Quick Study

by Maggie Barbieri

  Crawford, Fred, and Carmen pushed in next to me, forcing me to sit between them and the people on my right. Carmen held her hand out to me, her long, gold nails glancing over my palm as we shook.

  “Carmen Montoya,” she said by way of introduction.

  “Alison Bergeron.”

  “Pleasure,” she whispered.

  I leaned across Crawford and Carmen and tapped Fred on his tree trunk thigh. “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” I asked, sotto voce.

  He shrugged. “Ask the little woman.”

  In Max’s case, “little woman” was truly an apt description and I knew that Fred meant it as such. He would never use the term as a derogatory way of describing his wife. In his mind, she was little. And a woman. Ergo, she was a little woman. “Well, if you’re not doing anything, come to dinner at seven.”

  He shrugged again.

  I took that as a yes. I looked at Carmen. “You’re welcome to come, too.”

  She patted my hand, which was resting on Crawford’s leg. “Oh, honey, you don’t want us. Trust me.” She pulled the front of her shirt down, the buttons of which were straining across her chest. “I’ve got four kids and they’re not housebroken.”

  Good to know. Thanks for the warning.

  Crawford, seated next to me, leaned over and whispered in my ear. I got a whiff of his Crawford scent: freshly laundered clothes. My stomach did a little flip.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.

  “Well, then you’re not as astute as you might think.”

  He pulled back and gave me a tight smile. “I’m pretty astute.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You think so, huh?”

  “I’m astute enough to know that you had something with garlic for breakfast. A garlic croissant, maybe?” He leaned in closer. “This is a nice surprise,” he said and slid his hand around my waist.

  I jumped slightly as his fingers tickled my midsection, jostling the old lady sitting next to me. She glared at me. “Sorry,” I said. I turned to Crawford, who was purposely staring straight ahead. “Stop it,” I whispered, but the admonition only resulted in him pulling me closer. “I mean it,” I said, trying to pull away. I lost my balance and tumbled into the old lady again. She was not amused. The organist started playing and Crawford straightened up, eyes on the altar, to my relief.

  Over the sounds of the grand organ situated to the right of the altar, I could hear voices in the church vestibule behind me. I turned and was incredibly surprised to see Richie Kraecker entering with the skeletal Morag Moragna hanging off his arm, wearing a pillbox hat with a film of lace covering her eyes.

  Oh, for god’s sake, I thought, that’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?

  I turned to Crawford, throwing my head toward the back of the church. “Hey, Detective Hot Pants. Were you astute enough to anticipate that?”

  Thirteen

  The mood at the Lord’s Bounty that night was solemn. The table that the Escalantes usually sat at remained empty; the rest of the guests assembled at the other tables, it seemed, out of respect for Hernan and his clan. Nobody spoke of Jose’s death outright, but the mood was somber and people chatted to themselves in whispered tones. I handed out the salads, and then the main meals, in silence. Even the kitchen staff, a team of women from a local Korean church who were always good for a few laughs, prepared the food in complete silence.

  The funeral had been a lovely celebration of Jose’s life—but as expected, extremely sad. I had even caught Carmen Montoya, a woman who dealt with homicide on a daily basis, tearing up at the pastor’s sermon.

  I had managed to snag a few moments with Amalia outside the church to express my sympathies. We had hugged for several minutes before Hernan came to her side and quietly asked her to join her family again. Hernan and I didn’t speak but the sadness in his eyes spoke volumes. He had taken in his sister’s son and had to bring him home to bury; there were no words to take away that pain.

  I had parted with Crawford in front of the church. “I’ll see you later,” he had said, giving me a quick peck, heading off to trail behind Richie Kraecker, whose appearance had brought out a couple of photographers and reporters from the area newspapers. When Crawford and I parted, Richie was giving a statement to the Daily News, protesting that while Jose was a hard worker with a clean record, Richie had had no idea that he was an illegal alien. He then made a big show of taking out his wallet and promising to support the extended Escalante/Tomasso family. I wondered if it had occurred to him that they would be back in Ecuador before spring turned into summer. Maybe instead of giving them money, he could use his extensive clout to get them real, not manufactured, green cards.

  I shook off my melancholy. I made a stop at Joey’s table and even he, usually extremely chatty, had nothing to say. I stood for a few minutes taking in the depressed bunch of men sitting at the table and, when I figured out that they weren’t in the mood to chat, moved on.

  Mrs. Dwyer and Patty were at their usual spot. “Hello, Alison dear,” she said. I leaned down and Patty gave me her paw.

  “Hi, Mrs. Dwyer.”

  “Sad night.” That was an understatement.

  “It is.” I picked up her empty plate and bent down to let Patty lick up the extra gravy on it.

  “Jose seemed like a nice boy.”

  “You knew Jose?” I asked, surprised.

  She nodded. “Of course. Everyone knew Jose. He didn’t live here but he spent a lot of time at Hernan and Alba’s, and they live next door to me. He grew up with them. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t. But I pulled up a chair and sat beside Mrs. Dwyer. Patty rested her head in my lap. “What else did you know about Jose?”

  “He was a wonderful artist.”

  When I didn’t say anything, and it was clear that she knew that I was wondering how she knew that, she elaborated. “Hernan told me. Jose wanted to be an artist. But life was hard for him here.” She dropped her voice. “Because of the situation.”

  “Situation?” I asked.

  “You know, the whole illegal thing.”

  Of course I knew about that. I waited for her to go on and I didn’t have to wait long.

  “They all desperately want green cards but it’s not like the old days. It takes a long time to get one of those.” She patted her dog’s head. “Jose was the only one who had one. So he seemed to do OK with work. I always wondered how he got one when Hernan and Alba couldn’t.” She shrugged.

  Me, too. Obviously Jose had been the recipient of one of the green cards handed out by Richie and his crew at Riviera Pointe. I decided not to press her anymore because the dining room was emptying out and I could see that the woman she came with—a cranky lady named Mrs. Jessups—was itching to leave. I gave Mrs. Dwyer a quick hug and looked at the clock, realizing with alarm that I had ten minutes to make a fifteen-minute trip to Tony’s in Dobbs Ferry before he closed the store. I bid a hasty farewell to the ladies in the kitchen and booked out to the parking lot.

  I got into the car and started it up, only noticing after I’d been sitting there a few seconds that there was a note on the windshield. With one leg out the car door I reached around, grabbing it from under the windshield wiper.

  “Mined your own bizness.”

  Bad spelling aside, it certainly had an ominous ring. Mind my own business? Who would take the time to follow me here and put that note under my windshield wiper? Was it someone who attended the meal? I went through the list. Although the prison guys certainly fell into the “most likely” category, none of them struck me as sinister; they were right out of The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. I mentally went through the room and couldn’t come up with anyone else. I thought that maybe someone had approached one of the teenage boys outside the church and asked him to do it. That was a possibility. I looked around, simultaneously locking my doors. I shoved the note into my coat pocket and peeled out of the parking lot, not sure whether to be more scared of the note, its author, or the fact that I had
less than five minutes to get to Tony’s.

  I touched the note in my pocket every now and again as I made my way south on Route 9. I thought about giving it to Crawford but figured it would just amount to a whole heap of trouble for Joey and Tiny and their crew, and I didn’t want that for them. At the next red light, I took the note and balled it up, shoving it down into the space between the seat and the console.

  I got to Tony’s at five minutes to six and said a prayer that Lucia had gone home for the day or crawled back under her rock. Maybe a house had fallen on her and I could scurry off with her ruby slippers. Tony was cashing out the register when I entered, out of breath and sweaty. He turned and, unlike when I had been in earlier, gave me a big smile. Yep, she was gone, or at least very busy in the kitchen.

  “Hello, mi amore,” Tony said, and I knew that I was in for it. After my work at the Lord’s Bounty, I didn’t have the energy to fend him off, but fend him off I had to if I was going to get out of there before Lucia fried me in hot oil. It was kind of like the Italian version of Sweeney Todd.

  My food was in three long trays, with the bread wrapped in tinfoil on top of them. I assessed the situation and determined that I couldn’t carry it all to the car myself in one trip; if Tony helped me, at least his hands would be occupied and he wouldn’t be able to feel me up. “Thanks, Tony. Can you give me a hand with this?” I asked.

  “Of course!” he said, closing the register. “A girl like you can’t carry all of that by herself.”

  Well, yes, I probably could, I was tempted to say, but I decided to go with the damsel in distress routine so I could get back to my house as quickly as possible. I had a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it.

  “Just give me a minute, my love,” Tony said, disappearing into the back of the deli.

  The cacophony of pots and pans being thrown to and fro in the kitchen started quickly and violently and shocked me into action. I heard Tony protesting that he was just friends with me and that I was in love with another man and would never be his. He cried that I wasn’t even his type. Could have fooled me. And what did that mean anyway?

  I didn’t have time to think about it because a pan hit the stainless steel sink in the kitchen and clattered to the floor. I felt a cold sheen of sweat break out on my brow and I grabbed the bread and the top tray of food from the counter, all I could handle in my maiden trip to the car. I hustled out, deposited the first batch of food in the trunk, and headed back in to get the rest.

  “Just-a friends? Just-a friends?” The sound of the disembodied voice carried out to the front of the store.

  I grabbed the rest of the food and stumbled toward the front door, cursing the jangling bell that announced my comings and goings. I prayed that Lucia would stay in the back and just let me take my food in peace. A pot whizzed by my head and hit the glass in the door, creating a spider web pattern, but not shattering the glass.

  “Holy shit!” I said and kicked the door open with my foot, the sauce from the chicken francese leaking out the side of the container and running down the front of my sweatshirt. The heat seeped through the fabric and down to my bra, burning my boobs in the process. That’ll leave a mark, I thought.

  I should have cooked. This was just so not worth it.

  I peeled out of the parking spot in front of the store and headed home, pulling the sweatshirt away from my skin, trying to minimize the damage that would be incurred by the hot sauce. I got home in record time, making a couple of trips to and from the car to transport the food, and finally stripping my sweatshirt off and throwing it into Trixie’s bed.

  “Here, Trix. Make love to this. There’s chicken sauce all over it.” I stood in the kitchen in my bra and jeans. The dog leapt into the bed and began to wrestle with the sweatshirt, finding all of the good drippings and licking them with a gusto normally reserved for the wet food that I treat her to occasionally.

  I opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of chardonnay. If I was going to make it through this evening, I needed wine, and lots of it. Before pouring myself a generous glassful, I took a swig directly from the bottle.

  I leaned against the kitchen counter holding the wine bottle, the only sounds in the room coming from Trixie’s dog bed as she fondled my sweatshirt. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying the quiet of my house. I swirled some chardonnay around on my tongue, holding the oaky wine in my mouth.

  “Alison?”

  I spit out the wine, choking on the thimbleful that didn’t come out with the rest of the expectoration. The bottle shook in my hand as the sound of Crawford’s voice and his footfalls in my front hallway got closer. He was in the kitchen before I had a chance to respond, his daughters on either side of him, their eyes wide.

  What’s the matter? I wanted to ask. You’ve never seen a woman in a bra and jeans drinking wine out of the bottle?

  “Is this a bad time?” he asked, taking in my attire, or lack thereof.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You could say that.”

  He spoke to the girls, who appeared to have turned to stone. “Hey, go into the living room, please? I’ll be right there.” They beat a hasty exit and Crawford burst out laughing. “Is this how you dress when I’m not around? If so, I’m moving in.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Ever heard of knocking?”

  He looked sheepish. “Sorry about that.”

  “I need a shower. Do you think you could express my regret at this unfortunate situation and tell them that we’ll have a do-over in about twenty minutes?”

  He leaned in and sniffed my chest. “Sure. You smell good. Is that chicken francese?”

  “Yep. Do me a favor? Put the food in the oven at three-fifty.”

  “Lids or no lids?”

  I had no idea. “Pick one.” I headed off down the hallway and scurried up the steps to my bedroom, my heart still racing from the various shocks I had endured since leaving the Lord’s Bounty. I sat on the edge of the bed and took off my sneakers. The phone began ringing; I picked it up and put it between my ear and neck as I struggled to get my gym socks off. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Bergeron? Madeleine Cranston from Riviera Pointe calling?”

  Who? “Yes. Uh, hi, Madeleine.” I went through my mental database trying to figure out who this was and why she was calling me. And why everything she said sounded like a question. A picture of a busty blonde popped into my head and I remembered meeting her at the party the Wednesday before.

  “I wanted to follow up with you about your request for more information on the condos?”

  Oh, right. The fake interest in buying a condo coming home to roost. “Thanks for calling, Madeleine. I’m afraid this isn’t the best time . . .”

  “I won’t take too much of your time? I was wondering if we could make a date for you to come down to the sales office so we could talk about your needs?”

  Now, that was a great idea. I needed to talk to someone about my needs. They ranged from the fact that I needed love, support, and encouragement on a daily basis to a need for a compliment or two on my hair. I decided to play it straight and threw out a suggestion that we meet on Monday afternoon.

  “Let me look at my planner?” She paused as she consulted her schedule. “Yes, that should work? Two thirty?” she asked.

  “Sounds great. Where’s the office?”

  “Right next to the construction site?”

  Didn’t she know? Didn’t she work there? What was with all of the questions? I repeated what she said to make sure that it was indeed next to the construction site. I jotted a note down on a Post-it on the nightstand.

  And now I had even less time than before to get ready. And I was a mess. I took an abbreviated shower, hoping that the garlic emanating from my pores would be washed away, along with the scent of chicken francese and any odors from dinner at the Lord’s Bounty. Tonight wasn’t a banner night for the cooking team—undercooked ziti, bland tomato sauce, and frozen meatballs. But everybody seemed hungry enough and eve
ry last morsel had been consumed.

  I put on a pair of my nicer jeans, an oxford shirt, and my clogs. I was beyond wanting or needing to impress this crowd. Jane and Frankie had seen me walking the dog in my pajamas, and now Crawford’s daughters had seen me in a bra and jeans. When you’ve been seen half-naked by a number of your guests there really isn’t any point in upping the fashion quotient, is there?

  I had spoken to Max, aka the “little woman,” and confirmed that she and Fred could come to dinner as well. I didn’t want to rely on Fred to convey the invitation; he wasn’t entirely trustworthy in that regard. Meeting Crawford’s daughters, introducing Jane to Jack, hosting dinner for eleven people—I needed reinforcements. And Max was my security blanket. Even if the evening went down in flames, I could count on Max to extinguish the fire. I hoped. She was kind of a loose cannon.

  I flew down the stairs and did a spectacular pose in the entrance to the living room, arms in the air. I got a better look at Crawford: turtleneck, new jeans, loafers without socks. He looked like a model in the International Male catalog, wearing clothes I had never seen before. He smiled, and one of his daughters let out a hearty laugh at my pose. The other—whom I dubbed Sad Eyes but who seemed to be more an Always-in-a-Bad-Mood Eyes—looked at me like I was crazy. Get used to it, sister. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  I held out my hand. “Hi, I’m Alison.”

  The tall one, who looked like Crawford and who had a ready smile, introduced herself as Meaghan and Sad Eyes identified herself, through her father, as Erin. She was as tiny as Meaghan was statuesque and as quiet as the other one was gregarious.