One More Time

by Deborah Cooke

  “You were evicted suddenly?”

  “No notice. It was very rude.”

  “You were lucky to get a moving team,” the mover said.

  Beverly took a steadying breath as she looked him up and down, then seemed to decide against expressing any gratitude about the availability of these movers. Instead, she smiled at Leslie.

  “Honestly, it’s not as if I have a great many personal possessions.”

  It seemed to Leslie that her house was full of a great many personal possessions, but then Beverly lived on a different scale. Leslie supposed that could happen to a person who grew up with Gray Gables, the fabulous Coxwell house in Rosemount, as a summer cottage. There was a house that Leslie loved but which would always be beyond her aspirations and income bracket.

  And, of course, in a house like that, this array of stuff would practically disappear. She supposed she shouldn’t be too hard on Beverly for having different expectations.

  Beverly waved a hand. “Most everything is at the house and will be tied up with the investigation and settling of the estate, anyway.”

  That comment made Leslie realize just how much strain her mother-in-law had faced this week.

  In fact at the word “estate”, Beverly sat down so abruptly at the kitchen table that her legs might have given out beneath her. She immediately began rummaging in a carry-on bag that was dropped beside the kitchen table. She came up with a slender thermos, poured herself a capful of its contents—which did not steam—then tossed it back like a shot of vodka.

  Leslie suddenly remembered what the mover had said.

  Beverly then exhaled, straightened her shoulders and smiled pertly at Leslie. There was a light in her eyes that practically dared either of them to ask what she’d been drinking, and her hand shook ever so slightly.

  Leslie had a pretty good idea what was in the thermos, and it wasn’t herbal tea. Beverly wasn’t having as easy a time with Robert’s death as Leslie might have assumed.

  But then Beverly had married the man once, so must have seen some redeeming features in him. Maybe he had changed. Either way, Leslie decided to cut her mother-in-law as much slack as she needed.

  “Don’t worry, Beverly, I’ll take care of it.”

  “I know that everything will be fine,” Beverly said to Leslie, her voice a little bit higher than it was usually. “Now that you’re here, taking charge. I trust you, Leslie, to resolve everything in a competent and reasonable fashion. Efficiency is your best trait, after all. It’s so nice to have someone to rely upon in a crisis.”

  “You make it sound as if you’re leaving.”

  “I am! The girls and I have an appointment, so there’s no choice. Fortunately, you arrived home in the very nick of time.”

  She stood then and straightened the chic little suit that probably has cost more than Leslie earned in a month. She pulled out a compact, touched up her lipstick, tucked a hair into place, then snapped it closed and put it back in her purse.

  “I shall see you later then. Don’t trouble to wait dinner for me.”

  Dinner? Leslie glanced around the kitchen, realizing what was missing. No one had made dinner, because Matt wasn’t here and the Dinner Fairy was clearly slacking off in his absence.

  The kitchen seemed to yawn with emptiness, and Leslie knew it wasn’t just because there were no luscious smells rising to tempt her to the table. She felt flat, as if nothing in her life had any point, as if she was just trudging through an endless desert.

  Matt was gone. It seemed a bit late to be doing the math, and Leslie figured she’d be doing it over and over again for quite a while. The house was infused with Matt and she’d be finding his specter at every turn.

  Maybe forever.

  Meanwhile, Beverly smiled, lifted her carry-on bag, scooped up her purse and sashayed across the kitchen. En route to the front door, she paused to peck Leslie’s cheek and murmured a low warning as she did so. “Don’t let them take advantage of you.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  “I know what’s different!” Leslie said with a snap of her fingers. “You’ve changed your hair.” Beverly’s hair had been a rich hue of brown for all the years Leslie had known her, then her mother-in-law had let it go silver this past couple of years. Leslie smiled, thinking a compliment might be just what Beverly needed. “I like it better this color. It makes you look younger.”

  Instead, Beverly’s eyes welled with tears and she turned abruptly away. Beverly said nothing, admitted nothing, simply turned and marched through the foyer.

  What had Leslie said?

  Wait. Beverly had said the girls? What girls?

  Leslie might have pursued Beverly, but that woman stepped nimbly aside as something large loomed in the front doorway. Then she darted out of the house while Leslie was confronted with the large something.

  It was an antique French armoire, the one that Leslie had last seen in the living room of Beverly’s condo. It was a massive and impressive piece of furniture, one that Leslie had always admired. Beverly had told her once that it was seventeenth century, inherited from her family, though what Leslie liked better than the age of the piece was the rich honeyed hue those years had given to the wood’s patina.

  It was a piece of furniture she always wanted to caress.

  And now it was here, in her house, looking more enormous and formidable than she’d ever imagined it to be.

  “Where do you want it, lady?”

  The mover in the kitchen didn’t say anything, just waited with his arms braced across his chest. Leslie looked around her comparatively small house, seeing immediately that the huge armoire wouldn’t make it up the stairs or through the doorway to the kitchen. It would fill the foyer to impassable if left there, though.

  There was only one place it could go.

  “Well, we never use the living room anyway,” she said decisively. “Maybe we can move all of my things aside and fit Beverly’s in there, too.”

  That way, Beverly’s belongings could go out the door as easily as they’d come in.

  There was an optimistic thought.

  The man who appeared to be in charge followed Leslie into the living room and began to move her furniture aside with surprising care. “It’ll be jam-packed in here,” he warned her. “For someone with few possessions, that lady has a lot of stuff.”

  Leslie shrugged. “I don’t have another solution. It would be great if you could leave her clothing closer to the door, so she can reach anything she needs.”

  “Otherwise, I’m betting you’ll have to fish it out.”

  Leslie smiled. “I think you’d win that one.”

  “She’s one crusty bit of work. Old Mass money, I’ll bet.”

  Leslie nodded.

  “They’re like that. Ready to squeeze every dime until it begs for mercy. Your mother?”

  Leslie almost laughed. “My mother-in-law.”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s some kind of news to come home to, huh?”

  Leslie gave him a look, feeling driven to defend Beverly. She might be an elitist snob, but she came by it honestly, and her heart was good. “Actually, she’s had quite a shock. You might have read in the paper about her husband’s sudden death two days ago. Judge Coxwell?”

  “That was your father-in-law?”

  Leslie nodded again as the mover whistled under his breath. He looked assessingly after Beverly. “Now, there was a judge you could count on. He was ex-military, you know. Marines. My cousin knew him in the service, said he was a stickler for procedure, but a man you could always count on to do the right thing.”

  Leslie blinked at this unexpected endorsement of Robert’s character. “Well, if you could leave her personal effects closer to the door here, that would make this situation easier for everyone.”

  “No problem. Judge Coxwell. Huh.”

  The two men carrying the armoire made a sound of protest, drawing his attention once again. He waved them into
the room, gesturing Leslie out of the way. The armoire moving steadily toward her, like an ocean freighter under full steam. She was a bit stunned at how much of the room that armoire consumed even when it was against the wall.

  It looked ridiculous. Good thing she had no chance of ever owning such a thing.

  “It’s a question of scale,” the mover said sagely. “The proportions of the piece and the room are not in synch. You’d need a bigger place to make it look good, higher ceilings and such.” He smiled encouragingly. “Maybe your next place.”

  “As if!” Leslie said with a laugh. “It’s a lot more likely that we’ll just move that monster out of here one of these days.”

  “Easy for you to say,” one of the movers joked as he straightened and rubbed his back. “That’s one heavy bas—”

  “Hey! There’s a lady present!” The lead mover snapped his fingers and set them all to work tout de suite.

  Leslie supposed that somewhere there was a cold beer waiting somewhere with his name on it.

  * * *

  It wasn’t long until the contents of the truck had been disgorged, primarily into the living room, and the paperwork had been signed. The house looked like a train wreck had hit it—or maybe a tornado—and Leslie’s nerves were jangled by the complete dishevelment of her home.

  She headed for the kitchen in search of Annette and solace, not necessarily in that order.

  She could only hope that she wasn’t supposed to pay for the movers, too. She was definitely not in the mood to call her brother-in-law James (court victor, champion, etc.) to find out. It would have been an understatement to say that contact between the two factions of the Coxwell clan had been strained these past two years. Leslie wasn’t ready to be the one to expend the energy to mend fences. Not right now anyway, though the job would probably fall into her lap eventually.

  Family Diplomat. Oh yes, she’d almost forgotten that virtual burden.

  Maybe she’d just rip up the bill when it came.

  If it came.

  Leslie optimistically checked the freezer, but it was empty except for some ice cubes that had wasted away to one fifth of their original size. They looked particularly lonely and pathetic. She couldn’t blame them. The fact that no ice cream had spontaneously manifested itself in the freezer left her feeling lonely and pathetic, too.

  She prowled the perimeter of the kitchen, finding nothing to eat that was horribly bad for her body and thus potentially satisfying for her soul.

  This did not improve her mood. Matt, to his credit, was a bit fanatical about whole foods, a concept that was much easier to endorse when he was home to shop and cook those whole foods into yummy meals. There was something particularly uninspiring about a jar of uncooked lentils, however wholesome they might be, after a long day of battling the encroaching tide of commercialism.

  And the sugar buzz from this morning’s coffee was long gone. The sliding glass door to the patio was slightly open and Leslie moved impatiently to close it, assuming it had been the movers who had left it open. Maybe they’d snuck out back for a cigarette before she’d gotten home.

  But no. Annette was hunched in a lawn chair on the patio, glowering into the distance like a fat, cranky and elderly cat. Leslie leaned against the door jamb, thinking her daughter’s pose and expression echoed her own mood perfectly.

  “Hi,” she said when Annette made no acknowledgment of her presence. “Guess we’ve got to fire the ice cream fairy, too.”

  Annette exhaled in what could have been a disguised laugh. Encouraged, Leslie dropped into the lawn chair she had occupied the night before. It was cloudy, damp and not as nice for sitting outside. “How’s it going?”

  “Is she gone?”

  Leslie nodded. Beverly had no name in many of these discussions, but there was no doubt who Annette meant.

  “Then, it’s going better, thanks very much. Is she coming back?”

  “I think she’s moving in.”

  Annette made a sound of disgust. “She was here when I got home from school, with a moving truck out front, tapping her toe and asking for the keys. No, she demanded the keys, like I was some, some minion!”

  “That’s a new word.”

  “It was in a book I read. I looked it up.”

  Some fantasy novel, undoubtedly. Annette had been reading Dungeons & Dragons-flavored fiction for years, ever since Matt had read her The Hobbit at bedtime and started an addiction. Leslie could hardly argue against fiction that owed so much to medieval stories. “It was nice of you to let her in.”

  “I was thinking about not doing it.”

  “I believe it. Glad to see you two are still getting along famously. Just like oil and water.”

  Annette almost laughed again, casting Leslie a sparkling glance. “You’re full of it. You’re not glad at all.”

  “Actually, I am. It’s reassuring to see that some things haven’t changed, especially when so much has.” Leslie realized a bit too late that she had said too much, but to her relief, it slipped right past Annette.

  “She thinks I’m too fat. And you know, I don’t care what she thinks, it’s just that she keeps on about it. It’s rude.”

  “It is rude.”

  “You agree with me?” Annette turned in surprise.

  “Sure. But being rude in return doesn’t solve much, does it?”

  “So, what am I supposed to do? Agree with her?”

  “Do you?” Annette slanted one of those lethal glances at Leslie and Leslie smiled. “Not going there, huh?” Annette looked away again. Leslie straightened and folded her fingers together. “So, maybe it would be easier if you understood a bit more about your grandmother.”

  “Like what? That she’s mean to kids for the fun of it?”

  Leslie smiled. “You’re not a child, not any more.” She knew she had Annette’s attention, so spoke with care. “I don’t know really know much about how your grandmother thinks, so this is just conjecture, but I’m wondering if she sees herself in you.”

  “Maybe two of her,” Annette joked with surprising self-deprecation, flashing a smile when Leslie laughed in surprise. “Seriously, I’m not like her at all.”

  “You don’t think so? You look like her a little, you know, especially around the eyes.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes, way. That’s why people said from when you were a baby that you’d be a beauty, because you always looked a bit like Beverly.”

  “She is kind of pretty.” This admission was made grudgingly and immediately amended. “For an old person.”

  Leslie fought a smile. “And maybe there’s a less obvious resemblance, too. You like food, maybe you like it a little too much. Maybe food takes the place of something else for you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Reassurance. Comfort. Security. Pleasure.” Leslie shrugged. “Only you know the key that makes you eat. Maybe it’s how you deal with fear or stress—that’s my big trigger.”

  Annette rolled her eyes. “You have no trigger for overeating. Look at you! You can’t weigh a hundred and twenty pounds!”

  “Well, that’s not likely to last.” Leslie ticked off her fingers. “In the last thirty-six hours, I’ve eaten twelve chocolate bars, six slices of pizza, two muffins, a serving of yogurt and fruit—”

  “Yogurt and fruit do not count as food.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Fiber.” This word came with a sneer.

  “This is an inventory. Everything gets included.” Leslie considered her count. “I would have eaten a carton of ice cream last night, too, if you hadn’t beaten me to it. And I haven’t even had dinner yet tonight. I’ve got to be looking at more than three thousand calories a day. If that’s not overeating for someone who gets as little exercise as I do, I don’t know what is.”

  “So, what’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”

  Leslie blinked. Annette had connected those dots more quickly than she had anticipated. “That’s no one’s business but mine. What
you need to decide is what makes you eat, then you can figure out what to do instead.”

  “What do you mean?’

  “If, just for example, I was eating because I was afraid, then I could name that fear. Once I knew what was spooking me, I could reason out a way to make it less scary. Theoretically, then I’d have less desire to hoover ice cream and chocolate.”

  “Sounds too easy.”

  “No, it works.”

  “You’re going to tell me that you’re the living proof of that?”

  “Until yesterday, yeah, pretty much.” Until yesterday, when she’d faced the unexpected prospect of life without Matt. That was so scary that it was hard to even think it, let alone say it, let alone work out a response to it.

  Leslie felt an itch for chocolate.

  Annette stared across the yard, considering this slice of wisdom. “So, what does this give me in common with Grandmother?”

  “Same mechanism, different stress buster. You know that your grandmother goes to Alcoholics Anonymous.”

  Annette nodded, eyes widening.

  “She’s been a compulsive drinker as long as I’ve known her, probably longer than that. So, she’s getting help to stop that. My point is simply that maybe she perceives that you two share a weakness, that you also think that putting something in your mouth will solve whatever’s bothering you. And she knows that doesn’t work from her own experience, but unfortunately, she doesn’t know how to share that information with you. So, she criticizes, hoping to make an impression that way.”

  “It makes an impression all right,” Annette said sourly. “I hate her guts.”

  “No, you don’t. If anything, you hate her mouth.”

  Annette laughed, a chortle that showed she had been surprised. “I like you better when you’re funny.”

  “Well, thanks for that.”

  Annette was thinking about Leslie’s words, though, the proverbial wood burning so ferociously that Leslie was half-afraid of what her daughter would ask next.