The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club (9 page)

“What’re you thinking, Andy?” Annabelle asked, an edge of accusation in her voice. “That I’m crazy to be doing something like this? That I should be happily married, chasing around my little heirs and heiresses? Or maybe designing my own plus-size clothing line for other fat rich girls?”

“No, not at all.”
Where had that come from?

“Then what?” Annabelle wiped at the beads of sweat on her upper lip, her soft face turning suddenly hard, as if a shield had gone up and she’d readied herself for my attack.

“I’m just stunned,” I admitted.

“Oh, sure.” Her mouth tightened into a smirk. “Stunned that I hired an arrogant doctor like Finch?” She exhaled noisily. “Really, Andy, physicians who think they’re God are a dime a dozen. It’s next to impossible to find one who doesn’t.”

“It’s really no shocker that you hired a doctor with a God complex,” I tried to joke and wiped off my damp finger. “But what I’m amazed at is
you
. What you’ve accomplished.”

“Never thought a crybaby like me would amount to much, did you? Well, you’re not the only one.”

There it was again: the self-deprecation, the expectation that I’d belittle her achievements. I got a glimpse of her insecurity creeping out, as it had so often during summer camp.

I shook my head. “Please, Annabelle. You’re talking to the girl who ripped out her mother’s heart by bailing on my debut. I’m surprised she hasn’t had my ball gown bronzed. Cissy still tells people I went to Columbia University, in the Ivy League, not Columbia College, the art school in Chicago. I turn thirty-one next month, I’m still not married, heaven help me.” I threw up my arms. “So, let me tell you, I know a thing or two about blowing expectations.”

Annabelle’s armor cracked. She sighed and raised her chin, tossing brown curls over her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Andy. I wasn’t thinking. We’re both square pegs, aren’t we?”

“Square pegs with nice round trust funds.”

“And yet, we’re almost entirely normal.” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, as normal as we can be, all things considered.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “We could’ve been the Hilton sisters.”

“Ack!”

When we stopped laughing, I nudged her. “We did all right for ourselves, AB,” I said. I didn’t know how to describe what I was feeling, how proud I was that we’d both overcome our biggest obstacles to achieve something. “I love what I do, but designing Web sites for nonprofits seems small compared to getting a place like Belle Meade built. And not just one, but two.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded vigorously. “Two for now, yes, but would you believe we’ve got plans for more on the table? We’ve got tremendous waiting lists for both facilities, and I have more interest from investors than I can handle.”

“I can’t believe I know a business tycoon.”

“Oh, please, they grow like ragweed around here.”

“Not the kind who build their dreams from scratch,” I told her. “You might’ve had a head start in the numbers department, but you built this yourself. No one gave you Belle Meade on a silver platter.”

“I guess so.” She shrugged, shaking dark hair off her shoulders. “It’s really wild, Andy, how much I’ve grown up and learned to direct my own life.” Her eyes widened.

I’d never seen Annabelle look as happy as she did right that minute, and I figured it was long overdue.

“With Belle Meade, I finally realized who I was,” she admitted, luminous with the sun at her back and the fountain gurgling merrily behind her. “After all the rejection, and my parents always griping that I’d amount to nothing, I’ve proved them wrong.”

“Good for you,” I said, remembering her complaints about how hard on her they were and realizing how great it felt to accomplish something on your own, no matter what it was.

“Worst part is”—she cast her gaze down and plucked at the buttons on her jacket—“they never saw any of it.”

The news blindsided me. “I’m sorry, Annabelle. I had no idea. When was this?” I wondered, so surprised that Cissy hadn’t mentioned it; because I couldn’t believe she hadn’t heard. Mother’s grapevine worked better than Ma Bell ever had and was faster than any Internet connection.

“Before I even started thinking of the first Belle Meade, about six years ago.” She exhaled, looking away, her eyes misting. “They were at their lake house in Austin, when it burned to the ground. They were both asleep. The fire investigators eventually ruled it was an accident. They said a burner had been left on the stove, and a potholder or dishtowel must’ve been lying too close. Their smoke alarms must not have gone off. My father was always forgetting to replace the batteries.”

“Oh, geez, I don’t know what to say.”

What
could
I have said to that?

She turned and gazed directly at me, taking my hand and squeezing. “It’s when I decided to do this, Andy. To build a place where people could enjoy life and be safe as they grow older. I wanted to watch over them, so they could live their lives to the fullest, not lacking for anything.”

Though she wasn’t exactly helping the indigent, her aspirations seemed more admirable than many of the goals I’d heard from girls with whom I’d gone to prep school, most having to do with marrying well and producing sons to carry on the family crest.

“You’ve done that, Annabelle. I’m sure your parents would be proud to see who you’ve become.”

“Maybe.” Her chin trembled. “I feel just horrible about Bebe,” she said, swiping her sleeve at the glisten of tears on her lashes. “I wish I could’ve done something differently, so she’d still be alive today.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” I reminded her. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. You can’t stop someone from dying, if it’s her time, right?”

“I know,” she said and tugged at her jacket, seeming to pull herself together.

“Is Mrs. Kent the first of your residents to”—how could I put this delicately—“check out?”

“No, of course, not.” She sniffed. “We’ve got community members anywhere from sixty years old to Miss Myra Bentwood who just turned ninety-five. If they’re too sick for assisted living, we move them to a chronic-care facility near Presbyterian. Which means our rate of loss is relatively low, but still . . . every once in a while, it happens.” She puffed out her cheeks. “Look, I see where you’re going with this, Andy, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I get to know them so well. Despite everything, it hurts when I lose a member of our family.”

I watched her as she poured her heart out, wondering if this could really be the same Annabelle Meade from Camp Longhorn. I remembered the girl who’d cried herself to sleep, who’d hated competitions, who’d never liked herself much, and who’d tried hard to live by the credo of “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” (As though that ever worked for anyone.)

That girl seemed a faint shadow of the woman who sat beside me on the lip of the limestone fountain—her fountain, her
everything.

I suddenly felt very glad that Cissy had twisted my arm into coming. I liked this Annabelle far better than the younger version I’d known.

A slow smile slipped across my face, and I put my shoes back on the ground and slid them on, tugging down my dress as I stood.

Then I extended my hand.

She glanced at me, puzzled. “What?”

“Well, geez, you promised me the grand tour, right? I want to see the rest of this Disneyland for the gray hairs.”

“Ha ha.” She grasped my hand, and I helped her rise to her feet. “So long as you let me show you whatever’s air-conditioned first,” she griped, and I noticed the perspiration flecking her face.

“Still don’t like the heat much, huh?”

“Hate it.”

“Bet you don’t like bugs any better, either.”

She swatted at me. “Hush your mouth, Sparky, or I’ll have Arnold Finch give you a
complete
physical.”

Annabelle pointed our way down a path that led toward the side of the main building, telling me about their in-house bakery, underground bowling alley, and ice cream parlor—yep, I believe I still had room for a dip of mint chocolate chip—and we were nearly there when the
woo-woo-woo
of a siren burst through the air.

Neither of us moved as the noise grew ever louder.

I grimaced, grinding my teeth, my neck tensing. Sirens were bad news, however you cut it, and I had a bad feeling in my gut about that one.

“What’s going on?” I asked, but Annabelle wasn’t paying attention, not to me.

She’d yanked her cell phone from her waistband, and turned her head toward the escalating wail, coming from the other side of the main structure.

“The townhouses,” she said to herself, and her cell began to chime from the palm of her hand. She quickly flipped it open and drew it to her ear. She only listened for seconds, before she replied, “Thanks, Bill, I’m headed that way,” snapped the phone closed, and started running as fast as her straight skirt and high-heeled pumps would allow, which was pretty darned swift, all things considered.

There was trouble, right here in River City.

I kicked off my shoes, left them where they fell, and took off after her.

We cut between a pair of buildings and across a cropped lawn, the siren so loud it seemed on top of us.

Annabelle’s hair streamed behind her, and I hiked my dress up to midthigh, trying to keep up. For someone who hadn’t liked physical activity as a kid, she could sure book when she had to.

Maybe one of the residents had a heart attack
, I thought,
or had slipped in the tub and broken a hip.

There was nothing to imply that a certain visitor to the grounds had caused a panic or stirred up enough trouble to warrant the police, was there?

Still, as I sprinted behind Annabelle, I had my mind on someone in particular, a guest at the reception who’d been acting odd all morning.

The siren whooped one loud, last time before shutting off.

Dear God
, I prayed, my breath rushing hard, my heart beating fast,
whoever’s in trouble, please, don’t let it be Cissy.

W
e rounded the corner to find a blue-and-white squad car parked smack in front of a pretty brick townhouse with black shutters and trim; perched amidst a row of identical residences, each a mirror of the one beside it.

Birds chirped from red-leaved Japanese maples, potted mums stretched yellow petals toward the sun, and a squirrel scampered across trim squares of grass.

If not for the vehicle with the light-bar rolling on its roof, soundlessly spinning red and blue, things would have appeared serene, even bucolic.

But the sirens had already attracted attention from neighbors, their heads poking past storm doors to see the cause of the commotion. I looked around myself but didn’t spot any uniformed officers. The squad car sat empty.

The front door to the house stood wide open, and I had a pretty good idea that the cops hadn’t waited to be invited in.

“Great balls of fire, I can’t believe this.” Annabelle panted, stopping on the sidewalk and leaning over bended knees to get a second wind. Her prettily made-up face gleamed, slick with sweat, creased with worry. “Oh, God,” she moaned, “This can’t be happening again.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but someone else started asking the questions.

“What’s going on?” a white-haired woman called from the adjacent yard, and Annabelle waved an arm, responding breathlessly, “It’s a private matter, Helen, and not your concern. Go on back inside.”

But Helen didn’t seem convinced.

The woman took a few steps toward her door, but stayed on the stoop with her arms crossed, watching.

I paused behind Annabelle, trying to get my own pulse back to normal, tugging at my dress and hopping from one leg to the other as I checked the soles of my bare feet, which had picked up bits of grass and dirt from our horse race over. Nothing bled, so I brushed off the dirt and waited for Annabelle to right herself.

“Whose house is this?” I asked as I scrambled after her, toward the porch, where I noticed a black metal mailbox hooked over the railing, its contents poking out of the lid.

As soon as she said, “Sarah Lee Sewell,” my stomach knotted and my brain went, “Uh-oh.”

“Go on and get some food, while I look for Sarah Lee and say ‘hello’ to some of the others I know from bridge.”

Cissy had left the dining room to find Sarah Lee earlier, and now a police car with whirling bubble lights perched in front of the woman’s townhouse.

Coincidence?

Sure it was
, I told myself.
And “Al Dente” was the weatherman on the
Today Show.

Oh, please, let this be a false alarm, a silly mistake. Please let my mother not have done anything worth a police escort out the gates. Normally, Cissy did everything by the book—that tome being
Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette
. But I couldn’t trust her, not when she’d been acting so weird.

I took a step toward the open doorway, and Annabelle did a half-turn, bracing her palms on the jamb.

“You might want to stay outside. This could get sticky.” Streaks of sweat trickled down her temples, and she was clearly uneasy about what awaited us behind yonder walls. “Really, I should do this myself.”

“My mother’s involved, isn’t she?” I asked, but her expression was all the answer I needed. “I’m not staying out here if Cissy’s inside.”

Annabelle pursed her lips. “Just don’t get in the way, Andy, okay?” she said, not answering my question. Then she turned around and went in.

I slowly followed her through the small foyer and into the living room, an enormous space with cathedral ceilings and a stone fireplace with two sofas placed parallel. I stopped by the baby grand piano, resting a hand on the smooth surface, letting Annabelle go ahead. As she’d requested, I hung back.

The officers—two men in blue with radios squawking from their shoulders—leaned over a woman lying on the far sofa. I couldn’t see the face or much of the rest of her. All I could make out were the limp legs, black pumps on stocking feet positioned awkwardly, and my throat tightened as something clicked in my head.

My mother had been wearing stockings and black shoes that looked very much like . . . that.