by Mary Frame
“I met a girl when I was in college. Sophia. We dated for a while and after graduation she wanted to move in together, but it wasn’t the right time. Then I got a job as a police officer, which was a crazy schedule anyway. Then my parents died and . . .” He shrugs. “I moved back here. We tried to stay in touch, but our lives are too different. We’re still friendly, but there’s nothing there anymore. I don’t really think there ever was.”
We stop outside a booth full of clothing. They have a whole section devoted to cat shirts and, surprise surprise, Mrs. Olsen is sorting through the racks, stacking clothes on top of Miss Viola’s wheelchair while Miss Viola snores away.
“Oh, Deputy, I’m so glad you’re here,” Mrs. Olsen says when she spots us entering the booth.
“Hey, Mrs. Olsen.”
“What do you think about this shade of purple on me?” She holds the shirt up against her chest.
“It looks great,” he says.
“Do you really think so? Will you come look at this?” She drags him across the booth to another stack of clothes, leaving me behind with Miss Viola, who’s still sleeping. It’s a little stuffy in the booth despite a fan blowing in the corner, so I try to move some of the clothes off of her lap. Don’t want her to get a heat stroke in her sleep. The movement wakes her up and she clutches at my arm with one withered but surprisingly strong hand.
“Oh, it’s you,” she says.
“Hey Miss Viola,” I say loudly.
“Are we done shopping yet?” she asks.
“I think Mrs. Olsen is still shopping for shirts.”
“Who hurts?”
“Shirts,” I yell. “Mrs. Olsen is looking for shirts.”
Miss Viola frowns and waves a hand at me. “That old lady has enough of those damn cat clothes.”
I let out a startled laugh.
“Would you stop talking trash behind my back?” Mrs. Olsen yells at us from the other side of the booth.
A few customers in line between us turn to see the commotion.
I don’t like having so many eyes on me. Why are they staring? I wasn’t the one yelling. When I glance down at Miss Viola, she’s full-on sleeping, head back, mouth open.
There’s no way. She’s totally faking it.
I don’t have time to test the theory because Jared is at my elbow, tugging me away. “We need to get out of here,” he says under his breath. “She wants me to help her pick out lingerie.”
I snort out a laugh, and I swear Miss Viola chuckles too, but then the sound turns into a snore.
Does this woman fake everything? The hearing and the sleeping? It’s actually pretty clever. I wonder how much she overhears because people assume she’s deaf and unconscious half the time.
We escape without having to see Mrs. Olsen’s underthings, and the next booth we stop at is a treasure trove of odd items.
“Oh, yes. This is the winning booth, I can feel it,” Jared says.
I spot a painting of dead-eyed children eating ice cream cones, staring out of the portrait like zombie babies. There’s a spider-shaped wind chime that makes me shiver and a bunch of random trinkets and antique-looking toys.
“Check this out.” Jared holds up a flowerpot. At first glance, it looks like a blooming red flower inside your basic clay pot, but when I get closer I can see it’s not a real flower at all. It’s not even fabric. Oh, no, this flower is made out of teeny tiny plastic penises, all melded together and then painted over to form the stem and petals.
“What is that?”
“Art?” He eyes it dubiously.
“You think that’s art?”
“It could be making some sort of feminist statement. You know, because flowers are usually used to describe more, ah, female parts.”
“That’s a pretty good gift for Tabby.” I purse my lips. Now I have to try and find something even better. “It’s going to be hard to top.”
We’re running out of time. We’ve got to meet Naomi and Paige soon, so I’ve got to pick something at this booth or nothing at all. Finally, I settle on an odd item that’s creepy, but not quite as cool as the penis flower. It’s a toilet paper roll holder formed out of fake, plastic fingers. The fingers are all different sizes and shapes. Some even have nail polish.
“That thing is creeping me out,” Jared says. “I’m not sure if I could wipe my ass with something I pulled from that.”
We pay for the items and head out to find Tabby’s booth.
It doesn’t take long because there’s a special section for the Castle Cove retailers.
We find Troy there making absolutely no attempt to help the people coming into the booth for the hardware store. He’s sitting on one of the tables, swinging his legs and looking bored.
His expression brightens when he sees us enter the booth. “Check this out.” He holds up a plastic package. It’s a doll. A man-shaped doll. The packaging reads Grow a Boyfriend.
“What is that?” Jared asks.
“It’s a man for Tabby. Now Mrs. Olsen will leave her alone.” Troy laughs. “It’s like sea monkeys, but it’s a dude. You put water on it and it grows. You can also dry it out and reuse it.” He grins. “Tabby will love it.”
“Tabby is going to kill you,” I say.
He nods. “Probably. What did you guys pick out?”
I show him my toilet paper holder made out of fingers, and Jared holds up his penis flower.
“The flower is pretty good. But not as good as mine. You guys both suck. I win. I get to decide where your date is.”
“That wasn’t part of our agreement,” Jared says. “In fact, you weren’t even involved in our agreement.”
“I think you guys should go to . . .” Troy continues as if Jared hadn’t spoken. “Something boring. Jared likes boring,” he tells me as an aside, as if Jared isn’t standing right there. “Like a museum. Not a cool one, either, you should go to one of those weird ones that are trying to make a statement with things like dried bologna on the wall and mannequins dressed in trash.”
“Is there something like that around here?” I ask.
“No,” Troy says.
“Thanks, Troy, we’re leaving now.” Jared places a gentle hand on my back, guiding me out of the booth.
“Fine,” Troy calls out. “But don’t be a douche. Go somewhere nice, not that place with the peanut shells on the floor!”
We meet the girls at the entrance to the swap meet and they show us their purchases. Paige has a bright-green knee-length dress with spaghetti straps, and it’s long enough that it doesn’t seem like it will be too risqué when she puts it on. Naomi’s dress is dark purple, strapless, and floor length. They’re going to look like little grownups.
Then Jared takes us to dinner, and I have to smile at his choice: a low-key pizza place with hay and peanut shells on the floor. They have a small arcade the girls spend most of their time in.
They have such a blast that they both pass out in the back seat almost immediately.
“Today was fun,” Jared says. He put the top of the Jeep back on for the dark drive home.
“I had a great time,” I say, and I mean it.
The whole day was so wonderful.
“Next weekend will be better.” The smile he throws in my direction is both sweet and hopeful and sends a dart of shame straight to my heart.
It won’t be better. We’ll be gone.
I don’t want to ruin today. But I think I have to. I can’t afford to be distracted by anything or anyone. Not with the parents on our tail and Paige to consider. I can’t do anything that might risk her safety. There’s nothing to stop them from just showing up and claiming her. They are her parents and I have nothing to stand on other than my word, which is obviously weak at best. None of this is fair to me or Paige.
And what about Jared? If the parents show up, he might be the one who has to turn Paige over. In the best-case scenario, we leave and never see him again. I can’t possibly go through the next week, playing along and then . . . just disappe
ar. Wouldn’t that be worse than letting him down gently? Before it goes further?
I don’t know what I was thinking, letting myself get caught up in the fantasy of today.
How can I fix this now without seeming like a complete nut job?
“I might need a rain check on the date,” I say, thinking quickly.
“A rain check?”
“I forgot I told Paige I would take her on a trip. Only for a week, up the coast, to celebrate the end of the school year.”
He’s silent, absorbing the poorly told lie about as well as I delivered it.
“I’m sorry . . . I don’t know how I could have forgotten,” I add.
“It’s fine.” He sends another smile in my direction, but this time it’s bleak.
He knows I’m lying as surely as I know I’ve ruined everything.
The rest of the night is quiet. We drop Naomi off at home and then head to Jared’s. Paige goes to bed.
I wait by the pool for Jared, but he doesn’t show.
After thirty minutes sitting on a lounge chair alone, staring up at the stars, I head to bed.
It’s for the best, I know.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Monday morning, Jared’s up and making breakfast like normal, and it’s like nothing has changed.
As if the day at the swap meet and the night that I ruined everything never even happened.
It should make me happy. I don’t have to worry about Jared nursing some kind of broken heart—as if I could inspire something as banal as a broken heart anyway—but then why can I hardly eat? The pancakes that normally taste heavenly are like lumps of dough in my stomach.
At least I have the case to distract me.
The first place we stop around midmorning is Judge Ramsey’s house.
According to Jared, Judge Ramsey is semiretired. He still presides over cases in Castle Cove in the summer when he’s here and when they have too many cases, which is rare. He and his wife live in a cute bungalow with a white picket fence north of the town proper and spend most of their time golfing at the country club and travelling to Arizona in the winter, where their son lives with his family.
When we arrive on their doorstep, the Ramseys immediately invite us in for brunch on the patio, which we can’t refuse when I see that Mrs. Ramsey has made a giant lattice-topped apple pie.
“I didn’t know pie was served at brunch.”
“We’re retired,” Mrs. Ramsey says with a tinkling laugh. “We do what we want.”
Mrs. Ramsey’s white curls lay close to her head, like a flapper haircut, and she has an infectious laugh.
Judge Ramsey has white hair trimmed close on the side and slighter longer up top. He has a neatly trimmed moustache and wire-rimmed glasses.
Brunch is chicken and waffles. I’ve never had the combination, and it’s delicious—sweet and salty and perfect with the pie. We don’t ask any questions about the mocktail party while we’re eating. It would be rude when they’re feeding us and talking about more mundane things like their kids, the weather, and cases Jared and Judge Ramsey worked on together. When the food has been demolished, including the pie, the conversation turns.
“Do either of you young people play chess?” Judge Ramsey asks.
“I do,” I say. “Not very well, though.”
“Well, then I insist you stay a little longer and play a game with me. Mrs. Ramsey isn’t a big fan of chess.”
“Okay,” I agree.
Jared turns to Mrs. Ramsey. “You mentioned you needed to move some items from the back shed. I can help you while they’re playing.”
“That would be wonderful,” Mrs. Ramsey says.
She made overtures while she was serving the apple pie that she needed help and didn’t want Mr. Ramsey hurting his bum knee.
Jared and I exchange a glance, silently agreeing to ask our questions about the case when we have them separated.
It’s weird how we know what each other is thinking with no more than a glance or a nod. Paige and I are the same, but I’ve never had anyone else in that bubble before.
“So you and Mrs. Ramsey go to mocktail nights at the senior center?” I ask while Mr. Ramsey is setting up the board.
“Yes. It’s our date night. It’s an excuse for Mrs. Ramsey to dress up. We love to people watch.”
“Do you ever see any people doing anything weird or unusual?”
He thinks about that while I move my rook. “Not really. Nothing more than usual. Although, I did see Miss Viola and Mr. Godfrey arguing one night, which was strange.”
“Why was it strange?”
“Well, Mr. Godfrey wasn’t speaking terribly loud and she didn’t seem to have any problems hearing him at all.”
I nod, considering the information. I’m not the only fraud in town. “That is interesting. Anything else? Did you ever see anything odd or out of place when you were driving home?”
He shrugs. “Not really.”
We play in silence for a few minutes while we both consider the board and I consider what else to ask.
“You know, we had a similar situation here years ago,” the judge says.
“What do you mean?”
“When I was in school, they had some senior prank incident and some kids got caught. Multiple houses were broken into. Nothing was taken though. They did random pranks like tying up sweater sleeves.”
That sounds familiar. “When was this?”
He shrugs. “A long time ago. Maybe in the sixties.” He frowns and thinks for a minute but eventually shakes his head. “Jared will probably have more luck getting information out of Mrs. Ramsey,” the judge tells me with a wink.
I shrug. I suppose it was too much to hope that our little divide and conquer tactic wouldn’t go unnoticed by Judge Ramsey.
“She pays more attention at those functions,” he continues. “The truth is, I spend a majority of my time watching her while she does a majority of the people watching.” He chuckles.
“You have been together for a long time.”
“We met when we were eleven years old,” the judge tells me, moving his rook on the board. “My mother told me it would never work because I was a Lutheran and she was a Catholic and back then, that was a big deal.”
“It must not have been that big of a deal.” I move my knight.
“It wasn’t.” He smiles at me over the rim of his glasses. “I converted.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Almost sixty years.”
“Wow, that’s a long time.”
We make a few moves in silence before he peers at me again. “Do you have a fella?”
Of course, that makes me think of Jared. “No.” I move my king.
“You took a moment to answer. Is there someone special you’re thinking about?” His eyes are twinkling.
“No. Yes. Well, maybe. I don’t know. It’s complicated.”
“As someone who’s lived many years on this planet, let me let you in on a little secret. It’s only ever as complicated as you want to make it. It can be very simple.”
Ah, let’s see, so the simple version of my life is that I’m a former con artist; I’ve technically kidnapped my sister; I’m on the run from my embezzling parents while pretending to be someone I’m not; I’m staying with the local deputy who wants to be my boyfriend even though he doesn’t know my real name; and the person I’m impersonating is going to be back in a couple short months and blow my cover. In the meantime, my parents are closing in and I need to leave town immediately. So simple.
“I don’t know,” I say. “It doesn’t feel simple.”
“Do you like him?”
The chessboard in front of me blurs as I probe my emotions on the matter. It’s a simple answer, at least. “Yes.” I move in on his king. “Check.”
“Then nothing else really matters now, does it?”
I wish that were true.
“Let me put it another way,” he says. “As you get closer to the end of your life, ev
erything speeds up until you’re holding a thread in one hand that’s dwindling to nothing and another hand full of regrets. You can’t change the past, and you can’t predict the future. You may not like the choices you have in front of you, but you have choices. If you have a chance at happiness now, no matter how fleeting it might be, you should grab on to it with both hands before you’re left with nothing. Even bad choices are better than none.”
He smiles and moves his queen. “Check mate.”
~*~
As Jared and I leave the Ramseys’, I can’t stop thinking about what the judge said. Should I grab on to what I want, even if it means more heartache in the future? Am I wasting valuable time pushing Jared away? Should I “live in the now,” so to speak, if only to have memories when I’m long gone and he hates me for all my lies and deceptions?
The clock is ticking.
When we hop in Jared’s Jeep, I force myself back to the case at hand. “Did you get any good information out of Mrs. Ramsey?”
“Not really, although she does think there might be more than cranberry juice in some of the mocktails that are being consumed.”
“The judge mentioned something about this same type of incident happening in the 1960s. A senior prank thing, or something.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I wonder if some of our elderly folks are recreating old times. Would they have information at the station going back that far?”
He nods. “Probably in the archives. Do you think it’s worth pulling up?”
“You have any better ideas?”
A short drive later, we’re back at the station. The basement archives are dark and dusty. It smells like stale coffee and old paper. Most of the space is comprised of row after row of boxes with case files dating back to the early 1900s. The dim, flickering lights run on motion sensors and only click on when we walk down the aisles.
I shiver. “This place is like a horror movie.”
“It’s not fun coming down here alone. Especially if Troy is anywhere in the building. He likes to scream randomly down the stairs to freak people out.”
