Death of a Domestic Diva

by Sharon Short

  But Tyra just wasn’t interested in items of local scenic interest . . . or in local gossip. She was just plain nervous. The only thing she wanted to know was if I had her papers back yet, and when I told her no, she kept fussing with trying to adjust her seat just so. Finally, she pulled the seat adjustment lever so that she and the seat were leaned all the way back. She gave a little moan of dismay.

  “You know, if you keep doing that,” I said, “you’re going to break the springy things that adjust the seat, and—”

  “Ow! Gosh darn it!” Tyra howled. Well, she didn’t really howl exactly that. But what she did say, I don’t feel quite bears repeating word for word. No need to offend the good Lord twice through the retelling.

  I glanced over at her. She’d pulled on the seat adjustment lever yet again, and now she and the seat were folded in half, pitched all the way forward.

  Then I focused my attention back on the road.

  “I’m going to throw up if I stay like this,” Tyra gasped.

  “Straighten the seat up, then,” I said, pushing back a wave of panic at the thought of Tyra puking into the passenger side foot well of my car. The sickly cloying smell of puke stays around long after the stains are gone.

  “I can’t straighten back up!” Tyra gagged.

  “Okay, look,” I said desperately, trying to find some place I could pull over without my car getting stuck in the mucky mud left from the previous night’s rain. “Take some deep breaths—slowly, in and out, in and . . .”

  “I can’t breathe at all like this.” Tyra gasped, as if each word were being squeezed out of her.

  Just then we went over a bump in the road—a small bump, one I barely felt, considering how slowly we were going, but I guess being all bent over with her face nearly in the floorboard, Tyra felt it mightily, because just as we went over it, she hollered, “Damn it! I bit my tongue!”

  “Are you bleeding? Do you need a tissue? I keep a box in the glove compartment—here, let me open it for you . . .”

  I reached over and unlatched the glove compartment. It fell open onto Tyra’s head—barely tapping her, really—but she started bobbing her head up and down and around, like a panicked mule in a too-tight harness, and jolted the compartment door so that the entire contents showered down on her head: papers from Elroy’s shop, from the times I’d had my oil changed or repairs done. A tire gauge. A flashlight. And the box of tissues.

  “What is going on here? Are you trying to kill me?” Tyra thrashed about as she hollered. Apparently the barrage of stuff on her head made it possible to breathe, and also holler again, “Be careful!”

  There was the gravel driveway to Ed Crowley’s farm just ahead. I could pull in there.

  Tyra’s fist hit the center gearshift hard enough that she knocked the shift to neutral. My car slammed to a stop. The force was enough that it threw Tyra, and her seat, all the way back. She started screaming. I started screaming too, mostly because I was horrified at the thought of my car’s gears being stripped and having to deal with one very large repair bill.

  Then I heard a siren. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw a police car coming up the road behind us. If I didn’t move, and fast, the cruiser was either going to ram right up my tailpipe or have to swerve around us—and on this narrow country road, that would be dangerous. I needed to move. I grabbed for my gearshift, got us into drive, and suddenly—just as the police car was about to plow into the back of mine—we were moving forward again.

  I glanced into my rearview mirror. Yes, that really was Chief John Worthy in the car behind me, right on my tail, his mouth hanging open like the shock of seeing me careening all over the road had unhinged his jaw.

  I gave a little oops-sorry wave—to no effect, as Chief Worthy kept on his siren and his flashing lights.

  Now, you know how in a traumatic situation your brain kind of splits off, and while the main part is still dealing with the situation, the split off part is kind of analyzing it and thinking about it, and in a half second can go through thoughts that would normally take minutes . . . or longer?

  I am ashamed to admit it, but that little split off part of my brain had this idea—just for a little bit, as I am a law-abiding citizen—that I should just put my gas pedal to the floor and try to outrun Chief Worthy. I had this momentary fantasy that if I did so, maybe the passenger side door would fly open, and Tyra would go flying out, and Chief Worthy would be obliged to stop and help her. I only envisioned her scratched up a little. With a few bruises. Maybe bleeding here and there. But definitely not too hurt, or dead, or anything like that. Then, with Chief Worthy delayed by Tyra’s needs, I could drive on and on, beyond Paradise, beyond Mason County, even beyond Ohio . . .

  My mama had done that. Just up and left after our trailer burned, left behind whatever problems plagued her. I never found out what those problems were. I’ve never tried. I’ve never really wanted to know. Knowing can be worse than imagining.

  But just before our trailer burned and she ran off and left me alone, she’d told me, “Mark my words, little girl, you can’t run away from trouble, it’ll just stink worse as it follows you.”

  I guess I only remember her saying it because she left after that. But even though it was advice she hadn’t taken, it was advice that was still good. And even as my foot pressed down just a little on my gas pedal, I thought of Guy, over at Stillwater. He needed me.

  And I thought of all the folks in Paradise who depend on Toadfern’s Laundromat to get their clothes clean—working clothes for construction jobs or nursing jobs or teaching jobs all around Mason County, or going out on Saturday night clothes, or going to church on Sunday morning clothes . . . who would run my laundromat if I left? So lots of folks in Paradise needed me, too.

  I thought of Winnie. Who else would debate the merits of the latest books with her, or discuss Dickens or the Brontës with her? She needed me.

  I thought of Owen. I wasn’t sure he needed me. But I’d like to find out.

  So in that split-second—Tyra still screaming, Chief Worthy’s sirens still blaring—I thought all that through, and then we were coming up on the Crowley farm. So I moved my foot from the gas pedal to the brake, slowed down, and pulled into the gravel drive.

  Chief Worthy pulled in right behind me.

  I swatted Tyra on the arm and hollered, “Hush up!”

  She stopped screaming, looked up at me—she was still prone with the passenger seat most of the way back—then moaned, “Where are we? Are we dead? Oh, God, I don’t want to be dead . . .”

  “Stop blubbering,” I said. I picked the box of tissues up off my floor, tossed the box in her lap. “Blow your nose and smile. Chief John Worthy has just pulled us over—and I sure don’t want any trouble with him.”

  Chief Worthy tapped on my window just then. I rolled it down, smiled out at him. “Hello, Chief,” I said, making my voice as cheery as I could. “Were you wondering what was going on just a minute ago there? See, Tyra here was fiddling with her seat—frankly, I think she broke the seat adjustment thingy—and . . .”

  “Josie, have you been drinking?”

  I was genuinely shocked at Chief Worthy’s suggestion. “Of course not.”

  “I cannot vouch for her,” Tyra said. “I had to fend for myself for breakfast. There wasn’t much to choose from—”

  I turned away from Chief Worthy and glared at Tyra. “Now, you know as well as I do that Winnie stocked up the cabinets and fridge with plenty of—”

  “Josie, I’m going to have to ask you to get out of the car.”

  I got out, shut my car door, and turned and faced Chief Worthy, who was already shaking his head at me. He was holding a pen and pad, all ready to write me up for something or other, I could see. Tyra, meanwhile, was still in my car.

  “Josie, I want you to walk up this lane, about twenty steps, then turn and come back.”

  He was doing the old walking a straight line test to see if I was drunk or not. Just the fact that he would thi
nk such a thing of me was making me shake—and being tested to see if I could walk straight on wet gravel hardly seemed fair. But I figured protesting would get me nowhere except into one of the two jail cells over at the Paradise Police Department. And I didn’t relish the idea of being neighbors in the local jail with Elroy, as much as I was worried about him.

  So I walked, counting out twenty steps, trying to keep it even, trying to keep it natural, then turned and came back toward Chief Worthy, who didn’t say a word. Just stared at me.

  I walked right up to him, so his black boots and my white sneakers were just about toe-to-toe, so my nose was practically on his chin. I opened my mouth and exhaled. Let him detect for himself that I’d been guilty of too much chocolate for breakfast, but nothing worse.

  Chief Worthy frowned, looking displeased. He couldn’t pull me in for having too high a chocolate level in my blood count.

  “All right, Josie Toadfern, what’s going on here?”

  “I’m driving Tyra somewhere. Her seat got stuck in a position she didn’t like. She started flailing around, hit my gearshift, and sent us into neutral. I’m lucky she didn’t strip the gears.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t cause a crash.” Chief Worthy stepped around to the passenger side of my car and tapped on the window. Tyra struggled to roll it down, but quickly gave a little hands-up gesture, along with a little damsel-in-distress smile. It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes—not that either of them would have noticed. No, Chief John Worthy was busy being all knight-in-shiny-armor-ish, opening the door for Tyra, helping her out, asking her if she was okay, looking all concerned, even calling her ma’am.

  “Well,” Tyra said, “while I do appreciate that Josie here is willing to be my chauffeur, I must say that she has the most difficult automobile. I was simply trying to adjust the seat—”

  “You weren’t adjusting it! You were mauling it!”

  “Don’t interrupt Ms. Grimes, Josie,” Chief Worthy said. “Now, you’re sure you’re voluntarily with Josie?”

  He gave me a hard look as he asked Tyra that. Oh, fine. He couldn’t get me on drunk driving. Now he was going to try to get me on trying to kidnap Tyra Grimes for some awful purpose.

  “Well,” Tyra started, drawing the word out, giving me a sly look, “now that you mention it . . .”

  The woman was about to play along with the idea that I’d kidnapped her—and why not? She could get me out of the way, find someone else—probably Chief Worthy—to escort her around town. I probably wasn’t being as accommodating as she would like. And I sure had had a lot of questions about her business the night before that she didn’t like. But I wasn’t about to let her get away with giving Chief John Worthy an excuse to haul me down to the police department. I wanted to figure out what she was up to at Stillwater, for one thing. And I didn’t want any trouble with the police, for another.

  So I said, “Why, Tyra, don’t you recall our conversation last night? We were talking about your need for me to drive you around today . . . and then you mentioned some papers of yours that you say were stolen . . . and I suggested we call the police, so I guess it’s a good thing Chief Worthy stopped us today—”

  “You had some papers stolen?” Chief Worthy said eagerly. “Ms. Grimes, you should come file a report—”

  “No, no,” Tyra said, shooting me an unhappy look. “Josie’s mistaken. I’m sure I just misplaced the papers.”

  “And—” I urged.

  Tyra sighed. “And Josie is being so kind to drive me on my—my errands today. I asked her to.”

  “And—” I pressed.

  “And it was my fault about the car going in neutral,” Tyra said. “So, please, Chief Worthy—”

  “You can call me John—”

  “Okay, John. If there’s any ticket you need to write, or anything like that, please write it out to me—”

  “No, ma’am, that’s not necessary. I’m glad everything’s all right. Perhaps I should follow you, to make sure everything stays all right?”

  “Oh, not necessary,” said Tyra.

  “Fine. Good day, then.”

  Chief Worthy started back to his cruiser. But suddenly he stopped and turned with the smug grin that had served as a warning sign way back in high school. Uh oh, I thought. This was going to be bad. Even Tyra looked nervous again.

  He looked at Tyra. “Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything, Ms. Grimes,” he said. “Josie has good intentions—but she can be too nosy for her own good. Puts people off, but that’s never stopped her. It’s just one reason we called her Nosy Josie back in high school.”

  With that, he gave a little laugh, got back in his cruiser, and backed out.

  I just stood there a long minute, watching him go, blinking back tears, not wanting to feel a thing, but instead, feeling everything I wanted to push down. Hurt. Humiliated. Angry.

  Tyra and I got back in my car.

  First, she picked up everything that had fallen out of the glove compartment, put it back in neatly, then shut the door. Then she sat back. She didn’t even complain that she was more or less lying down, the seat was so far back. She didn’t fiddle with the seat lever. I started the car and we pulled out.

  “That true, what John just said? About your nickname?”

  She asked the questions softly, gently.

  “Yes,” I said, finally, my voice thicker than I liked.

  “Why?”

  I waited, swallowed a few times before I answered. “I was always interested in what other people were up to. I worked on the school paper. The combination gave me the nickname Nosy Josie. Funny, huh?”

  “No. Sounds mean. And Chief Worthy was a prick for saying what he did,” Tyra said firmly. I was surprised to hear Tyra say that. It didn’t fit her prim and proper image. But she said again, “A real prick. And you shouldn’t listen to him. You seem to have lots of friends.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Really, I mean it,” Tyra said. “Several people commented to me at the party about how much they like you, and look up to you, how proud they are of your expertise and your contacting me to get on my show.”

  Although, of course, I wasn’t going to be on her show, but I didn’t say anything about that, either. I was too intrigued by the fact that Tyra sounded . . . wistful. Envious, even.

  Silence, as my car chugged toward Stillwater.

  Then, “And Owen, now he really seems to like you,” Tyra added softly. “Relationships are important, Josie. Having people who really care for you, not for what you represent. Or earn. I learned that too late. And I wish I could go back and fix a lot of things so that I could have relationships like you do now. You’re lucky.”

  The pictures I’d found in Tyra’s purse came to mind. Maybe they were of people who had once been important to Tyra, or should have been. Then Lewis came to mind, and I gasped at the idea that maybe Tyra and Lewis had once had a relationship—a real relationship, not just a passing connection of some kind. Certainly, his feelings about her were too strong, too out of character for him, for them to have developed simply because she wasn’t his favorite media star.

  My imagination took off. Had Tyra and Lewis known each other in the past, as lovers? Did his anger rise from her having jilted him to pursue her career? Was the Stillwater donation Tyra’s excuse to come back and see Lewis?

  I glanced over at Tyra, trying to find the right words to ask my questions of her without putting her off, but Tyra was dozing. I’m not sure if I’d have had the nerve to ask, anyway.

  I turned my focus back to the road. I’d just seen a soft, lonely side of Tyra Grimes that didn’t fit the chirpy, busy-busy-busy TV-Tyra person that I and thousands of other people had come to admire. A side that talked about relationships and feelings and people, instead of just about how to make and improve things.

  It amazed me.

  And it made me uneasy. It reminded me too much of seeing a surprisingly personal side to Lewis, too, just before he died. />
  By the time we got to Stillwater, I had my emotions back under control, and Tyra had awakened. I parked in the visitor’s lot and started toward the main building, with Tyra walking alongside me. We didn’t say anything to each other. Tyra seemed withdrawn and nervous again, maybe a reaction to having opened up to me for a few moments, maybe because of her upcoming meeting.

  Stillwater’s director, Don Richmond, was waiting for us at the main building, an old farmhouse in which a parlor had been left in place and the rest of the space was a kitchen and dining hall on the main floor. Office space for the director and a few other folks was on the second floor. Sleeping quarters for the residents had been added on.

  Don was a tall, bulky man, with a dark brown beard that had gone half gray, but unevenly, so it looked painted on. He normally wore flannel shirts and jeans, or T-shirts and jeans, depending on the season, and had a big smile on his face—a smile that showed he was friendly, but hid how firm he could be when he had to. He was a genuinely nice guy who’d quit his job at some big legal database company to work here because, as he said, work should be more than a paycheck. And he always looked genuinely happy, even when dealing with problems.

  But today he looked worried. And he was wearing a suit. The combination startled me.

  I started to introduce Don and Tyra, but Tyra rushed right ahead. “You must be Don Richmond,” she said, holding out her hand. “So nice to meet you in person, after all those lovely phone conversations.”

  I guess she figured she needed no introduction. Who wouldn’t recognize Tyra Grimes, right? Sure enough, Don took her hand, shook it, and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Grimes.”

  But he didn’t sound like he thought it was all that nice. Truth be told, he looked and sounded scared. He was shaking.

  He looked past Tyra to me, started to say something, but Tyra jumped in. “Oh, this is Josie Toadfern. She’s my chauffeur, since my assistant is otherwise occupied.” Tyra smiled kindly, warming to her benefactress role. “Perhaps Josie can just wait out here in this charming little parlor—”