by Leena Clover
“Why don’t you stay for lunch?”
“That’s the plan,” Tony winked.
He put the pie on the dining table. Jeet came in and they did the handshake thing. Jeet opened the pie and began cutting a piece.
“That’s for dessert, Jeet.”
The guys went out to watch TV with Pappa. Motee Ba sat down at the table.
“Did you know Walter’s a bit cuckoo?” I asked her.
Motee Ba frowned.
“He’s not. Walter is a smart man. Ask your Pappa.”
“Sylvie said he hung out a lot with Pappa and Aunt Reema? I don’t remember him coming around so much.”
“That was ages ago. We were new here. Then your mother went away and life changed for us.”
“She got carried away, you mean,” I laughed suddenly.
Motee Ba gave me a look, then smiled.
“With Dot gone and you pulling out, Mary Beth Arlington’s going to be President of WOSCO again.”
“She’s been at it for years, Meera. We could do worse.”
“Wanna go meet Mary Beth?” I asked Tony over pie.
He was on his second slice.
“Sure, let’s go.”
I called and confirmed she was available.
“You sure you’re not disturbing them on a Sunday?” Motee Ba asked anxiously.
“She asked me to come right now, Motee Ba.”
Once again, the door opened as I was about to ring the bell. Two young kids ran around, screaming at the top of their voices. A middle aged woman ran behind them, trying to outscream and outrun them. I cringed at the noise and took a closer look at the woman. She wasn’t that old, I realized.
“Missy’s here for a visit,” Mary Beth called out. “Along with her boys. Aren’t they adorable?”
There was a loud thud, and a moment of silence. Someone started bawling. A laugh broke out. I tried to ignore the distraction.
“What brings you young people here?” Mary Beth asked.
“We just wanted to chat,” I said hurriedly. “Did you know my grandma’s not putting her name in? And neither was Dot.”
“I knew that would happen,” Mary Beth said smugly.
I looked at her questioningly.
“Dot’s always wanted what I had. I’m used to it, you know.”
“You’ve known her for a while, haven’t you?”
“That’s right, Meera. We grew up here. In school, it was a hairclip or a new frock. Then later it was my suitors.”
“You mean boyfriends?” Tony asked.
“Yes,” Mary Beth tittered. “She stole Walter from me, you know.”
“What?” I couldn’t control myself.
“Walter was so handsome. He dressed well and he had good manners. Always stood up for a lady. I wasn’t too bad looking myself. In fact, I won the Miss Swan Creek pageant three years in a row.”
I looked at the well rounded form of Mary Beth Arlington and tried to imagine her a few decades ago. She did have a commanding presence.
“Dot and I were having lunch at Sylvie’s one day. Walter came in just then. I looked up and our eyes met. It was love at first sight.”
Mary Beth had a faraway look in her eyes.
“But that’s not what Walter…” Tony burst out.
I gave him a quelling look, signaling him to cool it.
“It didn’t work out, I suppose…” I sympathized.
“Well, obviously not. Dot had to barge in and make eyes at him. I think she just couldn’t stomach the thought of me getting hitched before her.”
“Water under the bridge, hunh?” Tony said.
“Oh yes. I turned out to be the lucky one, of course. Look what happened to Walter. It’s a poetic justice of sorts.”
“You’re talking about Walter’s injury?”
“If you want to call it that. Dot ended up working her butt off all her life. And that son of theirs? Don’t get me started.”
We were quiet for a while.
Mary Beth got up and went inside. She came out with two slices of pie and milk. Tony sprang forward to pick up the plate. I politely declined. Tony doesn’t have to struggle to button his jeans like I do.
“How’s Missy doing?” I asked.
Missy’s voice rang out from somewhere inside just then. She was arguing with someone over the phone.
“She’s had a tiff with her husband,” Mary Beth said airily. “So I get to spoil my grandkids for a few days.”
“Would you say Dot ever did something, err, unsavory?”
“How do you mean, Meera?”
“Well, something she might want to hide, for example.”
“She was devoted to Walter, I’ll say that for her.”
“What about any prior attachments? Before Walter came into town?”
“She went out with a few guys in High School. But nothing serious as far as I remember.”
“No skeletons in the closet?” Tony smiled, gulping down his milk.
“I think not.”
Mary Beth pursed her lips.
“Out with it, kids. What do you really want to know?”
“I can’t say much now, Mary Beth,” I hedged.
Mary Beth finally displayed a smidgen of emotion.
“Dot was a simple soul. She had a very humdrum existence. She really took pleasure in educating people, helping them improve their prospects. The only other thing she probably hankered after were grandkids. And that trip to England.”
We made some more small talk and said goodbye.
“That was frustrating,” I fumed. “Not worth giving up my Sunday afternoon nap.”
“That pie! Worth every bite.”
“Stop being a glutton and tell me what you think.”
“Meera, do you think this Mary Beth still has a thing for Walter?”
“After all these years?”
“Maybe it’s grown over the years.”
“Why not? So Mary Beth has been pining over Walter for forty some years. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She killed Dot so she can run away with Walter, the love of her life?”
Tony looked shamefaced.
“Well, it does sound crazy when you put it like that.”
“You’re missing something else, Tony. Walter told me he fell in love with Dot the moment he saw her at Sylvie’s. That’s exactly opposite what Mary Beth told us.”
“She’s fibbing!” Tony scoffed. “Didn’t I tell you so last time? She just talks smoothly and gets you all turned around.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know, Meera.”
I desperately needed some fresh air.
“You up for a walk?” I asked Tony.
I drove to Willow Springs Lake Park. I hadn’t been there since the time Becky dragged me out for an early morning run and I stumbled onto a dead guy. The crisp winter air was invigorating. I could smell Spring in the air.
“We should do something big for Spring Break,” Tony said.
“That’s a long time away, pal. I can’t see beyond the next corner.”
“What’s the next step, Meera?”
I thought for a while.
“I should go see Henry again. We know for sure she lied to me. I wonder why.”
“Are you going to just say it to her face?” Tony asked.
“I’ll be more subtle that that.”
We both laughed. I’m a lot of things. Subtle is not one of them.
We had just finished dinner and Jeet was sullenly doing the dishes. Pappa was settled in his recliner in front of the TV.
“How well do you know Henry Thompson, Pappa?”
“She came around a lot at the old house,” Pappa said. “We were all trying to settle in.”
“I thought Dad knows her from college.”
“Your father never set foot in the History department. He met the Thompson ladies at home.”
“I never knew that.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Pappa smirked.
; I wished him good night and went to my room.
Chapter 11
Monday morning brought some early sunshine. The weather channel predicted a high of 62, putting a smile on everyone’s face.
I chopped bananas and stirred a big pot of oatmeal. Pappa came in and demanded his breakfast. I set his toast and soft boiled egg in front of him.
I was making cheese omelets for the rest of us.
“Put fresh jalapenos in mine,” Jeet ordered as he came in. “Chopped super fine, like Mom does.”
I felt a prickly sensation at the nape of my neck. What was Jeet doing, referring to Sally as Mom?
“Any news from Sarla?” Pappa asked, cracking his egg.
Motee Ba shrugged.
“She hasn’t called yet.”
“Why don’t you try calling her, Ba?” Dad had come in and was pulling up a chair.
“She didn’t leave a number.”
Dad looked devastated.
“What are you saying, Ba? How could you just let her go?”
Jeet wasn’t looking too good either.
“That’s so not cool,” I cried. “How inconsiderate! Maybe she’s not coming back.”
“But she just found us,” Jeet wailed.
I ignored the pounding in my heart.
“She looked around. She didn’t like what she saw. Now she’s gone.”
“Meera,” Motee Ba began. “Don’t be cruel.”
“I’m being cruel?”
I slapped an omelet onto a plate and set it down hard in front of Motee Ba.
“If you ask me, she was just an impostor. She had her fun. I would check my jewelry drawer if I were you, Motee Ba.”
“Stop this nonsense, girl,” Pappa boomed. “Stop it right now.”
Tears rolled down Motee Ba’s eyes. Jeet and Dad looked shocked. I couldn’t believe my outburst. Dad opened his mouth to protest.
“I know, I know,” I held up my hand. “Fingerprints, and DNA and all that.”
I went to my room in a daze and got my bag. The Camry drove itself to Tony’s on Autopilot.
“Have you lost your mind, Meera?”
He yelled at me as soon as I went in.
“Why are you making Granny cry?”
I bet it was Jeet who squealed. My eyes moistened with tears.
“You have to be careful about what you say. Just because you’re slow to have faith in someone…”
I let Tony rail at me for some time and drove to work. The Monday morning rush kept me busy and I didn’t think about Dot Brown until I was ready to sign out.
“Can you spare Becky for a while?” I asked Sylvie.
“It’s a slow night. So that’s a yes.”
“Do you want to call her first?” Becky asked.
She’s a bit intimidated by Henry.
“No need. I don’t want to give her time to cook up another story.”
Sylvie packed a fresh batch of samosa dumplings in a box and we set off.
Carl or Carlotta Thompson, Henry’s sister, was the homemaker of the two. As far as I knew, she had never taken up a job. She was the complete opposite of her sister, soft spoken and shy, eager to please. She was also younger than Henry, another reason she let Henry make all the decisions.
The Thompson sisters lived in a comfortable ranch house with a spacious garden. It was a bit early for Carl’s famous roses. Her face lit up in a smile when she saw us.
“Who is it, Carl?” Henry called out.
“Meera and her friend,” Carl replied.
Her face clouded over for a minute, but then she took my arm and ushered us in. Henry was pouring sherry from a crystal decanter.
“Meera! What a surprise! We were just having our pre-dinner drink.”
I looked uncertainly at the red liquid.
“I have some beer too,” Carl winked.
“Sylvie sent these,” Becky said, handing over the box to Carl.
She peeked inside and exclaimed happily.
“Samosas! Are these the dumplings you’ve been raving about, Henry? I can’t wait to try one.”
“Don’t be silly, Carl. When did I ever talk about them?”
I already knew Henry had lied about the dumplings. I didn’t say a word.
Carl blushed and went inside. She came out with a plateful of the samosas and a bottle of ketchup. Her eyes looked red. I wondered how often Henry bullied her sister.
“We eat these all the time,” Becky said gently. “Why don’t you try one, Ma’am?”
“Call me Carl, like Meera does.”
Carl picked up a dumpling and took a dainty bite.
“Delicious!”
She gave me a thumbs up.
“How is your mother, Meera?” she asked next.
“She’s out of town for a while.”
Henry looked at me shrewdly.
“Not tired of her already, are you?”
“No, Henry, of course not.”
“What brings you here, Meera?” Henry asked after I had taken a sip of my beer.
I thought for a minute.
“I want to talk about what happened at the WOSCO party.”
“We already talked about that,” Henry said.
Our eyes locked, and I refused to budge. If looks could talk, mine would tell her I was on to her.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened that day?”
I left out the ‘really’ but Henry heard it alright.
“These don’t have chicken in them, Henry,” Carl said.
She picked up her second dumpling.
“This is just potatoes and peas,” Becky nodded. “We only make the chicken dumplings to order. Like for the WOSCO party.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked at Henry, arms crossed.
She sighed.
“I ate them. Several of them. They are that good, Meera.”
“What did you and Dot talk about?”
“Well, it was kind of a secret…”
“Walter’s bound to find out any day, Henry,” Carl spoke up.
I immediately thought of the note in Dot’s pocket.
“Find out what? Was Dot hiding something from him?”
Henry nodded.
“It seemed a bit silly to me. And I told her so.”
“Go on,” I urged, wishing she would hurry up.
Becky leaned forward in her seat, sensing Henry was about to reveal something important.
“Walter’s from England. I suppose you have heard of that, Meera?”
“Not until recently, but yes,” I nodded.
“We bonded a lot, years ago, being from the same country and all. Then I got busy with my school work. I guess what I’m saying is, we swapped stories, talked about life in the old country.”
Pappa had told me the same thing earlier.
“Walter comes from a noble family. One of his uncles was a peer. But his father was a fourth son and Walter himself was the fifth son.”
I wanted Henry to hurry along. I picked up a samosa, wanting to nosh on something.
“What it boils down to is, Walter came into a title. He was the 12th or 13th in line so this was never expected to happen. But by some fluke of fate, it did.”
“Aren’t the lords extinct?” I asked naively. “Who cares about these things nowadays?”
It was the wrong thing to say to a history professor.
Henry puffed up. “People who have these titles do, Meera. Walter’s come into an estate and money, lots of it.”
“And he doesn’t know about it?” Becky burst out.
“Dot was the only one who knew,” Henry said. “And she had a plan.”
“About what?”
“Dot was an Anglophile. She’d been saving to go to England all her life. The whole town knows that.”
Becky and I agreed.
“Now England was handed to her on a platter. She was getting their tickets. She wanted to surprise Walter with the news after they went there.”
“I wouldn’t be able to hide such big news,” B
ecky said, wide eyed.
“Dot was pretty excited,” Henry said sadly. “She was chatting my head off, asking about what to pack, what kind of clothes to take, where to go first…”
“When was the last time you went to England?” I asked.
“Ten years ago!” Carl burst out. “We were supposed to settle down in a small village in the Cotswolds when Henry retired. But she just won’t stop working.”
“That’s what I kept telling Dot, Meera,” Henry explained. “It’s been a while since I was back home. I had no answers to her questions. I couldn’t tell her how much a first class ticket cost, or which train to take.”
“When was Dot planning to leave?” I asked.
“In a week. They were supposed to fly out tomorrow.”
“So she really wasn’t running for WOSCO President.”
Henry clapped her hands loudly, finally beginning to act like usual.
“Why would she? She was moving to England, wasn’t she?”
“Moving?” I backtracked. “I thought they were going to visit.”
“Right now, yes. But they would have to live there. Those were the conditions of the inheritance, I think.”
“Did anyone else hear what she was saying?”
Henry shrugged.
“Dot was so carried away. She almost strong armed me. I just stood there, putting away those tasty dumplings of yours. We were close to the door, off to one side near the refreshments table. She didn’t give me a chance to look around.”
“What happens now? About this legacy?”
“Well, Walter’s the heir, so I guess he will find out soon enough.”
“Why were you rushing out?”
Henry’s earlier explanation of being hungry wasn’t valid any more. But the fact remained that she had almost fled from the scene.
“Escaping!” Henry said.
“We talked about this…” Carl began.
Henry ignored her sister.
“Look, Meera, I’m sorry. This doesn’t seem right now that Dot’s gone. But I was running from her.”
“Why?”
“She’d cornered me for over an hour. I just wanted to get away. Someone called out to her, I think. I took my chance and started going to the door. The lights went out just then. I groped my way to it. I was just a few feet away anyhow. The lights came back just as I opened the door. And then I ran into you.”
Henry had given me a lot of new information. Becky and I chatted with the ladies for some time. Then we said our goodbyes.