Randall #01 - The Best Revenge (15 page)

Chapter 15—New Furniture and Old News

“So, Camellia, how did it go?”

Violet peeked out of her apartment as Camilla was putting her key in the lock of her own door.

“I still have a job, at least for a month. Mr. Kahn said…”

Camilla stopped as she opened the door and saw her little home was not at all as she left it. Her bed had been moved to a dark corner at the other end of the room. In its place was a large Naugahyde couch of an emphatic shade of turquoise, patched here and there with strips of silvery tape. Next to it was a wing chair covered in a faded green fabric printed with American eagles. The chair seemed to be missing a leg. In front of the couch was a wooden industrial spool, roughly of coffee table height, with numbers printed on its rough surface in purple ink.

“All six of my husbands loved my pot roast,” Violet said. “So I went ahead and put the roast on, even though I knew you weren’t going to get fired. A man likes his meat and potatoes, and I didn’t see anything like that in your refrigerator. He liked the story, didn’t he, this boss of yours?”

Camilla tried to focus. “I wouldn’t say he exactly liked it…Excuse me Violet, but what is all this furniture doing here?”

“He brought it. Your boyfriend Jamey. Mrs. R. let him in. He tried to fix the chair, but he didn’t have the right kind of leg, so he went to the hardware to get one. I told him he might as well have dinner with us. You two might patch things up. Seems like a nice boy, really.”

“You invited Jimmy to dinner?”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Camellia, if you’d just pay attention. That’s why I’m cooking the pot roast. I figured you could make dessert.”

“I can make chocolate pudding.”

“Pudding is all right. Cake would be better, but I guess you don’t have time. You’d better get started right away. And change your clothes, Camellia. Put on something more feminine. And take your hair down, for goodness’ sake. Are you trying to look like an old maid schoolteacher? Don’t dawdle. Dinner’s in an hour.”

~

When Camilla knocked on Violet’s door, carrying her Tupperware bowl of pudding, she had to suppress a giggle. She realized that she had just spent an hour following the orders of Violet Rushforth as if they had been a royal command. She had put on the pink calico Jessica McClintock that she bought for the Mayday fête at school, curled her hair, and tied it with a pink ribbon. Jimmy would probably think she looked like Little Bo-Peep.

Jimmy, wearing an ancient tweed jacket over a T-shirt and jeans, opened the door. He held a small crystal glass of what looked like sherry and did not look comfortable. He put the glass in her hand and gave her an odd peck on the forehead.

“The old lady told me to do it,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Camilla sipped the sherry. “Thank you so much for all the, um, useful furniture,” she said. “It certainly…fills up the apartment.”

“It’s unbelievable the stuff some people put out for garbage collection,” he said.

“Unbelievable.” She surveyed Violet’s apartment. “But obviously Violet doesn’t have that problem.” The apartment, a mirror-version of hers, contained what appeared to be the contents of a well-furnished house. In fact, there was hardly enough floor space to walk to the kitchen, where Violet, wearing a lavender organdy apron over her jogging suit, was stirring gravy in a large pot.

“Here’s the pudding,” Camilla said. “The pot roast smells wonderful.”

Violet accepted the pudding.

“Camellia, what did you wear that for? You look like Little Bo-Peep. Go light the candles while I get Jamey to help me with the roast.”

Camilla found some matches and lit the candles on the beautifully set table. The candlesticks look like antique cut crystal, and the china was Royal Doulton. She picked up a fork. Sterling. Violet was certainly full of surprises.

“ Jamey, you sit at the head of the table and serve,” Violet said. “That’s a man’s job.”

“Uh, is this beef?” Jimmy said, after heaping two plates with food.

“Of course,” said Violet.

“I don’t eat red meat,” Jimmy said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Violet said. “Men love red meat. Help yourself to some. Our dinner’s getting cold.”

Jimmy obediently filled his plate.

Camilla tried not to look like a starving animal as she attacked her dinner.

“Now, isn’t this nice?” Violet said. “Finally seeing you two young people together. There’s nothing like enjoying a good meal together to patch up a quarrel.”

Jimmy coughed.

“There wasn’t any quarrel,” Camilla said. “Really.”

“Then how come you two aren’t talking to each other? Jamey, say something to Camellia.”

Jimmy finally said, “I hear you’re having some trouble with your new job, Cammie. Sounds like your boss is a real assho—sonofabitch.”

“The other reporters call him Genghis Kahn,” Camilla said.

There was silence for few moments.

“Genghis?” Violet said. “That’s a funny name. Is he a foreigner? I knew a man named Gengris once. Charlie Gengris. Ran a tavern outside of Dayton, Ohio. That’s where I met husband number three. Oh, he had an eye for the ladies, that one. Not Charlie Gengris—my third husband. Charlie had only the one eye. Lost the other in the war. My husband ran off with a dancer from Cleveland. Don’t ever marry a man you meet in a tavern, Camellia. You didn’t meet Jamey in a tavern, did you?”

“No,” Camilla said. “We were introduced at a party. At my house. My old house.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Jimmy said suddenly. “I have a letter for you. It came to the Ocean Beach house. I’ve been kind of keeping an eye on the place. Wave’s afraid somebody might come around looking for you two.”

“You’ve seen Wave?”

Jimmy grinned. “Yeah, I made a deal with a guy on her collection route.”

“Well, where is it?” Violet demanded. “The letter. Where is it? Nothing brightens up a day like getting a letter.”

Jimmy reached into a pocket and pulled out a slightly crumpled envelope of familiar Eaton’s parchment vellum, engraved with a New York return address.

“Open it, for goodness’ sake,” Violet said. “You know who it’s from?”

“Yes,” Camilla said quietly as she obeyed Violet’s command. Inside, she found a short note in her mother’s handwriting along with a clipping from the
Guardian
. It showed her mother looking stunning in a white Givenchy suit, on the arm of a smiling Lester Stokes. The word “wedding” was in the caption. She couldn’t bring herself to read the note. She stuffed it, with the clipping, back into the envelope and forced a smile.

“Nothing important,” she said. “Jimmy, I’d love more of that pot roast.”

“Looking at the expression on your face, I’d say it was real important,” Violet said. “I bet it’s your parents bawling you out for not writing.”

“My mother,” Camilla said. “Bawling me out for not showing up to watch her get married to a slug.”

“You missed your mother’s wedding?” Violet said.

“Yes Violet, I did.” Camilla knew her voice was too loud. “I didn’t want to see my mother get legally bound to the most disgusting ball of slime on this planet. And I don’t want to see her again as long as she’s married to him. Please don’t talk about it any more.” She stabbed a piece of pot roast.

Violet laughed. “Oh, Camellia, you are a spunky one. You remind me of myself. That’s just the way I was when my daughter married that Jewish fellow. Not that I was bothered he was Jewish—or a Communist, but he was so high-and-mighty that my blood would start to boil every time I was in the same room with him. Acted like everybody around him was stupid. Said he was some kind of doctor, but he couldn’t make you well, and I knew he’d never make any money, even though he was Jewish. Not like my friend Sol. And I was right, too. He never did have two dimes to rub together—my son-in-law, not Sol—but there’s no satisfaction in knowing you’re right when you end up losing your only daughter, now, is there?”

“You lost your daughter?” Camilla said.

“Yes. I was just like you. I refused to go to the wedding, and said I’d never talk to her as long as she was married to that man, and just when I was beginning to get lonesome for her and decided to see her anyway, she died having that baby. Now tell me I wasn’t stupid for being so stubborn.”

“That’s a bummer,” Jimmy said, looking up from his third plateful of food.

“Yes, that’s what it is,” Violet said. “Especially since to this day I have not been able to find that child. So there’s a lesson for you, Camellia. Go see your mother.”

“It’s not that easy, Violet. Even if I wanted to. She lives in New York.”

“New York City?” Violet said, picking up the envelope. “That’s where that detective thinks my Jonny might be. Said his father might have taken him there when they ran away from Chicago. That was back when they were hunting the Communists.”

“Who’s Jonny?” Jimmy said.

“My grandson, of course,” Violet said. “You could at least write to her, Camellia.” She patted the letter before pushing it in Camilla’s direction.

“I’ll get the chocolate pudding,” Camilla said.

“Chocolate is full of caffeine,” Jimmy said.

“My friend Sol used to love his chocolate,” Violet said. “He used to smuggle it into the rest home. The real dark, imported kind. He always bought the best. Shared it with all of us. He knew how to live well, that old man. Shouldn’t have been eating it, though. Always said sweets would be the death of him, and I suppose they were.”

Jimmy didn’t so much eat his pudding as inhale it. Camilla suspected this was not as much a compliment to her pudding as a desire to escape another monologue.

“Gotta go fix that chair,” he said, swallowing his last bite. “I’d better get back to your place and start working on it. Got the key?”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” Violet said. “Now Camellia, you go help him.”

“I’ll help you with these dishes first.”

“No, you won’t, young lady. At my age I should know how to wash dishes all by myself. You go over there with Jamey and have a good talk. I don’t know how you’re going to patch things up if you don’t talk.”

~

Back in Camilla’s apartment, Jimmy said nothing as he attached the chair leg with a few practiced twists of a screwdriver. The new leg didn’t match the other three in any way but height, but the chair appeared to be sturdy as Jimmy set it right side up and gave it a firm pat.

“Good as new,” he said, breaking the silence. “I’ll be looking around for another chair and maybe a chest of drawers. You could use some lamps, too.”

“Thanks, but—you’ve done so much already. I’m fine. I don’t know how to thank you.” She was having terrible visions of lava lamps and plastic beanbag chairs.

“No problem.” Jimmy was at the door. “I’m outta here before that old lady shows up again. What a motor mouth! She drives my aunt crazy. Anything you want me to tell Wave? I’m gonna try and sneak in there tonight—maybe cheer her up.”

“Is she totally depressed about being grounded?”

“Yeah. And now this murder thing has her all weirded out. I told her this morning there’s nothing she can do, so she might as well relax, but her old man is such an—”

“What murder thing?” Was Violet’s conversational manner catching?

“You know. Jon-Don Parker. You work for a newspaper. Don’t you ever read it?”

“I haven’t had time.”

“Me neither. I get my news on TV. Everybody’s been talking about it all day. The coroner said Jon-Don couldn’t have been an accidental O.D. because there was enough pure cocaine and heroin in him to kill an elephant.”

“How do they know he didn’t—you know—do it himself?” Camilla knew this was unlikely. Jon-Don had not seemed even a little suicidal that night.

“I guess because of the angle of the needle or something.” Jimmy said. “Anyway, Wave’s getting paranoid thinking maybe the murderer was at your party and if her name gets dragged into it, her old man’s gonna shit.”

“A murderer? At our house?” This was horrible.

“You got a message for her? I gotta run.”

“No. Just tell her I’m—fine.”

Murder. Suicide. Camilla didn’t want to think about either one. She collapsed on the newly fixed chair. It was actually very comfortable. As she rested her head on a faded green eagle, she remembered that she’d left her mother’s letter on Violet’s table, but she was too tired to brave another bout of Violet’s ramblings. She was also too tired to read about her mother and Lester Stokes. All she wanted was to go to bed early.