The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue

by Regina Hale Sutherland

  “I just got a call from Roz.”

  Great. Hers was the last name I wanted to hear at the moment. I had progressed beyond Nashville to services from Columbia, Bowling Green, and Jackson, all to no avail.

  “She wants to replace you as chair of the transportation committee.”

  Ouch. Now that would be the social equivalent of the coach benching the third-string quarterback and sending the water boy in to replace him.

  “Can she do that now?”

  “The chair of the ball giveth, and the chair of the ball taketh away.”

  “Great.”

  “She also added Jim and his hootchie mama to the guest list.”

  “She didn’t.” I sank to the sofa, needing to sit down even if Linda preferred not to.

  “What’s the deal with you two? Did you steal her high school sweetheart or something?”

  I blushed, looked at the mantelpiece, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but at Linda. Her eyes widened. “You didn’t!”

  I could only nod, mortified. I’d hoped to keep this particular piece of information from my new friends.

  “Okay, maybe I will sit down. This I’ve got to hear.”

  And so I had to confess to Linda, over coffee sipped on opposite ends of my sad sofa, that Roz Crowley (nee Smith) did have some justification for the enmity she felt toward me.

  “Jim?” Linda said, disbelievingly, distractedly stirring the cream into her coffee. “Jim and Roz were high school sweethearts?”

  “I was on scholarship to Harpeth Hall.” It still pained me to remember my high school days when I had definitely been a poor relation at the exclusive Nashville girls’ school. But my mother wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best for her daughter.

  “Roz was president of everything and drove her mother’s old Mercedes to school. I took the city bus and sat in the back row.”

  “And Jim? How did he figure in to things?”

  “Jim was the star wide receiver at Montgomery Bell Academy.” MBA was the boys’ equivalent of Harpeth Hall. “He and Roz were an item from freshman year on.”

  “So what happened?” Linda leaned forward, ready as any woman worth her salt would be for some juicy gossip.

  I sighed. “Roz went off to Auburn, and Jim stayed here to go to Vanderbilt. So did I.”

  “Then you started dating?”

  I felt my cheeks heat up again. Although I generally thought of myself as a good person, I had a skeleton or two in my closet (or backyard) just like anyone else.

  I sighed and set my half-empty cup on the coffee table. “I believe the old-fashioned expression is ‘setting your cap.’”

  “You went after him?”

  “Like a bee after honey.” They say confession is good for the soul, but I’d have preferred to keep my unflattering actions a secret.

  “Just because he belonged to Roz?”

  I winced. “At first it was because of her. I pledged a sorority, thanks to my mother pulling some strings with mothers of some of her patients, and Jim was in our brother fraternity. I got him to notice me, and then we started dating.”

  “And Roz found out?”

  “Immediately.”

  “I hope you wallowed in your triumph appropriately.”

  “Actually, I did something far worse than that.”

  “What?”

  “I fell for him.”

  “But that’s good. Or it was good. You had twenty-five years of marriage and two great kids.”

  I glanced at the portraits of Connor and Courtney on the mantelpiece. “And now I have no marriage and my kids have gone off to find lives of their own.”

  “Do you regret it, marrying Jim?”

  The question pierced me to the core, and I answered it honestly. All the Henris in the world couldn’t make up for the loss of what Jim and I had once had. “No. No, I never could.”

  “Because?”

  The sadness that I’d been covering up with Henri and Your Better Half and bridge and pulling weeds in the backyard welled up inside of me. “Because I love him.”

  “Because you loved him, you mean,” Linda said, emphasizing the past tense.

  I shook my head, knowing that the truth wouldn’t go away just because I refused to acknowledge it. “That’s the hardest part. I do still love him.” I grabbed one of the shabby throw pillows next to me and clutched it against my chest.

  What could Linda say to that? We were silent for a long moment.

  “Do you want him back?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” In the dark of the night, alone in my house and even more so in my bed, I still wanted Jim with an intensity that scared me. And even the thrill of Henri’s attentions couldn’t change the fact that without Jim, I felt like an emotional amputee.

  “Wow,” Linda said at last. “I had no idea.”

  “I’m not sure I did either.” I’d worked so hard to convince myself that I was moving forward, when in reality I was simply killing time. Burying a memory box in the backyard wasn’t the same thing as letting go.

  “So what will you do now?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. Roz doubled me with this transportation committee thing.”

  “So, will you redouble?”

  I didn’t want to. High stakes games had never been my thing. But somewhere in all of this, I had to find myself again. I had to come to terms with what had happened to my life and move forward. I had to get past Jim.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Linda leaned over and patted my knee. “Good girl. I have faith in you. And we’re all here to help.”

  “Thanks.” But I would have felt more confident if I’d had a tad more faith in myself than in the surrogate powers of the Queens of Woodlawn Avenue.

  I wasn’t getting any farther with hiring security for the ball than I had with the valet parking. When I called the next place on my list, the man actually laughed when I told him what I wanted and when.

  “For an event that size? With less than a month’s notice?”

  Well, at least I had given him his chuckle for the day.

  The next place handled off-duty security for Metro police officers. Given the number of officers on the force, surely they could help me out.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have anyone available for that evening,” the woman on the other end of the line said in a regretful tone. “Did you have another date in mind?”

  Another date? How about the twelfth of never, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. It wasn’t this woman’s fault that my feud with Roz was going to destroy Nashville’s most venerable charity benefit.

  A third and final call left me scraping my hopes off the floor.

  “No way, honey.” I could practically hear this woman’ gum popping over the phone. “You want a June date, you gotta plan like a bride—at least a year in advance.”

  I had enough sense to know when I was licked. And when to polish off the rest of the Tollhouse cookies left from Saturday night. I had just poured myself a big glass of milk to wash them down when the doorbell rang.

  Great. I was so not in the mood for entertaining.

  My ancient front door didn’t sport anything as modern as a peephole, and if I tried to peer out the living room window, whoever was on the porch would spot me for sure and I’d be committed to answering the door anyway. So I took a deep breath, cast a last, longing glance at the plate of cookies on the coffee table, and opened the door.

  “Afternoon, Miz Hall.”

  The ever-present Officer McFarland. Was it my imagination, or did he look younger every time I saw him? Although today no hint of a smile played around his lips.

  “Hello, Officer.”

  “Would you mind if I came in?”

  What was I going to say to that request? No? Besides, maybe he had come to tell me that he’d struck Grace’s name off the list of suspects.

  “Please, do.” I opened the door wider so he could step inside. “I was just going to have a snack. Would you c
are for some milk and cookies?”

  The mom role was certainly one I could handle. Heaven knew I’d fed similar snacks to Connor’s friends enough times over the years to be quite adept at it.

  “Milk and cookies?”

  “Sometimes you have to go for the comfort food,” I said with a forced smile. I could tell he was trying to decide if I was insulting him. “If you don’t help me eat them, you’ll be responsible for at least a five pound weight gain.”

  I didn’t mean that remark to come out as flirtatious as it sounded, but unfortunately it did sound coquettish and that interested gleam in his eye reappeared.

  Rats. All I did was offer the man some milk and cookies.

  “I’ll just get the milk. Please, have a seat.”

  I made my escape to the kitchen, took a deep breath before pouring the milk, and then mustered all my sophistication so I could return to the dining room calm and poised.

  “Have you uncovered new evidence?” I asked as I set the milk down in front of him. I took a seat on the opposite side of the table, putting as much distance between us as possible. I had to lean over a bit to slide the plate of cookies toward him. “Here. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” He scooped up two cookies and took a big bite from the first one. Then he chewed thoughtfully for a moment before nodding in approval. “Nice.”

  “Thanks.” I sipped my milk and waited to see what he had to say. He wiped his mouth with a napkin he’d plucked from the holder on the table and then pulled out his pad and pen from his shirt pocket.

  “The ADA has a court order to exhume Mrs. Davenport’s late husbands.”

  “All three of them?” A huge weight crushed my chest. “Is that really necessary?”

  “We won’t know until we’ve had new autopsies performed.”

  My heart ached for Grace, and I wondered if she knew yet. She didn’t deserve any of this, and I was the responsible party.

  “That seems like a lot of trouble without any proof that Grace had a part in Marvin’s death.”

  “We have some evidence that she and Mr. Ethering-ton were romantically involved.”

  I choked on the bite of cookie I was swallowing and had to stop and cough before I could clear my throat and speak. “What kind of evidence?”

  “I talked to some of his co-workers from that time. They all said he was carrying on with a married woman, a neighbor, and that his wife was livid about it.”

  I looked at the half-eaten cookie on the napkin in front of me and bile rose in my throat.

  “But Grace and Flossie were best friends. She would never have slept with Marvin.”

  “People do strange things, Miz Hall. Act in ways you’d never suspect.”

  Well, I couldn’t argue with him there, given my recent experience, not only with my husband’s defection for a Hooters waitress but also my own relationship with Henri.

  “What about other neighbors? There had to have been a number of married women on this street at that time.”

  “I’m checking into that.”

  He certainly was being thorough just for the sake of an incident report. “Couldn’t you do that before you dig up Grace’s husbands?”

  He paused, a cookie halfway to his mouth. “Are you asking me for a favor?”

  My pulse skyrocketed. What was he going to do—arrest me for attempted bribery by tollhouse cookie?

  “No, not a favor.”

  He smiled, then, for the first time. “That’s a shame. I wouldn’t mind you owing me.”

  “Why?” I asked the question before I could stop myself.

  “Miz Hall…Ellie…” And then he blushed. Actually blushed. “I know I’m not…” His voice trailed away. “That is, I was wondering…”

  “Yes?” Did he want me to go undercover? Wear a wire and lure my friend into a confession?

  “I was wondering if you would have dinner with me sometime.”

  “Oh.” I jerked back, and my hand bumped the glass of milk on the table. It sloshed over the top. “I’m old enough to be your mother,” I said, dabbing at the spilled milk with a napkin.

  He blushed even more. “That’s not a problem for me.”

  A light bulb went off in my head. I’d heard about young men with a penchant for older women. I’d even seen it on TV and read about it in books. But, honest truth, I never, ever thought I’d be on the receiving end of it.

  “Urn…well, I’m actually seeing someone right now.” Thank God for Henri, even if I hadn’t actually seen him much in the last few days.

  “Oh.” He looked like a crestfallen adolescent who’d just had the girl of his dreams turn down an invitation to the prom. I felt sorry for him. I also felt a little grossed out, too, as Courtney would have said. And, secretly, a part of me was very flattered, even if his attraction to me was only slightly less creepy than a shoe fetish.

  Only why did it have to be that a younger man liking older women was weird? I mean, look at Jim and Tiffany. A younger woman throwing herself at him probably earned him a lot of “atta boys” and pats on the back in the locker room at the country club.

  Just then, Officer McFarland’s eye landed on the pad of paper I’d been scribbling on while I searched for private security for the ball.

  “What’s this?” He frowned. “Is someone bothering you? You need protection?”

  The way he bristled on my behalf was actually quite sweet, although the only person I needed protection from at the moment was quite possibly Officer McFarland himself.

  “No, I’m trying to line up some security officers for a charity event, but I’m not having much luck.”

  “Why not?”

  I wiped the table again, even though the spilled milk was long gone. “The date got moved forward six months. It’s only a few weeks away, and everyone’s booked.”

  “When is it?”

  I told him.

  “Maybe I could help you with that.”

  My pulse shot up again. Relief mixed with triumph mixed with wariness. “Really? How?”

  “I know some guys who might be willing to pull an extra shift. How many officers would you need?”

  I told him, and he nodded. “Tell you what, you have dinner with me and I’ll get you the security detail.”

  Okay, we were both on pretty shaky ethical ground here, and there was the possibility I might wind up in some stalking situation that would one day become a Lifetime movie, but what choice did I have?

  “As long as you know it’s only dinner. And only once,” I said in my best scolding-mother tones.

  He grinned. “Until I convince you to change your mind about that.”

  His smile wasn’t wolfish or disturbing, just filled with the confidence of someone who hadn’t fully been squashed by the realities of adulthood. Shoot, if a cute, younger man wanted to buy me dinner, and I got security officers for the Cannon Ball out of the deal, what could it hurt?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kibitzers

  That Saturday night at the regular Queens of Woodlawn Avenue meeting, we had a surprise guest. We met at Jane’s house, and her sister was visiting from out of town. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except that her sister—when she wasn’t one of the foursome—liked to sit beside me and give me helpful advice.

  “No, that’s not what you should say to your partner’s short club.” Elaine was as tiny as Jane, but her hair was jet black rather than blonde and she wore an excessive amount of red lipstick.

  “Short club?”

  “A 1? opening bid means that your partner has a really strong hand, but it’s spread over several suits. She has a lot of strength, but no length.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” The more I learned about bridge, the less I felt like I knew. It was a pretty good metaphor for my life at that moment, actually.

  By this point, Grace and Linda were frowning deeply, clearly disturbed to have the bidding process—which was supposed to be entirely neutral—laid out in such explicit terms now that I’d passed the
rudimentary stage.

  I heard Jane mumble something under her breath. Her sister’s spine went ramrod straight. “Did you have something to say, Jane?”

  Growing up as an only child, I’d often wished for a sister. But since the tension between these two sisters could be cut with a fairly dull butter knife, my lone child status didn’t seem so bad at the moment.

  Jane just glared at her. “I said that we don’t need a kibitzer.”

  You’d have thought that Jane had called her a name not used in polite circles.

  “Fine.” Elaine leaped to her feet and stalked from the dining room through the diamond-shaped arch. A moment later, I heard a door in the back of the house slam.

  “Thank heavens,” Grace said. “I thought I was going to have to whack her on the head with something.”

  Jane and Linda laughed, and I pretended to. Because Officer McFarland and his suspicions about Grace were never far from my thoughts.

  “So, really, what do I do about the short club?”

  Jane arched an eyebrow. “Use it on my sister?”

  I didn’t have time to see Henri all weekend due to the demands of my other clients—the elderly matron and the professor—as well as citing my standing Saturday night Red Hat commitment. He hadn’t taken it well, but then, he was French. He should be used to disappointment. Weren’t they always losing every war they fought?

  To tell the truth, I was still struggling with the remnants of my feelings for Jim. And I didn’t want to go any further with Henri until I resolved them. So I hadn’t made the extra effort to see him that I might have even a week earlier.

  By Monday night, though, I couldn’t avoid Henri any longer. I was preparing dinner for him and a client at his apartment, and he had asked me to stay and play hostess. I’d have been more enthusiastic about the additional billable hours if even one of the invoices I’d sent to The Triumph Group so far had been paid. Maybe that was another reason I’d been avoiding him. I was going to have to confront Henri about the unpaid bills after dinner, and I was looking forward to that experience even less than to telling him I wasn’t spending the night. Jane had advised me to address it directly, without emotion, but then Jane didn’t know how many nights I’d been spending in Henri’s bed.