I tugged on the bottom desk drawer, but it was really stuck. In my frustration I pulled the damn thing so hard that it finally gave way and dropped on my foot. Ouch! That’s what I needed, some physical pain to go along with my emotional angst. When I decide to suffer, I really suffer.
Gingerly rubbing my toes, I dumped the entire contents of the offending drawer on the office floor. But when I saw what had been making the drawer stick, I had to smile. It was a treasure trove of memorabilia from Mike and Jenny’s school days—old report cards, art projects, even a few hand-lettered Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards. Going through these family treasures was just the thing I needed to calm my nerves.
There was also a shoe box filled with old photographs. Boy, I thought, I bet Claire, Mary Alice and Nancy will get a kick out of seeing this stuff.
There are probably pictures of their kids in here, too.
I laughed as I found a photo of Jenny taken the day she had her braces put on, scowling at the camera with her mouth closed, refusing to smile.
And there was a classic one of Mike and Jim taken at least twenty years ago during one of our vacations on Nantucket. In it they are proudly displaying a fish they caught, which looked like it weighed no more than a pound. But from the smiles on both their faces, you’d have thought they’d caught a whale.
Oh, here was another picture of Jenny, all dressed up for her eighth-grade prom. The braces were still on her teeth, but this time she was actually smiling at the camera. I squinted to identify her nervous-looking escort, and realized it was Mark Anderson. Hmm. Interesting. I didn’t remember that he and Jenny had dated. Just that they were good friends who did homework together. I kept that one aside to show to Nancy.
She’d probably remember every detail.
I glanced at my watch and realized an hour had gone by since I started this project. The group would be here any minute. That’s why you never get anything accomplished, Carol, I scolded myself. You’re too easily distracted.
Still, finding that picture of Jenny and Mark had given me something else to think about. I wondered if he ever married. Mark and Jenny sure would make a good-looking couple. I cheered myself up by imagining the cute grandchildren they could produce if they ever got together.
Maybe Jenny would like to see Mark again. I could drop a few hints in that direction and see what happened. That wasn’t really interfering, was it?
Of course it was.
I sighed, told myself to mind my own business and went to answer the kitchen door.
“I’d give you a hug except my hands are full,” said Claire, who was balancing several bags with delicious aromas emanating from them, and a small cooler. “Can you take this shopping bag from me?” I was amazed that Claire had arrived so quickly. It showed me how seriously she was taking this situation. Always time-challenged, she’d even been half an hour late for her own wedding.
I grabbed the largest bag, then peered around behind her. “Where are Nancy and Mary Alice? Aren’t they with you?”
“I called Nancy on her cell, and she’s showing a house to a client. She said she’d be over in about an hour. Mary Alice has some sort of appointment she couldn’t break. She was very mysterious about it, too. Said to give you her love and that she’d try to make it over here sometime after lunch. And before you ask me,” Claire said, correctly intercepting my next question, “yes, I left a message for Larry both at home and on his cell about the police coming here to question you. I’m sure he’ll call you as soon as he can.”
Claire put the rest of the food bags and the cooler on the granite countertop. As usual, she had brought enough to feed the entire neighborhood.
“Now, come and give me a hug and tell me how you’re doing.” She eyed me critically. “From the way you look, I’d say not so great.”
My eyes brimmed over. God, was I always this emotional?
I changed the subject before I started to bawl my eyes out. “Does any of this food have to be refrigerated?”
Claire grabbed my arm and pushed me gently into a chair. “Forget the food. It’ll keep fine. When Nancy comes, we’ll eat it all and won’t save any for Mary Alice. Just to teach her she shouldn’t keep secrets from us.”
She poured a glass of iced tea from a jug she had in the cooler and put it on the table in front of me. “Here. I brewed this for you at home, with extra lemon just the way you like it. Drink up.”
I sipped obediently. Delicious.
“That’s better. Now, don’t try and change the subject. Have you heard from Jim today?”
I told her the whole story, about Sheila Carney’s television interview, Jim’s phone call, and his ridiculous idea about contacting her to offer his condolences. And to tell her what a great job she’d done in the interview.
Ha!
“It’s almost like he’s deluded himself into thinking that, now that Rhodes is dead and Sheila is apparently taking over the Center, everything will be terrific,” I said morosely. “He can take her on as a client and make her a huge media star. Forget the fact that Rhodes’s death is suspicious, Jim found the body, and if the police find out why he went to see Rhodes yesterday afternoon, it’s sure to make Jim look guilty of something. Then, as if things aren’t bad enough already, the police showed up here to ask me some questions.”
I slammed my hand down on the kitchen table in frustration.
“And you know what the worst part of this whole mess is, Claire? I don’t know exactly what Jim did or didn’t say to the police last night, except that he was purposely vague about his relationship with Rhodes. So all the while the police were questioning me, I didn’t know if my answers were helping him or hurting him.”
Claire nodded her head. “I know what you mean. It seems like men don’t share a lot of important things with their wives, doesn’t it? Larry can be the same way. Sometimes I think women share too much, and men don’t share at all.”
I gave Claire the details of my own police interview. “I think I handled myself all right this time, but if they come back to ask more specific questions, I don’t know what I’ll say. It really helped that Mark Anderson was one of the policeman. He did his best to make me feel at ease. But his partner, Paul Wheeler, is pretty overbearing. I got the feeling he was trying to trip me up with his questions.” I shook my head to clear it a little. “I hope I don’t have to deal with him ever again.”
“It’s going to come out that Rhodes died of natural causes,” Claire assured me. “Larry was pretty confident about that when he came home last night. He dismissed the fact that Jim was angry at Rhodes for the Wake Up New England interview. And he advised Jim to answer the police questions exactly as they were asked, and not to volunteer any extra information. If Larry thought Jim had something to worry about, he’d have told him, believe me. My husband may be an easy-going guy, but he’s a very sharp lawyer.
“Now, tell me about Mark. Didn’t he have a crush on Jenny back when they were in school?”
“You have a pretty good memory,” I answered. “Look what I found in my desk drawer.” I pulled out the prom picture of Jenny and Mark from my sweatpants pocket. “They were a cute couple back then, weren’t they?”
“They sure were,” agreed Claire. “But don’t you remember the reason Jenny went to that dance with Mark? Didn’t her date with the class heart-throb, Peter Goulet, fall through at the last minute? How come I know this and you’ve forgotten?”
“The reason you remember and I don’t, my friend, is probably because you didn’t go through all the mini-romances, crushes, and other assorted crises with Jenny on a daily basis the way I did,” I said. “Some weeks there were so many that it was impossible to keep up. There should be a special place in heaven for women who have raised daughters. God, the drama.”
Claire laughed. “Raising a son was no bargain either. I don’t think I got a solid night’s sleep after Kevin got his driver’s license. I remember pacing the floor in the family room waiting for him to come home. Praying that
he’d come home in one piece. I suppose I was overprotective because he was our only one, but it never seemed to bother Larry. I guess he was in charge of the lawyer-ing and I was in charge of the worrying.
“Speaking of sons,” Claire asked, “how’s Mike doing down in sunny Florida? Does he know what’s going on at home?”
“I haven’t said anything to him, and I doubt that Jim has,” I answered slowly. “What good would it do to worry him when he’s so far away and there’s nothing he can do to help? I did get an e-mail from him yesterday, though. He’s come up with a new drink recipe for the bar called the Cosmo Girl’s Cosmopolitan. It sounded pretty good. Maybe we should all have one for lunch.”
“I don’t know about drinking this early in the day,” said Claire, who always takes things so literally. “But I do know what you mean about protecting your kids from the bad stuff, even when they’re adults. I do the same thing. Do you think maybe a part of us still wants to preserve the il-
lusion our kids had when they were little that we were perfect and could accomplish anything?”
I laughed. The idea that anyone in my family thought I was perfect, even for only a millisecond, cheered me up a little. Although it probably wasn’t true.
I gave Claire’s hand a squeeze.
“I feel better already just having you here to talk to. What do people do who don’t have friends like you?”
“Talk to themselves, I guess,” said Claire.
“I do some of that, too,” I admitted. “More and more lately. But I pretend I’m talking to the dogs.
“Let’s talk about something besides Jim and the Davis Rhodes mess for a while,” I suggested. “You know we’ll just have to go over the whole thing again when Nancy gets here. She hates to miss anything. What do you think is up with Mary Alice? You said she was mysterious on the phone about this lunch meeting of hers. That’s not like her at all.”
“I was thinking about her on the way over here,” said Claire. “And I had a really crazy idea. Do you think she has a lover?”
I choked on my iced tea.
“Good God,” I sputtered. “Mary Alice have a lover? What put that idea in your head?”
“It’s not as crazy as you think, Carol,” said Claire. “She’s very attractive, and she’s been a widow for over fifteen years. Do you think she joined a convent when Brian died?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it.” I frowned a little, trying to think. “She’s never mentioned anything about dating to any of us, at least not to me.”
At that moment, the kitchen door burst open and Nancy rushed in, carrying more food.
“Who never mentioned anything about dating?” she asked. “Here, Claire, take this bag from me. It’s got chocolate ice cream and hot fudge sauce inside and the ice cream is melting. Thanks. So how are you doing, sweetie?” This last was directed at me.
“Have you decided to ditch Jim and start dating? That’s an interesting way to deal with all this stress.”
“Very funny,” I retorted. “We were talking about Mary Alice. She told Claire that she couldn’t come for lunch today because she had some appointment that she couldn’t break. Claire says she sounded very mysterious.”
“I’m dying to speculate about Mary Alice’s love life, but before we get to that, can you fill me in on what happened this morning, Carol? Was it awful for you?”
I gave Nancy the highlights of what had happened, including Sheila’s television show interview, Jim’s phone call, and the police visit. Of course, being Nancy, she kept interrupting me every other minute with questions and observations and suggestions. By the time I was finished, Claire had served up lunch for all of us, courtesy of the heavenly takeout menu of Maria’s Trattoria.
One of the many advantages of having friends who know both me and my kitchen so well is that there was no need for me to jump up and help. Claire, Nancy and Mary Alice all know where the silverware is kept, which are the everyday and the “best” dishes, where the good and not-so-good glasses are, as well as which drawer holds my place mats and napkins. They also know where I hide my good jewelry and who are the beneficiaries of Jim’s and my estate.
My entire family, including Lucy and Ethel, adore them. So in a pinch, any one of them could just move right in and take over my life without missing a beat.
“It sounds like you handled yourself pretty well, Carol.” That was high praise indeed coming from Nancy. “Having Mark Anderson interview you must have made it easier.”
“He was really sweet to me,” I said, “but his partner scared the daylights out of me. He was a classic example of Short Stature Syndrome.
What is it with short men and power trips anyway?”
“Show Nancy the picture you found,” Claire suggested. “See if she remembers when it was taken.”
I whipped out the picture of Jenny and Mark. “Do you remember that he was sweet on her at one time?”
“You know, I think I do remember.” Nancy squinted at the picture. “I bet this was taken when they were going to the eighth-grade prom. I recognize the dress Jenny’s wearing.”
“You’re amazing,” I exclaimed. “How in the world do you remember that?”
Nancy shrugged. “Don’t give me too much credit. My Terry wore that same dress the following year to her eighth-grade prom. She borrowed it from Jenny. Remember, we used to share good dresses between the girls, because it never made sense to spend a lot of money on something that would only be worn once?”
“Yes, like bridesmaids’ dresses,” said Claire. “I wish I had a dollar for every wedding I was in where the bride told me I could have the dress al-tered and wear it again. Never happened.
“So, Nancy,” Claire continued, switching conversational gears rapidly,
“Carol and I were wondering if you knew anything current about Mark Anderson. Is he dating anyone? Did he ever get married? Is he straight or gay? He and Jenny sure were good friends back in school.”
“I think I heard a while ago that Mark was serious about some girl from Westfield.” Nancy furrowed her brow in concentration. You could always count on Nancy to have the news. “They were engaged, but they never made it to the altar. I think she ditched him for another guy the week before the wedding. Broke his heart.”
“Aha,” said Claire. “That’s very interesting. Maybe we should all work on a plan to throw him and Jenny together and see what happens.”
“Now wait a minute,” I protested. “I don’t want to manipulate my daughter’s love life.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Nancy. “You think we believe that one? Speaking of a love life, what’s this about Mary Alice having a lover? She never said anything to me about it.”
“Claire is just speculating, because when she called Mary Alice to come to lunch, she said she couldn’t get here until later this afternoon,”
I explained. “And Claire has jumped to the completely unsubstantiated conclusion that Mary Alice is having a mid-day rendezvous.”
“Hmm.” Nancy looked thoughtful. “You may not be far from the truth. I confess I’ve tried to bring up the subject with her a few times. I even tried to fix her up once or twice, remember? She’s refused to tell me anything. But she must have some sort of love life. She’s still an attractive woman.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” Claire replied triumphantly. “But little Miss Priss here,” pointing her finger at me, “refuses to admit the possibility. Face it, Carol, you never were comfortable talking about men and sex, even when we were teenagers and it was practically all we were thinking about.”
“That’s not true.” I tried to defend myself. “I just think that some things are very personal and shouldn’t be discussed, even with your closest friends. But that doesn’t mean I’m Miss Priss, thank you very much.”
“Boy, did the nuns ever do a job on you in high school,” said Nancy.
“Now, who could Mary Alice be seeing? Oh, I know. I’ll bet it’s Ron Har-rison. His wife died two years ago from breas
t cancer, and he’s certainly attractive. Got quite a bit of money, too. Made a killing in the real estate market, so he’ll be set for life. He’d be quite a catch.”
“I’ve got to admit that when it comes to helping me take my mind off my troubles, you two are the best,” I said. “But I think gossiping about Mary Alice when she’s not here is kind of disloyal.”
“Come on, Carol,” Nancy shot back at me. “Being interested in one of your best friends’ personal life isn’t disloyal. We’re concerned because we care. Claire, who do you think it is?”
“Well, I was thinking about Ed Whitford.”
“Oh, I hope not,” Nancy said. “I’m sure he wears a toupee. And a bad one at that. We have to set higher standards for Mary Alice.”
“You guys are awful,” I said, laughing. “I didn’t think anything could make me feel better today, but you’ve done it.
“There’s the doorbell. She’s here. Now don’t say anything. Just let her sit down and have some iced tea or something before you both start cross-examining her.”
Before I could get to the door, Mary Alice had let herself in. We don’t stand on ceremony at my house.
“Honey, I’m so sorry I’m late,” said Mary Alice, throwing her arms around me and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “You know I would have been here earlier if I could have. I want to hear everything. But first, have I got news for all of you!”
I took a good look at her. Her eyes were shiny and her cheeks were glowing. Claire and Nancy exchanged knowing glances.
“We know what you’re going to tell us,” Nancy assured her. “We figured it out, you sly devil. Who’s the guy? You look like you’ve just had a fabulous romantic interlude. Come on, give.”
Mary Alice threw back her head and laughed so hard she finally had to wipe her eyes.
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