by Lois Winston
"Dead"
"What!"
"He's dead," said Ralph, with a squawk for emphasis. "Troilus and Cressida. Act Five, Scene Ten."
"Honestly, Anastasia, when are you going to get rid of that filthy flying rat?"
I glared at Ralph, daring him to comment further. He glared back but kept his beak shut. Sometimes Ralph seemed smarter than all the rest of us put together, and I suspected he knew it.
I turned back to my mother. "Forget Ralph, Mama. What happened to Seamus?"
"That damn parrot of Penelope's will outlive us all. What is he? A hundred years old by now?"
"Mama! Can we please get back to Seamus?"
With her classic Talbots fashion sense and chin-length, L'Oreal- enhanced natural strawberry blonde waves, on a good day Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O'Keefe bore a striking resemblance to Ellen Burstyn as the older Doris in Same Time Next Year.
Today was not a good day.
Seamus's death and jet lag had taken their toll on my mother. She still looked like Ellen Burstyn, but more like the lonely widow Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream.
Mama's face became a haggard mask of resignation. She inhaled deeply, releasing the breath in a dramatic sigh. "Face it, Anastasia. When it comes to men, I'm cursed." She collapsed onto one of the two overstuffed easy chairs that flanked the bay window. "He had to kiss that damn Blarney Stone! I told him it was dangerous, but would he listen to me? No!"
I'd never been to Ireland, let alone Blarney Castle, but I assumed they had certain safeguards in place for such a popular tourist attraction. "He fell?"
"No, no, no. He suffered a fatal cerebral aneurysm when he leaned backward to kiss that damn stone. Died instantly. And on our six-month anniversary!"
Poor Seamus. So much for the luck of the Irish. And poor Mama.
Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O'Keefe had a knack for losing husbands. With Seamus gone, she was fast approaching Liz Taylor territory. In truth, Mama didn't lose them so much as they wound up dying on her in a succession of odd circumstances. My own father had drowned while scuba diving in the Yucatan on their twenty-fifth anniversary.
A year and a half later, Mama remarried. Husband Number Two, an adventure-seeking daredevil, lasted four months before the bulls gored him to death as he raced through the streets of Pamplona.
Number Three made it to their first anniversary. Barely. Highly allergic to shellfish and having forgotten to bring along his epinephrine, he asphyxiated after inhaling the aroma from a sizzling platter of shrimp that a waiter carried past their table.
Number Four lost his footing at the Grand Canyon and plunged to his death during their honeymoon.
So now Mama was once again widowed. A temporary situation. Mama was the kind of woman who needed a man. And whenever Mama was between husbands, she came to stay with us.
Except that every other time Mama had camped out at Casa Pollack during a husband-hunting campaign, we hadn't been stuck with Lucille. If I bunked them together, would either still be alive tomorrow morning?
The grandfather clock in the hall bonged two-thirty. Mephisto growled.
Catherine the Great hissed.
Ralph squawked.
Lucille glared a SCUD missile at Mama.
Mama countered with a Patriot missile aimed back at Lucille.
Batswin and Robbins suspected me of murder.
Ricardo wanted his fifty grand, or else.
A multi-species World War III was about to erupt in my living room.
How lucky could one slightly overweight, more than slightly in debt, middle-aged widow get?
King Solomon would have thrown his arms up in defeat if he'd had to figure out sleeping arrangements at Casa Pollack that night. Nick had already doubled-up in Alex's room, sleeping on the trundle. That left the trundle under the twin in his room, where Lucille now slept, and my master bedroom with its queen-size bed and attached bathroom.
Call me selfish, but having already lost my husband and my financial security last week, I wasn't about to give up half my bed this week. Not even to my mother.
I took a mental deep breath and laid out the sleeping arrangements. "Mama, I'm afraid you and Lucille will have to share a room.
"Absolutely not," said Lucille. She grabbed her cane and pounded it into the carpet. Mephisto yelped. "She can sleep with you. My room is too small."
I refused to let my mother-in-law boss me around in my own home. Comrade Lucille could share. Like a good communist. "No" I turned to my mother, "Mama, I'm sorry."
Her jaw dropped, her eyes widened in horror. "Anastasia, you can't-"
"I'm the one paying room and board," said Lucille, her voice rising several octaves. "That entitles me to a room of my own."
"Paying?" Mama's brow wrinkled. "You mean she's not just visiting?"
"Unfortunately."
"That woman's living with you?" Mama's shrieked question did wonders for the headache that had begun the moment I walked in the house-ratcheting it up from a quartet of percussionists to the entire New York Philharmonic pounding out the 1812 Overture. At glass-shattering decibels. I quickly explained about the fire. And Lucille's life savings going up in flames.
Mama turned on Lucille. "Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, you stupid old Bolshevik cow. The Depression ended over sixty years ago. Ever hear of FDIC? Banks have been safe for decades."
Lucille pounced on Mama. "Capitalists like you caused the Depression. It happened once; it can happen again. FDIC or no FDIC. Ever hear of Enron? Or Tyco? Or WorldCom?"
That was hitting below the belt. Mama had heard of all three. She'd lost much of her retirement savings because of them. And Lucille knew it.
"Enough!" I grabbed my mother's suitcase and marched down the hall. On my way to what used to be Nick's room, I grabbed a set of fresh sheets, a blanket, and a pillow from the linen closet. Behind me I heard Mama and Lucille continuing their political knock-down, drag-out boxing match.
Forget detente. I needed an iron Curtain between their beds.
After dumping Mama's suitcase and the linens, I headed for the kitchen. Yanking open the freezer door, I grabbed a bag of frozen peas, a spoon, and the last carton of Ben and Jerry's I'd be able to afford for Lord knew how many decades. After settling into bed, I placed the bag of peas across my pounding forehead, closed my eyes, and savored a large spoonful of Chunky Monkey.
Thirty minutes later I was basking on a deserted, sunny beach in Maui. Sipping a frozen pina colada, I sank my toes into the warm sand and my mind into the latest of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books.
As I inhaled the rich scent of orchids, the ground began to rumble and shake. An angry Kilauea yanked me off the sand and out of REM sleep.
I glanced at the illuminated digital display on my alarm clock. With a groan, I rolled over to confront the volcano. "Mama, please, I have to get up for work in a few hours. I can't have you sleeping with me."
"I simply cannot share a room with that woman!" she said, burrowing under the blankets beside me. In the process she appropriated more than her fair share of both the mattress and the quilts.
"Do you know that woman snores like an elephant? And so does that damn dog of hers. Except when he's growling at Catherine the Great. I'm afraid he'll attack my poor precious if I doze off."
The aforementioned corpulent pussy jumped on the bed, settling her royal rump in my face. In less than three minutes both Mama and Catherine the Great were snoring loud enough to rattle the windows, and I was wide awake.
I yanked my pillow out from under Catherine the Great, grabbed one of the quilts off the bed, my portable alarm clock from the nightstand, and headed for the den. With luck, Ralph would be asleep and not wake from the nocturnal intrusion into his domain. I could do without Shakespeare at three in the morning.
As I made my way down the darkened hall, I spit cat hairs from between my lips. Mama was missing the entrepreneurial venture of a lifetime. Catherine the Gr
eat shed enough fur to provide Dolly Parton with an unending supply of wigs, which would in turn provide Mama with a steady income-something she sorely needed, given her penchant for marrying men who lived way beyond their means and left her with little besides short-lived memories.
For the next several hours I tossed and turned on my makeshift bed. The den couch had seen better days a decade ago. A replacement had been at the head of my home improvements list for ages, but something more pressing always bumped it back to Number Two. Or Three. Or Thirty. Like a leaky roof. Or a dead washing machine.
Or a gambling husband.
Besides a lumpy couch keeping me awake, thoughts of extortion and murder raced through my veins and my brain like a triple-shot espresso. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a dead Marlys, heard a threatening Ricardo. Saw the crime-fighting duo of Batswin and Robbins jabbing their accusatory fingers in my face. And I still had no idea what I was going to do when Ricardo demanded his money a few short hours from now.
A discordant orchestra made up of Mama and Lucille and Mephisto and Catherine the Great played in the background. Above the din of their grumbling and griping and growling and hissing, Ralph squawked, "Help, ho! Murder! Murder! Othello. Act Five, Scene One." Eyes open or closed, the nightmare pounded in my head.
I tossed and turned and tossed some more. Finally, out of sheer exhaustion, my brain called it a night-or a morning, considering the late hour-and drifted me back to the sands of Maui.
A moment later the alarm clock screamed the arrival of six A.M.
"MOM! WE'RE GONNA MISS the bus," yelled Alex a short time later. "Grandmother Lucille's set up base camp in the bathroom."
"For a change," added Nick.
"And Grandma Flora's taken your bathroom hostage," continued Alex.
"Tell me about it," I muttered. The moment I'd stepped out of my bathroom in search of clean underwear, Mama had commandeered the commode, locking herself in and taking my hairdryer and make-up prisoner.
I pounded on the door. "Mama, are you coming out any time soon?"
"I don't think so, dear. Having a bit of a problem this morning."
Lord, please don't let me have inherited Mama's internal plumbing, I prayed as I headed for the other bathroom. One working mother, two elderly women with an assortment of semi-dysfunctional bodily functions, and two hormone-driven studmuffin teenagers definitely required more than two bathrooms and a forty-gallon hot water heater.
I pounded on the door of the hall bathroom. "Lucille, the boys need to get in there." She didn't answer. I tried the knob. Locked.
I pounded harder. Mephisto's bark echoed off the tile. "Lucille!"
"Leave me alone. I'm busy!" A sound better left to the confines of the bathroom punctuated her statement. The Devil Dog yelped.
"She cares more about that dog than she does us," said Nick.
"We don't choose our relatives," I said, as much as I wished otherwise.
"I'll bet Dad was secretly adopted," said Alex.
"Or maybe stolen at birth," offered Nick. "He was nothing like her. Ever."
In truth Karl had been the complete opposite of his mother in both appearance and personality, not to mention political persuasion. Then again, had Karl been more like his mother, I never would have married him, and I wouldn't currently be treading water in the middle of piranha-infested Lake Titicaca. Pun intended.
Karl had inherited all his genes from his father. Or so I assumed. According to my husband, his father had walked out on them shortly after knocking up his mother. No one had seen or heard from Isidore Pollack since.
Another sound best left undescribed erupted from behind the door.
"What's she doing in there?" asked Alex.
"I'm not sure I want to know."
"We need another bathroom," said Nick.
I offered him a wry, caffeine and sleep deprived grin. "I'll add it to my list."
"Sorry, Mom," he mumbled. I hadn't yet told my sons the full extent of our financial problems, but I did have to tell them something of the situation. Our lifestyle had to change and change fast. They'd taken the news as best as can be expected from typical teenage boys, which is to say not well at all.
I dreaded having to tell them all that I'd left out. Like their now nonexistent college accounts. Only a year and a half away from college, Alex had his heart set on Harvard. Until last week, I believed we'd have no trouble swinging the steep Ivy League fees. Today we couldn't even afford the local community college. Coward that I am, I kept putting off the college discussion. But now that Lucille knew the extent of our pauperdom, I knew I had to tell my kids soon.
Nick fixed his gaze on a dust bunny that had taken up residence between the carpet runner and the baseboard. Or maybe it was one of Catherine the Great's hairballs. Something else I didn't want to know at six-thirty in the morning. Cleaning came last on my to-do list right now. Not that it had ever ranked all that high, but there are just so many hours in the day, and a girl's got to juggle and prioritize.
And delegate.
As soon as they decamped from the bathrooms, I'd assign Mama and Lucille cleaning and laundry detail. I didn't dare ask them to take over the cooking. Either they'd burn the house down or we'd all wind up with a case of food poisoning. Possibly both.
I placed my hand on Nick's shoulder. "We'll get through this."
"How?"
I haven't a clue, but we will. Meanwhile, go use the bathroom in the apartment above the garage."
"I thought we were going to rent that out."
"We are. As of Saturday. And don't worry about the bus. I'll drive you both to school."
The phone rang as the boys headed toward the back door. "I'll get it," Alex yelled.
A moment later he called out, "Hey, Mom, it's for you. Some guy. Says it's important."
I grabbed the phone, placed my hand over the mouthpiece and pointed to the back door. "Hurry up," I told the boys. I waited until they closed the door behind them before speaking into the phone.
"Hello?" As much as I hoped it was that guy from Publisher's Clearing House telling me I'd won a million dollars, I knew immediately it was my not-so-friendly neighborhood loan shark.
"Got my money?"
"I told you, I don't have your money."
Ricardo made a noise that sounded halfway between a tsk and a kiss. "And I happen to know otherwise. Check your safe deposit box recently?"
"Look, for all I know Karl never even met you. What proof do I have that he owed you any money?"
"My word."
I snorted. "Since when is the word of an extortionist worth anything?"
"Extortionist?" His tone grew more menacing. "Look, lady, I staked that no-good weasel husband of yours to fifty G's. I know for a fact he got the dough to pay me back. Now I want it, and I intend to get it. Capisce?"
"And I'm telling you I don't have it. Karl left me with nothing but debt."
"Then you'd better find some way to get it. And remember, Sweet Cheeks, you tell the cops, and you live to regret it. Get my drift?"
I clenched the receiver so tightly that my knuckles turned white and my fingers throbbed. "Stop threatening me!"
"No threats, Sweet Cheeks. Facts. By the way, those are two handsome looking kids you got there. Spittin' image of their old man. Sure would be a shame if they lost those good looks."
"No!" I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle my strangled cry. My words came out in a choked whisper. "Leave my sons alone. Please! You'll get your money. I just need some time."
"You got a week."
"That's not enough!"
"One week." The phone went dead.
Marlys's murder aside, I couldn't wait to get to work. Another day of backstabbing office politics would seem like a week at The Golden Door Spa compared to dealing with widowhood, pauperdom, and getting shaken down by a loan shark-not to mention dealing with Lucille and Mama.
Some sadist had yanked me out of my dull but normal life and plunked me down in the middle of a J
anet Evanovich novel. What would Stephanie Plum do? I pondered this question on my drive to work. Stephanie never had to worry, though. No matter how big the mess she found herself in, good old Janet would write her a happy ending. No such luck for me. My problems were real. They weren't about to disappear with the stroke of a pen or click of a keyboard.
By the time I arrived at work, an hour late and with damp hair, speculative gossip circled the halls of Trimedia. Half the staff crowded around the entrance to my cubicle. They scattered like cockroaches as I approached. All except Cloris and Daphne.
"Did you hear?" asked Daphne. Her wild mane of Nicole Kidman red curls bounced on her shoulders as she bounced on the balls of her Payless mock alligator pumps. "Someone killed Marlys last night. Here. In your office."
That last bit of information seemed a tad redundant, considering, as I'd suspected, yellow crime tape barred the entrance to my cubicle. "I know," I told her. "I found the body."
"Shut up!" she shrieked.
"You didn't!" cried Cloris.
I gave them a quick recap of my late-night adventure after returning to the office.
"Ewww!" Daphne hugged her arms around her chest and shivered, whether from her belly button-showcasing ivory lace croptop or from revulsion was anyone's guess. "That's too weird."
"Someone sure has a sick sense of humor," said Cloris. "Who do you think did it?"
"Marlys had more enemies than friends. I'd imagine there's a long list of people who hated her"
"But enough to kill her?" asked Daphne, her wide-eyed gaze fixed on my nearly empty office. The police had confiscated my computer, my desk chair, all my supplies, and-worst of all-the three dozen satin birdseed roses scheduled for this morning's photo shoot.
A thin coating of black fingerprint powder dusted the empty counters and shelves. Was I expected to clean up the mess or could I cajole the janitor into tackling the chore? "Do you think crime scene cleanup is included in the janitor's job description?" I asked.
"Don't count on it," said Daphne. "Those guys are unionized."
Have I mentioned how low a priority cleaning is on my to-do list?
