Monday's Child (9 page)

Twenty

When it got to be five o’clock and Dave still hadn’t called, Georgia went into the kitchen, closed the door, picked up the phone, dialed the restaurant’s number, and hung up.

“Do it,” she said to herself, her hand resting on the receiver.

She was as angry as she’d ever been, but part of her was also afraid. All it would take was a wrong word from him, or the wrong tone of voice, and she would cross that line beyond which she’d vowed she would never go.

The line existed, she knew, in all marriages, although not in the same form. Only by honoring its boundaries could a marriage survive. In her parents’ case, the line was drawn at ever mentioning her mother’s alcoholism or her father’s pathological stinginess.

In her own marriage, the line prevented any suggestion that Dave hadn’t wanted children, that it had been she and she alone who’d wanted a baby.

If she lost her temper and crossed the line, accusing him of being an indifferent father, of not caring enough about his daughter, he might say, “You’re the one who insisted we adopt her. I was happy without kids.”

He might remind her that she was the one who was unable to have a child. The physical defect was hers. He might say that if Jill was really his—if Georgia had borne him a child—he’d feel more for the girl.

If he said those things, the marriage would be over.

Georgia opened and closed her fingers around the receiver, undecided.

Could she talk to him calmly and stay within the limits of their understanding? If she heard the detachment in his voice, would she be able to ignore it?

Perhaps Faye had been right, and he was simply so busy he hadn’t a chance to call—

“We’ve got a good crowd for lunch,” he’d told her a few weeks ago, “from around eleven-thirty to two, but after that, you could fire a cannon through the place and not even raise dust. It’s dead until five-thirty, or if we’re lucky, five.”

In the morning—she’d called for the first time before nine a.m.—she could understand that he was busy, dealing with vendors and all.

When the restaurant had first opened, she’d worked there about thirty hours a week in addition to her job at the library, so she knew.

There were hundreds of details involved in running a restaurant. He bought meat from one supplier, fruit and vegetables from another, breads and pastries from still another. He had to stock the bar, replenish the wine cellar, order cut flowers for the tables, make sure the linens were spotless and in adequate supply.

He had to worry about automatic dishwashers, walk-in freezers, the deep-fat fryer, and the massive ovens and stoves. The cash drawer on the register had been known to stick.

Then there were the annoying problems: chipped china, spotted glassware, and silverware that the dish-washer had failed to get clean.

The restaurant was still at the stage when its menu was being scrutinized, almost on a daily basis. There were recipes to try out and add, and slow-moving items to delete. When enough changes had been made, revised menus had to be printed, which invariably required working with a food photographer.

And then there was personnel. There were two shifts to cover, including an overlap during peak dinner hours. He had to interview and hire chefs, food prep workers, kitchen workers, waitresses, and, naturally, a hostess.

An attractive hostess, Dave had told her, could do a lot to bring in business.

Business must be booming, Georgia thought, the hours he’d been keeping lately. Just how damned attractive was this girl?

She hesitated a moment more, then lifted the phone and dialed.

“Baker’s,” a breathy female voice answered.

“David Baker, please?”

“May I say who’s calling?”

That was a new twist; the calls used to be put directly through to Dave’s office. “This is Mrs. Baker.”

“One moment.”

But instead of ringing through, she’d been put on hold. Bobby Goldsboro sang “Honey” in her ear.

She nearly hung up.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Baker,” the voice breathed, “he’s not able to come to the phone just now.”

“Oh?”

“If you’d like to leave a message, I’ll be sure that he gets it.”

I’ll bet you will, she thought. “Yes, well. I called several times earlier. I don’t think I spoke to you—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Tanya.”

“Of course, Tanya. Would you happen to know if he got my earlier messages?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t,” Tanya murmured. “Oh, excuse me—”

Georgia heard a rustling noise, as though Tanya had covered the phone with her hand. Tanya’s throaty laugh was audible anyway.

“I’m glad you enjoyed your dinner,” came the muffled purr. “Promise you’ll be back to see me again soon? Maybe tomorrow?”

A male voice said something indistinguishable which elicited a delighted giggle.

Georgia looked heavenward. Give me strength, she thought. “Hello? Are you there?”

“Mrs. Baker? I’m sorry, but we’re really busy—Friday night and all—but I’ll tell Dave, I mean, Mr. Baker, that you called. Bye now.”

The line clicked.

“By now,” she echoed, and hung up the phone.

Jill had burrowed under the covers and was sound asleep when she went in to ask what she wanted for dinner, and she looked so warm and cozy, Georgia didn’t have the heart to wake her.

She went into kitchen and stared into the refrigerator. There she found a single slice of American cheese—although the edges were beginning to dry out—and grilled herself a sandwich.

When Jill awoke she’d make a proper meal, but for now this would do.

She took her sandwich and a glass of milk into the front room and sat down. Eating standing up in the kitchen was something people who lived alone did.

There wasn’t a lot to choose from on TV, but she turned it on and used the remote to tour the channels. She watched several minutes of a documentary on the plains of Africa, but switched the station when two lionesses brought down a gazelle by its neck.

It wasn’t the violence that bothered her as much as the realization that in nature, it was often the female, the mother, who alone provided for the off-spring. The lioness had to be able to kill efficiently to feed her young. A female grizzly bear with cubs to protect was among the most dangerous animals on earth.

Not that it was all savagery. Care and nurturing were there, too.

By contrast, she had it easy, although sometimes it didn’t feel that way.

She sighed and took a bite of her sandwich which had gotten cold. She tore it into halves and licked the butter off her fingers.

On the television, smooth-faced young men watched a sassy female bottom in cut-off jeans, all in the guise of advertising beer.

That
was the real jungle.

She thought of Dave. And Tanya.

“Damn it.” She didn’t want to sit here feeling sorry for herself.

In the wild, females never fought over males; the male animal was good for breeding and little else.

Maybe they’re the smart ones, she thought.

Don’t expect more. Don’t be disappointed.
Don’t think about it.

She dropped the sandwich on the plate. She’d managed to force down only about a third of it, but it felt as though the cheese had become wedged in her windpipe. The milk did nothing to dislodge it.

Back in the kitchen, she looked for something to eat to clear the sandwich—a kind of edible Roto-rooter—and opened the vegetable crisper.

Celery and carrots.

Carrots?

“Hoppity!”

She’d all but forgotten about the rabbit.

Twenty-One

The sun had gone down, but the sky hadn’t completely darkened, and she decided not to bother with the flashlight. It wouldn’t be much help anyway; its batteries were nearly done for.

At first as she crossed the yard her brain couldn’t make sense of what her eyes were seeing, but as she got closer to the rabbit hutch, there was no doubt.

Hoppity was dead.

Blood and bits of flesh still bearing fur were caught in the wire of the cage.

The body, or what was left of it, was suspended by one paw which had somehow caught in the upper right corner of the front of the cage. One eye was open and glassy, the other lost in the gore.

White bone showed. The skull?

Georgia stood at a distance of five feet of so, trying to think what could have done this.

“The dogs.” She took a step closer and recoiled at the smell.

If it had been the dogs, though, why hadn’t any damage been done to the cage?

Presumably, for the rabbit to have been killed while in its hutch, some weakness in the structure would have had to have been broached.

Two or three dogs leaping at the cage should have toppled it; it remained standing.

The teeth and claws of the dogs should have bent the wire, even broken through it in a few places; the wire was intact.

The soft ground around the cage, still damp from the rains, should show tracks of some kind; only one small human footprint was visible.

But if it hadn’t been dogs, how had this happened? Who or what had done it?

Oddly, it looked almost as though the wire had been forced outward, as if the rabbit had hurled itself against the mesh.

Bracing herself, she moved closer. She could see that the body had stiffened.

Hoppity had been dead for some time now.

“Oh God,” she whispered, and covered her mouth with her hand.

Whatever had done this might still be around, but Georgia didn’t care.

She got a pair of gardening gloves and a shovel and dug poor Hoppity a grave. Taking a deep breath, she unlatched the door of the cage and reached in.

She could feel the coldness of the body even through the gloves, and that and the stiffness made her feel ill, but she worked at pulling the animal free from where it hung on its cage.

When she lifted it clear, a shredded bit of hide that had been pressed against the wire flopped onto the bare skin on her wrist above the glove.

She shuddered and brushed it aside.

After laying the rabbit in the shallow grave, she found that she couldn’t just shovel the cold dirt on him. After a moment of thought, she went into the house and found a cardboard shoe box.

As small as the box was, there was plenty of room when she’d put the body in. She fit the lid on, placed the box in the hole in the ground, and resolutely began to cover it with dirt.

Not all of the dirt would fit, and she mounded the rest of it over the grave.

Her nose had begun to run and she realized that she was crying. She didn’t have the strength to hold back her tears, so she lowered her head and let it come.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but when she went inside her fingers were too numb from the cold to properly grip the phone. She went to the sink and held her hands under the warm water
.

If I could do that for my heart.

When feeling had returned, she went again to the phone and dialed the number from memory.

Twenty-Two

Beverly Wright crooked a finger and liberated a chocolate chip from the cookie dough, stuck it in her mouth, and then went into the front room to answer the telephone.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not able to come to the phone right now. But if you’ll leave your name and number, and the time you called, I’ll get right back to you. Please wait until you hear the beep and thank you for calling . . .
beep!”

“Bev, it’s Georgia—”

“Georgia, hi!”

“Are you there?”

“Sure. Couldn’t you tell by the fake beep?”

“No, I—”

“No? I must be getting better at it. I hocked my answering machine a couple of weeks ago, but you’re less than nobody in this town if you don’t have one. I know people who have machines on their car phones, if you can believe it. Of course, a service is the best, but—hey, it’s great to hear from you.”

There was no answer for a moment, and then Georgia said, “It’s been a while.”

“Hey, Sis, your voice sounds a little funny.”

She perched on the back of the couch, and stuck her bare feet between the cushions to keep them warm. “Has something happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m not, actually. That’s why I called.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“A lot of things—”

“Like what?” That bum, she thought, I’ll bet the farm it’s him.

“Well, Jill’s sort of sick—”

“Sort of?”

“She’s anemic. I found out today, after she fainted at school. The doctor doesn’t know yet what’s causing it, or at least he didn’t tell me.”

“Doctors,” she spit out the word. “Ugh. What do
they
know?”

“Weren’t you dating a doctor the last time we spoke?”

“My point exactly. Of course, he wasn’t really a doctor; he played one on TV. The show lasted six weeks, and spent all of them in rating’s hell. And deservedly so; it stunk. I think the producer’s parking cars at Spago’s. Anyway, he threw me over for a nurse, if you can believe it. A real one. Not that there was a lot that was real about her . . . Silicone City.”

Beverly paused to give Georgia a chance to laugh, but there was only silence on her sister’s end. Sometimes she tried too hard. “You still there?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I’m not a good audience right now. I just don’t think I can . . . I don’t . . .”

“Hey!” She stood on the couch and began to pace its six foot length, the cushions supplying the bounce. “You really are upset.”

“I am.”

“It’s more than Jill being sick, isn’t it? There’s something else?”

“Yes. It’s complicated.”

Beverly frowned and chewed at her lower lip. “I’m not real good at this, I know, but is there anything I can do to help?”

“I hate to ask . . .”

“You’re not. I’m offering.”

“Could you come up here?”

That gave her pause. “Up there? To Winslow, you mean?” Winslow, the middle of nowhere.

“Yes. I thought . . . I know you must be busy with your acting career—”

“It’s not a career yet,” Beverly said modestly, but she was pleased that her sister thought so.

“—but I was wondering if you and Katy might come up for a few days, or however long you want to stay. I’ll make up the extra bedroom for you, and Katy can stay in Jill’s room. I have to work, but in the evenings we can make popcorn and watch old movies and talk, and the kids can play . . . it’ll be fun.”

“Golly, Sis, it sounds great. I’d really love to, but I’ve got a call-back on Monday for a shot at three days on
General Hospital.
And three days at Guild rates is more than I make in a month at my temp job.”

“How about the weekend then? You can come up in the morning and stay Saturday night. I’ve got Sunday off and we can have a picnic or something before you have to drive back.”

“Well . . .”

“If you want, you can leave Katy here for Easter week, and I’ll bring her down to L.A. next Saturday.”

“Leave Katy?”

“Sure. I know you say how much you like living in Hollywood, but after all that smog, the fresh country air will do Katy a world of good.”

“Yeah, I can see what it’s done for Jill,” she said
sotto voce.

“What?”

“Nothing. You know, I can’t imagine not having Katy around for an entire week.”

“It’d do her good to get out of the city,” Georgia persisted.

“Maybe, but she kind of centers me, if you know what I mean. Having a kid at home keeps me from doing some of the crazy stuff people do in this town.”

In fact, she’d often wondered which of them was the adult. Katy wasn’t an average eight-year-old; Katy was special.

“Do you realize the girls haven’t seen each other since they were babies?”

“Has it been that long?”

“It has. Why don’t you ask her if she’d like to come and visit her cousin Jill?”

“Well, I would but she’s not home.”

“Not home? Where is she? It’s . . . it’s seven o’clock here.”

Beverly smiled. “It’s seven here, too. Believe it or not, and despite rumors to the contrary, Hollywood is
not
in another time zone. Another dimension . . . maybe.”

“You let her go out by herself on a Friday night in Hollywood?”

“She’s not by herself; she’s at the Forum. The place is packed.”

“Bev . . .”

“One of our neighbors had an extra ticket to a Lakers game and invited her to go along. She’s a fan, she wouldn’t dream of turning down a chance to see her team. Would you?”

“I might.”

Beverly recognized that wry tone of voice and was glad to hear it. There was life in her older sister yet. Damn that Dave.

“Well . . . what about the weekend at least? You can decide about the other later.”

“Hmm. Let me think.” She wound the phone cord around her index finger, the tip of which turned white as the blood flow slowed. Would that it were Dave Baker’s neck, but then, his brain had to have been suffering from oxygen deprivation for years.

“Bev? Are you there?”

“Whoops! Sorry, I was gathering wool.” She calculated her options: she had a dozen other things she should be doing tomorrow, including ten days’ worth of laundry, but how often did her sister call her for help?

Never.

“Okay, sure,” she said finally. “We can come up tomorrow.”

There was no mistaking the relief in Georgia’s voice. “That’s great.”

“Yeah, I think it will be.”

“Make sure Katy brings a few changes of clothes, though, in case she decides she’d like to stay for the rest of the week.”

“Will do. Listen, this call must be costing you a fortune . . .”

“That’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. The will.”

Beverly blinked. “What?”

“Dad’s will.”

“It’s hardly a fortune,” she said with as much disdain as she could muster when it came to money.

“Even so. I’ve come to a decision—”

“Georgia? Let’s talk about it tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I’d better go. I’m in the middle of a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I’ll bring you some.”

“I’ll supply the milk. And thanks, Bev.”

When she’d finished baking the cookies, she stretched out on the couch and put an exercise tape in the VCR.

There were few things more sinful than eating still-warm cookies while watching some aerobics princess sweating in her leotard.

Her Monday morning call-back, when
she’d
be the one sweating, was a long way away.