She Stopped for Death

by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

  “I think that’s what he was implying.”

  Dora looked around from Jenny to Zoe. “But who would have done a thing like that? Emily’s a lot of things, but I doubt an arsonist is one of them.”

  “What about Lorna?” Jenny suggested.

  “I doubt the fire was arson at all.” Dora snapped her lips together. “People in Bear Falls don’t do things like that.”

  Jenny gave Zoe a warning look as they met with a few other women headed up Oak Street to the meeting.

  It was precisely three o’clock when all the women walked up the steps of the imposing mansion. The grounds were perfectly kept, as always. Flowers bloomed precisely as they were supposed to bloom—no hanging heads on the chrysanthemums. The trees were neatly trimmed so that no branch hung below the other. The grass grew to the edge of the brick walks and not an inch beyond.

  Dora took in the perfection and sighed, knowing she would never reach such elegance.

  Zoe looked around and said that this was no place for fairies.

  The tall front door was answered by Abigail herself, in full afternoon-tea regalia. She welcomed them in, bending close to Jenny’s ear to say that Emily hadn’t arrived yet.

  “I’m a little worried,” she confided. “Elizabeth, my secretary, went to get her over an hour ago. I can’t imagine what’s holding them up. Almost everyone is here now. Early, I might add,” she said, leaving Dora to wonder what “precisely three” had really meant.

  Abigail led all of them into a huge dining room where a lace-covered table glittered with polished silver. The rest of the guests were gathered at the far end of the room, around a table where teacups and a huge silver tea urn stood. It was, after all, tea time, time to be social and gossip and greet each newcomer with exclamations on her clothes, on her hair, on things recently heard about their children’s prowess on the football field or in the gym or in the new robotics class at the high school.

  They knew each other well. Neighbors and close friends. Even Miss Gladys, principal of the elementary school, was there, greeting Dora and her troop from a circle that included Minnie Moon.

  Minnie Moon, in brown pants and a fuchsia, flowered blouse, was a surprise. A bigger surprise was that her daughter, Deanna, was with her. Deanna of the sour disposition, of the impressive pout—in a dress long enough to cover every vital intersection of her body. The girl nodded then stood looking around the room, taking in everything from the paintings on the walls to the collection of silver cups locked behind the doors of a huge cabinet. Jenny watched as Deanna looked dreamily at it all and actually smiled, seeming almost pleased to be there.

  Or planning a heist, Jenny was mean enough to think.

  The women began to ask each other when Emily Sutton was expected. They were all smiles and excitement.

  “My mother used to talk about her. We’re very lucky to have her,” Priscilla Manus of the historical society told her circle.

  “Historic occasion,” Abigail agreed with Priscilla.

  “And when will our star arrive?” Priscilla asked again a little later.

  “Soon. She’ll be here soon. Elizabeth’s gone to get her.”

  Minutes ticked by, noted in sonorous tones by the large grandfather clock standing by itself on one of the end walls of the room.

  Abigail went out to make a phone call and came back to say that Emily and Elizabeth Wheatley were about to leave the house. Abigail bent to tell Jenny that truthfully, Elizabeth was still waiting in her car for the woman to come out.

  Abigail looked worried, but there were many details and committee reports to hear before Emily got there, so she put up her hands and asked the ladies to please be seated at the table so the first meeting of the Emily Sutton Reading Committee could begin.

  Dora learned that her assignment was to hand out cookies at the sweet table outside the auditorium of the opera house on the evening of the event.

  Jenny was to usher and would receive a tiny flashlight for her finger to show latecomers to their seats.

  Zoe was scheduled to take tickets at the bottom of the curved staircase leading up to the main hall, though Minnie, who had probably coveted that position, asked if Zoe might not get lost in the crowd. There was an uncomfortable moment until Zoe said she was taller with her arms stuck up in the air, and one by one the women around the table nodded and agreed that Zoe would just be fine taking tickets.

  “I really wanted to interview her before the reading,” Abigail leaned toward Zoe to say. “But Emily wouldn’t hear of it. She said she’s used to handling crowds of readers by herself. I hope that’s a wise decision. I’d imagined I could praise her in a way she can’t possibly praise herself.”

  Zoe looked as if she was going to say something rude. Jenny stepped on one of her yellow shoes, distracting her.

  “Ticket-taker.” Jenny leaned down to tease her friend. “So much for being a well-known writer yourself.”

  Zoe smiled up at Jenny. “And you, with your little light. What a fine usher you will make.”

  When another report was read, Dora found she was in charge of not only giving out the cookies but baking them as well. She was asked to make the buttery little stars she was known for throughout the town.

  Other women raised their hands, offering their specialties. Minnie Moon said she’d make her dump cake but was dissuaded by Priscilla Manus, who said they should stick to cookies, for the sake of tidiness.

  The Committee on Ticket Sales reported that the members of the National Poetry Series had taken over ticket sales, and the house was sold out.

  “People are coming from everywhere. Even New York, I’ve been told,” Millie Sheraton, a neighbor of Dora’s, said.

  There were reports on coordination with the opera house, with local press, and with businesses wanting to advertise in the program. Then the design of the program was shown, with a very old photo of Emily Sutton at the center.

  Abigail went out of the room to use the phone again, coming back looking much happier. “Elizabeth says they are almost here. I don’t suppose I need to remind everyone to keep themselves under control. Don’t rush the poor thing. She’s been through a terrible time in her life. And let’s not forget her recent loss.”

  Almost as she finished talking, there was a knock on the dining room door. Abigail clacked across the oak floor to answer. Beyond the door, there was a flurry of voices, and then Abigail turned to face the women, her face serious. “Ladies, it is my honor to present to you one of the best poets writing in the world today: Bear Falls’s own, Emily Sutton.”

  She stepped back and Emily Sutton filled the doorway. There wasn’t a sound in the dining room.

  Emily stood with her hands clasped in front of her. Her head was down. She was dressed in nothing but blue scarves. They hung in points from her shoulders. They hung down both of her arms. They hung from her waist to the floor, over bare feet.

  One of the scarves encircled her oddly red hair. Another was tied across her breasts to keep the waving scarves in place, though something with that plan had gone wrong. One small nipple peaked out from the sea of blue.

  There were subdued gasps as Emily lifted her head and moved daintily into the room, smiling, looking from face to face with curiosity.

  Abigail led her to the head of the table, asked her to be seated, then, under her breath, asked Elizabeth Wheatley to run upstairs and get a wrap for Emily, who seemed chilly. Her usually calm secretary hurried off, her usually perfect hair flying in all directions.

  The women kept their eyes turned away from Emily in her diaphanous scarves. Some looked at their hands. Others studied the notes Abigail handed around the table. Nobody said much while they waited for Elizabeth’s return.

  Dora leaned close to Jenny. “You should have said black,” she whispered.

  “She only asked me colors,” Jenny whispered back. “Not stripper routines.”

  Abigail saw fit to deliver a long introduction while Emily hid most of her face in a teacup, large eyes shif
ting back and forth as she slowly sipped the tea and sighed.

  The knitted shawl was delivered as fast as Elizabeth could make it upstairs and down. All eyes were again on Emily as she pulled folded papers from a tiny purse hanging from her shoulder. She laid the papers on the table, unfolded them and smoothed them again and again, then looked up at the faces turned toward her.

  She began to read in a tiny voice:

  A reef, a rocky shoal, a whirlpool.

  A ship within the eye.

  No greater tragedy than a friend gone missing . . .

  When she finished reading the familiar poem, she lifted her head and smiled at the appreciative applause of her audience.

  She read another of her older and well-known poems.

  “And now,” she said when she’d finished and sat forward in the high-backed chair, pushing the knitted shawl back over her shoulders, “I have a new poem.”

  She waited for the sounds of awe to die down, cleared her throat, and began to read,

  I don’t walk out where people walk.

  I don’t enjoy that day.

  I walk my rooms, back and forth,

  And that is where I stay.

  Jenny didn’t hear the rest. Her eyes were on Abigail’s face, and then on the faces of the women around the table. Some stared at Emily, transfixed with wonder at the words they heard. Some screwed up their faces as if smelling something bad.

  When Emily finished reading, she took her time folding the papers together, again and again, then looked up to smile at the women who politely clapped for her.

  She pushed her chair back, having trouble when it caught on the rug under the table, and motioned to Elizabeth Wheatley to come extricate her. Elizabeth moved the chair then tried to straighten the shawl over Emily’s shoulders but failed. She escorted her hurriedly from the room. The other women got up and followed as fast as they could go.

  When Jenny and her group tried to escape with the others, Abigail stopped them, one of her hands in the air.

  “We have things to talk about,” she said.

  She directed them back toward the dining room as she followed the others to the front door.

  It was another fifteen minutes before Abigail was back. She swept into the room and, with the women’s eyes on her, opened a chest to pull out four glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniels. At the table, she poured a solid shot for each of them.

  Abigail downed her drink, poured another, then urged her guests to drink up with her.

  When she’d settled herself, she looked around at each startled face and asked seriously, “Wasn’t that the damnedest thing you’ve ever seen? What’d she think she was coming to? A carnival show?”

  Zoe laughed, then put her hand over her mouth when Abigail frowned at her.

  Dora bit her lip.

  Jenny tried to think of other things and clamped her teeth together.

  “Well? What was that?” Abigail demanded again, shrugging herself out of the silk jacket she wore and stretching out in her chair.

  “I think she needs wardrobe advice,” Dora offered, sneaking a look at Jenny.

  “That’s pretty obvious.” Abigail poured herself another shot, offered the bottle around, downed her drink, and stared hard from face to face. “Elizabeth’s an idiot for letting her leave the house the way she was.”

  She turned to face Jenny. “You’ve got to be in charge of getting her to the opera house dressed decently.”

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t think I’m the one . . .”

  “Somebody’s got to do it, and she seems to like you better than the rest of us.”

  Jenny shrugged, uncomfortable. “I don’t think that smile she gave me meant ‘like.’”

  “Close enough.” Abigail slapped her hands on the table and turned to Zoe.

  “You’re the writer. What did you think of that new poem she read?”

  Zoe thought a minute. “Kind of slight. Maybe she’s out of practice.”

  “She can’t read that kind of crap at the opera house. We’ll be laughed right out of town. Could you take a look at what she picks out to read? I mean that you should direct her to the good stuff and away from the kind of garbage she just read. If nothing else, get her to stick to old work. We’ll handle questions about it later.”

  “Emily doesn’t like me much either.” Zoe slid down a little in her chair.

  “What about you, Jenny? Could you handle the outfit and the poems?”

  Jenny wanted to go home. She nodded at Abigail, not knowing how she would handle Emily’s wardrobe, nor caring what she read that night.

  “Maybe you should cancel the whole thing,” Dora said, looking quickly from face to face.

  Abigail knocked her glass sideways as she leaned toward Dora. “Don’t say that. It’s too late. Tickets have been sold. We’d look like a pack of fools. What’s going to happen is that the three of you will dress Emily and get her to the opera house. Okay? You will take her sheets of paper, whatever it is she chooses to read, and go over every one of them. She’s going to be vetted within an inch of her life. She will read. She will take her applause. She will go home. And I will never bother her again.”

  “Oh, Abigail.” Dora pushed her chair back, ready to get up. “Let’s not be cruel. It’s as if we’re using the poor soul for our own aggrandizement rather than for the glory of American literature.”

  Abigail eyed Dora. She seemed about to say something but changed her mind and sat back. She put a hand over her eyes and moaned.

  They left her like that, quietly filing from the room. They walked home, feeling as though they should tiptoe, as if they were leaving the scene of an accident. They didn’t have a word to say to each other.

  On the way Jenny checked her cell and found two calls from Tony. He’d left no messages.

  Chapter 16

  The house was silent when Jenny woke up a few hours after going to bed. Rain lashed at her half-opened windows in ferocious waves. She could hear the wind in the pines, a sloughing of sighs.

  Jenny got out of bed to close the windows, then sat down to watch lightning cut straight across the sky to the west, out over Lake Michigan. After only a few seconds, the house shook with thunder.

  The thing about electrical storms was that they cleared the air, she told herself. In the morning, everything would shine. One huge bath. One huge cleansing. She thought about that instead of the damage the storm could do.

  Another lightning strike, turning trees into monsters with waving arms.

  She checked her bedside clock. One o’clock. If she went out to the living room to watch television, she would wake Dora and Alex. Anyway, the cable always failed during thunderstorms. She checked through the books on her nightstand—nothing she wanted to read. Nothing she wanted to do.

  She paced the room—five good paces each way.

  The storm passed overhead. Lightning weakened. The last of the thunder faded off to the east.

  There was nothing for her to do. She had nothing she wanted to think about.

  She dug out a pair of jeans and a red sweater. She found her sandals where she had kicked them.

  She grabbed a jacket, her purse, and keys and then closed her bedroom door quietly behind her.

  * * *

  Strong winds pushed at her car again and again. Tony’s small ranch house on Maple Street sat under waving trees. The only light on was at the back of the house. Jenny could just see its glow through the picture window at the front the front.

  His truck was parked in the drive so he was home, but probably sleeping. Maybe not alone.

  She pulled in at the curb across the street from his house and settled down to watch.

  She could always drive off before anyone saw her. She thought about those phone calls she’d ignored and wondered if he’d been calling to try again to explain what he’d done. Or maybe he’d been calling to tell her he was back with his wife and to say he was sorry but good-bye.

  She watched the house for a sign, any sign, tha
t she was where she should be. Nothing happened.

  When the rain stopped, the wind died and the night cooled. She turned the motor on from time to time for heat. The darkness was complete. She wrapped her arms around herself and nestled farther down into the seat. She practiced what she was going to say—how angry she was going to get, just how she would put him in his place and tell him never to bother her again—as soon as she saw him.

  An hour went by.

  The thought hit her that his wife was probably in there with him.

  What would she do if they both came to the door?

  She thought those thoughts for a while, watched the trees become still silhouettes, and told herself that this whole thing was a new low for her.

  A thin sliver of a moon came out, casting random shadows into the darkest places. She looked at her watch: two thirty. The last thing she would do was cry. Damned if she would give any man that much of her again.

  Another fifteen minutes, she promised herself. That was all. If nothing happened, she would go home and move on. No turning back this time. No forgiving. Love wasn’t supposed to work that way. If there was no sign from wherever signs came from, she’d drive off and forget him.

  A light came on in Tony’s living room.

  She leaned hard back into the seat, afraid he might look out and see her.

  His porch light came on. He didn’t have a dog that needed to go out. Maybe he heard a noise. Or maybe a neighbor had called about the car parked across the street from his house.

  At least there was no one with him. Maybe that was all she was going to learn.

  She started the motor, praying she’d get away before he realized it was her car. He stayed standing on his porch, hands on the railing, looking over toward where she was parked. In just a minute, he was down the steps. He hesitated only once, at the bottom of the steps, then walked across his grass to the curb.

  Jenny turned the motor off and was out of her car before he walked into the street. Her hair, already wet, hung in her eyes. She ran though deep puddles. She tripped on the curb and almost fell. Tony caught her.