The Secret's in the Sauce (27 page)
Fifteen minutes later, just as we were finishing the last of our grapes, the phone rang. I checked the caller ID and with relief saw Donna’s number pop up.
I slipped on my headset as Henry took his dishes to the sink
and rinsed them off.
“Hi, girlfriend. Coming by to get the grocery list and our company credit card?”
“Yeah, I’m on my way now. I have to go down to Denver this afternoon anyway, for an Amber Alert seminar, so I can make the Sam’s Club stop on my way back home. I’ll be off duty by then anyway.”
“Perfect,” I said before we exchanged good-byes.
I waved at Henry as he headed out the back door. I turned to start the lunch cleanup when the phone rang again. It was the hotel. I wouldn’t have picked up except for the off chance it wasn’t Clark but someone from the back office. “Hello?” I heard only laughter. “Clark?”
“I told you.”
My silence acted as an affirmation, and he said, “So, looks like I’ll be your date at the shower after all.”
“I don’t think so. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s over between you and me.”
His voice softened. “Not for me, never for me.”
I touched my hand to my throat. “What is it going to take to get rid of you?”
“Just some of your loving. In fact, I’m reserving a room for us for that Saturday night. For old times’ sake. Our little pre- and post-party treat.”
I trembled with rage. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take no for an answer, not and keep our secret.”
I swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t tell.”
“Wouldn’t I? At this point, I don’t care if Jane knows or not. She’d go to Henry, and then we wouldn’t have anything to hide, would we.”
“Listen, if you don’t stop calling me, I’ll . . . I’ll call the sheriff. This has turned into harassment.”
“Isn’t that deputy one of your friends? I’m sure she’d be interested to hear my side of our story.”
I felt my face flame. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“Look, it’s over between us. Get it through your head, no means no!”
His voice took on a menacing tone. “You belong to me, don’t you ever forget that.”
“I never belonged to you, now stop calling me,” I said as I hung up. When I turned around, I realized Donna was leaning into the doorway, her arms crossed. I suddenly felt faint.
Her eyes held mine prisoner, and she spoke in a voice brimming with authority. “Lisa Leann, who were you talking to?”
I scratched my elbow and tried to look puzzled. “Wrong number, I think.” I picked up what was left of my iced tea and took a sip, hoping Donna wouldn’t notice my hand was shaking.
Donna perched on the stool that Henry had deserted and watched me. “Wrong number, my eye. You’re shaking like a leaf. What are you involved in, my friend?”
I turned around and stared into Donna’s blue eyes. My voice trembled. “How much did you hear?” I took another sip.
With her elbows on the countertop, she leaned toward me. “Enough to know you’re in trouble. Care to tell me about it?”
I took my dirty dishes to the sink and rinsed them, trying to sound nonchalant. “I . . . I can’t.” I could feel heat rush up my neck and into my face. I took a deep breath and tried to look calm.
“Well, I’m not leaving till you do.”
I walked over to where she was sitting and sat on the stool next to hers. I emphasized my words with outspread hands. “It’s best to agree it was just a wrong number. Trust me.”
Donna sat quietly for a moment, then said, “Sometimes, Lisa Leann, the only way to come back from the brink of disaster is to find a friend who can help you. I know. Vonnie just helped me through a really rough spot last year.” She took a deep breath. “She saved my life.”
I dared to wonder if I’d missed something major. But I could tell she was too focused on me to reveal any of her own secrets.
She continued, “Now, I know I’m not Vonnie. But do you count me as your friend?”
I nodded, not really sure I did.
“Look at me, Lisa Leann. Whether you believe it or not, I am your friend. I never gossip, and that’s saying a lot because I know more secrets in this town than anyone.”
I felt my eyebrows arch, mainly because I knew she was speaking truth.
She placed her hands palms-down on the lace. “Plus, I’m a pretty good listener, a little skill that comes with my badge.”
I looked into her unblinking eyes. She was serious, but still a cutie with the way those tiny freckles kissed her nose and her curls had grown to frame her face. No wonder all the young men around here were wild about her, especially now that she wore a hint of that blush and lip gloss I’d sold her.
I looked down at my pink manicured nails. “Donna, I wish I could tell you, but some things, well, there are secrets you have to carry all by yourself. It’s safer.”
She almost whispered, “You mean a secret like having an affair turn sour?”
I looked up and opened my mouth to protest, but couldn’t find my voice.
“That’s what I thought.” She started to rise.
“Wait,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “Nobody knows. I
. . . I made a mistake, the biggest mistake of my life, and, well, it’s followed me here.” My eyes focused on a smudge of dirt on the floor, which my mop must have missed. “I feel so ashamed.”
Donna sighed and sat back down. “Well, if you tell me more I might be able to help you get this creep to leave you alone.”
I shook my head, my voice low. “I . . . I can’t tell.”
The phone rang and I jumped. Donna stood and walked across the floor to check the caller ID. “It’s the hotel. Want me to pick up?”
“No!”
She answered anyway with the handheld receiver. “Potluck Catering. Who’s calling? . . . Clark?” Her eyes sparked. “The Clark I met at church a couple weeks ago, from Texas? . . . I remember you. I met your wife too. What was her name? . . . Jane. How is Jane? . . . She seems like such a nice woman. . . . Tell her I said hello. . . . Why, it’s me, Donna Vesey. . . . Yep, the deputy.”
Donna turned her back to me. “No, Lisa Leann’s not here. Stepped out with her husband, you know, for their afternoon date. I don’t think she’ll be back for hours. Gotta message? . . . Yeah, I can remember that. . . . Okay, then. See you around. . . . Oh, sure, at the hotel for the shower. . . . Oh! You’re the new sales manager there; I didn’t know. How nice. Bye now.” She hung up and stood staring at the phone. Finally, she turned and walked back to where I was sitting. She climbed back on her stool without speaking.
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d call you later.”
I stood then sat down again. “Will this never end?”
Donna nodded and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m on your team, Lisa Leann, and I’m going to have a word with this Clark person.”
“No, you mustn’t. He’s threatened to tell Henry if I don’t, ah, play along. Though, so far, I’ve kept him at bay.”
Donna’s brows furrowed. “Just wait till I get through with him.”
“Donna, no. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
She gave a low laugh. “Well, neither does he. Besides, not to sound corny or to shock you or anything, but thanks to Vonnie, I’ve recently learned how to pray. I suggest you do the same.”
“I have prayed.”
She stood. “Then it’s settled.”
“I don’t know, Donna. I . . . what are you going to do?”
Before she could answer the back door swung open and Henry came whistling in, hauling a long piece of PVC pipe. “Hello, ladies!” He stopped and looked at us. “Is something wrong?”
With every ounce of acting skill I possessed I said, “No, Henry, I just remembered I forgot to call the florist. It may be too late to get the ivy Lizzie wanted, but I’ll take care of it.”
Henry’s grin stretched across his handsome face. “You always do.”
“Evangeline.”
The voice came toward me from the recesses of what felt like a hot tunnel.
“Evie.”
And there it was again, stirring me from something I couldn’t quite determine.
“Evie-girl.”
Only one person in the whole world called me that. I opened my eyes to see Vernon staring down at me, his hair a silver fuzzy mess and his eyes sleep crusted.
“Evie-girl?”
My tongue felt as though it were glued to the roof of my mouth. After a few seconds of dislodging it, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“You were having a bad dream.”
I squinted my eyes as I tried to remember what I had been dreaming, but nothing registered. “I was?”
“Sounded to me like it.” He rested on his side next to me.
“Oh.” I stared up at the ceiling, then ran my fingers through my tussled hair. “What’d I do?”
“You were just breathing really fast.”
I looked over at him. “I didn’t say anything?”
“No.”
I shrugged my shoulders, then sat up. “I have no idea what I was dreaming.” I blinked my eyes a few times and the room came into view. Though I’d lived in this house alone from the day of my parents’ death until Vernon and I had returned from our honeymoon, I had not changed the décor from my mother’s touch. She was a no-nonsense woman, and though her home was Victorian, it was practical. There was a wrought-iron bed with its headboard against the far wall, floral wallpaper that never seemed to go out of style, and only necessary pieces of furniture placed along the walls. A large oval gold leaf mirror hung from a wide satin ribbon over the bed’s headboard, and clusters of small framed prints brought the room together. The wardrobe was topped with a stack of quilts dating back from my great-grandmother’s day. When Vernon moved in, he said it was a little froufrou but that he’d learn to live with it as long as I came with the package. That thought alone could keep me smiling forever.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll make the coffee. Maybe it’ll come back to me later.”
“Sounds to me like it’s best forgotten,” he called after me as I slipped into my terry robe and out the bedroom door.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in my home office, buried behind a maze of thick stacks of papers along the floor and atop the desk, and preparing the taxes of Buddy and Geneva Youngblood, that I felt that stirring of memory that attempts to draw our nighttime dreams into the daylight hours. Though I tried to dismiss it, I couldn’t.
Finally I pushed away from my computer and desk and walked into the kitchen, where I made the day’s second pot of coffee. While it brewed, I called my sister Peggy in West Virginia.
“Is something wrong?” she asked after I greeted her.
“No, why? Does something have to be wrong for me to call my favorite sister?”
I shuffled into the family room with the cordless clutched at my ear.
“I’m your only sister,” she said as I sat on the three-cushion sofa. “And it’s a Wednesday. You never call on a Wednesday.”
I sighed at her candor. “Okay. I had a dream last night and I . . . Peg, do you remember when we were kids? How much time we used to spend over at Doreen Roberts’s house?”
“Doreen Roberts? Of course I remember. What is it she’s calling herself these days?”
“Dee Dee. Dee Dee McGurk. And you know her daughter is living here with her too.” I heard the last gurgle and sputter of the coffeemaker, so I rose from my comfy spot and returned to the kitchen. “The two of them have started a bartending business.”
“Really? The freelancers around here do very well. Several of the bartenders at the country club have their own businesses on the side. For private parties and such.”
“Yeah, yeah. The point is,” I said, pouring the coffee into my mug, “they are causing a bit of a stir around here and somehow managing to wreck my family and seep into my dreams.” I returned to the family room and peered out the frosty window while giving her the lowdown on the latest. When I’d finished with the necessary information, I concluded with: “Which leads me to my dream.”
“I’m listening.”
“I dreamed we were all children again. We were playing that game where you fold a piece of paper this way and that, then write numbers and names under the flaps. Do you remember that?”
“Huh . . . I haven’t thought about that in years. We’d stick our fingers into the folds, then go back and forth after asking questions about our futures.”
“And we’d find the answers under the folds.” I shook my head. “I can’t remember exactly how we made them, but we made them. And what I dreamed was that Doreen and I were playing the game and that it said she would marry a lawyer named Robert and that she would have three children and live in a wooden house.”
Peggy giggled. “Well, that just goes to show you that we should put our faith and hope in the Lord and not in origami.”
“I just think it’s sad, Peggy. I mean, Doreen—or Dee Dee as she now likes to be called—had the same opportunities as the rest of us. And she’s really a sad example of life gone bad. I mean, she’s been in jail, she’s estranged from her firstborn, and she’s done things I don’t even want to think about.”
Peggy didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “So what are you thinking, Evangeline?”
“I think the Lord wants me to do something more than respond to her in the way I’ve responded for so many years.”
“Since you were twelve years old, I’d say.”
“Forty-six years is a long time to hold a grudge for something a child did to me.”
“Stealing Vernon away from you.”
I got up and returned to the kitchen for a second cup. “Now it all seems so silly. We were children.”
Peggy cleared her throat. “Well, one thing I’ll say for Doreen Roberts. She always knew what she wanted and she went after it and the devil be danged. But I suppose she went down the wrong road at some point and met her match.”
“Who would have thought it would have turned out like it did?”
“So what are you going to do?”
I poured coffee into my cup and thought for a moment. “I’m going to go see her. I think it’s time we really talked. And I do mean
talked.
No more accusations from me. I just want to talk.”
“Are you going to tell Vernon?”
That was a good question, one with an answer I didn’t have quite yet. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “And I’ll let you know how it goes.”