by Chassie West
It’s time I admit that my paternal grandmother and I got off on the wrong foot the first time we met. I hadn’t particularly appreciated her high-handed manner, and she didn’t like me, period. A truce had been declared since then, but I still had to count to ten occasionally and accept the fact that she was not and never would be a warm fuzzy like Nunna and Duck’s mom.
“I am busy, Grandmother, but I’ll try to get there before the day’s over. I just can’t tell you what time.”
“That doesn’t matter. I won’t speak for Wayne—his sessions with the physical therapist seemed to last all hours—but I’ll be here. Thank you, dear. You won’t regret it. I look forward to seeing you. Good-bye.”
I replaced the phone, bent over forehead to knees, and moaned, then sighed and sat up. She was, after all, family, something I’d longed for since I was five. Family meant obligations. It was time to count my blessings.
I got up and returned to my labors, but only managed to get two boxes packed when I had to accept the fact that I had indeed overdone it with all the furniture shoving this morning. Not only did my knee ache, everything did. The Constant Comment I’d had with Gracie hadn’t done me any good either. Any kind of tea with little under my belt tends to leave me feeling queasy.
Or perhaps I should have eaten more of Clarissa’s barbecue, but once she’d left, I’d tasted only a couple of forks of it. It had been every bit as good as it smelled, but I simply hadn’t wanted any more and had put it back in the refrigerator. Now my stomach bubbled. This did not bode well. I downed a couple of Tums and stretched out in the den, my makeshift bedroom.
I didn’t even realize I’d been asleep when I was awakened by Janeece-type sounds in the apartment. I rolled over, checked the clock. Three-fifteen? It was awfully early for her to be home.
“Janeece?” Getting up was a struggle. And the room seemed much cooler than earlier. Shivering, I opened the door of the den and stuck my head out. “You decide to take another half day off?”
The living room was empty but her coat lay half on, half off the futon, her purse upside down in front of it on the floor. She must have been in hurry because she was usually a damned sight more careful about her clothes, especially her Burberry.
“Janeece?”
The toilet flushed, explanation enough. While I waited for her, I checked the thermostat. Seventy, its normal winter setting. Perhaps the heat was off in the whole building. Still fully clothed, I felt chilled to the bone. I jacked it up to seventy-five to see if it would come on.
A groan from behind me made me spin in my tracks. Janeece leaned in the door of her bedroom, her usual rich bronze complexion more like charcoal-gray. “Hey, roomie,” she said, wiping her mouth with a facecloth. “Better keep your distance. I am one sick puppy, probably picked up the bug that’s making the rounds in my office.”
I heard the thermostat click and a whoosh of heated air from the vent washed over me. “Too late, home girl. I think I’ve got it, too. Or it might have been the chili. Whichever, it looks like we’re in this together.”
She came in and slumped into the easy chair. “God, I’m so sorry, Leigh. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the chili. I was feeling kind of icky yesterday, but what with all that running around in Baltimore, I had other things to worry about. Now I’ve given it to you.”
We commiserated with each other, comparing aches and pains until nausea sent her scurrying to the bathroom again. I didn’t really feel queasy so much as empty and preferring to stay that way—which sounded like a smart idea.
Once she was done, I found the thermometer, determined that my temperature was inching toward 102 degrees, and counted myself lucky that I hadn’t packed any sleepwear yet. I filled a carafe of water for Janeece, who was back in the john again, and left it on her nightstand. I filled a thermos for myself, put on pajamas, and went back to bed.
It was dark outside when the dream in which I was knocking on Duck’s door with all my worldly possessions in hand segued into reality. Someone was pounding at ours. I grabbed my robe, slid into my slippers, and hurried to answer it. The fact that Janeece hadn’t budged meant she had to be in bad shape. Normally she answered doors and phones as if she knew Mr. Right was calling and didn’t have time to waste.
Duck was about to knock on Neva’s door when I opened ours, his expression a cross between anger and anxiety. One look at me and the anger was gone.
“Aw, babe, you’re sick?”
I nodded, tempted to belabor him with a list of my ailments: sore throat, temperature, et al., but decided against it. It would take too much energy.
“I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about moving in and were too chicken to tell me,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
“Sorry,” I croaked, surprised at how hoarse I’d become. “I should have called but I fell asleep. And I’m contagious, Duck. So’s Janeece. I think she’s sicker than I am. You should leave.”
“Bull.” He peeled me out of my robe, sat me on the side of the bed, and removed my slippers. “I’m immune. I never get sick.” It had been years since he’d last had a cold or the flu so I didn’t bother to argue. He looked particularly hale and hearty at the moment. The man exuded health. I wanted to snarl at him.
He palmed my forehead and pronounced me feverish, asked if I’d eaten, what if any medication I’d taken, and in general lifted my spirits and made me downright soppy. He cared.
“You just relax,” he ordered. “Dr. Duck will take care of you. Janeece too. Where’s your key? I’m going out for supplies.”
I wasn’t certain what his definition of supplies might be but didn’t care either. The fact that he was coming back was all that mattered. Normally when I’m sick, which isn’t often, I want to be left alone to wallow in my misery. The fact that I found myself welcoming his company showed me just how much he meant to me.
He went to check on Janeece, left the apartment, and returned a while later laden down with cough syrup, zinc lozenges, tissues, hot soup from my favorite restaurant, ginger ale and crackers to soothe my roommate’s tummy, and a single red rose in a bud vase for each of us. If my cousin the minister were in hailing distance, I’d marry Duck on the spot in my jammies and with a tissue stuck up my nose.
He’d also brought my laptop. “Picked it up from the shop on my way home from work,” he said, plugging it in and connecting the phone cable to the wall jack beside my bed. “It’ll give you something to play with until you feel better.” He disappeared for a moment and returned hefting one of the easy chairs from the living room.
“What are you doing?” I asked, the mug of soup warming my hands.
“Making sure I’m gonna be comfortable. If I’ve got to sleep sitting up, it ain’t gonna be on that director’s chair there.”
“You’re staying? All night?”
“Of course. Gotta take care of my sweetie.” He settled in the chair and arranged his face with a beatific smile. I melted inside, and it had nothing to do with the hot soup or my temperature.
He’d brought paperwork with him, so I finished the soup, popped a cough drop in my mouth, and powered up the laptop. It had been in the shop for two weeks, so I knew I’d have a hundred e-mails to delete about Viagra, weight loss products, mortgages, and miracle potions to increase my penis size. I was wrong; there were only seventy-one of them.
“You got any interest in these?” I asked, angling the monitor so he could see them.
“Dunno,” he answered. “You think I need them?” His eyes began to smolder.
I knew that look, and he knew I knew that look. Considering the effect it had on me most of the time, one of these days I’d probably be able to blame it for however many children we had running around.
“Reckon not,” I said hurriedly. Being horny was one thing, horny and contagious quite another.
I deleted the offending messages and settled back to open the rest. A series of messages sent daily for the last ten days made me growl,
since they appeared to be to me from me. It wasn’t the first time, always someone hawking something with a “click here” at the bottom. I highly resented the misuse of my name. And one a day? There was no attachment so I opened the earliest of them.
It was short and simple: Dear Bitch, I HATE you! No signature, no link to click. I rubbed at the nape of my neck. The itch was back.
Closing the message, I opened the next day’s, a variation on a theme. Dear Bitch, I HATE you intensely! The remainder were repeats, each with a different adverb and a slightly larger font. The message dated three days ago went further, adding, I intend to make your life as miserable as you’ve made mine. That should give you something to think about. The next day’s: Clever, wasn’t it? The one after that: I’ve just begun! The last of them, today’s date: Did you enjoy last night? Were you afraid? Wet your pants, maybe? Get used to it. The font was enormous, only one or two words to a line. This woman was crazy.
“Duck.” He glanced up from the booklet he was reading. “Mark your page and take a look at these.” I placed the laptop across his thighs. “Start with the earliest date and go from there.” I watched as he read each one, his posture becoming more and more rigid.
When he was done, he sat back, his focus in the middle distance. “This is one lunatic son of a bitch. Willard needs to see them. Forward them to him with a note of explanation. To me too. I want the department shrink to see them.”
“I’ll forward them to Plato too.” My fingers were crossed under the blanket; Duck had decidedly mixed feelings about Plato dePriest, a lunatic of another sort who laid claim to every phobia in the medical encyclopedia. He was also a genius and knew more detours around firewalls, passwords, and computer databases than anyone on the globe. He’d been instrumental in helping me find my Ourland/Umber Shores family and considered me a friend. He didn’t have many, by his own choice.
“You figure he can trace these back to the sender,” Duck said.
I nodded. “Each comes from a different dot com or whatever. If anyone can do it, Plato can.”
“Okay. In the meantime, did you find out anything about the people decorating the tree last night?”
I filled him in on my conversation with Gracie and the two females unaccounted for.
He passed the laptop back to me, his expression grim. “Libby Winston is the one from Jamaica, right? The one I met outside the day we were going to see Dr. Ritch?”
“Oh, jeez.” I’d forgotten I had told my grandmother I’d come out to see her and my grandfather. I’d have to call them. “Yes, that was Libby. Why?”
“I’m going to talk to her, see if she knows who the woman with the accent was. What’s her apartment number?”
I gave it to him along with Mr. Trotter’s in case he or his granddaughter knew anything about Gracie’s Georgia Keith. I doubted Georgia had had anything to do with any of this but would consider it unfinished business if we didn’t check.
“Gracie Poole’s in three-seventeen,” I added. “Since you’re official, she might tell you more than she told me. I’ll call her and let her know you’re coming.”
“Good idea.” He got up and probably without thinking, leaned down and kissed me on the forehead. “Be back shortly.”
By the time he returned an hour later, I had made my apologies to my grandmother, had received an update on how my granddad was doing with his new knee, and had promised on the head of my firstborn child that I’d come to see her as soon as humanly possible. I’d also left a phone message for Plato to expect the forwarded e-mails, with a request that he see if he could track them to their sources.
I heard the key in the door and levered myself to a sitting position. Duck came into the den with a thermal mug and a plate, its contents covered with a napkin. “Cookies from Ms. Poole, and some Jamaican concoction for colds from Ms. Winston,” he said, placing them on the bookcase that served as a nightstand. “They told me to tell you and Janeece to call them if you need anything. Nice ladies. Ms. Poole’s apartment is something else. Speaking of which.”
He sat down, and I detected cookie crumbs on his sweater. “I like the way you rearranged things. Looks better. By the way, how did you and Clarissa get along?” I could see that it was killing him not to smile.
“Just fine. I like her. You lied to me about her age. I’ll get you for that. And we need to talk about our furniture, but it can wait. What did you find out?”
He scooted down in the chair, legs extended. “A lot of nothing, on the face of it. First, Mr. Trotter said he’d never heard of a Georgia Keith. His granddaughter and any friend of hers he might know are on a class field trip to New York. Ms. Winston claims she has no idea who the visitor with the accent might be. She didn’t ask any of her family or friends to come help decorate the tree; in fact doesn’t remember even mentioning it to anyone. As for Ms. Poole, you were right; the badge did the trick. She gave me the names of all the class members who came and the friends whose names she remembered. She also gave me phone numbers, but I’ll talk to Willard before doing anything with them. I don’t want him to feel I’m trespassing on his territory or implying that he isn’t doing his job.”
I sighed, considered eating a cookie, and settled on a zinc drop instead. “Well, at least we’ve eliminated a couple of avenues. I’m not sure it’s worth it to pursue the identity of the teenager, although when I think about it, the stunts with the dog and cat poop are pretty juvenile. And for all we know, she might have been with the woman with the accent.”
Duck shook his head. “According to Ms. Poole, our Jamaican lady arrived shortly after the main group and stayed about an hour. The kid didn’t show up until later. But they might have been related. Ms. Poole said there was a superficial resemblance.”
“Oh, terrific,” I grumbled. “Now what?”
“For you, nothing except getting better. I’ll check on Janeece, then make some hot chocolate. Or would you rather try Ms. Winston’s potion? She says it won’t take much; I understand it’s heavy on the rum.”
I poured half of it into the cap of my thermos and sniffed, a waste of effort since I couldn’t have smelled a skunk parked on my pillow. “Worth a try,” I said. I took a swallow, fortunately a little one. A second later the top of my head blew off.
“Mercy!”
In an instant, my sinuses cleared and my nose began streaming. I grabbed a tissue. “This stuff is stronger than Chinese mustard!”
Duck’s grin matched that of an imp of Satan’s. “She said it would either kill you or cure you. You’re supposed to drink it down, cover up, and prepare to sweat. I’ll take the rest of it in to Janeece. I want to see that blanket all the way to your chin when I get back.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, my eyes watering. If this stuff drained all other superfluous fluids as rapidly as it had my eyes and nose, by tomorrow I’d be five pounds lighter and dehydrated.
I don’t know how long Duck was gone. By the time he returned, I was as high as a Georgia pine and too sleepy to do anything other than throw a foolish smile in his general direction. That was it. I was gone.
When I awoke the next morning, so was he. He’d left a note saying he was heading home to change and go to work, and he’d check on me later.
I heard sounds of stirring, and Janeece opened the door, as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a squirrel with a cache of newly discovered acorns. Dressed for work, she was the picture of the professional woman in a navy suit, pale blue scooped-neck blouse, and heels high enough to give anyone else vertigo.
“Hi! Hope you feel better,” she said. “That stuff Liz sent did it for me. You need anything before I go?”
“Uh . . . no.” I sat up. “You’re really okay?”
“Yeah. One of those twenty-four-hour viruses, I guess. Tell Duck we’re even. Staying the night was above and beyond the call of duty. He was so sweet, talking me to sleep. Marry the man, roomie, because if you don’t, I will. See ya.” She wiggled fingers at me and left.
I took stock. I did feel
better, also completely wrung out. Only then did I remember two events of the previous night or perhaps the early hours of the morning. The first was waking up soaked to the skin and Duck helping me change pajamas, after which he’d also changed my damp sheets. The second thing I remembered caused momentary paralysis as I started to get up—I had roused enough to see Duck on the phone and reporting afterward: “Plato says that each of the e-mail messages was sent from a different computer. He tracked a lot of them to public libraries in D.C. and northern Virginia.”
“That’s all?” I remember responding.
“That’s as far as he’s gotten. One thing’s for sure, babe. He agrees with me that this woman is nuts and we’ve got to start taking this business seriously.”
6
I SPENT THAT DAY TRYING TO DRUM UP ENOUGH energy to do something productive and failed. Duck phoned to see how I was feeling, and, at his suggestion I began a journal of sorts, laying out everything that had happened so far with times and dates.
“We’re assuming that the dirty tricks began with that first deposit outside your old apartment,” he said, “but just in case, try to remember anything out of the ordinary for the last, say, couple of months.”
I was so wiped out that I couldn’t think straight. I managed to get the list done between naps, but could not guarantee it was all-inclusive. The phone was a nuisance, one wrong number, three hang-ups, and a call from Salina’s letting me know that some new Mephistos had arrived. I had no idea what Mephistos were but thanked her for the information, since if I’d blown her off, I’d have had a guilty conscience and Nunna’s voice in my ear. Those folks are only earning their keep, honey, so be polite.
By six, I threw in the towel, called Duck and told him to go home tonight, put my grandparents off one more day, and went to bed for good. I awoke the next morning a match for Janeece’s Little Mary Sunshine persona. I felt like me again. After a breakfast worthy of a long-distance hauler, I was good to go, determined to finish the move to Duck’s or die trying. I caught him at work to tell him so.
