151 Days (7 page)

She nodded. “Too little, too late if you ask me.” She didn’t say anything else, but I could tell she wanted to.

“Never knew you to be one to hold your tongue,” I commented. “Don’t start on my account.”

She kept staring at her feet for a moment and then took a deep breath as she faced me. “You are grieving, and I am not going to be one of those people who use the moment to kick you while you’re down. It’s just good they are doing something finally instead of trying to hide the problem again.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, and then suddenly I did.

“Thank you for the meal,” I said politely, no longer feeling like eating at all. I opened my purse to grab my pocketbook. “What do I owe you?”

“Dorothy,” she said, putting her hand over mine. “I’m not attacking you—you asked.”

I slowly pulled my hand away from hers. “I did, and thank you for the honesty, Gayle.” I got up and smoothed the front of my blouse. “We need to do this again.”

I was being a bitch, and I knew it, but there was nothing else I could manage without tearing my own hair out. I needed to get out of there before I lost it, and thankfully she seemed to understand that. “Anytime. You are always welcome here.”

I nodded to her and walked through the back alley toward my car, beating a hasty retreat.

Thankfully it was dark enough to allow me a good ten minutes to cry hysterically in my car without anyone seeing me. After that, I wiped my eyes again and headed home.

I was in no way surprised to find William gone.

A
COUPLE
of days passed, and I found myself taking down things that were William’s the same way a surgeon would cut away cancerous tumors from healthy flesh.

Gayle’s words kept echoing back in my head, but I refused to entertain them since I had more than enough pain in my life without adding to it. As I have said before, karma is not one to waste time in tracking you down. A knock on the front door made me pause, wondering if it was William crawling back with an apology.

Not that there was anything he could apologize for; I was just curious if he was desperate enough to attempt one or not.

Instead I opened the door and found Sheriff Rogers standing there, his hat literally in hand.

“Afternoon, Dorothy,” he said in that low drawl that had always made girls smile when we were in high school.

“Stephen,” I said, smiling back. “Come in,” I offered, moving aside.

He did that little bowing of his head as he walked in that most boys these days never learn. It was an old world respect thing, and I was surprised to find myself sorry it had faded from popularity. “I come at a bad time?” he asked, not making the point that lately all times were bad for me.

“No, I was just—” I looked at the living room, where a small, untidy hill of William’s belongings lay piled. “—taking out some garbage. I can use a break. You thirsty?” I offered as we walked into the living room.

“Anything cold if it’s not a bother,” he said, sitting down on the couch.

I took the pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and put it next to a couple of glasses on a serving tray. I set it down on the table as I sat in the chair across from him. “It’s sweetened,” I told him as he poured himself a glass.

He took a huge drink and gave me a wide smile. “That is some good tea,” he exclaimed. “Tastes like your mom’s,” he added.

I nodded. “The very same,” I said, sipping my own. “So what brings you around?”

He put the glass down and took a moment before talking. “First, I wanted to see how you were doing. There hasn’t been any time since….” His voice trailed off, and I nodded for him to continue. “But something has come up, and I thought you might want to know about it.”

It’s funny, I had just buried my son, but my stomach still clenched as I waited for his news. What could he say that would possibly be worse than that? “And that is?” I asked him.

“I’m sure you know about the school board meeting.” I nodded, and he went on. “Well, there are two or three random students trying to get something added to the agenda, and they’re hitting a snag.”

“You mean Kyle,” I said, knowing he was the only student at Foster High who would be pushing for the administration to do more. Kyle was a magnificent boy who was the only one who’d seemed to know how bad Kelly’s situation was, and we practically threw him out of the house more than once. I hadn’t seen him since William chased him away from the funeral service, but I had been meaning to contact him and to thank him for being Kelly’s friend at the end.

God knows I hadn’t been.

Stephen nodded and gave me a half smile that told me his thoughts about the boy were as lofty as mine. “That’s him. He wants to start some kind of gay and straight club at the school and thinks this is the only chance he will have of getting it pushed through.”

It made sense. I would have been a fool not to understand that Kelly’s death was the only reason Kelly’s Laws were going to be enacted. Normally there wasn’t a chance in hell that Jeff Raymond would let something like that fly at Foster High. “He isn’t wrong,” I admitted.

“No, he isn’t, but it isn’t going to happen,” he said with a bit of regret in his voice. “I told him about the deal with Charlotte and put him on the trail. But he isn’t going to find who lodged the complaint in time. It’s too well hidden.”

It seemed that even if I ignored Gayle’s mention of the past, the ghost of Past Mistakes was bound and determined to come back and haunt me.

“No, he won’t,” I admitted, putting my own glass down now. “Not after all the trouble we went through making sure everything was buried.”

We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, neither one wanting to say anything.

“And there is nobody else who will take responsibility for the club?” Even as I asked it, I knew the answer was no. We had sent a message last time that no teacher would dare ignore.

He gave me a sympathetic look. “What do you think?”

I sighed and looked out the back patio. “I think I need to go talk to Dolores Mathison.”

T
O
HELP
you to understand who Dolores Mathison is means going into a small history lesson of the Foster wealthy. There are well-off people, there are wealthy people, and there are rich people.

And then there is the Mathison family.

They lived outside of Foster, but their presence in the town was overwhelming. They are old money, and their importance should never be underestimated.

Their family was the first to really strike oil in this part of the state, and when I say “strike oil,” I’m saying it in a way that tells you they have more money than God. At the turn of the twentieth century, they were responsible for employing a little over 40 percent of the population of Foster in one way or another. Their money paved most of the early roads in the town, because they were the only ones to own multiple motorcars. Their money designed and installed the fountain on the corner of First Street, the first and last piece of a citywide renovation project that went nowhere. Their names are synonymous with money and power in this town, even though people didn’t speak about them that much. Old money works behind the scenes, diplomatically, out of the public eye.

I knew them because Dolores Mathison had approached me about Charlotte Axeworthy when I had been on the school board.

The grounds surrounding the Mathison estate were immaculate. Anywhere else their house would be called a mansion, but here in Texas we try not to use such showy words. We had enormous houses to do that for us. I wasn’t too surprised that she agreed to meet with me Thursday; after all, I was the woman whose son had just killed himself. That afforded me a little pity in the eyes of the Mathisons.

Their wealth just reminded me of everything William and I wanted to give to Kelly but never quite achieved. Our money allowed us to talk with the Mathisons, but there was no way we were one of their group, and everyone knew it. We were new money, tacky money, and were tolerated only because we knew how to comport ourselves in public. The entire family had a way of making you feel insignificant without saying one word, and let me tell you,
that
was the true difference between new money and its loud brashness and old money and its immense, carefully wielded authority.

As I got out of my car, the man at the front door took my keys and said he would make sure my car was taken care of. I am not sure if the man’s only job was being a valet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was. Dolores met me at the front door. Her dress was tasteful while being fashionable at the same time. I knew from experience that if one was to check, there would be no label in it. The dress was one of a kind, designed and made expressly for her. She was older than me by a few years, but she was wearing those years better than I was mine, in my opinion. After all, money might not be able to buy happiness, but it can do wonders at keeping your face looking youthful, which is the next-best thing sometimes.

“Dorothy,” she said sympathetically while moving toward me. She gave me two air kisses and grasped my hand, which for her was positively gushing. “I am so glad you called.” She was too cultured for me to know if she meant what she said. Instead, she ushered me into the house. “I’ve been thinking of you.”

I knew that wasn’t a lie—after all, Dolores and I shared an odd kind of kinship now. One that in a million years I would have never asked for.

“Thank you,” I told her, walking into the stadium she called her living room. “It’s been a tough couple of days.”

A crystal pitcher on a silver tray put my sweet tea setup to shame. There was more money on the table than in my entire kitchen.

“Please,” she said, gesturing to her one-of-a-kind, brought from England, chesterfield. “Have a seat.”

I suddenly felt like I was wearing a flour sack as we waited for her man to pour us both a drink. Once that arduous chore was done, he was dismissed, and she turned to me. “I heard the news. I am so sorry for your loss.”

I nodded and smiled as I took a small sip of what was the best tea I had ever tasted. “Thank you. It’s been trying.”

“Anything we can do for you,” she added as she held the glass but didn’t drink herself. She held it like a prop, and for some reason it annoyed me.

“Well, I did come to talk to you about something,” I said, taking another sip, readying myself. She didn’t ask, instead raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow in question. “It’s about Charlotte Axeworthy.”

I saw her face darken as the past came rushing forward to overwhelm us both.

The Mathisons had three children: two girls and a boy, all of them absolutely perfect in every way possible, of course. The girls were born first, and their arrival was akin to that of royalty in the manner in which they were introduced to the town. Louise and Henrietta were given any little thing they desired and became quite spoiled because of it. They were nine when their little brother Riley was born, but by that time the family knew they had made mistakes with the girls.

The Mathisons had kept the girls isolated from the rest of the town, making them terrible snobs. Instead of attending public school, they were homeschooled, which prevented them from actually learning how to socialize with their peers. By the time they were old enough for junior high, they were sent to a private school outside of Dallas in hopes of instilling some kind of manners in them. But while they struggled with the girls, the Mathisons’ plan for Riley was different altogether.

He was allowed to attend public school with the other kids, and the difference was immediate. If someone had asked me if there was a crown prince of Foster, I would have admitted that Riley was the clear choice. He was an adorable kid with manners and a grace that only came from a good family, and he was a town favorite. He excelled in sports and was soon quarterback of the Foster High Cowboys, a role no one was surprised to see.

What was surprising, though, was his attendance at a meeting of gay and bisexual kids during lunch with Mrs. Axeworthy.

When his mother found out, she came to the school board and made it quite clear she was not pleased with the situation and wanted it corrected immediately. And when she said “corrected,” she meant stopped as soon as possible. She approached me, informing me of her son’s attendance and how upset she was that this kind of thing had happened on school grounds. She said the group was confusing Riley, and that if it was not shut down and the teacher dealt with, we would be talking with her lawyer.

I knew Charlotte even then, and though she was—and is—a bit eccentric, she is a great teacher who means no harm. I calmed Dolores down, and we came to a compromise. We would discipline the teacher privately, the meetings would, of course, stop immediately, and in exchange, she would not press charges or bring suit against the school. I reminded her that any legal action would make the papers and undoubtedly include Riley.

And so with a little work and thirty pieces of metaphorical silver, the problem went away.

“What about her?” Dolores asked. Her tone of voice was the same she would use when asking about a convicted murderer.

“You need to come forward and have Mr. Raymond remove the mark on her record.” I said it in one breath and without pause, because I was pretty sure she was about to throw the tumbler in her hand at me.

“I certainly do not,” she countered.

“But, Dolores, Riley turned out to be gay anyways. Charlotte Axeworthy had nothing to do with that.” I paused a beat to let the words sink in. “Surely you can see that.”

She said nothing as she looked at me like I was an insect. “Is this why you came here?” Her voice was dismissing, and I knew my time was limited. “If it was, you have wasted your time and mine.” Sure enough, her man appeared with my coat in hand. I was impressed with his timing.

“Dolores,” I implored her. “Kelly was gay too. It was why he killed himself. This is important.”

“Riley did not kill himself,” she reminded me.

“No, but don’t you think the people who did kill him might have paused if there was more understanding in this town about what it meant to be gay?”