Shattered Silk (4 page)

Mrs. MacDougal sniffed. "Sloppy sentimentality, my girl. The place is a damned white elephant; it ruined my father, trying to live up to an income he didn't have, and it was falling down around our ears until I married Jackson. Besides, things don't matter. People matter. There isn't a thing in the house, up to and including the house itself, that I wouldn't give up to add a year to Joseph's life."

"Well, of course. But-"

"But nothing. That's it. Have you finished?" Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. MacDougal rang the buzzer that summoned the maid. Rachel opened the door so promptly that Karen knew she had been hovering outside. Before the elderly servant could enter, a shaggy form squirmed through the opening and made a beeline for Karen. The latter hastily hoisted her feet, and the dog, missing its intended goal, snapped viciously at the leg of the chair.

"Bad dog! Bad dog!" Scolding in chorus, Rachel and Mrs. MacDougal converged on the animal. Mrs. MacDougal reached it first and lifted it in her arms.

Rachel gave Karen a hug. "I hope that nasty creature didn't hurt you, honey," she exclaimed. "I tried to keep him out, but he got by me somehow. I guess I'm not as light on my feet as I used to be."

"He missed." Karen returned to her chair, keeping a wary eye on Alexander.

Alexander's chief claim to fame was that he had won an "Ugliest Dog in Washington" contest. Mrs. MacDougal had been one of the patrons of the affair, held in aid of a worthy charity. It had been love at first sight, and she had persuaded the owner to sell him.

Alexander looked like… Karen's imagination always failed her when she tried to find a comparison. Alexander resembled no other creature, extinct or extant. He was about the size of a miniature poodle, but his legs were no longer than those of a dachshund. He was as fuzzy as a sheepdog from snout to rump, but his tail and rear end were obscenely bald. His coloring resembled that of a calico cat, patches of orange, black, and white on a gray background. But it was his head that had won the title. His ears reached almost to the floor. His canines stuck out at right angles to his jaw, which provided a useful guide to the location of his mouth, otherwise totally hidden by hair. Hair covered both his eyes. From time to time he would give his head an irritable shake, baring one optic for a brief period-mercifully brief, for Alexander's eyes were the most malevolent Karen had ever seen on a living creature. Compared to Alexander, buzzards and crocodiles looked kind. Mrs. MacDougal claimed that he located objects by a kind of radar rather than by sight, and he certainly could home in on an intended victim with diabolical speed and accuracy. His bite was worse than his bark, but not by much, for the acute angle of the canines prevented him from sinking them in, and the rest of his teeth, though sharp as needles, were not very long. He was only interested in two things-eating and biting people. His adoring owner insisted that the two were related, and that Alexander's attempts to take chunks out of visitors were the result of his poor sight. To give Alexander his due, it must be said that usually he only bit people once. Usually.

"Bad, bad doggie," Mrs. MacDougal crooned. "You remember Karen. You mustn't bite Karen. You love Karen. Karen loves you. Karen won't let you come and live with her if you bite her."

"Rrrr," said Alexander disagreeably.

Karen looked helplessly at Rachel, who was clearing the table and watching the proceedings at the same time. Rachel's plump shoulders lifted in a shrug. Rachel sympathized, but Rachel was not going to protest. She hated Alexander and had from the start.

"You mean you're going to give Alexander up?" Karen asked, trying to keep her voice from quivering.

"Of course I'm not going to give up my darling." Mrs. MacDougal squeezed Alexander. He burped in a vulgar fashion. "I'm not going to move into one of those nasty sterile nursing homes where the nurses call you honey. I'll buy a nice boring condo surrounded by barbed wire and security guards. Rachel will come with me, of course, and so will Alexander-was he his mother's darling, wassums? I just want you to keep him for me this summer while I travel."

"Where are you going?" Karen asked.

"Borneo." Mrs. MacDougal's sagging jowls split in a malignant grin. "Can't you see Pat's face when I come riding into the clearing on a donkey, or a gnu, or whatever they ride in those parts?"

"But," Karen gasped. "But-but-you can't-"

"Yes, I can." Alexander began squirming and Mrs. MacDougal put him down. "It will be my last fling. If I survive, I'll settle down at Golden Acres or Bide-a-Wee and behave myself. If I don't-well, hell's bells, Karen, I've had a good run. No complaints. I thought of going some time ago, but I couldn't leave Alexander. He doesn't get on well with Joseph, and Rachel is terrified of him- silly old fool. You are a silly old fool, Rachel, to be afraid of a poor little dog."

"Poor little dog nothing," Rachel exclaimed. "That's no dog, that's part alligator and part devil. Don't you take him, Miss Karen, honey. You won't have a spare inch of flesh on those pretty ankles."

"Nonsense. Once he gets used to Karen, he won't touch her. He never bites me."

"He don't like the way you taste," said Rachel.

"That's no way to talk to your employer," said Mrs. MacDougal, grinning. "Get on out of here or I'll make you go to Borneo with me."

"That's no threat, that's a promise," Rachel said grimly. "I am going to Borneo with you. You think you gonna go traipsing off into them jungles without somebody to take care of you, you got another think coming. You're the one that's a silly old fool. Never heard such a wild idea in my life."

She stamped out with the tray, her heavy tread shaking the table.

"I can't let her go with me," Mrs. MacDougal said. "She's too old."

Karen guessed that Rachel must be in her mid-seventies, which made her almost twenty years younger than Mrs. Mac. She tried desperately to think of an argument that might dissuade the old lady, or a way of preventing her, and realized she didn't have a leg to stand on. Even if she had had the legal right and the moral smugness to take such a step, Mrs. MacDougal could not be declared incompetent; she was quite sane-or, to put it another way, she was no crazier than she had ever been. Moreover, Karen sympathized with her point of view. When one's time approached, how much better to go out in a blaze of glorious lunacy, on a gnu, than to dribble one's life away in a rocking chair.

Alexander, smelling the ghosts of the sausages, was cruising the room. He tossed his head. One large brown, evil eye emerged from the brush. It focused squarely on Karen. She shuddered.

The rain had almost stopped by the time she started along Wisconsin Avenue on her way to work, but the steep slope of the sidewalk was slick with greasy water, and a fine drizzle dampened the shoulders of her raincoat. In the gray summer heat the street looked like any grubby business district instead of the fashionable shopping area it actually was. Traffic snarled the street, exhaust fumes blending with the fog to form a dirty substance that looked, and was, inimical to human health. Throwaway plastic containers and paper napkins from the fast-food stores littered the sidewalk. At least the bad weather had driven the street vendors and the vacant-faced, stumbling alcoholics indoors. Ten years ago she had loved Georgetown, had been stimulated and excited by its eclectic liveliness- bars and fortunetellers rubbing shoulders with chic boutiques, vendors selling cheap gold chains outside a fashionable jewelry store, elegant antique shops sandwiched between People's Drugs and McDonald's. It must be another sign of premature aging that made her find the area tawdry and unappealing.

Julie's shop was not on Wisconsin, but on one of the side streets. Climbing vines rooted in antique iron buckets framed the doorway, and the single window held an eye-catching arrangement of odds and ends, their very incongruity demanding the attention of the passerby. The name of the establishment was lettered in gold: old things. No capital letters, just the two simple words. Smart of Julie. Not only was the name chichi clever, but it made no claim. "Antiques" implied, at least, that the dealer knew what the word meant and was willing to stand behind its implication.

Karen was sardonically amused to see that Julie had a new window arrangement. A rusty well pump stood next to a dainty Louis Quatorze-type sofa covered in delicate brocade. Across the sofa had been flung, with seeming carelessness, the best of Julie's few antique gowns, an Edwardian tea dress of pale-blue muslin. The ensemble was completed by a pair of heavy work boots.

Karen had felt a certain letdown after leaving Mrs. MacDougal. The old lady was like a strong wind; one had to brace oneself to stand upright against it, and when the wind stopped blowing, the victim had a tendency to sag. But the sight of Julie's window stiffened Karen's drooping spine. The Edwardian dress was a promise to customers of things to come-a promise Julie had no right to make.

The bells over the door chimed as Karen entered the shop. Julie was on the phone. Though she noted Karen's entrance immediately, she talked with such machine-gun rapidity she finished the sentence she had begun before she was able to stop herself.

"…just your size, Friday at the latest." After a glance at Karen, her half of the conversation turned monosyllabic. "Yes. Right. Yes. Okay. By."

"Hello," said Karen.

"Hi. Don't just stand there, you're dripping all over my antique Kerman."

Karen opened the door at the back of the shop and went into the office. Rob, the only other employee, was seated at the desk, his yellow curls bent over a pile of invoices. "Hi there, sweetie," he crooned, glancing up. "Want some coffee? Fresh brewed by my own white hands."

"No, thanks."

"But, sweetie, you're drenched, poor baby. Here, let me take your coat."

A gold earring glinted as he rose to his full height- well over six feet-and reached for Karen's coat. He was a pretty thing, with delicate, epicene features, and many of the older women customers assumed he was gay. They were very sweet to him, and Rob cooed and gurgled and giggled at them like one of the girls. The customers could not have been more wrong. Rob's effect on younger women was devastating and was callously exploited.

Despite his air of camaraderie, Karen suspected Rob didn't like her much. He had made a halfhearted pass at her shortly after she began working, and she had complained to Julie. Julie had responded with contemptuous hilarity and had promised to speak to Rob, who had sulked for several days. Dumb, dumb, Karen thought disgustedly. I should have handled it myself, not made a big deal of it. That was one of her problems-she had gotten out of the habit of acting independently, without consulting someone else first.

And to make matters worse, she had realized too late that Rob's motive had been kindness rather than lust. She wasn't his type. He liked his women young, or rich, or both.

Like Jack.

Karen muttered under her breath and Rob turned his head. "What did you say, ducks?"

"Nothing. Thanks, Rob."

She went back into the shop and surveyed the cluttered interior of the small room with a newly critical eye. Julie had a style of her own. The shop was absolutely crammed with objects; one had to sidle sideways through the clutter. Yet the clutter was rather charming, suggesting an old-fashioned general store where customers willing to burrow through stacks of Levi's and yard goods might discover treasures the owner had forgotten and under-priced.

Karen admired the effect, but she knew she could not imitate Julie. She would have to develop her own individual style. A picture formed in her mind-a big, high-ceilinged room with crown moldings and chair rails, the white walls warmed by sunlight from tall windows; ornate, gold-framed mirrors, green plants in Victorian cachepots; some of the more striking garments, like the Chinese ceremonial skirt of Mrs. Mac's, hanging like banners against the walls-

"What?" she said, starting.

"I said you look like Dracula. Didn't you sleep?"

"I slept very well, thank you-until six-thirty, when the damned telephone woke me up."

"Well, for God's sake put on some make-up and try to look pleasant. A customer would take one look at you and run screaming into the street. That skirt is too tight. Why didn't you wear the blue silk? Who called at that ungodly hour?"

"Mrs. MacDougal." Karen glanced into a nearby mirror. It was eighteenth-century Chippendale, with a curved frame and a gilt eagle on top. The wavy, time-worn glass made her face look bloodless and distorted. She fished in her purse for her lipstick.

"Mrs. MacDougal," Julie repeated.

"Uh-huh."

"How is she?"

"Fine." Karen returned the lipstick to her purse. "I had breakfast with her."

"I don't suppose you talked to your aunt."

"Yes, I did. She called last night."

"She said you couldn't wear the dress?"

"What… Oh, that damned blue silk. You have the most incredibly one-track mind, Julie. She said I could have anything I wanted and do anything I wanted with it."

"Marvelous." Julie's eyes glistened. "I'll come over this evening and we'll go through the clothes. You're a friend, so I'll give you a square deal. Half the retail price.

I'm really cheating myself, because the usual markup is three hundred percent-"

"Two hundred," Karen said.

"Not in Georgetown. Do you know what my overhead is?"

"Yes, I do know. You told me at least twice a day every day last week. You can have a few of the clothes to sell on consignment for me. I believe twenty percent is the usual charge. The rest I'll keep. I'm going to start my own business in the fall."

"Son of a bitch!" screamed Julie.

The argument raged for a good ten minutes. Rob came out to see what the ruckus was about and lingered, his eyes moving from one combatant to the other as he emitted impartial cries of encouragement. "That was a good one, Karen. Right on, Julie darling, you tell her."

After accusing Karen of gross ingratitude and predicting instant bankruptcy for her proposed business, Julie suddenly gave in.

"Oh, well," she said coolly. "It was worth a try. You never had much gumption, and I figured you were so down in the dumps you wouldn't have the guts to strike out on your own."