The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) (15 page)

“And how will it make Natasha feel? I don’t want to turn her into some kind of fifth wheel.”

“Noel, do you want to be making car payments for the rest of our lives?”

“If you weren’t so obsessed with buying new, we could get something a couple of years old in great condition and . . .”

“. . . and get five or six fewer years out of it.”

“Nonsense.”

We were still squabbling as we entered the dealership, and when the salesman asked us, “How can I help you?” Lance and I replied simultaneously: “We need a car.” “We need a minivan.”

“Would you tell him three children, two in booster seats and one a teenager, will not fit in a sedan for long?”

“Would you tell
her
how much minivans
cost
?”

The nonplussed salesman opened his mouth to speak but didn’t say anything. Clearly, he couldn’t decide who to answer first, or whether he should be speaking to either of us at all. His manager saved him. “Hey, folks!” said the manager. “You must be the Rue-Lakeland family. Or is it the Lakeland-Rues?”

I stepped to the right, suddenly needing Lance nearby. “How did you know our names?”

“Mr. Oeschle said you’d probably be by sometime this week. We’ve got everything ready to go for you. All we need is some signatures, and you’ll be on your way.”

Lance groaned. “He
can’t.
Stan
cannot
buy us a car.”

“Don’t worry,” said the manager, “he bought you a minivan
and
a car, seeing as how you couldn’t decide between them.”

“How did he
know
?” I demanded.

Lance answered. “Natasha.”

As if he needed to tell me. How else would Stan have known we had narrowed things down to one dealership? “It’s like living with the world’s most loving spy! What are we supposed to do?”

“Write nice thank-you notes,” the manager advised. “Because these are some of the best vehicles on my lot.”

“Let’s see what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

He made us sign forms first, page after page of material with significant lines of data, like models and price tags, covered over with sticky notes. Then he led us out back with the pomp of a graduation. It was like getting married all over again, except this time I got to clutch Lance’s hand throughout the whole ceremony.

“There you go folks. What do you think?”

“I think I may pass out.” It wasn’t the minivan that jellied my legs. That was a nice vehicle, no doubt. Seafoam green, just like half our wedding party had worn in June, it stretched under the dealership’s overhang like a land-bound boat. No, it was the convertible that made my head swim and my knees wobble. “He
can’t
,” I protested. “He
can’t
! He can’t, he can’t, he
can’t
!”

“Yup. He knew you’d say as much. It’s why he told me to make you sign blind.”

Lance had abandoned me. “So
sleek.
What aerodynamics!”

“Baby blue.” I joined him at the car. “I can’t believe she gave him our wedding colors.”

“Natasha didn’t do this alone,” Lance said. “I doubt she even
knew
our wedding colors. The color coordination has Marguerite’s handwriting all over it.”

“And look at those side-view mirrors. The driver can adjust them in two places.”

“Is that a satellite radio antenna?” Lance pointed to a tiny shark fin on the vehicle’s tail.

“Yup.” It looked like half the sales force was outside to watch this exchange.

“You can barely see where the roof folds in.” I traced the outline of the small compartment.

“Fully automatic, and fastest on the market,” said the manager.

“Are these leather seats? The options I saw were canvas and vinyl.” Lance was inside the car now, stroking the seats as he discussed them.

“Fully custom. You don’t think we can put whatever we want in a car like this?” The manager held the keys out to my husband.

Lance hesitated. “We don’t do leather.” Living in rural Ohio, we’ve made some compromises. A vegetarian lifestyle is possible, but it would be hard to maintain. We ate chicken when it was ethically farmed. More rarely, we ate beef. But by and large we avoided animal by-products.

The manager chuckled. “It’s called pleather. No cows were harmed in the customizing of this vehicle.” His manner was calm, and only his eyes gave away his sudden worry at Lance’s hesitation.

“Until I read otherwise, pleather is fine.” I opened the passenger door and slid in beside my husband. “It’s every bit as low-slung as the ad made it sound.”

Lance’s arm paused on its way to plug the key into the ignition. “
Which
one of us was doing research by lusting after sports cars?” he asked me.

“I never said I didn’t bring up a couple on the Internet, too,” I protested. “But I did a little more looking into what I thought we might actually be
buying
than you did.”

Lance slid the key home and turned it. The car sprang to life in an instant, where, even on a good day, the primate-mobile had to turn over a couple of times before it rumbled on. “Listen to her purr.” Lance stroked the dash.

Getting the cars home turned into something of a three-ring circus. I drove the minivan back to the house willingly enough, then rode with the top down beside Lance to return for our truck. Back at the dealership, he seemed to think he got the convertible again, even though I hadn’t had a turn at all behind the wheel.

“Share and share alike.” I told him. “Move.”

He stayed put, but I refused to get out of the car on my own side. We might have remained that way for much longer, but we had forgotten the spare keys to both new cars, and as the dealer lured us out to get them, I snatched the convertible fob out of Lance’s hand and popped myself behind its wheel.

“Hey!” Lance protested.

I turned on the engine, rolled up the windows, and put up the top. Lance stood helpless outside the vehicle, trying to pop the locks with the spare keys. However, as I had learned the time I locked myself out of my previous car while warming it up one morning, those key fob beepers don’t work once the engine is actually running. I beamed at my fuming husband as I adjusted my seat and the mirrors, then I made a great show of smoothing down my hair and blew him a kiss. I rolled down one window as I drove past. “See you at the house after I grab Tasha,” I said. “Remember, we’ve got to put those beds together today.”

I put down the top once more as I exited the lot. Behind me, Lance was shouting, “Damn it, Noel,” but the rest of whatever he wanted to tell me was lost to the roar of the wind in my ears as I hugged the road on the drive to Christina’s.

Natasha flew out her friend’s front door. “You went! You went! You went! I didn’t think you were
ever
going to go. Do you know how hard it’s been to keep it secret? And how did you get your hands on the convertible? I thought Lance would hide the keys for sure.”

“He may yet, so we better enjoy our ride.”

“Ha! You can hide this set first.” She bounded around the car once, inspecting it before she jumped in. “Note. Pleather interior. You are totally
not
to take small people in your gorgeous car and get it all junked up. That’s what the minivan’s for.”

“If you think I’m junking up
any
cars, you don’t know me. I kept my last car so clean I wouldn’t let Lance in unless he took off his shoes or put down paper first.”

“Noel,” Natasha said with mock solemnity, “you have
tons
to learn about parenting.”

What a difference this was from the young woman who had come to live with us a couple of months ago. “Did you figure out a disaster management plan?”

“Yup.”

“And it is?”

“Close ranks.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

“Meaning since now all my friends know, I don’t have to hide it from
them
anymore, and if anybody else tries to bring it up, we band together and ignore them.”

“Not a bad plan.” Three months ago, she hadn’t
had
any friends. “You seem to have bounced back pretty well. I was worried about you this morning.

“If it had happened in June, I’d have still been trying to hide from everybody. And that was my initial reaction. I wanted to crawl under a rock. But it makes such a difference not having any secrets. Gary used to harp on about how I liked it, and how bad it would make my grandparents feel to find out. But once they found out, all any of us cared about was the other ones being alive.” Suddenly, her joy at the car diminished. “I want to go
home
, Noel. You have no idea how much I want to go home. I want to go back in time and erase June completely.

“But not all of it. I want to take away all the bad stuff and hang on to the part when it was all over, where Gran said, ‘Honey, I knew something was going on. I thought it was drugs, maybe Stan and I were taking on somebody who had a habit we couldn’t touch.’ She found out I was a child porn star, and all she said was, ‘Thank God it wasn’t drugs.’ And Stan was the same way.

“I feel bad for Layla. I want to help her if I can. It’s kind of stupid, but if she hadn’t done what she did . . . keeping my friends in the dark was the last wall. I wouldn’t have told them. Not in a million years. They’ve only
been
my friends for a month or two, and only because of the slam thing.”
Slam thing . . . yes. The poetry group.
I still wasn’t sure I believed in that completely. “And I felt the same way as I used to about Gran and Granddad, afraid of what they’d say when they found out. I mean, they barely know me, too.

“But instead of messing everything up, it made us all closer. It made me feel like one of them. It made me . . . don’t freak out, okay, but this morning was the first time I didn’t wake up and wonder, even for a few minutes, where you hid the wine in the new house. And that was before I got the disc back.”

“I’m glad, Tasha.” I didn’t want to say too much. Natasha was rarely this open. However, when she had been silent for several miles, I deemed it time for a change of subject. “But you
can’t
keep reporting our every want to your grandfather! It’s getting outrageous the things he’s doing for us.”

Natasha smothered laughter in one arm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t. But it’s so funny. Was Lance pissed? Did his face turn purple?”

“Yeah. Right up until the second he saw this car.”

“Ha!” she crowed. “I knew it! I knew he wanted the convertible.”

“Didn’t everyone? My point is, your granddad is generous, but he doesn’t have to
buy
our friendship. He hears everything you tell him as something else to shop for.”

“Would you
relax
?” said Natasha.

“You of the four anxiety medications.”

“I
know.
I’m a total spaz, too. And anyway, I’m not guilty here. Or mostly not, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“After you told your sister you were adopting, she called
me
up and asked if you were still . . . how’d she put it? ‘Rattling around in that heap of a truck.’ It sent me into a major panic attack, because I
don’t
have a safe word with her, and she
didn’t
want me to tell you a thing, and I had to hang up and call your mom and make
her
call your sister to make
sure
it was for real, because it was
such
a good idea, and she knows you better than I do.”

“Wait, back up,” I said, when I could get a word in edgewise. “Marguerite wanted you to get your grandfather to buy us a sports car?”

“No, no, no. She wanted you to have the minivan. The convertible was your dad’s idea.”

“My
dad’s
idea? Natasha, how much of my family is in on this? They know how uncomfortable Stan’s gifts make us feel.”

“Yeah, but see, they knew you and Lance would wind up getting the sedan, and Marguerite knew the sedan was stupid. And your dad felt bad for not being more excited. Plus, everyone is still bummed
your
car burned up, and
everybody
has heard Lance talk about this car.”

“It’s more like salivate. But Natasha . . .”

“Chill
out
, Noel. Listen, this is how it’s going to go. While I’m with you, you’re right there in the front of Granddad’s mind. And he has got almost
nothing
to do in the hospital. He can’t send clowns and teddy bears to the children’s wing every day, and you
know
he totally would, right? Anyway, when he gets home, he’ll have all his stuff to keep him busy again, and I’ll be back at home. It’s not like he’ll love you any less. I think he’s kind of substituted you for your friend Art in his heart, and once that wears off, he’ll have found a new place for you to fit. But he won’t be thinking of you all the time, and then he won’t dump houses, and cars, and . . . I should probably warn you there’s a treehouse kit coming from Columbus . . .”

“A what?”

“Yeah. For Sara and Will if they ever get there.”

“They’ll get here, Natasha,” I told her as we turned down our street. “They’re coming tomorrow.”

“What?”
With the top down, I felt pretty sure the whole neighborhood could hear Natasha shriek.

“As long as our assembled friends and family don’t have something drastic to tell us.”

“Who?”

I pointed to the front of our house. Besides the new minivan and the primate-mobile, Trudy Jackson’s beat-up sedan was parked on one side of the street, and my parents’ car was on the other. I couldn’t have told you who I wanted to see less.

“They
could
have heard the good news and be stopping by with congratulations.”

“And scientists
might
have found life on Mars and be getting ready to hold a big news conference at our place. Come on, let’s see what’s up.”

I parked my new car and closed the roof, my euphoric mood dampened by our guests’ arrival.

“Mama, it’s fine.” I passed my mother a mug of the coffee Lance had been brewing in my absence. I ticked gourmet coffee beans off the list of things I could expect not to afford in the near future. Lance and I have always lived on a budget, but we were about to develop economy in untold quantities.