Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

  “Hope everything’s going well?” he said to Spence. “Still rolling in the dough, old man?”

  Spence smiled but with his bottom lip curled in, as if he was trying to bite off a reply.

  “We do need to talk. Tomorrow?” Easton’s jocular tone turned serious but only for a moment. “When you’re not with a lovely lady lawyer, though. Attorney-client privilege, right? Make sure you give her a retainer. Ha! Tomorrow?” He took Spence’s hand in a farewell clasp and ducked away from our table.

  “Eliot’s quite the business genius,” Spence said. “This restaurant was his brainchild, but he’s into lots of other ventures. Very successful.”

  Not an excuse for being a boor, but I didn’t say that out loud.

  “Did you help make him successful?” I asked.

  “Hardly.” He slid his hands, palms down, around the stem of his wineglass. “Easton pointed me toward a couple of good investment opportunities—and the best steaks and wine cellar between Atlanta and Charlotte.”

  “So you’re in business with him?”

  “No, nothing like that. I’m an investor, not someone who wants to actually run a business.”

  “What kinds of things do you invest in? Is that something you can talk about?”

  “Without having you sign a nondisclosure agreement or boring you to death?” He shrugged. “It really is kind of boring. I’ve worked out a mathematical model that helps anticipate changes and—more important—rates of change in the markets. The model itself is complicated, but the theory isn’t. I just buy low and sell high.”

  “I see.” Sharing an office with Melvin had whetted my appetite for understanding the arcane world of venture capital and high finance, but all the talk seemed either obscure or clichéd or dull.

  “You invest for other people? Besides just yourself?”

  “I make recommendations, introduce people to some small, intrastate offerings, things they wouldn’t know about otherwise. The offerings operate under state law only and avoid the burdensome reporting requirements the federal government forces on publicly traded securities through the SEC.”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Kind of nerdy, I know. Not nearly so glamorous as life as a high-powered trial attorney. I understand you were quite the golden girl.”

  “I don’t know about that.” I played with my napkin. Talking about my irrational response to an ethical dilemma—and the opportunity a few months ago to see the liar who’d precipitated it hoist on his own petard—was too complicated and too fresh to share over dinner with a new acquaintance.

  “You’re too modest. You were the go-to lawyer for complex corporate defense. Thorough and determined. You’d win or kill someone, according to my sources. And they’re impeccable.”

  I wasn’t surprised that he’d checked me out, but I did wonder who he’d used as sources. I wasn’t going to ask, though.

  “Why’d you come back to Dacus?”

  “It’s home,” I said. Nothing in those two words indicated the mighty battle that had raged in me over that decision. Income, prestige, a sense of accomplishment—those hadn’t been easy to give up. Spence was implying a question: What’re you doing, sitting in a hick-town backwater with no future? I didn’t have an answer he’d understand.

  He gave me an appraising stare. Maybe he was calculating my investment potential in his mathematical model.

  “If we’d gone to high school together,” he said, “you’d have been the girl who wouldn’t have gone out with me.”

  That took me by surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  He focused on his wineglass as he slid it to a new spot. “I don’t know. Just remembering who I was, and imagining who you were.”

  You don’t have any idea who I was. Aloud, I said, “Who were you in high school?”

  “A nerd. A kid nobody noticed. Not the best at anything, really.”

  “But not the worst, either.”

  “No, not the worst.”

  “Oldest child?”

  “No,” he said. “Middle. Older brother, younger sister. All the striving and angst that implies. You?”

  “Oldest. You know Lydia, my sister. Why do you say you were a nerd?”

  “I don’t know, never seemed to quite fit in. Okay in sports, baseball mostly. Grew too late to consider basketball, not that I would’ve been any good. Okay in school. Just, you know, average.”

  “That describes most everybody, doesn’t it? Even the popular kids don’t think of themselves as popular—except in Disney TV movies.”

  “That doesn’t mean they aren’t. Popular, I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “One of the prettiest girls in my class never invited anybody home with her. Lots of us knew where she lived, but we never said anything. Living in that ramshackle house didn’t make her any less pretty or any less popular, but it made her feel awkward. In other words, just like every teenager.”

  “So you would’ve gone out with me?”

  “Don’t know. Would’ve depended on what kind of dancer you were.”

  “So the pressure’s on, huh? Not sure what my dancing skills now will tell you about how a younger, less experienced little Spencer Munn might have measured up.”

  Our salads arrived, followed by steaming steaks drizzled with garlic butter and charred to perfection.

  I wasn’t too shy to ask for a to-go bag; I couldn’t eat all the steak, but no way I’d let it go to waste out of false daintiness.

  By the time the waitress returned his credit card, we’d sat long enough for the dinner to settle and agreed to delay dessert until we’d danced some. He slid out of the booth and pulled the table away from my bench so I could stand out gracefully.

  The pressure really was on. I’d tossed down a challenge, in jest though it was. Could I measure up? I hadn’t danced in years. I also hadn’t felt a wave of silly insecurity, reminiscent of those high school insecurities, in at least that long. Not a pleasant trip down memory lane. Spence ushered me down the stairs, through a double door wide enough to accommodate a passenger bus, and into a gold and mahogany ballroom.

  Sunday Morning

  No matter that dancing and the drive home had pushed into early Sunday morning, I still had to make it to church. An unwritten, but long-standing family rule. Nothing on Saturday night excuses you from church on Sunday.

  For that reason and no other, I was dressed and downstairs drinking hot tea in the kitchen when the front door chime rang.

  As I came down the hall from the back of the house, I was certain the redheaded kid standing on the porch with a spray of flowers must have confused his delivery address and arrived at the old funeral home by mistake.

  “Miz Andrews?” he asked cheerfully when I opened the door. “For you.”

  Before I could check the card for any mistake or offer him a tip, he bounded down the steps to his florist delivery van, probably loaded with the last of his Sunday sanctuary arrangements.

  The note read, What’s the verdict? Would you have danced with me at the prom if I’d been lucky enough to attend Dacus High?

  The massive round table in the entry hall, usually barren, begged for just such a generous explosion of colors. I smiled as I centered the vase carefully on the table.

  Spence Munn was quite a dancer. As we danced set after set, we quickly learned each others’ rhythms and quirks. My own rusty awkwardness had melted.

  He knew how to lead and he wasn’t afraid to risk looking foolish, which good dancing demands. I gave the flowers a gentle fluff and smiled.

  Great-aunts Aletha, Hattie, and Vinnia were lined up in their usual pew, center aisle, about two-thirds of the way back. They’d saved me a seat on the end, next to Vinnia.

  Mom, Dad, Lydia, and Frank were in the choir, among the few other stalwarts. The Fourth of July holiday took lots of families out of town. The visitors it brought to town seldom included church in their plans, unlike at Easter or Christmas.

  Luke Deep, the pastor who’d been call
ed to Dacus Baptist only four or five weeks earlier, brought his usual upbeat energy to the service. He had the children waving their miniature American flags during the children’s sermon, and the hymns were a patriotic medley from the back of the hymnal, the special occasion section.

  His sermon, though, didn’t mine God-bless-America themes. Baptists aren’t required to use a lectionary or a prescribed annual list of sermon topics. Baptist churches typically let each pastor do his own thing, and we espouse the “priesthood of the believer,” a sort of organized chaos that can provide fertile ground for some extreme views. However, Dacus Baptist, for all its cloistered small-townness, maintained a moderation and inclusiveness that I appreciated.

  Pastor Luke, as everyone called him—though I did like the image cast by the name Pastor Deep—picked Christ’s temptations for the sermon. He tried to get us to feel Jesus’ hunger and fatigue after forty days in the wilderness, even though we sat in air-conditioned comfort and most of us had eaten breakfast and slept at least a little the night before. He took us to the mountaintop and tried to show us how enticing the offer of sustenance, of power, of fame must have been, given what Jesus had endured, what he came to accomplish, and how terribly painful it would be to achieve. Here was the easy way, all worked out. All you have to do is take it. Still awfully tempting, even when we’re well fed and rested and secure.

  I didn’t notice Aunt Letha using the stubby pew pencil a single time to scribble notes to Hattie, which was a good sign. Her notes, as I knew as a past recipient, were usually indictments of someone’s behavior, critiques of the pastor’s academic preparation or delivery style, or a reminder of something the recipient had been responsible for and failed to do.

  No scribbles meant peace reigned in her land. Always good. Aletha—Letha for short—was the eldest of my grandfather’s septuagenarian and octogenarian surviving sisters, and she’d assumed the matriarchal mantle a decade earlier when Granddad died. She’d actually run things before that, so the transition had been seamless.

  After the final chords of the organ sounded, the three sisters bustled toward home, with Hattie driving the big sedan and Letha in back, as befitted royalty.

  They had some dishes to bring to Lydia’s house for our family’s holiday gathering, and they had to change clothes, though I knew I wouldn’t see much difference between their church dresses and their picnic dresses. Vinnia especially, though, was quite particular about not ruining her nice church clothes.

  I hurried home to change into shorts so I could arrive at Lydia’s ahead of the crowd and help her set up. She insists that hosting parties is no strain on her, but she has a Superwoman complex. To help out, on my trip to the grocery on Saturday morning to get doughnuts for the festival meeting, I’d picked up a chest of ice and grocery bags full of soft drinks, hamburger and hot-dog buns, chips, and whatever else had looked good as I’d cruised the aisles.

  Lydia perpetuates the myth that I can’t fix Brown ’n’ Serve Rolls without ruining them. That’s not entirely true, but why set yourself in the competition with fine cooks like Lydia, Mom, and the great-aunts? I’m happy to do the mundane, the uninspired but necessary tasks, as long as I earn my place at the table.

  When the guests began to arrive, some on the guest list surprised me. In addition to Mom and Dad, who also came early, and the great-aunts, the party included my parents’ neighbors, Pastor Luke and his wife, and a couple of choir members—semiregulars at our frequent family cookouts, and no surprises there.

  The first surprise came when Eden Rand led a shell-shocked Rog Reimann into the backyard.

  “Rog really needed to get out of the house.” Eden swept her frizzy hair off the nape of her neck and reached for a paper napkin to daub at her forehead as she confided that to Lydia. Frank had led Rog to the table loaded with soft drinks and tea. “You wouldn’t believe what it’s been like.”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Lydia.

  “That sheriff of yours as been hounding him with questions but refuses to tell him when the body will be released so he can make funeral arrangements.”

  My head snapped up from my assigned task of setting the serving table. “They found her?”

  “Yesterday,” Eden said. “But they won’t answer any of Rog’s questions. They just keep after him with questions. I told him to just quit talking to them. He doesn’t have to say anything. Does he?”

  The sociology professor shot her question at me, as if she’d suddenly remembered what I did for a living.

  “No, but—”

  “He doesn’t want them to stop talking to him, of course. He wants to know what’s going on, but I say hey, they aren’t telling you anything anyway, so why’re you bothering? I say he needs a lawyer.”

  Lydia looked in my direction, but I wasn’t about to volunteer. Besides, Rog was the one who needed legal advice, not his colleague Eden. In any event, she didn’t want any advice; she was too busy giving it.

  “When did they—find her?” Lydia asked.

  “Yesterday afternoon, late. Said they needed to do an autopsy, so she was shipped off somewhere.”

  “I’m sure, as soon as they know something, they’ll talk to Rog.”

  Eden snorted. “That sheriff’s on a power trip. I hear she’s up for reelection. I’m not going to stand by and let her turn Rog into some publicity stunt to get votes.”

  Lydia and I kept ripping open bags of chips, setting containers of dip into bowls of ice water, arranging napkins, and the myriad other tasks required to make a picnic look casual and spontaneous. This annual gathering was usually reserved for family and close friends. I admired Lydia, who came by her Miss Fix-It tendencies from a long line of Howe women, for inviting the wounded birds, but I selfishly wished the picnic was just family. Then I felt guilty for being selfish.

  Rather than offering to help with the preparations, Eden said, “I’d better go check on Rog.” She floated off in a waft of gauze and unfettered frizzy hair.

  “She sure has taken him on as a project,” I said.

  “She’d done that long before Rinda’s accident,” said Lydia. “Rog has just been too clueless to see the net tightening around him. Then again, brilliant but clueless might be Rog’s middle name.”

  She used a chip to taste test her crab dip.

  “A typical absentminded professor?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about typical,” Lydia said. She wasn’t about to acknowledge her professor-husband’s space cadet qualities. “Everybody but Rog had been watching as Rinda renewed her old high school friendship.”

  “With who?”

  “Whom.” The correction was pure reflex, which is why Emma talks like a pocket-sized encyclopedia. “Ken Tharp. They dated in high school. When Rog took the teaching position at the university and they moved back to Camden County, Rinda and Ken picked up where they left off a decade ago. Well, maybe not in the back of his mom’s minivan, but . . .”

  “Ken Tharp from the city council? That Ken Tharp?”

  “You don’t think there’s more than one, do you? That’s why he and his wife Weesa weren’t up at the picnic on Friday, though everyone knew that’s who Rinda was jabbering on the phone with.”

  Not everyone knew, since I hadn’t a clue that scandal seethed around me.

  “You’d think that, after being married, having kids, all the rest, they’d stop acting like dogs in heat,” Lydia said. She may have Mom’s huge heart, but she’d also grown up with Aunt Letha’s judgmental pronouncements.

  I didn’t point out that, biologically speaking, only one dog was in heat, and the other just followed along.

  “I tried to introduce Rinda around, get her involved. I feel bad now that I didn’t do more. We never were close. She was always—Well, she spent all her time chasing boys. Never outgrew it. I’m sorry she’s dead, but—I don’t know. I’m not a very nice person.”

  “That’s not true.” I knew what she couldn’t say. Stirring up false grief was, well, false. “Nice of you to
invite Rog.”

  Her mouth pressed tight in a look of mild disgust. “Yet again, he doesn’t have a clue. The lady sociologist has not chosen him as a random research subject.”

  Before I could mine her gossip reserves further, Mom joined us.

  “Is that Peg and Matt’s son-in-law over there? Rinda’s husband?” She nodded toward Rog.

  “Um-hm,” Lydia said.

  “Bless his heart. He must be devastated. I know Peg and Matt both are. I stopped by there yesterday evening. I can’t imagine losing a daughter.” She spoke as if daughters were an abstract concept rather than standing on either side of her.

  “Rinda was their only child. Peg was talking about how thrilled they’d been when she’d moved back to Dacus, after living away for so long, then she just broke down. It just ripped at my heart. I realized I lucky I was.”

  She patted Lydia and me each on the arm, the extent of her Calvinist closeness. She loved us, no doubt, but no one in our family allows themselves to let mushiness run amok.

  Emma walked up, bringing Spence Munn out of the house as if she was leading a dog who wouldn’t obey her.

  “He was ringing the front door bell,” she said. She rolled her eyes as if to say, Who doesn’t know how to find our backyard?

  “Hi.” I didn’t control the squeak in my voice. He hadn’t mentioned being on Lydia’s guest list. “Um. Get you something to drink?”

  I could feel Lydia’s radar receptors on full alert. I turned toward the drink table, which stood under a tree at the side of the patio. If she couldn’t see my eyes, she couldn’t shoot her mind-reading probe into my brain.

  I waited until we were out of earshot before I said, “Thanks for the flowers. They’re lovely.”

  “Don’t know when I’ve had so much fun. I’m sure we’re the talk of the dance club crowd wherever they gather today. Who was that extraordinarily talented couple, they’re all asking.”