by Edie Claire
Frances put down the tube of lipstick and turned around. She looked hurt. “Lied to me?”
Leigh nodded. “Lucille never liked me, you know. She always said I had a smart mouth and was too much of a tomboy. When Warren and I got married she did send us a toaster. But it was her toaster. The surface was greasy, the cord was frayed, and burnt crumbs were falling out of it. I don’t even know if it worked. I was afraid to plug it in.” She held her breath. “Long story short, Lucille was right. I never sent the damn thank-you note.”
Frances grabbed a tissue to blot her lipstick, then inspected her work in the mirror. The reflection showed her newly orange mouth twitching with a grin.
“I know that, dear,” she replied.
Chapter 19
Leigh slipped out of her parents’ house the back way while Frances returned to her guests in the living room. Standing outside in the cool December sunshine, Leigh felt relieved to have escaped the lion’s den. But with visions of Allison’s charred notebook still flashing behind her eyes, she remained anxious. She fidgeted with her car keys as she remembered Maura’s most recent instructions. Let me handle it. Keep Allie away from the Floribundas. Act as if you’ve washed your hands of the whole business and have no interest in it.
Leigh winced. She’d already screwed up the third one, hadn’t she? But keeping Allison safe was all that mattered. She looked at her watch. She was supposed to be working at home today, getting a jumpstart on a new project. Forget that! Warren was supposed to be home around two — she would be nice and let him enjoy a few more hours of productivity before she collapsed in his arms in a heap of raw nerves. The two of them would have just enough time to rally and put on brave faces before Allison stepped off the bus after school and they locked her in her room forever. And in the meantime?
Inspiration dawned. In the meantime, she would find out once and for all what the heck was bothering her mother.
She strode across the yard to Lydie’s back door and knocked. Her aunt appeared within seconds, wearing a shimmering fuchsia silk bathrobe and holding a steaming cup of tea. “Well, hello,” Lydie greeted.
“Hello,” Leigh returned with a grin. Her aunt had never been one to sleep late. She’d also never been a “fuchsia silk” kind of woman. “Nice robe.”
Lydie grinned back. “Thanks. It’s new.”
Leigh didn’t bother to ask how, why, or from whom she’d gotten it.
Lydie didn’t bother to tell her. “Come in and have some tea with me. I just made a whole pot of herbal.”
Leigh accepted the invitation and enjoyed the smooth, amber tea, which tasted of pumpkin-pie spice. Then she told her aunt straight out about finding Allison’s burnt notebook on the lawn. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell Mom about it,” she explained. “She’s determined to believe that none of the Floribundas is actually dangerous, even though she’s not at all sure they wouldn’t stoop to assisted suicide and insurance fraud! But you know how hyperprotective she is of the grandkids — catch her in the right moment, and she’ll go apoplectic over a hangnail. And right now, with her nerves so completely strung out like this…” Leigh rubbed her face with her hands. “If she did get worried about Allison, I have no idea how she’d react. If she flipped out on the Floribundas, and one of them really is pathological, God only knows…”
“I see your point,” Lydie said with concern. “Her nerves are most definitely strung out. That is true.”
Leigh removed her hands from her face. “Potato salad,” she said grimly. “Aunt Lydie… You’ve got to tell me! What the hell does potato salad have to do with any of this?”
Lydie sighed. “It’s all in her mind, Leigh. But that doesn’t make it any easier to get over.”
Leigh waited.
“Your mother and I threw a party on our sixteenth birthday,” Lydie began finally, sounding tired of the topic with her first sentence. “It was my idea. I was the one who pushed for it. I wanted to invite a bunch of our friends from school to have a cookout at the house. We didn’t have much of a yard, but it was big enough to gather and play some music and dance on the patio, and we figured people could spill around to the front porch, too. Neither of us were dating yet, exactly, but there were boys that Frances and I had our eyes on, and we desperately wanted them to come. We were afraid your grandparents wouldn’t allow it, but they did, as long as we kept the party outdoors and paid for all the food and made sure that everyone behaved themselves and that everything was cleaned up afterwards.”
Leigh smiled to herself. Her Grandma and Grandpa Morton had been a little on the strict side. She could imagine that gaining permission for such a party would be a coup. Especially since the couple’s wild-child older daughter Bess had already thoroughly besmirched her own reputation.
“So we got busy and sold some baked goods and did some gardening for people and saved enough money to buy the food and decorations.” Lydie’s eyes began to sparkle as she talked. “It was August, but we had the maple tree strung up with Christmas lights and streamers and giant paper flowers, and we bought fancy invitations and mailed them. It was a magical time, no doubt about that. It was a treat just getting ready for it.”
The lights in her eyes faded a little. “The day before the party, Frances came down with the sniffles. Nothing serious, just a summer cold. She was upset because her nose was all red and she wanted to look her prettiest for Gary Tarkinton, but otherwise she felt okay. So we finished off the cooking and the baking and such, and before we knew it, the party had started.”
Leigh tried to picture Frances at sixteen, all dolled up and ready to flirt with some guy who wasn’t Randall, but the image wouldn’t come. Of course, she couldn’t imagine her mother flirting with her father, either.
“Everything went beautifully for most of the day,” Lydie explained. “The food was all very good, and everyone had a fun time. The weather was cloudy, and it sprinkled on and off, but that wasn’t a problem until right near the end. Then it really began to rain, and that’s when the trouble started.”
“Rain ruined your party?” Leigh asked skeptically.
“Of course not. We were teenagers. And it wasn’t a storm, just rain. Your grandpa already told us we weren’t allowed to move the party into the house, though, so we had collected some umbrellas and tarps just in case. We held them over us like tents, which was kind of fun. Although some people just ran around and got wet anyway.”
The last vestiges of pleasure on Lydie’s face slipped away. “But that’s when people started getting sick. The boy your mother liked, Gary, was the first one it hit. He threw up all over himself. And then it was like a plague of Egypt. Everyone was dizzy, and sick, and faint. Poor Gary was so bad we had to call his parents, and later they called a doctor. Everyone else went home, and some of their parents called doctors, too.”
“That must have been horrible,” Leigh commiserated. “Did everyone get sick?”
“No, although it seemed like it at the time,” Lydie answered. “I suppose for most of them it was a touch of hypochondria. In truth, there were twenty-some-odd people at the party, and only four got really sick, with maybe half a dozen more complaining of some symptom or other. Frances and I didn’t feel sick at all, but we both felt like we could have died, just the same. We had no idea what could have happened.”
Leigh could imagine the nightmare. “The potato salad?” she asked.
Lydie nodded gravely. “The doctor who treated Gary came over to the house the next day and was asking all sorts of questions. He said it was food poisoning. When we told him what we’d served he said that most likely it was the potato salad, and Frances nearly dropped to her knees, because she’d made that all by herself. Your grandma argued about it — she told the doctor that all the ingredients were fresh, and that even though the bowl did sit out a while, it had been refrigerated all morning and it wasn’t that hot a day. But when the doctor saw that Frances had a cold, he asked her if she’d been sneezing, and of course she had been. And he went on an
d on about how bacteria from your nose can get into the food and then pretty soon you’re poisoning the whole neighborhood.”
Lydie’s dark eyes flashed fire. “He wasn’t the least bit tactful with his words, either. And your mother was absolutely beside herself. She went straight to her room and cried for I don’t know how long.”
“That’s awful,” Leigh agreed, knowing she would feel just as bad. “Poor Mom.”
“It got worse,” Lydie continued. “Gary was quite ill. Much worse than the others. And naturally that horrible doctor reported his theory to Gary’s family. So when Gary got back to school and Frances ran up to him all eager to make sure he was feeling better, the first thing he did was tag her with a nasty nickname.”
Oh, no.
“Filthy Francie,” Lydie recalled with bitterness. “Filthy, filthy Francie. Sneezing in the potato salad, poisoning half the school. He was hateful. Truly hateful. As if she’d done it to him on purpose! How either of us could ever have thought that boy had a shred of decency in him is beyond me. He made your mother’s life a living hell for the rest of high school. That horrible nickname stuck. Her embarrassment became a running joke. People would look at her in horror every time she’d offer to share her lunch or split a soda. God forbid she should sneeze in class — all the boys would keel over and play dead!”
“That’s so mean,” Leigh murmured. She felt a twinge of nausea as she imagined her mother on her hands and knees in a hazmat suit, scrubbing the kitchen floor with industrial-grade cleansers. The whole OCD cleaning thing… holy hell, was that how it started?
“It was horribly mean, especially considering your mother was plenty traumatized by what happened even before that,” Lydie replied. “It took her a very long time to get over it. It took years before she felt comfortable cooking for anyone outside the family. And she never has really enjoyed the responsibilities of being a hostess, as proud as she is of her spotless house. It’s just plain sad. And now, this…” Lydie’s face turned red. “Well, it makes me so mad I could spit, frankly.”
Leigh knew the feeling. She was racking up more and more things to be angry about, and it was doing nothing for her Christmas spirit.
“So you can understand, now,” Lydie finished, “why your mother has been acting so strangely. I know it seems over the top, but the mere suggestion that Lucille was poisoned to death in her house has unleashed so many bad memories that her conscience has practically come unhinged. I’ve talked till I’m blue in the face trying to make her see that the two events aren’t connected. That it’s not her fault whether Lucille was poisoned intentionally, accidentally, or not at all. But nothing I’ve said has made one iota of difference.”
“Oh, my,” Leigh mumbled. “That’s not good. If she won’t listen to you, she sure as heck won’t listen to me. Even if she is talking to me more, now.”
Lydie’s eyebrows lifted curiously. “Talking to you more, now?”
Leigh nodded. “I guess because… well, because she’s not talking to you as much. She’s been calling me more.”
“I didn’t realize,” Lydie said, looking thoughtful.
“So what else can we do?” Leigh asked. “How can we get through to her?”
Lydie shook her head. “I don’t know, honey. Your father’s tried too, of course, but she won’t listen to him either. They didn’t meet until years after all this happened, but as you can imagine, hearing the story didn’t faze your father in the slightest — he shrugged and told her it didn’t sound like any big deal to him, that it could have happened to anyone and that she shouldn’t care what Gary said because he sounded like a jerk anyway.” Lydie smiled a little. “I daresay that your father’s cavalier attitude was a big part of what attracted her to him.”
Leigh contemplated the thought. How interesting. “But he can’t get through to her now?”
“It’s tough to talk someone out of feeling guilty,” Lydie replied. “Besides which, over the years your mother has realized that your father doesn’t belabor that emotion under any circumstances. So I suppose she’s discounted his opinion.”
Leigh smiled. Feeling guilty, in her father’s opinion, was a waste of energy. If you did something wrong, you made amends the best you could, and then you moved on.
Must be nice.
“There must be something we can do!” Leigh insisted.
Lydie said nothing for a moment. She took a long drag on her tea, then set down the mug. “I’m going to be honest with you, Leigh. I’m worried about your mother, and I’ve tried to do the best I can for her. But I’m tired.”
Leigh looked up at her aunt with surprise. She couldn’t remember the word “tired” ever having passed Lydie’s lips before. Her aunt was like the Energizer bunny.
“I’ve given your mother plenty of time to come around where Mason is concerned,” Lydie went on. “But the wedding is almost here. And she still hasn’t accepted him.”
Oh, Leigh thought sadly. That kind of tired.
“And quite frankly, I’m fed up,” Lydie confirmed, a steely edge entering her voice. “There’s no reason I should have to choose between my sister and my husband, but Frances is making me do it. She can pretend to accept him, but she’s a lousy pretender. She still thinks I’m making a mistake, and we both know that’s the bottom line. I’m tired of trying to change her mind and failing. She’s wrong about Mason, but if she can’t see that, I don’t know what else can give. Mason has nothing to apologize to Frances for — any sins he ever committed were against me, and if I’ve forgiven him, what business is it of hers? Mason has done everything he can to make things right. He’s been so patient with her! He bears no ill will. How much longer am I supposed to stand by and allow her to treat him like he’s practically less than human?” Hurt warred with anger in Lydie’s eyes.
“No one could blame you for losing patience with her,” Leigh said softly. “I wish there was something I could do.”
Lydie rose abruptly and poured herself another cup of tea. “You’re already doing it,” she said more positively. “You’ve accepted Mason as a member of the family.”
“He’s always been a member of the family,” Leigh stated. Then her tone turned teasing. “He’s just staking out new territory now. Someone might want to inform Harry Delvecchio, though. Lenna said he was quite persistent in his attentions to you the other day. She said he even nabbed you on the lips under his traveling mistletoe.”
Lydie grimaced. “Oh, that dreadful man! I can’t believe he was pestering me!”
Leigh studied her aunt’s incredulous expression with amusement. Had Lydie not looked in a mirror since Mason came back into her life?
“I mean, he was flirting with women your age, for heaven’s sake!” Lydie continued, returning to her chair. Somewhere in the house a door opened, then closed with a thud. “So why was he spending so much effort hanging his foolish mistletoe over my head? Hanging around the kitchen acting like he was some fine—”
“Who’s this?” Mason asked, walking into the kitchen carrying a bag of groceries and a cup of takeout coffee.
“Nobody,” Lydie answered, burying her face in her mug.
Mason’s eyes slid sideways to Leigh. Like I believe that, his gaze said with humor. He began to put away the groceries. “Are you talking about something that would upset me?” he asked Lydie casually.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “But I can handle such things on my own, Mason. I’ve been doing it for a very long time now and I can manage just fine, thank you.”
Mason finished his unpacking and sat down. “You’ve been doing everything for yourself for a very long time,” he replied. “All the more reason you should let me take a little of the load off your shoulders.”
Lydie’s dark eyes sparkled at him. “You can clean out the gutters.”
Mason laughed. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Anytime you want, Mrs. Dublin.”
Leigh wished her mother could see the two of them like this. But naturally, whe
never Frances was around, all three of them were wound up tight as drums.
“I’ve got to get dressed,” Lydie announced, rising again. She threw a look at Leigh. “Entertaining men in my nightclothes! Really, how scandalous!”
Leigh grinned as Lydie departed. Her aunt’s new outlook on life was such a joy to witness.
“So, what brings you over?” Mason asked Leigh. “Is your mother doing any better?”
He bears no ill will, Lydie had said. Clearly, it was true. Leigh brought Mason up to date on the situation, grateful for another sounding board. The threat to Allison continued to eat away at her stomach lining, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last before ruining Warren’s day.
Mason listened attentively, but when she was finished, he shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know, kid. I can’t see any of those women going through with a scheme like that. The insurance fraud, I mean.”
Leigh frowned. The way he said “those women” sounded suspiciously sexist. “Why not?”
He shook his head again. “Wrong profile. It’s too high risk. None of those ladies are on the brink of financial ruin, are they? Are they really in a place where they’re willing to risk jail time for a windfall? Besides which, they’re not even looking at an instant payout. They’d have to wait years to be safe, and waiting years is a tough enough sell for people in my age bracket. Besides which, the scheme is a long shot at best, and even then it all depends on her son, who doesn’t strike me as particularly dependable.”
Leigh felt guilty for doubting Mason. Sad to say, the man did have some experience with criminal psychology.
“Now, if they’re irrational, then anything’s possible,” he admitted. “I don’t know the women. But Lydie seems to think they’ve still got all their marbles, even if they are odd.”