Less Than Frank

by Bulock, Lynn

  “Nope. Nobody Matt knows has the kind of money he’d need to get out. The Ventura County bail schedule starts murder bail bonds at five hundred thousand.”

  Heather gulped. “Half a million dollars? That’s incredible. Nobody could pay that, could they?”

  “You’re right. Even what somebody would have to give a bail bondsman, which would be fifty thousand dollars, is more than anybody I know would risk at this point.”

  “More than I’d be willing to spend on bailing somebody out of jail who probably belongs there in the first place.” Paula’s lip curled in contempt. Too bad she held that opinion, because the real estate agent might have been the one Christian Friend who would have connections to someone with enough money to bail Matt out.

  Dot looked at Paula in consternation. “Now how can you say that? I don’t think you’ve ever met Matt.”

  Paula’s chin rose. “Actually, I have. Leopold Plumbing redid the wet bar in our game room. They did a decent job but charged us double what our old contractor did. When I complained about it, Matt Seavers had the nerve to tell me that none of the other firm’s work would pass code.”

  Given the strict nature of Ventura County’s codes on remodeling, I imagined Matt had been right. That wouldn’t have made it any easier for Paula to hear, especially coming from somebody as young-looking and tentative as Matt. In her line of work she expected to be right most of the time, and not crossed.

  Lexy appeared to be trying to be diplomatic. “I’m sorry to hear you don’t think much of Matt, but I don’t see what his lack of tact has to do with his likelihood of being a murderer.”

  Paula sniffed. “Anybody who could be that rude to a paying customer certainly doesn’t have any respect for others.”

  Dot shook her head and rolled her eyes but stayed silent. Paula couldn’t see the gesture from where she sat, but I could. Still, I didn’t even think of laughing because I’d already promised myself that I would be as kind to Paula as possible. Her prickly nature hid a wounded heart just like any of ours. It was a pity she didn’t like Matt, though.

  “Does Brian need money for expenses? I know he’s doing this pro bono, but there have to be things involved that cost money,” Dot said.

  Lexy shrugged. “There are things, but Matt’s family doesn’t have any money. Brian talked to his father, for all the good it did. Matt basically supports him, not the other way around. Even if the man had any extra money, Brian said he expected it would go for alcohol, not helping his son. Brian’s just a good-hearted Christian guy who will eat the costs.”

  “That’s too bad. We’ll just have to work on it ourselves,” Dot said, getting that stubborn look I’d seen more than once on my friend. “I imagine I can talk Buck out of the three hundred dollars we got for that last puppy of Sophia’s. If he argues I’ll tell him it will be instead of the diamond earrings I asked for this Christmas.”

  “Buck is getting you diamond earrings?” Linnette looked surprised.

  Dot grinned. “No, but I always ask for them. I always get something far more practical, like a new blender but that doesn’t keep me from putting them at the top of the Christmas list every year as a joke. Whether the package contains a blender or diamond earrings doesn’t matter to either of us. And this year I’m happy for it to go toward help for Matt.”

  “I could probably come up with fifty dollars,” Heather said softly. Her new teaching job at the closest community college covered the bills for her and Corinna, but didn’t leave a lot afterward. Like me, she found herself challenged by losing her savings to Dennis Peete over year ago.

  Paula’s shoulders slumped. “I guess you could put me in for a hundred. Maybe Matt Seavers was just doing his job when we argued.” It was easy to see she hated to be bested by someone of such limited means.

  “Put me down for fifty,” I told Lexy. It would be a stretch, but that inner voice that urged me to do things I didn’t think possible was nudging me. I’d learned not to ignore that voice.

  “Okay, that’s enough to cover any out-of-pocket costs for Brian just over dinner. I wonder what I can get out of Steve if I make puppy eyes at him.” Lexy had a grin to match Dot’s. “And I haven’t even talked to Linnette yet, or Pastor George about the church’s emergency fund. We’re making progress.”

  The meeting got a lot less somber from then on, especially when Linnette brought out a tray of cookies. There’s nothing like chocolate, sugar and hope to lift the mood of a group of women.

  I felt pretty chipper by the time I drove home after the meeting. We hadn’t exactly solved all the world’s problems, or even all of Matt’s problems, but at least things looked better. When I pulled into the driveway Ben’s car was there and through the window I could see the Christmas tree lights on.

  When I opened the door I heard the familiar sounds of video games on the TV and saw my son sprawled out on the floor. The only surprise was that there was a young lady sitting close to him, also holding a controller and laughing while she apparently beat him at a game.

  “See, I told you I could, and you didn’t believe me,” she crowed. The room got its light from the tree and the TV screen, so I couldn’t tell right away who this girl was. I had the suspicion, however, that this might be the mysterious Kylie. I flipped on the light switch next to the door, knowing it would probably earn me a howl from Ben. That was tough, because while I appreciated the art of playing video games in the dark, I didn’t want him in the living room with a girl in the dark, even playing video games.

  “Whoa. Hi, Mom.” Ben looked up from his screen just long enough to say hello, then went back to the game. In less than a minute the screen was flashing with things like “game over” and “winner, player 2” that had Kylie laughing again and Ben putting down his game controller in disgust.

  “Now that we’re to a good stopping place, let me introduce you.” Ben got his long legs untangled and stood up, putting out a hand to his friend to hoist her off the floor as well. She had a lot less trouble getting up, being compact to his gangliness. “Mom, this is Kylie. Kylie, this is my mom, Gracie Lee Harris. Kylie goes to school with me, Mom, and she’s in the praise band at your church.”

  “Hi. Nice to meet you,” the young lady said, bouncing up for the typical hug-and-air-kiss female California greeting. Her black hair was glossy and a wonderful sweet floral scent wafted around her.

  “Nice to meet you, too. Ben’s been talking about you some and I wondered how long it would be until I met you.” Now that I had a chance to look at the mystery lady close up, I saw that I was going to have to mentally change the way I spelled her name. Instead of the Irish or Midwest American lass I’d expected with a name like Kylie, this girl was Asian. She was also pretty enough that I had to wonder what she saw in my scruffy-looking son with that awful goatee, but then it was grown to appeal to her, not me.

  “Oh, so you’ve been talking about me?” she asked, looking up at him and arching one delicate eyebrow. I was quite thankful to see that said eyebrow had no rings or other jewelry pushed through it. In fact, what I could see of her didn’t sport any unusual holes or piercings at all. Even her earrings were small and her speech was too crisp for a tongue stud.

  Ben shrugged. “Not that much. I said we were going to the movies last week. And I might have said something about the praise band being good at the chapel.” His smile looked softer when he talked to her. I hadn’t ever seen Ben before with a girl he appeared to care much about. This was interesting.

  “So, since you play in the praise band, does this mean you live here in town?” I had to keep making some conversation and that felt like a safe subject.

  “My parents live in Newbury Park,” she said, naming another suburb between Thousand Oaks and Camarillo.

  “She’s a scholarship student like me, so she lives in the dorm when school’s in session. That’s how we got to know each other, going to advising meetings together.”

  “Yeah, they were spectacularly boring, but at least they had benefi
ts,” Kylie said, grinning. How did she spell her name? It was a goofy detail that would aggravate me until I asked.

  Instead of launching a question like that, which would have Ben doing an eye roll in front of her, I sat in the armchair while they took the couch and I cast about for another subject. I found one easily enough when they both picked up plastic drinking cups with huge straws poking through a taut sheet of plastic wrap. The contents of each cup had unidentifiable objects in the bottom of the cup, surrounded by pale liquid. Ben’s was green; Kylie’s was sort of a peachy orange.

  “What on earth do you have there?” It was the strangest looking drink I’d ever seen, and I hoped it wasn’t anything that would cause a family argument.

  “Boba,” they said in tandem, giving me that universal look that said I was hopelessly behind the times.

  “Go on. Explain more. I have no idea what boba is, or are,” I admitted, sealing my fate as a clueless parent.

  “It’s kind of like an ice-blended coffee, only not,” Ben started. I felt like this was going to be a long, confusing explanation.

  “Why don’t you give her a sip of yours,” Kylie suggested. “It’s easier to explain once you’ve tasted it.”

  I wasn’t all that sure I wanted to, but Ben was already proffering his cup. It had the weight and feel of an iced coffee, but there was something knocking against the side of the cup.

  “Some places call it bubble tea,” the girl said while I looked at the cup. My look must have been tentative because she kept on talking. “Ben’s is green tea and mine is mango. They’re really good.” She had that tone I could remember trying with a toddler facing a spoonful of cauliflower.

  I was in too deep to pull back now, so I took a sip on the huge straw. The sweet, icy liquid had a milky green tea flavor, but what really threw me was the marble-sized ball of something that bounced in my mouth with the liquid. I must have really looked surprised, because Ben laughed softly.

  “You found one of the tapioca pearls. That’s the stuff on the bottom, the black balls. I think they’re fun.”

  “Hmm.” I rolled the tapioca thing around, trying to figure out how I’d describe the texture. It was somewhere between rubber and a ripe berry, and truly a unique experience. I thanked Ben, handed back his drink, and promised myself that this would be a unique experience for sure, because one taste of boba was enough for me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dot laughed the next morning while I described boba tea to her. “You’re braver than I am. Candace and some of her friends enjoy that stuff, too, but I’m not trying it. My mother used to say tapioca looked like fish eyes, and that big black stuff looks even more like fish eyes than the little pearls you make pudding out of. No, thank you.”

  I admitted to her that it was probably a one-time experience for me. “I don’t have enough desire for Ben to think I’m hip and trendy to try it again. It gave me the oddest combination of brain freeze and weird mouth feel that I’ve ever had. Maybe I did it just to impress his girlfriend.”

  “Oh? He brought home a girl?”

  “Yes, one from school. She plays in the praise band at church, too. I thought he’d been awfully happy to go to services with me lately.”

  “I wouldn’t recognize her from that. Buck says all praise songs sound alike to him, so I humor him and go to the traditional service with him.”

  I would beg to differ with him on that point, but it’s the same thing my mom says. Maybe it just takes an open mind and younger ears to enjoy a praise band. There were always some people more my mom’s age or Dot’s at the contemporary service, but they weren’t the majority.

  “Is she a freshman like Ben?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t talk that long. Once I’d been introduced Ben decided it was time to take Cai Li home before I asked her too many questions. I don’t know why he was so anxious to go. We’d only gotten through the basics, like whether her parents had grown up here or abroad and how many brothers and sisters she had.”

  I couldn’t help grinning while I said all of that. For Ben it was probably way too much information for me to know how Cai Li spelled her name, that her parents came from Vietnam in the early 70s and that she had what she described as “two bratty little brothers” at home. And here I had just been getting started. She and I had been warming up to each other, but Ben got more antsy with each question and answer, until he finally almost pulled her out the door, insisting that he needed to get her home early for a change. I had to think he didn’t want his brand-new girlfriend and his mother bonding just yet.

  I could understand his argument if I really thought about it from his young, male point of view. But thanks to events he didn’t even know much about, this was the only way I was ever going to experience anything close to having a daughter. My face must have shown some of what I was thinking, because Dot put a hand on my arm.

  “Okay, where are you inside there? Do you want company?”

  “I don’t know. Just thinking about things that happened a long time ago. Sometimes I get a little jealous of all of you with daughters.”

  Dot was quiet for a while, looking at me with a gentle, knowing look. “You had one once, didn’t you?” Dot asked softly.

  “Yes, I did.” I hadn’t told anybody about this in years. “For six days. She was born prematurely, eighteen months after Ben. I was still very young, just past twenty-one, and when Emily died it was the beginning of the end for my marriage.”

  “Losing a child is one of those events that either strengthens a couple tremendously or pulls them apart.” I felt thankful for them that Dot and Buck’s troubles apparently strengthened their relationship.

  “Just losing her wasn’t the thing that pulled us apart. It was the way that Hal and his mother took over while I spent all my time in the neonatal intensive care unit with our daughter that week. My parents were taking care of Ben, so I could be there. I couldn’t do much for her, couldn’t even hold her most of the time. She was so tiny and so frail. I wanted to name her Joanna Louise for two of our grandmothers.”

  “But you just called her Emily, so I have to assume that didn’t happen.”

  I was crying now, but it felt good, and I could talk through the tears. “Right. After four days straight the nurses insisted that I go home, shower and sleep in my own bed. When I came back into the nursery the next morning, instead of the incubator saying “baby girl Harris” like it had before, it said Emily Jo Harris. I felt stunned.

  “Hal’s mother insisted that the baby had to be named and baptized before she died, and she was adamant that it happen right then. Hal didn’t argue with her and somehow figured that I wouldn’t, either. By the time I got back everything was done.”

  “Did the name mean something to Hal’s mother?” Why did Dot always have to be so perceptive? Even my mother hadn’t asked that question right away.

  “Hal had an older sister who only lived two weeks. Her name was Emily. I was totally horrified that they would name our daughter, who was fighting so hard to live, for a little girl who had died. When Emily got a staph infection the next night, I never left her side again, but the damage had already been done to our marriage.”

  Dot handed me a tissue from somewhere and kept patting my arm. “You know, some day you ought to talk about this with the rest of the Christian Friends. They’re very good listeners.”

  “I know. And most of the time I’m okay with this now. But thinking about Ben’s girlfriend, and how I just had to talk to her last night made me wonder if I was trying to replace Emily just a little.”

  “Maybe so. I know I tend to latch on to bright, independent young women to give me a little bit of what I know I won’t quite have with Candace, but I don’t feel guilty about it anymore. I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter, and I figure God sends me other people, like you, Gracie Lee, to give me the things I miss.”

  I felt touched to think that Dot had adopted me even a little. Family is a funny concept sometimes. It often has as
much to do with who we love and how we relate to people as it does with blood. The wise old pastor at Granny Jo’s church back in Cape Girardeau used to say that folks said blood is thicker than water, but he believed that the baptismal water that made us all part of the family of God was thicker than any blood. “Thanks, Dot. I can always use another mom.” Hugging her there in her kitchen made me wonder where Matt and Lucy’s broader family came from, and how we needed to fit into that family to keep Matt from being held and even perhaps tried for a murder he didn’t commit.

  I’d barely gotten home from Dot’s when she called me on the phone with unbelievable news. “Ed Leopold and at least one of his crew members want to come over and look at the bathroom.” I could hardly believe our good fortune. Given that it was less than a week until Christmas, I’d figured that nothing else would happen until the New Year started, or perhaps even sometime around Groundhog Day. But by ten Mr. Leopold and his son Bob stood in the bathroom measuring, checking pipe joints and writing down whole bunches of things that didn’t really make sense to me, but certainly did to them.

  They turned down my offer of coffee and kept working in the bathroom for a while. Either Ben was so sound asleep that they weren’t bothering him or he’d prudently decided not to put in an appearance in his pajamas. I retreated to the living room to glance at the newspaper and have a cup of the coffee I’d made. In twenty minutes or so, the Leopolds came out of the bathroom. Surprisingly enough they both had smiles on their faces.

  “This isn’t near as bad as I thought it would be,” Ed told me, looking down at his legal pad full of notes. “Once I talk to Mrs. Morgan again and figure out just what she’s paid on the missing fixtures, and who got the money, we can be good to go. I figure Wednesday or Thursday we could put in the second commode and do most of the finishing in that section. The plumbing and the bathtub will take a little longer, what with the tile that needs to go in, but definitely it’ll be done before New Year’s Eve.”