Electric Blue (31 page)

I followed Violet down a wide hallway to a rotunda where, against one curved wall, was a coffee bar. A smattering of chairs were clustered around postage-stamp size tables. “I don’t really need any coffee,” I said. It was late afternoon, almost evening. Through the rotunda windows I could see across the parking lot to a row of birches, leaves rustling in shades of silver and yellow. The sky was steel gray and looked like rain.

“Sure you do. Cream? Sugar?”

“Black.”

She ordered herself another cup as well, handed me mine, then filled hers with skim milk. “I talked to Logan’s doctor. He’s going to be fine.”

“When did you talk to him?” I asked curiously.

“At the desk. I told the nurses I was his aunt, and his doctor happened to be right there. I’m sure he’s in the room telling them now.” She blew across the top of her cup.

I had a feeling Violet could get any information she wanted without doing much more than smiling. I would never be able to get away with that.

“I’m glad he’s going to be okay,” I said.

“Me, too. So, you’re a private investigator hired by my nephew Jasper. He told me all about you after you left.”

“I’m not working for him anymore.”

“No, you’re dating him. He’s a doll, isn’t he?”

“I’m not sure we’re dating.”

“What would you call it?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Violet gave me a knowing look, and I just let her think whatever she wanted. I was going to have to address this issue, and soon, but it felt like every time it felt like the thing to do, something came along to derail me.

“Jasper and I have been having some great talks,” Violet said. “He and Logan are the only ones who’re really glad I’m back. The rest would prefer if I crawled back under the rock that I crawled out of.” She took a sip of her coffee. “So, Jasper said you were hired to look after my mother, to check her sanity.”

“Sort of.”

“And that she took off with her friend William—I actually remember him from when I was a girl. He was sweet on my mother, you could tell.” She shook her head.

I think it was then that I realized Violet had a lot of the information I’d been seeking about the family. It wasn’t important to any investigation any longer, but it could certainly answer some of my own questions.

“William mentioned your name to me,” I told her. “I thought he meant Lily, and he let me believe he did, but he said Violet, clear as a bell. He was hiding your mother and toying with me. I think he’s got a fantasy about he and Orchid, about how they had true love.”

“Mom might have shared that same fantasy,” she said, thinking about it. “My father was…not a good husband. He wasn’t much of a father, either.”

I waited, wondering if I was reading more into that than she meant. But she seemed lost in her own thoughts. Finally, I said, “You took off at fifteen. Orchid moved you to a new family.”

“A friend of hers. She wanted me out of the house.” She gave me an assessing look. “She didn’t trust the men in our family.”

“Oh.”

“You know about Lily, don’t you?” she asked.

“Meaning?”

“The way she was with men.” I wasn’t sure what to say about that so I just kind of nodded. It seemed to satisfy Violet, who went on, “I was skinny as a girl. Really skinny. I didn’t have any shape at all until I was almost fifteen. But Lily developed early. And she was a girl’s girl, y’know? Blond curly hair, wide blue eyes, innocent face. She was adorable. I always felt like I was in her shadow. Bony knees. Skinned elbows. My teeth were all over the place. And my hair…I have to pay a fortune to get it to look like this.

“I was in trouble with Dad a lot,” Violet said, her eyes narrowing. “He wanted me to be more like Lily. Didn’t want me turning out like Dahlia, who was bossy and overbearing.”

That hadn’t changed. I made a sound of encouragement.

“We were Daddy’s flowers,” Violet said. “But Lily was his favorite. If we did something wrong, he laid us over his knees, pulled down our panties and spanked us.”

She watched my reaction. I tried to remain neutral. “I thought Orchid named all of you flowers.”

“She did. My great-aunt’s name was Lilac Grace, and her name was a flower, too, and I think she just went with it. But my father was all about his girls.” She gazed at me meaningfully. “Mom didn’t get it for quite a while. She didn’t realize why Dahlia was eating so much, purposely making herself unattractive. She didn’t understand what Dad was doing.”

“Your father had sex with you and your sisters.”

“Depends on your definition of sex. He spanked us, got erections over it, then fumbled around in his pants while we were still lying across his knees. When I was little, I didn’t understand. I just wanted the spanking to be over. Dahlia tried to be the best little girl she could be, so she wouldn’t get spanked, but what saved her was that Lily was so much more attractive.”

I nodded. All signs had pointed to sexual abuse but Violet’s narrative was still hard to hear.

“He was focused on her all the while my brothers were growing up. They were about six and seven years older than she was. They started taking Lily to the playhouse. I wasn’t invited. And they did have sex with her,” Violet said, her lips tightening in memory.

I thought of James’s paintings and my heart felt heavy. His guilt clearly weighed on him and had for a long time. I could picture Garrett being the instigator and James going along.

“It went on for years,” Violet said. “I think in the end my father blamed himself. He wasn’t the type to admit it, but as Lily just got prettier and prettier, and more and more sexual, he couldn’t help but see what he’d started. We all sensed it. And then boys started driving over to pick her up at all hours. She was quietly getting back at our father. I remember her standing in front of him in the entry hall one night, head bent, while he was screaming at her for being a ‘fucking whore.’ She said, ‘I don’t take money, Daddy. That would be wrong.’”

I drew a breath. “In the middle of this dressing down, she gives him a lesson in semantics?”

“I didn’t know the term passive aggressive at the time, but that’s what she was. And then she said, ‘Are you going to spank me now?’ and my father just went nuts. Got all red. The veins were popping out in his neck. He banged out of the house and we didn’t see him for nearly a week.

“Mom didn’t know what to do. She tried to pretend she didn’t see because my father wouldn’t admit to anything. It just imploded. He locked Lily in the house. Have you seen the room with all the dolls?”

“Yes.”

“The dolls were my mother’s from when she was a girl, kind of a collection, but it was creepy. Dad put Lily in there. His little doll. She escaped and went right back to the playhouse with my brothers. It was my mother who actually begged to send Lily to Haven of Rest, and meanwhile she was making arrangements for me. By that time, my father was ready to ship me away. I wish Lily had been able to come with me, but Dad was afraid to have her out in the world to shame him.”

“And she was pregnant.”

Violet nodded. She paused a moment, then asked, “Have you seen the playhouse?”

“Yes.”

My tone caught her attention. “Have you been in the playhouse?” I nodded, and she asked curiously, “What did you think of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, her tone suggesting I wasn’t being truthful.

“This is your story,” I sidestepped. “Why don’t you tell me?”

She pressed her lips together, then studied me silently for several moments. I could almost see her come to some kind of conclusion. “Do you think that inanimate objects can have a psyche?”

I recalled Jazz asking if I believed in fate when we were at Hill Villa. This was another of those questions that if you answer with, “Not on your life, you nutcase,” you aren’t going to learn anything further. Besides, I’d been inside the playhouse and I’d sensed the vibes.

She took my silence for agreement. “I went to the playhouse this morning, just to check it out. It’s just like it was, only mustier. But it felt…bad. It’s like whatever happened there is now in the walls and floor, the marrow of the boards. I’m going to ask Logan to tear it down.”

I stared across the polished linoleum floor that stretched across the rotunda and emptied into four different hallways. I told myself I didn’t believe in Violet’s whole juju thing, but taking the playhouse down sounded like a brilliant idea all the same.

I wondered if Jazz’s father was one of his uncles, or his grandfather, or if Lily had managed to be with someone outside the family. DNA testing would tell, but I wondered if suggesting it would be the best course of action.

“You told all this to Jazz?”

“Not yet. I’m debating on confronting my brothers. What do you think?”

“I don’t know how you talk to any of them about it.”

Violet crumpled her empty cup. “I’ve been through some pretty ugly divorces, but they’re nothing, you know? This…” She let the sentence hang, then abruptly moved on to something else. “Anyway, what do you think about the way Dahlia and Cammie over-mother their kids?”

I think we were both relieved by the change of subject. “Don’t all mothers do a little of that?”

“Maybe.” She sounded unconvinced. “I haven’t been around them that long, but I’ve seen those looks they give. Dahlia just stares at Benjamin, and Cammie can’t leave Rosalie alone. Benjamin’s already weird and Rosalie’s bound to turn out the same.”

Her harsh assessment wasn’t that far off my own thoughts, but I somehow felt compelled to come to their defense. “Dahlia lost a baby to SIDS. Rhoda.”

“I know.” Violet shook her head. “The problem is Dahlia hasn’t moved past any of it. She’d like to keep staying at the house with that sleazoid husband who wants to get in everybody’s pants, and with Benjamin. This is a kid who needs to leave home
now
.”

I nodded, then asked, “Has Roderick come on to you yet?”

“In his way. He talks to my breasts and plays with his willie.” Violet made a face. “Maybe if Rhoda had lived Dahlia would have turned out differently. Having a daughter, maybe she would’ve related to women better. But maybe not. Dad screwed her up, too.” She gave me a look. “If it sounds like I’ve had thirty-some years of therapy, it’s because I have,” she said. “I lived on a farm outside Bakersfield. I stayed till I was eighteen and then moved to L.A. Got married when I was nineteen, the first time. I did the usual modeling thing, and was a film extra for a while. A couple more marriages. Being a housewife never really worked for me. I tried work as an escort, but silly me, I thought you could get away with just being a pretty face. Guess what? My dates always wanted to have sex.” She half-smiled. “Divorce settlements have been my steadiest source of income.”

Violet was about as screwed up as the rest of them, but at least she was honest with herself. I liked that about her.

Suddenly, she sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God, hon, would you look at that…!”

I glanced back. Dwayne was striding toward us.

Be careful what you wish for.

Truer words—as it turned out—were never spoken. The gods were apparently listening when I wished for Dwayne’s and my relationship to get back to what it was—sidekicks. Punch in the arm buddies. Good old Jane and good old Dwayne. In fact, they were listening so well that they sent me Violet, whose hungry blue eyes practically stripped off Dwayne’s clothes.

Initially, I wasn’t unduly alarmed, especially since Dwayne’s attention was focused on me. I told him it looked as if Logan was going to be fine, which was echoed by Jazz who joined us shortly after Dwayne’s arrival. No brain damage. Nothing as extensive as Jazz’s own injuries from the hit-and-run the previous winter.

But then, as we all relaxed a bit, Violet switched into female predatory mode. It was like she’d pulled on a second skin. You could practically feel the heat, and Dwayne wasn’t missing a bit of it. I sensed when he became aware of Violet at a new level. One moment he was all about being there for me, questioning me about Logan’s condition, dutifully shaking hands with Jazz, politely greeting Violet. Then it was as if his ears started listening to some new source of sound, something underneath the conversation, something that hummed
sex
. His eyes grew half-lidded and his voice deepened into its drawl. I wanted to elbow him as hard as I could. I wanted to thunk him on the side of the head and pull his ears.

I did none of those things. Instead I went right for the age-old trick of pretending I didn’t care. I turned my attention to Jazz.

From that point on it was like I’d suddenly joined an acting class. Watch Jane Kelly be as bright and clever as she can be. Watch her joke and tell stories and generally be the life of the party. Jazz gazed at me in wonder and appreciation; he’d never seen this side of me, and no wonder. I hadn’t known I possessed it myself.

But did it do any good? Not really. By the time my act was in full gear, the damage was already done. Violet had captivated Dwayne. Their eyes were locked on each other as if by magnets.

I wanted to say:
Now, wait. She’s got to be fifteen years older than you. At least ten or twelve. She’s been married and divorced three or four times, maybe more. She’s not for you, Dwayne!