The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  I didn’t think he meant it as a compliment, and I didn’t know how to respond.

  Leonard looked over at my feet and continued. “You look familiar, too. You say you got family on Lister?”

  I shook my head. “No, I was just vacationing there.”

  “Together?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “We just ended up that way.”

  “’Cause you sure are the spitting image of the Dunsmuir girl,” Leonard said, finally meeting my eye. His eyes quickly skittered back to Ryan.

  “The Dunsmuir girl?” Ryan asked.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “That must be James’ mother.”

  Leonard sighed. “Can’t speak ill of the dead or nothing, but she was a wild hair. Hippie child, you know, growing herbs and selling macramé.”

  “Herbs and macramé—that doesn’t sound so bad,” Ryan said.

  “I suppose the macramé was harmless enough, but the herbs, how’d the young say it? They’d trip you out. My son, Tim, he tripped up, or out, on her herbs.” Leonard fell quiet for a moment. “Got himself a chiropractic office now, stopped being a pain in the neck and started curing them.” Leonard looked me straight in the eye. “The good Lord saves souls.”

  I felt reprimanded and pulled the life preserver’s straps tighter. “Did He save the Dunsmuir girl?” I asked.

  “You gotta want to be saved.” Leonard spit into the water.

  “Yes, of course. But what happened to her?” I asked.

  “Cancer, rotted from the inside out,” Leonard said, as if that were a fair and justifiable end to a girl that would “trip out” his son.

  I shivered against Ryan, and he put his arm around me. We didn’t speak again until we hit land.

  #

  Ned, still struggling on crutches, led us back to the workroom. His progress was severely hampered by Wyeth. Wyeth loved Ned. Most people had a hard time with Ned. Maybe they found it difficult to look into his buggy, unblinking eyes, or were put off by his onion breath, but I knew that Ned had an animal charm. Cats, dogs, squirrels, every little creeping, flying thing came to visit Ned.

  And now I’d brought a realtor. I could tell Ryan was silently appraising Ned’s home: stainless steel accents, rough wood walls, stone floor, a wood furnace. It was a rare house, even for the Pacific Northwest.

  In the nineteenth century Ned’s home would have been called a dugout. I’d read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books as a girl, and when I first stepped below ground into Ned’s house, I thought of Laura, Mary, Grace, Ma, and Pa eeking out a life on the Dakota prairie.

  Only Ned didn’t live in the Dakotas and he didn’t have to eke. He had made millions in the computer boom, yet he still lived simply in an environmentally savvy home surrounded by earth on three sides. From the entrance the house was indistinguishable from the rest of the forest floor except for a narrow stairway that was hidden by strategically placed boulders. The stone stairs ended at small landing and a large oak door. Beyond the door, the room opened to face a wall of windows that looked out over Lake Sammamish. Ned didn’t live like a mole, but rather like an eccentric hermit.

  Ned and Ryan sized each other up, as even the most intelligent males often do—Ryan still in his too tight jeans and snug sandals, Ned in his Earth, Wind and Fire T-shirt and baggy pants. Antler measuring, Grammy Hailey called it. Males of all species had to butt horns, whether it was on a football field or in a courtroom.

  “Let’s see it then,” Ned said. His furniture had all been made of recycled trash, and since Ned’s home smelled faintly of rubber, I guessed used tires were somewhere close. Bookshelves solidly lined one wall of Ned’s living room, and an amazing media system took up another. An adjacent room had been committed to computers, and beyond that lay the workroom. The work room—stone floors, roughly hewn log walls, and tables that looked like they’d been stolen from my high school biology class—had been home to countless wounded animals and thousands of Petri dishes.

  Ryan handed him the bag and Ned carefully lifted out the sheet. He raised the stain to his nose and sniffed. Then he took the sheet and carefully placed the stain under the scrutiny of a microscope. He fiddled with the scope then extracted the sheet and lifted it to his tongue.

  Ryan had to look away.

  “Chocolate,” Ned said.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Ned nodded. “Very. Sorry, dear,” he said to me. “I’ll run some more tests, but I’m afraid all we’ll learn is that your Mrs. Dunsmuir had a sweet tooth.”

  #

  Ryan followed me up the stone steps. “What now?” he asked.

  “I might as well stay here. My bags and paints are still on Lister, but I can have them sent to my house.” I stopped uncertainly beside the boulder that disguised Ned’s doorway. I glanced at the roofline of my house through the trees. Wyeth whined and nudged at my leg. Even he seemed anxious to be home.

  “I can bring them back for you,” Ryan said.

  “Thanks.” I started toward home, feeling baffled and defeated. “This is where she was killed,” James had said. “Look for clues,” Jeff had said. Maybe our near miss in the inflatable was just a coincidence. My legs, weary from my stint in the water, felt heavy and cumbersome, as if they belonged to someone else.

  “I’d love to see your house,” Ryan said, walking easily beside me. “I don’t want to invite myself in or anything…” his voice trailed away, waiting for an invitation. We were both wet between the cracks, and his jeans would be much worse than my khaki shorts.

  “You can come in,” I said with a smile, glad that he’d made the suggestion, as I was too nervous to have made it myself. I thought about offering him dinner. Of course, I had very little in the fridge because I hadn’t been expecting to return for a month, but I could probably find something. Hot chocolate, at least. I’d start a fire and ask him all the questions I had rolling around in my head. I wanted him to kiss me again.

  We crested the small hill that separated my property from Ned’s, and I stopped, my smile freezing. Wyeth pulled at his leash. I took a step backwards, away from the sleek, red Jaguar parked in the drive.

  Ryan walked to the driveway, and I didn’t want to answer his inevitable question. “Pretty car,” he said.

  “It’s not mine,” I muttered, feeling miserable. If Grammy Hailey’s car was in my driveway, then Grammy Hailey was in my house. If I sent Ryan to the back deck, he’d only see Grammy Hailey if she were in the living room, kitchen, library, or master bedroom. For the first time I regretted buying a house with lake-view windows. I pointed Ryan to the back deck anyway. “Incredible view,” I muttered, trying to buy time.

  I dropped Wyeth’s leash and, eager to be home, he broke into a happy lope. I tried to think of a reason to keep Ryan from entering my house and inevitably meeting Grammy Hailey. Thoughts of hot chocolate, a roaring fire, and kissing disappeared.

  My anger at Gram flared. She hadn’t the right to come into my home in my absence, just like she hadn’t the right to buy my drawing. Just because I wrote her column, and she paid me generously, didn’t mean she owned me, my home, or my art. The column didn’t give her squatter’s rights. She needed limits. We get the respect we expect, I reminded myself as I prepared for my own battle for independence.

  Wyeth and I entered the house through the front door after Ryan had followed the deck around to the back. Aside from Wyeth’s clicking nails on the stone floor, the house was still. I’d only been away for three days, but it seemed like forever. I felt like a different person, as if a night in a cottage and a night in a tent had changed me into a different creature. But that did happen. Didn’t Saul turn from a persecutor to a Christian disciple in moments? And even Alice had never been quite the same once she’d followed the rabbit down his hole. But I hadn’t seen an angel or met a grinning cat; I’d met goats, otters, a yak, a thief, potential murderers, and a handsome realtor who was now prowling my deck.

  “Gram?” I whisper-yelled.

 
Everything looked as I left it. I took a quick glance at the library. I’d left an Elizabeth George novel and chenille throw on the sofa. I went to the bedroom where I found Grammy lying on the bed surrounded by several opened letters and an open bottle of medication on the nightstand. She looked old, tired, and vulnerable. My indignation wavered.

  “Gram,” I whispered. She didn’t stir. I read the medication’s label but didn’t recognize it.

  Wyeth’s tail beat against the door and Grammy didn’t flinch. She probably wouldn’t be waking up soon. I took the gamble and quickly and quietly closed the bedroom door and went to let Ryan into the living room.

  “Really a gorgeous home,” Ryan said, standing near the windows.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Helen Dunsmuir must’ve died peacefully in her sleep. The only real victims are a bunch of otters and a lovely old bayside home.”

  “I agree.” Ryan nodded as he settled into a chair overlooking the Sound. “The deflated inflatable was an accident.”

  “And the brown smear was chocolate. No mysteries, no foul play.” I sat down across from him.

  “And that’s a relief, right?” His eyes sought mine.

  I nodded slowly. But I didn’t feel relieved, and I wasn’t sure why. A knocking interrupted my thoughts.

  “What was that?” Ryan turned toward the bedroom door.

  “Probably Wyeth,” I said, standing. “Would you like something to eat?”

  Ryan looked in the opposite direction, the direction of the mudroom, the direction of Wyeth’s food. Presently we heard Wyeth drinking water in big noisy tongue-fulls. Ryan cocked his head at the bedroom. “It sounded like—”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” I went into the kitchen and pulled open the door of my empty refrigerator.

  Ryan flushed and shook his head, confused. He stopped in front of my painting of Pike Street. “Is this yours?” I heard his admiration and remembered the sniff of José Ortiz, an instructor from the institute. He called it “travel agency art.” Ryan probably didn’t know the difference between transcendent and travel agency art. I liked that about him.

  The bedroom door creaked open. Ryan now knew we weren’t alone. I needed him to leave, but I didn’t want him to leave forever. I quickly closed the refrigerator door and led Ryan to the entry.

  “Did you get your keys ?” he asked.

  I threw a look over my shoulder toward the bedroom, willing Gram to stay behind the wall. “Would it be horribly inconvenient for you to go and get your things and then return for me?” I asked before he could say anything else. “Because if it is, I could always get a taxi.” I pulled the door open and he took the hint and stepped out onto the stone porch.

  A light rain had started to fall, and the clouds blocked out the dying afternoon sun. The drizzle collected on the leaves of the Japanese maple that shaded my porch and fell in heavy plops. Ryan stood under the protecting eaves. He reached out and squeezed my hand, and I thought of his arms around me as we sat in the tree, his hand pulling me out of the puddle of murk at the foot of the tunnel, the twig in his hair…and the kiss.

  “I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” he said before turning up his collar against the rain and heading toward his car.

  “Perfect,” I said, quickly closing the door behind him.

  “Quite nearly perfect, I’d say.” Gram said from the sofa. Despite her nap, she looked perfectly coiffed. Only her eyes looked tired. “I see you took my advice.”

  “Doesn’t everyone?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. I came into the room and sat down on the leather wingback facing her. Curling my legs underneath me, I pulled a throw across my lap.

  Grammy Hailey sighed deeply, then she pointed a long red fingernail at me. “Non-Blushing Non-Bride doesn’t plan to marry her honey, but they are buying a house together and she wants to throw a housewarming party and register for gifts.”

  I cocked my head at her. “What are you doing here? You can’t just come into my home uninvited.”

  Grammy gave me a hard look and walked into the kitchen, her dressing gown flirting around her ankles. She was the only seventy-year-old I knew who could look lovely dressed in a nightie and robe. Wyeth padded in and Grammy fondled his ears. She pulled open the fridge and helped herself to a spritzer. She sat down at the kitchen table and let out another sigh. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.

  “I was only gone three days.” This was uncharacteristic Hailey behavior. “You told me to disappear for a month.”

  “I don’t always know everything, you know. You and everyone else,” she waved her arms in the air to incorporate the everyone else, “shouldn’t do everything I say.” Putting her hand into her dressing gown pocket, she pulled out a bottle. She pulled off the childproof top and poured a small blue pill into her hand.

  “What are those?” I asked. Gram despised medicine, despite her love of doctors.

  The bottle quickly disappeared into her pocket. “Who was that dish?”

  A flutter of fear mingled with my frustration. I needed to confront her about her drawing purchase, but I also needed to throw her out. I had thirty minutes.

  She smiled. “Don’t worry, Cabbage, I peeked at him through the bedroom blinds. He didn’t see me. Your secret is still safe.” She paused. “Although, I’m quite concerned about the Salem Witch.”

  “The who? Gram, you need to leave.” I stood up to make sure Ryan’s car had already disappeared up the drive.

  “The Salem Witch, she’s from Oregon, by the way, not Massachusetts.” She gazed out the window vacantly. The misting rain distorted the view. She continued. “It’d be much more frightening if she actually were from Salem, witch hunts and all that…I wonder if sorcery is genetic.”

  I turned from the window to watch Grammy. Something was wrong. “You don’t believe in sorcery. Gram, what are those pills?”

  She shrugged. “Dr. Nolte, you know him from the club. Such a nice man, too bad all of his children took after that homely Sadie. Honkers on all of them. The girls too. Such a shame.”

  I didn’t recognize this Hailey. She had always been much too polite to call anyone homely, let alone call attention to their honkers. I went to sit by her at the table and put out my hand. “Give them to me.” I would hunt down Dr. Nolte from the club. "Why are you taking pills?”

  “To help me sleep. At first I didn’t like them because they made me loopy.”

  I waved my extended hand.

  She looked at me crossly. “These are perfectly legal and safe.”

  “Safe and legal is one thing, loopy is another.” I wondered why she couldn’t sleep. She loved her life, relished the spotlight, and delighted in fans. It’d be a difficult life for me, and I suspected, for most, but Grammy Hailey had flourished in the attention, and furthermore, had lived in the spotlight for almost thirty years. As far as I knew, nothing had changed. Her life had the same chaotic rhythm I’d always known. I looked at her closely and she looked away. Maybe it’s never easy to really know someone. Even someone close to you can change in micro ways, and the changes sneak up by tiny degrees, so the person you thought you knew and loved turns into someone else entirely. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked gently, my anger and self-righteousness fading. I placed my hand over hers.

  She looked back at me, placed her other hand on mine and gave it a tight squeeze. “I guess I’m just feeling my age. There are so many things I’ve left undone.”

  I stared at her open-mouthed. She’d done more than anyone I knew. She traveled excessively, met with heads of state, chaired a number of charities, and championed any good cause.

  “I’m just wondering if maybe…I did it all wrong.” She picked at the lace on her dressing gown.

  This was someone else’s grandmother.

  “Have I done any good?”

  “Grammy, you’ve given millions to charities, you built that school in San Paulo…”

  She rapidly b
linked back tears and returned her gaze to the window. The light drizzle started to fall more earnestly. “But I didn’t know any of those people.”

  “So? They’re still people. Remember that village in Ecuador?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “Don’t you see, it was all vainglory.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Pomp and show.”

  “You love the pomp and show!”

  She looked at me hard and then squeezed my hand even tighter. I realized I’d said the wrong thing. I changed tacks. “What would you have done differently?”

  She sniffed loudly. “Victor Hugo said, ‘Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battle fields which have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.’”

  I shook my head, confused. “Grammy—”

  “Don’t you see? I should have been more obscure. More intimate. Remember Mrs. Jellybelly, that Dickens character in Bleak House? She was always helping to serve great causes, while her own children were snotty, hungry, and poorly clothed.”

  “Mrs. who? I’m sorry, I’m not following you.”

  She turned her large blue eyes on me and I saw tears welling. She slammed her hand down on the table. “Exactly, don’t follow me. Settle down, create a home and have children.”

  I felt hurt, as if she’d physically assaulted me. “We had a home, a lovely, beautiful home, and you had me.”

  She shook her head. “No, your father had you.”

  “You had me,” I pressed. “And you still have me.”

  She looked back out the window and shook her head. “I want you go with that dish.”

  I stood up. “Maybe some spooning might have happened if you hadn’t been here. I was going to invite him for dinner.”

  “Cabbage, are you angry?” She looked at me puzzled.

  I wasn’t as angry as I had been, but still she needed to know that there were limits. I stood up and began to pace. “Gram, you can’t come into my home uninvited.”

  She slowly set down the pills. “Why ever not? You come into mine.” Her steely blue eyes looked sharply into mine.