Got Your Number (7 page)

Gasps chorused around them. Roxann lifted an eyebrow. "Dyke? Did you say
dyke?"

Dee took a step backward. "Y-yes."

"You got a gay radar under that sombrero?"

Her aunt pulled herself up, her face mottled. "Get out!"

She saluted. "Gladly." She tugged on Angora, who seemed to be in shock, staring straight ahead, her bouquet hanging from her arm by an elastic strap. Roxann sighed, then gathered the absurdly long train, threw it over her shoulder, and herded Angora toward the exit The climate outside the church looked even less promising than inside. Clouds rolled overhead, and thunder boomed, drowning out Dee's screeching behind them.

Roxann urged Angora to hurry, but they were only halfway across the parking lot when lightning slashed and the sky unleashed sheets of rain. At least the dousing seemed to revive Angora—she needed only a little shove to tumble into Goldie's passenger seat. Getting the train in was another matter.

When Roxann finally slammed the door, two feet of beaded and sequined fabric hung out, but it couldn't be helped. She ran around to the driver's side and threw herself into the Naugahyde seat, slammed the door twice before it caught, and heaved a sigh of relief. Her hastily tossed-together outfit—black skirt and orange pullover—were glued to her skin. She looked over at Angora slumped down in the seat, then gave in to the inappropriate laughter welling in her throat.

Angora pivoted her head. "What could possibly be funny?"

"You look like the casualty of a carnival dunking booth."

"Thanks a million."

"Hey, I'm kidding."

Angora's bottom lip trembled. "This is the worst day of my entire life."

When dealing with traumatized women, Roxann had learned to forgo "enabling" small talk. "You escaped marrying a bum. I'd say it's the
luckiest
day of your entire life."

"I suppose." Angora sniffled. "Thanks for punching him."

"No problem." No need to mention she'd decked him as much for her own satisfaction as for Angora's defense. "Who's Darma?"

"A girl he used to date. She dumped him and married someone else."

"The gangrene guy?"

She nodded, sniffling again.

"Why the heck did you invite his old girlfriend to the wedding?"

"It was Mother's idea."

"Oh, that's classic."

Angora laid her head back, and a fat tear rolled down her rain-soaked cheek. Her hair hung in wet globs around her face. Her face was striped with mascara, eye shadow, and blush. The dress was a droopy disaster.

Roxann looked up. "What's with the crown?"

Angora reached up to touch it, then cried harder. "My Miss Northwestern Baton Rouge tiara."

Of course.

"I'm a mess," Angora blubbered. "What am I going to do?"

Roxann fished a purse-pack of tissues from the center console and handed them over. "I don't suppose you have any clothes to change into at the church?"

She shook her head against the seat and blew her nose. "My trousseau is at home."

"How do I get to your place?"

"I... still live with Mom and Dad. And I can't go back there."

"Where do you want to go?"

Angora was quiet for so long, Roxann repeated the question.

"I don't know... s-somewhere D-Dee won't f-find me." Her teeth were chattering.

Roxann turned on the air-conditioning, which, in Goldie, was the same as turning on the heat. "We could go to my dad's. Your mother wouldn't go near there."

"W-will Uncle W-Walt mind?"

"He might not even be home."

"He doesn't know you're in town?"

Roxann squirmed. "No, but I was going to stop by after the wedding anyway."

Angora gave a lethargic shrug. "Anything to avoid D-Dee for a few hours. Maybe you can help me figure out what I'm going to d-do now." Angora pulled the stained seat belt over her sodden dress and clicked the buckle home. She sniffed mightily, then sighed. "Let's g-go."

Roxann surveyed her bedraggled cousin with wonder—Angora still had a talent for sucking Roxann into her melodrama. Just yesterday she'd been dogged by a cop, the victim of a break-in, and the object of a subtle threat. Yet her potentially life-threatening situation had just been upstaged by Angora's jilting.

"Did I mention it was good seeing you again?" she asked sarcastically.

For the first time, Angora offered a watery smile, and Roxann knew her cousin was going to be all right. Eventually.

Chapter 6

Angora had cried herself to sleep before they reached the part of town where Roxann had grown up. Roxann was glad, partly because Angora needed the rest, and partly because she wanted to experience the old neighborhood privately.

The rain had slackened to an aggravating drizzle. Only the driver-side windshield wiper worked, slapping a clear path of vision every few seconds. The houses, the streets—everything seemed smaller and bleaker, if possible. River Hills was a postwar development that had fallen out of favor with realtors when a power plant was erected at its boundary in the late 1960s. Property values plunged, and many residents fled inland.

Walt and Ava Beadleman had stayed put to show their support for her father's employer, RTC Electric, so Roxann had had a close-up view of the rapid degradation of the area. Homes were turned into rentals, then abandoned altogether, and drug dealers took over the ballpark. Government housing brought in kids from broken homes with too much time on their hands. Graffiti spread from one end of River Hills to the other. And she had her own theories about the glowing power plant's effects on the residents' health—physical and otherwise.

Her mother's discontent with the area had been the beginning of the end of her parents' marriage. Her father detested change, and refused to leave his circle of friends and his favorite fishing hole. The first day Roxann had come home from second grade and her mother wasn't waiting by the front door remained vivid in her memory. She'd sat in the front-porch swing, terrified, until her mother arrived, flushed and apologetic, making Roxann promise not to tell her father.

The disappearances became more frequent, then her mother gave her a key to let herself in the house after school. A blue car would drop her mother off in time to get supper started before her father came home from work. It was only a matter of time, though, before Walt discovered his wife was keeping company with another man. One day he'd torn the seat out of his work coveralls, and had come home for a change of clothes to find Roxann alone. He was there when the man dropped off her mother. He'd thrown a loose brick from the front steps through the back windshield as the blue car raced away, and he'd made her mother leave.

The next few months were a painful blur, with the exception of the phone conversations she'd overheard. The ugly, ugly things her father had called her mother still stung. After the custody hearing, she rarely saw her mother. Her father hired a woman in the neighborhood to cook and clean, but Mrs. Holt was a dour person who didn't like to be bothered while she watched television.

Emotion crowded her chest as she slowed to turn onto the road where her father still lived. Braeburn Way seemed too pretty a name for an overgrown, shabby street. When she pulled into her father's driveway, sadness plucked at her. The pale green bungalow looked tired and tucked into itself, the eaves sagging, the clapboard siding in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The yard was a tangle of ivy and weeds, strewn with limbs from a wild apple tree that hadn't borne fruit in years.

The gravel driveway and covered carport were empty, so she assumed her father was out fishing or drinking. Or both. She pulled under the carport so they could enter the house without getting wetter. Lurching over the uneven ground roused Angora, and when Roxann turned off the engine, her cousin opened her eyes.

"We're here," Roxann announced.

Angora groaned and moved slowly, lifting her head to squint out the window. "Where?"

"My dad's, remember?"

Her cousin winced. "Oh, yeah." Her crown sat at a
precarious angle.

"Come on, Queenie, let's get you into some dry clothes."

She swung down, then walked around to collect Angora, who practically fell out of the van after she unhooked her seat belt.

Angora cried out when she saw the part of the train that had been flapping against the van for the past twenty-some miles. "It's ruined."

"Were you planning to wear it again?" Roxann asked wryly.

"No, but... " Angora burst into tears again, and fell against Roxann, who hustled her to the side door.

The key on Roxann's ring still worked, as she'd expected. She led Angora into the musty kitchen, flipping on lights before depositing her into the only chair at the table that wasn't stacked high with newspapers—her father was a voracious reader. A fishy smell permeated the air, and dust motes floated lazily, disturbed by the opening of the door. The old brown linoleum popped and cracked under her feet.

A crucifix adorned the wall next to the kitchen table, testament to the fixation on morality Walt Beadleman had developed after the divorce. At every chance, but especially when he drank, her father sermonized the virtues of chastity and honesty. Look at what her mother's deceit had done to their family, he would rail, and how it had led to her untimely demise.

I'VE GOT YOUR NUMBER, YOU FAKE.

Shaking off the heebie-jeebies, Roxann glanced around the cramped space, her heart squeezing at the clutter and neglect. Old feelings of shame resurfaced. She'd hated other kids knowing that she lived in River Hills, and her father was so slovenly, she'd been too embarrassed to have friends over. Angora had never been there—God only knew what she must be thinking.

"I'll get my bag so we can change clothes." Roxann trotted outside, and after two grunting attempts, slid open the van door.

"Who's there?" an elderly voice called.

She looked out to see her father's neighbor standing in the weedy driveway, his neck craned.

"It's me, Mr. Sherwood. Roxann Beadleman."

The man's face rearranged into a smile. "Roxann! Child, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you, too, Mr. Sherwood. Do you know where my father is?"

He nodded. "Him and Archie Cann drove to Gramercy for a fishing tournament. Going to be gone all weekend long."

"I should have called," she said, harboring mixed feelings. Although she felt an obligation to see her father, it was never a wholly pleasant experience. And with Angora in tow, the visit would have been doubly awkward.

"You going to be staying a while?"

"I'm not sure," she hedged. "If I have to leave, I'll write Dad a note."

"He'll be sorry he missed you."

She managed a smile as she hauled out the bulging duffel bag. "Thanks, Mr. Sherwood. You take care."

She slid the van door closed and waved, then reentered the house. Angora stood at the sink that was piled high with dirty dishes, running water into a dented teapot. "I thought we could use some tea," she told Roxann primly.

The incongruity of a bride in full regalia making tea in her father's dilapidated house was almost incomprehensible. Personally, Roxann was craving a beer, and she was almost certain her father didn't have any teabags, but she said, "Sounds good," then nodded toward her duffel. "Dry clothes."

"You'll have to help me get out of this dress." Then Angora proceeded to scare the crap out of Roxann by trying to light the ancient gas stove. The flash melted the sequins on Angora's bodice and left Roxann's eyebrows feeling crackly.

"Let's see if we can find my old bedroom," she urged, then crossed the kitchen into the shabby living room, a throwback to the Harvest Gold and Burnt Orange decorating era. Books and magazines occupied every vertical and horizontal surface, including the floor. The faded carpet was footworn, and the familiar cabinet-model television squatted under the window, taking up too much room. A naked bulb in the center of the ceiling cast a garish glow that blinded while leaving the corners dark. More or less, everything was the sa—

Roxann came up short at the sight of her college diploma hanging over the couch like a prized piece of artwork. Professionally matted in Fighting Irish Green and framed in satiny cherrywood, the piece was fantastically out of place against the peeling wallpaper. Getting a degree was the only thing she'd ever done that had pleased her father, but the precious piece of paper had led to an even bigger rift between them when she'd "thrown away her education" to become involved with Rescue. Her father had had his heart set on her attending law school—

"Are you okay?" Angora asked.

"Sure." She made her feet move and picked a path across the living room. "I'm sorry—Dad's a slob."

"He's a lonely bachelor."

Her cousin had always had a soft spot for Roxann's father. Probably because she only saw him at his best once a year at Dee's Christmas shindig.

"When was the last time you were home?" Angora asked.

"Dad and I communicate best over the phone." Besides, she couldn't recall.

She led the way down a narrow hallway and pushed open the door to the bedroom that used to be hers. She blinked. The room hadn't been changed since she'd last slept there. Though the yellow comforter was faded, it was neatly made, topped with two denim pillows that she'd made in sophomore home ec. True to the Craftsman bungalow style of the house, the ceiling was low, and the room compact, large enough to hold only the bed, a bureau, and an upholstered chair. A small green braided rug lay at the foot of her bed. She used to leap out of bed and hit that rug, then jump to a fuzzy mat in the bathroom so her feet wouldn't touch the cold wood floors.