Mudlark (16 page)

"You didn't deal with the race issue in
Small Victories
."

The smile faded. "I wasn't ready to deal with it, and it's too complicated for a book like that anyway.
There's still a lot of prejudice in this area, especially about fishing rights, and a lot of stereotyping of the usual
drunken-Indian sort. Darla's probably on the right track with an activist program for the council. And speaking of
Darla, I think I'll call the hospital."

"By all means." While he phoned, I took another look at the hall and decided to set a bouquet of Tom's
asters on the table.

I went back to tell him I'd take him up on the flowers, and he was just replacing the receiver. "How is
she?"

"Stiff and cranky. I talked to her. They'll release her as soon as the doctor makes his rounds. Her dad's
going to pick her up." He expelled a long breath. "There are lights on that stretch of highway. She got a good look at
the truck that ran the Trans Am off the road, considering she had to twist against the seat belt to see. Sounds like
your sideswiper."

I gulped. I had been hoping the incident on the Ridge Road was idiocy rather than malice. "Somebody's
out to get us."

"The thought had entered my mind."

That was depressing, so I asked Tom to go with me to cut flowers by way of
distraction--self-distraction.

We came back with armloads of bright blossoms to find Jay grumping over a cup of tea. I knew better
than to try to make conversation. Tom and I stuffed the extra flowers in jars of water until I could decide what to
do with them. The asters looked just right at the end of the hall. Tom went for a walk, and I started poking among
the boxes in the dining room, looking for treasure.

I unearthed two framed eighteenth-century maps of the Pacific Coast I had found on a visit to London. I
hung northern California to the right of the living room arch and the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Yaquina
Bay to the left. Classy. I could barely restrain myself from dragging stuff into the living room, too. I found the woven
coverlet.

Jay was on the phone to his mother when I poked my head into the kitchen, so I decided to run across to
Bonnie's house. Tom was there drinking coffee. Some walk. He had filled Bonnie in on Freddy's accident, and she
was suitably shocked. We discussed the marauding pickup without getting very far. I had the feeling Tom was
keeping something to himself--he had a brooding, inward look. I left after one cup, in case they wanted
privacy.

As I crossed the road a carload of gawkers drove slowly past. Matt's car was gone. The sky was clear. I
wondered if Jean had been wrong about the weather. If Labor Day turned out to be sunny, we had gone to a lot of
unnecessary exertion. We could have held a barbecue in the back yard.

I pushed the thought from my mind and went into the house. Jay called to me from the kitchen.

"What is it?"

He thrust the phone at me. "Ma wants to say hello. I'm going up to roust Freddy."

I took the receiver and covered the mouthpiece. "That's cruel, Jay. Let him sleep."

"I heard signs of life. He's conscious."

I turned to the phone. "Hi, Nancy. How are you?"

"I wouldn't have a gray hair on my head if I didn't have kids."

I laughed. Her hair was the color of expensive champagne. "Freddy's fine, really."

"I'll believe it when I hear his voice. How about Jay?"

"He's a little tense."

She sighed. "Nightmares?"

"He'll be okay, Nancy. I'm going to make him move furniture."

"That's the ticket. You're my best daughter-in-law, kiddo."

"Your only daughter-in-law."

"At the moment. You're head and shoulders above that twerp Jay married the first time around."

I winced. I am a little sensitive about my height. Jay's first wife, Linda, had not been a twerp, just a
psychology major who talked too much shop. At least that was what Jay told me.

"How's the girlfriend?" Nancy asked. "Whatsername? Marla?"

"Darla. I guess she's okay, too. I haven't seen her yet."

"Is it serious, Lark?" She meant was the relationship serious.

I hesitated. I could hear thumps and groans on the stair. "I'm not sure. Freddy's serious, or was, and
now she's showing promising signs."

"They're infants." She added hastily, "And don't ask how old I was the first time around. Jay says you're
fixing the house up real nice."

Nancy had married at eighteen, borne Jay and been widowed at nineteen. Her two daughters were the
product of a disastrous second marriage. She was thirty-nine when Freddy came along, the child of her third
husband, a successful real estate broker.

I told Nancy about my floor, and how well the taupe walls were going to go with her sofa and chairs.
Freddy's arrival made further lies unnecessary. I said hasty farewells and placed the receiver in her younger son's
hand. Jay put a mug of coffee in the other, and we left Freddy to his inquisition. Jay approved the hall but reversed
the position of the maps. He thought it was more tactful to put California on the left.

The afternoon was tranquil. Around three, a live reporter showed up from the
Oregonian
. He
was a short, intense guy with a dark beard and hair. Jay gave him a brief statement about the shooting, and I
allowed that finding the body of Cleo Hagen wasn't exactly pleasant. A pretty woman the reporter introduced as his
wife took photos of us standing on the front porch. They were weekending at Shoalwater and thought they might
as well get a color story. They didn't make pests of themselves, but we ducked inside and hid out.

Freddy slept a couple of hours in the afternoon, called Darla, and went back to the computer. Tom and
Bonnie drove off to the Pig'n Stuff in Tom's pickup. They offered to bring hamburgers for us, too, but I declined and
did a stir-fry for dinner. Dale Nelson phoned Jay around seven to say nothing was happening. That sounded good to
me. We all went to bed early.

I woke in the middle of a nightmare that entwined my total social humiliation with the body of Cleo
Hagen. The corpse was wearing her sunglasses like a headband. I lay awhile in the dark, sorting things out, before I
became aware that it was raining. There seemed to be little wind but the rain was pouring down in a steady,
earnest way. It was a wonderfully cheering sound. Vindicated, I snuggled against Jay and fell asleep.

I woke at six-thirty, rested and conscious of happiness. It was still pouring. I sang in the shower, gave
Jay a prod, and put on a set of mungy sweats that were made for moving furniture. Then I floated downstairs and
brewed coffee. I took a mug into the living room and started making decisions.

By seven-fifteen, both Jay and Tom were staring into their mugs and muttering, Jay over herb tea.
Neither man wanted breakfast. I let them absorb two cups apiece before I turned ruthless. When Bonnie came over
at eight, already coffeed, we were placing the big couch where it would face the fireplace.

Between the couch and the hearth I had laid a Turkish rug, dark red with the usual flower border. Tom
and Jay brought in my teak coffee table and set it in the center of the rug. That was the easy part. My grandmother's
platform rocker, ugly but incredibly comfortable, I placed left of the coffee table--at an angle with an occasional
chair on the right. That made a good conversation area.

Bonnie eyed the arrangement critically. "Where are you going to put the hassock?"

"In the basement." There was no basement, owing to the high water table. I hated the hassock.

Jay said, "Poke it under the window for the time being." I helped him carry the hassock out of the way. It
was a heavy sucker, two feet by four and knee high. It would have made some child a handsome bed. Our big
west-facing window looked out over the dunes. The hassock slumped beneath it like a dead whale.

Tom was sitting in Grandma's rocker, head back, eyes closed. As we collected to admire the couch, he
gave a single rock and opened one eye. "Dibs."

Jay laughed. "Too late, buddy. I married Lark to get dibs on that chair."

The doorbell rang. Bonnie answered it and returned, after a considerable delay, with Clara Klein.
Bonnie's arms were loaded with bulging plastic garbage sacks, and Clara carried a narrow parcel wrapped in
brown paper. Both women were wet.

"Ho." Clara set her parcel on the mantel. "Coffee."

I went off to the kitchen for the necessaries and kept telling myself not to say anything about the taupe
walls.

When I returned with coffee and the ashtray, Bonnie had plunked the garbage bags into a corner, and
Clara was waving a lit cigarette at the hassock. "What the hell is that?"

"A hassock."

"It came with the couch."

Jay and I spoke simultaneously. Tom was still in the rocker, eyes closed. The faintest of grins touched
his mouth.

Clara growled. She paced the length of the hassock, glowering at it. I was about to say we didn't have to
keep it in the room, but she forestalled me. "Do you have another of those Turkish rugs--a little one?"

"Uh, a small runner. But it doesn't match--"

"A runner. Just the thing. Bring it over here."

I went into the dining room and dug in one of the storage boxes. I decided I would damned well say
what I wanted to say about the taupe walls.

I tossed the rug on the floor at her ladyship's feet.

"Great," she said, waving smoke from her eyes. "Now unroll it so I can see. Wonderful. Bonnie,
where...oh, I see." She stubbed out her cigarette and set the ashtray on the windowsill. Two strides took her to the
garbage bags. She rummaged in one and came up with three pillows. She strolled back, tossed the pillows on the
north end of the hassock, and circled to get a better look.

I gaped. "It looks like a fainting couch!"

Clara grinned. "That's the idea, but something's missing."

"Uh, what?" I was admiring the pillows. They didn't match anything either but looked great with the
hassock and the six foot long oriental runner, which was beige with the usual ornate border. The pillows were wild
prints, one geometric, the other two chintz flowers, and mostly indigo and dark red with bits of white. The
geometric one was large, the others smaller.

Clara brooded, head down. By this time she had a full audience. Both men and Bonnie were trying to see
what was missing, too.

"That's it." She gave a sharp nod. "Tom!"

"Ma'am?"

"Don't be a smartass. I need a heavy hook, the kind that screws in."

"Like a plant hook?" Jay asked. "I have a couple in the garage. Shall I get one?"

Clara beamed at him. "That's the idea. What's your name?"

I was horrified and made introductions immediately. Jay must have been out of the room on her
previous brief visit. They shook hands, and I could see that Jay had fallen in love. He went off after the hook.

"Tom, you bring a chair or something and see if you can find the roof joist. Lark, your Boston fern."

My Boston fern was the pride of my kitchen, but I was beginning to get the idea. I went to fetch it, and
Bonnie followed.

"The woman's a magician!"

I climbed up on a chair and unhooked the fern, lowering it carefully because I did not want to add
repotting to the day's labors. "I'm beginning to feel hopeful about the walls."

"They'll look fine." Bonnie took the pot, and I kept the wires that had held it from tangling. We edged
back into the hall with our burden and brought it to Clara as Tom announced he had found the right spot for the
hook.

The fern looked splendid hanging just north of the hassock. I supposed it would survive on western
sunlight.

All of us stood in the archway the better to admire Clara's set piece.

"It looks as if Sigmund Freud were expecting a short patient," Jay murmured. "How about a small
bookcase there on the south wall, Clara? We have one of those law-office affairs with glassed-in shelves."

"Absolutely, but only if you put books in it. No
objets d'art
."

"Are we barbarians?" Jay's mustache twitched.

Clara chortled. "Now, where is this famous coverlet?"

That I was eager to show her. I had already laid it, wrapped in an old bedsheet, on the dining room
table.

Clara approved. "That fabric is older than your great-grandmother, my sweet, or I'm a pickled herring.
Natural linen and indigo wool in a whig star pattern. What a relief you have proper stretchers. I have seen people
nail granny's hand-stitched quilt to the wall, speaking of barbarians."

The entire east wall of the room was a blank with the guest room behind it. I was pleased that Clara and
I had the same spot in mind. She made the men set the proper hooks on the right studs, changed her mind once
about the height, and finally allowed them to hang the coverlet.

"Oh," I said. "Oh, Clara."

The taupe wall was exactly the right color to set off the hanging. What was more, the focus of the whole
room swung. No one could enter without admiring the coverlet.

"Oh," I said again, mute with gratitude.

Clara looked pleased. "Now, let's finish up. I have to be at this ill-omened arts council picnic at noon."
She made us set the two squishy suede chairs below the coverlet with a low walnut table and a small lamp between
them. What I really needed, she said, was proper track lighting for the hanging, but that would have to do. Then she
dug out her garbage bags again.

Out came more pillows--smaller ones in assorted sizes and lovely clashing prints. She tossed them at
the couch, and it looked as if God intended suede couches.

The two small windows on either side of the fireplace were surmounted by heavy brass curtain rods,
pitted and green with age. I had meant to replace the rods. Clara got up on the chair and tangled a swath of fabric
over each of the eyesores and, lo, they looked like
Country Living
. The fabric had a cream field with a
stylized rose pattern in the exact dark red of the Turkish rug.