“And?” he asks in his police-detective-on-the-job voice.
“Oh, my nose is out of it,” I say. “Completely.”
Deep sigh from the other end of the phone. Then: “I don’t suppose I can ask you to give up a paying client.”
“No, you can’t.”
“So?”
“She likes beige,” I say. “Especially brocades and satin stripes. And beige on beige.”
He asks, exasperated, what she said when I asked about the phone call.
I tell him she said there wasn’t a phone call, or that she didn’t remember getting one. Claims Alzheimer’s, though my mother’s assured me Rita’s got a mind like a steel trap and she still blames my mother for driving over her garden hose twenty years ago.
“Wonder why she’d lie about that phone call,” Drew muses. “Unless she’s got something to hide.”
“If she’s lying,” I say.
Drew assures me that they know the call went through. “Too long for just leaving a message. A good ten-minute call.”
I remind him that two people live in that house. “She might not be lying at all.”
THERE’S A BLACK BUNTING hanging on the glass case in the deli counter at Pathmark. I don’t usually shop here, but it’s not really out of our way home from the alley, where Bobbie and I just checked over the day’s work. It’s now going much too slowly for my comfort zone, but Bobbie says she’s sure it will be a slam dunk. Of course, she doesn’t play basketball and has no idea what that means.
Anyway, I figure I can pick up pickled herring here just as well as at Waldbaum’s. And Bobbie would shop anywhere, anytime. She heads for the makeup aisle while I wait my turn at the deli counter.
There are only two countermen working and they appear to be on Prozac. They’re pretty much operating in slow motion.
Some woman is throwing a fit about them taking people out of turn. “My number is up,” she shouts.
The two men behind the counter stare at her.
“Better yours than mine,” one of them says. He takes off his apron and his little hat and flings them down on the counter. “I’m outta here.”
This is met with major groans from the growing crowd on our side of the glass.
“Quarter pound of Virginia ham,” the remaining counter guy repeats after it’s ordered. He picks the ham up out of the case and it slips out of his hands, slides down the counter in front of him and falls onto the floor. He sighs heavily. “You got another kind of ham you like?” he asks the woman he’s waiting on—who tells him to just forget it.
“I’m doing the best I can,” he says.
No one on this side of the glass seems impressed.
“Who’s next?” he asks. There’s a ticket on the counter with the number 112 on it, left by someone who must have given up earlier. Mine says 134. The clicker indicating which customer is being waited on says 111. Bobbie, back with two lipsticks and an eyeshadow, palms the ticket and stands expectantly, waiting for him to pull the cord which changes the number.
“That’s her,” she says, when he calls out 112.
Two women take issue with the possibility that I could be next, since they were here before me.
Ordinarily I’d never do this. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And I’m not really here to get deli, but information—information Drew refused to give me. So, after Bobbie shoulders me front and center, I indicate the black draping on the counter and ask, “What’s with the bunting?”
The counterman tells me that one of the other clerks, Milt, died in a horrible boating accident yesterday.
It occurs to me at this moment that I never asked Drew just how Milt died. “He took the boat out?” I say. “In this weather?” I gesture toward the parking lot, where we’re enjoying our third straight day of sleet.
The man says the boat was brand-new. “Just bought it a week or two ago. First time out in it and he fires it up and the damn thing explodes. Can you believe that?”
I feel my knees going a little weak. I exchange a look with Bobbie and know she’s just realized the same thing I have. I was on that boat. In fact, he offered to “fire it up” for me.
Bobbie puts an arm around my shoulder as people behind us get impatient.
“You gonna order?” someone asks. “I have to get home sometime today.”
“And she doesn’t?” Bobbie asks. “She doesn’t live here, you know.”
“Could you just order?” someone else asks.
“Some pickled herring. Lots of onions and cream sauce, just a little herring. The smallest one you have,” I say. I order it like a Long Islander so that he doesn’t get suspicious. Then, back to the boat, I add, “Wow. He was saving for that boat forever.”
“Yeah?” the guy says, holding up the runt of the litter for me to approve. “Maybe that’s why he had to borrow fifty bucks from me just a couple weeks ago.”
“Could you hurry it up?” someone asks, while someone else says, “This is ridiculous. I’m going to Fairway.”
“I just came from there. The deli guys didn’t come in today.”
“This is unbelievable. The manager should get behind there.”
“Do they have the turkey already sliced in the case?”
“I just want some cheese. Just one thing. For my kids. Can I go next?” someone says.
“No! You think we’re standing here for our health?” someone yells back.
“You think it was murder?” Someone…oh, wait. That’s me. I say.
The whole place goes silent.
“What was murder?” someone asks.
“Milt, the counterman,” I say. “I heard it was suspicious but the police aren’t looking into anything but the Dr. Doris murder.”
“The bypass doctor,” a woman says, nudging the man beside her.
“I don’t need a bypass. I need salami,” he says.
“Yeah? And if you eat enough salami, you’re gonna need a bypass,” she replies.
The counter guy puts the container of herring up on the counter and I reach for it. “You think it was murder?” he asks me in a whisper that implies this is just between him and me.
I shrug. “Joey at King Kullen, Max at Waldbaum’s…”
“Milt here,” the guy says. “That’s it. I’m outta here.” He, too, takes off his apron amid loud groans from the crowd.
“Good job,” Bobbie says with a smile while everyone around us seethes. “Where else would you like to go spread the joy?”
CHAPTER 15
It’s hard to improve on nature’s palette when choosing colors for your home. Think of a forest and you get deep green, brown and sky blue. Think of a field of wildflowers or prairie grass, or of an ice flow in Alaska. Think of the emerald-green and sea-blue of the ocean…
—TipsFromTeddi.com
We should go to the Krolls’ place and then head on home. And we would, we really would, but a trip to the marina in Northport will take us about the same half hour we’d spend at the Krolls and the kids aren’t due home for at least forty-five minutes. Okay, we’re cutting it close. And Bobbie doesn’t really think we should go. For some reason she thinks this is police business and has nothing to do with us.
I remind her that I knew this man, that I only narrowly escaped death and that she could be planning my funeral this very minute.
This doesn’t convince her.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll just drop you off and go alone.”
At which point she puts on her left blinker and heads for Northport.
Hey, I learned to shovel guilt at the master’s knee.
I dial up the Krolls on my cell and tell Jerry that I’m sorry I have to postpone our appointment. He is, as my mother says, a marshmallow. He all but apologizes to me for making the appointment at an inconvenient time.
“You have to get home for the children,” he says. “I understand. Robby is just coming in now with a very red nose from the cold.” He says this more to his son than to me. “You should bring the
children. I’d love to meet them and I’m sure Robby would, too.”
“Well, yes,” I say. “That would be very nice. But actually, something’s come up and I have to make a quick trip up to Northport. Maybe I could bring the children some other time?”
“Go pick out a packet of hot chocolate,” Jerry says, presumably to Robby. “I’ll be in to make it in a minute.” Then in a quiet voice he asks me if I’m afraid to bring the children to his house to meet Robby.
“Of course not,” I say. “But I really have to get up to the marina today. What about one day next week, perhaps? Or the week after? I’m very busy trying to get the bowling alley done in time for the grand opening.”
He tells me my mother says that’s a mistake and then hurries off the phone. Before he hangs up I hear him calling Rita to hurry and help Robby with the microwave and my heart breaks for him.
THERE’S POLICE TAPE EVERYWHERE at the marina but, as Bobbie points out, that’s never stopped me before. See, the thing I’ve found about police tape is that it’s rarely taken down after the fact. They mean to, but they’ve got more important things to do.
And they obviously don’t consider it a crime scene anymore or someone would be guarding it…
Okay, okay. I’m rationalizing. I’m also ducking under the tape and heading for the slip Milt’s boat was docked at. At least the rain has stopped, though the planks are wet and slippery, especially in the heels I stupidly chose to wear so that Bobbie wouldn’t remind me that with wide-legged pants you can’t wear flats. Especially sneakers. Who knew we’d sneak in a trip to the marina, anyway?
“Wait,” Bobbie tells me, heading for the clubhouse. “I have to pee.”
I tell her that I’ll meet her down by the boat, because I just hate it when women go to the bathroom together. Men don’t do that. Why do we need company?
So here I am, standing where I stood just a week ago, only now I’m looking at the charred skeleton of a cigarette boat. There’s something ironic about a cigarette boat going up in smoke.
Everything—the sea, the sky—is gray. It’s spooky, looking at where I was and realizing where, given a few days and the luck of the draw, I could have been. I mean, before they took my remains to the morgue. Creepy. I wrap my arms around myself in an effort to keep warm as I hear Bobbie’s footsteps coming up behind me.
“I could be dead,” I say. “I was standing right there—” I put my hand out, pointing toward the cockpit, and suddenly I’m airborne, flying out over the remains of Milt’s boat and just barely clearing the far edge before landing in the water.
Well, not exactly landing. My feet are in the water as well as my legs, up to about my knees, judging from the cold. Something, I suppose my coat, is hooked onto the boat and is stopping me from falling all the way in.
“Help!” I scream. “Bobbie!”
Only no one answers.
I try twisting around, but I’m terrified to cut myself loose and sink into the Long Island Sound where I’ll die from the cold. Lips shivering, I mumble to myself to stay calm.
That lasts five seconds.
“HELP!” I’m shrieking now, trying to get my legs out of the water, but my nice, fresh-from-the-cleaners trousers feel like they are loaded with lead. And my feet are too numb to respond.
I think I hear high heels tip-tapping on the dock. Is that what I heard when I thought Bobbie was coming? Or did I hear very light, nearly silent, sneakery feet?
I yell again.
“Teddi?” I hear Bobbie ask, her voice vague. “If you left me here, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m in the freakin’ water,” I shout. I try to wave, but shifting sinks me a few inches deeper into the Sound.
“No you’re not,” Bobbie says, because denial is her favorite weapon against fear. “I don’t see you.”
I explain how I’m over the side of the boat, caught by my coat or something, partially submerged, freezing. And I tell her she’s got to help me.
“It’s Dana’s purse,” she says. “Oh my God—you’re still carrying that thing?”
“It’s carrying me,” I say. “Get help. My feet are numb.”
She tells me she is coming down into the boat to help me.
“No,” I shout, hoping to stop her before it’s too late. The boat isn’t going to hold her, and we’ll just both wind up in the water with no help.
She says she’ll run back to the clubhouse, but I hear people’s voices in the distance.
“Tell them to call the Coast Guard,” I say. “Or get someone to come out and get me in another boat.”
“I’ll do it,” Bobbie says, “I can—oh, shit. My heel’s caught. Hang on.”
I remind her I am hanging on, by a cheap purse strap, and that my clothes will weigh me down and take me to the bottom of the ocean forever if she doesn’t take off her goddamn shoe and get me help.
“How did you get over there, anyway?” she asks, just as some funny-looking boat motors into the harbor.
“Over here!” I yell. “Help!”
I know the minute the man on the boat sees me. He looks like a cartoon character, his arms waving as he runs back to the steering wheel, pulls the life preserver off his wall and hoists it in my direction. It lands several feet away from me, and there is no way I’m pulling free of my noose to reach it.
“She’s stuck,” Bobbie yells to him. I hear lots of footsteps on the dock and suddenly hordes of people are yelling all sorts of instructions and advice.
And there’s lots of “how did she get in the water in the first place?” echoing across the sound.
“DID I NOT TELL YOU to keep out of this?” Drew asks me at the hospital where everyone insisted I go to be sure I didn’t get frostbite.
He can’t sit still and his pacing is driving me crazy.
“Did I not say that this was dangerous? So what is the first thing you do? You go see the boat and fall into the water and nearly drown. You’re lucky you’re not losing your toes—you realize that?”
“Fall in?” I say, like he’s the one with frostbite—of the brain. “Fall in? I’m clear on the other side of the boat, hanging by my purse strap, and you think I slipped off the dock?”
“It’s been known to happen,” he says with a smirk. Then he has the nerve to ask what shoes I was wearing. Luckily, they fell off in the water and are lost forever as evidence that I have no sense when it comes to dressing for dock work. Especially in the wet weather.
“I heard footsteps. And I felt the shove—Drew, I was definitely pushed into the water.”
His head snaps around like that hadn’t occurred to him before now. “Someone else was in the boat with you? And what? You just didn’t notice?”
I tell him, for the third time, that I wasn’t in the freakin’ boat.
“That does it, Teddi,” he says. “You crossed police lines. You crossed my lines. Stay the fuck out of it.”
And with that, he storms out of the hospital.
Great. No shoes. No car. No ride.
That’s one way to keep me out of it.
I ASK MY FATHER if he’d mind babysitting tonight. I’ve got to do some work on the alley and while I know I could leave the kids on their own, I’ve been doing it an awful lot, lately. And after Rio’s visit a few nights ago, I just don’t want to do it again.
Grandpa sounds thrilled. His plan is to come without Mom, bring in pizza, watch TV with Jesse, buy some love from Dana and cuddle Alyssa a bit. He warns me that he doesn’t want to stay too late, so I shouldn’t plan on working very long.
Naturally this plan is thwarted, as are all plans to have a good time without my mother.
“You have to go back to the alley?” my mother asks me when I open the front door and she, too, is standing there. “I told you this project was a mistake.”
Before I can bend the truth just a little by letting her believe that’s where I’m going, she tells the kids to get dressed up because she and Grandpa are taking them out for a real dinner.
“Not t
hat fast-food hazzerai your mother lets you ruin your bodies with.”
“That’s how you’re going to work?” my mother asks me as I shrug a jacket on over a very short skirt I bought in a weak moment at Bobbie’s insistence.
“Let her be, June,” my father says. It’s his mantra, I think. I’m not really familiar with mantras, but aren’t they words uttered over and over again which make the utterer calmer while, in reality, changing absolutely nothing?
“You really didn’t have to come, Mom,” I tell her, which buys me a look like I’ve betrayed her.
“So your father said,” she snaps at me, but I really don’t have time to go there. And besides, Dana comes sulking down the stairs just then.
Since Rio’s visit, I’ve tried to find out what was said and the closest I could get was Jesse’s account which included a lot of slamming of cabinets and drawers and doors, and asking his sister if everything was okay several times. She told him she hated her father with every fiber of her being. Apparently she hasn’t gotten over whatever he did just yet.
I’d say she was just being a dramatic teenager, but having felt exactly the same way about the same man just a few years ago, I’m not in a position to throw stones.
She asks me if she has to go out to dinner. I tell her that no, she doesn’t, but it will make her grandfather happy. It’s a dirty trick, but of course it works and she agrees to go.
I blow kisses over my shoulder on my way out and hear my mother ask Dana where I’m really going dressed like I think I’m still fourteen.
YOU THOUGHT I WASN’T HEADED for the alley, didn’t you? Well, surprise.
I go inside the alley and find that The Spare Slices have withdrawn from the league. Dave is hanging out at the bar, hoping to sub in, even though he knows it’s technically against the rules.
I teeter over to him on my heels and stand next to him, doing the guy thing. You don’t know what the guy thing is? They did some studies and found that women relate face to face, but guys relate shoulder to shoulder. Like how they watch sports.
So I stand beside Dave and look at the back of the bar, just like he’s doing. And I say, “Hi Dave, how’s it going?” without looking at him.
Whose Number Is Up, Anyway? Page 13