All the Single Ladies

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  He took off his sunglasses, tortoiseshell Ray-­Bans, for the record, and ran his hand through his hair. Was it my imagination or was he just one helluva lot better looking than the last time I saw him? But then, who looks good at a funeral?

  “Funny meeting you here,” he said, and paused, squinting in the brutal sun. “Um, you work here, I guess?”

  “Yes, I’m a nurse. I’ve been here off and on for a few years now. So, you must be the architect?”

  “Yep. That’s me. This is going to be a Green Ho—­”

  “Green House Project,” I said. “I actually know quite a lot about the whole deal. You know, ADA compliance and all that.”

  He had nice eyes. Brown. And warm. I’ve always liked brown eyes, for some reason. Especially if they’re warm. And for no good reason in this entire world I felt myself wanting to take a short swim in them. Just a few laps around the chocolate pool. How stupid.

  “You do, huh? I’m sorry. What’s your name?” he said.

  “Oh!” I said. “Sorry! I’m Lisa. Lisa St. Clair. Well, it was Barnebey, but after my divorce I started using my maiden name again. My daughter, Marianne, uses Barnebey, which she should since it’s her name. At least I think she does. I haven’t spoken to her in six months. She doesn’t call much.”

  He was just looking at me, smiling. He wasn’t smiling at me like I was a lunatic but it was a kind expression, so kind it made me want to tell him everything. But now he knew my name, that I was divorced, had one child, and that she was grown and probably not a burden. What in the hell was happening here?

  “Why am I telling you all of this?” I laughed and shook my head.

  “I don’t know, Lisa St. Clair. Why are you?”

  He was grinning from ear to ear like big cats do when they’ve got the little mouse cornered. He was going to taunt me and run me around before he ate my soul. I knew how this game worked. I didn’t know how I got so off-­kilter but I knew I had to get in my car and drive away from him or I was going to say something really stupid and then he would know what an idiot I really was.

  “I just came out here to see what the jackhammers were doing. That’s all.”

  Another pearl from me. Yeah, boy, those jackhammers are wild things.

  “They’re tearing up unnecessary macadam.”

  “Right. So, right, well, I gotta go. I gotta go meet some friends and solve a mystery.” I was babbling like the proverbial brook. “Nice to see you.”

  “Nice to see you too,” he said. “Come back and visit. Maybe you could consult?”

  “Oh, right. Very funny. But I would like to see how this progresses. The whole concept is . . . well, I think it’s great. So I’ll be around.”

  “Great!” he said, and gave me a little wave as I turned to scurry to my car as fast as humanly possible without seeming like I was rushing from a crime scene.

  Oh yeah, I’ll come back and I’ll bring donuts, I thought with glee, and then quickly realized I was in a situation. I was in a situation because for the first time in at least ten years I felt a powerful twitch south of the Mason-­Dixon Line in my personal Lowcountry. That twitch was a profound warning. Part of my brain, the seductress cells that had been in mothballs for a decade, suddenly sang an aria and wanted to lure a man with food, decadent food. Sugar. Caramel. Chocolate. I was on the edge of falling right into a mine shaft of carnal desire. How shocking! But every experience I’d ever had with an adult male had proven to me that love, or whatever it really was, pheromones maybe, wasn’t worth the trouble. I was going to get a grip on myself, and the next time I saw him, I’d be cool. Serene like Grace Kelly in a film with Cary Grant. That’s who I’d be. Grace Kelly. Maybe I’d have a friendship with him. Nothing dangerous or too personal. Sure. Just friends. It might be interesting to see if I could have something platonic with a man. It would be a first. But I was older now. I could manage it. I could control myself. For heaven’s sake, I could control myself.

  I got to my house, walked my dog, and drove to the Bottles parking lot on Coleman Boulevard. I pulled in and parked next to Carrie’s Mercedes. Carrie and Suzanne were standing there, waving at me. I got out of my car and clicked the key to lock it.

  “The air-­conditioning is running. Jump in! It’s as hot as Hades out here,” Carrie said.

  “I don’t know why the late-­afternoon sun is hotter than it is at noon, but it feels like it,” Suzanne said.

  “It sure does,” I said, and slipped into the backseat, moving a dozen empty water bottles to the other side with my foot.

  “Sorry about all the bottles,” Carrie said. “I keep forgetting to throw them out.”

  “No problem,” I told her.

  “So, how was your day?” Suzanne asked. “You want a bottle of cold water? We brought you one.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Lowcountry residents to drink water or tea all day long in the summer.

  “Sure. Thanks!” I took the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and took a long sip. “My day was fine. Hey! Guess what?”

  “What?” Carrie said.

  “I’m not sure my nervous system can take any more surprises, so tell me quick,” Suzanne said.

  “I saw that guy Paul. He’s the architect on a new building project at Palmetto House.”

  “No kidding?” Carrie said. “How funny!”

  Suzanne turned to say something to me and I must’ve had a really goofy expression on my face.

  “Oh! God!” she said.

  “What?” I said, and felt my face flush.

  “You’ve got a thing for him!” Suzanne said.

  “I do not!” I said adamantly.

  I saw Carrie look at me in the rearview mirror and then she grinned so wide I could see her gums.

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “I’m an expert in the field, you know.”

  “Lord save us,” Suzanne said, and giggled.

  “Oh, brother. Listen, you two matchmakers, I don’t have it going on for Paul or anybody else. It’s just me and Pickle in my little world.”

  “And us!” Carrie said.

  “Yeah,” Suzanne said, adding, “and Wendy. Y’all? What are we going to say to her?”

  Carrie made the left on East Bay Street. We were almost there. Somebody had better think of something to say.

  “You’ve got the landscaping bill with you?” I said.

  “Of course, but only a copy of it,” Suzanne said. “And a copy of Kathy’s last bank statement.”

  “I think we should just be nice, you know, let her think that we think the bill is a mistake,” Carrie said.

  “Yeah, there’s no point in pinning her against the wall and calling her a liar,” I said.

  “Unless we have to,” Suzanne added.

  We pulled up in front of Wendy’s house and got out.

  “Did you call her, Suzanne?”

  “No,” Suzanne said.

  “What if she’s not home?” I said.

  “Then I think we wait,” Suzanne said.

  “Or we can sneak in and get the bracelets back,” I said.

  “Not me, sugar,” Carrie said. “I look terrible in orange.”

  “Would you really be a cat burglar?” Suzanne looked at me as if she were wondering in that moment if I had criminal tendencies.

  “No, never. But I just feel like this horrible woman is so far over the line that I could somehow justify it.”

  “Nuh-­uh,” Carrie said, and rang the doorbell and banged the door knocker. “Not me. Too chicken.”

  The door opened and there stood Wendy, surprised to see us. Carrie turned turtle and quickly stepped behind Suzanne. I moved up, giving Wendy a little dose of stink eye.

  “What do y’all want?” Wendy said, and not very politely.

  “May we come in for a moment?” Suzanne said as sweetly as a saint.

 
“Well, all right. But only for a moment. I’m busy.”

  “Thank you,” Suzanne said.

  We followed Wendy to the living room and stood by two facing slipcovered sofas, waiting for her to sit down. She stood by the fireplace. Over the mantel hung an ancient sword, probably from the Civil War. It seemed she had no intention of offering us a seat or a drink of anything.

  “So?” she said, pretty icily. “Would you like to tell me why I have the honor of this unexpected visit?”

  Woo-­hoo! She was a serious bitch, I thought. I mean, world class. More stink eye ensued.

  “Well, I received this bill from Green Carolina for two thousand dollars,” Suzanne said, holding the envelope in her hand.

  “So?” Wendy said.

  “Well, it’s for landscaping done here after Kathy died,” Suzanne said.

  “She said she wanted to help me renovate the gardens as a birthday gift. They started the work when they did because they’re very busy. It seemed like an extravagant gift to me but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” Wendy said.

  “I knew Kathy from the time I was just a little girl,” Suzanne said. “She was my babysitter. In all the years I knew her I never saw her do anything so over the top as this. I mean, this is obviously a mistake.”

  Suzanne was giving her the opportunity to save face but Wendy didn’t seem to care about that. Her eyes darted all around the room and then settled evenly on Suzanne’s face.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “It’s no mistake. She always paid the landscaping bills.”

  Suzanne’s face turned red. She was getting angry.

  “No, she didn’t. I have all of her bank statements to prove it.”

  “Well? Maybe she paid them in cash. How should I know?”

  “But a two-­thousand-­dollar bill? Are you serious?” Suzanne said. “She didn’t have that kind of money to spend.”

  “She didn’t? I thought she came from money,” Wendy said.

  “I don’t know what made you think that she did. She died with less than five hundred dollars to her name. My grandmother and I paid all the funeral expenses.”

  “Good grief!” Wendy said.

  “So, Kathy’s estate cannot pay this bill.”

  Wendy gasped. “Well, then, I’ll just have to call a lawyer. Won’t I?”

  “Are you threatening me with a lawsuit?” Suzanne said. Her voice was escalating and I could see we were heading for trouble.

  “I never threaten,” Wendy said evenly.

  “Fine,” Suzanne said, and dropped the copy of the bill on the coffee table.

  Now this glass coffee table in between the sofas was covered in a collection of magnifying glasses and letter openers. They were beautiful pieces and one exquisite pair in particular caught my eye. I picked it up to look at it.

  “Put that down!” Wendy said, nearly shrieking at me. “That belonged to my mother!”

  “Sorry!” I said, and carefully replaced it on the table.

  Carrie caught my eye. We knew something wasn’t right. She started coughing and coughing. And then, as her coughing fit progressed, she became dramatic, waving her arms and pointing to her throat.

  “Are you okay?” Suzanne asked.

  Carrie shook her head back and forth. She was not okay.

  “Now what?” Wendy said. “You want water? Good grief! Lord! Deliver me from these women!”

  As soon as Wendy huffed out of the room to get a glass of water for Carrie, I whipped out my cell phone and started taking pictures of the letter openers and magnifying glasses, vases, figurines, and paintings. Suzanne, sensing I was onto something, did the same. She took pictures of mirrors, the rugs, the end tables—­as many as she could in the narrow time frame we had. Carrie kept coughing. Hearing Wendy’s footsteps cross the ancient heart-­pine floors, we stopped clicking away and put our phones out of sight. Suspecting nothing, she came back to the living room and handed Carrie a glass. Carrie curbed her drama and took a few sips.

  Carrie finally managed to speak. Her voice was raspy. “Thank you. Do you have cats?”

  “Only Sylvester, my sixteen-­year-­old Persian. Why? You allergic?”

  “Obviously,” I muttered.

  “Deathly. I’ll just wait outside,” Carrie said, wheezing a little.

  “It’s probably time for all of us to go,” Suzanne said. She pointed to the paper on the coffee table and then looked Wendy straight in the eye. “Pay the bill, Wendy.”

  “I don’t take orders from you,” Wendy said.

  Then I couldn’t stand it another minute, so I jumped in.

  “First, it was the bracelets. Now this. What else is going on here? Pay the bill and let’s have no more nonsense from you.”

  “Get out of my house or I’ll call the police,” Wendy said.

  I walked to the door and followed Suzanne and Carrie outside. Wendy slammed the door so hard it could’ve fallen from its hinges and it wouldn’t have surprised me one little bit.

  “She’s a terrible person,” Carrie said.

  “She’s a thief,” Suzanne said.

  “Something tells me that this isn’t our last dealing with her,” I said.

  “Oh, please!” Suzanne said. “Make her go away!”

  “By the way, I adore cats,” Carrie said in a perfectly normal voice, and laughed. “The furrier, the better.”

  My jaw dropped and Suzanne said, “Please, the only things Carrie’s allergic to are stepchildren.”

  Chapter 7

  Still Searching

  After our confrontation at Wendy’s we were all pretty breathless. All the way back to Mount Pleasant we called her every name in the book. The plan was to go to Suzanne’s house after I picked up my car. We weren’t quite ready to call it a day and we decided some adult hydration was definitely in order to soothe our rankled nerves. And we shared a crushing need for a postmortem rehash. There was a lot to discuss.

  “I’m glad we parked at Bottles,” I said. “What’s it gonna be, ladies? White or red? My treat.”

  “Anything, as long as it’s alcoholic,” Suzanne said.

  “I have to be downtown by six. No vino for me,” Carrie said. “Well, maybe a thimble.”

  “Okay!” I said, and got out of the car. “See you soon.”

  They pulled away and I walked across the steaming parking lot to the store’s entrance. It was divided into two parts—­one side sold liquor and the other sold wine. I’d had a twenty-­dollar bill in my wallet that morning when I checked. I hoped it was still there. Money, in my life, had a way of disappearing into thin air. Inside, I walked to the wine side of the store and rested my shoulder bag on a counter to check for cash. When there are more receipts than money in your wallet it’s time to clean out your whole purse. Obviously I wasn’t going to start doing it then and there, but given the hoorah I’d just been through, it wouldn’t have really surprised me if I had. My behavior that day was unusual, to say the least. Normally, I didn’t talk too much or take sides in arguments. But that day I went from batting my eyes at Paul while giving him a verbal résumé, to giving the hairy eyeball to Wendy, letting her know we knew she had stolen the bracelets. What was next?

  I walked the aisles of wine from all over the world thinking about Wendy and about Carrie’s coughing fit and the pictures we took. How in the world were we going to prove anything? All of us knew Wendy was guilty, but without Kathy to confirm our suspicions, what could we do? Tell Green Carolina to come take back their boxwoods and azaleas? Maybe they would. Maybe I should suggest that to Suzanne.

  I chose a Malbec from South America and a pinot grigio from Italy and took them to the checkout counter.

  “That’ll be eighteen dollars and thirty-­two cents,” the checkout man said.

  “Here you go,” I said, remembering the days when checkout personnel would ask
to see some ID to prove I was old enough to buy booze. Now they wanted to give me the senior discount at the Bi-­Lo. Maybe I needed a better moisturizer and a neck cream.

  My car was a veritable oven, but I expected it to be one. I just blasted the air conditioner and backed out of my spot. I hurried home to get Pickle and she was thrilled to see me.

  “Come on, sweet baby! We’re going to the beach! You can watch Lassie with Miss Trudie! Yes, you can! Oh, you’re such a sweet girl! Let’s go!”

  I’m telling you that my dog knew exactly what I was saying. I’d bet the ranch on it—­not The Ponderosa, but my rental. It’s a ranch style? I know, dumb joke.

  We rolled into Suzanne’s yard twenty minutes later. Suzanne, Carrie, and Miss Trudie were on the porch. Suzanne stood up to hold the screen door wide for me.

  “I can open the wine,” she said. “Should I?”

  “God, yes!” Carrie said. She was dressed for the evening.

  “Wow!” I said. “You look great!”

  “Thanks!” she said.

  “The white’s cold,” I told her. “But it would probably stand up to ice very well.” Meaning, it was pretty cheap, so the colder it was, the better.

  “Oh!” Miss Trudie said. “My little friend is back!”

  Well, Pickle had to circle the porch and get her doggie love from each of the women and then she settled at Miss Trudie’s feet. Suzanne put the wine bottles on the table.

  She said, “I’ll go get some glasses and a corkscrew.”

  “And ice,” I said.

  “And some olives!” Miss Trudie added.

  “I’ve got y’all covered!” Suzanne disappeared inside the house.

  “Sit! Sit!” Miss Trudie said. “I’ve been hearing all about this terrible woman. I want to hear what you think. Is she really a thief?”

  “I think so,” I said. “It surely seems like it.”

  “Well, this is very interesting. Not much happens in my life these days. So this is very exciting. How do you girls plan to resolve it?”

  I said, “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Kathy’s not here to set the record straight. But I keep thinking we’re going to find evidence at some point. Suzanne, as you know, inherited everything Kathy left behind. Somewhere in that pile of boxes is more information.”