“What’s back there?” She pointed at the wooden folding doors sealing the living room arch.
“That’s where your aunt Jade lives. The rest of the house is ours.” He walked over to the monstrous brick fireplace, thinking that it, like the oak tree, was as big as he remembered. “So, Shelly,” he said, seeing that his daughter was peering up the stairwell, “how do you like the house?”
Shelly replied with a sullen glare, but Cody came running out of the dining room, calling, “It’s great!” He crossed to the fireplace, tried to look up the chimney, then moved to one of the built-in bookcases beside it and counted the shelves, patting all the ones he could reach. Rick hoped he didn’t accidentally find the secret latch that would open it, and resolved to fill both cases with books as soon as possible.
Shelly snapped her gum. “This place is boring,” she said, popping her gum. “It’s totally dead.”
Silently Rick counted to ten. “Give it a chance, Shel.”
“I hate it here.” Snap. Snap.
I will not blow up I will not blow up I will not blow up. “Please, Shelly,” he said, trying to sound patient and understanding. “Give it a chance.” She’s just left all her friends behind in Vegas, he told himself again. Friends like Starman the Bellboy and Lil and that girl gang she ran with. Okay, not a gang exactly, but he didn’t like the way they all wore at least two pierced earrings in each ear. Several had nose piercings, too. It wasn’t natural. At least he’d removed his daughter before she’d put extra holes in her lobes. Probably. Casually he tried to catch a glimpse of her ears.
“What?” she whined, catching his gaze.
“Nothing.” Her ears were hidden in her hair. Probably just as well, he decided. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Where’s my bedroom?” Cody asked.
“Shall we go upstairs and pick one out?”
“Yeah!”
“I’m choosing mine first,” Shelly announced. “I’m older.”
“Shelly,” he said evenly. “I thought you might like the big bedroom in front.”
The room he and Robin had shared was the second largest in the house, and in deference to his old fears, he decided that, for his own piece of mind, it would be best not to put a male Piper in that room. For Shelly, however, it would be perfect. “It’s nice and airy,” he told her. “You’ll like it.”
“Is it the biggest bedroom?”
“Except for the master suite, and I’m taking that,” he said firmly.
“I don’t want it if it’s got stupid paint.”
“You can choose your own paint, dear heart,” he said, knowing he’d live to regret his words. No doubt she’d choose black.
She nodded. “Show me.”
Rick walked up the stairs, Cody dancing ahead, Shelly dragging behind. With every step he saw new projects, from replacing the worn carpeting to replacing a missing bracket on the dark mahogany handrail. At the top of the stairs, he set the carrier down and opened its door. Tentatively Quint peered out, took a step, two, sniffing, then all at once, took off down the hall.
“Dad?”
“What, Shelly?”
“Which way is the room?”
“It’s right there,” he said, leading her to the first door on the right.
She pushed it open and walked in. Then he heard her moan. “Gawd, this is gross.”
“Of course it’s gross,” he said, irritated.
“What?” she whined.
“Nothing.” He entered the room, not remembering the cowboy wallpaper until he saw it. He’d loved it, but it explained Shelly’s reaction to the room.
“It’s just the same as it was when I was little,” he said softly. “But we’ll take care of that, pronto, Shelly. First project, I promise.”
She didn’t answer, and he just stood there, staring, and feeling far less fear than he’d expected. He remembered being terrified here, between Robin’s tricks and the greenjack stories, but now it was just a room that he’d shared with his brother until Carmen and Hector moved into the cottage and he inherited her room. He’d rarely entered this room after he was nine or ten years old.
“Daddy!”
He turned to see Cody behind him, grinning like he’d won the lottery. “What, Cody?”
“Please, I want the cowboy room! I love it! Please!”
Damn. “Cody, we’ll put new wallpaper—with cowboys or spacemen or dinosaurs, anything you want—in any other room. I think your sister needs this great big room. She has so many clothes that she’ll want that whole wall of closets.”
“He can have it,” Shelly mumbled as she turned and left the room.
Thanks a lot. “Cody? Wouldn’t you rather have new wallpaper? This is kind of dirty and old. Look, there’s a rip in it.”
The rip—a gouge, really—was right over his old bed. Sudden images assaulted his brain, visions of Robin sitting on his chest in the dark, grinning and giggling and stabbing a butcher knife at the wall above his head.
Are you scared, icky Ricky? Gonna wet your pants, little brother?
No, Rick told himself, this is just another example of your oversensitivity. Robin had been teasing him with a toy knife, a rubber dagger, and he’d twisted the memory into something that had never happened.
Then how did it gouge the wallpaper?
“I don’t care about an old rip. I want this room. I like it. I really, really, really like it.” Cody showed his dimples.
“But . . . why? I’ll get you new wallpaper.”
“I like it because you had it when you were little. Please, Daddy?”
He was about to arbitrarily say no, but common sense made him hesitate. What could it hurt? Even if the knife had been real—and of course it wasn’t—what did it matter now? Robin was gone and the past was . . . the past. Cody knew nothing of Rick’s twin or of the greenjack stories. “Sure,” he said, finally. “I guess you can have this room if you really want it.”
His newfound nonchalance deserted him as he spoke the words, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Grow up, Piper!
“The rooms all suck.”
“Shelly, you’re back.”
“I guess I’ll take the one at the end of the hall. The one with the bathroom.”
“Sorry, kid. That’s the master suite. It’s mine.”
“You said I had first choice.”
“I also said the master is mine.”
“I’m the girl, I should get the bathroom.”
He grinned at her. “But I’m the grown-up.”
If looks could kill. “That’s not fair.”
“Fairness has nothing to do with it, darling. This is a family, not a democracy.”
“But I should get the bathroom. I’m the girl—”
“And when you’re the girl—woman—paying the bills, you’ll get to claim the room with the bath.”
She set her lips in a thin line. “Maybe I’ll run away.”
One. Two. He wouldn’t lose his temper. Three. Four. Maybe he would. Five. Six. Running away was a new threat.
Seven. Eight. Maybe he should just give her the suite. Nine. Maybe he should send her to a nunnery. Or a military school. Ten.
“You may choose from any of the other bedrooms on this floor,” he said, surprised and pleased at the firm finality in his voice.
She tried to make him spontaneously combust with her eyes. “Then I’ll take the yellow one. The one as far away from you as possible.”
“That’s fine, Shelly. As I said, you can choose your paint.” He smiled pleasantly. “Anything but black.”
She moaned and rolled her eyes, then flounced out after he complimented her, quite sincerely, on her uncanny imitation of Lurch on The Addams Family.
A moment later, Rick realized that she’d chosen Carmen’s old room, the one that would allow her the most freedom. Its door was around the corner from the main hallway, and the kitchen staircase was immediately accessible. He almost went after her, suspecting that her prime moti
vation in making the choice was the ease with which she could sneak out of the house. Don’t accuse her unjustly, he told himself, knowing that, not only would he feel terrible for misjudging her, but that he didn’t want to plant the idea in her head if she hadn’t thought of it herself.
“I’m starved!” Cody yanked Rick’s hand insistently. “I wanna eat.”
“Well, then, we’d better feed you.” Rick checked his watch. It was almost two in the afternoon, and he wondered how the kid had held out so long. Excitement, maybe.
Although Shelly had her license, he had never let her drive the Celica in Vegas. He made a few brownie points with her now by asking her to drive into town and pick up lunch. It was miraculous how her sullenness let up as he dangled the keys over her hand.
12
McDonald’s had never smelled so good. When Shelly returned a half hour later bearing burgers, fries, and chocolate shakes, Rick was pleased to see that his daughter was actually working at maintaining her sour attitude. He detected a trace of enthusiasm lurking behind her studiously indifferent stare and Walkmanned ears.
They ate in the kitchen, which still had the yellow spoon-and-fork wallpaper Rick had helped his mom put up at age five or six. The 1950s round-shouldered refrigerator, gingerbread trim above the window over the sink, and yellow and white counter tile gave the room a kitschy look, as if it had been done over by a nostalgia nut. Rick liked it very much, but he always had: It reminded him of his mother.
The cat, lured downstairs by the perfume of Big Macs, made its grand entrance shortly after they opened the sacks. After taking his due, a quarter of a patty and a piece of bun, the cat stalked back into the dining room.
“ ’Scuse me a minute.” Rick shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth and followed Quint, somewhat concerned about hidden poodles and open windows. There didn’t seem to be any, but when the animal came to the closed doors to Jade’s quarters, it sniffed, put its ears back, and growled, then assumed the imbecilic openmouthed, cross-eyed position of felines who didn’t like the smell of something. Obviously Quint didn’t like poodles.
Rick chuckled, until the cat suddenly turned around and sprayed the entry doors with everything he had, not once, but twice.
“Quint!” Rick scolded. The cat’s acknowledgment was a scathing glance, then it flicked its tail, cat for fuck you, and marched back upstairs.
Rick looked around for something he could use to wipe up the urine, secretly pleased with the cat’s editorial comment. Locating a box of Kleenex on a lamp table, he took a handful and wiped up the mess. Rising, he looked around to make sure the kids weren’t watching, then tried the center latch on Jade’s doors. It was locked from the inside, which was just as well: A herd of dead poodles lurked within, and he didn’t want his son discovering them by himself.
“Dad?”
At Shelly’s voice, he whirled guiltily.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He hid the wadded Kleenex in his hand, feeling like he’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Can I take the car again? I’d like to drive by the high school.” She gave him a killer smile.
“Well,” Rick began as Cody bounded by on the way back up to his new room, “I don’t know . . .”
“I won’t be too long, I promise, and I’ll be really, really careful.”
“I guess it would be okay,” he said finally. He knew her charm tactics were purely false, a manipulation she knew would work, but as he handed her the keys, he told himself that the sooner she got to know her new home, the sooner her pleasantness wouldn’t be an act.
“Thanks, Daddy!”
He watched her drive off, then headed back up the stairs, deciding it was time to investigate the so-in-demand master suite. He paused to check on Cody, who was happily counting sheriff’s badges on the wallpaper, then continued on to the suite.
They died in there . . .
He swallowed hard, staring at the closed double doors. Why did he want this room, with its horrible memories, memories he’d never been able to block, no matter how hard he tried?
Perhaps it was a knee-jerk thing: This was the grown-ups’ room, after all. Or maybe it was the fact that there were good memories associated with it too. That was it. He smiled with the realization that Cody wanted his old bedroom, dingy cowboy wallpaper and all, for the same reason he wanted this one: because it was his parents’ room.
He felt like he was six years old again as he opened the doors. The room was nearly as large as he remembered, with shining hardwood floors beneath scattered braid rugs, and aging white curtains over the windows. The double bed was the same one his parents had slept in.
The murder bed.
He shut off the thought. It was the same 1940s waterfall headboard, but a different mattress, not his parents’ mattress. This mattress had a history he didn’t want to think about for various tawdry reasons, the primary one being that it had been Jade and Howard Ewebean’s conjugal bed for many a year, and the secondary being the occasional, unthinkable visitors Jade had invited into it.
Robin’s riding the range tonight, Ricky, boy, hi ho, Silver! You don’t know what you’re missing!
He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it.
Disgusted, he studied the yellow hobnailed bedspread. It belonged to the Ewebeans. The stories it could tell. His parents had a handmade quilt, with a white background emblazoned with a blue and green wedding ring pattern, It had been stained and sodden with blood the night he found them.
At least you don’t believe in ghosts, Piper. Purposefully he crossed the room, flopped down on the bed, and found the mattress to be an unendurable landscape of hills and valleys. Too small, too. He was used to his king-sized water bed, warm in winter, cool in summer, and only fifty percent waveless because he’d decided a little sloshing would keep him young. He stared at the ceiling and decided that the minute the furniture arrived, he’d get rid of the dark forties stuff and install his smooth bleached oak furnishings, his spread and curtains. It had all been dearly acquired on Gallery Road in Santa Fe, southwestern as all get-out and perfect for this house, primarily because it would help exorcise the memories of his parents’ murder.
“Merowlll.” Quint thunked his feline bulk onto the bed and nonchalantly padded onto Rick’s stomach, centering himself. The cat hooked Rick into his stern orange-eyed gaze, and began kneading some serious bread in the breastbone region.
He scratched Quint behind the ears. He had the right idea, and Rick decided to take a lesson from the animal and make this house his own. He’d put his mark on it just as surely as Quint had on Jade’s doors, though, he amended, with perhaps a tad more savoir faire.
He smiled, comfortable for the first time since they’d arrived. Gently Rick pulled the fuzzy paws forward, and the cat settled down, eyes dosing, purr rumbling. A nightly ritual done in daylight, he thought as his eyelids drooped, a good omen or not?
13
“Oow! Jesus! Get off me!” Rick’s eyes flew open to see the cat, ears back, tail huge, clinging like Velcro to his chest. Its claws sank deeper into his chest as Rick tried to pull it free.
“Damn it, Quint! Get off me!” He shoved the cat, and this time the claws ripped free, taking skin and cloth with them. “Damn! Jesus Christ!” Quint hissed and sprang away. A moment later, low growling commenced beneath the bed.
Rubbing his chest, Rick sat up and looked around the shadowed room, disoriented, his brain muddled with sleep. “Be quiet!” he whispered, but Quint ignored him, and continued to growl steadily. Rick’s mind started clicking things into place, and suddenly registered alarm. The last time Quint had acted like that was when a burglar had broken into the apartment. Swinging his feet off the bed, he thought
Robin!
Rationality took over an instant later, and disgusted with his first reaction, he crossed the room and switched on the light. His watch read five o’clock—he’d been asleep for more than two hours. Where was Cody? Shelly? His car? He hadn’t meant to leave them alo
ne.
The cat’s growl suddenly swelled, almost covering the sound of a door opening downstairs, and volleys of high-pitched yipping heralding the arrival of Aunt Jade and her poodles. “Lord, give me strength,” he whispered as Quint swatted the heel of his shoe from beneath the bed. The cat was going completely out of its mind now, making high-pitched growling-yowling-chewing noises full of evil intent. “Come on, kitty,” he coaxed. “Calm down. They’re just dogs. They’re no match for you.”
Quint, always a smart cat, huffed a couple times, then quieted.
“Cody!” Carmen’s contralto overrode the yapping. “Hi, Cody!” As Rick straightened his clothes and combed his hair, he heard his son say something, though Rick couldn’t make out the words. An instant later, hands clapped, once, twice, and Carmen snapped a command in Spanish that Rick recognized from his childhood. She’d told Jade it meant “Hush, love pups,” but the true translation was something like “Shut up, you stinking little turds!”
Next he recognized Jade’s gratingly nasal voice complaining about something. Knowing Jade, it concerned the presence of a child in her house.
My house, Rick corrected. And the old bitch is razzing my son. That, he decided, as he closed his bedroom door and headed for the stairs, wouldn’t happen more than once. Jade had been the evil stepmother incarnate and had made his childhood miserable. Not Robin’s, just his. Robin had entertained her. “You bitch,” he muttered, reaching the stairs. The fear she had instilled in him as a child had turned to hatred about the time puberty hit. And that was good because if he’d had anything more to be afraid of, he would have lost his mind.
“Ricky?” Carmen called as the poodles renewed their yapping. Steeling himself, he reached the bottom of the stairs. Here we go, he thought, stepping into the living room. Show time.
“Daddy!” Cody, safe in Carmen’s arms, giggled happily “Lookit! Those are the doggy rats you told me about in the car, huh, Daddy?”
Carmen grinned as she approached him. Transferring Cody to her ample hip, she hugged Rick with her free arm, then soundly kissed his cheek. “You’re so handsome, Ricky. So handsome.”
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