by Nell Goddin
“Go on without me,” murmured Ashley, letting her head fall back on the pillow. “How could anyone….”
“Umm,” said Patty. “Ryan was a flirt and probably a jerk. I never bought his act for one second. But if you want to lie around and moon over some fantasy, then I’ll leave you to it.” She put on a wool cap and scarf, slipped on her coat, and closed the door behind her.
I love Patty, truly I do, thought Ashley. But great heavens above, she can be such a tyrant when she gets in a mood.
Ashley got up from bed and stood in front of the full-length mirror on the door of the armoire, turning to the side, then looking at herself over her shoulder, imagining she was in a photo shoot for French Vogue. She lifted the hem of her frilly nightgown for a view of her legs, changed her pose, then let the nightgown drop.
Molly had intended this room to be specifically for women travelers of a particular type, and had equipped it with a gorgeous vanity with an enormous mirror. Ashley sat on the pale green velvet seat and studied her face, trying different angles; smiling, then looking serious, then sorrowful. She rooted around in her makeup bag and went through a long process of wiping her face with individual moist towelettes to clean and then tone her skin. Next, she applied a creamy foundation. Then she drew on dramatic eyeliner and wiped it off. She put dark shadow on her eyelids, which made her eyes look sultry and a little spooky. More eyeliner, many layers of mascara.
With the help of more moist towelettes, the mascara came off and false eyelashes went on.
Blush. Lip liner. Lipstick.
When her face was finished, Ashley stood up from the makeup table and opened the armoire. In the bottom sat Patty’s small duffel. An under-packer, Patty had brought what Ashley would consider inadequate for an overnight, much less ten days of overseas travel. Ashley found an inner pocket and reached in for the wallet she had seen Patty stash there, and flipped it open.
Her friend had diligently saved for the trip over the course of a year. All her spending money—except what she had taken to the village that morning—was in the wallet. Ashley cocked her head, pursed her lips, and took out a hundred euros. Carefully, she put the wallet back and zipped the duffel, tucking the money into one of her own bags.
Then she sat back down on the green velvet seat, looked at herself in the mirror, and began to cry.
“But Constance, it’s so late in the day. The doctor’s not going to see patients unless it’s an emergency, right?”
“Nah, he sees people when they’re sick, Molls! It’s not like a big city here, remember? And if you don’t mind my saying, you look like crap.”
“Thank you.”
“And see? You’re all touchy. Not yourself.”
Molly heaved a big sigh. Usually she felt energetic enough—tired when it was bedtime, but not during the day—not if she had gotten enough sleep. But recently… “All I did was walk into the village and back,” she admitted. “And it feels like I scaled Mount Everest. My legs ache and I want to take a nap.”
“Not yourself,” repeated Constance. She took out her cell and tapped in Dr. Vernay’s number. “Usually, a new murder would have you skipping around like you won the lottery.”
“You make me sound like a monster.”
“Well, you sort of are. A zombie, I guess, or some ghoul that feeds on death. Something along those lines,” Constance said, thinking it over.
“You’ve been playing video games with Thomas again, haven’t you?” Molly said weakly.
“Yes, and it’s fun, so hush. The doc’s phone’s busy, so let’s just get over there in person. Sometimes he makes house calls, but you’re not quite that bad off, are you? You can manage a trip to his office?”
“Of course I can,” Molly said irritably. She sat up and put on a pair of low boots, but didn’t stand up. “I’m just so deadly tired. What’s that a symptom of?”
“Pretty much everything.”
Molly sighed. They got moving, if slowly, and for the first time Molly let Constance drive the Citroën. Constance turned out to be a careful and competent driver. Molly leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, still enjoying the newness and soft leather seats, and trying to concentrate on that instead of on how shaky she felt.
“Bonjour, Constance,” said a woman in a thick gray sweater as she opened the front door to the doctor’s house. “I hope you are well?” she said as they kissed cheeks.
“Right as rain! It’s my friend here who’s not so hot. Robinette Vernay, this is Molly Sutton, she lives—”
“Molly Sutton! Of course I know who you are! I am an old friend of Valerie Boutillier. Gerard delivered her, of course. You are an absolute hero to half this village, I hope you know that.”
Molly smiled, appreciative. But she was already tired just from the effort of getting there.
“Dr. Vernay is nearly done, if you could just wait five or ten minutes. Can you tell me what seems to be the trouble?”
“Fatigue. From doing nothing.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Molls! You’ve got six, no five guests at La Baraque at the moment, plus a heaping helping of drama. She’s so modest. Not the braggy type,” Constance said to Robinette.
The woman took Molly’s pulse and gave her a long, appraising look. “Well, deep fatigue—could be cancer. Or any of the neurological diseases. Gerard will have to see.”
Molly looked at her in horror.
“Robinette!” Constance laughed. “She’s not a doctor or a nurse, Molly, but the doctor’s wife. And she’s known for being the most pessimistic person on the planet. The Voice of Doom, always.”
Robinette smiled while raking her fingers through her shoulder-length dark brown hair. “It is good to expect the worst. Then you have no surprises. And if things turn out well, then…” She swept her hand out as though gesturing to something wonderful.
“Then you’ve wasted all kinds of time living in fear and misery!” said Constance, still amused.
Robinette excused herself and left Constance and Molly in the waiting room, which was a small salon on one side of the downstairs hall.
“Do doctors all have their offices in their houses?” asked Molly. “You never, ever see this in the States. It might not even be legal.”
Constance widened her eyes. “Not legal? How weird. There are modern offices here too, but especially village doctors—they often see patients in a part of their house. For them it’s obviously much cheaper than renting an office, and it’s nice for the patients too. Homey, not so sterile, you know?”
“Sterile’s maybe not such a bad thing when you’re sick,” murmured Molly. But looking around the small room, at the dark oil paintings in gilt frames that would never grace an American doctor’s office, a taxidermied civet on top of a console table covered with bibelots, and a pile of Turkish carpets on the parquet floor, she admitted that visually it was far more interesting than the bland sort of decoration you’d see in a doctor’s office back home. She had the feeling that even without having met him, she knew something of the doctor’s character. She managed to get up to look more closely at a painting of an elephant with shirtless men grouped around the animal’s front legs, when the doctor himself entered the room.
Constance made introductions. The doctor kept his eyes on Molly’s as he took her hands in his, expressing his regret that she wasn’t feeling well, and asked if she would like to be examined.
“Yes,” said Molly. “Please. And then wave your magic wand and make me myself again.”
The doctor nodded with a wry smile. Constance waited in the salon while Molly disappeared into the examining room. Apparently, it was expected she would remove her clothes without being given a gown to put on, but Molly didn’t care. She trusted this doctor with the painting of an elephant in his waiting room. His manner was professional, and he exuded a kind of goodwill that made her believe she was in good hands. She noted the intensity of his curiosity as he tried to determine what was causing her symptoms.
“It
’s a bit like solving mysteries, being a doctor, isn’t it,” she said, as she lay on her back and he palpated her abdomen.
Dr. Vernay nodded, but his ear was cocked toward her belly and he listened while thumping different parts of it. He took her pulse again, asked her to sit up, took the pulse, then to stand, and took it a fourth time. He went through a long list of questions about her symptoms, habits, diet.
“Do you go in the forest much?” he asked finally.
Molly nodded. “I like to walk. When I discovered the trails and the trail maps available at the Presse, I was in heaven! And I have a dog who of course loves to go on a walk in the woods more than anything on this earth.”
“Have you noticed any rashes? Do you check for ticks when you come out of the woods?”
Molly slowly shook her head. “Are you saying…Lyme disease?”
“Possibly,” said the doctor. “Unfortunately, we do not have an especially accurate test for it, in my opinion. So I tend to use the following strategy: I will give you some doses meant to kill the bacteria, and if you then feel ill, we will know it is working, and that indeed you are infected. You might already know that when people speak of ‘Lyme’ they are usually simplifying: any number of tick-borne diseases likely to have infected a person who has borreliosis, the specific infection of Lyme disease.”
“Sorry, my brain doesn’t seem to be working that well, either. Can you back up? Did you just say you were going to give me something to make me feel worse?”
“I did,” said Dr. Vernay. “In the short term. You will feel worse because your body will be flooded with dead bacteria, and it’s quite toxic. Your body may or may not be able to deal with that efficiently. People are different.”
“Uff. That is not good news.”
“I’m afraid it is not. But you say you’ve only been tired quite recently. So the infection, even if originally contracted sometime in the past, has only recently begun to tax you unduly. My prognosis for you is entirely optimistic. A few weeks of discomfort, six weeks or two months of treatment, depending on how you do, and all will be well.”
Molly heaved another sigh. “Thank you. I hope so.”
“Feeling depressed is not at all unusual. It is very difficult, emotionally, to have our energy and vitality taken away from us.”
“I’ll say.”
“I prescribe exercise, but only as tolerated. Do not push yourself. Eat plenty of soup. Perhaps save sweets for after you are well.”
“No sweets?”
“Not if you wish to get well quickly.”
“Do you have to deliver that kind of bad news all day long?”
“Often. But also I deliver a lot of babies, so it all evens out.”
When they were back in the car, Constance offered to drive around to Pâtisserie Bujold, thinking to cheer Molly up. But the patient, on that very first day of treatment, held fast to doctor’s orders, and instead Constance took her home and tucked her into bed with a mug of green tea, and then, without asking Molly, she called Ben to let him know.
You have to give him a chance to do the right thing, Constance was thinking. And then, her Good Samaritan duties accomplished, Constance scrambled home to the apartment where she lived with Thomas, excited to dive back into the video game they had been playing, while Molly drifted into a fitful sleep.
10
That afternoon, when she didn’t see Molly anywhere, Patty made the rounds of all the guestrooms at La Baraque, asking the occupants if they’d like to attend a short memorial for Ryan later that night. First she knocked on the door of the cottage where the Bilsons were staying.
“Come in!” boomed Ira.
Patty came in to see Darcy standing on her head and Ira flopped on the sofa reading a newspaper. “Hey, sorry to bust in on you, but Ashley and I want to have a little service for Ryan and wondered if you’d like to be part of it.”
“A service?” said Darcy, her feet dropping to the floor. “We’re atheists. Why do you have to bring religion into it?”
“I’m not—it’s—nothing is decided or anything. All we want to do is get everyone together to remember him, however you’d like to do that.”
“Of course we’d like to be there,” said Ira. “What time and where?”
“I thought you were all ‘let’s move on’?” said Patty.
Ira shrugged. “I am. But maybe some people need to have a ceremony before they can do that.” He pointedly did not look in his wife’s direction.
“Nice dragon,” said Patty, pointing to the tattoo on Darcy’s shoulder after she had dropped out of the headstand and come over. Darcy did not respond but picked up a shirt that had been thrown over the back of the sofa to put on over her tank top. “Um, how about we meet in Molly’s living room at nine? Does that give you enough time to have dinner first?”
“Make it ten,” said Darcy.
“Fine, see you then.”
Next, Patty went back to the guest wing of the main house and knocked on Nathaniel’s door.
“So, we’re doing a memorial for Ryan tonight. Would you like to come?”
Nathaniel smiled sadly. “Such a horrible thing,” he said. “Of course I’ll be there. Can I bring anything?”
“Oh, that’s a thought. How about a good bottle of whatever you like to drink? Maybe Ashley and I can go to a bakery and bring some little cakes or something? We’re thinking ten o’clock, so everyone will have eaten.”
“Sure. Yes. Isn’t it funny how we all somehow got to La Baraque and have ended up as friends?”
“I know!” said Patty. “Really unusual. Well, I’d guess it is, I can’t say I’ve actually traveled that much before this.”
“Me neither,” said Nathaniel. “Okay, well, see you later then?”
Patty nodded. She thought for a moment, standing in the hallway; she wasn’t in the mood to hang around the room with Ashley, listening to her endless moaning about the spark she’d had with Ryan.
Patty jammed her hands in her jeans pockets since she hadn’t packed gloves, and went back to the pigeonnier and then the cottage, lurking in the shadows, trying to hear what the Bilsons were saying. But the old thick walls of those structures didn’t lend themselves to eavesdropping, and eventually she circled back to the main house and found the window to Molly’s bedroom.
The light was dim and there was a voile curtain in front of the window, but Patty could make out Molly’s shape under the billowing comforter, and Bobo curled up next to her. Patty stood for some time looking in, waiting to see if Molly moved or got up; eventually her hands were too cold to continue so she gently opened the French doors and took a place next to the woodstove in Molly’s living room.
By ten o’clock, all the guests had arrived. The room was chilly and they crowded around the woodstove. Ira went out to get more wood while Ashley shivered, dramatically chattering her teeth.
“It’s not that cold, for God’s sake,” muttered Patty.
“We’re not the same person,” said Ashley. “We don’t have to react the same way to everything.” She sat on the edge of the sofa and put a woolen throw over her knees. “I don’t see how Molly can stand it being this cold.”
“Spoken as a true lady of the South,” said Ira, banging the door shut with his foot as he came in with a gigantic armful of wood. “I’ll get this thing fired up quick and we’ll be warm as toast in a few minutes. Why don’t all of you discuss how you want this memorial to go.”
“No religion,” said Darcy.
“I don’t see why you have to slight Jesus,” said Ashley.
“Nobody’s slighting anyone,” Nathaniel jumped in. “How about we make this simple: a minute or two of silence, followed by anyone who wants to, sharing a memory or something about Ryan?”
“Sounds good,” said Ira, jabbing the fire with a poker.
“Are you gonna tell them?” Ashley said to Patty.
“Tell us what?” said Ira. “Can we get this over with? I don’t stay up late.”
“What
is with your moods lately? Five seconds ago you were all enthusiastic about this,” said Darcy.
Patty stepped into the middle of their circle. “Listen, before we get started? I’ve got news,” she said, her expression a confused mixture of exhilaration and pretend sadness. “I thought the cop would be back by now and he’d be the one to deliver it. But since he’s not, I will. Well, here goes: our friend Ryan didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.”
“What?” said Nathaniel.
“Are you kidding?” asked Ira.
Darcy looked like she had been slapped. Ashley was used to the idea by then and curled up at one end of the sofa, tucking her feet under her. “I said right from the beginning that he would never have hurt himself. I have a sense about people.”
“A sense that if you take off your clothes, they’ll be interested?” shot Darcy.
“Darce!” said Ira.
“But so,” continued Patty, “I don’t know that there’s anything for us to do. The cop’s on the case and maybe he’ll be mad that I told everyone. But I thought you should know. Let’s just go ahead with the memorial like we planned.”
“Who in the world would want to murder someone like Ryan?” marveled Nathaniel.
“Probably a sociopath. I read an article claiming they’re much more prevalent than we realize,” said Patty.
“Can we just get on with it?” said Ira.
Patty picked up a bottle and waved it in the air. “Want to open the champagne before or after?”
“Before!”
“After!”
“Like herding cats,” Nathaniel muttered.
“I don’t want it to seem like we’re toasting his death,” said Darcy.
“That’s very sensitive of you,” said Ira, glaring at her.
“Whatever,” said Ashley. “Just start the moment of silence, okay?”
All five of them went quiet. Patty put down the champagne, Ashley stopped fidgeting with the throw, and Ira dropped into a chair. They were, for once, silent.
