Under the Skin (32 page)

“He’s supposed to get all wrapped in blankets—to simulate being in the womb—and have to fight his way out, like a baby being born. And I’m supposed to be there to hold him when he breaks free—he says that probably all his insecurity and anxiety comes from the fact that he never had any contact with me at that crucial moment he came into the world. We didn’t bond then and Joss believes that all of his bad dreams and relationship problems and commitment issues come from that … He thinks if we just did this …”

She stopped, as if there was more that she wasn’t willing to go into. I could only imagine.

“Well, so what about it, Glory? Is it something you want to do?”

There was a long silence as she worked on those fingernails. The exposed unpainted areas looked deathly pale next to the gleaming red. As pale as her face, which had taken on the pasty look of someone about to throw up.

I was on the verge of asking if she was all right when she answered, “I just don’t know, Lizzy. I suppose I should … if it could help him … but—”

She paused again and then the words came in a burst. “Lizzy—I’m just not sure anymore! What if he
isn’t
my son? And what if he is? How do I find out for sure without seeming to reject him all over again?”

The anguish in her voice and on her face was so real—and so close to home. It reminded me of the unresolved question Aunt Dodie had asked about the mysterious Hawk … and my own dilemma.

“It’s time to call Aunt Dodie.” The words were out before I stopped to think but it seemed the only thing to do. “We can tell her about Joss. If she’s been covering up a secret all these years, now that he’s found you, surely she wouldn’t stick to her story of a stillbirth.”

“Gloria! My goodness, it’s been—well. I suppose the last time I saw you was at your dear mother’s memorial service. And you’re at Elizabeth’s farm? My goodness, I’ll bet you girls are having a wonderful time catching up on things! Oh, I remember how your mother and I used to be—sitting up till all hours and chattering away. Such fun! Golden, golden days! And how is dear Elizabeth?”

“I’m on the line too, Aunt Dodie. We both wanted to talk to you.” Gloria had placed the call from the phone in the office and I was on the bedroom extension.

“It’ll be harder for her to lie to
both
of us,” Gloria had told me. “I know how she is: She’ll dither around and talk about everything in the world but what I want to know. You get on the other phone, Lizzy. You always seemed to enjoy her and get along with the old idiot.”

We’d been in luck. Aunt Dodie had picked up almost at once and seemed delighted to talk to us—not that there’d ever been a time when Dodie
wasn’t
happy to natter on and on.

“You dear girls! What a delight to hear from you! I suppose you’re helping Elizabeth prepare for her wedding, Gloria. You have such good taste in wedding arrangements—I know I enjoyed all of yours that I could get to. When you married that dear Harold—oh, now that was a fairy tale scene if ever there was one! You were so lovely and every last detail was exquisite. Do you know, I wrote it all down: the blush roses, the bridesmaids in their Gainsborough dresses—just like that picture they call ‘Pinkie’—the lovely string quartet on the balcony, and, of course, every
detail
of the food.
Those little asparagus sandwiches—you hardly ever see them these days.”

Yes, Dodie was in her usual form. I opened my mouth to stem the flow so that Glory could ask her question but the busy little voice at the other end prattled on.

“And, Elizabeth, when’s it to be? I’m so happy that my little false alarm is all resolved—you know, about the H-A-W-K—”

I broke in before we had to go any farther down
that
particular byway. “Aunt Dodie, Gloria has a very important question for you. Glory …?”

There was a choked sound and then Gloria cleared her throat and tried again. “Aunt Dodie, I really need to know about that time—” She stopped, took a breath, and started over. “You told me that—”

Gloria broke off again with a fit of something that might have been coughing but Aunt Dodie remained silent—strangely silent. Normally this would have been her cue to dispense medical advice. This would have been the perfect moment for the story of the Old Gentleman and his favorite cough medicine of honey, lemon juice, and bourbon and what the Baptist minister had said and the Old Gentleman’s wry comeback.

Instead, there was no response.

Then Gloria, her voice unsteady, spoke. “Elizabeth … you tell her.”

So, after making sure that unnaturally mute Dodie was really there and listening, I launched into an abridged version of how I’d only just learned about the lost baby and then on to how Joss had found Gloria.

“The birth date is the same,” I told Aunt Dodie, winding up this unlikely story. “We’ve seen his driver’s license. So Gloria thought—
we
thought—that maybe you’d finally tell us what really happened when Gloria’s baby was born. You
were
there, weren’t you?”

More silence—undoubtedly a new record for Dodie—

broken only by gulps and sniffles from Gloria. Then, at last, Aunt Dodie spoke.

“Oh, my
dear
! My poor, dear, little Gloria! After all these years! I prayed that you’d put that time behind you. I have
so
wished so that I could talk to you about it but I’d promised your mother never to speak of it again. You know what a strong personality she had. And when she passed away—well, I thought I’d get you to myself after the service and we could have a nice talk but then I thought, what’s the point of reopening that old wound? You seemed so happy with your life—Who could have known that you’d lose your dear Harold later that same year? Such a tragedy—”

Gloria interrupted her, speaking with cold fury, each word dripping with bitterness. “And when Harold died, did it ever occur to you that knowing that my child was alive might have helped me? Did you ever think that maybe—”

“But, Gloria,” Dodie’s horrified voice countered the venomous flow. “You don’t
understand
. I never lied to you! Your child—a beautiful little girl—was stillborn. She never drew a breath but that nice nurse baptized her anyway and eventually, when they released the little body, she was buried in my family plot. It’s just west of where the Old Gentleman is, with a little stone of pink marble. There’s the sweetest lamb carved at the top and just the date and the word
Dana
—you had said when you were laboring that that was what you’d like the baby named, do you remember? I always take her a flower when I go to visit the Old Gentleman—But, oh dear, Gloria—who in the world is this young man Elizabeth was talking about? You haven’t fallen into the snares of some sort of
confidence
man, have you, dear?”

G
loria, we’ve got to decide what to do about Joss—right now, before he gets back to the house.”

The call to Aunt Dodie finally ended, we were on the front porch, keeping watch against Joss’s return. Gloria’s pasty look had disappeared, to be replaced with something resembling a simmering rage.

“That’s easy: I want him out of here. I never want to see him again. To think that he’d take advantage of me like—”

Her head jerked up and she stared down the road. “Oh, dear god, there he comes!”

She stood and looked around—for all the world like a trapped creature seeking its bolt-hole. “Lizzy, I
can’t
talk to him. Please,
you
tell him that we know the truth and want him to leave—You can get Ben or one of the Mexicans to drive him back to Asheville. Please …”

Joss was past the barn now and plodding steadily up the road. The weird shuffling gait hadn’t improved, I thought, in spite of his daily walk.

He looked up, almost as if he had felt my gaze on him, and raised a hand in a brief salute. I waved back.

“Glory,” I said, “it’s Sunday. Julio and Homero left hours ago to go to Mass and spend the day with friends. And remember, Ben and Amanda are over in Yancey
County this weekend with some of
their
friends. Of course, I could drive Joss into Asheville … but I don’t know … I guess I’m a little concerned about how he’s likely to react to being kicked out. He doesn’t strike me as someone who’ll shrug his shoulders and leave without a fuss. No, I’d feel better if we could wait till late this afternoon when Phillip will be back. I think things would probably go more smoothly—”

“Why the hell is Phillip working today?
Typical!
”

Glory was on her feet and pulling open the screen door. “You’re probably right; we should wait. But I can’t be around him! I
can’t
! Tell him I’m not feeling good and I went back to bed. Tell him anything; just keep him away from me! Oh,
god
, keep him away from me!”

She disappeared into the house and in a few moments I heard her bedroom door slam shut, just as Joss came up the steps.

“Where’s my little mother?” he asked. The same words that had seemed so touchingly innocent at first now set off alarm bells in my mind. Indeed, Joss’s always intense gaze seemed to have taken on a mad glitter.

Don’t overdramatize this, Elizabeth
, I warned myself.
It’s not Joss that has changed—just your knowledge of him. Don’t let it make any difference till Phillip gets back
.

Somehow, we got through the rest of the day. Gloria stayed barricaded in her room and I hung about the house, doing chores that would allow me to keep an eye on Joss, who
would
insist on tapping at her bedroom door every hour to see if she needed anything.

“Do you think she should go to the doctor?” he asked me. “She said she just needed to sleep but—”

“Joss, that’s exactly what she needs. Now just relax and leave her alone, for goodness’ sake.”

I was standing on a chair and leaning out of a screen-less dining room window, scrubbing the outside glass with vinegar and old newspaper. It was tempting to ask Joss to help me, just to give him something to do, but my conscience hinted that getting work out of someone I planned to evict later on in the day wasn’t
quite
fair.

He hung about for a while, asking questions about Gloria and about our childhood and our parents. I answered briefly, trying to let him see that I didn’t have time to chat. When he got onto the subject of my father, I began to wish that, like Gloria, I could just lock myself into my bedroom till Joss was gone.

At last, however, he grew bored. After tiptoeing down the hall to stand listening outside Glory’s door, he returned to whisper that he
thought
she must be sleeping.

“She has her music on real low. I’m just the same way; I like music on while I fall asleep.” He fidgeted another few minutes, watching me replace the screens, and then asked abruptly if he could use the office computer.

Delighted to have him out of my airspace for a bit, I told him to go ahead. Any sensitive info was password protected, so I sent him off to play Free Cell or surf the Net or whatever he was of a mind to do.

The day dragged on in fits and starts. Joss spent a goodish amount of time at the computer; he and I ate lunch together, during which I found it increasingly difficult to listen to his raptures about being a part of a family at last. Finally he returned to the computer and I was able to sneak a sandwich and an apple and a few bottles of Perrier in to Gloria. She opened her door and beckoned me inside, whispering to me that she was using this time to redo her nails as well as working on her Pilates exercises.

“Have you called Phillip to let him know about the situation?” she hissed. “Maybe he could get off early.”

But I had to disappoint her by telling her that I absolutely
didn’t bother Phillip when he was on duty unless it was the direst of emergencies—and this didn’t qualify.

“He usually calls me on his way home in case I need something from the store,” I told her. “I’ll fill him in on what Dodie told us then. And as soon as he’s home, we’ll confront Joss.”

“Not
we
, Lizzy.” Her jaw was set in a familiar way. “I’m staying in here till he’s gone, do you understand me? And listen.” She picked up a fat teller’s envelope from the bedside table. “He doesn’t deserve this, after the way he tried to trick me, but I did encourage him to quit his job. This is some cash to tide him over—not a lot, Lizzy, so don’t look at me like that.”

I took the envelope from her—very fat, indeed. “How much is ‘not a lot,’ Glory?”

She waved me off as if I were an annoying insect of some sort.

“I don’t know—it was just what was left of my mad money for the trip. I really prefer cash to plastic, especially at restaurants where they disappear into the back with your card. Harold and I were ripped off that way once and he got me into the habit of always carrying cash. I don’t think there’s more than two or three thousand there—I’ll have to go by the bank tomorrow.”

I opened my mouth to protest this lavish payoff but a moment’s reflection told me that the money would probably make the removal of Joss go much easier. He would have a tidy sum to ease the pain of parting—Really, how long had he thought he could get away with this little scam anyway?—and we could close the door on this odd interlude.

“And, Lizzy,” Gloria leveled a turquoise gaze on me, “what was Aunt Dodie talking about—a false alarm about a hawk? Was it something about Phil?”

“Listen, you’re supposed to be sleeping,” I temporized.
“I need to get out of here before Joss comes looking for me. With any luck, Phillip will be back in a couple of hours and we’ll deal with your problem.”
And maybe, just maybe, I can deal with mine
.

I think she was starting to make some kind of apology as I slipped out of the door. I waited to hear the click of the lock and then hurried across the hall to my bedroom where the phone was ringing.

The welcome sound of Phillip’s voice, asking if I needed anything from the store, flooded me with relief. As quickly and concisely as I could, I told him about the call to Aunt Dodie and Gloria’s insistence that Joss be returned to Asheville today.