A Stiff Critique (18 page)

I might not have even noticed Vicky Andros if I hadn’t been working so hard at not looking in Russell’s direction. She sat waiflike in oversized khakis on one of the kitchen chairs, her bony arms wrapped around herself as if she were cold. Vicky looked a little like Audrey Hepburn in
My Fair Lady
, only she was too thin for the part. I nodded her way and she nodded back without unwrapping her arms.

“So how’s our resident poet doing?” Mave asked cheerfully. I jerked my head back to look at her. Did she mean me? She was grinning in my direction. She
did
mean me.

“Oh, just fine,” I assured her, smiling back inanely. “No muse today, though. But I guess no muse is good muse—”

The doorbell rang, detonating the animals again before I could make a complete fool of myself. I took a seat on the unoccupied sofa as gag-gift slogans for poets fluttered and crashed in my mind.

Carrie left and came back with Donna, who was dressed in a gauzy blouse and slacks today, but still wore the same floor-length sleeveless vest that she’d worn at the last meeting. I held my breath as she stepped forward. Sinbad added to the suspense, slithering in figure-eights around Donna’s ankles.

But Donna did fine, making her way slowly and carefully into the room without mishap.

“Hi, everyone,” she sang out gaily. Then she continued her painstaking progress across the room to my sofa. “Mind if I sit next to you?” she whispered, a beseeching look in her honey-colored eyes.

“Oh sure, have a seat,” I said, then wondered if it might actually be dangerous to have Donna sit next to me.

Sinbad made one last pass around Donna’s ankle as she was lowering herself onto the sofa. Then the doorbell rang and Sinbad jumped. Donna jumped too and fell the rest of the way onto the sofa with a
whumph.
I flattened myself against the back cushions.

“Are you okay?” I asked, sliding as far away from her as I could without actually getting up.

“Oh, I’m great,” she said with a sweet smile. She moved closer to me. I tried not to cringe. “But I wanted to apologize to you for my dad’s men. I know they can be, well, insensitive. Sometimes I think they don’t understand personal space at all. I know I shouldn’t have—”

“Kiss, kiss,” Nan interrupted from behind us. I turned in time to see her blow one of those kisses over our heads to the group on the other sofa. Today’s business suit was teal and miniskirted, accented by heaps of heavy silver jewelry. “While all you lazy bums have been enjoying your Saturday, I’ve been out showing hot properties. And selling them! The market is fast these days. Oodles and oodles of money to be made.”

She sat down on the kitchen chair nearest to Vicky and crossed her long brown legs. Next to Vicky, Nan appeared to be the original California girl, a picture of tan/blond health and vitality. That contrast was probably one of the reasons she chose to sit there, I realized.

“Well, what’s up?” she asked brightly.

Carrie sat down in the last available kitchen chair. “Obviously Slade cannot read today as planned,” Carrie said, sweeping the small crowd with her eyes. “And many of us have been unable to review Donna’s manuscript. Luckily, Vicky has agreed to read impromptu today.” She waved her hand in Vicky’s direction. “But I suggest that we talk about Donna’s manuscript first. Apparently, her father’s men visited here last night. The diskette—”

Travis leapt from his chair. “Here?!” he shouted, throwing his arms up. “They came here again! Carrie, you shoulda told me. I’ll stay here with you. I—”

“It’s okay, Travis,” Carrie cut in, standing and waving a hand in front of his outraged face. “Everything is fine. I never even saw them.”

He lowered his arms slowly, then shut his mouth. “Oh,” he said and sat back down. He turned toward Donna. “They got my hard copy and floppy too,” he admitted. “While I was out. Sorry.”

Carrie took a deep breath and returned to her seat.

“Oh, no,” said Donna, smiling graciously at Travis. “I’m the one who should be sorry. Well, maybe not sorry, but at least I should be able to learn from my mistakes. And to take responsibility. I shouldn’t have put everyone through this trauma.”

“No shit,” Nan articulated clearly.

“But don’t worry,” Donna assured us with a big smile. “I still have my copies. They haven’t found my little hidey-hole yet.”

“I still have my floppy,” Russell told us quietly. “In a place they won’t be able to find.”

I opened my mouth to ask him where, then closed it again. It was none of my business where he had hid it. And probably not something that should be mentioned in front of Donna, anyway.

“I’ve got the hard copy and the floppy hidden,” Joyce added. She didn’t say where, either. Maybe no one trusted Donna with her own secrets.

“Well, those pesky critters got my hard copy, sure as shootin’,” said Mave. “I didn’t check to see if I still had the floppy, though.” She glared through her glasses fiercely. “We gotta do something about those dirt-bags. They’re getting too big for their britches. Someone’s gotta teach them a lesson.”

“They stole my floppy,” Vicky said quietly.

“Mine too,” I chimed in, finally feeling like a member of the group.

Russell’s head swiveled my way. “They didn’t harm you, did they?” he demanded.

I shook my head, embarrassed by his intense stare.

“I saw them, though,” I told him. “When they ran down the stairs.”

“If you’d like me to stand guard, I’d be happy to,” he offered diffidently. Damn. My favorite suspect for murder was offering to protect me.

“No, no,” I answered, averting my gaze. “I’m fine by myself.”

“The real question remains,” Carrie reminded us, her tone somber, “did they kill Slade Skinner?”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Donna said. She looked around the room hesitantly. “See, Frank and Larry aren’t like that. Some of the stuff they do is pretty inappropriate, but not like really violent. I’ve known them both since I was a baby. I talked to them this morning, and Larry said if they were going to kill anyone it would be me—”

“Oh, how very appropriate,” Nan cut in. “What nice, intelligent men.”

“They were just talking, just dealing with their angry feelings,” Donna explained. Her eyes opened wide. “They wouldn’t kill me or anyone else. Honestly. And I asked them to swear they hadn’t killed Slade, and they swore.”

“And we’re supposed to believe them?” Nan demanded.

“Um, yeah—” Donna began.

Nan waved a hand in her direction, jingling silver bracelets. “Forget it,” she said. “Good ole Frankie and Johnny didn’t kill Slade—”

“Frank and Larry,” Donna corrected her.

Nan whipped her head around to glare at the woman who dared to interrupt.

“Sorry,” Donna whispered. She lowered her eyes and began to chew on her upper lip.

“If I may go on,” Nan drawled, and then went on. “The two stooges didn’t kill Slade. Remember, I live across the street from Slade’s. I see a lot on that street and I didn’t see them visit Saturday after the group.” She paused and swept the room with her eyes. Then she smiled. “Which isn’t to say I didn’t see anything.”

It took a while for her implication to sink into my mind. Russell was faster than I was.

“If you know anything at all about Slade’s death, it’s not wise to keep it secret,” he cautioned her. His voice was low and hypnotic. “Tell us what you saw now, Nan.”

But the hypnotic tone did nothing for Nan. She only giggled. “You just want the gory details so you can get a fat contract for your next true-crime book,” she said, pointing her finger. “Well, you’re not getting them from me. Anyway, I didn’t say I knew anything about Slade’s death. So forget it.” Then she stretched, reaching her arms behind her and arching her back. “I’m starving,” she announced. “When are we going to eat?”

“This is serious, Nan,” Carrie declared. She stood slowly and stepped toward Nan, her small form looming suddenly, her voice prosecutorial. “Did you in fact see something last Saturday at Slade Skinner’s house? Did you see someone?”

“I was just kidding,” Nan snapped. “God, you guys are tiresome. You should all see your faces. You
all
look guilty.”

I looked around. She was right. There was some combination of anger, fear and confusion on everyone’s face, and nothing that would prove innocence on any of them.

“Are you just yanking our chains?” Travis demanded finally.

“Of course I am, gorgeous,” Nan replied with a wink in his direction.

A blush crept up Travis’s swarthy face, tinting it a deep shade of mauve. He jumped out of his chair, heading toward the kitchen.

“Fuck it,” he said over his shoulder. “Let’s eat.”

So we ate. It was a great potluck. Carrie had brought out her good china. We feasted on pumpkin bread, green salad, tabbouleh salad, pineapple-bean salad, couscous, ratatouille and fresh sliced peaches. As well as my own offering of vegetable-rice salad, which was graciously applauded. Someone, probably Mave, began a conversation on the topic of why writers write, and the mouths were off and running.

Travis insisted at length that the message was everything. “Why write if you don’t have something to say?” he summed up through a mouthful of food.

Nan argued money was what counted. But even I could tell she didn’t mean it. And five minutes later she was insisting that it was the writing high, the exhilaration she wrote for. And I knew what she meant. Designing gave me that same high. Donna said writing was a gift, a chance to make something truly beautiful. Russell offered the quiet opinion that the process of writing was an addiction, if a benign one. And Carrie told us that the total absorption in the writing process brought a blessed relief from everyday self-consciousness.

“It’s an obsession,” Vicky whispered then. She lowered her eyes. “It’s an obsession that blocks out all other obsessions.”

I took a quick look at her pinched face and was glad that writing could help her, whatever her other obsessions were. She had eaten nothing but green salad again, only eyeing the rest of the food as it made its way into everyone else’s mouths.

“‘So I have loitered my life away,’“ quoted Mave softly as she laid down her plate. “‘Reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have only wanted one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.’“ She sighed. “William Hazlitt,” she added dreamily.

Everyone seemed to be smiling now. Even Vicky. The group felt like a real family. And not a dysfunctional one. I took a last bite of pumpkin bread and pondered the miracle. Had their shared love of writing brought this state about? Or maybe there was no miracle. Maybe this was how they always functioned when writing was on the agenda instead of murder. Then I remembered the previous Saturday.

“What’s for dessert?” Travis asked into the contented silence.

All eyes turned to Russell.

“Carob-dipped strawberries,” he answered. “No animal products. Completely vegan.”

Vicky cleared away dishes while the rest of us indulged ourselves in the rich, ripe carob-coated strawberries.

Once we were finished, Vicky took her place again on the kitchen chair to read aloud. Her voice was shrill as she began, her tempo fast, so fast in fact that I lost a lot of the words at first.

“‘The room smelled of oranges,’“ was the first full sentence I could make out clearly. “‘Of oranges and cinnamon. The mirror-lined walls reflected our bodies. Doug’s skin was the rich color of chocolate, mine cream with a hint of raspberry. I wanted to see everything, to taste everything. I began with his mouth, the flesh of his lips so sweet and soft, his tongue tasting of…’“

I had forgotten that Vicky wrote soft porn. I hoped my face didn’t reflect my belated recognition.

“‘I was hungry for him now,’“ she read on. “‘Hungry, so hungry, it was hard to believe anything would fill the void. I took his swollen manhood into my mouth, wanting to taste it. He sighed.’“

It was soft porn all right. And three gustatory orgasms later, I was completely sure. I just hoped I wasn’t blushing. Hearing this stuff read aloud in a room with a handful of other people, two of whom were male, was far more personal than reading it alone would have been. I was relieved when her characters finally finished up and called room service for a feast of pastries and fresh fruit. Then I wondered if the fresh fruit would figure in the sexual adventures of the next chapter. Or even the pastries. And pretty soon I was thinking about Wayne. God, I missed him.

“Well, Kate,” said Mave, interrupting my thoughts. “Why don’t you take a stab at this critiquing business. Tell Vicky here what you think.”

“Me?” I squeaked.

“Good golly.” Mave laughed. “You gotta critique if you’re in a critique group. Take a ride on the hay wagon. Give it a whirl.”

“Well,” I said. I could feel my skin pinkening. “It was very, well, sexy.”

I looked over at Vicky. There was a tentative smile on her pinched face. I went on.

“I think all the food metaphors were great,” I told her. Her smile disappeared. Panicked, I began to talk faster. “You know how we love to eat,” I said. “The love affair your character has with taste and food is almost as good as the one she has with Doug.”

I watched the color drain from Vicky’s face. Her skin turned the color of cream, cream
without
a touch of raspberry.