2 On the Nickel

by Maggie Toussaint

  Something in my expression must have told him not to push his luck any further. If nothing else, our divorce had caused Charlie to master the strategic retreat. “You’re overwrought. We’ll continue this conversation later.” He ducked around Jonette to kiss me. I turned my cheek just in time.

  After Charlie left, I swapped my ruined shorts for a pair of elastic-waist gym shorts in the laundry room. Jonette and I carried our tea to the living room. I sat long-ways on the couch with my feet up and contemplated her pristine appearance. “How come you aren’t scratched up?”

  Jonette’s foot tapped rapidly on the Oriental carpet beneath her wingback chair. “Because I didn’t dive through the thicket or slide my face across a rock bed. I didn’t mean to give us away. I only wanted a better view. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  The steam from my tea infiltrated the chaos in my head. I inhaled deeply of the soothing moisture. “I’m fine.”

  Jonette gulped her tea. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. Finally she said, “I’m with Charlie on this one. You don’t look so good.”

  A golden sandal the size of a two-story building winged through my thoughts. Dread tangoed through my pores. This is what came of keeping secrets. Problems assumed astronomical proportions. “I can’t get that image out of my mind.”

  “Me, neither,” Jonette said. “And I’m going to do something about it right now.” She tore out of the house as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.

  Chapter 3

  I scraped my jaw up off the floor as my front door slammed behind Jonette. How bizarre. I’d been concealing my worries. Now it appeared that Jonette had secrets, too. What was so private that she couldn’t tell her best friend?

  Had she driven like a lunatic over to the church this morning and then pushed me into the crime scene on purpose? Did she have a death wish? Had I offended her in some way? What?

  This whole day seemed fun house carnival weird, without the fun. Everything felt distorted. Unreal. Like I’d been stretched thin and then squashed flat. No matter which way I turned, the view was skewed.

  Why was this happening? My life had finally settled into a decent routine. I loved the normalcy of knowing what happened next. But I hated this nerve-jangling, skin-crawling, upset-stomach, tension-headache feeling I was having right now.

  Jonette’s jarring behavior added another discordant note in a symphony of strangeness. I couldn’t explain her irrational actions anymore than I could fathom Erica’s death.

  Where was Mama?

  She wasn’t here, where she was supposed to be. She wasn’t with Muriel and Francine, or I would have seen her at Trinity Episcopal. Her car should’ve been parked in our driveway, and she should’ve been sitting in our office out back. But she wasn’t.

  Mama was unaccounted for, and Erica was dead.

  Were the two events related?

  I smelled the fear on my breath, felt the fright diffuse through my body like carbon monoxide, stupefying my brain. It wasn’t a stretch for me to imagine Mama had been reckless enough to mow Erica down with her Olds. Their decades-long antagonism had reached a critical point with Monday’s confrontation. Why?

  I needed to know.

  All I had in the way of data was a series of unrelated events. No Mama. Crazy Jonette. Dead Erica. Handcuffed me. Lousy golf. And that was just the morning.

  I’d planned to work this afternoon, but my frazzled brain couldn’t do simple arithmetic much less accounting. Neither my thoughts nor my trembling hands would settle. But restless energy wouldn’t allow me to mope around all day.

  So I cleaned house. The kitchen floor gleamed. I cooked, too. Simmered down a pot of fresh tomatoes into a thick, rich spaghetti sauce.

  After I finished with the downstairs bathroom, I stood listening to the sighs and creaks in this old house. I couldn’t remember the last time this place had been so quiet. This house usually brimmed with four females and a large dog.

  The dog.

  A tremor of unease flickered down my spine. Where the heck was the dog? Normally she shadowed my every move. Was she ill? Or even worse, in the throes of early labor? Jonette and Lexy were supposed to oversee the whelping. Not me.

  I peeled off my yellow latex gloves and dashed up the carpeted stairs, praying there wouldn’t be a litter of puppies in my bedroom. My prayers were answered. Only, I didn’t like the answer.

  I opened my mouth to yell and squeaked instead. The carnage stopped me cold, shot my pulse through the roof. Never in my life could I have imagined such a mess. My hand covered my gaping mouth. I couldn’t bring myself to step across the threshold.

  Snowy white feathers from my lightweight goose-down comforter spilled off the bed, littering my dresser, my closet. In the current from the ceiling fan, eddies of weightless feathers swirled along the wooden floor. My good sheets, four-hundred-thread-count satiny-soft deluxe sheets, were ripped to shreds. Trails of dried dog drool adorned my beautiful maple headboard.

  If I were a cartoon character, the top of my head would have popped off, my eyes would have bulged out, and twin jets of steam would have blasted out of my ears. Rage boiled up out of a dark place deep inside me. “Bad dog!”

  Madonna opened one eye, but she didn’t move from atop my bed. Her paws curled down in the pillow-soft mattress top. I was so mad I could spit nails. My fingers flexed in anticipation of lifting the jumbo pooch and shaking her. “Get off my bed, Madonna. You’re in big trouble.”

  No response. Feathers took flight as I stomped into my bedroom. I tugged on Madonna’s leather collar. “Get. I mean it. Get off my bed.”

  Madonna didn’t budge. She looked mortally wounded that I would raise my voice at her. My gaze strayed to her very large stomach, and I tamped down a wave of guilt. I tugged on her collar again. “Pregnant or not, you’re a bad dog. You’re sleeping in the laundry room from now on, you hear me? Get up. Get out!”

  Madonna exhaled heavily, sending another flurry of snowy feathers into flight. My fists balled at my side in impotent fury. I wanted her out of my bed right now. But she outweighed me, and her center of gravity was low. And she seemed to understand that possession was nine-tenths of the law.

  Feathers whirled around my face. I batted them away ineffectively. In frustration, I picked up a mangled corner of my pillow and swatted the mattress next to Madonna. “Dammit. Get up! Get off my bed. I’m taking you to the pound right this instant.”

  Footfalls pounded up the stairs. “Mom! Don’t swear at the dog.” Lexy rushed in and hurled herself on the bed, wrapping her arms protectively around the short-haired Saint Bernard. Like that would keep me from removing the dog.

  “That dog is in serious trouble.” I gestured at the feather-filled room. “Do you see what she did?”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Lexy said in a soothing tone. “Really. It’s okay.”

  I unclenched my jaw. “This is a monumental disaster. I gave this dog food and shelter. See how she repays me?”

  “Mom, get a grip,” Lexy said. “If you’d read any of the whelping stuff, you’d know Madonna did exactly what she was supposed to do.”

  I’d been meaning to read those slick pamphlets and the stack of Internet articles on doggie childbirth that Jonette and Lexy were studying, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I’d been through childbirth myself. I knew firsthand what labor and delivery felt like.

  I glared at Lexy.

  Lexy cooed at the dog and petted her. Madonna sniffed copiously and stirred herself to lick Lexy’s hand. The effort exhausted her. Madonna immediately lay her head back down in the tangle of ruined bedding and moaned.

  In a twinge of sympathy, I remembered how the last month of my pregnancies seemed to go on forever. “Is she in labor right now?”

  Lexy gently massaged Madonna’s bulging stomach. “I can’t tell. Did you take her temperature? It hadn’t dropped as of last night.”

  My hands clenched into tight fists. “No, I did not take her temperature. I came up here to check on her
and found my bed destroyed. Taking the dog’s temperature never crossed my mind.”

  Lexy hopped off the bed, a trail of feathers floating in her wake. “I’ll be right back. Don’t do anything, Mom.”

  As if I could do anything. The dog wouldn’t budge. My bed was in shreds, and my mother was missing. My head pounded fiercely.

  “Holy crap!” Charla dashed into the room, feathers swirling and catching in her thick red hair. “What’s going on?”

  “Mom wants to get rid of Madonna.” Lexy returned with the thermometer and tended to business.

  “No way. She’s our dog, Mom.” Charla wedged herself between me and the dog. “You said we could keep her. You can’t get rid of her because of a little mess.”

  “She destroyed my bed.” My voice squeaked again. If I didn’t calm down, I would have a heart attack. Not good.

  This was a power struggle. Power was all about control, and right now, Madonna controlled the bed. She wasn’t giving it up, either.

  My bed.

  Not hers.

  I never should have let her sleep with me in the first place. The dog thought she owned the bed, but it was mine. I had only been sharing my bed with her. It wasn’t hers. Not by a long shot.

  “Well, Lexy?” Feathers flew as I drifted closer. “Is she in labor?”

  “No,” Lexy said. “Her temperature hasn’t dropped.”

  “Why did she do this?”

  “I already told you, Mom. She’s nesting. She needs an area to have her puppies.”

  I pointed over to the inflatable kiddy pool we’d installed in the corner of my bedroom. “Why isn’t she nesting over there in the waterproof area? I bought everything on the list. Are you telling me I wasted my hard-earned money?”

  “Maybe she wanted to nest here because it smelled like her. Or,” Lexy brightened, “because it smelled like you.”

  I grabbed my hair and yanked on it. “Why would she need her puppy box to smell like me?”

  “Dogs are particular about scents,” Lexy said. “Madonna chose you over Charla or me or Grammy. She likes your scent the best.”

  I didn’t ask for preferential doggie treatment. “She has a funny way of showing it. Couldn’t she like me without shredding my comforter and ripping up my sheets?”

  “I’ll clean it up, Mom,” Lexy offered.

  “No. I’ll clean it up.” Charla jerked her thumb toward her chest. “I’m the oldest. I take complete responsibility. I’ll pay for your new sheets, too.”

  “Madonna destroyed hundreds of dollars’ worth of bedding.” To my horror, my voice shrilled to wicked-witch level. “It will be years before you save up that much allowance. This is a disaster.”

  “Lexy can bunk with me, and you can have her room.” Charla crossed the room to hug her sister.

  Lexy clung to Charla. “Please, Mom. I’ll help Charla raise the money. Madonna didn’t mean to be destructive. She’s a victim of her instincts.”

  The only victim in this room was me. I took a deep breath, then another. My head cleared a little, and I realized something special had happened. Charla and Lexy had united for a common goal, an unprecedented event. They were willing to bunk together so that I had a bed with sheets on it.

  My anger faded. I had no spare set of sheets. If I stuck to a tight budget this month, I could afford clearance-sale sheets. A look of resignation must have passed across my face.

  Charla declared victory by hurling herself into my arms. Feathers twirled around us. “Thanks, Mom. You won’t regret this. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Mom.” Lexy stayed by Madonna’s side just in case I still thought to get rid of the dog.

  This was a battle I couldn’t win. Not without removing the dog. And, with Erica’s death weighing on my thoughts, there had been enough loss for one day. “I want this mess cleaned up before dinner.”

  I left them to it.

  My stomach growled as I stirred the mouth-watering spaghetti sauce. I started the noodles for dinner. Upstairs, the vacuum cleaner roared to life. A minor victory, but a victory all the same. The girls felt responsible enough for the dog to clean up her mess. Good info to file away for when the puppies came.

  I shuddered. I wasn’t ready for puppies. This afternoon had shown me that. I’d never had the urge to chew up sheets at any time prior to the onset of labor. Clearly I was ignorant of the doggie version of birth. I’d better get with the program. I pulled an article on whelping out of the stack on the kitchen table and sat down to read it while the noodles cooked.

  I’d barely started reading about loss of doggie appetite and excessive licking of personal areas when Mama staggered in. Not even the shoulder pads of her double-breasted mauve blazer could disguise the droop of her frame. With her heavy step, glassy eyes, and pale skin, I worried she was having a heart attack.

  My own heart nearly stopped. I leapt to my feet and raced to her side. “Mama! Come sit down. Let me fix you a glass of water. Where’s your nitroglycerin?”

  “My heart’s fine. Forget the water. Gimme a shot of Jack Daniels.”

  It wasn’t her heart. I exhaled a little easier. But why the booze? Mama didn’t drink. We had a bottle of Jack Daniels left over from when Daddy was alive. The bottle hadn’t been opened in the three years since he’d passed.

  The wires of the universe must have crossed. What else would explain the strange events of today? “What happened?” I asked as I seated her at the table. “Where have you been all day?”

  Mama sat soldier straight in a kitchen chair and waved off my questions. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Mama, you were gone for hours. I’ve been worried sick.” I reached behind the cookbooks over the microwave and found the dusty liquor bottle.

  “I’ve been looking after myself for years. You can’t shoehorn me into a nursing home.”

  Clever of her to try to distract me, but I was onto her tricks. And I had guilt in my arsenal. “I thought you were home keeping an eye on the dog while I golfed this morning.”

  “That dog’s got better sense than any of us. She can look after herself. I had an errand.”

  I poured out a straight shot of Jack Daniels and set it before her. Mama belted it back like water. She shoved the shot glass over to me for a refill.

  I sat down beside her and stared her straight in the eye. I wanted answers. “Where have you been, Mama?”

  She eyed her empty shot glass. “Minding my own business, that’s what.”

  Her color was coming back. The liquor must have helped. Perhaps another shot of Jack would loosen her tongue the rest of the way. I handed her a refill and tried again. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Mama glared at me. “It’s none of your beeswax, that’s what.”

  She was hiding something. “Mama, the police responded to a call at Trinity Episcopal Church today. There was a fatal accident in the parking lot.”

  I watched her closely, hoping against hope that her secret wasn’t related to the gruesome incident. To my relief, Mama’s rigid posture never waivered. She seemed to be braced for bad news. “Erica Hodges is dead,” I said as gently as possible.

  Mama’s shoulders shook with emotion. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Great gulping sobs wracked her slender frame.

  I wrung my hands. God, I’d done it now. I’d made Mama cry. She never cried.

  Well, almost never. She’d cried when Daddy died. I remembered feeling helpless then, too.

  Her depth of feeling shook me. While I thought she’d have a reaction to the news, I hadn’t expected this outpouring of grief for a woman she despised. But she wasn’t faking this. I’d never seen her so distraught, so vulnerable.

  My heart ached for her. Sympathetic tears brimmed in my eyes. I had to do something. I rose, grabbed several tissues, and put them in her hand. I patted her cushioned shoulder, wishing I could do more.

  Mama smashed the tissues into a tight wad in her fisted hand stared out the window. Tears ran down he
r rouged cheeks and dripped off her quivering chin.

  “I’m so sorry.” I blinked back my tears, wishing I knew what was wrong. Were her tears a guilty sign? I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe such a thing of my mother, could I?

  I heaved in a tremulous breath. “It’s okay, Mama. Everything will be all right. I’m so sorry to have been the bearer of bad news.”

  Mama stirred to blot her face with the tissues. Her icy gaze chilled me to my core. “Erica Hodges was a miserable excuse for a human being. I’m glad that bitch is dead.”

  My head recoiled as if I’d been struck. The stark pain in Mama’s voice knocked me off-balance. I hardly knew what would come out of her mouth next. Britt’s advice to talk some sense into Mama rang in my ears. “Mama, you don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.” Mama knocked back the second shot of whiskey and set the shot glass down with a sharp crack. I looked twice to make sure the glass was intact. “I don’t care for any supper tonight,” Mama said. “I want to go to bed now.”

  I leaned toward her. “Mama, we need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that vile woman.” Mama banged her fist on the table, scattering my reading material. “I hope I never hear her name again.”

  I glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. It was barely five o’clock. Way too early for bed. “I made spaghetti.”

  Mama arched a perfectly drawn eyebrow. “Boring, normal spaghetti?”

  “Thick, homemade, stick to your ribs spaghetti,” I countered, straightening the stack of whelping literature that was on the table.

  “No, thanks, I’m not hungry.”

  Mama wobbled as she stood. Could be nerves. Could be the booze. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t falling on my watch. I took her elbow and guided her upstairs to her bedroom.

  She halted just over the threshold, blocking my way. “I can take it from here.” With that, Mama closed her door firmly in my face.

  Her secretive attitude irked me, but Mama had her own way of doing things. I cruised down to my room to check on the cleanup. The feathers were gone for the most part, and my ruined sheets lined the inflatable kiddy pool we’d set up for the birth event. Two garbage bags bulged with the remains of my down comforter and pillows.