Brightleaf (14 page)

The carriage house was finished being newly plumbed yesterday afternoon. Just a few more days till the whole house will be complete with running water again. I haven’t had a shower in my own house in weeks. We’ve all been taking our showers a block away at the Y. I turn on the water and wait for it to warm up. I start thinking how Ned was the last person to shower here. His skin cells are probably still haunting the drain. I get a chill just thinking about it, and I know I need to make something right, somehow.

Hot water streams over my face and rolls down my back like a hand of kindness spreading over me. I carefully massage shampoo into my scalp, thinking about Terry and Jeanine. For some reason, I equate my head pain specifically with Jeanine. Like if I’d never stolen Floyd, I wouldn’t feel this way. I start thinking about what Jeanine must be doing now. She’s probably waking up in Terry’s bed, sleeping in one of his wrinkly button-downs. I imagine her walking to his bathroom, removing her clothes, and taking a shower in Terry’s shower, washing her body with the same soap Terry uses. Now she’s getting dressed, walking into Terry’s kitchen, filling Terry’s coffeepot with water, and cutting on Terry’s TV, watching shows Terry would never watch. Jeanine unlocks the front door and looks out to see if anything touched the dog food on the front porch. Meanwhile, Terry is busy at work checking women’s breasts for lumps, a chore which should make any man happy. But he is not happy. He’s a stranger in his own home. His mail gets shuffled through, and his bed is slept in by a woman he doesn’t love. He’s needlessly suffered at the hands of Jeanine and become estranged from his own home because of me.

The coffee maker in the living room is huffing and puffing, so I stop to grab a cup, nodding at two people playing checkers and watching TV. A man with a thin, straggly beard and another man with meticulously combed hair and a shaved face. Both have the appearance of being a little over-exposed to the elements. This is the way I like it: people finding a place for themselves, but sometimes I wish I were less friendly. About now I could use a little privacy. This is my first hangover, and I don’t want those homeless people knowing that I have this problem. They look up and smile and nod like they understand and welcome me to their world. All along I’ve thought of the people I reach out to as mostly crazy, and I’m the only one with the sound mind, able to offer a hand and some relief from this unforgiving planet. But now I see these people are not ignorant. They’ve seen people with hangovers their whole lives. I am them now. I am my mother.

I head to the kitchen and push open the swinging door. A steaming plate of poached eggs over blanched asparagus drizzled with hollandaise sits on the table. There is also a small glass of tomato juice on ice, with a wedge of lemon resting on the rim. A newspaper is spread out to the front headlines reading, “Death of Local Man Continues to Stump Investigators.” A hot pink sticky note is affixed to the front of the paper:
Eat up. Talk later—Terry

I sit down, grabbing the sides of the table, and ease my way into my seat. If my head didn’t hurt so bad, I’d be amazed at this beautiful dish of food sitting before me. But being amazed takes too much energy. I take a sip of the juice and shiver as coldness flows down my throat. The eggs and asparagus taste like love, pure and simple. The eggs are soft in the middle, the way I like them. I can’t say how they got here, but I feel comforted like an infant who’s cried all night and now breathes steadily into a peaceful sleep. The eggs slowly absorb the throbbing in my head.

I study the photograph of Ned in the paper before me. He’s all sprawled out on a blanket at some outdoor concert and smiling. He was sweet. I start remembering everything I learned at the library and my own dream. Last night I dreamt Ned tried to help me get away from Evil Otto. There was something about my dream.
Why couldn’t you have listened to Doyle?
I ask the smiling picture.

“Detective Metz, speaking.”

“Hey, Detective, it’s Mary Beth Green,” I say, holding the phone in one hand and my notebook in the other.

“It’s Clark. How can I help you?”

“Um, Clark, I’ve been doing a little research, and I think I might be able to help in your investigation. I mean, I know I’m no detective, and it probably won’t mean much to you, but I thought I’d tell you what all I’ve learned. Do you have some free time? When you’re off-duty?” I figure if he’s off-duty he’ll be more willing to collaborate with me. I can tell him what I learned, and he can tell me what he knows without doing it in an official capacity.

“Are you asking me out, Ms. Green?”

I hate to have to deal with this man. I say, “It’s only about Ned.”

“Ms. Green, if you have information you can tell me now.”

“I can’t say what I want to say over the phone because it might sound far-fetched. I want you to take me seriously.”

“Whatever. Yes, Ms. Green, we can meet for lunch. I’ll have thirty minutes at one. I’ll meet you at the Salad Station.”

Even though I despise the Salad Station, I agree to meet him there. The Salad Station is a help-yourself buffet across the street from the police station. The lettuce is often wilted, and there is hardly anything appealing to put on it. It’s not like it’s a regular salad bar. The buffet is loaded with gelatins, tomato aspics, fake crab salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, egg salad, and fruit in heavy syrup. There’s usually a congealed sheen over certain salads that I’m positive are teeming with E. coli. Brightleaf’s idea of eating light.

30

Hazards of Being a Good Samaritan

July 22, 1990

Dear Diary,

It has only been one day since I last wrote, but I need to finish The Huey Incident before I get too lazy about writing in a diary. I left off at the spot where I threw the rat head
(alias Tony) into Huey’s locker. I immediately ran towards the bike rack. Then I made a tragic mistake. I stopped and decided to circle back around. I shouldn’t have wanted to watch him find it so bad, but I returned to the scene of the crime anyway and hid in the alcove where the bathrooms are. Those idiot Indiana Jones boys were still playing keep-away with Huey’s hat, but it started to get old, and eventually they gave Huey his hat back. They talked for a few minutes, before the boys finally walked home. I was glad when those kids left Huey alone because I had to pee really bad but didn’t want to miss the epic moment when Huey found his present. I watched him rummage around in his locker then…he got super still. I was so excited I wanted to laugh out loud because it was going to be so dang funny when he opened Tony. And that made it harder for me to hold in my pee. He stood up straight with the notebook paper package in his hands. He was looking at the lipstick print real hard. I watched him while he anticipated what could be inside. What was it that was sealed with a kiss? Probably he thinks his Young Indy act is attracting attention from some popular girl. I had to duck back into the alcove when he started slowly looking up. I thought I would die trying to suppress my laughter. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, and I had to get a hold of myself. I had to think of something super serious and unfunny, so I thought of Mr. Rogers, who is downright boring, even for little kids. I carefully peeked out again and narrowed my eyes as he slowly unfolded the paper. The Tony was in plain view. Huey was standing there wearing his Indiana Jones hat holding a rat head. Then Huey totally projectile vomited. And his head vaulted backward like a torpedo launched straight at the floor. Huey lay there on the ground, holding the Tony, covered in half-digested baloney sandwich from lunch. I hoped to God he was not dead. I have heard some people can die of fright. If I killed Huey, I would hate myself forever. I started praying super hard that someone would walk up and see him. Anybody. The janitor, a teacher, a cheerleader. But then I thought: What if someone finds him and sees him holding a rat head… that smells like formaldehyde? They will suspect it came from Mrs. Hall’s lab. What if someone figured out a way to trace it back to me? If Huey was dead, I could go to jail forever. For murder. I needed to get the Tony back. So I decided I would look like I was trying to help Huey, in case anyone came along. When I got close to him, I said real loud for show, “Are you OKAY, Huey?” Then when I saw nobody was coming, I grabbed the nasty vomity rat head and threw it in the closest trashcan. Believe me when I say I was running on adrenaline and barely remember touching it. Huey moaned. Thank God he was alive! I wanted to hug him for not being dead. I told him I’d get help and planned to run down the hall yelling, HELP! But first I needed to wash my hands. So I stopped in the girls’ restroom. When I stepped back into the hall, the mean old French teacher, Mrs. Bussy, was stomping out of her classroom towards me, all hunched and bunched (like a monster climbing from her cave). Her lipstick ran through the wrinkles in her lips, bleeding claret pink all around her mouth. We called her Old Anus Face behind her back. Somebody else made that up, not me. When I pointed to Huey, she looked at me with her watery eyes and demanded to know what I had done to him. My face felt hot. What had I done to him? Why couldn’t I just be the girl who found him? A Good Samaritan? How about what he did to me? She looked at him like a poor little harelip boy, but she was clueless when it came to how strong he was. He was a tricky one. A pudding stealer. Mrs. Bussy called the paramedics, of all things. Next a stupid ambulance showed up with the sirens blaring. I tried to leave, but Old Anus Face grabbed my arm with her old wrinkledy hand and sharp fingernails and forced me stay, as I was “a witness” and “to get to the bottom of this.” The paramedics talked to Huey and cleaned up all the throw-up. They handed him a glass of water, and someone called Huey’s mom. When the paramedics finally went away, Huey looked straight at me and said, “What did you do with it?” “With what?” I asked. His face kind of contorted, and he screamed – and I mean he screamed – “You know what! Mrs. Frisbee’s head! I saw you! You took it!” I wanted to die. I stuttered something about why would I want to take a head, and who is Mrs. Frisbee, and he goes, “
My pet rat, of course!”

I lied. I lied in the principal’s office; I lied more to Huey and Anus Face; I lied to my mother and told her Huey was delusional, that I would never in a million years touch a dead rat head, and she was so loaded that she laughed harder than I’d ever known her to laugh, almost choking on her gin and tonic. That was the only time I was glad my mother was a drunk. And that, Dear Diary, was The Huey Incident. This is the official record, never to be seen by human eyes other than my own. And if anyone dares to read this and/or tell a soul, I will wait until you are snoring and put a wolf spider the size of a gerbil under your covers....X

31

The Salad Station

Detective Metz sits across from me. Unlike in my dream, I am not wearing a skirt that rides above my crotch, nor a plunging neckline. I figure I’ll tell him what I know, and if that’s not good enough then I don’t know. Maybe I’ll tell another detective, or I’ll get some kind of TV show to air my suspicions. I recognize that these days my opportunities for creating public awareness are practically endless. So if Detective Metz won’t listen, somebody will.

“Aren’t you going to eat, Ms. Green?” asks Detective Metz. He has a plate full of gloppy stuff. Egg and tuna salad running into orange Jell-O packed with gravity defying fruit cocktail.

I politely tell him that I’m not much for health food, that I’m more of a fried chicken and gravy girl. “Anyway,” I say, changing the subject, “you think you got it figured out yet?”

Detective Metz unrolls his napkin and fork. He peppers his egg salad and sips his tea. He shovels a scoop of something in his mouth and while chewing says, “Nope.”

“Well, I believe I can figure it out if you can help me with some things.”

“Hm,” he says before eating a big bite of tuna salad. “Mighty bold of you to imagine you can figure out how a man died without even a fraction of the information the police have.”

“It’s not bold of me,” I say. “You are a busy man, Detective Metz. How many cases do you have open? Seven? Seventeen? I don’t know, but what I do know is that being a detective requires hours upon hours of work, interviewing people, and following up. Not to mention paperwork.

“Good grief, you might interview every single person living in five city blocks just to get a handle on one of these crimes.” I let this sink in. “But not me. I only have one person I care about who is possibly involved in a crime. And he is dead. And he is the last person I would ever expect to be dead, so I am using all the spare time I have to look into what might have killed him. Are you able to do that for my friend, Detective Metz?”

He sits still, looking at me in a different way. He checks his cell phone and says, “What do you want from me?”

“I would like to take a look at Ned’s dream journal.”

“Ms. Green, it would be against the law for me to show you that journal.”

“Why? You told me you laughed at it when you read it. If you think it’s so insignificant, why can’t I just take a quick peek at it?”

“I might let you take a peek at it if you let me take you out to dinner or something,” he says.

“But we’re eating together right now.”

“Yep, and I’ve got to get back to work in ten minutes. Also, I don’t have Mr. Hillman’s journal on me at the moment.”

I have no idea why I took Detective Metz up on his offer, except that I want to see that journal bad. I’m still frustrated with Terry after last night, too. The very first time in my life I’ve ever tried to do something sexy, I get turned down. Smacked down. The truth is, this is what I’ve feared my whole life. Putting myself out there and getting rejected. It’s easier to protect your heart. A person protects her heart by not getting involved, by passing on opportunities that could turn out disastrous. I like pain-free living.

So last night I was like one of those jack-in-the-boxes you wind and wind, and it feels like forever until the top will pop open and the clown will jump out, but I finally did. I jumped right out in my stretchy suit, and it was like Terry was this big ol’ hand that pushed me back in my box.

I wonder where Detective Metz and I will go tonight? I hope no place Terry will see us. But then again, that may not be so bad.

The doorbell rings, and Mavis answers it. “Well, well, well. What have we here? You’re mighty dolled up to be lookin for killers, Detective.”

“Hello, Mavis. Nice to see you,” he says. “I’m not here on business. Is Mary Beth around?”

Mavis lifts her eyebrows. She looks at me while I grab my purse and says, “I ain’t sayin a thang. But you know I want to.”

“Don’t be silly, Mavis. You can say anything you want.”

“Does Dr. D—”

“Don’t,” I say. “Hey there, Detective. Clark. Ready?”

“Ready if you are,” and he opens the door for me, and we walk out, leaving Mavis shaking her head.

Detective Clark Metz is dressed in casual clothes. This is the first time I’ve ever seen him without a uniform or a jacket and tie. Tonight he’s wearing jeans with a black loose-fitting linen shirt. The top three buttons are undone, and it’s untucked. He drives a black convertible Porsche.

“Pretty fancy car for a policeman,” I say as he opens my door.

“I’m a single man. I don’t need a Suburban.”

“Have you ever been married, Clark?”

He smiles his gleaming movie star smile and says, “I’ve done my best to avoid marriage, but I imagine an heiress could persuade me.” He laughs at his own humor. “And what about you, Mary Beth? The eligible bachelorette.”

“Well, I’m not an heiress. So that pretty much eliminates me from the group of people who might persuade you to marry them.”

“But you seem like the type of girl who longs for some kind of superhero
to come and swoop her up and save her from loneliness,” he says, grinning. “You are lonely, aren’t you?”

“Nope. That is not me. I have a house full of people who keep me company. Mavis and Eleanor and my other boarders. I seriously doubt I’ll ever fall in love, but I might adopt a few kids. Some potty-trained ones.”

“I hate kids.”

“What? Who hates kids?”

“They’re whiners. No matter how much stuff you give them. The older they get, the more ungrateful they get. Then you realize you’ve spent half your life and most of your money on selfish brats. I’ve seen it too many times. ”

It’s probably a good thing Clark has no plans to be anybody’s daddy.

I ask him where we’re going on our big date. There are a bunch of new movies I’m dying to see like,
Sixty Going On Seventeen
,
Around New York In Eight Days
,
and
Coffee With Strangers
.

He tells me the theater is a bad place to take a date.

“Why?” I ask.

“For starters, each person stares straight ahead for two solid hours in the dark.”

I start laughing. “It’s not the same as staring at a brick wall. If the movie is brilliant or just plain awful, it’s still fun to go to some all-night breakfast place to drink coffee and eat waffles until 2 a.m., talking about how amazed we were or laugh at how terrible it was.”

“A Waffle Shop is not what I had in mind. And we already have a lot to talk about. Isn’t that why you took me up on my offer? You want to learn more about your friend and see the journal. Right?”

“You have the journal?”

He pulls it out from under his car seat, waves it in my face and smiles. I make a swipe at it, but he shakes his head and says, “Patience.”

I look over at Detective Metz driving along through the town, and I have to admit he is a fine looking man. He’s got a handsome jaw and a good nose and chin, kind of like a young Robert Redford.

Finally, he turns into a neighborhood full of pretty homes that all look the same and says, “Welcome to my casa” as he pulls into a driveway.

“This is your house? I didn’t know you were taking me to your house.” Detective Metz’s house is a new, one-story brick home. Just five years ago, this whole neighborhood was farmland.

“Thanks. I bought it a couple of years ago. I like having a lot of space to myself. Not as much space as you have in your fat manor on Main Street, but it’s enough for me. Want to take a look? I might have a surprise for you.”

Not really
. I’d prefer to spend time with Detective Metz on some neutral ground, like a theater or a Hardee’s. But I say okay. I normally like surprises.

Mavis

I’m here in the kitchen wiping down the counters, and tidyin up from supper when Dr. D walks in from work. I says, “Hey there, Dr. D, we done ate without you, but I’d be happy to heat you up a bowl of Brunswick stew and a piece of cornbread.”

Dr. D looks plumb wore out. He says, “I’m running late tonight. I have a new bookkeeper and needed to go over some details with him. It took a lot longer than I imagined.”

“You want the stew or not?”

“Has Mary Beth eaten?”

“I can’t rightly say, but I imagine she has,” I says, tryin to keep my lips tight on what all MB is up to tonight.

“Sure, I’ll have some stew. Smells terrific.”

“What you’re smellin is the Bubba Burger I just cooked for Floyd, here.”

“Of course you cooked for the dog.” He leans down and scratches Floyd on his sweet little head.

“I heat him up a hamburger every Friday. He’s as much TGIF as anybody else around here.”

Dr. D laughs and tells me Floyd is just
bidin
his time before he takes over the house.

Dr. D is still wearin his office clothes, so I tell him to run his behind upstairs and change out of that monkey suit, and I’ll get supper for him. When he gets back to the kitchen, his stew is hot from the microwave and sittin on the kitchen table with the cornbread and a glass of sweet tea. I set down at the table with him cuz I’d like to chat with him about somethin in particular.

“You know, Dr. D,” I says. “Remember when I picked up them shirts at your house?”

Dr. D nods and wipes his mouth with his napkin and says, “Did I forget to thank you? You were a lifesaver.”

“No, you thanked me all right, but that ain’t what I’m gettin at. I was gonna say how I seen them dog pictures in your yard.”

Dr. D nods, then shakes his head like it’s a real shame that dog is gone. Or else he’s sorry all them pictures is stuck all over his grass, trees and house.

“Your ex-wife found that dog yet?”

He’s got a mouth fulla cornbread so shakes his head again.

“Looks like that ex of yours is fixin to stay in town awhile,” I says.

Dr. D stops chewin while I’m talkin.

“How long are you plannin on stayin here at the Rapturous Rest? Looks like forever to me. Law, that ex of yours is really messin with your life.” But what I’m thinkin is,
Looks like Mary Beth Green is messin with your life.

“Yeah,” he finally says. “Having Jeanine around has been pretty inconvenient, but if she wasn’t being such a pain in the ass I wouldn’t have a respectable reason for hanging around here as much as I do. I mean, it wouldn’t kill me to stay here longer.”

Dr. D carries his bowl to the sink, washes it out, and sets it on the rack. “By the way, where is Mary Beth? Her car is out there, but when I knocked on her door she didn’t answer.”

“Mary Beth went out with a friend,” I says. “To a movie.” I pull me out a cigarette and light up. About now I need me a cigarette somethin fierce. It’s breakin the rules, smokin in the house, but seems like I ain’t the only one breakin rules these days. Mary Beth and me need to have us that little chat about Floyd.

Dr. D picks up a dishtowel and starts drying off the dishes on the rack and stickin them in the cupboard.

“Nice,” he says. “She does so much for others, it’s good for her to get out. Who’d she go with?”

I ain’t gonna lie about this, so I take a drag of my cigarette and says, “That detective man.”