Skirting the Grave

by Annette Blair

  “You scared me this morning, Mad. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I apologize.”

  I hated making him feel guilty. “You know what? Bet I did it breaking Nick’s jaw last night.”

  Werner sighed with relief. “Now that makes me feel a whole lot better.”

  Don’t know why I didn’t come up with a better whopper right away. Anyway, I lied through my teeth so I didn’t have to touch the clothes, take a chance on getting a reading, zone, and flake out in front of Werner. I pretty much believed that having him see me do that more than once a day would be too much.

  Inside, he stopped me from turning on anything but indirect lights and hooked his iPod to my speakers. “Memories are Made of This” flooded the shop.

  He took me in his arms as purposefully as he’d taken my hand, and he waltzed me like a professional dancer around my “roller skating” area.

  “Bravo, Detective,” I said, breathless. “I could get used to this.”

  “I was hoping you could.”

  “Que Sera, Sera” followed. What will be and all that...

  “You found a fifties station?”

  “I have a fifties compilation.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. When we waltzed to “The Wayward Wind,” I felt wayward, and he led the way like a pro. “Is this a date?”

  “No,” he said. “I’d prepare better for a date. We’ve just gone AWOL for a bit. We’ll find a wardrobe for Brandy soon enough. This is just a short trip to the fifties that we can appreciate together.”

  “How many fifties songs do you have in that thing?”

  “Thousands,” he said with a wink.

  Bill Haley & His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” turned Werner into a cool cat. I got twirled and dipped, so in sync with him, you’d have thought we practiced for hours.

  “You’re awesome,” I said, so close to his hard bod . . . I wanted to stay and learn more.

  This man is no wiener, I thought. What an injustice I’d perpetrated, giving him that name as a kid.

  “In college,” he said, “we had one of those jockbrilliant football coaches who thought dancing would help us move.”

  Werner had the physique of a football player: broad shoulders, small waist, tight tush. Handsome, with the command of a dynamic leader, all belying the graceful way he moved on the dance floor.

  Nick, on the other hand, stood nearly as tall, darker haired, solid and more compact, swarthy, with aquiline features and warrior-like fighting skills, a hunka-hunka Italian stallion.

  Werner caught my eye. Had I been quiet for too long?

  “Go, coach!” I said.

  Twenty-six

  The dress is a vase which the body follows. My clothes are like modules in which bodies move.

  —PIERRE CARDIN

  “I could dance all night,” I said, stopping to catch my breath, “but we need to grab Brandy’s wardrobe before it gets too late. I’m beat after assaulting you last night. You?”

  “I’ll admit it,” Werner said. “I’m bruised and beat, but, Mad, come dancing with me sometime, will you? I’ve never had such a great partner. Seriously, we’ll make a night of it. No strings.”

  “As friends? I’d like that.”

  “It’s Raining Men” played in my head. Sometimes I thought that maybe I wanted to fall for Werner, but I couldn’t deny that Nick, my gorgeous go-to guy, since like forever, meant the world to me.

  Until I made up my mind, I was going to enjoy the ride and consider myself one lucky girl.

  Werner dipped me. Lucky, yeah. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

  But when the music slowed, I straightened and stepped back, a little less seduced by the music, a bit more aware of crossing a line. “We have to get Brandy’s clothes together.”

  Werner sighed and removed his hands from my person. “Your wish and all that,” he said.

  “Fine.” I pointed to the clothes on Grand-mère’s rack. “Grab that plum jacket with the shawl collar, the plum pencil skirt, and plaid box pleat skirt. She can mix and match them and fit completely in, between now and Saturday, with the fund-raiser’s fifties theme. Pencil skirt for evening, plaid box pleats for day wear.”

  Werner grabbed when I nodded, or moved on if I shook my head. “Like I know what a pencil shawl is,” he grumbled.

  “You wanted to come along and help me.”

  “I wanted to come and dance with you.”

  I raised a chiding brow, and he had the sense to look sheepish.

  I let him off the hook. “At home, I have a Hermès reversible scarf print jacket, and I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ll generously lend it to her while she’s in town. I can find twenty skirts to go with that; the colors are so vibrant.”

  “Please,” Werner begged. “Spare me the details.” He set the clothes down on the counter. “Come, dance with me. I like this next one a lot.”

  “Running Bear” started with a Native American beat and didn’t require the traditional rock and roll but a slow, close, rock and waltz.

  When Werner crossed his arms above his chest, I did the same, and we circled each other, keeping to the beat.

  “I love this song,” I said.

  “White Dove, shush!” He pulled me into his arms when the couple met in the middle of the river, as if to keep me from drowning, then the beat picked up, and he started to twirl me.

  My front door slammed.

  “Say cheese,” a stranger said, snapping a picture and disappearing as fast as he appeared.

  Werner let go of me to chase the photographer.

  I lost my balance, reached out, grabbed a rack, and took it and Grand-mère’s vintage clothes down with me.

  I began to swirl away as soon as my head hit the floor. I saw Werner’s concern as he came for me, then I found myself sitting on the back of a convertible like a beauty queen in a Saint Patty’s Day parade. Not that anybody could see me.

  Grand-mère roller-skated across a parking lot in front of a red and yellow checkered diner with blue and green neon trim. Wow, the fifties were colorful.

  She carried a tray high in one hand, showing off her figure to perfection, and didn’t she know it. On the tray: a frosted mug of root beer, a couple of plates with burgers and fries. She went to the turquoise T-bird, white top, one car over. “Peachy car,” she said, hooking a tray to the open window. Her name tag said Betty at this diner, but it was still Grand-mère in her youth, whatever name she used.

  “A nifty fifty-seven roadster, is Beulah,” said Slick, his hair greased back. “Want a ride?” Wink, wink.

  “Gotta work.” She looked around, making a point of appearing disinterested.

  I got a bead on her view, my own limited by my location, but I saw a couple Corvettes, a pink and black Rambler, and a woodie station wagon. I noticed they all had Rhode Island license plates and there was no mistaking the scent of the sea. Besides, a sign on the diner said Chowder and Clam Cakes, and you could only buy clam cakes in Rhode Island.

  Slick in the T-bird cleared his throat.

  Betty focused on her customer. “Will there be anything else?” she asked, playing coy.

  “Sure,” he said. “I want an answer. Nine tonight. The Palms. West side.” He slipped Betty some money.

  She checked her take as she rode by me: at least two one hundred dollar bills and another motel key. I wondered what she would have to do for double the loot. Or heck, maybe the guy at the last place gave her a down payment. What did I know? The names of the motels that went with the keys had fired my imagination.

  Scrap. Had Grand-mère truly been a hooker in her day? One with a heart of gold, maybe, but she must have loved the thrill of it, because she whooped.

  So the old lady and one of her granddaughters were both hookers. What did that have to do with Payton’s death? I’d like to know.

  I heard rather than saw the T-bird peel out of the lot. A second screech, close on the rubber Slick laid, made me wonder who’d followed him.

  A ne
w nickel had gone into the jukebox, because the loudspeakers blared, “. . . all I have to do is dream.”

  And dream I did.

  Twenty-seven

  It’s not what you wear—it’s how you take it off.

  —AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  The music stopped. Time did not.

  I entered this vision inside Betty’s skin, nervous as a frog in a frying pan, wearing the banded yellow sleeveless boatneck swing dress with red flower-topped, opentoed shoes I wished I’d found in the trunk.

  I slipped the key in the lock. Room 203. The Palms. West side.

  But when the force of turning it pushed the door open, I stilled, my heart beating double time, until I reached inside and flipped on the light, and my heart beat faster.

  Two men occupied the room.

  Slick, the rich chosen father of my unborn child, my ticket out of hell, damn it, lay unconscious on the floor.

  The man sprawled on the bed, dirty cowboy boots defiling a white bedspread, swore a familiar blue streak and swigged cheap whiskey. “Thought you could get away with it, didn’t you, Liz?”

  I, as Elizabeth Kingston York, raised my chin. “Our boys have to eat, and I don’t see you bringing home any bacon.”

  He threw the empty bottle at the wall where it shattered, making me jump, getting my attention the way he liked it, with me cowering.

  This time, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I raised my chin, hoping he read my defiance. “What a husband,” I said. “Drunk as usual.”

  “With a hooker for a wife, do you blame me?”

  “You’ve been drunk for ten years. I’ve been hooking for five.”

  “What do they pay you?” he asked. “Because you’re not bringing home the bacon, either, not to me.”

  I ignored that. “Fifty to be here, and another fifty . . . after.” Grand-mère’s satisfaction was a little too satisfying for Madeira Cutler’s comfort.

  Her husband shot off the bed. “You lying bitch! That guy said he gave you two C notes, up front.”

  Grand-mère took a small step back, then another. “So why’d you ask?”

  When her husband produced a flask from his jean jacket and took a swig, she pulled a revolver from her purse.

  She hit the light switch, a breeze swung the door shut, and my vision turned to night blindness.

  After a sensation of floating out of my body—mine, Madeira Cutler’s—the sound of sirens in the distance became the wind whistling through trees, and leaves swirling around headstones, the last leaves of the season, crisp and disintegrating beneath my hands.

  I knelt at the edge of a shallow grave, at the far edge of a cemetery, watching a woman put all her muscle into wielding a shovel, the veil from her black straw hat pulled down to hide as much of her face as possible.

  Her feet were bare, her red toenails scuffed and filthy, her black swing skirt dress, with high neck and long sleeves, as much a disguise, at this hour, as her hat.

  Something covered my mouth and nose, and I struggled to breathe, but I breathed better with it on.

  The gravedigger looked around, firmed her lips, and kept digging. Whose grave? I wondered. Not mine?

  My scream evolved as did I.

  I sat enveloped in the Dior mink coat on a Ferris wheel beside Monsieur Debonair, tall, dark, and handsome, a French accent in his speaking voice and kissing skill.

  I didn’t know him, but I knew the people walking through the amusement park below us wore new millennium–style clothes.

  Time had fast-forwarded. Not one of Grand-mère’s dates or nightmares, then.

  It didn’t matter. I was no voyeur in this vision but the call girl herself, whichever York cousin I might be.

  I looked around to get my bearings and saw a replica of the Eiffel Tower, realized as we stepped from the Ferris wheel that the people around us spoke French.

  This must be one of boat girl’s “calls.” She’d go anywhere in the world, evidently, and she treated her clients with compliant familiarity, given Monsieur’s practiced hands, everywhere. “Now to my château,” he said.

  Oy!

  We drove through what appeared to be the French countryside and passed a sign for Provence. OMG, if only I could enjoy this, instead of hoping it would end before we consummated our contract.

  “So you know my boss,” I said by way of leading conversation.

  “She is a gem.”

  A she—I hadn’t expected that. But, sure, it made sense, a high-class madam. “I enjoyed the first-class flight out here. She said you were generous.”

  “We shall both reap your journey’s rewards,” he said. “Seulement toi et moi.”

  Yeah right. Moi would rather stay out of it, s’il vous please.

  “There she is, my home,” said my client. “Château Sevigny. Tomorrow, a tour of my vineyard. The weekend, she will sing. You are, how you say, a masterpiece well worth your price. Très jolie.”

  Ducky for me.

  “What shall I call you?” I asked.

  “You may call me Anatole, or mon amour. And I will call you ma belle, oui?”

  Non! “Oui, Anatole.”

  There she went acting submissive again, not at all like Isobel, though I supposed acting was the operative word.

  Anatole Sevigny—since I assumed his château carried the family name—parked his Daimler in a cluster of trees and slid toward me, his hands getting friendlier beneath the mink, his mouth coming for mine, a hungry, I-can’t-wait gleam in his expression.

  I struggled to shed the mink, praying that toujours l’amour hunk-du-jour would disappear with it.

  Twenty-eight

  Sometimes there are two very opposite directions, and we go with the stronger one at the end. It’s an impulse thing, like, “Oh, I love both so much, but it’s got to be one or the other because the two don’t work together.”

  —MARC JACOBS

  I touched my head, heard a softer “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” and opened my eyes to find Werner stroking the hair from my brow with a gentle hand.

  We weren’t alone. Paramedics surrounded me. Taking my pulse, monitoring a drip solution.

  I took off my oxygen mask and my elbow slid across something silky.

  A painful tilt of my head revealed the source. I tossed the damned mink away from me. No wonder I’d seen that vision.

  “Mad,” Werner said. “Your teeth were chattering. We couldn’t warm you up. I’d turned up the heat, but only the mink worked.”

  “That’s what you think.” I tried to sit up.

  Werner pushed me down, his hands on my shoulders.

  “We’re going to take you to the hospital, Mad,” said Johnny Shields, school chum, paramedic, and volunteer firefighter. “For observation.”

  “No hospital,” I said so emphatically, my head hurt with both words. I touched where it hurt and turned to Werner. “My prune matches yours.”

  “I’m really, really sorry,” he said.

  “You didn’t know I’d go twirling into outer space, now did you?”

  “You need to come to the hospital, Mad,” Johnny said, Tunney watching me with concern over Johnny’s shoulder.

  Tunney Lague, local meat cutter, ace purveyor of gossip, great cook, good friend, giver of fun pony rides, albeit years ago, a fixture around Mystic.

  “Tunney, not one word about this to my dad,” I said. “Not to anyone, not even your cousins in Canada. This is a medical issue. You show up, you take on patientdoctor confidentiality. Right, Johnny?”

  Johnny shrugged, trying to hide his smile. “I’d listen to her, Tunney.”

  “I’d rather know she’s okay,” Tunney said. “You sure you won’t go, Mad? C’mon, to make this old warhorse happy?”

  I folded my arms. “I know my rights. You can’t make me go if I don’t want to. Werner called you without my permission.”

  “You were out cold,” Johnny said.

  “Do I have a concussion?” I asked.

  Johnny shook his head. “No, but yo
u’re making it a case of good news, bad news. You always were a stubborn one.”

  “I’ve got enough people to watch me not sleep tonight. If my eyes dilate under a flashlight, I’ll let them take me in.”

  A paramedic I didn’t know gave me something to sign.

  Werner looked worried, guilty, and half-annoyed as he saw our neighbors out, professionals and gossips alike.

  “Lock the door,” I called and had to hold my head so it wouldn’t spin into space again, this time without me.

  No wonder I’d had a string of visions, I thought, looking at Grand-mère’s clothes scattered around me.

  Good thing I hadn’t hung the roller skates by their laces. I would have needed stitches.

  Werner returned looking like he might want to spank me or worse.

  I raised a hand. “When you yell, don’t forget I’ve been injured and that my head hurts.”

  He got me up and to the fainting couch, then he sat behind me, his feet on the floor, his arms coming hard around me.

  I laid the non-bruised side of my head against his chest. “I’d look up at you if I could stand the pain.”

  “I’m so very sorry.”

  “I know. Lytton, you don’t look very comfortable like that. No need to be a martyr.”

  “I’m exactly where I want to be. You took twenty years off my life, and it’s my fault.”

  I closed my eyes at the earnest statement. I rather liked feeling treasured and not being taken for granted. Werner did care for me, and, yes, I could say that I cared for him, in my own way. But I also sincerely cared for Nick.

  “Two Guys on a String.” Wasn’t that a fifties song?

  Maybe I shouldn’t rule out a concussion; my discussion with myself was getting weird.

  Soft spinning slubs, I was a regular Eve Meyers, with hot guys coming out the dye vat. Surely, I could inspire a new song: “Mirth Angel” or “Jailhouse Crock.”