The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue

by Regina Hale Sutherland

  Dinner was simmering on the stove when Henri arrived, half an hour earlier than I’d expected. He rarely made it home before six o’clock, and it was barely half past five.

  “Henri? Is that you?”

  “Yes, Ellie. It’s me.” He sounded tired. Since the last time we’d made love, he was using fewer and fewer of the French endearments that had so captivated me when I’d first met him.

  “What time is your client coming?”

  He frowned. “Actually, there is no client.”

  My stomach sank to the cold Mexican tile beneath my feet. “No client?”

  “I wanted to see you, and since you’ve been avoiding me…

  He’d lied to manipulate me. Of course, my passive-aggressive approach of telling him I was too busy to go out to dinner or a movie over the weekend wasn’t much of an improvement on his plain, old-fashioned untruth.

  “Well, then, we can have a lovely, quiet dinner,” I said with an enthusiasm I was far from feeling.

  “I’d like that.” He looked so vulnerable at that moment that guilt yanked my stomach back up to its normal resting place and squeezed it tight.

  “Can I get you a glass of wine?”

  “Yes, please.”

  The habit of fussing over an exhausted man who had just come from the office was as inbred in me as not wearing white shoes after Labor Day or throwing my arm across the chest of the child in the passenger seat of my car when I had to slam on the breaks. I poured Henri a glass of an impeccable chardonnay, and then I poured an even bigger one for myself. Because although he might be exhausted, I still had to ask him when my invoices were going to get paid. I’d been living on credit in anticipation of that income, and the limit on my Visa was fast approaching. I hadn’t even bought a dress for the Cannon Ball. I hadn’t really allowed myself to think about how I was going to swing that.

  Henri sank onto the leather sofa and I followed him, but I left a cushion between us whereas before I would have cuddled up right beside him. The way his eyes nar- rowed told me he noticed the difference. Funny, that had happened with me and Jim, too, although over a longer period of time and in that instance, I’m not sure either of us noticed when it started to happen.

  “I want you to tell me the truth,” Henri said, twisting the wineglass stem between his fingers. “What’s his name?”

  “Whose name?” I decided to take the coy approach. Answer a question with a question.

  “The other man. There must be someone, because suddenly I am like…,” he paused, “…a burden to you.”

  He sounded like a hurt little boy. His pride was obviously wounded. I wondered if it made me a bad person if his jealousy secretly thrilled me, even if I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved with him any longer.

  “There’s no other man.”

  “No? Impossible. There must be someone.”

  “There’s no one.” The lie fell so easily from my lips.

  “Then what has happened?”

  What had happened? I still thought he was incredibly sexy and charming, when he wanted to be. And then it hit me. My feelings for Henri had started to change the moment I’d started to feel like his wife instead of his lover. And the fact that he hadn’t paid me for my work had only contributed to my sense of being taken for granted. I felt like I was still married to Jim, only with a French accent and without the foundation of a shared history.

  I gulped my wine in three substantial swallows, and then coughed when everything from my eyes to my throat burned like fire.

  “It’s…well, it’s…complicated.” I mangled the words, but the sentiment was clear. Henri’s eyes widened.

  “There is someone else.”

  “No, there’s not. There used to be someone else—”

  “Used to be?”

  “My husband. I mean, my ex-husband.”

  “He wants you back?”

  “No. Maybe. I’m not sure. He keeps calling.”

  “And you would go crawling back to him like a dog?” He sniffed with Gallic disdain.

  “No!” I snapped. “I’m not crawling back to anyone. But maybe I’m not ready yet for this.” I waved my hand back and forth between us. “Maybe it’s too soon.” Although even as I said the words, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the real reason at all.

  “Then you will not need me to escort you to your party at the end of the month?” In a moment of post-coital bliss, I had asked Henri to be my date for the Cannon Ball.

  “No, I’d still like you to go with me.”

  He set his wineglass down on the coffee table with a snap. “I am not here for your convenience.”

  Now that made me angry, because if anything, I had been the one to be there for his convenience over the last month. “I never said you were.” I was going to have to placate him, because, frankly, the prospect of trying to find another date for the Cannon Ball was far more wearying than humoring Henri. “Please don’t be angry.”

  And now I couldn’t even ask him about the unpaid invoices, at least not right then. I’d thought the divorce had complicated my life, but that was nothing compared to what I’d done to it myself in the last six weeks.

  “You can make it up to me,” he said, and now he was smiling his charming smile once again.

  “Oh?” If he tried to lead me toward the bedroom, I was going to develop a splitting headache.

  “You can feed me some of that delicious dinner I smell.”

  Whew. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet. “Sure. Just give me a minute to finish it up.”

  I unfolded myself from the couch and escaped to the kitchen, feeling like I had perhaps won the battle, but the outcome of the war was definitely in doubt.

  Henri’s cell phone rang in the middle of dinner, and for once I didn’t resent the interruption. In fact, the phone call gave me the excuse to clean up the kitchen, kiss his cheek good-bye since he was still talking on the phone, and escape to my house for the remainder of the evening.

  Once I arrived home, though, I received a phone call of my own. I had just slid my nightgown over my head when the phone rang. Hoping it wasn’t Henri, I sat down on the bed and gingerly picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.” Well, of course it was. With a frustrated “omph,” I punched the pillow next to me and plopped it against the headboard. Might as well get comfortable for the duration.

  “Yes, I remember your voice.” Mine dripped with sarcasm.

  “I know, I know. But this is a real thing.”

  As opposed to all the unreal—or surreal—things Jim had been calling me about since I’d moved into the house on Woodlawn Avenue?

  “What do you need?” I swung my legs onto the bed and leaned back, exhausted.

  “It’s about Courtney’s horse.”

  When she was six years old, my daughter had developed an undying love for anything with hooves, a mane, and a tail. Jim had indulged her by buying her a pony which we had paid a fortune to board at a local riding school. The pony had been followed by a succession of horses, each more expensive than the last. What we spent on feed could have been used to pay my utilities, phone, and Internet in one fell swoop. Now that Courtney had gone off to college, we’d dithered about what to do with Cupcake, the aging bay that apparently ate his weight in oats on a weekly basis.

  “I can’t keep paying for the horse, Ellie.” This time Jim didn’t sound angry or defiant. Instead, his voice held a note of despair I hadn’t heard since those exhausting twenty-hour days of his residency.

  “I know it’s expensive, but it means a lot to Courtney.” I studied my bare bedroom walls, wondering when I’d ever get around to hanging pictures.

  “Let’s face it, Ellie. Courtney will probably never come back to Nashville to live. We need to sell him. He’d make a good horse for a little girl just learning to ride.”

  “Have you asked Courtney about this?”

  He was quiet for a moment.

  I sighed. “I can’t do that for you, Jim. I
f you want to sell the horse, then you need to talk to her about it.”

  “Well, there’s one alternative.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I was telling Greta about your new company.” Greta Price owned and operated Cumberland Farms & Stables, Cupcake’s official residence.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up against the pillow. “And?”

  “She thought we could work out some sort of barter system.”

  “We? Would that be the royal ‘we’, Jim? Or do you mean that l could work out a trade with her?”

  “Well, she’s not currently in need of any thoracic surgery.”

  Okay, I did smile at his joke, but I was still peeved.

  “If you want me to take on that responsibility, then just ask me to do it. Don’t try to sneak it by me like I’m too stupid to notice what you’re doing.” I might be tired, but I wasn’t that tired.

  “I’m sorry, Ellie. I know you’re not stupid. I guess I just feel guilty about the whole thing.”

  I wanted to tell him that he darn well should feel guilty, but what would that help? I knew that Jim loved Connor and Courtney and had always worked hard to give them the best of everything. I couldn’t fault him on that score.

  I heard a tinkling sound over the phone line, like ice cubes clinking in a glass. Drinking and dialing yet again. That wasn’t something he’d ever done when we were married.

  His voice softened. “Remember when we gave her that first pony?”

  “We? That was all your doing.” But I smiled in spite of myself as the image of a tiny Courtney sitting tall in the saddle sprang into my mind. It had been one of those few moments in life when I was privileged to see sheer, unadulterated joy on my child’s face. That joy, and not her begging and pleading, were what had compelled us to continue to underwrite her equine addiction.

  “We were toast from that moment on,” I said, relaxing into the memory.

  He laughed. “Yeah. Once your child’s discovered her drug of choice, you’re compelled to keep supplying her with her fix.”

  Jim and I had spent a lot of time sitting together in the bleachers at horse shows all over the Southeast, proud and anxious and hopeful and fearful just like all the other parents who watched their children compete in any sport.

  “Remember when she fell?” My fingers tightened around the phone cord. That had been one of the most harrowing moments of my life. At eleven, she’d broken her collarbone when she’d been thrown by her horse when it balked at a water jump. Jim might be the physician in the family, but he’d turned a ripe shade of green when we saw the paramedics load her onto that stretcher.

  “I wanted to shoot that horse,” he said.

  “She wouldn’t let you.”

  He chuckled. “Always was a tough kid.”

  I sighed. “Jim, I’ll work something out with Greta. Courtney’s lost enough this year, with the divorce and everything. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  “No, Ellie. I won’t let you do it. I was wrong to even call and ask. It’s just that…”

  “That what?” My knuckles had gone white. Slowly, I unwrapped the phone cord that bound them.

  “I didn’t think it would be like this.”

  “What wouldn’t be like this?” But I knew what he meant, even if he couldn’t quite articulate it.

  “A new start. Tiffany.”

  I winced when he said her name.

  “I thought I’d found the way to get out from under all the pressure,” he said, “but instead it’s twice as strong.”

  It was a rare but important moment of insight for a man who preferred action to reflection, so I kept my mouth shut, merely murmuring in agreement. I’d learned a little something about unwanted advice from Jane’s kibitzing sister last Saturday night.

  “I’ll talk to Greta,” I said, getting up from the bed to pull back the covers, “and see how much of the slack I can pick up. Maybe between the two of us we can manage.” For the first time since the divorce, Jim and I were cooperating and it felt much better than all those months of acrimony.

  “That would be great.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you know what she says.” I got back in the bed, still tired but somehow less exhausted.

  “Ellie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome, Jim. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  This time I didn’t need to slam down the receiver. I slipped it gently into its cradle and slid down in the bed, pulling the covers up to my chin.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A Novice Opponement

  Henri was out of town the rest of the week, traveling on business, and I could go about my routine of doing small jobs for my other clients and working on the flower beds in my backyard. I tried to avoid the section along the back fence where Marvin Etherington had been found, but some weeds had sprung up among the impatiens and I was forced to deal with them. By now, I knew the difference between a lot of things—not just plants and weeds. But other things still had me confused. Like Officer McFarland’s continued pursuit of me. Frankly, I suspected that he wasn’t even assigned to the Etherington case; he was simply using it as a pretense to keep in touch.

  Sure enough, he called and asked me to have dinner on Friday night, and in the interest of security for the Cannon Ball, I agreed. I was ready to suggest a restaurant in some suburb like Bellevue or Antioch, somewhere I wasn’t likely to see anyone I knew. But Officer McFar-land was one step ahead of me.

  “I thought we’d eat at Green Hills Grille.”

  Great. We were sure to run into at least a dozen people I knew, and most of them would be dialing Jim’s number on their cell phones the moment they left the restaurant.

  “Okay. I’ll meet you there. What time?” At least I’d have my own car and could make a quick escape if necessary.

  “Is seven okay?”

  “That’s great.”

  Security officers…security officers…security officers, I kept forcing myself to repeat in my head.

  “I’ll see you then, Miz Hall.”

  “You know, if we’re having dinner, you might as well call me Ellie.”

  “And you can call me Will.”

  “Okay, Will. See you then.”

  Back in college, I’d perfected the fine art of dressing for a date with a boy you never wanted to go out with again. In those days, I’d favored high-collared blouses and baggy sweaters and they’d done the trick. But at fifty, a blouse like that was bound to make me look like Granny on the Sylvester and cartoons, and a baggy sweater only emphasized the matching set of luggage under my eyes.

  So I settled for nice slacks and a sweater set with pearls. If Will McFarland had a thing for mothers, then a mother was what he was going to get.

  I purposely arrived at Green Hills Grille just late enough so I knew he’d be there first but not late enough to be obnoxious. Will was waiting for me in a booth prominently positioned on a raised dais in the middle of the restaurant. No skulking in corners for Officer McFarland, and no way were we not going to be noticed. He had laid a long-stemmed red rose at my place.

  “Hi.” He stood up as I approached the booth.

  “Hi.” Okay, he really was very sweet. Once I sat down, he took his seat. Again, I was reminded of one of the little courtesies that had evaporated over the course of my marriage.

  ’Thanks for coming.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  If our conversation was going to be this stilted throughout the whole meal, we were in big trouble. I unrolled my silverware from the cloth napkin and placed the square of fabric in my lap. It gave me something to do besides look at Will.

  “How was your day?” His cheeks had a slight pink tinge, and he was trying so hard. But I felt like Florence Henderson out on a date with the kid who had played Greg Brady.

  “Good. It was good.” A neutral comment that didn’t invite him any farther into my life than he al
ready was.

  “I talked with some of the guys, and you’re all set for security.”

  I smiled, and it was genuine. ‘Thank you. I really, really appreciate it.

  His hand reached across the table, and his fingers covered mine. “No problem. I was glad to help.”

  Thankfully, at that moment our waiter arrived with the menus. I retrieved my fingers from Will’s and busied myself with looking over the specials.

  “Order the lobster if you want,” Will said. He was trying very hard to be mature and suave. It was quite sweet.

  “Actually, I’m not that big on lobster. I think I’ll have the tilapia.” I chose an entree on the modest end of the restaurant’s price range, since I was going to feel guilty enough about letting him pay for dinner. I would try to pay for my share, of course, but a woman could always tell when a man was bent on picking up the tab.

  The waiter took our orders, and we were left alone once more. Rats.

  “So,” I said, desperate for a topic of conversation, “how’s the investigation going?”

  “I can’t really comment on that,” Will replied. My face must have fallen, because he added, “I haven’t found anyone else yet besides Mrs. Davenport who could have been Marvin’s mystery woman.”

  “What about the preliminary autopsy? Any indication of what exactly killed him?”

  “The M.E. thinks it was a gardening spade.”

  I practically choked on the water I was sipping.

  “Is he sure?”

  “Pretty sure. Said the shape of the weapon was consistent with your average gardening spade.”

  I thought of Grace appearing on my doorstep to teach me to garden and placing a spade in my hand. If anyone knew how to use one of those things, it was her. I fought the urge to gulp down my water. A moment later, the waiter appeared with the glass of chardonnay I’d ordered, and I fought the urge to gulp it down as well.

  “I wouldn’t think you could kill someone with one of those things.”

  Will nodded and looked very wise for someone half my age. “If you want to, you can turn anything into a murder weapon.”