It Started With A House: Lizzie. Book 1 (The Westport Mysteries)

by Beth Prentice

  “Do I look that bad?” I asked.

  I was about to turn and run back upstairs to get changed when Danny let out a low whistle. “My God girl, if you weren’t my sister and I wasn’t gay, I’d do you.” I had to smile.

  “Well, I’m not related, so that makes this easier for me. And right now, I may consider going straight for you,” said Andrew coming over and kissing me on the cheek. “You look absolutely incredible.”

  I looked to Molly. It was funny, but out of everybody, her approval meant the most. She walked over to me, tears in her eyes.

  “Wow. I never really did stand a chance against you, but now I pale into insignificance.” She pulled me into a big hug.

  Holding tightly, not wanting to let go, I said, “I love you, Molly, but I can’t hold a candle to you.”

  “What’s going on?” I heard Riley’s voice behind us. Letting go of Molly and turning, I heard Danny say, “Lizzie’s been shopping, thank God. She now has nice clothes.”

  I saw Riley look from Danny to me and heard him let out a long sigh. Looking me up and down, sadness in his eyes, he silently walked past me into the kitchen. Not quite the reaction I was looking for, but really, what did I expect?

  “Don’t think he’s impressed, Lizzie,” whispered Danny. “He obviously never understood just how awful your old wardrobe was.”

  Picking up the nearest pillow, I threw it at him and laughed. “My clothes were not that bad.”

  “Yes. They were.”

  * * * *

  After dinner, we sat around talking. I knew I would have to tell everybody about Scott and now, with a few drinks in me, I felt a whole lot stronger. Molly, bless her, gave me the perfect segue into it by asking me how Scott was and had I seen him much lately.

  “Um…Scott and I actually broke up.” Silence filled the room. Nobody moved.

  Then all at once everybody started talking.

  “How?”

  “When?”

  “What happened?”

  The only person not saying anything was Riley.

  “This is reason to celebrate. Break out the champers,” yelled Danny.

  “What happened?” asked Molly.

  Everyone quietened down while I told them the story. I didn’t leave anything out, including what happened yesterday and how I quit my job. This was my family and they had to know the truth. The whole, humiliating truth.

  When I’d finished, I looked down at myself and said, “If Scott preferred a woman my mother’s age over me, what does it say about me?”

  “It doesn’t say anything about you, but it screams a whole lot about Scott,” said Danny, totally disgusted.

  I wasn’t able to look at Riley to gauge his reaction. Drew walked over and took my hand.

  “I know how you feel. Someone I cared about played up on me once. But you will get over it and you will find someone who values you.”

  “But that’s just it. I’m not upset the relationship is over. It’s just that it confirms what Scott always told me. I wasn’t good enough for him and if I wasn’t good enough for him—the low-life, cheating, scum-bastard—then who am I good enough for?”

  The tears were running now, messing up all the lovely make-up I’d spent ages perfecting. I was starting to think my mum was right. My eyes were too close to my bladder. I had never spent as much time crying as I had in the last few weeks. Drew pulled me close and held me until the tears subsided. Molly handed me the tissues, after offering one to Danny and taking one herself.

  “Let me tell you something, Lizzie,” she said, kneeling down in front of me. “You are, and always were, too good for that prick of an asshole. If he said you weren’t good enough for him, then he is not only a low-life, cheating, scum-bastard, but he’s also a liar. And I, for one, am going to kick him in the balls so hard he will never be able to reproduce any little liars like himself.”

  I noticed Danny, Riley and Andrew all cross their legs at this last statement. I had to laugh. Trust Molly to put it like that.

  “I have to tell Mum yet,” I said.

  “That one, you are on your own with.”

  We all laughed. It felt so good to be with my family. I can’t imagine my life without them. Finally getting up the courage to look over at Riley, I found him looking down, peeling the label off his beer bottle. I had no idea what he was thinking right now.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Later that night, lying in Riley’s bed, lights out, I let the events of the evening play through my mind. I felt a whole lot better now that everyone—well almost everyone—knew about Scott. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Once I told Mum and Dad, I could get on with my life and put Scott behind me. Listening closely, I could hear Riley moving around on the couch.

  “Riley? Are you awake?” I called out quietly.

  “Yep. I’m awake.”

  “Are you okay? You haven’t said very much tonight.”

  “Yeah…I’ve just got a bit on my mind, that’s all.”

  “I was thinking I’m going to move back home tomorrow. There’s not much point to staying here now he knows I’m here.”

  I heard Riley sit up. “Who knows you’re here?”

  “Sedan Man. He was here today.”

  I quickly filled Riley in on my visitor that afternoon and by the time I’d finished, he was sitting beside me on the bed, taking up way too much air space.

  “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but it’s time for you to have your life back.”

  Walking away from Riley would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it was getting too painful to be so close to him all the time.

  “I promise you, Lizzie, if you move back to your house then I will be moving in there with you. At least until this is over.”

  “But that’s not fair to you. This is my messy life and I need to learn to sort it out for myself.”

  “How do you think I would feel if I stayed here and something happened to you? I would never forgive myself.”

  I have to admit I did sleep a lot better when Riley was around. I felt him shift his weight on the mattress. “Why didn’t you tell me about Scott?”

  The answer to that was easy. Telling Riley about it was a whole lot harder.

  “Riley, you don’t have to feel responsible for me,” I said, trying my hardest to ignore his last question. “Take tonight for example—you could have been out dating some gorgeous woman, instead you’re stuck here with me and my crazy family and all the dramas that come with the package.”

  “I’m not stuck with you, Lizzie,” Riley said, patiently. “And I happen to like your family. Life’s never dull with you all around.” I could feel him smile in the darkness. God, this was torture. I could not only smell him, but I could feel him too. “And you didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you tell me about Scott? If I’d known about it, I would have handled things a whole lot differently.”

  “It’s humiliating,” I said in a small voice. “I just want to pretend the last two and a half years never happened and hide in a hole for a while.”

  I couldn’t bear it any longer. Thank goodness the lights were out and I didn’t have to see the look of pity in Riley’s eyes. Slinking down in the bed, I pulled the sheets up over my head and hid. I felt Riley move, obviously unsure of how to handle me. After a while, he took the hint and left me alone to sulk.

  * * * *

  Sunday night came around way too quickly for my liking. It was time to tell Mum and Dad about Scott. I couldn’t put it off any longer. To make matters worse—Lord only knows how—Riley had scored an invite. He’d worked on my house all day and had been playfully teasing me that tomorrow my newly renovated bath and shower would be fitted.

  We hadn’t spoken anymore about me moving back home, but my mind was made up. With the bathroom in, I no longer had any excuses to stay at his house. I suspected Riley had accepted the job in Loganville and wanted my place finished so he could move on and not have any loose en
ds. Working at the house all weekend, we’d only spotted the black sedan once, yesterday. Riley went running out to try to grab the driver. He’d quickly driven off as Riley approached and we haven’t seen him since.

  Walking into Mum’s, we found everyone in the lounge and heard Molly squealing.

  “Eew. That’s disgusting! Andrew has been drinking from that glass,” she squirmed. Looking over at Danny, I could see he was drinking out of Drew’s glass.

  “So?” said Danny looking at her.

  Personally, I didn’t see the problem with it but I knew Scott had pretty much the same reaction when I drank from his glass once.

  “Why is that so gross? He sticks his tongue in my mouth when he kisses me, so what’s different about it?”

  Good point. One to which Molly had no response as she picked up her own glass and drank, all while glaring at Danny.

  “If you have a problem with that, lucky you weren’t at the party Drew and I went to the other night. It wasn’t just drinks people were sharing,” Danny chuckled at Molly’s reaction.

  I looked over to Dad and could see he’d gone very still, not quite sure what Danny was talking about.

  “Everybody went dressed as the opposite sex. I went in my high heels, red g-string and little black dress. Drew here, was hysterical. He went dressed as a sexy granny, with the knitted cardigan and long socks under a sexy little dress.”

  This image made me smile. I could not picture Andrew, who always dressed very conservatively, dressed as a sexy granny. To prove his point, Danny pulled out his iPhone and started showing us all the photos. Dad couldn’t take it anymore. He had a lot of tolerance for gay couples, but to see his own son cross-dressing, even if it was for a fancy dress party, was obviously too much for him.

  “I’m going outside. Call me when dinner’s ready,” he said, heading for the back door.

  “Ha,” laughed Grandma. “That reminds me of a fella when I was younger. Well, maybe I shouldn’t call him a fella. It was really a girl. She used to dress as a man all the time so people wouldn’t know she and her partner were them lesbians. Of course we all knew. Even though, she was a very convincing man. She certainly wasn’t the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

  Danny passed the phone to Grandma. She took one look at Drew in the photo and burst out laughing. She laughed so hard her teeth flew out of her mouth, across the room and landed at Molly’s feet. In one fast movement, Grandma was up out of her chair, raced over to Molly, picked her teeth up and popped them back in her mouth. Looking around the room at us, she smiled as if nothing had happened.

  The look on Molly’s face was priceless. She was so grossed out that Grandma’s teeth came within a millimeter of her, she was almost frozen in place. Danny and I burst out laughing, while Andrew was slightly more composed, managing to discreetly cover his laugh. Riley just had the full on smile. Mum looked horrified. I’m not sure what horrified her more, Grandma’s teeth flying across the lounge room or the fact Grandma put them back in her mouth without washing them.

  Riley leaned over and whispered in my ear, “See, I told you it was never boring when your family’s around.”

  * * * *

  After we’d all eaten, I volunteered to help Mum with the dishes. I will admit I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to tell her about Scott without all the family listening in.

  “So, what did you want to talk to me about that couldn’t be said in front of everyone else?”

  I hadn’t said a word about needing to talk to her. “Can’t I help with the dishes without having a reason?”

  “Yes, you can. But usually you don’t,” she said, staring me down.

  “Okay!” Taking a deep breath, I continued on. “Scott and I broke up.” Holding my breath, I waited for her to respond.

  “What did you do?”

  Why did everyone always think it was me? “I didn’t do anything! Scott was playing up and I caught him.” The familiar lump sat in the back of my throat again. Looking down at the ground, I saw Mum’s big toe start to tap. This was a habit she had when she was getting angry. As kids, it was our cue to run.

  “Well, Karma will get him. What goes around comes around.” She turned to face the sink and started on the washing up. Molly, who’d been standing in the wings, came over and put her arm around my shoulder.

  “Karma sometimes gets a bit of help,” she said with a smile.

  Oh no. I can only imagine what little plan she’d been concocting. “It’s okay. I’m not bothered by it. I just want to move on and forget all about him.”

  “But what about work? You’ll have to see him there,” snapped Mum. She was obviously pretty upset about my news.

  “Yeah, about that.”

  Let’s just say the conversation that followed was not a pleasant one.

  * * * *

  Later that night, lying in the dark and listening to Riley breathing, I started to think about the party Danny and Drew went to. The photo of Danny in his red g-string had been the most disturbing. Danny was way too hairy to be a convincing girl. Before long my brain started on a bit of a path that led me to thinking about the person I see on my walks. You know, the one who I tried to get Riley to figure out if they were male or female? Anyway, I started thinking about Avis and Will and the photo I’d once owned of the two of them standing on my front porch.

  All of a sudden the pieces clicked into place. How Avis’s letters had read that they couldn’t be together, how people didn’t understand them and how Will had said he had changed for Avis. Of course he’d changed. Will was a girl.

  Jumping out of bed, I ran down the stairs and stood in front of Riley. Looking at him in the semi-darkness, lying there asleep, naked from the waist up, I almost forgot what I’d come down for. Oh, yes, that’s it. Putting my hand on his shoulder, I gently shook him until he woke up.

  “Riley. Riley. Wake up.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  “I’ve figured it out!” I said excitedly. “All this time the answer was right in front of us.”

  “What are you talking about, Lizzie?” he asked.

  “Avis and Will. I know why they couldn’t be together.”

  I sat on the lounge next to him, my hand touching his leg in my excitement. Riley leaned around and turned the lamp on. Blinking in the bright light, it took me a minute for my eyes to adjust. Wow, that’s better, I can see his muscles a whole lot better now. Gee, I’d really like to trace the hair on his stomach right down to where it disappears into his pajama pants.

  “Why couldn’t they be together?”

  “Hmm? What?” I asked. Feeling a bit flushed, I looked up at Riley and wondered what the hell he was talking about.

  “Avis and Will. Why couldn’t they be together? You just woke me up to tell me.”

  “Oh! That’s right.” Getting my thoughts back to where they should be, I said, “Will was a woman.”

  Riley didn’t say much to this, he just sat and stared at me, then rubbed his eyes a little bit more.

  “I must be really tired, because I thought you just said Will was a woman.”

  “I did. Think about it. All the things written in the letters, the fact their families didn’t approve of them,” I said ticking off my fingers as I spoke. “And remember that photo I had? That day at the library, when we saw the photo of Avis with that lady, I said to you I thought she looked familiar. I just couldn’t figure out why. Well, it’s because she was the same person in the photo I had. Only in the one I had…she was dressed as a man.”

  Riley didn’t look as convinced about this as I was. “But why would she dress as a man?”

  “Remember what Grandma Mabel was telling us? About the ugly woman who pretended to be a man so the community would think they were just your everyday couple. But how they were really gay? Gay people weren’t accepted back then like they are now, so they had to hide. I mean, we are talking about fifty-something years ago, remember.”

  “So you think Wi
ll gave the ring to Avis so they would appear to be an engaged couple and then their families found out and disapproved?”

  “Yes…something like that.”

  “But it still doesn’t tell us who Will is.” This was true. Feeling slightly deflated, I sat back and tried to think this through.

  “I wonder if Brian Hogan knew who he was. He did say he had an interesting story to tell us.”

  “Well, we’ll never know the answer to that.”

  “Well, it’s more than we knew this morning,” I said.

  “If we’re being honest here, we don’t know anything for a fact.” I thought about this for a minute.

  “I think we should go back to the library and take a look at those old photos again. I just wish I hadn’t lost the photo I had, then we could compare them properly.”

  “Do you think you’d remember it enough to be able to know if it’s the same person?”

  “I don’t really know. The photo was pretty old and wasn’t the clearest photo I’ve ever seen. Only one way to find out though. Tomorrow, we’re going back to the library.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I woke up the next morning ready to drive straight to the library but Riley reminded me he had to be at the house for the delivery of the bath. I argued I could go alone but as Riley had been a part of this since it started it was only fair he got to be there too. So, I sat in my kitchen with a cup of coffee and my thoughts, waiting for the delivery van.

  At some point that To Be Sorted file in the back of my mind would have to be dealt with, but today I didn’t feel like I had the energy for that. I did wonder about Sedan Man though, and how he fitted into my life. I had gone over it a thousand times and could not come up with any logical reason why he would be following me. I mean, if he was some weirdo stalker, how did I meet him? I’d never been one to frequent bars or nightclubs, so it’s not like I acquired an admirer there without realizing. I couldn’t ever recall meeting him through work. The only time I could remember seeing him was after I moved in here. But according to Helen, he’d never been here before I moved in. We hadn’t seen him since Saturday but I wasn’t convinced we’d seen the last of him.