by June Shaw
I crossed my arms. Stevie crossed hers. I felt my elastic waistband to make sure my cell phone was still hooked to my slacks under my shirt, in case I needed it. We watched for suspicious-looking people.
Few cars passed. Two white-headed women the same height ambled alongside the road. A large man in a black cap and gray jogging clothes strolled past. He stared at Stevie’s fence and then us. He gave a whistle, and a brown Lab ran close to him.
The pulse in my head beat stronger. I slid my eyes toward Stevie. She stared grim faced at the road with what seemed unfocused vision. Of course, with her luminescent eyes, who could tell? Did she know that man who’d walked past? Or was she worrying about the dead one? Had that Lab come into this yard—maybe with his owner? Had my fingers lain in that Lab’s poop?
I smelled my hand, glad not to find lingering poop odor.
Shivers accompanied the bumps sprouting across my arms. The evening deepened shadows in trees surrounding us. Stevie appeared in a trance. She sat rock still except for her tapping fingertips.
“Did you think of anything?” I asked her.
“No. But it’s almost time for my meeting. We need to get dinner.”
We went in and she fixed more coffee, thrusting condensed milk and sugar into her mug. “Want some?”
I shook my head. “Maybe it was just his time to die.”
Her intense look gave me the heebie-jeebies. She leaned against the counter, her angry eyes taking in Minnie beside her wide hand. I imagined Stevie dropping that hand on my plant. She could mash Minnie with no problem.
“I hope you don’t mind if I leave my cactus there,” I said, shifting closer.
“Don’t mind at all.” Stevie filled a cup with water and dumped it on Minnie.
“Oh no. A cactus doesn’t need much water.” I grabbed Minnie’s pot and moved it farther from the sink. “I watered her too much at first but then learned better.”
Stevie didn’t seem impressed by my knowledge. “We need to eat.” She swigged her coffee and washed everything before I could get in a good blink. I wasn’t going to dry only those things, but she did, and then set them in place. “You want leftovers, or to go and try that new place?”
New chills skittered through me. Leftover whatever Stevie’s fridge held—or mouthwatering cuisine at the place that might also hold Gil Thurman?
Uh-uh, nada, I told my sexual yearnings. I tried to summon enthusiasm. “Leftovers would be great.”
Stevie heated casseroles in the microwave.
Her creamed spinach tasted especially good. So did the lasagna and garlic bread.
“This is all wonderful,” I said, finally setting down my fork, “but I think my clothes just shrank three sizes.”
She heaped another spoonful of lasagna onto her plate and grabbed more bread, her eyes fluttering downward like someone who might be embarrassed. “I’ve gotten bigger since you last saw me.” Her gaze met mine. “But it’s because I have to take medicine. For my arthritis.” She raised a slightly bent finger.
“Medicine can be heck,” I said, but couldn’t help thinking of the gazillion fat grams in this meal and all of her mugs of coffee.
She brought out pralines for dessert—pralines! I had to eat one and a half while she gobbled three between washing dishes. I dried things, and she put them away. “Don’t you ever use your dishwasher?” I asked, tiring of this housework I always carefully avoided. “Or maybe we could stop somewhere, and I’ll pick up lovely throw-away dishes. They’re my favorites.”
“Let’s go to my meeting. I need support.”
We rode in her Jeep Cherokee. She zipped through skinny dark roads that snaked down the mountainside, making me glad she was driving. “I’m so proud of you for quitting smoking,” I said.
Her lips pressed together. Veins in her neck protruded. Her knuckles whitened while her hands tightened on the wheel. She passed a truck, barely squeezing through the curve, then the headlights of a larger truck came toward us. I held my breath. She veered toward the shoulder, the mountainside plunging beside us.
Not soon enough we were on level ground. I started to breathe normally when she nosed into a spot near a half dozen other cars. A pole lamp lit this small patch of concrete nestled between trees near what looked like a small park.
“This is it.” Stevie shoved out of her car.
We walked on a path between trees made visible only by a couple of lamps. A few men and women walked ahead of us into a small redbrick building. Our shoes clicked on the sidewalk, making some in the group turn toward us.
“Oh, Stevie,” the shortest woman said, “do you know what happened today to one of our Quitters’ members?”
“What?” Stevie asked, as we reached her near the door.
The short woman may have been in her early forties. Her face appeared pale, her figure shapely. “Somebody found him dead in a person’s yard.”
My heart leaped into my throat. My head swiveled toward Stevie.
She had lied to the police and to me. She did know the dead man.
Chapter 3
We swept into the dark building with Stevie’s group. Lights flickered on.
“You see what happens?” the second woman ahead of us said. She was large with brassy red hair and too-snug stretchy jeans, and spoke to no one in particular. “You quit smoking to improve your health—and something else kills you.”
“Exactly,” the shapely woman said. She and most of the others dropped to folding chairs arranged in a semicircle. Their gazes slid to me and away from me. I sat beside Stevie on the single empty metal chair.
“So you’d just as soon keep smoking. Is that it?” This from the man who’d let us in. Probably mid-fifties. Lanky with pink cheeks and thin midnight black hair that looked dyed, he stood in front of the group. “If a smoker dies from another cause, does that give you an excuse to keep lighting up?”
“Any excuse seems good at this point.” The speaker sat at the far end of the group, his three-pronged walking cane nearby. Tight faced, he pumped his heel, making his knee bounce. “I’m dying for a cigarette.”
The group leader faced him. “And one cigarette might literally kill you. Outside a few minutes ago, you told me you’d quit last night. And if you smoked one, you’d want more. Then more. And before you know it, you’d be right back to where you were yesterday, coughing your lungs out.”
“Ugggh.” I covered my mouth with my hand. All eyes trained on me. “Sorry. That wasn’t a pleasant image.”
Faces in the room all looked tense.
“Are you a smoker?” the leader asked me. “It’s late for you to be joining our sessions.”
“I only tried smoking twice but got weak and coughed so much I gave up. In fact, both times I was with Stevie, in the cemetery near her house.”
“Appropriate place,” the last man said. With extra-wide shoulders and a baby-smooth complexion, he wore cappuccino-colored linen slacks with a piece of grass sticking out of its cuff. The pattern of his dark brown rayon shirt resembled squids.
“Everyone,” Stevie said, “this is my cousin Cealie Gunther. She’s visiting me.”
The shapely woman gave me a warm smile—the camaraderie of short people. No one else appeared happy that I was here.
“Hi,” I told the group. “Good luck with your goal. I empathize. Quitting smoking isn’t easy.”
“You can say that again,” the taller woman said, others nodding.
“And that’s the reason we’re here.” On an easel the leader set a poster with only a title: THE QUITTERS GROUP.
I didn’t think that an appropriate name, and knew an apostrophe should have been behind the second word. I also didn’t know any of these people’s names.
The leader’s mouth opened to speak. I interjected, “Excuse me. You all know who I am now, but I don’t know you. Not fair, is it?”
Tha-rump tha-rump came from Stevie’s fingertips on her shoulder bag on her lap.
The leader gave me a pinched expression. “I�
��m Ish Muller.” His brief nod allowed me to glimpse his premature bald spot.
“Father Paul Edward,” the man with the cane said. He wore street clothes.
“Kern Parfait,” said the man wearing squids.
“Hey. I’m Fawn.” The small woman waved.
I grinned, then looked at the larger woman who seemed unnerved by my stare. She swerved her eyes away. “Jenna.” She swallowed her last name.
“Now,” Ish said, regaining everyone’s focus, “tell us how you all made out. Did everyone quit last night?”
Shaky heads with gloomy eyes nodded.
“Good. Now let’s hear what the last twenty-four hours were like for you,” Ish said.
“I yelled at my husband and almost killed both my kids.” Fawn held up a red-striped straw. “But sucking on this kept me from hurting anyone.” She sucked on the straw, removed it, and exhaled.
“Anything that helps. What else? Anybody?” Ish said.
“I kept busy with my work,” Father said.
“I took lots of deep breaths.” Stevie, at my side, surprised me with her quiet tone. And I hadn’t noticed her doing deep breathing at home. Of course, I arrived after a man died there. “And meditation helped,” she added.
That’s what she’d said she was doing when I rang her front doorbell. She’d also said she didn’t know the dead man, but now I’d discovered he belonged to this group. What else wasn’t she telling me?
And why weren’t any of them concerned about their fellow member’s demise?
The group peered at Jenna. Her cheeks flushed. She kept her head down.
Finally she looked up. “All right, I admit it. I had one today. But it was just one. And mid-afternoon. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“That’s okay.” Fawn patted Jenna’s arm. “You won’t do it again, right?”
Jenna hunched forward, hands twisting in her lap. Everyone focused on her. She looked so dejected under such scrutiny that I had to turn my eyes away. No one should have to squirm and sit in other people’s judgment while trying to stop a habit.
After long moments, during which I imagined she nodded, Ish again spoke. “So—you’ll all continue to need help. Here is today’s material. Does everyone have a pencil or pen?”
He passed out papers to all except me. I watched Stevie print her name in tall letters. Her paper contained lines for complete sentences or paragraphs. It also held cartoons of smiling people. I guessed those happy people had quit smoking.
I leaned near her. “You didn’t tell me the man who died came to these sessions.”
“I didn’t know.” A grimace froze on her face.
“He was in this small group, and you didn’t know he was here?” I indicated the people following Ish’s instructions for writing. “How could you miss anybody in here?”
My voice probably carried. Ish gave me a pained expression.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” I said.
“I never saw the man before,” my cousin told me. “If he was here, I didn’t see him.”
“Who?” Fawn leaned forward.
“Yes, may I ask who you’re talking about?” Ish didn’t hide his annoyance.
I wasn’t about to tell them their fellow stop-smoker had died in Stevie’s yard.
But Stevie did. “The man you were talking about when we came in,” she announced. “He was discovered dead in someone’s yard today. That yard was mine.”
“Oh.” Fawn pressed back in her chair.
“Your yard?” the priest said.
Jenna’s face blanched.
Ish came to Stevie. “Pierce Trottier died at your place?”
“I guess so, if that was his name.”
“I’m sorry a friend of yours died today,” I said to everyone. They probably would not like to know I fell across their friend. I didn’t like it, either. Suddenly, I felt him pressed against my shins.
“How could you have not known him?” Ish asked Stevie.
“I didn’t know him. When did he come here? I never saw him in any of our sessions.”
“I want a cigarette!” Jenna said. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have one.”
“No, don’t!” Fawn produced a straw from her purse. “Have a straw instead.”
Jenna swept past her out the door.
“Now you see?” The priest glared at Stevie. “You’re making her smoke again.”
“I’m not making anybody smoke. And I didn’t know that man.” Stevie got up to her feet. “I’m leaving. Are you coming?” she asked me.
“Of course.” I felt like her supporter, but wasn’t even sure I agreed with her. Was she lying to all of us? “Nice meeting you all,” I said.
“Don’t forget your material.” Ish intercepted Stevie. “Read these. They’ll help you.”
I stood behind my cousin and couldn’t see her face, but determined flames could’ve flared out her nostrils. She yanked the papers from his hands and stormed out.
The moment I walked outside, I smelled smoke. I spied a tiny red glow behind bushes. “See you later,” I called to the person I figured was Jenna.
No response. The red glow moved deeper behind the bushes.
I snapped on my seatbelt a second before Stevie peeled into the street, her foot never seeming to touch the brakes, even at corners.
“Well that was nice,” I said. Her face turned to me, her expression curious. “The meeting,” I explained. “Lots of interesting people.”
Her throat made a gritty sound. She stared at the road, her hand dipping into the large purse at her side. She dug around.
I hoped she wouldn’t pull out a cigarette, but knew she could do worse.
Stevie withdrew a Tootsie Pop. “Want one?”
I hadn’t eaten a chocolate Tootsie Pop in more years than I wanted to count. It enticed me, but my waistband still felt too tight. “Maybe later.”
She stuck hers in her mouth. Within moments, she appeared soothed.
At least that new bulge in her cheek and white stick dangling from her mouth gave her a semblance of the Stevie I’d known. The lively jokester had been her image, even until a few weeks ago, when we’d spoken on the phone. Something in the recent past had caused her personality to twist one hundred eighty degrees.
Had the transformation come about last night, when nicotine started leaching from her system? Or did this sudden change come about because a man died, a man she claimed she hadn’t known?
She found me staring at her. “Want one now?” she asked, hand heading for her purse.
I wanted both her hands clasping the steering wheel as she zigzagged up the mountainside. “No candy, thanks.” I faced the road, hoping she’d do the same.
She did, and in no time we reached her house. She parked in the attached garage, got out, and slammed the door. She left the papers Ish had given her on the seat.
I grabbed them, noticed the pristine appearance of her garage, and followed her inside.
The door led to the kitchen. She stood leaning back against the table, waiting for me. “I didn’t know him,” she reiterated.
“I believe you.” Instinctively, I used fingernails from my left hand to pinch my right palm. A technique for tempering my lie? Or habit to try to convince myself I’d told the truth? At the moment I couldn’t tell.
“Do you want something to eat?” Stevie asked.
“I’m still full.” And my stomach was doing a twitchy dance from the ride.
“I’ll just have a snack.” She retrieved Devilish Chocolates, ripped the bag open, and held it toward me. I shook my head with much effort, and she gobbled the entire contents.
So much for putting all blame for her blossoming figure on medicine. She raised her hand to toss the crumpled bag to a wastebasket.
“You did a good thing today,” I said.
Color drained from her face. “Huh?” Stevie’s arm jerked, letting the trash go. The wadded bag struck the cabinet and bounced to the floor.
“That was a positive step you took.”
I tossed her bag in the wastebasket. “Quitting smoking.”
“Oh yes, that.”
“Did you do anything else special today? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Her gaze skittered everywhere around the room but toward my face. She heaved a sigh. “Just gave a strawberry sticker to one of my students. Lacy. It’s her birthday.” A glimmer of a smile flashed. “I gave her a big squeeze.”
Not too big, I hoped, looking at Stevie’s size and considering her tiny first-grade students.
I mentally slapped the side of my head. No matter how hard I tried, I’d never been able to rid myself of those rapidly surfacing judgments.
“I know you enjoy your students.”
“They keep me happy,” Stevie said, and told of incidents with some of the children.
I considered telling about the fearsome teens I’d recently encountered in my granddaughter Kat’s high school, but decided not to disrupt her cheerful mood.
“I’ll go to bed now,” I said.
“Your things are in the guest bedroom. Let me know if you need anything else.”
I was satisfied that my bedroom appeared normal. No candles, altars, or stones. The room had a pleasant airy feel. Sheer blue curtains. Purple, red, and green blended surprisingly well on the bedspread with lots of throw pillows in those colors.
Stevie had set my luggage on one section of a king-size bed. She’d turned down the covers on the opposite side.
I dressed in a lightweight gown and left my suitcase where it was since I didn’t move much while I slept.
I slid into the bed’s turned-back section and considered the day. My flight change to here. Finding a body, which seemed too horrible to think about. Stevie’s mega change in size and habits. Her group members. And the cushiony feel of Gil’s shoulders. Within minutes, I slept.
A while later I awoke, wishing I’d emptied my bladder before going to bed. A sound had awakened me. Did it come from my window?
I shrank beneath the covers. Listened.
After long minutes, with no sound repeating, I decided what I’d heard must have come from a dream. I traipsed down the dark hall to the bathroom.
A voice uttered strange sounds. A pungent aroma swelled in the hallway. From the open doorway of the extra bedroom came an unusual shifting glow.
