Antiques Roadkill (12 page)

Was
I
trying to make Mia jealous?

He took my hand and led me through the crowd to the dance floor, where we carved out a spot. He pulled me roughly to him.

Todd was a great dirty dancer, his pelvis grinding against mine … and, noticing Mia glancing at us occasionally, I gave as good as I got. Whether I was being bitchy to my old friend who’d snubbed me, or just horny, who can say?

We stayed on for a slow number, and he held me tight, his lips brushing my ear, then my cheek, before landing fully on my mouth, his kiss wet and hot. An electric jolt surged through my body—a feeling I hadn’t had in a quite some time.

After the song, I signaled to Todd that I wanted to leave the dance floor, and he walked me off.

“See you later?” he asked.

Maybe I should play hard to get.…

“Sure. I’m in the book—it’s under Vivian Borne.”

“Got it. You’re a great dancer.”

If “dancing” could be defined as allowing him to press himself up against me, I was terrific.

I made my way on rubbery legs to the ladies’ room. Part of it was the champagne. But partly it was that guy—something exciting, even dangerous about him.…

I was fixing my makeup when I saw Mia’s reflection in the mirror behind me.

Her voice was cold. “Stay away.”

“From you?”

“From Todd.”

Confrontations in bathrooms seemed to be the norm with me these days—particularly with women whose men I’d gotten too friendly with.

I said, “Hey, you were there. He asked me to dance. All I did was say yes.”

Mia put her hands on her curvaceous hips. “Next time say no.”

“Don’t you mean …
just
say no?”

She got the drug-reference dig and her upper lip curled.

Before she could speak, however, a toilet flushed. We held a momentary truce as a brunette exited a stall, and hurriedly washed her hands and scurried out of harm’s way.

Mia stepped closer and shook a long-nailed finger in my face. “I mean it, Brandy—don’t even
speak
to him again … got it, girlfriend?”

What, was I on
Jerry Springer
suddenly?

Still, I had to wonder if Mia could still beat the tar out of me, which even when she was skinny she did with ease … and I didn’t care to find out.

“Okay … okay, I hear you. I guess I was just a little … hurt.”

Eyes flared. “Hurt?”

“We were friends once upon a time.”

“That
fairy tale’s over,” Mia said, and whirled and was gone.

I leaned against the counter and looked at myself. I was pretty cute, and maybe a little drunk, and definitely a lot embarrassed. Gathering what remained of my dignity, collecting a few shreds of what had been my poise, I exited the ladies’ room.

Returning to my table, I could tell Tina was peeved by my extended absence. I took her by the arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

“Good call,” she snapped. “Do you know how much fun it is, being married, and sitting by yourself in a singles’ bar, getting hit on, and fueling rumors?”

“Not much?”

“Not much.”

Neither of us spoke again until we got inside the car; then I asked sheepishly, “Could we go to the Holiday Inn—like we used to?”

Tina bestowed me a small forgiving smile. “All right.…”

“Thank you, honey.”

“Shut up.” But she was smiling.

The Oasis was a typical hotel cocktail lounge, cozy, dark, blandly anonymous. Dead tonight, but for a pair of businessmen in Brooks Brothers, at the bar. And us.

Tina and I slid into a semicircular padded booth off in one corner, to be by ourselves. When a barmaid in a red vest and white shirt and black slacks came over, we both ordered coffee.

When she’d gone, I said, “I don’t ever want anything to come between us, Teen.… I’d rather cut off my arm than have you mad at me.”

“Never mind.”

“Let’s face it, things are different now. I’m single, you’re married. I don’t want the dynamics to affect our friendship.”

Tina nodded in agreement. “We can stick to shopping and movies.… Your friend Mia’s single, though, right?”

“Friend is not exactly the word.”

I told her about my little encounter.

“Weird,” she said.

The coffees came. For my penitence, I paid.

Tina took a sip, then set the cup down and gave me a quizzical look.

“What?” I asked.

She crinkled her nose. “You’re not going to start
seeing
that guy, are you?”

“What guy?”

“That Todd character.”

“Him? No. He doesn’t exactly seem to be available.”

“Since when did that stop you?”

I gave her a hurt look.

“Sorry,” she said. “But I’m glad Mia told you to stay away.”

“Why?”

Tina waited a moment. Then, “Let’s just say, if you had any pharmaceutical needs, and didn’t have a prescription? That Todd could probably fill them.”

Too bad. Todd might have been worth pursuing, otherwise; plus, it seemed to confirm the drug rumors about Mia. People sure could change when you left town for a while.…

Tina was shaking her head and lost in some private thought.

“What are you thinking, Teen?”

“Just … what I don’t understand is … after what happened
to her brother? How Mia could get mixed up with a guy like that.”

“Which brother, and what happened to him?”

“I don’t know his name, it was just something I saw in the paper, when she got fired and lots of ancient dirt got stirred up … but I believe he died from an overdose.”

“Oh. Jeez. What of?”

She shrugged with her eyebrows. “Does it really matter?”

No. Dead was dead.

I stared into my coffee cup, hoping the overdosed Cordona brother wasn’t Juan. In my mind’s eye, I could see him, a few years younger than Mia, gazing at his sister with pure adoration. And, although she never alluded to it, Juan was clearly her favorite. If drugs had taken him from her, she’d have been devastated. But Tina was right—how could she go down that path herself, then?

Sorrow and rage can do funny things to a person.

I switched the subject. “What do you think about what I told you before? On the phone?”

Tina’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“About Mother—about these traumatic events, all this murder talk—I’m afraid it’s put her in a bad place.”

“Mentally, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“In a maybe-she-needs-her-meds-upped kinda place, you mean.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

I blinked. “No?”

“No, I think your mother’s right—it
is
suspicious. That Carson guy was … Remember
Perry Mason?”

“Sure. We used to watch reruns over the supper hour, Mother and Peggy Sue and me. I loved that show.”

Tina nodded, indicating this was yet another shared experience. “Well, remember how there was always somebody so despicable in the first ten minutes, he or she was sure to get killed?”

“Everybody and his duck had a murder motive. Sure.”

Tina was nodding some more. “Well, that’s Clint Carson. And you attacked him in public the day before he was killed.”

“I didn’t
attack
him.…”

“Verbally you did. You, and your mother, with her well-known … problems? You’re perfect patsies.”

“You
did
watch
Perry Mason.”

“Sure I did. I also watched
Nancy Drew.
I’m not against you snooping a little.” She sipped her coffee and shrugged. “You need help, just say the word. Every Holmes needs a Watson.”

“I’m
already
Watson,” I said with a smirk. “I’m living with Sherlock Holmes in a red hat.”

The barmaid delivered two glasses of white wine … compliments of the two businessmen. We guardedly smiled at them, but they didn’t come over and hit on us.

Sometimes people do things just to be nice.

Or maybe they were just gay.

I was rudely awakened Sunday morning by Mother singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,"off-key, at the foot of my bed. (Musicals were not her forte.) (Not that that ever stopped her.)

Still, I was pleased to discover her in such good spirits … but couldn’t I, for once, sleep in? I would have belted back “Oh, How I Hate to Get up in the Morning,” but I had a frog in my throat, not to mention a haze in my brain, and not a “bright, golden” one, either.

“Brandy, darling, come along,” she chirped. “We’re going to church.”

Then, after I didn’t stir, she gave me the singsongy final wake-up call notice I’d heard since I was a child: “Up-ie, up-ie, up-ieeee!”

“I’m not
three!”
I whined.

“No, you’re a big girl now,” she said, and pulled off the covers.

There was no arguing with Mother when she decided she needed a shot of religion, which (thank God) was irregularly, at best.

When I was growing up, Mother and I didn’t belong to any one churchly persuasion, much less individual house of worship; but you might say we belonged to all of them, at one time or another: Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon … we even went to synagogue (Jewish weddings were my favorite). Mother said she believed in God in heaven, but she was looking for just the right earthly fit.

Me, I didn’t mind, because at least church never got boring, which was a common complaint from other kids, condemned to weekly bouts of the same old unison chants and dreary hymns. We always signed in as “visitors,” Mother putting what she could (or what she considered fair exchange for an hour of “enlightenment and entertainment”) in the collection plate. Everyone was always so nice to us, because we were potential converts.

I struggled out of bed and headed for the shower (no time for a leisurely bubble-bath), to wash the product out of my “club” hair.

In record time I was out the front door, wearing a denim DKNY skirt, white lace poncho—already passé—over a pale yellow top, pink Minnetonka moccasins, minimal makeup, and my damp hair left to dry on its own devices (which could be scary).

Mother was waiting for me out on the sidewalk, and I
fell in beside her, as we began the ten blocks or so to the church.

After all those years of religion-hopping, we had finally joined the New Hope Church in my eighth grade year of junior high. The church was aptly named, but even more apt would have been the Church of Common Sense and Mild Scoldings. The (also aptly named) pastor, John Tutor, had been a minister at another local church, but when told by the national church-type powers-that-be that he was getting transferred to another state, Tutor balked. When his holy superiors insisted, he left, formed New Hope, and took half the congregation with him.

Upon this base, a roughly equal number joined up, regular churchgoers who had become dissatisfied with their former holy houses for a variety of reasons, which made an interesting mix of tolerant and nonjudgmental folks. For example, when we eventually turn up, nobody wearing a “Christian” smile ever says to us, “Well, we haven’t seen
you
at church for a while!”

As Mother and I walked along on this cool, sunny summer morning, I felt myself growing smaller, and slipped my hand in hers, like I used to do. Mother, ever the snoop, had her head turned toward the houses as we passed, studying the tended lawns, flower beds, and yard art, pointing out antique glassware visible on an inside windowsill. If a garage door happened to be open—
whoa, Nellie!
—she’d stop dead in her tracks, eyes growing larger behind the spectacles, searching for castaways that might be destined for the curb come next garbage day.

“Mother …”

“Yes, dear?”

“You’ve got to promise me you’ll leave this Clint Carson thing alone.”

“I’ll do no such thing! We could be the target of a killer!”

I liked her better when she was singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,"tone-deaf or not.

I stopped her and faced her and took her by both arms. Lovingly and firmly, I said, “We still have your driving-without-a-license charge to deal with. And we haven’t talked to Chief Cassato yet.”

“That’s true.…”

“And you
like
our chief of police.”

Mother’s eyes perked behind the buggy lenses. “I do! Very much!”

“Then promise … I’ll make you swear on the Bible at church! … promise you’ll let me talk to the chief about this, and we’ll concentrate on your legal problem, before you take any other steps.”

She nodded gravely. “I promise,” she said.

Her delivery reminded me a little too much of William Shatner in that old margarine commercial, but I accepted it.

Finally, we arrived at New Hope. Formerly an old fire station, the brick building had been gutted and turned into a church. One thing remained preserved, however: the brass fireman’s pole, which bisected the main aisle, though was easy enough to slip around on either side. (After some kid came flying down it and broke both legs, however, the hole in the second floor was sealed.)

A scaled-down replica of the Liberty Bell stood proudly on a concrete pedestal in the church’s front lawn. Every so often, a kid (probably the same ornery one who came down the pole) would steal the bell’s clapper, and Pastor Tutor would ask the congregation to pray for its safe return. (I got kind of tired of this—at age fourteen—and once yelled from my seat, “Just weld it, already!” I couldn’t see bothering God about such a trivial matter.) Of course, the clapper would return … until next time.

This morning Pastor Tutor—a small, almost plump bespectacled figure in purple shawl over black robe—gripped the pulpit and said, “When we have problems, we must first look to ourselves before turning to God—the Lord can forgive us, He can grant us grace and give us strength. But only we as individuals can take responsibility for our actions—only we can assume ownership of our problems.”

How come this guy’s sermon always seemed to be directed at
me,
personally? What did I ever do to him?

We stepped out of the church into a warm breeze. A round-faced boy of about twelve with glasses and Beatle bangs was ferociously ringing the bell until his father stopped him.

Mother hooked up with her four friends from the Red-Hatted League, also New Hope members; they would have a buffet lunch after church (our house today) and spend Sunday afternoon discussing a mystery novel (this time,
The Mirror Crack’d),
while incessantly snacking.