Aurora 08 - Poppy Done To Death (8 page)

“Ah, he was visiting a friend.” I closed my eyes at my own stupidity. That had sounded pretty lame.

“Visiting a friend, in the afternoon of a workday.” My mother’s eyebrows were probably arched clear up to her hairline. “I’ll be willing to bet the friend is pretty and female and wasn’t wearing work clothes when she opened the door.”

I winced. “Well...”

“You don’t need to say anything else,” Mother said. “And Poppy, bless her heart, was just as bad. People these days are just like rabbits. Everything’s sex. No duty, no loyalty. By the way, where’s Robin?”

I didn’t like her thought association there, and she was not the first person who’d asked me today where Robin was. We weren’t engaged and we weren’t talking about marriage. We weren’t a locked-in official couple.

“He’s in Houston. He’ll be back day after tomorrow,” I said, sounding just as stiff as my mother.

“Do you think he and Phillip will get along?”

“Mother, you have enough to worry about right now. I believe I can handle Phillip and Robin.”

“You’re right. Well, let me go. I have to convince John he’s not responsible for the whole social process surrounding Poppy’s death, and I have to remind John David that he
is
.”

“Good luck, Mother. I’ll be there when I can. Remember, if the Wynns need a place to stay, the door is open. Just let me know thirty minutes ahead of time.”

“Thanks, baby. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Because I couldn’t seem to sit still, I went to the third bedroom and made the bed, just in case. If the Wynns drove in from their retirement community in the next hour, it would be at least another hour after that before they’d be ready to retire, and they might well want to go see Poppy’s body. Could they? Or would her body have already been sent to Atlanta for autopsy?

I just didn’t know.

I yawned, a big jaw-cracking yawn. I’d run out of steam.

Phillip shambled into the living room and plopped down on the couch opposite my chair. He was looking much better, and he was smiling.

“Thanks for the clothes and stuff,” he said. “It was neat to find the bags in the room when I woke up.”

I was glad I’d passed a rack of those drawstring flannel pants at Wal-Mart, because that was what Phillip was wearing, the pants and the sleeveless T-shirt he’d had on under his flannel shirt.

“I was glad to do it.”

“Listen, what’s happening about your sister-in-law?” he asked.

I told him what the situation was, and he was openmouthed at the awfulness of the adult world. Moments like this reminded me how young my brother really was.

“I’ll bet you’re hungry,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, yes. Just point me at the kitchen. I can fix stuff myself.”

“Has your mom been working these past few years?” I felt guilty for not knowing this basic fact about Phillip’s life.

“Yeah, ever since we moved to Pomona, she’s worked at an insurance company as a clerk.”

“I talked to her.”

He froze in the act of turning on the oven. He’d already found the box of Bagel Bites in the freezer compartment. “Um, how is she?” There were so many layers to his voice—guilt, anger, grief—it was hard to pick the dominant emotion.

“Glad you’re okay. Relieved she knows where you are. Not too happy that you’re with me.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“You don’t have to apologize. She wants you to be safe and happy more than anything.”

“Then why can’t they act like it?” he said furiously. “Why can’t they act like parents, instead of switching partners like they were kids?”

This was a complex bunch of ideas. I was beginning to get the feeling that there was no simple way to raise a teenager, or even to answer the questions one might ask you. Was every conversation with my brother going to be as loaded as this one? The prospect was exhausting.

“People don’t always do what I wish they would, either,” I said. In fact, people stubbornly lived their lives as they wanted, without regard to me, to an amazing degree. I suppressed this observation, as I expected it wouldn’t find favor with Phillip.

We talked for over an hour while Phillip ate (and ate, and ate). I told him about the possible arrival of Poppy’s parents and introduced him to Madeleine, who came in while he was wiping his mouth with a napkin.

“Is that a cat?” he asked, regarding Madeleine with startled eyes.

“Sure,” I said, trying not to sound offended. “She’s really old, I know. . . .”

“She’s really
fat
.”

“Well, that, too. She doesn’t get as much exercise as she used to, now that we live in town.”

“She probably can’t walk more than five feet,” Phillip said scornfully.

“I guess she is a little dumpy,” I said, wondering how long it had been since I’d actually looked at Madeleine and really evaluated her. “You know, she must be—let’s see, when my friend Jane died and left me Madeleine, she was at least six years old. That was at least seven years ago. Wow, Madeleine, you
are
really old.” I tended to forget between vet appointments.

“Almost as old as I am,” my brother said.

That was a startling thought. I wondered if any of Madeleine’s kittens were still alive. I scrabbled around in my memory for the names of the kind people who’d adopted them. That led to another thought, one I should have mentioned earlier.

“Oh, your mom said it was okay for you to stay this week,” I told him.

Phillip hadn’t asked, but he’d been anxious; I could see his shoulders relax. I scolded myself for not having told him sooner. A deep sigh left him, as if the weight of the world had squeezed the air out of his lungs.

“I’ll clean up the kitchen this time,” I told my brother, “but from now on, when you use it, you wash it. That’s the rule.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I clean up at home, honest. Sometimes I vacuum and stuff, when it’s on my list.”

I’d done the few dishes, wiped down the kitchen surfaces, and straightened up the living room a little, when Phillip, who’d been wandering around, said, “He doesn’t really look that different.” He was looking at a newspaper article about Robin’s latest book. I’d clipped it to give Robin when he returned.

“I don’t think so, either,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“And you guys are dating.”

“Yes.”

“Are you . . . um . . . really tight?”

“We’re not dating each other exclusively,” I said, though I hadn’t dated anyone else since Robin had returned to town. On the other hand, I hadn’t dated anyone before then, either. But we hadn’t talked about exclusivity.

“If he asked you to marry him, what would you say?”

“I would say it’s none of your business,” I said, stating it more harshly than I’d intended.

“No, I’m sorry I said that.” Phillip’s face had flushed. “Truly, Phillip, I married Martin really quickly, and though I’m not sorry and never have been, I guess now I feel a little . . . cautious about doing the same thing again.” Then I felt like a hypocrite. I was as quick in making up my mind as I ever had been. I was just trying to put a mature face on for Phillip’s benefit. But I knew I would never stop making up my mind quickly. That was my nature.

The Wynns pulled to the curb twenty minutes later. Avery, who’d called me to announce their arrival, had led them over in his car. He came inside for just a minute to reintroduce us. Avery looked awful, but then, I was sure I looked no better.

“The police are really asking questions,” he whispered as he gave me a hug.

“Well, sure,” I said, surprised. “That would be the way to find out who did such an awful thing to Poppy.” Avery was speaking as though asking questions would lead to unpleasant revelations, when what we wanted, as a family, was the truth. But I was grateful to him for escorting the Wynns in and easing the way, so I tried to be friendly.

I had known the Wynns only slightly, and that when I was more or less a child, so it was almost like meeting them for the first time. Sandy and Marvin Wynn were into their seventies, but they were both healthy and lean as whips. They’d always eaten correctly, walked four miles a day, and done things like taking square-dancing classes, or tai chi for beginners. Poppy, their late-in-life and unexpected child, had not had a chance of being included in this harmonious twosome. As much as they seemed to care for their daughter, when she’d begun to act out in high school, the Wynns hadn’t had a clue how to handle the problem. They’d clung to their sanity and hoped that Hurricane Poppy would lose its impetus in time.

Tonight, they were exhausted and grief-stricken and stunned. Somehow or other, they’d seen Poppy steered safely into the harbor of marriage and motherhood in suburbia, and now she had been killed in a horrible way, despite her achievement of a smooth life.

I had no idea what the Wynns needed. I didn’t know whether to try to get them to talk, to hustle them into their bedroom, or to feed them. ... I’d had enough experience with grief to know that its effects can be unpredictable.

Phillip shook their hands, though I don’t think he registered with them. Sandy hugged me as though we were very close, which we had never been, and Marvin hugged me, too, murmuring into my ear that he was so grateful to me for putting them up; the drive had been so long and confusing....

“Have you eaten?” I asked.

“Yes, I think we stopped a couple of hours ago,” Sandy said. “I think we ate. I’m not hungry.

Are you, Marvin?”

I remembered Marvin Wynn’s hair as being red. Now it was snowy white. His face was lean and lined, and he had broad shoulders. He looked as though normally he could climb a mountain without breathing hard, and Sandy could probably drag a sled through the snow for a few miles. But right now, their faces were gray and sagging. Marvin shook his head. “No, not hungry.”

I showed them the bathroom they would share with Phillip (which I had restored to its orderly state) and then their bedroom. I’d opened boxes of tissues and left them on the bedside tables.

There was free closet space and a couple of free drawers, extra blankets at the foot of the bed.

“If you need anything during the night, just come get me,” I said, showing them where my bedroom was. “Otherwise, there are cold drinks in the refrigerator, muffins in the bread box, and the coffeepot is right here.”

“We don’t drink coffee,” Sandy said earnestly. “But thank you. We’ll just wash up and go to bed, if that’s okay.”

“Anything you want is fine with me,” I said. “Here’s a key to the house. You may need it tomorrow.” I put it out on the counter, making sure they couldn’t miss it in the morning.

“You’re being so kind,” Sandy said, and her eyes overflowed. “Everyone is being so kind.”

Marvin had put their suitcases in the bedroom, and now he put his arm around his wife. They went into the small room I’d prepared for them. I heard the door close.

I stared after them, the memory of the misery I’d plumbed after my husband died yawning wide at my feet. I would be useless the next day if I let myself step over the brink back into that awful time. With all the will I had, I wrenched myself back into the here and now. My brother’s alarmed face was staring at me. He really did look only fifteen at that second.

“Phillip, everything I told them—coffeepot, muffins, if you need me—I would have told you before we went to bed. Anything you want to ask?”

“Is there anything in the refrigerator you don’t want me to eat? Anything you’re saving for supper tomorrow night or something?”

“No, feel free. Eat me out of hearth and home.” I could tell he was trying to be a great houseguest, and that touched me.

“What do we do tomorrow?” he asked.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to have to do stuff connected with poor Poppy dying,” I said. “And I have to work, too. In fact, I have to get up early in the morning and go to work. I’ll leave a note here with my phone number on it. Why don’t you use the computer in the study to send your folks an E-mail? The password is on a slip of pink paper in the drawer.”

“The study? The room with all the windows and books?”

“Right. Sometimes Robin works in there, if his apartment gets to feeling too small. So don’t rearrange the piles of books.”

He snorted, as if that was ludicrous. “I’m not that much of a reader,” he explained. “That book of Robin’s was the first one I’d read in months. I’m not much on school, either.”

Meaning, I gathered, that the day he touched books voluntarily was a day that should be marked on the calendar. I suppressed a sigh. It was hard to believe a brother of mine wasn’t a reader. I had never been able to figure out what non-readers
did
. Maybe, during Phillip’s stay, I’d find out.

I knew he had other pastimes. I was thinking, of course, of the condoms, and I thought about health issues. I tried to smile at him. “Tomorrow, you and I are going to talk about some stuff.”

His smile faded. “Uh-oh.”

“It won’t be as bad as all that,” I said. I hugged him, and just when I was about to let him go, I pulled him tighter instead. “Phillip, I’m so glad to see you. I was wondering if I’d ever get to see you again. I’m sorry you’ve been having a tough time. I’m happy you’re here.”

He patted my back awkwardly and made some indeterminate noises. I’d embarrassed the hell out of him, and he was fifteen and didn’t know what to do about it. After a second or two, I realized he was crying. I could only guess at the correct response. I remained still, my arms around him, rubbing his back gently. He wiped his eyes on the shoulder of my sweater, a childish gesture that somehow won me over completely.

“Good night,” he said in a clogged voice, then retreated to his room so quickly, I only glimpsed a reddened face.

“Good night!” I called after him, keeping my voice low so I wouldn’t disturb Marvin and Sandy Wynn.

The silence sank into my bones. With a deep sense of relief, I went into my own bedroom. It had been a very long day, maybe twice as long as my days usually were, at least in terms of emotional content. Either Poppy’s death or Phillip’s arrival would have given me a full slate of thoughts and feelings, and to have both at one time had sent me into overload. I needed to sleep more than I needed anything, and the only thing that would have made my bed look more welcoming would have been a shock of red hair on the other pillow.