A Stiff Critique

by Jaqueline Girdner

  “I get it,” I said, adding ice to my tone.

  Apparently I hadn’t added enough ice. He stuck one foot through the doorway.

  I stepped in front of him quickly, blocking his path.

  “It’s late,” I told him. “And you’d better take those flowers home before they wilt.”

  “But they’re for you,” he insisted, his voice too high. His eyes were wide again.

  “Craig, it won’t work—”

  “Just kidding,” he assured me, smiling gamely. “I’m going to a fancy-dress dinner. These are the centerpiece.”

  I stared into his eyes for a moment, wondering if it were true. But all I saw was hurt.

  “Then you’d better get going,” I said briskly. “See you later.”

  “I’ve got some more computer gags—”

  “Fine,” I cut him off. “Goodbye.”

  He pulled his foot back through the doorway, still smiling. At least his mouth was smiling. His eyes were those of a dog unjustly accused of carpet molestation, wide with hurt and unceasing devotion.

  I shut the door gently, then double locked it.

  I should have given up and gone to bed then. But I knew I’d never sleep, so I went to my desk instead and worked on my computer-nerd earring designs in an attempt to drive hoods, murder, children on the telephone and ex-husbands from my mind.

  I decided a keyboard hanging from one ear and a terminal hanging from the other might be interesting. I sketched the first draft in exquisite detail, my treat to myself. Then I got real on the second draft. I knew that any design had to be simple enough to be reproduced in inexpensive plastic. At least it had to be if I wanted to actually profit from my work, not to mention paying the salary of my two employees. And the design had to be uncomplicated enough to encourage the paint job to line up with the molded plastic. I had learned that hard lesson early on.

  I let out a little sigh as I worked on my second draft. True, gag gifts weren’t fine art. But occasionally, I still wished that designing didn’t have to be an exercise in compromise as well as drafting.

  A couple of hours later I was dead tired, but I still wasn’t sleepy. I climbed under cool sheets and squirmed with reckless fatigue as I thought about Wayne. I missed him, damn it. I turned over on one side and then the other. After a few more turns, I had managed to short-sheet myself. I tucked the bottom of the sheet back in, then tried a new game, pretending that Wayne was right there by my side. I imagined his curly head lying on the pillow, then his muscular body—

  That was a little too much imagination. My body was responding to his body and he wasn’t even there. I jumped out of bed in frustration and padded into the living room for Slade’s manuscript.

  Cool Fallout kept me up another hour, and I barely made it out of the sixties. I read page after page as the main characters played their parts, selling illegal drugs and enabling draft resisters to escape to Canada. And as I did, Patty Novak and Nan Millard blended in my mind, Patty seeming more interested in Jack Randolph’s family wealth than his leadership of the Brightstar commune and devotion to the cause. And Warren Lee, quiet and spooky as Russell Wu himself, seemed increasingly sinister with each appearance.

  In fact, Brightstar felt less and less like Eden as I turned the pages, and more and more like a dysfunctional family ready to explode. And explode it finally did when Kathy Banks, the woman who would eventually become a Catholic nun, panicked and shot the sheriff who had discovered a few dozen bales of marijuana in the false back of the barn. Brightstar collapsed inward then. Jack Randolph’s charisma couldn’t save it. He didn’t even bother to try. He abandoned ship, slipping out in the excitement, never to return. With his disappearance, the center was gone. And with no center, everyone else scattered.

  In one final, sad scene, Peter Dahlgren drives away from Brightstar, weeping for all the deals he won’t be there to negotiate. And with that final scene, the sixties are irrevocably dead.

  Damn, I thought as I lay the manuscript down by the side of my bed. I’ll never be able to sleep now.

  But I was wrong. I closed my eyes.

  *

  The next thing I knew it was Saturday morning.

  Since it was officially the weekend, I dawdled an extra ten minutes over my soy yogurt and fat-free granola before starting in on my stack of Jest Gifts paperwork.

  The phone rang while I was working on my payroll tax deposit schedule, C.C. perched on the back of my chair. I leapt up, grateful for the intrusion. C.C. dug her claws into the chair as I pushed it back, riding the chair like a rodeo cowboy.

  “Yeehaw!” I encouraged her. I reached for the phone, hoping Wayne would be on the other end. But it was Carrie. “I hesitate to even ask,” she said without any audible hesitation. “But are you coming to the critique group’s regular meeting at my home this afternoon?”

  I looked over at the stack of Jest Gifts paperwork. C.C. meowed sternly.

  “It will be a potluck again,” Carrie coaxed, tempting me further. “You are, of course, exempt from food preparation.”

  In the end, I agreed. I even thought about bringing a poem. For less than an instant. I made a potluck dish, though, a vegetable and rice salad with my own invention, a dressing made from lemon soy yogurt, miso, vinegar, garlic and ginger. It tastes a lot better than it sounds.

  As I minced ginger, I thought about calling Felix for information. Felix was my friend Barbara’s boyfriend and, more importantly, a newspaper reporter with police connections. If there was anything interesting to know about Slade Skinner’s death, he would probably know it. Unfortunately, Felix was less a source of information than an information siphon. And an aggressive information siphon at that. I shook my head and returned my attention to the knife in my hand.

  Once the salad was chilled through, I had no excuse to linger at home.

  “I promise I won’t get in any trouble,” I said to C.C. on the way out the door.

  She turned her back on me and stalked away.

  I shrugged. If C.C. didn’t believe me, she wasn’t the only one. Then I walked slowly down the stairs to my Toyota, taking enough time to feel the heat of the July sun on my shoulders.

  It was two o’clock sharp when I trotted up Carrie’s apple-scented path and rang the bell.

  An explosion of sound answered the ring.

  - Thirteen -

  Basta howled, Sinbad yowled and Yipper yipped as I stood at the front door. But I didn’t have a chance to stick my fingers in my ears before I heard Carrie’s “CEASE AND DESIST!” And then the explosion of sound ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

  Carrie opened the door and peered out at me, blinking in the square of afternoon sunlight that shafted through the doorway. Yipper danced behind her, his claws making skittering noises on the floor while Basta pulled his old basset body up on her left blue-jeaned flank and Sinbad stalked up on her right. Then Carrie smiled, her white teeth a radiant contrast to her dark, freckled skin. No wonder Travis was in love with her. She might have been ten or fifteen years his senior, but the animation in her smile could have lit up the Golden Gate Bridge on a foggy winter’s night.

  “Thank you for coming, friend,” she said solemnly.

  “No problem,” I told her. I put my rice salad down and opened up my arms for the traditional Marin greeting hug. I’m sure anthropologists will study it some day.

  Carrie took a couple of steps forward and we embraced tightly. And this time she lingered, not pulling away immediately like she usually did. At first I assume she was lingering for my benefit, but then a revolutionary idea popped into my mind. Carrie was frightened. She who had saved me from Rosie some twenty years ago was seeking comfort for herself now, like a child seeking reassurance from an adult. I could even feel a tremor in her small, round body.

  My own body stiffened with the realization. I didn’t want Carrie to be frightened. I wanted her to be the rock she had always been.

  She must have felt me stiffen. She dropped her arms and stepped back out
of the embrace amid scurrying animals.

  “Carrie, what are you so afraid of?” I asked.

  Her eyes widened.

  “I am—” she began.

  “Hey, is everything cool out here?” came a deep voice from behind her.

  She jumped and so did I. Even Yipper let out a startled bark. Then Carrie smiled again, a smile even brighter than before, and I wondered for an instant if I had imagined her fear.

  “Everything is perfectly fine, Travis,” she answered, turning her eyes away from me. “It’s my friend Kate.”

  “Hey, Kate,” Travis said and then turned back to Carrie, his face set in its usual handsome scowl. “Listen, Mave says there’s going to be a rally for the homeless on Monday night. The cops have been rousting them in downtown San Ricardo again.” He threw his arms out, looking crucified for an instant. “Like they have any other place to go, you know. And…”

  Carrie shot me a look over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. Then she took Travis’s arm and led him toward the living room as he went on speaking. I followed them and wondered what in hell was scaring Carrie so badly.

  “Well, howdy there, Kate,” Mave greeted me, her raspy voice loud enough to drown out Travis’s for a moment. She was perched on one of Carrie’s cornflower blue sofas in between Joyce Larson and Russell Wu.

  “Hi, Mave,” I replied with a wave in her direction.

  “…and it’s a righteous cause, you know,” Travis continued. He turned toward the occupants of the sofa for support. “Joyce says a lot of the folks they rousted can’t get their meals at the Operation if they can’t stay in the city overnight.”

  Joyce nodded emphatically, her face serious.

  “So how are they supposed to eat?” Travis demanded. He flopped into the easy chair, his arms outstretched in question.

  No one answered him. I wish I could have. I only wish our Government would. At least Joyce was doing good work, I thought with a warm rush of admiration. I studied her serious face, her solemn blue eyes. How many lives had she saved with her work?

  Then I noticed the tilt of Russell’s head on Mave’s other side. He was staring up at me, studying my face as I was studying Joyce’s.

  I pulled my eyes away and looked around the living room. All the furniture, including the two sofas, the easy chair and a few kitchen chairs had been rearranged into a large circle with varying sizes of tables placed in front of most of the seats.

  I might not have even noticed Vicky Andros if I hadn’t been working so hard at not looking in Russell’s direction. She sat waiflike in oversized khakis on one of the kitchen chairs, her bony arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Vicky looked a little like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, only she was too thin for the part. I nodded her way and she nodded back without unwrapping her arms.

  “So how’s our resident poet doing?” Mave asked cheerfully. I jerked my head back to look at her. Did she mean me? She was grinning in my direction. She did mean me.

  “Oh, just fine,” I assured her, smiling back inanely. “No muse today, though. But I guess no muse is good muse—”

  The doorbell rang, detonating the animals again before I could make a complete fool of myself. I took a seat on the unoccupied sofa as gag-gift slogans for poets fluttered and crashed in my mind.

  Carrie left and came back with Donna, who was dressed in a gauzy blouse and slacks today, but still wore the same floor-length sleeveless vest that she’d worn at the last meeting. I held my breath as she stepped forward. Sinbad added to the suspense, slithering in figure-eights around Donna’s ankles.

  But Donna did fine, making her way slowly and carefully into the room without mishap.

  “Hi, everyone,” she sang out gaily. Then she continued her painstaking progress across the room to my sofa. “Mind if I sit next to you?” she whispered, a beseeching look in her honey-colored eyes.

  “Oh sure, have a seat,” I said, then wondered if it might actually be dangerous to have Donna sit next to me.

  Sinbad made one last pass around Donna’s ankle as she was lowering herself onto the sofa. Then the doorbell rang and Sinbad jumped. Donna jumped too and fell the rest of the way onto the sofa with a whumph. I flattened myself against the back cushions.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, sliding as far away from her as I could without actually getting up.

  “Oh, I’m great,” she said with a sweet smile. She moved closer to me. I tried not to cringe. “But I wanted to apologize to you for my dad’s men. I know they can be, well, insensitive. Sometimes I think they don’t understand personal space at all. I know I shouldn’t have—”

  “Kiss, kiss,” Nan interrupted from behind us. I turned in time to see her blow one of those kisses over our heads to the group on the other sofa. Today’s business suit was teal and miniskirted, accented by heaps of heavy silver jewelry. “While all you lazy bums have been enjoying your Saturday, I’ve been out showing hot properties. And selling them! The market is fast these days. Oodles and oodles of money to be made.”

  She sat down on the kitchen chair nearest to Vicky and crossed her long brown legs. Next to Vicky, Nan appeared to be the original California girl, a picture of tan/blond health and vitality. That contrast was probably one of the reasons she chose to sit there, I realized.

  “Well, what’s up?” she asked brightly.

  Carrie sat down in the last available kitchen chair. “Obviously Slade cannot read today as planned,” Carrie said, sweeping the small crowd with her eyes. “And many of us have been unable to review Donna’s manuscript. Luckily, Vicky has agreed to read impromptu today.” She waved her hand in Vicky’s direction. “But I suggest that we talk about Donna’s manuscript first. Apparently, her father’s men visited here last night. The diskette—”

  Travis leapt from his chair. “Here?!” he shouted, throwing his arms up. “They came here again! Carrie, you shoulda told me. I’ll stay here with you. I—”

  “It’s okay, Travis,” Carrie cut in, standing and waving a hand in front of his outraged face. “Everything is fine. I never even saw them.”

  He lowered his arms slowly, then shut his mouth. “Oh,” he said and sat back down. He turned toward Donna. “They got my hard copy and floppy too,” he admitted. “While I was out. Sorry.”

  Carrie took a deep breath and returned to her seat.

  “Oh, no,” said Donna, smiling graciously at Travis. “I’m the one who should be sorry. Well, maybe not sorry, but at least I should be able to learn from my mistakes. And to take responsibility. I shouldn’t have put everyone through this trauma.”

  “No shit,” Nan articulated clearly.

  “But don’t worry,” Donna assured us with a big smile. “I still have my copies. They haven’t found my little hidey-hole yet.”

  “I still have my floppy,” Russell told us quietly. “In a place they won’t be able to find.”

  I opened my mouth to ask him where, then closed it again. It was none of my business where he had hid it. And probably not something that should be mentioned in front of Donna, anyway.

  “I’ve got the hard copy and the floppy hidden,” Joyce added. She didn’t say where, either. Maybe no one trusted Donna with her own secrets.

  “Well, those pesky critters got my hard copy, sure as shootin’,” said Mave. “I didn’t check to see if I still had the floppy, though.” She glared through her glasses fiercely. “We gotta do something about those dirt-bags. They’re getting too big for their britches. Someone’s gotta teach them a lesson.”

  “They stole my floppy,” Vicky said quietly.

  “Mine too,” I chimed in, finally feeling like a member of the group.

  Russell’s head swiveled my way. “They didn’t harm you, did they?” he demanded.

  I shook my head, embarrassed by his intense stare.

  “I saw them, though,” I told him. “When they ran down the stairs.”

  “If you’d like me to stand guard, I’d be happy to,” he offered diffidently. Damn. My favorite susp
ect for murder was offering to protect me.

  “No, no,” I answered, averting my gaze. “I’m fine by myself.”

  “The real question remains,” Carrie reminded us, her tone somber, “did they kill Slade Skinner?”

  “Um, I don’t think so,” Donna said. She looked around the room hesitantly. “See, Frank and Larry aren’t like that. Some of the stuff they do is pretty inappropriate, but not like really violent. I’ve known them both since I was a baby. I talked to them this morning, and Larry said if they were going to kill anyone it would be me—”

  “Oh, how very appropriate,” Nan cut in. “What nice, intelligent men.”

  “They were just talking, just dealing with their angry feelings,” Donna explained. Her eyes opened wide. “They wouldn’t kill me or anyone else. Honestly. And I asked them to swear they hadn’t killed Slade, and they swore.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe them?” Nan demanded.

  “Um, yeah—” Donna began.

  Nan waved a hand in her direction, jingling silver bracelets. “Forget it,” she said. “Good ole Frankie and Johnny didn’t kill Slade—”

  “Frank and Larry,” Donna corrected her.

  Nan whipped her head around to glare at the woman who dared to interrupt.

  “Sorry,” Donna whispered. She lowered her eyes and began to chew on her upper lip.

  “If I may go on,” Nan drawled, and then went on. “The two stooges didn’t kill Slade. Remember, I live across the street from Slade’s. I see a lot on that street and I didn’t see them visit Saturday after the group.” She paused and swept the room with her eyes. Then she smiled. “Which isn’t to say I didn’t see anything.”

  It took a while for her implication to sink into my mind. Russell was faster than I was.

  “If you know anything at all about Slade’s death, it’s not wise to keep it secret,” he cautioned her. His voice was low and hypnotic. “Tell us what you saw now, Nan.”

  But the hypnotic tone did nothing for Nan. She only giggled. “You just want the gory details so you can get a fat contract for your next true-crime book,” she said, pointing her finger. “Well, you’re not getting them from me. Anyway, I didn’t say I knew anything about Slade’s death. So forget it.” Then she stretched, reaching her arms behind her and arching her back. “I’m starving,” she announced. “When are we going to eat?”