Deaths of Jocasta (36 page)

I didn’t want to be lurking in the bushes in case he noticed that broken window. I wondered if this was the boyfriend Betty had mentioned. The one she wasn’t sure she even liked. I knew I didn’t like him. I forced myself to bushwhack through the brush behind Betty’s. I then cut across some back yards to get to a side street, then walked back to my car, approaching it from the street rather than from behind Betty’s cottage.

Neither the old woman nor the young man were there when I finally got to my car.

I put a note for Betty in an envelope and left it in the mailbox for number eleven. The mail was still there. It was time to meet Torbin.

Buying shoes with Torbin is an experience to be missed. Andy had crashed his hard drive to get out of it. Or so he said.

Even though Torbin was paying, I adamantly refused spike heels. My mood wasn’t helped by the salesgirl suckering up to my “boyfriend” and telling him what exquisite taste he had in women’s shoes. Torbin, in and out of makeup, is a tall, gorgeous blond.

“He should, he wears them more often than I do,” I retorted.

We ended up buying shoes in another store. Basic black, with a higher heel than I would have liked, but not the skyscrapers Torbin had been holding out for.

When we got back to his place, he displayed the dress he had chosen for me to wear.

“That’s not a dress,” I commented. “That’s a fabric swatch.”

“What are you? A member of the Lesbian Sexual Temperance League?”

“Torbin, I don’t see how that dress can cover both my tits and my crotch.”

“Trust me, it does. But who needs them both covered anyway? Besides this is an all-girl party, isn’t it? What do you have that they haven’t seen before?”

“Not much,” I had to admit. And most of them mine specifically, I thought, since I had slept with Danny, Joanne, and, once, Cordelia.

The dress was deep scarlet, basically a simple tube, held up with spaghetti straps. It began a few bare inches above my nipples and ended at a point that left more of my thighs seen than hidden.

I hope it’s red and outrageous enough for you, Alex, I thought as I drove over to her place. I patted the two bottles of quite good champagne in the passenger seat. I had certainly earned them.

Alex lived in an area on the edge of the Garden District. Her apartment was easy to find. I recognized several other cars parked in front: Joanne’s, of course, Danny’s (presumably with Elly), Cordelia’s, and others I didn’t know.

Oh, great, I thought, as I got out of my car, I get to make an entrance in this dress. Hell, you can’t wear a scarlet postage stamp and be demure. I rang the bell. Alex opened the door.

“Hi, Alex,” I greeted. “Well, the best woman certainly won.”

I handed her the champagne. Alex looked me over. I would win no decorous awards tonight.

“Micky,” she said slowly, “I’m not sure whether to laugh or be offended.”

“Laugh, Alex, please laugh,” I replied. Oh, God, I thought, have I finally gone too far?

Then Alex burst out laughing. She put an arm around my waist and ushered me into the living room.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re cute when you’re guilty?” she said.

“No. Probably because I’m not.”

Alex introduced me to the other people in the room I didn’t know. Including, to my embarrassment, her parents. Joanne came out of the kitchen, took a look at me, shook her head, then went back into the kitchen. But I did catch her grinning.

“The ‘in’ crowd is in the kitchen.” Alex pointed me in their direction, giving me the champagne to pass on to Joanne.

Danny, Elly, Cordelia, as well as Joanne were there.

“The traditional other woman gift,” I said when Joanne raised her eyebrows at my bringing liquor, “via Torbin.”

“Mick,” Danny said, giving me a hard appraisal, “you look like you’re planning to work the Quarter after the party.”

“Truth in advertising, dear Danno,” I replied.

Elly started asking about current movies, derailing us from my moral conduct. Or maybe by now she had heard enough of Danny’s comments on my infidelity.

“Here.” Joanne handed me what looked like a gin and tonic. “Club soda. Or do you object?” she added quietly.

“No. Thanks,” I replied, taking a sip.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“You sure?”

“You disappointed that I’ll recover? Would you prefer I throw myself over a cliff, à la Sappho?”

“No, stay away from cliffs. I’m just doing damage control. I’m very sorry for what happened.”

I shrugged it off. “Ah, hell, Joanne, it was about time I had an affair with someone I cared to be with in the morning. Part of growing up, right?”

“Probably.”

“Next time I might even get entangled with someone I can’t dump back with her real lover.”

“I’d like to see that.”

I looked at her to see if she was being sarcastic. She continued, “You think you’re a hard person to love. You’re not. You just need to let someone hang around long enough to prove it,” she said quietly.

“Yeah…well,” I mumbled, then, “Thanks. Thank you for that.”

“Hey, what are you two being so somber about?” Danny called to us.

“Police work,” Joanne lied.

Which got us started about the murders, since we all, in varying degrees, had a stake in it. I thought about mentioning Betty Peterson, but decided against it. If, as was likely, she was okay, I’d only be worrying Cordelia and Elly needlessly.

After a while, Alex broke in and demanded we be civilized and mingle with the other guests.

Dave, Alex’s brother, and I engaged in a mock battle of the sexes that ended with him mentioning how he always beat Alex in chess. Ever so innocently, I challenged him to a game. Heh-heh. And beat him in ten minutes. The next time I toyed with him and let it drag out to twenty minutes. Poor boy. He didn’t have Emma Auerbach for a teacher.

During the second game, I noticed that Cordelia had pulled up a chair beside me and was watching.

“Could you teach me to play like that?” she asked after I had trounced Dave the second time.

“If you really want to learn, get Emma.”

“I’d prefer you,” she replied.

Danny joined us. “God, I wish I had a family like that,” she said, indicating Alex’s parents calmly talking to Joanne. “Whenever I mention Elly, my parents get a pained expression on their faces.”

“Maybe we should introduce your parents to my parents,” Elly remarked, putting her arm around Danny’s waist. “They get a very similar expression whenever I talk about you.”

“But worth putting up with for you,” Danny replied. She kissed Elly.

“Loving couples, how disgusting,” I commented.

“They’re a cute loving couple,” Cordelia said.

“They’re an absolutely stunning loving couple, but don’t tell them that,” I remarked.

“You’re right,” she replied. Then looked at me and smiled.

I was caught for a moment, looking into her eyes, then I had to glance away. My stomach had just done a very complicated somersault and I didn’t want her noticing.

“Hang around, y’all,” Alex said as she breezed by. “All the obligatory people are leaving.” Then she headed off to say good-bye to some of the exiting guests.

“Alex does win the best family award,” I said as I watched Mrs. Sayers hugging Joanne good-bye.

“Why are families so depressing?” Danny asked rhetorically.

“What’s going on here?” Joanne asked as she joined us.

“We’re discussing families,” Elly explained.

“Whew, all gone,” Alex said, having seen the last guest, save us, to the door.

“We all want to be in your family,” Elly told Alex.

“Sure, no problem. Yo, Ma, five more kids,” Alex called after her safely out-of-earshot mother.

“Micky, go open those champagne bottles,” Danny commanded.

I saluted and headed for the kitchen. Alex joined me, finding the champagne where Joanne had put it in the refrigerator. I opened the bottle, quickly popping the cork while Alex found glasses, then followed her out to the living room.

Danny poured the champagne, handing us each a glass. I started to decline, then decided it would be easier to just park a glass in front of me than make a fuss.

“To Joanne and Alex,” Cordelia said, raising her glass. They kissed as we toasted them.

“To us all,” Alex said, lifting her glass. “Joanne, because I love you. C.J., you’re my best friend. Danny, for your legal advice and being a devil’s advocate when I need one. Elly, stitches and compassion after that oyster shell last summer. You probably saved my life. And Micky, in ways I couldn’t possibly recount.” She took a sip, then added, “But it might be real interesting for me to try.”

After the laughter, I asked, “Joanne, how do you get her to shut up?”

“Sex,” Joanne laconically replied.

“Which is why I talk so much,” Alex added.

“Okay, is it late enough and are we drunk enough?” Danny asked.

“For?” Alex inquired.

“To talk about sex.”

“We can’t talk about families, work, politics, and religion. What else is there?” Alex said. “How did you two meet?”

“Us?” Danny asked.

“Well, I know how Joanne and I met,” Alex replied.

“At a party Cordelia gave,” Elly answered.

“You think Elly’s shy? You should have seen her. She walked up to me, asked me if I had a lover, then got my phone number and told me she’d like to see me. I was impressed,” Danny elaborated.

“I think I introduced myself first and we had talked a few times in passing. It took every ounce of courage I had to do that. But I figured you were going to be leaving any minute and if I didn’t, then that was that.”

“I’m very glad you did,” Danny said, taking her hand.

“How’d you two meet?” I asked Alex and Joanne.

“C.J., the matchmaker,” Alex answered. “I had just moved in here, having finally broken up with Louise. How did I ever get involved with a woman whose passion was watching interest accrue? Anyway, Cordelia brought some friends of hers over to help paint. I was having a painting party.”

“Twenty-five words or less,” I cut in.

“Actually, Danny brought me,” Joanne supplied.

“I was trying to fix you up with Cordelia,” Danny said, “but my matchmaking went astray.”

“Doesn’t it always?” I commented. “I remember some of the matches you tried to make for me.”

“You have no match,” Danny retorted. “Fortunately.”

“Now, girls,” Alex refereed.

“So how’d you get her quiet long enough to get her into bed?” I asked Joanne, not taking Danny’s bait.

“What a presumptuous question,” Alex interjected.

“Alex told me if I wanted to shut her up, I’d have to kiss her. So I did.”

“Then she picked me up, picked me up, mind you, and carried me into the bedroom. I think hunger, food, that is, finally got us out about a day later. We spent half an hour in the kitchen and went back into the bedroom. Or did we even make it back to the bedroom? Didn’t we—”

“Alex,” Joanne interrupted her.

“Yes, dear?”

Joanne kissed her. A long kiss. Danny started whistling, deliberately out of tune. Cordelia winked at Danny and started drumming her fingers on the table.

“I do declare,” Alex said, after they finally broke off, “I totally forgot what I was talking about.”

“Sex,” Danny reminded her. “Tell us about your first time.”

“If you insist,” she agreed and looked at me. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“How could I forget, Alex, dear?” I played along. “Was it Paris? Rome? Biloxi?”

“New York,” Alex laughed, shaking her head. “My senior year in college. I had been curious for a while and I was in the painful position of fence-sitting. I kept getting these weird physical sensations around women and it happened often enough that I couldn’t write it off to the flu.

“One evening we were making our way to ACDC—the All Campus Dining Center, not what you were thinking—and we heard rumors of tuna tetrazzini. One brilliant woman said, fuck this, let’s go to New York City. So, with the naïveté of youth, we galloped off to the train station and the temptations of the Big Apple.

“Once at Grand Central, division struck the troops. Three went to the Upper West Side and three to the Village (my group). Rhonda immediately headed for her NYU boyfriend, leaving Sylvia and me to our own devices. We had an Italian dinner, a tremendous improvement over re-formed tuna, then we started bar hopping. Straight bars, of course. Syl was relentlessly hetero.

“An unwound watch changed my life. Had it not been for that fickle watch, I would have left Syl to her wenching and caught the last train back to Poughkeepsie. Syl wasn’t worried, she had no plans to return to her dorm room that night.

“She found a suitable male and left me defenseless with his friend. And then I did something which years of Southern female tradition should have beaten out of me: I spilled my drink on him, forcing him to the men’s room while I made my escape. Out to the less-than-gentle streets of New York.