Hit and Run

by Sandra Balzo

  AnnaLise smiled. ‘Me, too. Good eyes, by the way, catching sight of that owl flying away.’

  Said eyes grew big. ‘Ohmigod! I’ve never seen anything that big. At least flying.’

  ‘Agreed. I can even remember the first time I saw a wild turkey take off. Seemed like something out of a cartoon.’

  The blue eyes got even larger. ‘Turkeys … fly?’

  AnnaLise smiled. ‘Not the ones like we’ll feast on tomorrow. Those are raised for their meat and are too fat to get off the ground. But, yes, wild turkeys can fly. At least, in short bursts.’

  ‘Wow.’ Her young face changed as she twisted her badge name-out so AnnaLise could see it. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. My name’s Lacey. My mother is over there.’

  Dropping the lanyard, she pointed to where Sugar Capri sat talking with Phyllis Balisteri over the vacant chair that separated them. Across the table, Daisy was being chatted up by Lucinda and Tyler Puckett.

  ‘I’m AnnaLise, and my mother is across from yours,’ AnnaLise said to Lacey. Close-up, the girl was even prettier than she looked from the second floor, with milky white skin and piercing blue, verging on violet, eyes.

  ‘AnnieLeez!’ Phyllis was waving at them. ‘I saved a seat for you.’

  A little embarrassed that, at age twenty-eight, she still had seats ‘saved’ for her, AnnaLise said, ‘Maybe Lacey would like to sit next to her mother.’

  ‘No, I’m good,’ Lacey said, continuing on down the table’s line of chairs to the end.

  Surrendering, AnnaLise slipped into the chair and put out her hand to Sugar. ‘AnnaLise Griggs.’

  ‘I’ve heard all about you,’ Sugar said, shaking. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Mama and Daisy exaggerate,’ AnnaLise said, unsure which had been singing her praises.

  ‘No, actually it was your father.’ Sugar nodded toward Dickens Hart, who had just entered the room.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ the journalist said, albeit weakly. ‘I didn’t know that he and you were still in touch. I mean after, umm …’

  ‘… all these years,’ Mama supplied, leaning across her.

  ‘Oh, we haven’t been, really,’ Sugar said. ‘At least not up until a few days ago. When I found him online?’ A conspiratorial look at AnnaLise. ‘You know how it is, Googling old beaus.’

  AnnaLise nodded, knowing that the only thing that would come out of her mouth – should she trust herself to open it – would be an astonished ‘old beaus?’

  Speaking of the devil, himself, Hart was approaching the head of the table, seeming pleased to find Lacey Capri seated to his right. Mistake, perhaps, because the contrast with the coltish girl made the self-styled lothario look both aged and rickety as he settled into his chair.

  ‘… and so we just started emailing and texting,’ Sugar was saying, ‘and Dickens told me about this get-together. I couldn’t resist seeing the place again. And him, too, of course.’

  ‘You’ve been here before, then?’ AnnaLise asked, regretting it immediately. Joy was diagonally across the table – a mere distance of five or six feet, easily breached if she wanted to get her hands around Sugar’s throat.

  ‘Oh, yes. When we were dating, I spent a lot of time here. Now, though, I couldn’t pass up the invitation, especially since Lacey and I were in the area.’

  Considering that the ‘dating’ had taken place when Hart was still married to Joy and the ‘time spent’ included sneaking into the marital bed, AnnaLise felt more at ease responding to Sugar’s last comment.

  ‘You live nearby?’ she asked lightly. ‘Since you arrived in the limousine from the airport with the others, I assumed you must have just flown in.’

  ‘Oh, we left the car at Charlotte Douglas. So much easier than finding our way here on the mountain roads. Besides, Lacey had never ridden in a limo before.’ Sugar giggled.

  As mature as Sugar might have appeared at fifteen, she sure didn’t seem to have progressed much since, right down to her choice of clothing and makeup. In fact, the few words her daughter had advanced seemed more articulate to AnnaLise’s ear than Sugar’s contributions.

  Mama pulled at AnnaLise’s sleeve to get her attention. ‘What are you going to do?’ she whispered.

  ‘Do?’

  ‘That girl is in your seat.’ Phyllis was chin-gesturing toward Lacey Capri, talking to Hart. ‘We’re all wearing tags saying who we are. Why not cards telling folks where their rightful place is?’

  ‘I think Dickens wants us to mingle,’ AnnaLise replied. ‘Besides, you’re the one who wanted me here.’

  ‘But you’re the legitimate heir,’ Mama maintained stubbornly. ‘You belong at his right hand.’

  ‘I’m illegitimate, remember? Besides, there are other people here who may have as much claim as I do.’

  ‘No, no,’ Phyllis was saying. ‘I looked into this and you can ask Patrick Hoag if you want. Dickens Hart recognized you as his heir and put you in his will. He definitely hasn’t done that for nobody else.’

  Phyllis had put some thought – and research – into this, and while AnnaLise did appreciate all that effort on her own behalf, the ‘golden child’s’ mantra hadn’t changed. ‘I told you, Mama. I don’t care—’

  ‘You’d better care!’ Phyllis thundered as a waitress stopped to fill her wine glass, decanter hovering in one hand, white wine bottle in the other.

  Everyone at the table looked at them and then, embarrassed, away.

  ‘Umm, red or white?’

  ‘Nicole?’

  The waitress was Nicole Goldstein, college student and granddaughter of Sal Goldstein, who owned Sal’s Tap on the lake’s beach across from Mama’s.

  ‘Hi, AnnaLise,’ Nicole said. ‘Wine, Mama? I have a full-bodied cabernet,’ she held up a decanter, ‘or a crisp Sauvignon blanc.’

  ‘Go red,’ AnnaLise advised.

  ‘I’ll take the sovey-young,’ Phyllis said obstinately. ‘Only the heavens know what this “chef” of Dickens will be putting in front of us.’

  AnnaLise looked skyward and Nicole, trying to stay in role, carefully poured Phyllis her wine. ‘Will you also be having red or would you like me to take the glass away?’

  ‘Better pour away, instead,’ AnnaLise muttered. ‘I may need some backup.’

  A laugh gurgling in Nicole’s throat, she filled Phyllis’ red wine glass with the cabernet and then AnnaLise’s as well.

  ‘So, Mama,’ AnnaLise said after Nicole had moved on and the acknowledged daughter took a blessed sip. ‘Is it nice having a weekend off?’

  ‘Don’t you be changing subject on me, you hear?’ This time Phyllis at least kept her voice down.

  ‘The subject being Dickens Hart’s money and that I should want it? Well, I don’t. Case closed.’

  ‘That’s all fine and well.’ Phyllis’ eyes narrowed and AnnaLise thought another tirade was coming, but instead, tears started to trickle down the older woman’s cheeks.

  AnnaLise had never seen Phyllis Balisteri cry. Ever.

  ‘Please, don’t,’ she said, holding out her napkin. ‘I’m sorry for … whatever.’

  ‘I’ll tell you whatever.’ Phyllis snatched the napkin perfunctorily rather than gracefully. ‘For thinkin’ just of yourself. Daisy’s got stacks of doctor’s bills for her tests and she may well have stacks more if it’s the Alls-whiners. Even worse, maybe all this forgetting is on account of a tumor in her brain.’

  AnnaLise felt like she’d been stabbed through the heart. The tests, so far, hadn’t shown a tumor, but … ‘Then we’ll find the best neurosurgeon out there.’

  ‘And who’s going to pay this “best” head-cutter? You?’ Phyllis demanded.

  ‘Insurance, of course.’

  ‘Your insurance?’

  ‘I’m on unpaid leave from the newspaper. But even if I wasn’t, my insurance wouldn’t cover Daisy.’

  ‘So, you do see what I’m saying?’

  The daughter just flat-out didn’t.

  And then she did.

  Taking
back her napkin, AnnaLise said, ‘Mama, please don’t tell me Daisy doesn’t have health insurance.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Neither of us in our lives.’

  ‘You’ve never had insurance? But what do you do when you get sick?’

  ‘We pay the doctor ourselves, of course. Since we don’t work for big companies, individual insurance is sky-high. Doctor Stanton – and Doc Williams, God rest, before him – is fine with being paid on time.’

  ‘But that’s crazy.’ Daisy’s head turned their way and AnnaLise lowered her voice. ‘What if something catastrophic happened to one or both of you? A car accident or—’

  ‘AnnieLeez, you can’t pay what you ain’t got.’ Mama’s face was stern now. ‘That’s the long and the short of it. And as for “catty-strophic,” which you seem to enjoy the sound of, we just took our chances.’

  ‘A bet you lost.’

  A sigh. ‘I can’t deny that.’

  AnnaLise closed her eyes, trying to come to terms with needing to come up with not just the twenty percent she assumed they’d owe beyond what insurance covered, but the entire hundred percent. Dickens Hart was paying her a hundred thousand dollars for writing his memoirs. She’d gotten fifty already, and would get another fifty on satisfactory – to Hart – completion of the manuscript.

  AnnaLise opened her eyes. ‘Mama, has Daisy told you the total of her bills to date?’

  ‘She has, but she don’t want you to know.’

  ‘Give, Mama. How much?’

  ‘She said something came from the lab people just before we all left this morning, but up ’til then it was around eighty-three.’

  ‘Eighty-three hundred?’ AnnaLise brow furrowed.

  But Mama was shaking her head. ‘Thousand.’

  Lacey Capri’s laughter rang out in reaction to something Dickens Hart said, as AnnaLise let the idea of $83,000 in unpaid medical expenses – and counting – take center stage in her brain.

  ELEVEN

  ‘I told you so,’ Joy said to AnnaLise. After dinner had broken up, they’d taken their wine out onto the patio so Joy could satisfy her nicotine jones.

  While Joy’s cancer stick might be keeping her warm, neither the nearby space heater nor AnnaLise’s revisiting of recent conversations were doing the same for her.

  Their backs were to the newly-applied plywood wall, providing privacy that the glass windows couldn’t have. Not that it was necessary. The rest of the reunion had moved into the media room to watch a movie. Appropriately – or perversely not – When Harry Met Sally. It was a favorite of AnnaLise’s and would probably prove a good choice for cutting across the generations and tastes of the small but diverse audience, only the journalist hadn’t been in the mood for a love story. Especially one overlaid upon the real-time less-than-romantic farce.

  Noticing herself being somewhat slow on the uptake, AnnaLise had just registered Joy’s first foray. ‘Told me what?’

  Joy grunted. ‘That you shouldn’t turn your nose up at your inheritance. I just hope it isn’t too late for you, what with all these hyenas sniffing around.’

  ‘They were invited to “sniff,”’ AnnaLise said wearily. ‘And besides, whatever Hart might leave to me down the line isn’t going to help much now.’

  ‘We could do him in.’ Joy took a drag and blew out its residue as the door from the house opened. ‘Or, being the squeamish type, you could just ask him for a loan.’

  ‘There you are.’ The words came from Dickens Hart himself. ‘Who needs a loan?’

  Joy gave AnnaLise a significant look, which she promptly ignored. ‘“Loaner,” actually. We were talking about my wrecked, and therefore no-car, situation.’

  ‘You’re welcome to borrow the Porsche, if you’d like.’ Hart started to settle his butt on the corner of a massive wooden planter before standing up with a grimace to brush glass pellets off the seat of his pants. ‘Though I’d have to caution you against driving it in the mountains once the snow starts falling.’

  Which could be any day now. ‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine,’ AnnaLise said simply, then changed the subject. ‘How are you enjoying catching up with everyone?’

  A snort from Joy.

  Hart ignored her. ‘Very much, AnnaLise, and thank you for asking. It’s been like … well, a bit like This Is Your Life, what with Rose from my much younger days, Lucinda from early in the White Tail years, then your mother. And, of course, Shirley and Joy.’

  ‘If I’d have known “Sweet Jail-bait” was going to be here,’ Joy retorted, ‘you can bet I wouldn’t be.’

  At the phrase ‘jail-bait,’ Hart threw a startled look toward AnnaLise before saying, ‘Joy, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Amazing that you don’t want AnnaLise to be aware of your little misstep,’ Joy said. ‘Yet you invited the only one who really knows what happened – Sugar, herself.’

  Hart said, running a practiced hand through his hair, ‘I happened to mention the weekend to her in passing, and it seemed rude not to include both Sugar and her lovely daughter.’

  ‘Pig,’ Joy snapped.

  ‘Who,’ Hart continued icily, ‘at least so far, aren’t repaying my hospitality by helping themselves to my wine or making crude jokes at my expense.’

  Joy dropped her cigarette and ground it into the patio block with a toe, seeming ready for a fight.

  ‘Well, I’m going to head in,’ AnnaLise said, having had enough theatrics for one day.

  ‘I’ll go with you,’ Hart said hastily. Her biological father was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them.

  As AnnaLise opened the French doors and stepped into the Lake Room, she almost collided with Nicole Goldstein, who was carrying a glass of wine in one hand and the bottle in another.

  ‘Excuse me, AnnaLise,’ Nicole said, steadying the goblet. ‘Mr Hart asked me to open another bottle of wine, but we’ve run out of the one we were serving. I thought he might like to try this.’

  Hart reached for the cabernet, apparently checking its pedigree. A lot of that was going on in general. ‘I’m afraid your choice is a very big red and could do with another four of five years of cellaring.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Nicole said, seeming mortified. ‘I should have asked you before I opened it.’

  ‘Not to worry, my dear,’ Hart said. ‘With a little time to breathe, the glass you’ve already poured should be passably drinkable, if not optimum. Could you just leave it on my bedside table?’

  Nicole nodded. ‘I’m glad to, but I’m not sure which room upstairs is yours.’

  ‘The master bedroom is on this floor,’ Hart said. ‘It has the double doors at the end of the hall, just past the media room. Since it’s barely ten-thirty, I’m going to catch some of the movie with our guests before I turn in.’

  ‘Shall I throw out the rest of the bottle?’ Nicole held it up.

  ‘Heavens, no!’ Hart commanded, and then lowered his voice as the girl cringed. ‘Just put the cork in loosely and leave the bottle on the bar. The wine should mellow nicely by tomorrow. And for the rest of our guests, why not open that nice merlot I use as an everyday wine. You’ll find three or four bottles in the rack to the right when you enter my wine cellar.’

  ‘I can take the glass,’ AnnaLise said to Nicole as Hart disappeared into the media room. There was no way she wanted the girl to visit Hart’s bedroom, however innocently. Only God could know what she might find in the aging lion’s love lair. Besides, after seeing the depiction on the floor plan, AnnaLise was curious.

  ‘Thanks,’ Nicole said, gratefully handing over the wine. ‘I need to stash this bottle and open a new one. These folks drink like fish, so it’s a good thing they don’t have to drive anywhere. The road on this side of the lake is treacherous enough at night without having a snoot-full.’

  AnnaLise looked at her own nearly empty glass. She’d thought about trailing Nicole to the kitchen for a refill, but given the girl’s opinion of ‘these folks,’ decided to set a better exampl
e. Besides, both Joy and AnnaLise had already done considerable damage to Hart’s supply of ‘good stuff.’ Not to mention their own respective livers. ‘Very true. And you be careful on the way home yourself.’

  ‘No worries,’ Nicole said. ‘My granddad is coming to pick me up. He doesn’t like my driving at night.’

  AnnaLise wasn’t sure that Sal’s driving – especially after his taproom closed – would be an improvement. ‘That’s very nice of him, but won’t that be quite late?’

  ‘It will, but I’ll need to clean up the media room after the movie anyway.’

  ‘Nicole? Got a sec?’ Chef Debbie was at the doorway to the kitchen, sans the white coat. Though she and AnnaLise had to be about the same size, the über-high heels made Debbie tower over the reporter. The chef stuck her hand out. ‘You’re Dickens’ daughter, right?’

  AnnaLise held up the two glasses awkwardly. ‘Sorry, I can’t shake, but yes. I’m AnnaLise Griggs.’

  ‘Anything special you’d like to have tomorrow? I’m missing a couple of items, so need to stop at the store in the morning.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ll find a grocery open tomorrow.’

  Debbie’s brow wrinkled. Or tried to. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Thanksgiving,’ Nicole said, trying to be helpful.

  ‘Well, sure, but don’t the supermarkets open, at least for a few hours in the morning?’

  AnnaLise shook her head. ‘My experience, which could be out-of-date, says no. Not around here.’

  Debbie grimaced. ‘Well, that’s not good. And I assume no all-night convenience stores.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  The chef sighed. ‘Not your fault. But I’ll do my best. That’s why your father’s paying me the big bucks.’

  ‘I just need to set this down,’ Nicole held up the bottle of wine toward Debbie, ‘and I’ll be right with you.’

  ‘Great. Just want to go over the menu with you before I leave. Good to meet you, AnnaLise.’

  ‘Same here.’

  Nicole made a beeline for the bar, while AnnaLise went the other direction, past the media room to the massive double doors. Opening one of them, though, was problematic with a goblet in each hand. With a glance over her shoulder to confirm that Nicole was already out of sight and couldn’t come to her aid, AnnaLise finished off the wine in her glass and tucked it awkwardly under one arm to turn the knob.