Park, home to my parents’ alma mater, SMU. The church sat just west of the campus on University Boulevard, wedged between that street, Park Lane, and McFarlin. As I circled the block, hitting a gridlock of limos and Mercedes sedans, I felt my gaze drawn to the place where I’d been baptized, where Mother and Daddy had married: an imposing structure of red brick and stone with a steeple that pointed the way to Kingdom Come through a sky bluer than the Danube.
I remembered coming to Sunday school when I was a kid, learning the Lord’s Prayer and finding it pretty cool that God had “art in heaven.” I imagined that He colored the sunsets with finger paint. A rather clever theory for a five-year-o
ld, I figured.
After a pass around the block and no sign of an empty spot on the streets, I left my Jeep in the spare lot at city hall and took the church shuttle over with a half-dozen other latecomers, all garbed in black like a murder of crows.
I wedged myself between a white-haired man in a wool suit that looked far too hot for the tail end of summer and a woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat that knocked into the side of my head every time she turned hers. Rather than rip it off her, I leaned toward the man on my left, who ignored me entirely and stared out the window.
With a thump, the shuttle driver slammed the door, shutting the lot of us in, the air heavy with perfume and cologne, sweat and silence. I felt like I was headed to camp with a group of wealthy strangers all muttering a prayer that one day HPPC would adopt valet parking.
The trip was thankfully brief, and I trailed the pack from the van, through the church doors to the sanctuary where the service had already started, from the sound of things.
I tugged at the knit of my dress, wishing I’d worn a slip (did I even own a slip?), feeling oddly self-conscious as I lagged behind the others, hoping Mother wouldn’t be ticked that I was a few minutes behind schedule.
Like a bad omen, the lilting notes of “Amazing Grace” swelled over me as I stepped inside the nave, and I sucked in a deep breath, trying hard to ignore the lump in my throat. I hugged my purse to my chest and glanced around me, focusing on the task at hand and wondering how on earth I’d find Cissy in the endless sea of black shoulders that yawned before me. I tried to spot my mother’s blond head, but every crown not topped with white or gray was blond—or hidden by a hat—making my mission truly impossible. So many bodies packed the pews. Folks stood in the far aisles and against the back wall.
My daddy’s service had likewise filled the church to overflowing. Mother and I had been overwhelmed with flowers, cards, and charitable contributions from those whose lives he’d touched. It had seemed the whole world had mourned alongside us.
I pursed my lips, mulling over my own funeral someday; sure it would not be standing room only. There certainly wouldn’t be so many in attendance that they’d run out of parking spaces. Maybe dozens, if I were lucky.
I’d always told myself that it was better to have a handful of close friends than a million acquaintances, and I firmly believed it.
Still, a part of me envied Bebe Kent and my father, for having so many who missed them that the close-packed church had looked like a sold-out Yo-Yo Ma concert.
My eyes strayed to the gargantuan columns standing sentinel on either side of the spacious hall and to the rows of mourners endlessly flowing toward the pulpit. Floral arrangements abounded, surrounding a portrait of the late Mrs. Kent, raised on an easel. Beyond stood the full choir in dark robes with white V-necks. Climbing high above was tier after tier of pipes for the organ, looking very much like a ladder to heaven, if not a stairway.
I hung back, not sure of what to do. Perhaps, it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to stick to the rear, near the doors, in case I couldn’t get through the service and needed to excuse myself.
A young man approached, hands full of programs. An usher, I guessed, with a gold cross-shaped pin glinting on his dark lapel. I turned my palm up; but rather than slap a program into it, he sidled over to ask, “Are you Andrea Kendricks?”
I nodded, hoping my forehead wasn’t blinking LAPSEDPRESBYTERIAN in bright neon and he wasn’t the religion police, come to arrest me for missing too many Sundays to count.
“Come with me,” he said, though I merely saw his mouth move. The amplified voice of the choir and pump of the pipe organ filled my ears, drowning out all but the nervous thump of my heart.
The fellow took my arm, leading me forward, down the aisle where I’d once, long ago, imagined my daddy would walk me one day, when I was a bride.
So much for childhood dreams.
I had rarely been back in the church since Daddy’s funeral, and I was almost afraid that lightning would strike. But it didn’t.
I kept my gaze fixed ahead, at the portrait of Bebe, and, for an instant, I saw instead my father’s polished mahogany casket, blanketed with blood-red roses from my mother’s garden. I could almost smell the too-sweet scent of them, cutting off my breath, making me sick to my stomach.
The passing faces blurred in my peripheral vision. I feared for a moment that we might keep going, straight up to the pulpit, before the usher stopped at the third row from the front, handing me over to a woman dressed in subdued charcoalgray Chanel.
Cissy.
My mother reached for my hand and drew me into the pew, beside her. Even as I sat down, she didn’t let go. Merely hung on more tightly.
As the final strains of “Amazing Grace” rang out like the chime of a bell, resonating in the air and in my skull, I glanced into my mother’s eyes and saw her tears. Emotion bubbled inside me like Old Faithful, threatening to erupt.
Despite my best intentions, I began to weep.
For a woman I’d barely known.
For my daddy.
And for the irreparable hole in my heart that even time could never heal.
Chapter 3
It was nearly eleven o’clock when the service ended, sad hymns sung, psalms read, and eulogies rendered.
My body sagged against the pew, drained in every sense.
It astounded me, the number of people who’d gotten up to gush about the generosity of Bebe Kent. No wonder the woman never had children with all the foundations she’d run and fundraisers she’d chaired. She wouldn’t have had time for them.
Which made me consider Cissy’s choice to bear a child—me—when she’d always been as devoted to philanthropy as her buddy Bea. As the story went, she’d had to leave in the middle of a thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner for the Leukemia Society at the Anatole in order to deliver. My birth, as I’d often been reminded, had lasted hour upon excruciating hour and had been unbearably painful, un-numbed by aspirin or an epidural.
I would never call Cissy a hands-off mother—because she’d always been a huge presence in my life—but she had needed help raising me due to her busy social agenda. She wouldn’t have been able to do all the things she did if Sandy Beck hadn’t been there to dress and feed me, take me to the pediatrician, or drop me off at school when my mother—or Daddy—couldn’t. Still, I knew I’d been lucky to grow up with married parents who had truly loved each other and who’d wrapped me tightly in their protective cocoon. I’d known too many kids who were the products of bitter divorces and extended stepfamilies that didn’t in any way resemble the saccharine Brady Bunch save for the sibling rivalry. (“Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! How come she got a brand-new BMW Roadster when I’m stuck with Mummy’s old Jaguar XJS? You must love her better!”)
I glanced sideways at Mother, at her perfect profile, the gray pearls at her throat, not a hair out of place, and it amazed me to realize I had pieces of her inside me, genes that defined me as permanently hers (for better or for worse). At this stage of my life, I was only starting to recognize how much of myself came from her and my father: expressions I caught in the mirror, words that emerged from my mouth that sounded awfully familiar, quirks I swore I’d never inherit in a million years.
I might not be a carbon copy of either, but I couldn’t deny where I came from, despite my yen to be different.
I stared at Bebe’s portrait as the pews cleared, and I wondered if she’d missed out, despite all the good deeds she’d done through the years. It certainly had to be an incredible feeling to have your name on the side of a building, but bricks and mortar didn’t share your DNA.
Because, once you were gone, you were gone.
And wasn’t the point to leave behind more than a memory?
“You okay, sweetheart?” Cissy said and brushed a loose strand of hair from my face. “You look so sad.”
“We’re at a funeral,” I murmured. “Sad is part of the dress code.”
But she wasn’t buying it. “What is it, Andrea
?”
I wasn’t about to tell her what I’d been thinking about, namely procreation, continuing the thread of life, passing on your bad habits to another generation. Babies was a subject I didn’t voluntarily broach with my mother, not with my thirty-first birthday looming so near, and her itching for me to tie the knot and bear her a grandchild while she was still spry enough to shop till she dropped and shower the kid with unnecessary things.
“I’m really missing Daddy today,” I admitted instead, because it was true, and a little “hic” caught in my throat.
She made a soft “hmm” sound and touched her forehead to mine, brushing noses.
“I miss him, too,” she said. “Today and every day.” She pressed a dry kiss to my cheek and passed over her handkerchief. “Now wipe your eyes and blow your nose, before we say our goodbyes.”
I did as she asked, feeling a little better after.
Mother laced her fingers with mine, holding onto my hand and tugging me along with her as she paid her respects to Bebe’s sole surviving relatives: two cousins from London who slipped Cissy their calling cards and admitted having to dash off to a lunch meeting with Bebe’s lawyers before catching an evening flight back to Heathrow.
Then Mummy Dearest was off to the races, working the narthex of the church like a thoroughbred, greeting friends with air kisses and shared condolences.
I saw more than a few familiar faces, girls I’d gone to school with, now grown women with husbands and children; soccer moms who carpooled in their fuel-inefficient Hummers, lunched at Café Pacific in Highland Park Village, and bronzed year-round at Palm Beach Tan. Not exactly my crowd, though Cissy made sure I politely addressed each, keeping me in line with an occasional well-placed elbow to the ribs. Part of her still dreamed I’d end up chums with them someday, pushing strollers around NorthPark Mall and doing car pool to Hockaday or St. Mark’s Academy.
Not that there was anything particularly wrong with either of those things—if that’s what floated one’s boat—but it’s not what I wanted. If I never had to worry about choosing silver patterns from Reed & Barton, I’d be perfectly content.
The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Page 2