Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out

by Karen MacInerney

“Thanks,” I said, with a twinge of misgiving. I hadn’t expected there to actual cat. Now that there was one, and one that wasn’t afraid to use its teeth, I was worried. What was I going to do when my supposed cat attacked me?

  “Follow me, ladies,” the cop said. Willie fell in behind her, and I brought up the rear.

  We marched through Evan Maxted’s tastefully decorated Art Deco living room, with an expensive entertainment center and vintage posters of old movies, into his master bedroom, which was dominated by a round bed with a red satin comforter. Officer Carmes flipped up the shiny spread and pointed under the bed. “It’s under there.”

  I approached gingerly and lowered myself to peer under the bed. “Here, Snookums,” I crooned.

  A paw flashed out and raked across my face. I dropped the coverlet and leaped back, pressing my hand to my bleeding cheek.

  The cop eyed me suspiciously. “I thought it was your cat.”

  “He is, he is. He’s just… temperamental. I guess all the activity has thrown him off kilter.”

  I knelt down again and peered in. Huddling under the bed, about a foot out of arm’s reached, lurked an enormous orange cat with eyes that glowed like green fire. I swallowed hard and dropped the coverlet.

  “Anyone have a broom?” I asked.

  “A broom?”

  “I can’t reach him, and he won’t come out.”

  “He won’t come to you?” Officer Carmes piped up. “Isn’t it your cat?”

  “Of course he’s my cat. It’s just been a rough day for him.” And me.

  “It doesn’t look like you brought your carrier. Shall I get a box for you to put him in for the ride home?” Willie asked sweetly.

  I looked at her gratefully. “That would be a good idea. An old towel might not be a bad idea either. I’ll wrap him up in that so he won’t scratch anyone.” I’d learned that trick taking Rufus, my Siamese, to the vet. “He seems a little upset.”

  As Willie returned to her apartment, Carmes’s radio burbled to life. She stepped into the hall to respond, leaving me alone in Maxted’s bedroom with Snookums and the big red bed.

  I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of snooping around with a cop right outside the door. But this could be my only opportunity to find out more about Maxted.

  I crept over to the closet. Inside was what looked like the wardrobe of a businessman married to a Hollywood starlet: gray and blue suits marched soberly up one side, ending with a rack of red and blue ties, while the other size was ablaze in sequins and lame in a rainbow of flaming colors. A row of wigs sat on a shelf above the dresses—auburn, blonde, and one that was shiny and black as a raven’s wing. One of the wig stands was empty, and I shivered. I had seen it at the Rainbow Room, ripped away from Evan Maxted’s head. I tore my eyes away from the wigs and examined the rest of the closet. On the top shelf were a few intriguing cardboard boxes, but with a policewoman standing ten feet away, I didn’t feel it was the right moment to pull one down and start sorting through the contents.

  I backed out of the closet and listened. Carmes was still occupied in the hall, so I tiptoed over to Maxted’s dresser and picked up the one photo: a framed shot of Maxted in a mortarboard, beaming, standing next to a middle-aged blonde woman. His mother, probably. She looked faded, but happy, in a baggy print dress, and I imagined the bottles she must have fed her son, the soccer practices she’d driven him to, the pride she must have felt at his graduation. Had she known about his double life? If not, what a terrible way to find out. Tears welled in my eyes again. I thrust the photo back onto the dresser and wiped my eyes.

  Next to the photo lay a thick ivory envelope. Whoever was on the radio with Carmes was still going, so I slid it open. It was a wedding invitation. The bride was Anna Maxted. Evan’s sister? The wedding was to be held in Sausalito, and was slated for late October. The reply card was missing.

  I had just slid the invitation back into the envelope when Carmes stepped back into the room.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Oh, just looking at this photo. It’s so sad, don’t you think?”

  “The photo?”

  “No. I was thinking of Evan’s poor mother. Has she been notified yet?”

  “I don’t know. I assume so. I’m just here to close the place up.”

  At that moment, Willie swept through the door carrying a large cardboard box, a towel, and a broom. “Will this do?”

  I eyed the box. The lid consisted of four flimsy flaps. “Do you have any duct tape or string?”

  “I brought a roll of packing tape.”

  “That’ll work.” I hope.

  As Willie and Officer Carmes watched, I grabbed the broom and knelt beside the bed again.

  Willie said, “I’ll close the door, dear, so he doesn’t escape.”

  “Can you throw the towel over him when he comes out?”

  “I’ll try.”

  I lifted the comforter and peered under. “Here, Snookums,” I crooned. Once again, a paw shot out at me. On the plus side, this time he was far away to make contact. He had relocated himself to right under the middle of the bed.

  I poked the broom under. He hissed at it and raked his claws through the straw. I tried to shove him to one side, but he sank his claws into the carpet and refused to budge. After several attempts to dislodge him gently, I gave him a good hard thwack.

  He yowled and streaked toward me, sinking his claws into my thigh before using it as a springboard to rocket toward the door. Willie threw the towel over him, and I hurled myself at the yowling ball, hugging him to my chest and dumping him into the box.

  “Where’s the tape?” I yelled, pushing down the flaps. An orange paw thrust through the crack in the middle.

  “Oh, I’m sorry dear. It’s still in the box.”

  I sucked in my breath and shoved my arm under the flap. Snookums’ claws fastened onto it immediately, and as my fingers made contact with the roll of tape, he sank his teeth into my thumb.

  I jerked my arm out and howled. Snookums exploded out of the box and shot toward the door. A loud thump sounded as his head made contact with the solid oak. He dropped to the floor like a downed duck.

  “Well,” I said, nursing my thumb and eyeing the unconscious tabby. “That went okay.”

  Willie bent down and peered at the massive feline. “That’s Snookums? I thought that was Evan’s cat.”

  Suspicion flared in Carmes’ eyes. “That’s not your cat?”

  How was I supposed to know that Evan had a cat? Or that Willie would be acquainted with him? My throat closed with panic. Think, Margie, think. “Well,” I said, “we kind of have a joint custody thing going. Had, I mean.”

  Willie looked confused. “You keep calling him Snookums. I thought Evan called him Lothario.”

  “Yes, well, we never could agree on a name,” I stammered, “so we each did our own thing. At Evan’s, he was Lothario, but when he’s with me, his name is Snookums.” I gave the cop a toothy smile. “It works out for both of us that way. See?” She didn’t look like she was buying it. I couldn’t blame her.

  Fortunately, at that moment, her cell phone piped up with the theme song to Law and Order. Carmes glanced at the phone. “I need to take this call. But before you leave, I’ll need to see some kind of identification.”

  Identification? Despite a strong breeze from the air conditioning, the areas of my body most frequently mentioned in antiperspirant ads were drenched. As Carmes walked into the next room and delivered rapid-fire responses into the phone, I stuffed the unconscious cat into the box and pulled Willie aside.

  “I really have to run before this cat—I mean Snookums—wakes up and gets through the cardboard. Could you tell her I’ll call down to the station as soon as I get home?”

  “Sure, honey. I’ll tell her. And if things change with your marriage, swing by for my pot roast recipe. I’ll write it out for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I may do that.” As I was about to dash through the door, I hung ba
ck for a moment to ask the question that had been plaguing me since I’d met Willie. “By the way,” I said, “where did you get the idea for the turban? Is it an African thing?”

  She shook her head. “No, dear. I’m undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer. The chemotherapy made my hair fall out.”

  I swallowed. “Well, I think it looks great,” I said. “Thanks for all your help.”

  I hadn’t just lied. I’d lied to a seventy-year-old cancer patient and a cop. I scurried out of the apartment toward the stairs and leaped down them two at a time.

  #

  I kept glancing over my shoulder on the way home, looking for a police car or signs of an orange projectile emerging from the flimsy box in the back seat of the minivan. Fortunately, nobody followed me, and Snookums didn’t wake up. Which was a good thing, because I didn’t relish the thought of driving home with a ball of fur and teeth ricocheting around under my legs. I deposited the box in the laundry room, which was already crowded due to the week’s worth of unwashed laundry spilling from a stack of baskets, and filled two bowls with water and cat food. Then I opened the flaps and backed away quickly, closing the door tight behind me.

  Rufus had already stalked over to the laundry room door, the fur on his back bristling, when I ran upstairs to get some first-aid cream and a couple of Band -Aids. I examined my wounds in the mirror; thanks to Snookums, it now looked like I had racing stripes on my left cheek. At least the bleeding had stopped. I slathered cream on my face, bandaged my swollen thumb, and headed out the front door to pick up my kids.

  Nick was feeling much perkier when I picked him up. As I buckled him into his car seat, Becky hovered beside me.

  “Thanks for watching him for me,” I said. “Did he throw up any more?”

  “No, he didn’t. And the fever’s completely gone.” She eyed my cheek and my bandaged thumb. “But what happened to you? I didn’t realize car repair shops could be such dangerous places.”

  “Oh, I had a run-in with a cat. It’s a long story.”

  “Any word on the minivan?”

  I glanced at the mangled back end. “I called around, but I don’t have a quote yet.”

  “Did you find out anything about the transvestite?”

  What was this, twenty questions? I shook my head. “No, but Peaches is looking into it for me.” Becky was my best friend, but I wasn’t ready to tell her what I had found on the Christmas list in Blake’s office.

  “Peaches?”

  “The woman who runs the agency.”

  “Oh. That’s nice of her.”

  I changed the subject. “Do you want me to pick up Zoe and Josh this afternoon?”

  “No, that’s okay. I promised to take them to Zilker Park anyway. Want to join us?”

  Part of me wanted to, but another part of me wasn’t ready to talk yet. And it would be impossible to spend two hours with Becky without spilling everything. “I’d love to,” I said, “but I’ve got to swing by Randall’s and pick up a cake for Prue’s birthday.”

  Becky stood at the end of the driveway and waved as I drove away. As I waved back, part of me I wished I’d told her everything. The dull ache in my heart might be relieved by talking it over with someone who cared about me.

  But part of me wasn’t ready to admit what I had discovered to myself, much less anyone else.

  #

  Ten minutes later, I pulled through the drive-through pickup lane at Green Meadows. As Elsie hurled herself into the car, I accosted the perky twenty-year-old teaching assistant whose job it was to make sure the kids were buckled in. “How did it go today?” I asked. “Any problems?”

  “None at all,” she said.

  None at all? Mrs. Bunn had told me Elsie was acting like a wolfhound in the late stages of rabies. I’d expected to see her foaming at the mouth, a fragment of another child’s shirt hanging from her clenched teeth.

  I smiled, relieved. “Well, that’s good to hear.”

  The teaching assistant’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “But Mrs. Bunn wanted to talk to you… did she get in touch with you?”

  “I met with her this morning,” I said.

  She tightened Elsie’s buckles. “Well, then. I guess you’re good to go!”

  Despite Attila’s grave admonitions, Elsie was chipper, cheerful, and anything but doglike. Relieved, I put on a June Cleaver smile as we pulled onto the highway.

  “How was your day, sweetheart?”

  “Great. Mommy, what happened to your face?”

  “A cat scratched me,” I said.

  “Rufus?”

  “No, a different cat. I’m fine, though.” I glanced back at her. “So, did everything go okay today?”

  “It was Madeline’s birthday today, so we got cupcakes for snack.” Her chubby face darkened. “Miss Lawson took mine away, though.”

  “I thought Miss Grayson said everything went fine.”

  “Oh, she wasn’t in my classroom today.”

  Well, that explained the glowing review. The pit in my stomach started to deepen again. “Why did Miss Lawson take your cupcake away?” I asked.

  Elsie shrugged. Had she been eating off of the floor again? I inspected her in the rearview mirror for telltale frosting smudges, but both her dress and face were clean.

  “Mrs. Bunn tells me you’ve been pretending you’re a dog,” I said. “Is that true?”

  “Mom. It’s just a game.” She sounded exactly like a sullen thirteen-year-old. I shivered.

  “That may be,” I said calmly, “but you need to do that at home, not at school.”

  She was silent for a moment. Good, I thought. She was thinking about it. Then her voice reverted to five-year-old’s again. “Mommy, did you find my fry phone?”

  I stifled a groan. “Not yet, honey. But I’m still looking.”

  #

  We swung by Randall’s to pick up the cake, a card, and a bouquet of electric blue carnations Elsie insisted we buy for grandma. I’d voted for a tasteful blend of purple irises and yellow roses, but Elsie had stood firm. “But blue’s her favorite color, mom,” she whined. Normally I wouldn’t have given in, but after everything that had happened that day, I was in no mood to argue.

  We made it the entire way home without any evidence of doglike behavior from Elsie. She even helped me carry the groceries into the house, one paper towel roll at a time. Was this something she saved just for Attila, I wondered?

  I slid the cake box onto the counter and filled a vase of water for the carnations. Then I emptied a package of graham crackers and some grapes onto a plate for the kids’ afternoon snack. As I returned the bag of grapes to the fridge, I was confronted by a photo of the four of us smiling in Zilker Park. Nick was clinging to his daddy’s leg, Elsie had her arms around my waist. I touched my husband’s face in the picture. Grinning, carefree. Things had changed lately. Why?

  As I closed the fridge, my thoughts turned to our most recent squabble. When I’d suggested getting a part-time job, Blake’s reaction had surprised me.

  “What about the kids?”

  “Blake,” I had said, “we’re not living in the 1950s anymore. Most women work full-time. It’ll only be fifteen or twenty hours a week. I’ll still have plenty of time for Elsie and Nick.”

  “I guess it’s okay. But just until my promotion comes through,” he said. But when I came home and announced I was working for a private investigator, he looked at me as if I’d announced I was taking up nude hang-gliding. And now he was trying to get me to join the Junior League.

  I knew that his suggestion that I get involved with the organization Herb McEwan’s wife chaired was another way of ingratiating himself to his boss and moving up the ladder.

  My thoughts turned to the promotion Blake kept striving for. The one that never came. I had always wondered how a person could work so hard and never reap the benefits. Now, the unpleasant thought occurred to me that maybe the reason he never got promoted was that those night hours weren’t spent at the office. I had always truste
d him implicitly. Now, I wasn’t sure about anything. My stomach churned. If he wasn’t spending them at the office, where was he spending them?

  As I filled two sippy cups with apple juice, I thought with a pang of our early years together. When I met Blake my senior year in college, I was bowled over by his self-assurance. Our first date had been at Paggi House, a romantic Italian restaurant twinkling with candles and out-of-season Christmas lights.

  Unlike most of my previous boyfriends, who considered going Dutch to be chivalrous, Blake was a gentleman. He opened my door for me, pulled my chair out for me, stood when I stood. Over the lobster ravioli, Blake talked about his passion for his future career. He had wanted to be a lawyer since sixth grade, and had pursued it ever since. He was so serious, so sincere. I had fallen for him for him by the time the waiter delivered a plate of cannoli with two forks.

  Although his passion for me never seemed to equal his passion for schoolwork and his future career, I told myself that once he had made it through law school and had established himself with a firm, he would have more energy for me and for the children I already imagined us having. He was never particularly romantic, with the exception of that first Italian dinner, but he was solid. A man of integrity. Exactly what I was looking for in a future husband. After my years shuttling from apartment to apartment with my single mother, security was important to me. And with Blake I would always feel safe.

  Which was why the lie he had told me this morning was so shattering.

  I paused at the sink, blinking back tears. Where had things gone wrong?

  I squared my shoulders and wiped my eyes on the back of my arm. Even though my life was in an uproar, it was important to keep things steady for Elsie and Nick. As I turned to carry the snack plate to the kitchen table, the flashing light of the answering machine caught my eye. Had Peaches found something out already? I slid the plate onto the table and hurried over to the machine.

  The first was a call from my mother, asking about tea again. Then Mrs. Bunn’s voice burbled from the tiny speaker. “Mrs. Peterson, I need you to call me as soon as possible regarding the photographs from the school festival.” I sighed and jotted down the number. Probably not enough of them featured Attila herself.