High Spirits [Spirits 03]

by Alice Duncan

  “Is Billy awake, Daisy?”

  “I don’t think so. Want me to look?”

  “Why don’t you? I don’t want to cook a waffle for him until he’s ready for it, but I have to go to work.”

  She didn’t have to add that she didn’t trust me to cook Billy’s waffle for him. Everyone in the family knew better than to trust me in the kitchen.

  “Be right back.” I hurried to our room, hoping my waffle wouldn’t get cold.

  My heart took a nosedive when I saw Billy slugging back the contents of the bottle I’d left in the dressing table drawer. He heard me at the door, but he didn’t hesitate to finish what he’d been doing. He swallowed, grimaced, and looked my way. “Stuff tastes vile,” he said.

  Lots of words bubbled up inside me and danced on my tongue, but I swallowed them all, reminding myself that Billy’s pain wasn’t his fault and, therefore, neither was his dependence on opiates. Instead, I forced a smile. “Aunt Vi has a cure for that. She fixed bacon and waffles for breakfast.”

  His eyebrows lifted and for a second, he looked like the man I’d married. I darned near burst into tears.

  “Be right there,” he promised, smiling at me.

  I shut the door, gulped a couple of times, and returned to the kitchen table. Aunt Vi must have read my expression because she patted me on the shoulder. “He was a good soldier, Daisy. Now you have to be one. It’s a crying shame.”

  It sure was.

  “Thanks, Vi.”

  She set another plate on the table. “Why don’t you butter that one for your husband while it’s still hot, dear?”

  So I did.

  Chapter Five

  The telephone waited to ring until Billy and I had sopped up the last of our maple syrup with the last of our waffles, which was a consideration on its part that it didn’t generally grant us. Most days the darned phone rang just as I was drinking my coffee or chewing something. That morning I managed to grab the receiver before any of our other party line members picked up theirs.

  “Daisy?”

  I made a face at Billy and mouthed, “Mrs. Kincaid.” She was in a tizzy too. Last night’s horrors, which I had conveniently tucked away and not considered yet, flooded back to taunt me. “Good morning, Mrs. Kincaid.” I used my soothing spiritualist voice because she needed it. It wouldn’t have hurt if someone had used some soothing techniques on me, but, of course, I wasn’t as lucky as Mrs. Kincaid.

  A party-line person picked up her receiver just then; I heard the click. Since she didn’t speak but only breathed in our ears, I knew it was Mrs. Barrow, the premier party-line snoop of all time. At least Mrs. Mayweather and Mrs. Pollard had the grace to hang up when they realized the call wasn’t for them. Our other party-line member, Mrs. Lynch, evidently actually listened to the rings and didn’t often pick up her receiver if the ring belonged to someone else. Not Mrs. Barrow, who tried her hardest to remain on the wire during my calls. I’m sure my calls were more interesting than hers, but it was still annoying.

  “Oh, Daisy!” Mrs. Kincaid sobbed.

  I didn’t want Mrs. Barrow to hear anything Mrs. Kincaid might have to say, given the events of the prior evening, so I said, “One moment, please, Mrs. Kincaid. We have another person on the wire.”

  “What? What?” Mrs. Kincaid, who didn’t have to worry about party lines since she could afford a wire all her own, sounded confused, which was a normal state of affairs.

  “Please wait one moment,” I repeated. Then I said, aiming for a tone that combined velvet with sharp spiky needles in an effort to shame Mrs. Barrow (which never worked), “Please hang up your receiver, Mrs. Barrow. This call is for me.”

  I heard a “Humph” and a click, and Mrs. Kincaid and I were alone on the wire—except, perhaps, for the woman at the telephone exchange, which meant I’d have to persuade Mrs. Kincaid not to carry on about speakeasies or arrests during her call. Allowing my head to fall back, I surveyed the ceiling and sighed silently, wishing everything in my life wasn’t such a struggle. I mean, wouldn’t you think I could at least have had peace on the telephone? But no. Not me.

  Pardon me, please. I didn’t mean to whine.

  In my best, most syrupy medium voice, I ignored the frustration roiling in my breast and spoke again. “I can tell you’re upset, Mrs. Kincaid.”

  “You always know, my dear,” she sobbed. “It’s your particular gift.”

  I glanced at the ceiling again, amazed that she should consider my knowledge in this instance as a sign of my supernatural powers, completely ignoring the fact that not only was she sobbing into the receiver, but that I’d been there when the speakeasy was raided. For Pete’s sake, Stacy and I had darned near been arrested. But never mind. I told myself to be grateful for the gullibility of some people since it provided Billy and me with a much better income than we might have had if everyone else in the world had been rational.

  “I do my best,” I said modestly. Because I didn’t want to discuss anything in front of Billy, I said, “But please, let’s not discuss this on the telephone, Mrs. Kincaid. You never know who might be listening.” I spared a moment to hope that Medora Cox, an old high-school friend of mine, wasn’t working the telephone exchange that morning because I’d just maligned all telephone operators.

  Mrs. Kincaid gasped. “You’re right. You’re so wise, my dear.”

  If that were so, I wouldn’t have been in the pickle in which I found myself that day, but I didn’t argue with her. “Why don’t I visit you this morning? Would ten o’clock be all right with you?”

  “Oh, yes, dear. Thank you so much. Please bring your cards. We can use my board.”

  It had been Mrs. Kincaid who’d been responsible for my career, in a way. She’d given Vi an old Ouija board, and I’d been making a living off it ever since. Therefore, out of a sense of obligation, I always tried to oblige her—and heck, I liked her, too, even if she was a dizzy broad.

  “Of course. Try to calm down, and I’ll see you at ten.”

  “Thank you so much, Daisy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  I didn’t either. When I turned with a sigh to go back to the table and clean up the breakfast dishes, Billy looked displeased. My heart crunched. Gesturing at the telephone on the wall, I murmured, “Mrs. Kincaid.”

  “Yeah. I heard.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you can put up with those people, Daisy. Most of them are dimmer than a burned-out light bulb.”

  “I know it. But they’re rich. I guess intelligence isn’t a prerequisite for inheriting gobs of money.”

  “Huh.” He gulped coffee. “Too bad, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t know.” I stacked our plates and carried them to the sink. “It wouldn’t make any difference to us if God required brainpower before he handed out money.”

  “I don’t think God’s in charge of money.”

  “Probably not.” In fact sometimes I didn’t think God gave a hoot about those of us languishing on earth. Since Billy already thought I was wicked, I didn’t share that thought with him. I suppressed a whole bunch of sarcastic comments in those days.

  “Listen, Daisy, I don’t like you hanging out with Mrs. Kincaid.”

  Lifting a wooden bucket into the sink and turning on the hot-water tap, I said, “I knew that already, Billy. It’s not news to me. If you can tell me how to make as much money as I do telling fortunes by working as a housemaid, I’ll listen, but I’ve got to tell you I don’t relish getting housemaid’s knee.” I was trying to keep the conversation light.

  Billy didn’t buy it. “All those rich people are turning your head, darn it. You’re getting to where you aren’t satisfied with your station in life any longer.”

  Dumbfounded, I whirled around, my hands dripping soap bubbles. “What?” I was sure I’d misunderstood him.

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard you, but I don’t believe you.” I was so shocked, and his allegation was so absurd, I actually started laughing. It was an improvement
over the stew I’d been in after Mrs. Kincaid’s call.

  “It’s the truth.” Billy didn’t like it when I laughed. He started getting surly, actually, as if he knew he was being unfair but wouldn’t apologize. “And it’s not funny.”

  I should have been used to his moods by that time, but I wasn’t. My laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “It is too funny. And it isn’t the truth! Darn it, Billy, you know as well as I do that performing for wealthy people is my job. I’m not dissatisfied with my station in life. Whatever that is. You sound like an English detective novel, for crumb’s sake!”

  “Right. Is that why you go out with Harold Kincaid all the time? For your job? Don’t be ridiculous. Your head’s getting turned by all that money and all those expensive cars.”

  “Harold?” I goggled at my husband. “You’re jealous of Harold?”

  “I’m not jealous of anybody,” snapped Billy.

  He was lying. He was jealous of everyone who took me away from him. I knew it was only because he was in such sorry shape, but it sure could be a pain in the neck.

  “Darn it, Billy, Harold and I are friends! I should think you’d be glad I’m friends with somebody like him. I could be running around with someone considerably less safe than Harold, you know.” My face felt hot. I’m sure I’d turned a bright red.

  Which brings me to an insignificant point. One of the troubles with being a redhead, even if your hair is more auburn than red, as was mine, is that you blush easily. Every darned time Billy started picking on me, I turned red. It was only one more burden to bear, and a small one at that, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

  He stared at me for several seconds. The expression on his face was worrisome, but I was getting angry and feeling burdened, and it didn’t dawn on me what inference Billy would draw from my comment until he spoke again. “You deserve a whole man. I know it as well as you do, Daisy. You don’t have to rub my nose in it.”

  My jaw dropped.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know why you haven’t started running around on me before now.”

  “Running ar— Billy, stop it!” In spite of my drippy hands, I rushed to his side and knelt down. “I’d never run around on you! For God’s sake, don’t you know me better than that?” It hurt like crazy to realize my own beloved Billy would actually consider me capable of having an affair with another man. “I love you!”

  At that moment Pa and Spike came home, and I jumped up, glad our depressing conversation had been nipped in the bud. Spike, his toenails clicking out a fast and jazzy drumbeat on the linoleum floor, raced across the kitchen, his tail held aloft and wagging like an out-of-control metronome.

  Pa shouted, “Good morning, you two lazybones! It’s a beautiful day!”

  Every day was beautiful to Pa, who was one of the cheeriest specimens of mankind God ever invented. My mood improved at once. “Hey, Pa. Did you get some of Vi’s waffles before you left.”

  “Sure did. You don’t think I’d walk out on a waffle, do you?”

  Spike hurled himself like a torpedo onto Billy’s lap, landing so hard the wheelchair backed up a couple of inches. Strong dog. Every time he did that, I cringed, fearing he’d hurt Billy’s legs, but Billy never seemed to mind. He chuckled softly and held on to Spike while the puppy washed his face, searching for stray droplets of maple syrup, I guess. Pa and I watched the joyful reunion between the man I loved and his dog, whom I also loved.

  When I glanced at Pa, he had a sappy expression on his face. I’m sure I did too. No matter how much Billy and I rubbed against each other—and we did it constantly—I couldn’t not love him. When I compared the hunched, unhappy man loving his dog to the man I married, though, my heart nearly broke in half. In other words, everything was normal in the Gumm-Majesty household, more’s the pity.

  But that was neither here nor there. I went back to the sink, finished washing up the dishes, rinsed, dried, and put them away, and toddled off to the bedroom to select that day’s spiritualist costume.

  Sometimes, when I felt particularly guilty about my passion for fashion, I’d make the whole family matching outfits, thereby embarrassing Billy, who thought it was silly for us to dress alike, even for church. Maybe it was, but I’d already started on a new batch of pastel spring coats, including a snazzy little overcoat for Spike. That dog was going to look like a million bucks when I got through with him.

  After glancing out the window to judge the weather, I decided to wear a black-and-white checked suit I’d made of a lightweight woolen fabric I’d bought on a bolt-end from Maxime’s Fabric Store.

  I loved Maxime’s. They always had the best deals. I’d edged the collar and pockets with black bias tape, and when I wore the suit with a black hat, shoes, and bag, I was the picture of a dignified young matron with a spiritualistic bent going out to chat with ghosts on a crisp winter’s day.

  I’d recently had my hair bobbed by the barber Billy and Pa frequented, so I didn’t have to fuss with my hair, thank God. I just plopped my black hat on my head, stuck a pin in it in case it got windy, and sailed out into the kitchen, where the men in my life waited.

  “Think I’ll stop at the grocery store and pick up some onions and potatoes before I go to Mrs. Kincaid’s place,” I said as I shoved my tarot cards into my handbag. “Vi said she needed both.”

  “Good,” said Pa. “Pick me up a can of baked beans while you’re there.” Pa, a transplanted Yankee, loved his baked beans. He’d made a batch a few months before this, but he wasn’t much of a hand in the kitchen, a trait he shared with Ma and me, and Aunt Vi considered baking beans beneath the talents of a cook like her. She was probably right, although those beans had tasted awfully good.

  “Will do. I’m also going to the library. Anybody want anything?”

  “No thanks,” said Billy. “The new National Geographic came yesterday. I’ll read that.”

  “I’m set,” said Pa.

  “Okay.” I was hoping a new crop of detective novels had been catalogued. I was friendly with Miss Petrie, who worked in the cataloguing department of the Pasadena Public Library, and the wonderful woman always kept new mysteries back for me before they were put on the shelf. I was blessed in my friends, as I was in my family, two facts I tried always to keep in mind when the burdens of my life felt overwhelming. I wasn’t always successful.

  Have I mentioned before this that Spike was a cagey little critter? Well, he was. As soon as he saw me emerge from the bedroom all dressed up, he knew I was leaving the house, and he wanted to go too. He hurtled from Billy’s lap and dashed to the front door, leaping around like a ballerina in his excitement. Watching his antics, Billy chuckled, which made my heart leap as joyfully as Spike was doing.

  “Come back here, boy,” he advised his dog. “You’ve got to stay home with me.”

  “Here, poochy, poochy,” Pa called, waving the cup of coffee he’d poured for himself at Spike, as if as an inducement.

  I knew better than to think Spike would prefer coffee to a ride in the motor. “I’ll get him.” I walked to the door and scooped up the dog and had turned to take him back to the kitchen when a knock came at the door. Still holding Spike, I opened it. At first I couldn’t comprehend the sight that met my eyes.

  “Pudge?” Pudge Wilson, the neighbor’s boy, was clad in his Junior Boy Scout uniform and looking pretty natty considering he was nine years old, skinny, eternally scraped up, and freckled to a fare-thee-well. Pudge (I don’t know who’d given him his nickname, but it didn’t suit him) adored me, bless him. He also wore an unusually sober expression on his shining, freckled face.

  Behind Pudge, whose presence, while unexpected, was at least understandable, stood a woman. It took me several seconds and a lot of brain twisting before I realized it was Flossie Mosser standing on my front porch. Nonplused doesn’t half describe the state of my mind at that moment. I’m sure I gaped rudely in my astonishment.

  Pudge spoke first. “How do you do, Mrs. Majesty?”

  Good
Lord. I knew his business was serious when he addressed me so formally. My attention snapped back to the boy. “I’m fine, thanks, Pudge. What’s up?”

  “I was walking to school when this lady asked me if I knew where you lived,” Pudge explained, sober as a judge. “So I showed her the way to your front door.” His face broke into an impish grin, and he finally looked like the Pudge I knew.

  “Ah.” Enlightenment dawned. Pudge took his Junior Boy Scout duties seriously, as did most Junior Boy Scouts and Boy Scouts in those days. What’s more, it was only about eight o’clock in the morning, and he’d already accomplished his good deed for the day. No wonder he was grinning. He could spend the whole rest of his day being a normal, everyday nine-year-old boy. “Thank you very much, Pudge.”

  Pudge saluted me, bowed to Flossie, and bounded down the porch stairs. Flossie and I both watched as he skipped up the street, resuming his aborted walk to school. We turned and looked at each other at the same time. At once she focused on Spike.

  “Cute dog,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  And then I didn’t know what to do. All I knew for sure was that I didn’t want either Billy or Pa to meet Flossie Mosser. Shoot, if Billy didn’t like my friendship with Harold Kincaid, I didn’t even want to think about what he’d say if he thought I’d taken up with the likes of her.

  Still, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Spike started wriggling, and I was afraid he’d get loose. I reached out and touched her arm, which made her flinch, which puzzled me. “Wait here for a second, please. I’ll be right back.”

  “Sure.”

  That morning Flossie wore a bright orange dress with bangles, a black fox-fur stole, flesh-colored stockings with high-heeled black shoes, and a black hat with a veil. Her costume most definitely wasn’t anything a Pasadena lady would wear during the daytime. Or any other time, for that matter. Pasadena was a dignified, tasteful community. Flossie stuck out like a mud lark in a herd of swans. My heart lurched when I thought I saw black-and-blue bruises and swollen eyes behind her veil.