Bad Heiress Day

by Allie Pleiter

“Don enjoyed the new do huh?”

  “I got two whole compliments yesterday. He can’t seem to stop touching my hair.”

  Darcy gaped at her. Don wasn’t exactly a man given to compliments and hair touching. This was high praise, indeed.

  Kate tossed her hair like a shampoo ad. “And I owe it all to Darcy Nightengale and the wonders of The Restoration Project,” she added with infomercial-quality enthusiasm. “Maybe I need to give a testimonial to Jack.”

  Darcy sent her a mock glare. “You stay away from Jack.” She took a sip of tea. “He did hip-check me yesterday in the Bidwells’ driveway.”

  “Hip-check?” Kate’s eyebrows furrowed a moment. “You mean that little side-bumping thing he used to do to you all the time? The thing that bugged you so much when you were dating?”

  “Yep.”

  “I thought you hated that.”

  “I thought I did, too. Until he did it yesterday. It was…I don’t know…something from another time. A piece of memory from when we were young and gushy. Instead of old and responsible.”

  Kate squinted her eyes, calculating. “So Jack hip-checked you. Okay, not exactly changing the world, but I think it qualifies as a solid spark.” She straightened in her stool and planted her hands on the table. “I think this is just going to take some time. Talk to him again. If your eyes look to him like they do to me when you talk about this idea of yours, I don’t see how he can say no. Maybe he just needs time to come around.”

  “I don’t know. Oh, Kate, maybe this whole thing is just plain stupid.”

  “No, no, Dar, it’s not. It’s not, and you’ve got the hip-checks and—” she winked “—I’ve got the hair touching to prove it. You’re onto something, girl. I know you are. You know you are. And it’s not stupid.” Kate gave Darcy her own version of a hip-check. “Promise me you’ll try to talk to him again tonight, will you?”

  Darcy nodded as the phone rang.

  Kate grabbed her purse and took a couple of gulps of tea for the road. She mouthed “See you” and waved over her shoulder as she let herself out the back door. Darcy picked up the receiver.

  “Mrs. Nightengale, this is George Tortman at Nichols School.” Tortman, Tortman. Darcy strove to place the name. Torture Man. The kids called him Mr. Torture Man.

  Because he was the Dean of Discipline at Nichols Middle School. Now what?

  Darcy forced her voice to sound casual and upbeat. “Good afternoon, Mr. Tortman. What can I do for you?” More like, What are you going to do to me, Torture Man? Surely no good could come from a call like this.

  “I need to speak to you about Michael.”

  Nope, no good at all.

  “He did what?”

  “He wrote on his desk.”

  Jack snapped his tie off with something close to disgust.

  “Mike got a detention for writing on his desk? How bad can that be?”

  “Well,” Darcy tried to soften her voice as she folded a fourth bath towel, “he wrote a lot. An entire song. Well, the words to a song, actually.”

  Mike kicked his dress shoes onto the closet floor. “Why am I sure it wasn’t ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’?”

  “Mike covered his algebra class desk with the lyrics to a rock song. A rather depressing, anxious one. Social angst, heartbreak, despondent slacker kind of stuff.”

  “Great.”

  “Evidently at first they thought Mike had written it. The song I mean. That the words were his own. Which, of course, sent the school counselor into action. You know, recent death in the family and all.” Darcy snatched another towel from the laundry basket and began folding it aggressively. “Only when things began to heat up did he admit it was just song lyrics.”

  “Oh,” moaned Jack sarcastically, “that makes it so much better.”

  “I made Mike show me the lyrics off the CD liner sheet. They weren’t violent or anything like that, just rather depressing. Dark and dreary.”

  “Lovely. Did he say why he did it?”

  “He…said he was bored.” Darcy hesitated, knowing this would just broil up the whole Mike-needs-to-go-to-private-school argument on top of everything else.

  Jack blew a breath out sharply. “Can’t he just twiddle his thumbs like the rest of the world? He’s never done this before.”

  “Even Mr. Tortman admitted they haven’t been completely happy with this new math teacher,” Darcy offered, not at all sure that was the right thing to say.

  “That’s no excuse. This is dumb, Dar. Even for Mike.”

  “I don’t think he ever thought anything like this would come of it.”

  Jack looked at her. “So you’re defending him?” This was getting nowhere fast.

  “No, Jack, I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to figure out how this happened, same as you.”

  “I know how this happened. Mike needs more challenge. We’ve been saying that for months. When is the last time he’s even brought math homework home? He finishes everything in school. Early. He hasn’t brought home anything lower than an A-in math for two years and I never even see him putting in much of an effort. We can’t let this slide. He could be doing so much more than coasting. Mike’s got to have someone teaching him at his level.”

  “I know,” Darcy shot back, stuffing the towels into the linen closet as if she were loading a cannon. “I said the same thing to Mr. Torture Man.”

  Jack looked at her. “Mr. Who?”

  Darcy hadn’t even realized she called him that. Oh, no, had she called him Torture Man to his face…uh phone, too, without realizing it? There’s something that should really help the situation. “Mr. Tortman. The kids call him Mr. Torture Man.”

  Jack started to laugh, despite himself. “You didn’t call him Mr. Torture Man, did you? You know how you are with names.”

  “No, I’m sure I didn’t.” When Jack made a face at her, though, even she started to laugh. “A least I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

  “Let’s hope so.” The tension in Jack’s shoulders softened a bit. “Look, I’ve had a lousy day at work.” He came over to her, helping her with the last towel. “This isn’t a new argument, Dar. We’ve been talking about this for over a year. You know Mike needs a more advanced education—at least in math—and who knows what other subjects. For crying out loud, we were so frustrated last spring when those test scores came back. We both said he should be at Simmons Academy, not at Nichols. Back then it was impossible. Now, it may be an option for us. Lots of things may be options for us now.” He stared at her, a tall dark pillar of sensibility. “Are you going to let a goofy idea of your dad’s stand in the way of this family’s options?”

  Well, that was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Trouble is, it wasn’t just Dad’s goofy idea. Darcy had a relentlessly goofy idea of her own. One she wasn’t sure her husband, Mr. Sensibility, would ever understand. She barely understood it herself.

  The confusion must have been obvious, for Jack just sighed. He turned to lean his back against the closet door, letting his head fall back as well. “You’re still grieving. You’ve been through a huge trauma. You’re exhausted. Can you just consider the possibility that I may be able to see this more clearly than you can right now?”

  He was right. There were barrelfuls of emotions tangled up in this. She knew he saw it all in the pure science of facts and figures. He had it all covered, caged up inside sharp edges of prudent finance. No one in their right mind would argue with his thinking.

  So why was she so angry?

  Chapter 8

  Loose Ends on the Loose

  Darcy turned the page on her kitchen calendar slowly, almost with ceremony. October. It was a new month. It felt somehow important, and then again not at all. Time was marching on, and that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  The first of the month had seemed like a good day to make the appointment when she’d scheduled it. A day to close out some things and start up others. Now, staring at the notation of “8:30 a.m.—Meredith” on that first square, it
felt entirely too soon. Her dad had been gone a few weeks. Since his last day, Darcy had not set foot inside the hospice center. She didn’t want to return now. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the faces all felt like they’d wash up over her, drag her out to sea in a tidal surge of emotion.

  Who could blame her? Who wanted the memories of such a place? She hadn’t really thought of it as bad when she was there—just the opposite, as a matter of fact. It was an entire institution fighting against the tide—forcing comfort into discomfort, making peace from terror, insisting on dignity in the face of so many indignities. Now, though, it loomed in the shadow of memory. Dark and awful in all its peach-colored softness.

  Darcy had tried to avoid returning to the hospice, but the papers had to be signed, and a few overlooked personal items needed to be collected. She’d asked Meredith if they couldn’t meet at Darcy’s house. Meredith had declined. Darcy had then offered to buy Meredith lunch at one of her favorite restaurants. Meredith wasn’t placated. “I’ll take you up on lunch at The Palace over the holidays,” she had said, “but you and I both know you need to come here for this.”

  She didn’t want to go.

  She had to go.

  If only for the slim chance that it wasn’t as bad as she remembered it. At first, Darcy took Jack up on his offer to come with her. He’d even offered to go for her. Darcy knew, though, somewhere in the back of her mind, that sending someone else—even bringing someone else—wouldn’t make this go away.

  She pulled on her jacket with hollow-feeling hands. Hands that slipped instinctively into her coat pockets for the car keys—and found the worn smoothness of her father’s key chain. She’d linked it to hers. A memento, a sliver of life’s ordinary trappings, a piece of her father’s day-to-day existence. I miss you heaved out of her chest with her breath. Are you happy now? Is heaven wonderful?

  Is heaven there?

  “Are you okay so far?” Meredith Sorensen had a voice like a soft blanket. It wrapped around Darcy and made her feel better, even when Meredith was delivering the worst of news. The woman was an extraordinary soul, perfectly suited for her job as director of the hospice center. She was tiny, a little plush-toy dynamo of a woman; passionate about her work and the people it touched. Darcy had often wondered how Meredith could be surrounded by death and still be so full of life.

  “Sort of,” she replied. “This paperwork is incredible. I don’t know how I’d have sorted through it without you.”

  Meredith smiled behind her wildly colored reading glasses. “You’d have found a way. But I’m glad you don’t have to.” She slid yet another stack of papers toward Darcy. “Here, sign these three where the Post-it notes are, and that will be the last of them.”

  Darcy signed. “No more after this?”

  “No more from me.” She pulled off her glasses and let them dangle from the beaded chain around her neck. “I’m sure your father’s lawyers will have more to sign once the estate goes through probate, but I have a feeling Paul left no loose ends there.”

  You have no idea, Darcy thought, wondering when she would stop feeling like a walking time bomb of secrets. “Sure” was all she said.

  Meredith pushed back her chair. “Let’s walk back and get Paul’s things.”

  Darcy’s chest tightened. “Walk back? You don’t have them here?” The office was bad enough. She wasn’t ready to walk the residence hallway.

  Meredith was not at all taken aback by the response. “They’re back in the east lounge. Besides,” she said, coming around the desk corner, “Angie’s here and she wanted to see you.”

  Angela Denton. Angie Denton had been a friend of sorts. Her husband Bob moved in a couple of months before Paul got really bad. Angie and Bob were Jack and Darcy’s age. An accomplished couple who’d chosen world travel rather than start a family. “Bob’s taking this particular one-way trip without me,” Angie used to quip. If you could call it quipping, for she never could quite get the joke out without choking on it.

  With horror, Darcy realized she hadn’t once checked in on Angie during the weeks since Dad’s death. “Oh, Meredith, I’ve never…”

  “It’s all right.” Meredith stopped her with a hand on Darcy’s arm. “She understands. Really. But I think she’d really like to see you.”

  “Bob?” Darcy almost didn’t want to ask.

  “A few days. Probably not much more. He’s only conscious an hour or so a day now.”

  Darcy’s throat tightened. “Oh…I, Meredith, I’m not sure I can do this.”

  Meredith’s hand tightened supportively around Darcy’s arm. “Yes, you can. You of all people can, because you know what it’s like. She needs to see you, Dar, to know that you can come out of the other side of this.”

  Darcy began to tear up. “I’m not out, I’m not on the other side of this.”

  “All the better not to be in the middle alone. You can just stand in the doorway and cry if that’s as far as you can go. Angie won’t care what you do. Come on. I’ll be right beside you. It will be good for both of you.”

  Darcy felt almost ill as Meredith began to lead her down the hallway. The scent of this building, the particular combination of medical aromas combined with the many homey touches Meredith added, was like no other. Just breathing the air seemed to suck Darcy into a time warp, back to the days when all the days were in here. When life divided itself into time at the hospice center, and time waiting for the center to call her.

  With surprise, Darcy discovered that it wasn’t that bad. At just that moment, sucking in a deep breath to steady herself, she realized that she didn’t regret the time spent here. This was a good place. An important place. No, the time in here, with her dad, was not wasted time. Hard time, but not horrible time.

  The wasted time, Darcy realized with a shock of clarity, was the time spent outside of here still thinking of here. It was a good thing to be here with Paul, but it had taken over her life. So much so that the time away from here was still spent constantly thinking about Paul. While she physically left the hospice, she never mentally left the place.

  The door to Bob’s room, just across the hall from where Paul had lived, was left ajar. The room seemed tiny as Darcy peered in. It was like when people go back to their elementary school to visit as an adult. They remember it as enormous and mythic, yet everything seems small and ordinary upon their return. Just as they remember it, but then again not at all the way they remember it. Darcy half expected to find drinking fountains that came up to her knees.

  Inside the room, Angela held the time-honored posture of watchful loved one. Sitting in a vinyl chair, head leaning on one hand, slumped shoulders, facing Bob. Darcy’s body remembered the posture almost involuntarily, the way one mother will involuntarily rock when standing near another mother rocking an infant.

  “What kind of day today?” Darcy gulped out. It was how they greeted each other, because “How are you?” seemed so stupid in such a setting.

  Angela uncurled herself and turned with a thin but warm smile. “Not too bad. Better, now.” She came up and gave Darcy an enormous hug.

  She looked awful.

  It was inconsiderate, inappropriate, it was downright mean, but Darcy’s first thought at seeing Angela was, Did I look like that?

  Oh, lovely, Dar. The woman is about to lose her husband and you’re playing fashion police? Darcy wanted to stomp on her brain cells for reacting this way, but it was about so much more than whether Angie had combed her hair yet today. It was the uncared-for, neglected, starving look of the woman that made Darcy’s heart ache. Not because sweats and old T-shirts were involved, but because Darcy knew all they represented. It was all there, all instantly recognizable: the neglect and tension and sleepless nights and uneaten meals and mind-numbed wanderings that one set of overworn clothes represented. She knew: she had a closet full of such clothes.

  The overwhelming urge to fold Angela in a huge hug, dip her in warm, soothing water, and wrap her in scents and softness and beauty washed
over Darcy in a wave she could neither explain nor ignore. She’d planned on her memories of Paul being hard, but her memories of herself were harder still.

  Her throat tightened under the depth of emotion that had passed over her in the split second of Angie’s greeting. “Angie…I’m…I haven’t…”

  Angie stopped her. “Don’t.” She heaved in a get-it-together breath and held Darcy at arm’s length. “You look really good.”

  “I’m okay. Some days are easier than others.”

  “How are Jack and the kids?”

  “Good, too. Coping, same as me, although they choose some…challenging ways to show it.”

  Angie managed a chuckle. “I’ll bet.” She looked Darcy in the eye. “Is it hard?” There was no need to finish the sentence with after it’s all over? Darcy knew what Angie was asking.

  You could tell the truth in this place. “Yeah.” Darcy thought of a million examples, but none of them seemed to be important just this moment. “Up and down. I think it goes up and down for a while.” Darcy’s eyes strayed toward Bob. He seemed even thinner than before, more pale. Meredith used to say you could tell when a soul was packing up and leaving home, that it showed on a body. Darcy could see that Bob’s soul was just about out the door. “It’s easier in some ways,” she said to Angie while still looking at the hollow of Bob’s cheekbones. “Harder in others, but easier in some.” She returned her gaze to Angie. “Is he comfortable?”

  “He does that wheezing thing more, and there are times I know he’s talking but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I think he dreams a lot. No Thrasher Basher, though, so I’m glad for that.”

  Thrasher Basher was the sickly joking name they gave to Paul when he began to have convulsions toward the end. His delirium would send him into fits of grasping, moaning and other decidedly heartbreaking activities that made Darcy crazy. After one particularly gruesome episode, Darcy had lost it and yelled at Paul in her frustration, telling him to “quit playing thrasher basher and just die already.” When Darcy was mortified at her own response, beating herself up for her lack of compassion for a dying man, Angie had come into the room and ceremoniously knighted Paul “Sir Thrasher Basher.” The name stuck. It was odd what passed for humor in this place.