by Ann Charles
One more complaint about her driving from the woman next to her and Kate was going to park the car and make her mother walk the last mile to the R.V. park—pleated pants, Gianfranco Ferré pumps, pantyhose, and all. With any luck, her mom would melt before reaching Ruby’s place and the wedding would go off without a hitch.
Silence broken only by the whir of the air conditioner filled the car for the next several minutes.
The need to escape her mother’s presence made Kate’s legs ache, while giddiness at seeing her grandfather and sister made her fingers and toes tingle. Without the two of them living close by over the last few months, South Dakota had seemed washed out, lifeless.
As they drove under the Dancing Winnebagos R.V. Park sign bridging the drive and crossed over a creek lined with willow trees and cottonwoods, Deborah flipped down the visor and checked her appearance in the mirror. Kate watched out of the corner of her eye as her mom added another coat of red lipstick.
She parked in front of the General Store, leaving the car idling so the air conditioner kept running, and turned to her mother. “Okay, Mom. Remember the promise you made as part of the deal of me driving you down here? You swore you’d be on your best behavior for the next few weeks.”
Deborah nodded, her smile wider than normal as a red-haired woman walked out of the store and onto the porch, followed by Gramps. Kate waved through the windshield at the two.
“I’m well aware of what I said, Kathryn,” Deborah said through gritted teeth and reached for the door handle. “Now let’s go talk some sense into your grandfather before that little gold digger gets his ring on her finger and her hands in his bank account.”
Chapter Three
“Claire, get your ass up here!” Gramps yelled from the top of the basement steps, his tone downright grumpy.
Claire frowned at the open doorway of Ruby’s office. What had she done now? Then it hit her.
Mother! Oh, God, Mother!? Norman Bates’s voice echoed in her head.
Claire’s stomach cramped in anticipation. All hell was about to break loose, and here she sat in Ruby’s office, right in the middle of ground zero.
After a half-hour of searching for clues that would explain why someone would break into Ruby’s office and leave thousands of dollars’ worth of rare antiques behind, she had nothing. Nada. Zilch. And now her mother was here, who would undoubtedly make her feel even more like a loser.
She glanced around for a place to hide. The window caught her eye. Could her butt squeeze through that little rectangle? Whoever had broken in through it couldn’t have been packing any extra pounds around the middle.
Grabbing the desk chair, she rolled it below the window. Her flip-flops squeaked against the leather as she tried to balance on the chair, which kept reclining.
After nearly falling ass-over-elbows for the second time, she kicked the chair to the side and pulled the metal trashcan out from under the desk. She dumped the trash on the floor, flipped the can upside down, and crossed her fingers it would hold her weight—plus the three fudge brownies she’d had for a late brunch. Ruby really needed to find another therapeutic release for stress besides baking.
The new window latch unlocked with a click, but when she tried to swing open the hinged window, the sucker refused to budge. She locked and unlocked the latch again, pushing hard on the handle, but the window still wouldn’t open. Gramps must have sealed the window shut after the break-in.
“Shit!” She hopped off the trashcan and ran over to the door, listening for the screeching of fingernails on chalkboard, the sound she associated with her mother’s yelling.
Silence issued from overhead.
Her mother must not have breached Ruby’s sanctuary yet. Maybe she could escape out the back door at the top of the steps.
Claire had one foot on the bottom step when she heard her sister’s forced laughter. Sweat trickled down her back.
Tiptoeing back into the office, she shut the door and looked over at the floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with first edition books and antique box cameras.
Katy, bar the door! Only in this case, her sister would be on the outside.
What the hell. It was worth a try. She could hide out in Ruby’s office until her mom went to sleep, then run like the wind.
She tried to pull the bookcase in front of the door, but it wouldn’t budge thanks to the stupid shag carpeting. Moving around to the other side, she shoved it with her shoulder, the oak cool against her damp skin.
The bookcase slid toward the door several inches, rocking and teetering in the process. Claire caught an Eastman Kodak Brownie camera mid-fall as it slid off a shelf. Placing the camera on Ruby’s desk, she returned to the bookcase, dropped to her knees, and shoved with her shoulder again.
A couple of grunts later, she’d gained almost a foot with four to go. Sweat trickled from her hairline.
The damned bookcase wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry unless she gutted the books and collectibles lining its shelves. She leaned her head against the wood, defeated.
“What are you doing?” Jess’s voice interrupted her pity party.
Claire squeaked in surprise. She frowned at Jess, who stood in the now-open doorway. Damn, she should’ve locked the door.
“I’m just making sure this thing is stable,” she lied. “You never know when an earthquake might rattle this place.”
Jess’s eyebrows arched. “An earthquake? In Arizona?”
“Sure. Fault lines can be found throughout this whole state. Just ask Mac.” As a geotechnician, scientific crap like range-bounding faults and topographic contours were Mac’s idea of breakfast chatter. “Earthquakes happen all of the time. They’re just too weak to be felt.”
Claire grabbed the trashcan and started sweeping the crinkled papers and dust bunnies back into it while avoiding Jess’s gaze. “Did you need me for something?”
“Harley sent me down here. He says you’re supposed to get your butt upstairs right now.”
Claire curled her lip at Gramps’s bossiness. Picking up a partially-wadded letter, she paused when she noticed the gold embossed heading.
Leo M. Scott, Attorney at Law
1435 Chuckwalla Wash Dr.
Tucson, AZ 85520
The greeting was addressed to Mrs. Ruby Martino.
Now what? The woman had been badgered by creditors ever since Joe had died and left her in a landslide of debt without a shovel in sight.
“What are you looking at?” Jess bridged the distance between them.
“Nothing.” Claire shoved the wrinkled letter into her back pocket. Jess had enough angst in her life with hormones kicking in, boys snapping her bra, and the hardware store no longer carrying her favorite sparkly lip gloss. She didn’t need to learn about sharp-toothed lawyers today.
Claire motioned toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Jess sighed. “Grownups suck. They’re always hiding stuff from us teenagers.” She tromped toward the door.
“We live to torture teens.”
Jess paused in the doorway, looking at the bookcase. “Are you going to put that back?”
“Oh, yeah.” The letter had distracted her.
As Claire gripped the side and prepared to lift, she glanced at the wall behind the bookcase. Her breath caught, and not because of the scorpion carcass lying on the carpet. A white metal door, three feet high by three feet wide, had been fitted flush, hinges and all, into the wall.
She leaned down and ran her palm down the smooth surface of the door. Her heart thrummed in her ears. Knowing what she did about Joe’s crooked wheeling and dealing, the goods from King Tut’s tomb could be on the other side of that door.
“What is it?” Jess’s question made her snap upright.
“Just a scorpion carcass.”
With Joe dead, Claire was pretty sure she was now the only one who knew of the door’s existence. Jess didn’t need to be her partner in crime. A hernia-inducing lift and tug later, Claire had the bookcase back in place.
>
“All right, let’s go see my mother.”
Ruby’s rec room looked like an acid flashback of the 1970s. Yellow cinderblock walls fenced in burnt-orange shag carpet worn flat in traffic areas. The room still smelled of stale cigar smoke thanks to last night’s Euchre game.
Jess led the way into the room and plopped into one of the two beanbags clustered in the far corner. Claire hesitated at the threshold, wanting to test the water before jumping in with the shark.
The head of a ten-point buck hung on the wall above where Gramps glowered from the avocado couch. He looked like he was sitting on a patch of Prickly Pear cactus. Next to him, Ruby balanced on the front edge of a cushion, her face slightly flushed.
Across the room, Kate occupied one of the barstools at Ruby’s bar, inspecting her fingernails.
Claire’s mother stood center stage, her freshly painted lips pinched, her blonde hair perfectly coifed, her designer clothes somehow crease-free in spite of the long car ride. All she needed was a spotlight and a microphone.
“Claire, darling!” Deborah rushed over and enveloped Claire in a Chanel No. 5 perfume-laced hug. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Dear Lord! Roll out the red carpet for the drama queen. It wasn’t as if Claire had joined the Peace Corp and spent a year in some ape-filled jungle. It’d been only three months since her last face-to-face confrontation with her mom.
Claire shot her younger sister a what-the-hell frown over her mom’s shoulder. Kate nudged her head toward Ruby, and Claire caught on immediately.
Her sinuses burned from an overdose of perfume by the time Deborah released her. “How was your trip, Mom?”
“Wonderful,” Deborah answered too quickly. If she smiled any wider, her ears were going to cave in. “The scenery was breathtaking, and Kathryn is such a good driver. Traveling with her was a treat.”
Kate coughed out what sounded vaguely like “bullshit.”
Claire seconded that cough. The last time she’d ridden with her sister, Claire had left imprints of her size eight shoes in Kate’s dashboard.
After snaking a glare at Kate, Deborah turned back to Claire with another lip-splitting smile. “I was just telling Ruby and your grandfather how excited Kathryn and I are to be joining them for their special day.”
“And we’re so happy you could join us.” Ruby’s voice was warm and sweet, like frosting on a freshly baked cake.
Claire wanted to run over and shield Ruby with her body.
The sound of the bell jingling over the store’s front door had Ruby eyeing the curtain.
“Sounds like we have a customer.”
When nobody moved, Ruby cleared her throat and stared pointedly at Jess.
“Okay, okay,” Jess said, trudging across the room and disappearing through the curtain.
Silence, soupy thick, filled the air.
Claire wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped out the back door and left the state.
“You have a lovely daughter,” Deborah said.
“Thank you.” Ruby smiled back. “And you do, too. Both of them. I mean, I really know only Claire, but I look forward to getting to know Kate. I’ve heard such good things about her from your grandfath—” Ruby’s cheeks reddened even more as she stumbled. “I mean your father.”
Again, heavy silence.
The bar stool squeaked as Kate crossed one leg over the other.
Gramps scratched the back of his neck.
The clock cuckooed once, announcing the half-hour.
“Mom!” Jess hollered from the other side of the curtain, snapping the silence like a dry twig.
Deborah and Kate both jumped. They’d need a couple of days to get used to Jess and her propensity for yelling instead of talking.
“I’ll be right back.” Ruby stood, her whole face now the same shade as her hair as she strode across the room.
As soon as the curtain stopped swaying from Ruby’s exit, Gramps jumped up from the couch. For a seventy-plus man, he could sure hit the turbo-boost when needed.
“Deborah Lynn Ford! I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but you’d better stop it right now.”
“What?” Deborah said, all wide-eyed. “I’m merely trying to make a good impression. Unlike Kathryn with her swearing and Claire.”
“What did I do?” Claire asked.
Her mother sniffed. “You could have at least worn socks and shoes to greet me. I didn’t raise you in a barn.” She glanced around the room, her flawless face crunched in a sneer. “Although, judging by Ruby’s lack of interior design, I can see why you’d think thongles were appropriate attire.”
Covering her eyes, Kate said, “They’re called thongs, Mom.”
Claire wanted to walk over and pinch Kate for bringing the she-devil to her dusty paradise. They were all damned now. Not even an exorcism would save them.
“Thongles, thongs, whatever.” Deborah pointed at the shelf of German beer steins over the bar. “Just look at the dust on those mugs. And I bet this ceiling hasn’t been washed in a decade.”
“Mom—” Kate tried to interrupt.
“This carpet probably hasn’t had a good raking since Carter was President.”
“Mother, stop.” Claire crossed her arms. Not everyone idolized Martha Stewart and her housekeeping skills. Some people actually had lives to live.
“Are those cigar butts in the ashtray? What kind of woman allows—”
“Deborah!” Gramps broke up Deborah’s monologue. The top of his bald head glowed branding-iron red.
“What?”
“Shut up or get out.”
“I’m not leaving without you and Claire.”
“Me?” Claire took a step back.
“Yes, you. It’s time you realize that while MacDonald is a nice enough boy, he’s just too lenient with you. You need someone forceful. Someone who will push you to finish school, to make something of your life and be more like Kathryn.”
Claire’s cheeks burned as if Deborah had reached out and slapped her—twice. She stuffed her hands in her pockets to keep from strangling her mother. She should have broken the office window Gramps had sealed shut.
“Mom.” Kate stood up. “Don’t start with this again.”
“You know I’m right. You said the same thing last week.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You said that MacDonald seems like a toe-the-line type of man, and Claire’s toes only touch the line if they are super-glued to it.”
Kate’s forehead and nose reddened. She’d never quite got blushing down right. “True, but that’s not even close to what you just said.”
Claire smirked at both of them and leapt into the ring. “Oh, and you guys are such experts on relationships, what with the ink still drying on your divorce papers,” she said to her mother before turning on her sister, “and you dating every other convict in the South Dakota prison circuit.”
Gramps patted Claire on the shoulder. “Claire has a point, although you probably shouldn’t talk to your mother that way.”
“Claire, honey, you know I love you.” Deborah used her super-sweet voice—the one that made Claire’s eardrums throb. “I just want what’s best for you. You should try wearing nicer blouses, maybe some silk, and pleated pants to hide your tummy. You’d be so pretty with the right accessories.”
Claire looked at Gramps and then Kate with raised eyebrows, wondering if they’d object to her tackling Deborah and cramming her chandelier earrings and other “accessories” down her throat.
“That’s it.” Gramps grabbed Deborah by the shoulders and pushed her toward the back door. “Katie, put your mother’s bags back in the car. She’s going home.”
“Come on, Gramps,” Kate whined. “That’s not fair. She drove me nuts all of the way down here. Make Claire drive her home.”
Deborah pulled free of Gramps’s grip. “Nobody is driving me anywhere. I told you, Dad, I’m not leaving until Claire and you come to your senses. This foolishness ha
s to stop.”
“If by ‘foolishness’ you mean me marrying Ruby, then you’re wasting your time here. Nothing and nobody is going to stop me from marrying that woman.”
Deborah’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t want to have to say this, but—”
“Mom, don’t.” Kate grabbed Deborah’s arm.
Shaking off Kate’s hand, Deborah continued. “What are you thinking, marrying some woman who is younger than—”
“Claire?” Jess poked her head through the curtain. Her eyes shined with curiosity as she gaped at the group of them all clustered in the center of the room. “Mom needs you to fix an overflowing toilet in the men’s restroom by the tool shed.”
“I’ll be right there.” Duty called, thank God! Claire couldn’t wait to answer.
She flashed her mother a fake smile. “Always good to see you, Mother.” With a nod to Kate and Gramps, she practically sprinted out the back door.
As soon as she fixed the toilet and checked off all the tasks on the To Do list Ruby had given her this morning, Claire was history.
She’d call from Tucson with her string of excuses.
* * *
Crack!
Kate awoke to the sound of the sky shattering into pieces.
She sat up quickly, blinking at the digital clock in the shadows of Gramps’s bedroom—almost dinner time. Her head throbbed, her mouth tasted like stale cheese, and her shirt stuck to her back. The bedside fan blew hot air on her skin. Another thirty minutes in this oversized aluminum roasting pan and she’d be well-done.
Someone sneezed.
She flicked on the bedside lamp and peeked over the edge of the bed. Henry stared up at her.
“Henry!” Kate giggled as Gramps’s beagle jumped onto the bed and tackled her with licks. He smelled like dirt and dog breath, but Kate nuzzled his head anyway. She’d missed the furry little yapper. “It’s good to see you, too, boy.”
Henry wiggled his body, his tail bouncing and waving.
“Even the dog likes you better,” Claire said from the bedroom doorway. “It has to be the hair. Dolly Parton paved the way for all you blondes.”