“Not gonna happen,” Maggie responded. “He’s too nice.”
“A man is like a kit. You have to put him together to suit you. Look at Sam. I made him what he is today.”
“A technology genius slash virtual recluse?”
Hannah flicked ash in Maggie’s direction and Maggie had to jump up to avoid the glowing embers that came with it.
“No, smart ass, he’s a well-behaved husband. We get along great.”
Maggie thought but didn’t say
that Hannah’s description of her husband was true when Sam was feeling well. When Sam was feeling down he could be very difficult to live with, but Hannah pretended it rarely happened, and when it did, it didn’t count.
“I would only disappoint Scott,” Maggie said. “He has this ideal image of me in his head that I can never live up to. He doesn’t think I’m being myself when I’m always being myself, just not the person he wants me to be. He drives me crazy, saying, ‘don’t say that,’ ‘don’t think that,’ and ‘you don’t mean that’ until I can hardly stand to be around him.”
“You can tell yourself that, but you can’t fool me. You turn bright red every time he shows up.”
Maggie thought of Scott. He had hazel eyes with long, dark, curled up lashes, a crooked nose, and a beautiful smile. His chestnut hairline might be receding, but he was a powerfully built, good-looking man with a great ass, and even the smell of the laundry soap he used on his clothes could make her weak at the knees.
“I am attracted to him, and I’m fond of him too. He’s a good man,” she admitted. “But he makes me crazy, and we would fight all the time. And that mother...”
“She hates any woman who might steal her little precious,” Hannah said, and lit another cigarette off the one she’d just finished.
“She’s vicious,” Maggie said. “Except it’s all so passive aggressive, and you know how that kind of hatefulness always goes over a man’s head.”
“Why is that?” Hannah demanded. “It’s like only we can see the barbed wire wrapped around the
backhanded compliment.”
“If I married Scott she would constantly interfere and tell me what to do. I don’t think I could bear it, and eventually it would split us up.”
“Sharon found out the hard way,” Hannah said and Maggie nodded.
Scott met his ex-wife Sharon at community college, where he was studying criminal justice and she was taking paralegal courses. A petite blonde with big, innocent-looking blue eyes, she had a mind like a steel trap, which she took care to keep hidden behind a studied naiveté and a breathless little girl voice. She set her sights on Scott and applied herself to winn
ing over his mother as if it were an Olympic event. His mother Marcia enjoyed being flattered and catered to until her guard lowered. Before she realized what was happening, Sharon had snagged her son, married him, and installed him in a house of her own, right under Marcia’s nose. Not, however, out of her reach.
Marcia and Sharon had Scott stretched tight between them for a while, as Sharon desperately tried to get pregnant and Marcia became ill with a succession of nonspecific complaints involving fainting spells and continual weeping, which required her son’s constant attention. After a humiliating round of doctor appointments confirmed Scott was unlikely to father children, Sharon assessed her quality of life married to him and his mother, and decided to cut her losses in order to pursue bigger game in the city.
“Sharon had the right idea,” Maggie said. “Abandon ship.”
“Not me, baby,” Hannah said. “I made Sam’s mom walk the plank.”
Maggie smiled, thinking about the fight Hannah and her mother-in-law had at the reception after her and Sam’s wedding, when Hannah told Mama Campbell she needed to pull the self-pity bug out of her ass and accept the fact her son could have a good life married to Hannah and living in a wheelchair.
“You have to admit Mama Campbell’s hostility wasn’t veiled with anything,” Maggie said, “and her aggression was anything but passive.”
“That’s true.”
Maggie picked at the horsehair sticking out of a hole in the upholstery, and pictured herself walking down the church aisle toward Scott. Each time she did so, his mother barred the way.
“I just don’t see it happening,” Maggie said.
“Is it also maybe because you think Gabe might come back?” Hannah asked.
Just then, both women heard the unmistakable sound of Sam’s wheelchair rolling down the wood plank boardwalk toward the barn, and Hannah hurriedly hid all signs of tobacco usage.
“Hey,” he called out, as he got closer. “You two juvenile delinquents aren’t smoking in my barn, are you?”
Hannah cranked open the window as far as it would go so she and Maggie could stick their heads out.
“Your barn? I think you mean my barn,” Hannah said. “We’re having a prayer meeting in here. It’s the Lord’s day, you know.”
He grinned at them as he stopped his chair just beneath the window.
“So I guess you’re using my good microbrew for communion,” he said.
“That’s right, mister, and your organic-shmanic blue corn chips for wafers.”
“Blasphemer,” he accused.
“Godless heathen,” Hannah replied.
“Come fix my lunch, woman,” he said, but the tender look he gave Hannah warmed Maggie’s heart. The man was drop dead gorgeous, a certified brainiac, and his mother lived over a thousand miles away. She could see how Hannah could forgive a few episodes of depression.
‘When he was good, he was very, very good,’ she thought to herself, neglecting to finish the rhyme.
Maggie and Hannah got Sam caught up on the gossip as they tag-team cooked a big breakfast for their lunch while he set the table. Just as they put the food on the table, they heard a vehicle coming over the ridge, and the
house dogs took off barking.
Hannah looked out the window and reported, “It’s Patrick, and he’s got Ed with him.”
“I better get some more plates,” Sam said. “Get a bottle of whiskey out of the cupboard, will ya, Maggie?”
When the men arrived Patrick stuck his tongue out at his sister Maggie by way of greeting, but Ed looked pale and wouldn’t meet their eyes. Everything felt odd and uncomfortable, so Maggie and Hannah decided to have lunch in town, leaving the men to eat the feast they had prepared.
“He looks awful,” Maggie said to Hannah as they got in the animal control truck. “Did you see the huge knot on his head?”
“Better
to leave them to eat, drink, and compare conspiracy theories,” Hannah said, as they bumped up the rutted drive.
“We have to help Scott figure out who did it,” Maggie said. “We can’t let Sarah beat him to it.”
“I bet the scanner grannies are peeing their pants over this,” Hannah said. “They’ve all had time to compare notes and eat lunch by now. I think it’s time to check in with a few of my regulars and see what’s what.”
She got out her cell phone and pulled over as soon as she had service.
Hannah was a virtual repository of Rose Hill gossip due to her frequent visits to the homes of these shut-ins, often arriving with a kitten or puppy they could hold and cuddle while Hannah made sure their prescriptions were filled and they had enough heat, food, and toilet paper. There were three different church committees in town whose members also performed these charitable visits, but Hannah freelanced without regard to denomination. She was more popular because she shared her cigarettes and could be counted on for the occasional bottle of beer.
When Hannah got off the phone she gave her report.
“Gladys Davis lives closest to the clinic, but Marlene Thompson says the students who live over Delvecchio’s Insurance Agency were having a wild party last night and Gladys couldn’t sleep, so she turned off her hearing aids. She didn’t hear anything after that.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Alva Johnston says she heard the Jamaican man you have working in your bookstore got arrested last night, so she thinks he might have killed Theo over a drug deal gone bad.”
Maggie’s face flushed.
“First of all, Mitchell was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his dreadlocks represent a hairstyle choice, not a drug habit. Secondly, he was not arrested; he was picked up and held overnight for being drunk and disorderly. He is not a drug dealer. He is a sweet, gentle young man, a political science major, and my second best barista.”
“So you say,” Hannah teased her.
“You tell those old busybodies if they persist in slandering my innocent employee, his father, who is a prosecuting attorney, will haul their hip replacements into court.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hannah said. “Someone else said they saw you out on the street in your pajamas early this morning. Care to explain that?”
“You know where I went, to the station to baby-sit Mitchell.”
“Uh huh. Looks mighty suspicious to me. Maybe you were bailing out your Jamaican drug-dealing lover. Admit it! He was having an affair with Theo, who you killed in a jealous rage!”
“Who said they saw me?”
“Nobody. I was just messing with ya.”
“You stink.”
“I smell better than your Jamaican drug dealer’s dead lover does about now.”
The two women settled on Dairy Chef for lunch, and had the place pretty much to themselves. They sat in their usual booth, as far away from the front counter as it was possible to get, near the restrooms.
“I guess Sarah’s taking over the case,” Hannah said, around her first mouthful of fries.
Maggie did a great, although unwitting imitation of her mother’s pursed-lipped look of disapproval.
“She can have him,” she said, but her tone lacked conviction.
It seemed to Maggie that county sheriff’s investigator Sarah Albright had everything she lacked. Maggie was a tall, curvy woman with blue eyes, pale, freckled skin, and bright red curly hair. She never felt like anything about her appearance was under control. Her shirt was always coming untucked, her pants always felt too tight across her hips yet too loose at the waist, and a wild curl was always escaping from her hairdo. On top of that she was cursed by a rash-like blush which blossomed across her chest and face whenever she felt the slightest emotion.
Sarah, on the other hand, was tiny and perfectly proportioned. Her clothes were always a coordinated, fashionable ensemble; her shiny, precision-cut hair and flawlessly applied makeup were both flattering and stylish. She was well-educated and confident, and had a natural authority which people seemed to respect.
Sarah was always condescendingly courteous to her, but Maggie knew she was secretly wondering what Scott found so attractive. Maggie didn’t know either, but she resented the mental comparison she imagined Sarah made between them, in which the younger, slimmer woman easily won. When Sarah was around, Maggie felt like a giant red and white Macy’s Day parade balloon.
“You should have heard her coming on to him,” Maggie said. “She’s shameless.”
“You better not let him simmer too long,” Hannah said. “He might just boil over for someone else.”
Hannah tucked into her lunch with gusto while Maggie brooded some more.
“We need a comic book name for her,” Hannah said. “What should it be?”
“You’re better at that than me. You pick.”
“Tiny Crimefighter?” suggested Hannah.
“Better yet,” Maggie countered. “Tiny Trollop.”
“Tiny Trollop, the crime-fighting kitten,” Hannah said. “She’s the tiny paw of the law.”
Maggie took a bite of her now cold hamburger and made a face. Hannah had already finished her hamburger and a large order of fries, and was keeping an eye on what remained of Maggie’s lunch.
“What do you think can be wrong with her?” Maggie asked. “She seems so perfect.”
With this admission
, Maggie lost her appetite and put her sandwich down on the tray.
“Well,” Hannah replied thoughtfully, as she picked up the discarded sandwich and added a thick layer of mustard and ketchup to it, “maybe she has really bad breath, like a coffee-drinking skunk with post nasal drip.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Maggie said. “Go on.”
“And unfortunately I fear there’s a bit of a chronic farting problem,” Hannah said.
“Poor thing,” Maggie said. “I hate that for her.”
“It’s very sad,” Hannah said. “These aren’t lady-like tooters we’re talking about. These are noxious methane gases that melt polyester and set cotton on fire. So dangerous is her flatulence that she is forced to wear asbestos panties.”
“Thanks,” Maggie said. “I feel much better.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Hannah said. “Are you going to finish those fries?”
Scott was deeply asleep when his mother called to see why he had not come to dinner. He hurriedly showered, dressed, and ran over there, where she was pouting at the front door.
“It won’t be any good now it’s cold,” she said. “You could have at least called.”
Scott kissed her temple and apologized, then went to the kitchen, where a perfectly prepared meal was waiting, and it was still hot. She refused to eat, saying she wasn’t hungry. She cleaned the spotless kitchen instead, sighing heavily, while he ate.