Crazy, Stupid, Dead

by Wendy Delaney

  * * *

  I woke up when Steve kissed me good-bye around six and couldn’t get back to sleep, so after I took Fozzie on a long walk through the dog park, I hit the shower, where all those thoughts came crashing down on me like a tidal wave.

  “One thing at a time,” I told myself while I washed my hair.

  I didn’t have any more leftovers from Chris that I could purge from my life, with the exception of a few of his favorite recipes. That I improved upon, so really they weren’t his anymore. And I liked them enough to keep them for now. Mainly because I wasn’t willing to spend a dime on that rat bastard’s cookbook.

  At least I wouldn’t have to waste any more money on his car—a comforting thought that put a smile on my face as I luxuriated in the hot water sluicing over me. But once I stepped out of that steamy shower and I met the expectant gaze of the pooch lying in my bathroom doorway, I had to face the stark reality of my situation.

  I needed to find another car. Today.

  “It needs to be good out in the country,” I told Fozzie while I toweled off. “Get good gas mileage. Have plenty of room for you. Not have too many miles on it, and come with a price tag I can afford.”

  He gently woofed as if he wanted to remind me about the pearly white Subaru parked in my garage.

  “I know it’s a perfectly nice car, but I can’t keep it.”

  And if the dealership wouldn’t take it back, maybe I could find someone else who would.

  * * *

  “Charmaine Digby to see Mr. Ferris,” I told Hank when he greeted me in front of the Bayview Estates security gate over an hour later.

  Hank gave me a cheery salute as he promptly opened the wrought iron gate. “Have a good day.”

  As it shut behind me, I could only hope that Mr. Ferris would be more willing to help make this a good day than he sounded when I called to ask if I could come over.

  I had just pulled up in front of the house when he opened the front door wearing gray sweats and holding a big ceramic mug of coffee in his hand.

  “Want a cup?” he asked, his eyes focused on the zippered envelope in my hand.

  I had already downed the majority of the pot I made after Steve left, but if wrapping my hands around a warm mug could make the next few minutes any easier, I was all for it. “Please.”

  Mr. Ferris pointed to the table. “Make yourself comfortable. Italian roast okay?”

  “It’s fine.”

  Sitting in the same chair as the last two times I’d been to his small mansion of a house, I waited for my former biology teacher to join me at the table. But after he placed a steaming ceramic mug next to the zippered envelope in front of me, Mr. Ferris leaned back against the white marble counter as if he were about to deliver a lecture.

  “I guess I don’t have to ask what’s on your mind,” he said.

  “I can’t keep the car.” I pushed the plastic envelope to the edge of the table.

  “Trust me. As someone who hasn’t had much of a vote while your mother replaces everything that isn’t up to her exacting standards, I get it.”

  Thank goodness someone around here did. “I hoped you’d say that because there’s a complication. I called the dealership right before I called you. They don’t take returns, but I thought my mom might be able to work her magic on them and get her money back.”

  “Maybe, but this discussion should be between you and her.”

  I’d had enough discussion with her for one week. “There’s nothing else to talk about.”

  Mr. Ferris smiled at me over the rim of his mug. “I happen to know that your mother doesn’t feel that way.”

  “We’ve talked. Everything’s fine.” Or was at least as good as it could be considering the circumstances. “If you’ll just explain to her that—”

  “You should do that,” he said at the same time as I heard a thump that sounded suspiciously like a shoe dropping to the floor above my head.

  “She’s up?” It wasn’t even nine o’clock.

  He nodded. “Like I said, this is a matter between you and her.”

  I could almost feel the other shoe dropping, this time directly on my head. “Only because she put me in this position. You just finished telling me that you understood how I felt about not getting any say in that car she bought me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Oh, believe me. I do. And she and I have had some serious discussions about all this spending she’s been doing. Because it’s not just her financial situation anymore. It’s now ours together. That’s how I know that, while the execution during this rash of spending has left a lot to be desired at times, your mother’s heart has been in the right place.”

  “Says you,” I muttered as I reached for my coffee.

  Mr. Ferris pressed his warm palm to my shoulder while the click of heels filled the silence between us, and then he handed his coffee mug to the beauty in the olive cigarette pants and buttercream slouch sweater.

  “Good morning, my darling.” Marietta bent over to give me a quick hug and then slipped into the chair next to me, where she immediately pushed away the envelope. “What a nice surprise.”

  It wasn’t so nice, because this surprise was on me.

  “You’re up early.” And apparently skipped a few steps in her morning routine because her spiky auburn hair was a little damp, and her eyelashes looked almost as sparse as mine.

  Her glossy lips curled into a pretty smile, but there seemed to be some strain to hold it, a wavering that told me that she didn’t want to be sitting here again anymore than I did. “I never want to miss an opportunity to see my little girl.”

  Typically, I’d let such an innocuous comment roll off my back like the mother/daughter nicety it was intended to be. But our mother/daughter relationship had always been far from typical, and a sigh escaped my mouth before I could stifle it.

  “What?” she demanded. “You have a problem with me calling you that?”

  Jeez. This was why I wanted to leave the car with Mr. Ferris so that she and I wouldn’t face off with one another as if we were in some sort of pissy cage match.

  I took a three-count to mentally reset. “Call me whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”

  Marietta reached for her coffee. “Sounded like it mattered to me.”

  Argh! “I’m here because there’s a problem. I can’t return the car.”

  She slanted a glance of irritation to the envelope on the table. “Why not? Everything should be in there.”

  “The dealership doesn’t accept returns.” I pushed the envelope in her direction. “Of course, they might if you used your Marietta Moreau charm on them.”

  “I think that might put Renee in a difficult position.”

  That was more important than the impossible position the two of them had put me in? “That may be a factor in all this, but I can’t keep the Subaru for all the reasons we’ve already talked about.”

  “I really do get where you’re coming from. But I wish you’d reconsider, because I truly hate seeing you in Chris’s old car.”

  “I sold it, so that particular problem has been taken care of.”

  Leaning toward me, my mother examined my face. “Other than the fact that you don’t appear to be getting enough sleep, I can see that your energy looks better this morning.”

  I seriously doubted that, but okay.

  Settling back in her chair, she smiled with satisfaction. “Good for you for purging yourself of the last vestiges of that cad. I’m very proud of you.”

  I shouldn’t have cared, but a little bubble of pleasure floated to my tongue before I could bat it down. “It was a good decision that you actually helped me make.”

  “Would you allow me to help you make another one?”

  That bubble popped with my brain screaming at me for opening that door for my meddling mother. “Maybe.”

  “This is one of practicality,” she said while the cell phone in my tote bag started ringing. “
Do you need to get that?”

  “I’ll call them back.” I just wanted to finally close this topic of conversation.

  “Like I was saying, I’d like you to think in terms of practicality. You need a reliable car, and there’s one that fits that description parked right outside.”

  “Mom, we’ve talked about this.”

  “Just hear me out.” Marietta straightened as if she were steeling herself against the pushback she knew would be heading her way. “I know I haven’t always been there for you, but I’m here now and available to you, however you need me.”

  Oh, it was way too late for her to decide that she wanted to be a full-time mom. “I appreciate that but—”

  “And that includes financially.”

  No way. “But—”

  She raised her hand to silence me and, apparently, my phone, because it suddenly stopped ringing. “Sweetheart, I wish you would stop being so stubborn about money. Half of my estate will be going to you eventually.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t want or expect that to be anytime soon.”

  “And I don’t want anyone to start counting any chickens where I’m concerned, but let me just say that I will be leaving you with a very comfortable nest egg.”

  Not at the rate she had been spending it. “Fine.”

  “So the way I would like you to think of that very practical car out there is that it was purchased with some of the money that will be coming your way.”

  For an actress best known for her physical attributes, she had delivered that line rather convincingly. “Nice try. We both know why you bought it when you did.”

  “Because your grandmother said you needed a car. Pretty much the same way she mentioned that her old car broke down on the way to her favorite yarn shop a few years ago.”

  “You bought her that SUV?”

  My mother shrugged. “She needed a new car.”

  Gram hadn’t mentioned that little detail when Chris and I flew in for the holidays and she picked us up in a new Honda.

  “And if I can do a simple little something to help my mother out after everything she’s done for me … Well, it would be selfish of me not to.” She waved a manicured hand. “And, naturally, she protested too, but you should have seen the smile on your grandmother’s face when she first got behind the wheel.”

  “But that was a very different situation.” And Marietta didn’t try to use it to gin up some positive publicity.

  “I don’t see it that way.”

  Shocker. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  My mother gave me a smile as brittle as the eggshells we had been walking on since she came into the room. “Of course I do. I owe you a mother—or more precisely, a better mother who is here for her daughter. Won’t you let me be one?”

  She couldn’t have knocked the wind out of me more effectively if she had punched me in the solar plexus.

  “I promise I won’t drag you into Seattle to buy matching dresses like when you were four,” she added with a tentative titter.

  I used to love our shopping dates in Seattle. Mom and me, along with Gramps because he wouldn’t let “Mayhem Moreau” get behind the wheel of his car. “I—”

  “But if you’d like to go shopping in Seattle sometime, I’d love it if you’d like to make it a girls’ day out.”

  “That sounds like fun.” Or at least had the potential to be if she could contain her urges to turn the day into a mini-publicity tour.

  My mother pressed her hand to mine. “Wonderful. Now, about that car. Can we agree that while I may have let some outside factors influence my thinking, I truly was just trying to provide for my family.”

  “But you need to understand that I don’t want you to do that for me.”

  “I do.” She reached for her coffee. “That’s why I’ve discussed the matter with my new financial advisor.”

  From the twinkle of glee in her eye, I had a feeling there was a lot more to this story. “When did you get a new financial advisor?”

  “Thursday night, when I was telling Barry about the offer I got on the house.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her happy news. “I take it was a good offer.”

  “Not as good as the counter-offer they accepted last night!” she squealed as my phone began to ring again.

  Considering all the months my mother had been trying to unload her Santa Monica estate, this newsflash couldn’t have been happier. “Awesome!”

  “I know. It’s actually so awesome that we’ve decided to give our children some of their inheritance now.”

  I studied her face, expecting to see the little tension lines around her eyes or the chin she jutted out when she was trying too hard to sell a story. But all I could see was the blissful glow of true joy. “What?”

  “Jason’s trying to buy a house,” she said while I reached for my phone to shut it up. “Well, he hasn’t come out and said as much to Barry, but since we expect that Jason’s going to propose fairly soon to that pretty girlfriend of his, I wouldn’t be surprised. And I would certainly suspect that they could use the money.”

  So would I, but the timing of this decision sure felt fishy.

  I was also concerned about the timing of these calls and took a peek at the caller ID to make sure it wasn’t Rox or Eddie. It was Lucille, probably calling about some juicy rumor, so I let it go to voice mail.

  While Marietta beamed, my stomach churned because never ever had she made good decisions with her money.

  “How much are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Not a lot. Fourteen thousand now and another fourteen after the New Year.” She winked. “Have to be savvy about gift taxes, you know.”

  Since when was she savvy about any of this stuff? This had to be Barry’s influence on her thinking.

  “That’s a lot of money to me.” And interestingly, it added up to the sticker price showing through that envelope.

  My former teacher was a lot sneakier than I had given him credit for.

  “My darling, do you know how much they paid me for my last movie? It’s a drop in the bucket.”

  Whoa. That must have been some big bucket.

  Marietta locked onto my gaze. “So, you see? You really did buy that nice car out there with your own money. As of January first. I just sort of floated you a loan in the meantime.”

  “That’s a creative way of looking at it,” I said while my phone lit up with another call. Criminy, Lucille!

  “It was Barry’s idea because once the house closes, we’re going to have a lot more money than I’ll be able to spend anytime soon.”

  I found that difficult to believe.

  “Let me get this so that she’ll stop calling.” I pressed my phone to my ear. “What?!”

  “It’s about danged time. I’ve been calling and calling,” Lucille huffed.

  “I know. I’ve been a little busy. What’s going on?”

  “You need to get your hiney to the cafe. Something’s going down!”

  Chapter Thirty

  I WASN’T SURE what I would be walking into when I stepped through the front door of Duke’s Cafe. Pretty much all the tables were occupied by the regulars who made going out for breakfast a weekend ritual, so that seemed normal.

  The same could be said for the hum of friendly chatter, the silver bell jingling behind me, and the mouth-watering aroma of bacon grease assailing my nostrils.

  I didn’t see anything to clue me into what might be going on until Leland Armistead started waving his napkin at me from the nearby table he was sharing with Althea and Mavis.

  “Good morning,” I said, stepping up to their table, where it appeared they were almost finished with their eggs and pancakes. “How’s everyone doing this sunny Saturday?” Anything going down with you guys?

  “We are very well.” Leland’s eyes narrowed behind his heavy-framed glasses. “And happy to see you, Miz Charmaine, because there’s a curious meetin’ goin’
on over there.” He looked past me. “At least I find it quite curious given our prior conversations.”

  With syrup on her lips, Althea turned to Mavis sitting next to her. “Are we missing a … m-meeting or something?”

  “No, honey.” Mavis patted her sister’s hand while shaking her head at Leland. “I think our friend here is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

  I snuck a peek to check out the molehill, but I didn’t see anything more interesting than Arlene, the senior center activity director, meeting with two members of her staff near the side window.

  Leland winked at me. “I don’t know. Seems to me we’ve had some interestin’ goings-on of late,” he said, holding out his cup for a refill from the waitress squeaking in our direction.

  As Lucille rounded the table to slosh foul brew into their three cups, she drilled me with a scowl. “You’re needed in the kitchen.”

  Since I didn’t know what the heck was going on, I smiled politely and played dumb. Which wasn’t a stretch this morning. “Looks like she might put me to work, so I’ll stop back to see how you’re doing later.”

  Leland reached for the sugar. “I’m holdin’ you to that, Miz Charmaine. Because I don’t plan on leavin’ anytime soon.”

  Okay, this clever old dude had to have seen the same thing that Lucille had called me about, so I didn’t hesitate to follow her into the kitchen to get up to speed.

  Hot on her heels, I waved to Hector Avocato, Duke’s long-time weekend manager, behind the grill.

  His head turned as we blasted by. “Querida, what’s the rush? You want some bacon and eggs, or are you still on your diet?”

  Like most everyone who worked in this cafe, he knew my habits way too well. “I—”

  Lucille grabbed my denim jacket sleeve. “She’s a little busy right now.”

  “Maybe later,” I said over my shoulder while she pulled me back to Alice’s worktable.

  Lucille peered into the restroom near the back door and then eased herself down on the closest stool. “Okay, the coast is clear.”