Close to Home

by Cynthia Baxter

“No, no. I’ll get you some. How much do you need, a cup? If you can wait a minute—”

  “Really, it looks as if this is a bad time. I can come back after lunch or—”

  “Jessica, just give me two seconds, okay? Here, Stacy. I’m getting your juice.”

  “How come she gets hers first?” Jim Junior wanted to know. “I asked you for Fruit Loops before she asked you for juice!”

  Just then Jim came ambling into the kitchen, his boots caked with mud. Apparently he had been out in the backyard, dealing with one of those hardware-related activities that he was so good at.

  “Hello, Jessica.” He nodded, unsmiling, at his next-door neighbor, who was standing awkwardly next to the kitchen sink with her hands in her jacket pockets. She smiled her greeting.

  “Did you get the carburetor or whatever it was fixed?” Lorraine glanced up from the pink plastic Miss Piggy cup she was filling from a half-gallon carton.

  “The transmission. No, I didn’t. I have to get... hey, how about putting on a fresh pot of coffee?”

  “Fruit Loops, Mom!”

  “Okay, Jim Junior! As soon as I finish with this. . . . Jim, I’ve kind of got my hands full right now—”

  “I’ll make myself some instant.” As he walked across the kitchen, Jim left a trail of brown scuff marks on the linoleum. Jessica hoped that mud was all that he had stepped in.

  Lorraine noticed it, too. “Jim, honey, do you think maybe you could—”

  “Hey, there’s no instant coffee left!” Jim announced, annoyed.

  “I guess we’re all out.” She had picked up her smiley face dish towel and resumed her energetic fondling of the silverware. “I didn’t get a chance to—”

  “Aw, damn it. Lolly! I told you a couple of days ago that we were almost out!”

  “I know, I know. I was going to the store this morning, but since Jim Junior has a fever today, I couldn’t very well—”

  “Mommeee! This apple juice is warm!” Stacy complained. “I want cold juice!”

  “Mommy, you said I could have more Fruit Loops if I drank all my orange juice at breakfast, and I did. I want my Fruit Loops now!”

  “God, why are those kids always whining?" Jim cast an accusing look at Lorraine.

  Suddenly Lorraine bunched her dish towel into a ball and threw it on the counter.

  “You’re right. You’re all right,” she said angrily. “I’m a terrible person, without merit. I have no redeeming features whatsoever.

  “In fact,’’ she went on, still angry but with much more steadiness in her voice, “I’m so awful that I don’t even deserve to live.”

  With that, she reached into the kitchen drawer and took out a black revolver.

  Jessica froze. Out of the corner of her eye she could see looks of horror crossing the faces of Stacy and Jim Junior. But Jim immediately sprang into action. Frantic, he lunged toward Lorraine.

  “Lorraine, wait! What the hell—”

  “Get away from me, Jim. I mean it.”

  “Lolly, you can’t be—”

  “You heard me. I agree with you. I can’t do a single thing right.”

  She held the gun up to her head and, her wild eyes fixed on her husband, hooked her finger around the trigger.

  “‘Bye, everybody,” she said in an even voice.

  “Lolly, honey, what—”

  Lorraine pulled the trigger. The silence that followed was .as startling as the explosion of sound that everyone was expecting. And then she burst out laughing, a convulsive, hysterical cackle.

  “Fooled you!” Lorraine cried, tossing the gun to Jim.

  “Plastic!” He examined the black revolver with disgust. “It’s a goddamned toy!”

  “It looks real, though, doesn’t it? I guess it must, because I fooled every last one of you!’’

  Lorraine was beside herself with glee. She didn’t even notice that Stacy had collapsed into an uncontrollable crying fit, her small body crumbling into a tiny heap, her face so red and distorted that she looked like an infant.

  Jim Junior, meanwhile, grabbed the gun away from his father, saying, “Hey, that’s my new Bounty Hunter Blaster, isn’t it? I don’t get it. Mom. What are you doing with my gun?”

  “What, are you crazy?” Jim demanded. “Scaring the hell out of us like that?”

  “Oh, it was just a silly prank,” Lorraine insisted. “And you fell for it.”

  She turned back to her meticulous drying of the silverware, piece by piece. “There. Now maybe you’ll all start appreciating me a little bit more. Maybe you won’t be so quick to criticize me all the time.”

  “I have to sit down,” Jessica said breathlessly. Her knees were about to give way, and her head felt as if it had just metamorphosized into a big marshmallow. “I feel a little bit faint.”

  “Oh, you’re all such babies.” Lorraine kept her back turned to her family. “You really believe I would kill myself? Oh, this is precious. I feel like writing a letter to the Mattel company, or whoever makes those stupid guns.’’

  Jim just stormed out of the room, ignoring his sobbing daughter and his bewildered son.

  “Honestly!” Lorraine exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder at Jessica. There was a triumphant gleam in her eye. At that moment, she looked happier, and more satisfied, than Jessica had ever seen her. “Do you believe what a bunch of wimps I live with?”

  * * * *

  “So how did it go?”

  It took Jessica a few seconds to realize that David was asking her about her morning’s outing, not the dramatic scene she had just witnessed chez Denholm. He was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and leafing through the Land’s End catalog. Sammy, meanwhile, was in the living room, munching on a rice cake and receiving instruction on how to be a grown-up from Peewee Herman.

  “Uh, it was okay.” Jessica was still a bit unsteady. She immediately began filling the teakettle, hoping that something hot would soothe her nerves.

  “Were the stores crowded?” David asked pleasantly.

  “Stores?”

  “Well, sure. Isn’t that where you went this morning? I mean, when you acted so mysterious, asking me to baby-sit so you could sneak off on some secret mission, I just assumed that it was related to Christmas.”

  Coyly he added, “Did you buy me anything, Mrs. Claus? I’ve been a good boy all year . . . haven’t I?”

  It was true that the holiday season had been sneaking up all around them. Ordinarily, just turning the calendar over to the “December” page, trading the picture of a fat happy turkey for a snow scene, caused a total personality change in Jessica. Her usual levelheadedness vanished; in place of her calm, logical self there appeared a carol-humming, cranberry-stringing, wreath-hanging, ribbon-looping elf. This year, however, she had had her mind on other things.

  “Uh, actually, where I went this morning had nothing to do with Christmas.”

  “Oh, really?” David frowned. “So what were you doing this morning?”

  Jessica headed toward the sink and began washing her hands, a task that conveniently required her to turn her back on her husband. “I met with, um, Terry Nolan to talk about the second murder. You know, Donald Ditzler. The pediatrician.”

  Behind her, she heard a loud sigh. “Jessica, haven’t you had enough of that little diversion yet?’’

  Already the fury was rising inside her. “Diversion?” she repeated, turning around and grabbing a dish towel. “Is that how you see the investigation of a serial killing? Two perfectly innocent people get murdered in this town, and you think it’s trivial?”

  “No, I don’t think it’s trivial. But I do think that it’s ridiculous for you to get involved in it.”

  “Look, David, all I’ve been doing is talking to people. Since when is there anything wrong with that?’’

  “I just don’t want you to get mixed up with some nut, Jessica. It could be very, very dangerous.”

  “Oh, so you don’t think I can take care of myself?” She balled up the dish towe
l and tossed it on the counter. It was a gesture she was vaguely aware of having seen not long before. “Well, it just so happens that I did just fine yesterday—”

  “What do you mean? What happened yesterday?”

  She stopped, realizing that she had just spilled a bit of information she hadn’t been planning to share with him. “Oh, nothing. I was just talking about the volunteer work I did for the Save Our Seas group.”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Well, all I was doing was keeping my eyes and ears open,” she said defensively. “Just to see if I could find out anything. There was this one man who was kind of a . . .a suspect, you might say, and I simply—”

  “Jessica,” David suddenly boomed, “this is the limit. I forbid you to continue messing around with this murder investigation.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “What?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing into slits. “What did you say?”

  David’s face suddenly sagged into sheepishness. “Wait a minute. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.’’

  “Oh, no? I think you meant it exactly that way.”

  “I only meant that it would be crazy for you to—”

  “You won’t let me breathe, will you? You want to control everything I do!” By this point, Jessica was yelling. “This was not the deal we made, you know.”

  “What deal? What are you talking about?”

  “Look, David. When you and I agreed that it would be best for me to take some time off from my career to raise our son, the idea was not that I would become ... I don’t know, Jane Wyatt to your Robert Young.”

  “I’m sorry, Jess, but you’ve really lost me now.”

  “You know precisely what I mean.” Jessica couldn’t believe that her husband was really that out of touch with his own culture. “I’m talking about ‘Father Knows Best.’ A catchy phrase that—in case it’s not already obvious to you—automatically implies that ‘Mother’ knows only second best, and that mother is . therefore inferior to father. ...”

  “Jessica, how did we get into this? All I was saying was that I’m not exactly thrilled that you’ve taken it upon yourself to go around investigating murders. You could get hurt.”

  “No, David,” Jessica said in a cold, controlled voice. “You were saying a whole lot more than that.”

  Suddenly David threw up both his arms in a gesture of defeat. “Okay. Fine. You win. I’m a terrible husband. I’m sexist. I’m macho. I’m only a step away from wanting you barefoot and pregnant.”

  “You’re the one who said it,” Jessica couldn’t resist interjecting, “not me.”

  “But I have one question for you,” he went on. “If I’ve been treating you like a second-class citizen, what have you done to keep yourself from slipping into that role?”

  “Great! Blame me!” Jessica shot back.

  “I’m not talking about blame here. I’m talking about responsibility. About taking responsibility for yourself. And your life.”

  “Say it in English, David.”

  “All right. Try this. If you don’t want to be treated like a house-bound drudge in pink plastic curlers and bedroom slippers, then stop acting like a house-bound drudge in pink plastic curlers and bedroom slippers. And for God’s sake, above all, stop seeing yourself that way!’’

  “I don’t see myself that way,” Jessica replied, but her tone was meek and unconvincing.

  “Oh, no? Okay, then, try this on for size. You’re saying that things between us have changed, right? That I’ve changed. That I’ve become this demanding, tyrannical, traditional husband who . . . who wants a maid instead of a wife, right?”

  “If the shoe fits . . .” she said coolly.

  “All right, then. We’ve established that your perception is that I’m the one who’s changed. But let me ask you something. If I’m not the man you married, tell me, Jessica: are you the woman I married? Are you the dynamic, self-confident woman who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t afraid for a minute to go out and get it? Are you the same person who used to demand that everybody, and that included me, treat you with respect—and God help one of us if we didn’t? Are you that same woman, Jessica?”

  He was standing up now, about to head out the door.

  “You know, you’re right about one thing, Jessica. Our relationship is different from the way it was when we first got married. But do you know what? It’s not because of Sammy. It’s not because of me, either. Out of all three of us, guess who’s the one who’s gone through the biggest changes?”

  “I think I can guess the answer to that one,” Jessica said dryly.

  “That’s right. You’re the one who chose to stop working. You’re the one who decided to be a full-time mommy and spend your days baking cookies and clipping coupons. You’re the one who opted out of the corporate world where, it seems to me, you were getting along quite nicely.

  ‘‘And as a result of all these things that you chose to do, you’re the one who’s suddenly having the identity crisis!”

  As he stomped out of the kitchen, the teakettle let out a loud, mournful shriek.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sammy came home from nursery school with a letter from Miss Linda demanding three dozen home-baked cookies by the end of the week, and it finally hit Jessica that there was a holiday happening out there. The importance of making beds and doing laundry paled beside baking no fewer than seven different varieties of Christmas cookies. Making a decent, well-balanced dinner for her loved ones was out; finding the perfect blend of potpourri to send to her great-aunt out in Ellensburg, Washington, was in. She made lists for everything: things she had to do, things she had already done; people she had sent cards to, people she had received cards from; gifts she intended to buy; gifts she hoped someone would buy for her.

  This year, Christmas was even more important than usual. After all, it would be her first here in Sea Cliff, her first major holiday in her new suburban home. It was also the first time that Sammy would be old enough to be able to appreciate what Christmas was all about. And Jessica was prepared to take full advantage of his increased level of understanding by creating a celebration so magnificent it would impress even the editors of Good Housekeeping, a group known to have eggnog in their veins.

  It was just past eleven P.M., less than ten days before the big day itself, when Jessica decided she was ready to take merry-making to its limit. First she checked on Sammy, wanting to make sure he was really, truly unconscious. Sure enough, he had been reduced to a snoring, rasping blob in Superman pajamas, with one leg wedged in between the mattress and the bed guard, and one arm clutching his stuffed bear with an iron grip. The coast was clear. But first, she had some old business to take care of.

  “Truce?” she suggested to her husband gently, folding herself up on the couch a safe distance away from where he was sitting, glued to the television screen. “In honor of the holidays?”

  He hesitated for only a moment before reaching over and taking her hand. “You’re right. The last thing we need in this house right now is a Grinch.’’

  “I think maybe there have been two Grinches around here.”

  “Great. So let’s break open that package of candy canes you’ve got hidden on top of the refrigerator and sit back to watch the rest of this. You know White Christmas is one of my favorite cornball movies of all time.”

  “We can’t. Right now we have a much higher calling.”

  “Uh-oh.” David peered at her nervously. “Jessica, I don’t like that look in your eyes.”

  “It’s the visions of sugarplums. Come on, the dough should be ready by now.”

  He groaned. “Jess, do we really have to do this? Do we really have to make a gingerbread house right now?”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t be such a Scrooge.” She grabbed his hand and dragged him bodily off the couch.

  “Hey, they’re just getting to the best part,” he protested. “Look, Bing and Danny are going to dress up like Rosemary Cloony and Vera Ellen to
sing ‘Sisters.’ See, they have the big feathers and everything. ...”

  “I need you. You’re the engineer, remember? Besides, we can tape your movie. If God had wanted us all to sit in front of the tube all night, He never would have invented VCRs.”

  “Funny, I thought the Japanese invented VCRs.”

  David’s protests were becoming considerably more lame as he trailed after his wife into the kitchen. “Can’t we just go to a bakery and buy one, like normal people?”

  “David, I promised Sammy I’d make him a gingerbread house. As a matter of fact, I promised him last June, when he found those ancient issues of the Ladies’ Home Journal my mother is hoarding in her basement. Besides, he wants to decorate it himself. First thing tomorrow, when he comes home from nursery school. Look, I’ve got all the candy ready and everything.”

  She opened the door to one of the cabinets and waved her arm in the air, Vanna White-style. Just as she had promised, tucked away behind the Ronzoni elbow macaroni and the cans of tuna packed in water was a small cache of colorful delectables, the kind of stuff that makes pediatric dentists rub their hands together in glee. Piled in a heap were bags of spiced gum drops, M&M’s, candy canes, nonpareils, and those round red-and-white mints that make your mouth feel like it’s on fire.

  “Good luck.” David patted her on the shoulder. “You, Sammy, and fifteen kinds of candy . . . We’re talking heavy sugar fits here. I’ll tell you what; I’ll send the guys with the straitjackets over right before dinner time, okay?”

  “Oh, it’ll be fun. One of those Norman Rockwell-type moments we’re all always trying to create. Mother and son, leaning over the kitchen table together, building houses with their own nonunion labor...”

  “Why stop there? Why deprive our precious offspring of the opportunity to roll out the dough, too?”

  “It’s not that simple. First of all, you have to cut the pieces out in advance and let them air-dry overnight.”

  David continued to look doubtful. “Couldn’t you just run a hair dryer over them a few times?’’

  “Stop stalling. Look, here’s the dough, here’s the wax paper, here’s the rolling pin. And these little scraps of paper are the templates. Two for the sides, two for the front and the back, two for the roof, four for the chimney. Just pretend that this is a Manhattan skyscraper, and it’s your job to make it stand up.” With a folded paper towel, she began smearing a thin coat of Crisco over her entire cookie sheet collection.