All the Single Ladies: A Novel (25 page)

“Except for . . . well, obviously her fall,” Harry said.

“It was just an accident,” I said.

Harry looked at me and nodded in agreement.

“We just wanted to stop in and offer our condolences,” Margaret said.

“She was such a sweet lady,” Judy said. “What happened?”

“The doctor said her heart just stopped sometime during the night. She would’ve been one hundred years old in January,” Suzanne said.

“Well, we’re awfully sorry. I know you were very close,” Margaret said.

Suzanne’s eyes filled with tears and her sister Clio pursed her lips and shoved a box of tissues in front of her.

“Thanks,” Suzanne said, pulled one, and wiped her eyes.

There was an upright piano in the room.

“What do you think?” Paul said. “Should I play some of Miss Trudie’s repertoire?”

“Why not?” I said.

“Suzanne?” he asked, looking for her permission.

“Go for it,” she said.

Paul took his place on the bench, ran scales up the keyboard and played “What a Wonderful World.” When that failed to bring a single tear to the eyes of Alicia or Clio, I just shook my head. Next he played “At Last,” “Stardust,” and finally “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” during which they began to discuss over the music where they wanted to go for dinner. Paul politely stopped playing and closed the cover on the keyboard.

By the end of the funeral the next day none of us cared if we ever saw Suzanne’s sisters again. She had been right in her description of them. They were a difficult pair, and when combined with their husbands, they were practically insufferable. Harry was going to drive Suzanne to the lawyer’s office to be with her for the reading of Miss Trudie’s will. She was talking to her siblings by the grave site and we had walked a short distance away from them.

“I don’t think she should have to go through reading the will alone,” Harry said.

“That’s awfully thoughtful of you,” I said. “I agree.”

“I keep telling you what a nice guy I am,” he said, and smiled.

“Yeah, and weirdly, I’m starting to believe you!” I laughed and he smiled.

Carrie said, “Well, the first thing I want to do is scour every trace of those ­people from Miss Trudie’s house. Lisa? Want to go back to the house with me and decontaminate the linens?”

“Sure. I’d love to. Besides, I want to be there when Suzanne comes home from the lawyer’s.”

Paul said, “Me too. Why don’t I cook dinner?”

“That’s a great idea,” I said.

“Mike? Why don’t you and I go to the grocery store?” Paul said.

“Great idea,” Carrie said. “By the time Suzanne’s through with the will and Harry brings her home, we can have clean sheets on the beds and dinner on the table.”

Paul said, “I’m thinking gumbo? Corn bread? Salad? Maybe some gelato from BeardCats? And I’ll swing by my place and pick up the baby.”

He meant my dog, of course.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said.

“That sounds like a plan,” Mike said.

“This is really nice of y’all to cook and all that,” Harry said. “Suzanne shouldn’t have to worry about supper.”

“Let’s hope for good luck for Suzanne with the will,” Carrie said.

“No kidding. Okay, then,” I said. “We’ll see y’all later.”

I gave Paul a kiss on the cheek. Harry returned to Suzanne’s side. Carrie and I took Mike’s car and Paul and Mike took Paul’s car.

“You realize the will could be devastating to Suzanne’s stability, don’t you?” Carrie said in the car as we headed toward the connector bridge.

“She says that, but I don’t think Miss Trudie would have left Suzanne in desperate straits, do you?”

“I don’t know how much money is involved. I figure the house is worth a million because of the location, but beyond that, I don’t have a clue what other assets there might have been.”

“Well, we’re going to find out soon enough,” I said.

When we got back to the house I said, “I’ll wash all the sheets and towels and run the vacuum.” I paused for a moment and added, “Gosh, I miss Miss Trudie already.”

“Me too. The house is so empty without her. Okay, so I’ll do the bathroom and give the kitchen a good wipe-­down so the boys can come in here and wreck it,” Carrie said.

“Isn’t that always the way? That sounds great.”

I pulled all the sheets and pillowcases from the beds where Clio and Alicia had slept with their husbands and put them in the washer, setting the load to hot water and extra time. I wanted to boil their DNA out of the linens. If you want to find out which of your relatives are crazy, have a funeral. Then I went looking for Carrie with a question. She was in the living room, standing with a roll of paper towels, a bucket of cleaning supplies, and her jaw dropped.

“Look,” she said to me, and pointed to the piano. “It’s open. I haven’t seen it open since I’ve been here. Ever.”

“Well, maybe Clio or Alicia played it or one of their husbands did.” I closed it. “There’s no point in inviting dust into it.”

“Oh. My. Goodness. I sure didn’t think much of them, did you?” Carrie said.

“You know, it isn’t very polite to say this, but no, I didn’t think much of them at all. One thing is for sure: they weren’t particularly broken up over Miss Trudie’s death.”

“Not even a little bit. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like them.”

“It would be a good reason. You know, I haven’t told you or Suzanne this, but remember I told you my daughter was in town last Saturday? What I didn’t know then was that she had a husband.”

“What? A husband! Oh, dear. You don’t look very happy about this.”

“He’s a perfectly dreadful overgrown child and I said some terrible things to both of them. Paul was with me and so were my parents.”

“What did Paul say?”

“He said he didn’t blame me and I haven’t even spoken to my parents about it yet. I’m sure my mother’s been in bed on Xanax ever since that night. Basically I can’t go back to The Water’s Edge for a really long time. I think we made an awful scene.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Sure.” I told Carrie how the whole disaster unfolded, starting with the story of Marianne’s business, which I’d only told Suzanne. She seemed like she was going to cry. “Don’t get upset, Carrie. This is my cross to carry. Just pray that we find a way to bring my daughter to her senses.”

“Oh, Lisa, you are such a wonderful woman. You certainly do not deserve this nonsense.”

“Thank you and thank God Miss Trudie died without knowing all of this. You know, Paul was the one who told me that Marianne’s decision to go into her crazy business had nothing to do with me and I was beginning to see it that way. But what mother doesn’t want to be a part of her only daughter’s wedding? Since Marianne was just a little girl, I’ve had this fantasy of attaching a beautiful white veil to her hair. Now I never can.”

“Oh, honey, come on now. I wore white and a veil in at least two of my weddings. And I wore a white pillbox hat à la Jackie Kennedy with John the third and flowers with Mike.”

“Jeez, really? Well, I was there for the flowers.”

“Yes. Lisa, I’m not saying I hope there’s a divorce. I’m just saying there might be other opportunities.”

“Yeah, like he could drive his Ducati off the side of a mountain. Look, here’s what I don’t understand. How could my ex-­husband be so heartless to steal that tiny reward from me? Why didn’t he pick up the phone and call me and tell me what was happening?”

“Because he’s thoughtless and irresponsible and he knew you wouldn’t approve of Bobby. Then he’d be the bad guy for supporting the marriage.”

“Mark
is
the bad guy.”

“I agree. He probably thought you’d try to stop them. And if you stopped them from getting married, Mark might look weak to Marianne. She’d think a lot less of him, his judgment. Everything.”

“But what about all those years that I limped through life without his support? The sacrifices I made?”

“Honey? Don’t you know they don’t matter to him because he didn’t see them happen.”

“Great. Now he’s got a reality show and a private jet? And he allows our daughter to enter into holy matrimony with an Elvis impersonator as the officiant? What’s the message there?”

“Girl? He’s the same man you divorced for good reason.”

“It’s too much, Carrie. It’s really too much.” I leaned against the wall and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “Oh God. Do you know where the vacuum cleaner might be?” I looked at her and I knew she could see the enormous heartbreak in my teary eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Lisa. This will get better, I swear. The vacuum is in the hall closet upstairs. I’ll be in our bathroom. Some men totally suck.”

“They sure do.”

At that moment I loved that she still called the bathroom ours even though she was now married to Mike. It always struck me as funny that it took us a while to let go of ownership of a thing or to get used to new positions in life. Some changes made us very sentimental and we clung however hopelessly to the past.

Soon car doors were slamming in the driveway and I knew the boys were back. I put the vacuum away and I hurried downstairs to throw the sheets in the dryer. I pushed the towels into the washer with extra soap and hot water.

Paul and Mike bustled through the door and down the hall to the kitchen carrying four bags apiece.

“Y’all need a hand?” I said.

“Nope, we got this!” Paul said.

An hour or so later, the table was set, the towels were folded, the sheets were back on the beds, and dinner was ready. Still, there was no sign of Suzanne.

“Let’s open a bottle of wine,” Paul said.

“Good idea,” Mike said.

Paul opened a bottle of something white from New Zealand, filled four glasses halfway, and handed one to each of us.

“Want to sit on the porch?” he said. “We sure earned this glass.”

“I’ll say,” Carrie said.

“Sure,” I said, “there’s a nice breeze.”

“Wait! Let me get the boiled peanuts,” Mike said. “We stopped at the GDC in Mount Pleasant and bought a ­couple of pounds. You know that guy who sells them in the parking lot out of his truck?”

“Yeah,” Carrie said, “but do you know how fattening those things are?”

Paul said, “What else is new? All the good stuff makes you fat.”

“You’re not listening to me,” Mike said. We all stopped and looked at him. “He takes MasterCard.”

“Come on! You’re kidding! That guy?”

“That’s the high-­tech world we live in, y’all,” Mike said. “Yep. A guy doing business out of a Styrofoam cooler takes MasterCard. I liked to have died laughing.”

I said, “Next thing you know he’ll have a website!”

“Truly,” Carrie said.

After we had settled into rocking chairs on the front porch and devoured many boiled peanuts, Harry’s car pulled up next to ours. He and Suzanne got out looking somber and I noticed Harry sort of struggling with the weight of a cardboard box.

They came up to the porch and I said, “How did it go?”

“Anybody want to help me with this box?” Harry said. “Champagne’s heavy!”

Suzanne started to smile and high-­five us.

“Miss Trudie left me the house,” she said. “And all her furnishings. And all of her cash except for twenty thousand dollars that she gave to my miserable sisters. She left her silver and turquoise jewelry to Lisa because she knew you liked it.”

“Oh my goodness!” I said.

“And she left her land yacht to Carrie. The will said that Carrie was the only woman she knew who was theatrical enough to appreciate it.”

“Oh my!” Carrie said. “How sweet! But how did it end with your sisters?”

“It was a little rough, to say the least. In her will, Miss Trudie said she was leaving her worldly possessions proportionate to the loyalty and affection reflected in her family’s behavior. That popped their party balloons. They literally sank in their chairs because they knew right then she had left almost everything to me . . . when they had told me earlier that they were getting a third of everything. They left without saying good-­bye. Let’s hope time will heal the wounds.”

“How terrible!” Carrie said.

Paul said, “Wow. Amazing. Well? Are y’all ready for some dinner?”

“You cooked? Paul! You didn’t have to . . .” Suzanne looped her arm through Harry’s and we all went inside.

Throughout dinner we would get up from our seats to hug each other and to toast Miss Trudie. Champagne corks kept popping, and for the remainder of the evening we laughed and told sweet stories about Miss Trudie that she would’ve loved to hear. This night was the wake Miss Trudie should have had. We were like her chosen family. Maybe chosen family was better, more reliable. It was surely something to ponder.

“The only thing is,” Suzanne said, “she didn’t really have a huge amount of cash. Running this place comes with a big overhead.”

“Raise your prices!” I said with conviction. “Seriously! Do it!”

“She’s right,” Carrie said. “And Mike and I have been talking, Suzanne, and we were hoping you’d consider renting Miss Trudie’s rooms to us until we can find a bigger apartment.”

“Basically,” Mike said, “I have a three-­hundred-­and-­fifty-­square-­foot box with one closet. It’s so small I get on my own nerves.”

We laughed our heads off at that.

“That’s a great idea!” Suzanne said.

I was seized with worry again because Miss Trudie’s death meant it was time for me to move too. It must’ve shown on my face.

“What’s the matter?” Carrie said.

“What, me? Oh, nothing. I mean, I guess it’s time for me to try and find—­”

Reading my mind, Suzanne said, “I don’t want to hear a word of that kind of talk! Real friends don’t let their friends live like Blanche DuBois, relying on the kindness of strangers! We are going to keep things just as they are, and Mike, you’re welcome to be here anytime and so are you, Paul, and Harry is too.”

“This is truly excellent news,” said Harry, who had yet to spend one night in the house.

“As Miss Trudie would’ve said, the neighbors are going to think you’re running a cathouse!” I said, and we all laughed.

Suzanne said, “Let them think whatever they want.”

Chapter 18

Guess Who’s Coming?

On Thursday I went back to work. I had the eight-­to-­four shift. As soon as I got to the nurses’ station Margaret said she had a message for me.

“Marilyn Brooks was over here first thing this morning. She says she has something important for you.”

“Really? Well, that’s
awfully
nice. I’ll go see her when I’m done handing out my morning meds.”

By ten thirty I put my cart away, took a walk over to The Docks, and knocked on Marilyn’s door.

“Hey!” Marilyn said, all smiles. “Come right in!”

“Thanks! Well, don’t you look snazzy?”

“Thanks! I got this outfit at Anthropologie downtown. And, thanks to you, I’m doing just great! Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“Thank you. That would be great. It’s as hot as the dickens outside, but what else is new?”

She walked toward her kitchen to get our drinks. I knew enough about her pride to let her handle the task alone.

“Well, at least now it’s starting to cool off a bit. It
is
late September after all. I think I’m going to take that trip to Asheville in October with some of the other residents here.”

“Yes! I saw the sign-­up sheet for that. Asheville is so gorgeous when the leaves turn.”

She came back into the living room with two tall tumblers filled with iced tea, and mint sprigs too. I took a glass from her.

“Cheers!” I said.

“Cheers! Sit, sit! Marcus and I used to go there every year for at least one weekend. Poor Marcus.”

I made myself comfortable on her very cool midcentury sectional, took a sip of the tea, and placed my glass on a coaster on her Lucite coffee table.

“How’s he doing?” I said.

“Not great. I’m afraid he’s not long for this world. The disease has stolen him from me completely now. It’s so sad.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry.”

“What can I do? Anyway, the reason I wanted to see you, other than to say hello, was because I took a book from the library and I found something inside of it. I didn’t know what to do with it. And I know you better than the other nurses. I had not read
Gone with the Wind
in a thousand years, so when I saw it there on the shelf, I said to myself, Why not? It’s a nice big saga that will keep me busy and out of trouble for a few days.”

My heart skipped a beat, and quite literally, I gasped.

“What did you find?” I said, knowing in my gypsy bones that whatever she had found had to do with Kathy Harper.

In the next breath I remembered that Kathy had owned a copy of
Gone with the Wind
.

“This. Here.” She handed me an envelope. “Open it.”

Inside was the birth certificate of a female child who belonged to Kathy Gordon Harper and David Inmon Harper and a death certificate for that same child, dated two years later. The cause was listed as an accidental drowning. There were newspaper clippings in the envelope that said there had been an investigation into the child’s death, that the father was a suspect. Then another article stated the father had been cleared. The child’s death was ruled an accident and the case was closed. But there was a glaring piece of information in the newspaper articles that caught my attention and held it. David Harper was the owner of Harper Grocery Stores. I may not have been so well traveled but even I knew of Harper Grocery Stores. There were at least two hundred of them all over the midwest and the West Coast. Their ads were everywhere and their charitable support to end children’s hunger all around the world was very well known. The death of the Harpers’ child must have been completely devastating to them, especially if there was a cloud of suspicion around it. I got the chills and shivered all over.

“Oh, dear. Are you all right?” Marilyn asked.

“I’m fine. I’m relieved. I’m so relieved you can’t imagine. Do you mind if I take these?” I said.

“No, of course not. Did you know about this child? I’m so sorry if I’ve upset you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m fine. I knew the child’s mother. This may have just given us the last piece of information we needed to solve a very big puzzle.”

“Well, good! I’m glad I could help!”

I got up to leave.

“Marilyn? Thank you. Thank you for saving this for me. If you find anything else in the library books?”

“I’ll call you right away,” she said. “Lisa? By the way?”

I opened the front door to leave then stopped, turning back to her.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“How well do you know Mr. Morrison?”

“Well enough,” I said. “Is that handsome devil flirting with you?”

“No, I don’t think I would call it flirting exactly,” she said, and looked a little sheepish. “But if you’re calling him a devil, that must mean he has a reputation.”

“Let’s just say he likes the ladies,” I said.

“Gotcha!”

I hurried back to the office, grabbed my phone from my purse, and called Paul.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he said when I told him.

“Nope! Do you want to come over for burgers and watch Carrie’s and Suzanne’s faces hit the floor when I tell them the news?”

“Only if you’ll let me do the grilling. I wouldn’t want to miss this.”

“You are about the sweetest man I’ve ever known,” I said.

“What about the sexiest?”

“Okay, yes, that too! You’re so silly.”

I stuck my nose in Harry’s office. He had been amazed and horrified to hear the story of Wendy Murray and Kathy’s estate. He was at his desk.

“Sherlock Holmes reporting in. You got a minute?”

“Sure! What’s up?”

I told him the story and showed him the documents.

“Holy crap. That’s terrible about the baby, but it’s not unusual for the death of a child to cause a divorce. And you know what? I would shake out the rest of Kathy’s books and see what else you can find. And I’d put something in the newsletter asking residents to give us anything they come across.”

“Of course, and I will, but, Harry, this means we can find
him
! He can identify the stuff Wendy’s holding and put an end to that madness! All we have to do is get his phone number or his e-­mail from his website. We’ve found him!” I blushed from head to toe and knew my body temperature had to be over a hundred degrees.

“Want me to look him up?” Harry offered.

“Yes! Please!”

With a few clicks of his mouse, he was there.

“Come see. Is this your man?”

I went around his side of the desk, and there was the face of a man named David Inmon Harper in one of those corporate head shots on the company’s website. There was an e-­mail address to reach him directly, a phone number for the business, and a street address of the headquarters. Quickly, I copied down the information. I was so happy I was just a blither.

“Oh my God, Harry. This is major. Thank you, I mean, this is incredible.”

He sat back in his chair and said, “Gosh, I just love watching grown women get so worked up! Now, get out of here. I’ve got a mountain of work to do.”

“Oh, fine,” I said, and turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “What do you think this means for Suzanne?”

“Justice. And it might mean a lot of money, Harry. A lot.”

“And here I was harboring the wicked thought that she might be after mine. Shame on me.”

“Sure. Listen, I’m making burgers on the grill tonight and I’m saving this news until I get home and they’re all there. You want to join us?”

“Paul coming?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Oh, what the hell. I can wash my hair anytime.”

“You know what, Harry?”

“What?”

“Sometimes you’re actually funny, in a ‘blond joke’ kind of way.”

Late that afternoon, I walked my dog, set the table, and got the burgers ready to go on the grill. I decided to call my parents to discuss Marianne and her husband.

“Mom?”

“Well, there you are! Your father and I decided it was best to let you cool off for a few days.”

“I don’t know. I think I’m still in shock. I can’t believe that she really married that stupid idiot. Can you? What could she possibly see in him?”

“Please, I’ve been weeping since Saturday.”

“Me too. And Miss Trudie died. We had to bury her this week. It’s just been a terrible week all around.”

“Oh, come on. Didn’t you tell me she was ninety-­nine years old?”

“Yes, Mom. But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss her.”

“Okay. I understand that. But you always have had such a problem with loss. You know that, don’t you?”

If I’d been in the room with her then, I might have strangled her dead two times. But she wasn’t going to change and I wasn’t going to teach her anything. So I let her words slide in through my right ear, out of my left, and visualized them disappearing into dust motes and then nothingness.

“Yes. But now I’m afraid I’ve lost Marianne again.”

“No, you haven’t. She’s still your daughter and I wouldn’t bet five cents on the longevity of that marriage. Your father says it might not even be valid. An Elvis marriage? Come on. I mean, we never saw a marriage license, did we?”

“I had not thought of that, Mom. Did Dad look this up on Google?”

“Google? Siri? Safari? TripAdvisor? How should I know where he gets his information? But he does have serious doubts. What does your handsome boyfriend think?”

Handsome boyfriend. Oh, boy.

“Well, he’s not as blunt as Dad, but he thinks her anger is temporary, that she’ll eventually calm down. Even my friend Carrie says to wait and see. It’s so ridiculous that it’s hard to take it all seriously.”

“You’re right. It seems like the only kind of decision Marianne knows how to make is a wrong one.”

“I agree. But here’s the killer: Mark! How could he do that to me?”

“Because he’s a narcissistic son of a very bad word.”

“He sure is. Should I go out there? Should I call him?”

“No, and say what? ‘Why did you hurt me?’ Are you serious? Leave them alone to stew in their own juices for a while. They’ll come around. So tell me. Are you going to be moving again?”

“Not right away. Suzanne wants me to stay. And Carrie got married, did you know that?”

“I don’t know Carrie, and so no, I didn’t know.”

“Well, she’s the other friend . . . oh, never mind. Anyway, her new husband has moved in with us now.”

“What’s this? Are you living in a hippie commune? Let me get your father. Alan! Alan!”

“Oh, Mom. No. Please! It’s not like that.”

Sometimes she could be so exasperating.

We hung up and I began pacing the floors, with Pickle on my heels, of course. Waiting for Suzanne, Carrie, and Mike to come home from work was like watching a pot of water, waiting for it to come to a boil.

Carrie and Mike had moved all her things and much of his into Miss Trudie’s rooms, and it looked so cozy. Miss Trudie would have approved. In the few days Mike had been in residence, I’d decided it was pretty sweet having a man around the house. As long as he was there, I wouldn’t have to carry bags of groceries or dry cleaning up the steps. He wouldn’t let me. He was a perfect gentleman. But meanwhile, where
were
they?

“Come home!” I called out to the thin air.

I was still staying in my room and Carrie’s former bedroom was now designated as the guest room or the snoring room. In other words, now that Mike was here and on occasion Paul, if and when they started honking like rhinos in the wild in the middle of the night, they were redirected to the extra bedroom.

Harry had not yet been awarded sleepover status but it was only a question of time. The longer Suzanne held out, the more creative he became in the ways he tried to lure her into the sack. Last night, he brought her gelato from BeardCats and fed it to her, telling her she was too thin. And the night before, he brought her some kind of French perfume and told her he had dreamed they were in Paris together, drinking wine and eating foie gras, and Edith Piaf was singing “La Vie en Rose” somewhere in the distance. Two mornings ago he appeared at seven thirty and made her banana pancakes while Jack Johnson sang the “Banana Pancakes” song in the background on his iPad. I had no idea Harry Black could be so adorable but I knew he also had to be at his wit’s end. Soon Suzanne was going to be on the receiving end of the I’m-­a-­man-­and-­I-­have-­needs-­you-­know speech. Poor Harry. I really felt for the guy. We all did.

Finally! I heard a car and I snapped out of my fog. Oh, I know, I could’ve called Suzanne and Carrie at work, but I wanted to see the look on their faces when they heard the news.

“You’re not going to believe my good news or my bad news,” I said as soon as they reached the front porch.

“What?” Carrie said.

“Give us the bad news first,” Suzanne said.

“Kathy Harper had a baby who drowned.” I handed them the newspaper articles and the death certificate. “This was found in a copy of
Gone with the Wind
that belonged to Kathy. A resident at Palmetto House found it.”

“Merciful God!” Suzanne said. “How terrible!”

“Oh Lord. I wonder if her heartbreak caused her cancer?” Carrie said. “The poor woman!”

Suzanne and I stared at her.

“What? They say there’s a mind-­body connection between illness and happiness, don’t they?” Carrie said.

“Actually, you’re right. There is a lot of thought on that. Anyway, here’s the good news. I found David Inmon Harper. He’s the David Harper of Harper Grocery Stores.”

“Get out of town!” Carrie said.

“Where is he?” Suzanne said.

I held up the piece of paper with his contact information on it.

“Let’s get this guy on the phone,” Suzanne said. “Wait! Is your laptop on?”

“That thing? I should throw it off the bridge. We can e-­mail from my phone or your phone right now.”

“Wait. It’s six here, so it’s still four in Minneapolis,” Suzanne said. “No, I’m going to take a shot with a phone call. He might still be in his office.”

Carrie said, “Who knows? But yes, call him. I hate putting things in writing, especially when I don’t know what impact they might have. I mean, maybe he’s got a psycho jealous colleague who he’s having an affair with, who’d threaten murder and suicide if she thought she was losing him, and a crazy second or third wife at home who’d go postal and set the house on fire if she found an e-­mail about his ex-­wife on his computer.”