Almost True Confessions

by Jane O'Connor

  “Can’t be. She’s dead.”

  “So are you,” Rannie hissed. As she forcefully steered Harriet to their table, Rannie cast a backward glance. Tim’s eyes were scanning the pavilion, then head tilted downward, he nodded ever so slightly. Rannie realized he was listening to somebody—L. C. King related—via earphone.

  “So what was that for?” Rannie fumed once they were seated.

  “What was what for?”

  “ ‘Officer Butler’? I clearly remember telling you he was no longer a cop.” Naturally she had deleted the minor detail that killing his pregnant wife while driving drunk was what ended his career in law enforcement.

  “I was being polite!” Harriet glanced up at the waiter hovering at her shoulder and shielded her plate from the arugula salad being offered.

  “Come off it, Mother. Being disingenuous doesn’t suit you.”

  “Oh, you and your fancy five-dollar words.”

  “Okay. I’ll put it more plainly. It was a put-down and he knew it because one thing you’re not is subtle.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  “You do too! He’s not Jewish. He’s not a professional. He’s not from Shaker Heights. So in your book he doesn’t rate.” Rannie scowled at her salad plate and savagely speared a slice of Bosc pear.

  The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, Rannie somehow staining the hot pink sash with the dill sauce that accompanied the salmon.

  “Yoo-hoo!” Immediately Harriet flagged a waiter and attempted to remove the stain with a napkin soaked in the club soda that was brought to the table. Rannie swatted away her mother’s hands. “Stop it! I’m not ten!”

  “Suit yourself!” Harriet said. “But you’ll regret it. . . . Nothing works better than club soda. Nothing!”

  Their nearest seatmates—two elderly couples, the ladies sparkling in the sort of important jewelry that Tim was here to protect—averted their eyes from the squabbling.

  “You love him,” Harriet stated.

  Rannie didn’t reply. Was that true? She certainly didn’t like getting dumped. But love? Interesting that Harriet didn’t say, “You’re in love with him.” Harriet was astute, give her that. After the divorce, Harriet had summed up Rannie’s attraction to Peter Lorimer succinctly: “He was the anti-Cleveland.” Rannie had spent all her thirty health-insured therapy sessions parsing that one sentence.

  “He loves you.”

  “Please. You met him for all of a minute.”

  “Some things are obvious.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.” In fact, if Harriet was right, Rannie was even surer of that. “I loved booze, really loved it,” he’d admitted early on to her. “And I miss it every single day.” Equating herself with alcohol sounded overly dramatic, but there were parallels. Once Tim made a decision to give up something that he’d determined was bad for him, he stuck to it, no backward glances.

  At almost the exact same time the quartet of tablemates left, Nate and Olivia appeared and occupied two of the empty seats. “Some old guy took our picture! Said he was from the Times,” Olivia told them excitedly as she and Nate proceeded to dig into two plates of profiteroles. “We had to give him our names and sign a release.”

  All chitchatting ceased the moment Thomas Campbell, the boyish-looking director of the museum, rose first to thank Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue sitting on his left, for organizing the event, and then turning to his right he continued, “Museumgoers have the Cummings family to thank for funding the dazzling exhibit—‘Hollywood Heroines’—you all had the pleasure of previewing earlier this evening. Charlotte Cummings supported the work of the Costume Institute since its beginning in 1980. Without her unflagging generosity we would not be here tonight.” These last words had been addressed to his other dinner companion. Bibi Gaines.

  “Barbara Gaines told me that her grandmother would insist on her being here tonight. Thank you so much for joining us.”

  Bibi nodded and remained seated while en masse the crowd stood, Harriet grousing about her bunions, and offered up tribute applause. Among the assembled, nearly every woman under fifty was buff enough to have bare arms. Bibi, however, was appropriately subdued in a long-sleeved black gown with a high neckline.

  Campbell leaned down for a moment to exchange cheek kisses with Bibi. “I was privileged to share a glass of champagne with Charlotte Cummings on several occasions,” he said, “and so I propose that we all raise a glass to that grand, unforgettable lady.”

  Immediately a squadron of waiters distributed flutes to all. Nate and Olivia downed the champagne before the toast was even over. Rannie didn’t bother scolding; her attention was focused on Bibi Gaines, who was clinking glasses with the museum director and downing the contents of her glass as well.

  Of course her flute could have been filled with sparkling cider or ginger ale. In all probability it was.

  Ten minutes later, Rannie and Harriet left the Temple of Dendur, in advance of the entertainment portion of the evening, a West Indian rapper whom Nate and Olivia were eager to hear. Rannie scanned the crowd for one last glimpse of Tim Butler. It was in vain.

  In less than hour both Rannie and her mother were asleep, having retreated to their separate beds, the air between them still full of frost. The last thing Harriet said was, “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I’m on the nine o’clock flight.”

  Chapter 21

  I don’t do well at funerals,” Daisy stated ominously as Rannie assisted her up the church steps, one by one, slowly and tentatively. At the top, Daisy stopped. She was leaning on her cane, breathing heavily. Somehow, in the process of getting out of the cab, her hat, a black velvet newsboy cap, had tilted sideways; it was an unusual look. Sort of Dowager in the ’Hood. Rannie made sure her own hat—she’d ended up in the Mamie Eisenhower yarmulke after all—was in place and in they went.

  While Daisy rummaged through her handbag for the tickets, Rannie had a moment to take in the soaring Gothic expanse of Saint Thomas Church. Sequins of colored light from the panels of stained glass along the north wall spangled the tile floor. Crimson, sea green, turquoise, deep sapphire blue.

  It was a little surreal to be attending Charlotte Cummings’s funeral, almost like stepping into the pages of Portrait of a Lady. Here Rannie was at the very event that should have served as the final chapter in Ret’s book except that Ret had gone and gotten murdered before she could write it.

  “Here.” Daisy thrust an envelope at one of the ushers, an envelope with “Mrs. Dorothy Satterthwaite and Guest” written in calligraphy on the front. The usher, dressed in a morning coat with a yellow freesia pinned to the lapel, glanced at the tickets and beckoned them down the center aisle of the nave. Maroon velvet ropes cordoned off the rows nearest the altar and the canopied pulpit, all of carved wood. He stopped, however, well short of the restricted VIP area, at a row that in a Broadway theater would have corresponded to rear orchestra.

  “You and your guest have the aisle seat and one in, Mrs. Satterthwaite,” he murmured in a hushed tone.

  “Oh, no. There must be some mistake!” Daisy informed him. “I’m sure that Charlotte wouldn’t want me back here.”

  The usher, looking flummoxed, had no answer.

  “I see two of Charlotte’s nurses several rows ahead.” Daisy motioned with a gloved hand. “Has Barbara Gaines taken it upon herself to change the seating plan?”

  Rannie touched the sleeve of Daisy’s Autumn Haze mink. “Sitting here will make it much easier to leave once the service is over. You won’t have to walk far or deal with the crowd.”

  That mollified Daisy somewhat. The usher handed them each a memorial program with a photo of Charlotte Cummings on the front and beat a hasty retreat.

  Once free of her fur, Daisy settled herself in the pew and with a suspicious eye surveyed the mourners streaming into the church—the men in suits that were all small miracles of tailoring, the ladies in hats and somberly chic dresses and jackets. Rannie spotted Olivia’s pa
rents, her dad with his slicked-back, hedge-fund hair and Carole Werner, whose toothy smile was subdued for the occasion, pausing to say hello to people she knew. A velvet rope was unhooked to allow the Werners entry to seats way up in front.

  “I don’t recognize a soul. They must all be people Barbara knows.” Implicit in her tone was that “people Barbara knew” did not measure up. Then complaining that “it’s like an oven in here,” Daisy began fanning herself furiously with the funeral program, pausing only to draw in a loud noseful of air and exhale it dramatically.

  Between her mother and Daisy, Rannie had had quite enough of crotchety old biddies. Nevertheless, she made a game attempt to distract Daisy with small talk. “Oh! Isn’t this interesting? The program says Charlotte Cummings was born the same year that construction of this building began. The old church had to be rebuilt after a fire.”

  Daisy paid no heed. She stopped fanning for a second and turned to the back of the program. “Lord, no! The reception is at the University Club. I don’t know what they do there to make all the food so constipating.”

  At eleven on the dot, church bells started to toll, momentarily silencing Daisy. When the ringing ended, Bibi Gaines was escorted to her front-row seat. Whereas last night at the Metropolitan Museum she had worn stark black, this morning she was outfitted in a bright yellow wool suit and hat.

  “She looks like a stick of margarine!” Daisy muttered.

  Then the rector entered from the back, in richly brocaded vestments, followed by eight pallbearers who carried the coffin on a brass-railed litter. Among the pallbearers, Rannie immediately recognized two former mayors and a world-famous tenor.

  The church was filled to capacity; even the galleries upstairs were packed. An organ began playing something somber and magisterial, the notes reverberating off the stonework in a way that made Rannie feel as if the music was echoing inside her.

  It was beautiful, all the pageantry, yet Rannie experienced no spiritual stirring any more than she had at Ret’s bleak, no-frills send-off at the convent. In fact, not since Yale when she’d taken a course called Religion and Existentialism had Rannie spent any serious time pondering Big Questions—Does God exist? Do I have a soul? What is the meaning of life? At forty-three she found it hard enough just dealing with the here and now without stopping to worry about the hereafter. “I am a deeply shallow person,” she once told Tim and meant it.

  The service was a soup-to-nuts Anglican requiem mass. Throughout it, Daisy kept complaining. The men’s choir wasn’t singing any of the hymns she liked. The rector was mumbling, it was impossible to understand a word out of his mouth. Not until the reading of the Twenty-Third Psalm did Daisy finally zip it for a while.

  It was the only psalm that Rannie knew by heart, required to memorize it her first year at Anshe Chesed temple Sunday school. “Why does it say ‘Yay’ in the part about ‘walking through the Valley of Death’?” seven-year-old Rannie once had asked in the car on the way home. “What’s there to cheer about?”

  Betsy had cracked up. Amy said, “It’s not ‘Yay’ like ‘Hip, hip, hooray,’ you moron!”

  “Amy, don’t speak to your sister like that! Betsy, stop laughing this instant!” Harriet had commanded from the driver’s seat before clarifying the meaning for Rannie. “I love the Twenty-Third Psalm. It’s about how God is always there to comfort and protect us.”

  The funeral for Charlotte Cummings had begun at eleven. So right about now Harriet was touching down on the tarmac at Cleveland airport. This morning, Rannie had awakened at a little past seven to find her mother already dressed with suitcase packed and the pullout returned to sofa mode, all the used bedding neatly folded and stacked on an armchair.

  They were stiffly cordial over breakfast.

  “I’ll wake Nate so he can say good-bye.”

  “No. Let him sleep. Who knows what time he came in last night.”

  Soon Harriet was checking to make sure all essentials were in her handbag. “I don’t know what I did with my little hairbrush; it’s a collapsible one, white plastic. If you find it, keep it till the next time we see each other, whenever that may be.”

  This was not how Rannie wanted the visit to end. All of a sudden she remembered the picture frame with seashells, the one from Bibilots.

  “Wait. Hold it a sec!” The present was on a shelf in her bedroom closet.

  “For you.” With a flourish Rannie presented the pink-and-white-wrapped box to Harriet. “It made me think of those days on Cape Cod, shell hunting.”

  Rannie watched a look of surprised pleasure spread across her mother’s face when she opened the box. “I love it!” she exclaimed. “Weren’t those vacations wonderful? Remember the house with the big porch and all the rosebushes out front? The one in Chatham.” Harriet pressed the frame against her bosom. “I know just the picture to put in here; it’s one of you jumping waves with Daddy.” Suddenly Harriet looked uncharacteristically contrite. “Oh, Rannie, last night. It was such a stupid, rude remark. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I’m turning into a mean old lady. And I won’t blame it on my feet, though they were killing me.”

  “I overreacted. It’s forgotten, Mom. Truly.”

  Harriet put down the frame and they hugged. “This visit was special,” Harriet murmured.

  Rannie pulled back a little and planted a kiss on her mother’s well-moisturized cheek. “Yes, and we have JDate to thank for it.”

  Downstairs, as she stepped into a cab, Harriet spoke words that sounded rehearsed. “I will keep reminding myself that what I want for you is not what you want for yourself.” She buckled her seat belt, then looked up and cocked an eye at Rannie. “Just one thing. Is Dad’s watch really being repaired?”

  Rannie bristled, then caved. “Okay. Full disclosure. I got mugged. Right on this block.”

  To her credit, Harriet managed to hold her tongue. She blew a kiss to Rannie and the taxi took off.

  The Gentlemen of the Choir, in their white surplices and black robes, were midway through “Amazing Grace” when someone in the row behind tapped Rannie on the shoulder. She turned. A man was whispering something to her. He was attractive in a generic way with longish shiny brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses.

  “Excuse me,” Rannie whispered back.

  “Your friend.” He motioned to Daisy.

  Daisy had listed to the side, her eyes at half-mast, only the whites showing. Her breathing was ragged. Was she asleep or having a heart attack? Oh my fucking God. What was the protocol here?

  (A) Try not to make a scene.

  (B) Try not to let Daisy die.

  Rannie gripped Daisy by the arm and shook her. In a moment, Daisy startled and her lids fluttered open. She trained an unfocused gaze on Rannie. “My purse,” she slurred. Rannie grabbed it, expecting to discover a nitro tablet. Nope. Only a lipstick tube, a silver flask, a twenty, and an almost empty pack of Camels. Then, hallelujah, under a wrinkled hankie, a little brown glass vial. Smelling salts, the same kind Mary carried with her.

  Once uncorked and passed beneath Daisy’s nostrils a couple of times, the smelling salts did the trick. Daisy sat up straighter and began fanning herself again with the program.

  “I’m calling 911,” Rannie stated.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Just get me outside. All I need is some air.”

  The choir sang on while the guy with the good hair came to their aid. He hoisted Daisy to her feet and, with remarkable ease considering he was dealing with at least a hundred and sixty pounds of almost deadweight old lady, maneuvered Daisy down the aisle and through the doors, where he lowered her into a sitting position on the front steps.

  “Put your head down. Take deep breaths,” he instructed while Rannie stood by with Daisy’s things.

  “Oh, honestly, stop the fussing,” Daisy said and snatched her purse from Rannie.

  All it took was an open flask and a lit cigarette to fully restore her, Daisy alternating between sips, actually snorts, from one and deep Tallula
h Bankhead drags from the other. “I’m ready to leave now,” she announced. “And, Rannie, don’t dare utter the word ‘hospital.’ I’m going home.”

  The guy and Rannie looked at each other and shrugged simultaneously. “One last favor,” Rannie asked. “Would you call a cab for us?”

  “Take my car. I insist.”

  Even before Rannie could launch into an obligatory “Oh, we couldn’t possibly” refusal, his phone was out and he was instructing someone to drive around to the front of the church on Fifth Avenue. “You’re to drop off two ladies at . . .” He turned to Rannie questioningly.

  Rannie supplied the address.

  “Seven Forty Park Avenue. Then come back to the church and wait till I call again.”

  While listening to these brisk directives, it struck Rannie that although the guy’s face wasn’t familiar, his voice—well modulated, faintly British, rich in timbre—was. Where might she have heard it? . . . Maybe he did voice-overs for ads on TV, ones for investment banks or high-end automobiles . . . or was he the host of some NPR radio show?

  Less than a New York minute later, a car service SUV pulled to the curb. A husky driver in a black coat jumped out, bounded up the steps, and, sizing up the situation, took charge of Daisy. “Just lean on me, ma’am. I’ll have you in the car and home in a flash.”

  That left Rannie to offer thanks. “Considering where we are, I guess it’d be sacrilegious to call you our savior.”

  He awarded Rannie with a tight smile, which instantly made her feel gauche for punning. “Seriously, I’m awfully grateful for your help with Mrs. Satterthwaite,” and then she added, “I’m Miranda Bookman, by the way.” At Charlotte Cummings’s funeral, only her proper name would do.

  “F. Anthony Weld.” He pronounced Anthony in the British fashion with a hard T.

  It wasn’t until the SUV was making its way up Park Avenue, Daisy sucking on another Camel, that Rannie put it together. The name. The voice. And the face that Rannie had seen from a distance in a darkened auditorium at Yale. It was the guy whose lecture Alice had snoozed through. The art restorer.