Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  A white plantation-style manor, it looked like some of the ones I’d once seen on a trip to Newport, Rhode Island, except smaller. Located about forty feet back from the lake, the house was surrounded by a vast, manicured emerald green lawn, which gently unfurled itself as it ran down to the dock. It was a Henry James kind of lawn. I expected to see men and women dressed in white playing croquet. Several sprinklers were set up on the grass, the fine mists of water dancing in the sun, catching the colors of the light. Maybe there was a drought in the rest of Onondaga County, but there wasn’t one here.

  The bucolic nature of the place was further emphasized by the series of gently rolling hills off in the distance. They were so evenly spaced, they looked as if they had been airbrushed in. The only thing missing was sheep dotting the hillside. Naturally, there was a tennis court and a swimming pool off to one side. I parked the car in the circular driveway a little over to the left. As I walked up the black brick road— no tarmac for Rose Taylor—two gardeners stopped and watched me go by. The sun had turned their skin the color of walnuts.

  A maid answered the door a few seconds after I rang. She was dressed in the traditional maid’s uniform, a black dress with a white apron, something you don’t see too often anymore. Or let me correct that. Something I don’t see too often anymore—something that I actually had never seen at all, if we’re being accurate.

  “The service entrance is around the back,” she told me in heavily accented English.

  I guess I should have changed out of my jeans and T-shirt. I handed her my card and told her who I was.

  “Really,” I said, giving her my best middle-class smile. “Mrs. Taylor is expecting me. Check if you want.”

  “That is not necessary.” The maid’s disdainful glance lingered on the place on my T-shirt where I’d wiped my hands after I’d scooped some algae out of one of the fish tanks. Up until now I’d forgotten about the yellow-green stain. Then she gave a slight, resigned shrug, as if to say she only worked here, it wasn’t any business of hers who came in.

  “Mrs. Taylor is waiting for you in the sunroom.”

  I stepped inside, and she closed the door. Constructed from wood, with palm-sized metal rivets, it reminded me of the doors you see on old buildings in Florence or Rome. The maid’s short-legged body and the slightly flat shape of the back of her head made me think she was Mayan, probably from Chiapas or the Yucatan. At one time, I would have thought that was unusual, but in the past few years I’ve been seeing more and more Mexicans in this area.

  She turned and started down the hall. I trotted behind her, my slides click-clacking on the black-and-white marble floor. My stomach started to clench. At first, I thought I was nervous about the upcoming meeting, but then I realized it was the house itself. It reminded me of my mother’s apartment. The house was perfect. Like a museum. Filled with beautiful objects, it was devoid of the clutter that would have made it a home. From what I could see, it was also devoid of things like computers, television sets, and stereos. The furniture in the rooms we passed was mostly French, the rugs Persian. There were landscapes on the walls and a collection of blue-and-white Chinese pottery displayed in the hall, along with two large antique Japanese scrolls. An old Coromandel screen, similar to one I’d seen in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stood over in one corner.

  As I slowed down to contemplate a fifteenth-century Buddha sitting, palms upraised, staring out at a blank wall, consoling no one, I wondered why Hillary had chosen to decorate her house the way she had. Most people in her situation would have picked another motif instead of coming up with a cheap copy of her mother’s. I know I had. Maybe Hillary was making an ironic commentary on the nature of wealth and possessions, except she didn’t strike me as either distanced or sophisticated enough to do that. I was still wondering about that when I walked into the sunroom.

  “Come in, come in,” Mrs. Taylor said, indicating she wanted me to come closer with a crisp wave of her right hand. The gesture was as precise as her penmanship.

  She was seated on a cushioned wicker chaise longue, stroking the lilac-point Siamese cat resting on her lap, the cat, I presumed, Pat Humphrey was talking to on a regular basis. A cluster of weeping ficus trees that almost reached the ceiling stood behind her. To her right was a priestly-looking man in a lightweight navy suit, while to her left was the man who’d delivered her note to me this morning.

  “Did you have a nice drive over?” she inquired.

  I nodded as I advanced across the floor. The place smelled of dead flowers and cloves.

  “Good.”

  The room was all windows and oak. Off to one side was a small greenhouse that could be closed off from the main room by a sliding-glass door. Baskets of large staghorn and maidenhair ferns hung from the ceiling, while pots of improbably colored orchids sat on the center table.

  “Orchids are a hobby of mine,” she explained, following my glance. “I like them because they’re a challenge. They’re difficult to propagate and difficult to raise. Unlike some other flowers, such as my namesake—roses. Which, despite what some people say, are essentially boring.”

  If I were going to guess, I’d say Rose Taylor was about seventy. It was easy to see how pretty she must have been forty years ago. She still had the cheekbones, the large eyes, and a wide, generous mouth. Her gray hair was pulled back in a chignon. Her makeup was light. She hadn’t made the mistake of trying to disguise the wrinkles on her face. Her dress was simple, a pair of black linen pants and a thin white linen shirt with decorative embroidery around the collar. Her only jewelry was a pair of large emerald earrings.

  “This,” she said, pointing to her cat, “is Sheba, and this,” she said pointing to the tall, painfully thin man in the blue suit, “is my old friend and lawyer, Mr. Moss Ryan. And this person, whom you met in the store this morning, is my husband, Geoffrey Lang.”

  I don’t know if my jaw dropped or not. But her expression told me how much she enjoyed the look of amazement that had to be appearing on my face.

  We were talking about what here? An age difference of twenty-five or thirty years?

  For some reason I found myself thinking of the Cheshire cat. Maybe it was Rose Taylor’s smile.

  Her smile showed off her teeth. They were very small and very white, and they looked as if they could still take a nasty bite out of someone.

  “You see,” she purred. “People are wrong when they say money can’t buy happiness.”

  Chapter Six

  I wondered how long ago the happy couple had gotten married and what Rose Taylor’s children thought about the nuptials and whether or not they’d been invited to the wedding, let alone gone, while I watched the flesh around Geoffrey’s nostrils turn dead white. His entire face reddened. He looked as if he’d been slapped.

  “Is there anything wrong, dear?” Rose Taylor asked, touching her husband’s sleeve.

  He flinched and drew away. Rose Taylor’s face crumpled. Her lower lip began trembling.

  “Oh, my.” She lifted her hand away from the pink cotton material and shook her head. “I don’t... what did I say?” Then her eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth as she understood what Geoffrey thought she’d meant. “Oh, no, darling ...” she stammered. “You can’t think I meant... my comment about being rich... I just meant I’ve been lucky... having this house.... You know I’d never... ever.” Her voice cracked. She ducked her head to one side.

  I studied the terra-cotta tiles on the floor. They were Italian, like the marble in the hallway, I decided as I watched two small black ants scurrying along a thin line of beige grout.

  “Of course we know,” Moss Ryan said, hurrying into the breach of Rose’s silence. He had one of those professionally calming voices, the kind religious leaders and doctors cultivate, the kind that makes you want to believe that everything will be all right even when you know it won’t be. He glared at Geoffrey, the irises of his eyes dark with anger. “I’m sure Geoff does, too. Don’t you? Don’t you,
” he repeated after a few seconds had gone by.

  Geoffrey forced the corners of his mouth upward into a rictus of a smile. “Yes. Absolutely,” he told Rose Taylor, pointedly ignoring the other man. “I know you’d never say anything to hurt me.”

  “Because...” Her voice quavered. She looked small all of a sudden, as if her body were shrinking in on itself.

  “No. I was just being silly.” His voice had a hard, shiny quality to it, like a beetle’s shell.

  Rose Taylor reached up and clutched his arm, pulling him toward her. “So, you’ll forgive an old lady her mistake?” she asked him anxiously as her kitty meowed to be petted.

  “Don’t be ridiculous; you’re not old,” Geoffrey countered with a gaily practiced, painfully false gallantry as he leaned over and hugged her.

  She clung to him, relaxing in his embrace. A moment later, he excused himself, claiming he had business to take care of. I watched Rose watch Geoffrey as he hurried across the floor, his chin tucked in, his eyes hooded over, looking neither to the right or the left.

  “My,” she fretted after he’d gone. “I think I really have upset him. He’s so sensitive, and I always seem to be saying the wrong thing.” She gave Sheba an absentminded pat.

  Moss Ryan bent over Rose and made soothing sounds in her ear. “Do you want me to speak to him?” he asked, patting her shoulder, reassuring her the way a parent would a child.

  “Please. I’d be ever so grateful.” Rose flashed him a smile, and he scurried off like a courtier on a mission from his queen.

  “I know I must appear ridiculous to you,” she said to me as soon as we were alone. “No.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and held up her hand. “Don’t say anything. I know what you’re thinking. I would have thought the same thing at your age. I don’t expect you to understand. How could you? Why should you? No one thinks I should be doing this. Not Moss. Not my staff. Certainly not my children. And they’re probably right. My life would be much simpler without Geoff. I’m not denying that.” She fingered one of her emerald earrings as Sheba, bored, twitched her tail.

  I waited for Rose Taylor to continue. After a few seconds, she did.

  “Rheumatoid arthritis is a terrible thing. My first husband suffered horribly with it. In the end, his limbs were so twisted and swollen, even morphine wasn’t enough to keep the pain away.” She shuddered and quickly studied her own hands as if she were afraid she’d see the signs of the disease there. “I nursed Sanford for years. I never asked for anything. I was never unfaithful. I was at Sanford’s beck and call night and day. I did everything for him. Everything. He wanted it that way. He never wanted anyone else to touch him. Do you know what that’s like, watching someone you love slowly dying?”

  Her speech, which was designed to elicit sympathy, left me cold. Maybe it was the practiced quality it had to it, or maybe it was because it made me start thinking about Murphy. I wanted to say to Rose, but at least you had time to get ready, time to prepare. Your whole world wasn’t taken away from you in the snap of a finger. I’d gone out to get some food and come back to find Murphy dead in the car in the garage from a heart attack brought on by a cocaine overdose. Which way was better? Did it really matter?

  “That’s when I began raising orchids,” Rose went on, interrupting my thoughts. I tried to focus on what she was saying. “They’re like my children. You see that one? The one on the end of the table.” She pointed at a small white bloom.

  I nodded.

  “It cost me fifty thousand dollars. I bought my first orchid for thirty dollars. I read everything I could get my hands on. And Sanford encouraged me. He insisted I add on the greenhouse. For a long time they were my only consolation.”

  “But now you have something else.”

  “Yes, I do,” she parried without missing a beat. “And what’s so wrong with that? With wanting to enjoy myself while I still can?”

  “Nothing,” I replied hastily, even though the question had been rhetorical.

  “Exactly. Not that my children share that attitude.” She shook her head and watched as Sheba jumped off her lap and began stalking the ants on the floor. “Maybe I shouldn’t expect them to.” She sighed and began twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “They were furious when they found out what I was going to do. Louis was the worst. The way he carried on...” Rose Taylor’s voice fell again. She raised her chin. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think children are more trouble than they’re worth, but then I’m glad I had them. I feel sorry for any woman who misses the experience of motherhood.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  She brightened. “Now, let’s have that drink I invited you for, shall we?” And with that she pressed a buzzer by her seat. Two minutes later, the Mexican maid appeared with a tray containing a martini glass, a silver cocktail shaker that came straight out of the twenties, and a glass filled with a manhattan for me.

  “I’m glad people have revived the cocktail hour,” Rose Taylor said as I moved the chair I’d sat down in closer to the table. “Not that I’ve ever given it up. Sanford and I indulged every evening at five-thirty. Toward the end, he was sipping his martini through a straw while I held the glass. Would you mind pouring, dear?” she asked, nodding toward the shaker. “Since my stroke my hands tend to shake a bit. So tedious growing old, but I do what I can to amuse myself.”

  I managed to restrain myself from pointing out the obvious. “Was it a bad one?” I asked instead, remembering my grandmother’s.

  “Bad enough.” Rose Taylor grimaced at the memory. “I lost partial use of my right side. It took months of physical therapy to get back to where I am. Now I have to take a blood thinner and have these stupid blood tests. So boring, but Geoffrey has been marvelous through it all. I don’t know what I’d have done without his encouragement.”

  I had a feeling his encouragement didn’t come cheap. I made a noncommittal noise as I remembered his comment in my store about wanting an MGB. He’d sounded pretty certain that he’d get it. And he probably would, too, if the loafers he was wearing were any indication of the way things were.

  Made of Italian leather, they cost five hundred dollars a pair if they cost a penny. No wonder Louis was pissed. Here he was working his ass off at the post office while his mother showered what he probably considered to be his money on her second husband. Not to mention all the money that was going to the pet psychic. I wondered if Louis had ever gotten a sports car from his mom. Somehow I thought not.

  “How about that drink?” Rose asked. I realized I was still holding the pitcher in my hand. “Now, then,” she said when I’d filled her glass and handed it to her. “You look like an intelligent woman.” She took a sip of her martini, savoring it before she put the glass down on the table. “I’m sure you can see that you’ve been put in an untenable position.”

  “Not really.” I picked up my Manhattan. A cherry was floating along the bottom, just the way Geoff had promised. I fished it out and ate it, wondering, as I did, why I liked these things so much. It had to be the color. It certainly didn’t taste like a cherry. It just tasted sweet.

  “Quite frankly, my children are involving you in something that is none of their business.”

  “Ah.” I put the stem back in my glass and took another sip of my manhattan while waiting to hear the rest.

  “Pat Humphrey is a close friend of mine. I don’t wish her disturbed.”

  “I wasn’t planning on disturbing her.” A lie, but then I’ve always felt telling the truth is an overrated virtue.

  “You already have by coming to her house, and don’t bother denying it,” Rose Taylor snapped before I could.

  “I wasn’t going to. I just asked for a reading. As far as I know, I have a right to do that.”

  “You gave a fake last name. Richardson, wasn’t it?”

  “True. Maybe I was embarrassed. Maybe I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing.”

  Rose Taylor began tapping her fingers on her martini glass. “D
on’t demean my intelligence.”

  “Excuse me. I didn’t think I was.” I took another sip of my manhattan and put the glass back down on the tray. “So who told you? Pat Humphrey?”

  “It’s irrelevant.”

  “Not to me.” I had another thought. “It was Amy, wasn’t it?” She’d been so scared of her mother finding out, it made sense that she’d be the one to tell. I’ve noticed that people who are extremely anxious about something often precipitate the event just to get it over with.

  “What a ridiculous notion,” Rose scoffed. But I could tell from the way her eyes blinked that I’d hit home.

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that Pat Humphrey could have stolen Sheba and...”

  “Let me worry about that,” Rose Taylor said. She leaned forward. I could see that the effort cost her. “I’m not a sentimental person, and I’m not a fool. I don’t believe in lying to myself. About anything. And that includes Pat Humphrey as well as my children. They don’t like the fact that I control the money. I can understand that. You probably think I’m terrible, but there’s a reason why my husband wrote his will the way he did.

  “It pains me to say this about my children, but all of them have problems. All of them have been in therapy on and off for as long as I could remember. I don’t know...” She looked away for a second. “Maybe we asked too much of them when they were little. It’s true Sanford wanted them to be strong... but we only wanted what was best for them...”

  The plaint of parents everywhere. Especially when their children turn on them, demanding explanations.

  “Perhaps we should have been more... understanding... but that wasn’t the fashion then, you know. When I was raising children, you expected them to listen to you. You weren’t supposed to be their pal. You were supposed to teach them values. Now, I don’t know what they told you about me....”

  “Nothing bad,” I quickly said.