Antiques Flee Market (4 page)

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because of the way Peggy Sue behaves around her…always kowtowing to that cow’s every wish. It’s like Sis is
afraid
of her.” I took a deep breath, let it out, said woefully, “No, that note rings true, and it points to Peggy Sue.”

Suddenly, my sorrow turned to anger, and I set the coffee cup forcefully on the table, spilling it a little.

“And to think!” I said. “Life could have been
so
different for me!
I
could have grown up with
money
and had a
real
sister—Ashley, my niece—and lived
her
kind of privileged life!”

Cynthia cocked her head and countered, “But that’s not what would have happened, is it?”

I looked down at my hands in my lap. “No. I suppose not.”

“Can you imagine what your life really
would
have been like?”

I looked at her sharply. “I
hate
it when you make me do all the work. Is
that
what you get paid the big bucks for?”

“Sometimes, yes,” Cynthia said, then waited patiently.

I sighed. “All right, I’ll see if I can come up with a credible scenario…. Peggy Sue, knocked up the summer after high school, never goes to college, so she never meets Uncle Bob, who makes all the money that kept Mother and me afloat in the early years. Instead, her boyfriend—my
father
, whoever the hell he is—dumps Sis after finding out she’s pregnant, and Peggy Sue has to raise me as a single parent in a time when that was far more taboo, and we live in abject poverty and misery, including Mother, newly widowed and unable to afford mental health care. In desperation, Peggy Sue marries a divorced guy who works at a gas station, and one night he molests me, after I start to blossom. I stab him to death with a kitchen knife, and Peggy Sue covers up the crime by burning down our shack with the body in it. But then she gets caught and, taking the murder rap for me, goes to jail where she has a lesbian affair with a female guard who—”

“I saw that movie on Lifetime too,” Cynthia said caustically.

I shrugged. “Well, at least that little exercise showed me Peggy Sue
might
have done the best thing for all of us.”

“If you’re
right
about this…”

“Oh, I’m right!”

“…then Peggy Sue was just a high school girl in a terrible situation. You’re thinking of her as the adult Peggy Sue. I’m sure you realize that it was a different time back then, and much easier to be ostracized. Keep in mind how hard it would have been, how difficult the choices were.”

“Fine, she’s a saint, but damn it, she should have
told
me at some point…not kept it a secret.” I smirked. “But then, Sis always
has
cared more about what
other
people think than the reality of her life.”

Cynthia said, “
You’re
accepting your theory as reality, Brandy. I admit it’s credible, but it’s just a theory, based on circumstantial evidence. You’ll never know until you talk it out with your mother.”

“Which one?”

“Peggy Sue.”

“Then you
do
think she’s my mother!”

We sat in silence for a few moments; then Cynthia—who had every right to be exasperated with me—said, “I won’t tell you what to do, Brandy…but if and when you decide to discuss this with your sister, pick a time that you and Peggy Sue can be alone and you can hear her side of the story. Remember, if you’re right about this…she’s been suffering, too.” The therapist stood. “I’m sorry, we have to end this now….”

“Jeez, and it was just getting really fun.”

Back in the reception room, which was empty now due to the approaching lunch hour, I sat and waited for Mother. I could hear her musical laughter, and the responding laughter from her male psychiatrist, coming from behind the nearest door of the opposite wing. After I cooled my heels for a few more minutes, Mother exited the office, smiling broadly.

“Good news,” she exclaimed the moment she’d reached me. “The doctor said that I am no longer bipolar!”

“Really?” I said, amazed, getting to my feet. Was it possible bipolar disorder could leave as quickly as it had come on? That suddenly, one day, a person would wake up and be cured, or anyway in remission?

In Mother’s case, I’d have to see some hard evidence.

“Oh, my, yes,” Mother rattled on. “And to think, all these years I’ve been misdiagnosed.” Then she crowed in triumph: “I’m actually schizo-affective!”

I raised my eyebrows, “And that’s better, how?”

Mother frowned. “Well, doesn’t that
sound
more like me?”

I grunted in agreement. Mother certainly was one effective schizoid.

“Remember when we did our musical version of
Three Faces of Eve
at the Playhouse? Now we know why I felt so connected to that role…or is it roles?”

I couldn’t answer her—I was flashing back to the terror of Mother singing all three parts in the same song, slamming one different hat on after another, like an even more manic Jimmy Durante, to help the audience keep track of the various Eves.

“Schizophrenia isn’t multiple personalities, Mother. Your one personality is quite enough.” I handed Mother her raccoon coat. “Do you and your doctor
have
to have so much fun?”

Mother appraised me with her eyebrows raised above the magnified eyes behind her oversize thick glasses. “I can see that you’re still Little Miss Grumpy Pants. Well, my dear, I don’t have to be subjected to your ever-darkening storm clouds cluttering up my perfect blue sky. You can drive me straight back to the house!”

“I thought we were going to see Mr. Yeager,” I protested. “To take him the information we found on the internet about his Tarzan book.”

(
And
get the money from Chaz that her boyfriend stole.)

Mother harrumphed. “You can go by yourself, Grouchy…I’m tired of you raining on my parade!”

Even though Mother’s parade was one tuba player, a tractor pulling a hayrack, and a maniacal clown bringing up the rear, I didn’t relish driving all the way across town to drop her off.

I gave Mother a smile. “Is this better? I’ve turned my frown upside down, just for you.”

Mother’s eyes narrowed to near-normal (magnified) size, and she said skeptically, “It looks a trifle…forced.”

I smiled wider—dangerously wide for a mental health facility, as certainly somewhere around here a closet filled with coats that buttoned in back were at the ready. “How’s
this?
”

“All right, all right, please remove that grotesque grin and we’ll go together…. But remember, I have no room in my happy world for a Grinch right now.”

“Come along with me, Mother, and afterward, we’ll watch our
Miracle on 34th Street
DVD and eat microwave popcorn till
we
pop.”

Now she was the one with the maniacal grin. “Deal!”

And we trooped out to the car.

Mr. Yeager lived in a trailer court located in a section of town the locals called South End. If Serenity could be said to have a seedier side, this would be it, distinguished by factories belching smoke, a noisy railroad switching yard, a smelly slough, and (as a result) surrounding lower-income housing. In the past few years, however, a concerted effort had been made by the city and its denizens to improve conditions in this part of town, since it was the first impression travelers arriving from the south got of our little burg. Even so, the bleakness of winter—the newly fallen white snow having already turned to black slush—did not help the overall effect.

I drove past a small strip mall, then turned at a convenience store to enter the Happy Trails Trailer Park. Mother predicably began to bray,
“Happy trails to you, until we meet again,”
sounding more like Roy Rogers than Dale Evans, which, in spite of my inner mood, made me laugh. As we headed down the trailer court’s main street (paved and plowed), I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw: attractive mobile homes sitting on spacious lots. Christmas lights and decorated trees twinkled in windows and occasional Santa displays and Nativity scenes enlivened the modest yards.

Mr. Yeager lived on Lot Number Twenty-one, and we pulled up in front of his un-Christmas-decorated mobile home, a white, single trailer with a stylish bay-front window. Parked in the drive beneath a white aluminum carport was a tan Ford Taurus that indicated the old gent was home.

Mother and I had just gotten out of our car when I spotted Chaz down the street a ways, walking briskly toward us. She was dressed in black again—leather jacket, jeans, motorcycle boots—and when the girl saw us, she waved the stolen zipper bag and yelled for all the world to hear, “
Bran’!
Got the money for ya what me
boyfriend
nicked!”

Mother, next to me, murmured, “So
that’s
what this is all about. I do hope you know what you’re doing, my dear, aiding and abetting that urchin….”

I walked toward Chaz.

“Wha’?” Chaz frowned as we met in the street, “You’re not ’appy?”

“Yes, I’m happy. But I’ll be even happier when this money gets back to its rightful owner.”

I held out a hand, and she relinquished the bag.

“’Ow will you do it?” Chaz asked, her heavily darkened eyebrows knitted. “Don’t want me boyfriend to get into trouble, yeah?”

I granted her a smile. “I’ll just say I found the bag in the snow when I left the flea market that night.”

“Brilliant!” Chaz looked past me. “Where’d your mum go?”

I turned around. Mother had indeed disappeared. I said, “She’s probably inside already.”

Mother never stood on ceremony; if a door was unlocked, she took it as an open invitation to walk right in.

I put the bank bag in the large tote I was carrying, then followed Chaz up the front steps of the mobile home. The girl was reaching for knob when the door flew open and Mother rushed out, shoving Chaz back into me, and pushing us both down the steps. We didn’t fall into the sludgy snow, but it was close.

“Oy!”
Chaz blurted.

“
Moth
-er,” I said crossly. “What’s the big idea?”

She raised a palm like an Indian chief in an old movie about to say, “How.” “Children…you
dear
children…”

Chaz and I exchanged “huh” glances.

“I must prepare you,” Mother announced. She touched a breast with a hand and gazed skyward in search of just the right words. “Mr. Yaeger is dead as a mackerel.”

Chaz shouted, “No
way!
” and, shoving Mother aside, hurried back up the steps and into the trailer.

“
That
was preparing us?” I asked Mother acidly.

She shrugged. “Being direct is always the best approach, I always say. Rip that bandage off! No sense lingering on the unpleasant.”

She was right, so I left her unpleasantness behind and went inside, where I found Chaz on her knees in the small kitchen area, leaning over the sprawled-on-his-back, pajama-clad Mr. Walter Yeager. The girl was shaking her grandfather gently, as if he were only in a deep sleep.

Holding up her cell phone as she stood poised in the doorway, Mother said, “I’ve already called the police.”

I put a hand on Chaz’s shoulder. “The paramedics will be here right away.”

Mother quipped, “Perhaps not…I made it clear the old gent was already dead.”

Chaz flew to her feet and pointed a black-nailed forefinger at Mother, shouting, “Me grandad
said
you was a muppet, yeah? Maybe
you
did this to ’im!”

Mother’s big eyes blinked behind the big glasses. “Muppet?”

“A
loony
bird, innit?”

I quickly moved between the two. “Mother,” I said, “maybe it would be best if you go outside and wait for…whoever
is
coming.”

Mother frowned at me. “What does she mean by ‘a muppet’? Like Kermit or Miss Piggy…?”

“Mother…outside. Please.” I thought no good would come of explaining to her that a “muppet” meant a crazy person in Brit speak.

Mother nodded. “All right, dear, I’ll stand outside and flag down the police car.”

“Do that.”

Chaz, her cheeks streaked with black mascara, lips trembling, turned to me and asked pitifully, “Can’t you do
anything
, Bran?”

I walked over to poor Mr. Yeager; he sure looked like a goner, but I said anyway, “I’ll try.”

I knelt and went through the motions of chest compressions—like I’d seen done on TV shows—and hoped I wasn’t doing the man any more harm. (I had once gone to a mall where CPR classes were being offered, but got distracted by a shoe sale.) Thankfully, before I attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the sound of a siren reached my ears, and I ceased my useless efforts.

Within another minute, two police officers came through the front door of the trailer. The blue uniform in the lead was Scott Munson, tall and gangly, while on his heels came plainclothes officer Mia Cordona, a dark-haired beauty who had once been a close friend of mine; she was in a black tailored suit, and neither cop wore a topcoat, though both their breaths were pluming in the pre-Christmas chill.

The two officers were well known to Mother and me—and vice versa—and, perhaps understandably, something akin to dread flashed across their faces when they saw us.

Then Munson barked, “Get out of the way!” and Mia corralled us three women in the living room of the trailer, which was separated from the kitchen by a half-wall.

Chaz and I sat on a nubby tan couch, while Mother took a rocker that squeaked. Mia produced a small tape recorder from her coat pocket, and began firing questions.

“And you are…?” Mia asked Chaz.

“Charlotte Doxley. I…I’m ’is
gran’daughter
….” Chaz began to sob.

“She came from England a few months ago to live with Mr. Yeager,” I offered.

Commotion at the front door halted our interview as the paramedics arrived.

Chaz, her red-swollen eyes darting to the kitchen, started to rise from the couch, but I held her back gently. “Let them do their job…. Your grandfather’s in good hands, now….”