“His wife!” Linnea nearly dropped the frying pan. “Laws above. You mean to tell me that nice young detective is stepping out on somebody?”
“Yeah. Sheila didn’t tell you?”
“She most certainly did not!”
My mother-in-law pursed her lips. “I thought it best not to say anything.”
“That hound dog better not come sniffing around here. If he does, I’m going to take to him with my frying pan. You see if I don’t!” To punctuate her statement, Linnea lifted that cast iron pan high above her head. A few leftover curds of scrambled eggs tumbled out—and Gracie was kind enough to gobble them down.
53
Right after breakfast, I called Mert and asked if Roger could run by the house and clean up the mess on my porch.
“I’ll tell you all about it tonight at the picnic, but until then, can you just indulge me?”
“You got it,” she said.
Sheila and I discussed how much I should tell Anya about the prank. We decided it might be best to tell Anya after all evidence of the incident had been dealt with.
“No reason for that visual to stick in her head,” said Sheila.
I agreed. “Since we usually take Gracie for a long walk in a park on Sundays, that’ll give Roger plenty of time to get the job done.”
Linnea approved of our plans. When Anya wandered downstairs, the crafty maid took her time about making and serving Anya pancakes. Consequently, it was nearly noon when we loaded Gracie in the car and kissed both the women goodbye.
At first, we had the top down, but the sun proved itself to be merciless. We stopped and put the top up and turned on the A/C full blast. That wasn’t much better. In fact, the inside of my car was so stuffy that Anya turned to me and said, “Mom, could we take a pass on going to the park? It’s too miserable to be outdoors.”
She made a good point. The heat index was hovering near 105, and the air quality was orange. With her asthma, a walk outside was not a good idea. A part of me rebelled against letting our tradition slide for one more week, not because I didn’t think she was right, but because my child was growing up so fast. Someday soon, these Sunday walks of ours would be a distant memory.
“Okay-dokey, Anya-Banana. What would you like to do instead?”
She turned cornflower blue eyes on me and said, “Call Detective Detweiler and see if he’d like to go roller skating. He told me he’s really good at it. The kids say that rink over on Manchester Road is lots of fun.”
Crud. I wasn’t quite ready to discuss this yet. I needed a little more time, to practice what I’d say. But Anya’s timetable was different from mine, and I had no choice but to match her pace. I kept both hands on the steering wheel and my eyes on the road.
“I don’t think that will work, honey. You see, he’s married. I met his wife last night.”
Anya stopped twirling her hair and turned to me in horror. “Shut up! You have to be kidding me.”
Thank goodness I knew “shut up” was teen-speak for “no way!”
“No, honey, I’m not kidding.”
“Suffering succotash.”
“That’s one way of putting it. Hey, the good news is I wasn’t dating the man. Right? I mean he was only a friend. I suppose he can still be our friend. It’s just … it’s just that maybe I misunderstood the kind of friend he wants to be.”
“That’s total baloney, and you know it.”
The inside of my old BMW suddenly felt too small, too cramped. The leather seat stuck to the back of my legs. I couldn’t get a good deep breath of air. I directed an air conditioning vent toward my face and swallowed hard.
My perceptive daughter hadn’t finished setting me straight. “Maybe it wasn’t the kind of dating with him picking you up and taking you out, but he sure acted like he was interested. I saw the way he looked at you. Even Daddy didn’t look at you like that.”
“Like what?” My voice cracked.
“Like you were the most important person in the world. Like he thought you were just perfect. Like he wanted to hug you and kiss you and all that yucky stuff. He looked like guys do in the movies when they fall in love. And he didn’t even try to hide it.”
I was surprised by how observant she’d been. Surprised and saddened. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s the way you wanted to see it. I can accept responsibility for not being more … uh, proactive and asking him what his intentions were.”
A snort came from the other side of the car. Anya said, “You need your head examined.”
“Anya, you will not speak to me that way. That’s disrespectful.” I knew exactly who she was channeling; she’d been spending a lot of time with her grandmother, and that expression was one of Sheila’s favorites.
“Sorry. You need a serious rethink about this. Honest, you’re always telling me to trust my gut. Does your gut tell you he only wanted to be your friend?”
I didn’t answer her.
She made a disgusted sound. “Uh-huh. Your gut knows better. You do, too. Does Mert know about this yet?”
“I plan to tell her tonight at the cookout.”
“Oh, golly! This ought to be good. She’ll track him down and slap him up the side of his head seven ways to Sunday. You know what Roger told me? Once there was this bully at school, a senior? And Roger was, like, a middle schooler. And the bully kept slamming Roger into lockers in the hall when teachers weren’t watching. Mert goes to the principal, but he said they’d never seen it happen, and like, they couldn’t do anything? Besides the kid’s family was real important and all. One day, Roger came home with a black eye because the kid pushed him into an open locker. The next day, Mert drove over after school, picked Roger up early and waited in the parking lot. When that bully came out, he was walking around and strutting and showing off for his friends. So Mert made Roger get down between the seat and the dash, where no one could see him. Then she calls the bully over to her truck, and she gets out. Roger said he was really, really scared —for his mom. Next thing he knows — wham! He hears this loud bang. He looks up in time to see his mother grabbing that boy by the hair and slamming his face into the side of her truck. She broke that kid’s nose and everything. He’s got blood all over him and he’s crying and saying he’ll sue. Mert says to him, ‘Really? You gonna tell everyone a woman half your size and wearing a skirt broke your nose? You better not, ’cause next time I see you, I’ll break your arm and both your legs, too.’”
I knew my mouth had fallen open, but for the life of me, I couldn’t help myself. Processing this news took a bit of doing. I wanted to say, “Mert would never do that!” But a tiny voice inside me said, “Oh, yes, she would!”
Anya concluded this recitation of Mad Mert and the Thunderdome with a satisfied nod. “I can hardly wait to see what she’ll do to Detweiler. You do not mess with the people who Mert loves. She is not going to be happy about this. She’ll give him holy what-for.”
Out of the mouths of babes. Then it hit me: What was it Mert said when she returned from being questioned by the cops? Something about Detweiler being a sleazeball and not to trust him? She must have known he was married!
“I’ll be,” I mumbled to myself.
But that was totally ridiculous. If Mert had known about Detweiler, she’d have told me right away. As for the idea that she’d knock him silly, well, that was almost laughable.
Or was it?
I knew her to have a temper. She was fiercely protective. And not afraid of anything or anyone. What was it she had suggested when one of our scrapbookers turned up with a big bruise on the side of her face? Mert had said, “Iffen my husband ever dared lay one hand on me, I’d wait ’til he fell asleep and then I’d take a baseball bat to his kneecaps. That’d stop that nonsense for sure.”
At the time, I’d laughed.
She’d never hurt anyone.
Never.
Or would she?
54
Anya and I compromised by deciding to swing by Bread Co., pick up lunch, and go home to put
together a jigsaw puzzle. On the pretext of running inside the restaurant to pick up our food, I phoned Mert. She assured me that all traces of the fake Gracie were gone from our front porch.
Anya had gone to get the box with the puzzle when an officer at the Richmond Heights P.D. called to say they learned nothing from interviewing my neighbors. He promised patrolmen would make extra passes by the house.
Huh. Like that would do a lot of good. Instead of saying that, I thanked him politely. But before I could hang up, he rattled on, “Mrs. Lowenstein, our records show a few months ago your house was burglarized. Twice. And now this. Ma’am, maybe an officer should do a security canvas. Tell you how to make your place less appealing to the criminal element. You know, when word gets around that a house is vulnerable …”
I didn’t listen to the lecture that followed, because I knew exactly what he would say. My house had become a target for every miscreant in the greater St. Louis area. Even my Great Dane couldn’t offer enough of a deterrent to keep me and my child safe.
After the officer finished his lecture, I thanked him again, and said, “I’ll give moving some thought.”
Sheila had been right; I had to move to a better neighborhood. Which would mean paying higher rent. Which would mean accepting help from Sheila. Which would mean giving Sheila more input and control over my life.
I groaned inwardly while Anya dumped pieces of the puzzle onto our kitchen table.
Any money Sheila contributed would undoubtedly come with strings attached. Strings? More like even steel cables.
But what other options did I have?
For a peaceful hour, Anya and I matched puzzle pieces to their places as part of the whole. We agreed to put the project on hold when she couldn’t stop yawning. What both of us needed was a nice, long nap.
I was lying on my back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, when I noticed a dark ring. On closer inspection, there was a wet spot around the light fixture. Great. My roof was starting to leak. What else could go wrong? Crud. I knew from prior experience that my landlord would drag his feet on getting the problem fixed. The leak meant mold, and mold would kick off Anya’s allergies and mine. I could not continue to expose my child and my dog to the problems of living here.
I spoke to the weird stain on my ceiling. It was vaguely shaped like Bill Clinton in profile. “I know! I’ll marry a rich man who can take me away from all this.”
Wrong. Been there. Done that. Got the tee shirt, the kid, and the photo album.
Instead, I’d marry anybody with a job. Or a steady salary. What was it Dodie once counseled? Find a spouse with great benefits.
Like a school teacher. Or a postal clerk. Or a cop.
Maybe not.
Bad plan.
I needed to swallow my pride and do what had to be done. It wasn’t fun or pretty, but I needed help from Sheila -- and I needed it sooner rather than later. I sat up in my bed, grabbed my cell phone, and dialed her number. She picked up right away.
“Sheila? I’ve been thinking about your offer to help me find a new place to live.”
55
I mixed up a big bowl of my Hoosier Daddy Kidney Bean Salad and poured it into a plastic container. A little time in the refrigerator would allow the flavors to mingle.
“Anya? We’re leaving in thirty minutes.” I spoke directly to her hollow core bedroom door.
A grunt told me she’d gotten the message.
Dress code for Mert’s party was decidedly different from Opera Theatre. I pulled on cutoff jeans, a white tee shirt, and a pair of light blue Keds. But a glance in the mirror suggested that the finished outfit seemed a bit blah. Perhaps I’d learned a lesson: Looking good is a great start toward feeling good about yourself.
I rummaged through a bag containing a few clothes of George’s that I hadn’t given away. At the bottom of the pile, I found a navy blue vest. Thrown over the tee, it looked cute. I grabbed an old belt with a gold buckle. That added a touch of metallic shine. Picking up on the gold at my waist, I decided to include a pair of big gold hoops and a stack of bracelets. Grabbing a plastic clip from my dresser drawer, I piled my hair up on my head, letting a few curls escape here and there.
A second look in the mirror convinced me I’d learned a valuable lesson from Sheila — and maybe from Bama as well. Clothes don’t make the woman, but they can help a woman define herself.
My Spa La Femme transformation had taught me the power of polish. Taking those extra minutes to add the vest and various accessories definitely gave me more self-confidence. The extra grooming I’d endured—my newly shaped eyebrows, exfoliated skin, and spray on tan—all contributed to a more attractive me.
Thank goodness, I’d looked my best last night. Sheila had thoughtfully planned the timing of my meeting Detweiler’s wife. She’d allowed me to accept the news and still save face. Rather than dwell on the handsome cop, I chose to remember Ben Novak and his interest in me. Then there was also the chance that I’d hit it off with Mert’s brother. I wasn’t in the market for a mate, but a date. Or two or three. Yeah, that was the ticket.
I asked Anya to take Gracie for a quick walk while I washed my hands and grabbed the plastic container out of the refrigerator. In record time, we were good to go.
56
Mert lived in a small house not far from mine, but in a more stable neighborhood. Up and down her street were working-class families struggling to survive. Their shared values kept the block secure from mischief makers. A couple neighbors owned Doberman pinschers, and one householder kept a pit bull behind a tall fence. I knew for a fact several of the men kept shotguns in closets.
A home invader didn’t stand a chance in this part of town. He’d be wearing buckshot and pulling canine incisors out of his jugular a hot half-second after breaking and entering. And that would have just been the warm-up act.
St. Louis is a city of neighborhoods. This particular neighborhood was so tightly knit that when one family fired up the grill, everyone dropped by to throw their steaks on the barbecue and crack a brewski.
As Anya and I climbed out of the car, strains of country western music drifted back to us. My kid smiled. Under ordinary circumstances, she’d have taken a beating before listening to “hillbilly” music. But the lure of Mert’s darling son made both country and western tolerable to her.
Gracie led the way, eager to visit Elsa and Red, the mother and son yellow labs Mert had rescued years ago. Anya raced off to find Roger. I put Gracie in the dog run with her friends and searched the crush of people for my best pal. I didn’t spot her right away, so I let myself into Mert’s kitchen to add my bowl of bean salad to the other food. I was removing the plastic wrap when I felt a tug from behind.
Mert pulled me into a quick hug. “What on earth is this nonsense about a blood-soaked scrap of fake fur on your porch? Roger said it was the strangest mess he’d ever seen.”
She was wearing a white pair of short-shorts, an electric green halter top, and a big pair of earrings with faux green gems in the centers. Her pink-polished toes were stuffed into a pair of silver kitten heels.
“Tell me about it while you help me get these here veggies cut up.” Standing side-by-side at the sink, I told her all about the cruel trick that had been played on me.
“What a cruddy ending to a fairytale evening. Did you get any pictures so’s I can see how you looked at that fancy dinner last night?”
“Don’t need to see the photos,” a deep voice startled us.
I turned and behind me stood Lawn Boy. He continued with, “I was there to get a look at the real thing.”
I could have crawled under the kitchen table and never come back out. My face went hot with embarrassment remembering how he’d rescued me when I’d been naked, wrapped in plastic, and covered with mud at La Femme.
“Nice to meet you. Formally, that is. Sis has told me a lot about you.” He extended a hand and we shook.
“Johnny’s been working for Butler’s Landscaping and Lawn Service.” Mert
beamed at her baby brother. “I wondered if he might run into you out at Spa La Femme. He’s always loved plants and animals. That there’s the perfect job for him, working outdoors. Get a load of that farmer’s tan.”
I was doing exactly that—and more. A quick up-and-down scan proved Johnny to be trim, on the side of muscular, with long legs in classic jeans. With a white tee and cigarettes rolled up in a sleeve, Johnny could have been a James Dean clone.
Johnny rewarded us with a slow, lazy grin. “Like I told you, babe, brown is not your color. That gold was nice, but dark blue does amazing stuff to your eyes. If you’ll excuse me, Mert’s got me fixing the burgers and dogs.”
“He’s the Grill God,” Mert said with a wink. “He’s really somethin,’ ain’t he? Got all the looks and brains in the family.”
Grill God? She had that right. Her brother belonged up on Mount Olympus with Zeus and company. Suddenly I felt uncomfortably warm all over.
“Now, what was it like at that Opera Theatre event? I never been to a fancy party like that. Tell me everything.”
After finishing the veggies, we set out food, arranged serving utensils, and chatted. I gave her details about my time at the spa, explained about Howard and the limo, and finally told her about Detweiler. When I got to the part about his wife, Mert froze in the midst of adding a big spoon to a big dish of potato salad. She stood there, unable to move, while holding a big spoon up in the air like a fly swatter.
“You knew he was married, didn’t you?” I asked softly.
She shoved the spoon into the dish. “His wife came into the police station while I was leaving. He had no choice but to introduce us. I was hoping to find out more—like if they were really together or if they was separated, you know? But I didn’t have the chance.”
Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books! Page 39
