Tied to the Tracks (20 page)
Read Tied to the Tracks Online
Authors: Rosina Lippi
Tab sniffed loudly. “The hell you say. But there he stands, big as life and dumb as a sack full of hammers. What have you two been up to?”
“Work,” John said. “Now, what can we do for you?”
He reared back to look at Angie down the slope of his nose. “I’m here to kill that got-damned pop-eyed skinny-assed woppish sumbitch that’s been sniffing after my wife.”
“That’s something you’ll have to take up with Tony directly,” Angie said calmly. “But he’s in Savannah just now. You could make an appointment to kill him next week, if you want. I can give him a message.”
She had a moment to wonder if she had misjudged Tab Darling’s degree of drunkenness, but his expression went from ornery to confused, and from there to sorrowful. “Savannah?” he said. “With Harriet?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Angie said, and managed to look him directly in the eye. “Harriet came back on the train from Savannah. I know, I was sitting across from her.”
“That’s what Pearl said, too, but I thought she was just covering for her sister.” Tab looked directly stunned at this news. “But then where is she?”
“If I knew,” Angie said, “I would tell you.”
John put a hand on Tab’s shoulder. “Let’s get you home. She’s probably there waiting.”
Tab gave John a hard look. “You’re so got-damned superior. You Grants, better than everybody else. But not for long. You’re almost one of us. One of the Rose boys.” His grin was not pleasant. “One of the Rose girls’ boys.” Behind a cupped hand he stage-whispered in Angie’s direction. “Poor bastard. Don’t know what’s coming at him.”
Tab patted his head as if to settle a nonexistent hat, then walked out the door and fumbled his way down the steps. There was a huge old convertible at the curb and he lurched toward it with keys held out from his body in a perfectly straight arm, like a kid determined to pin the tail on the donkey.
Angie said, “You can’t let him drive.”
John closed his eyes and then opened them again. “Of course not.” He raised his voice. “Hey, Tab, can I get a lift?”
From the bottom of the stairs he looked up at Angie. “Somebody will come by for Kai’s car tomorrow.” He tossed her the keys and then he bolted down the walkway toward Tab, who had already fallen into the driver’s seat, sideways.
Five minutes later John waved to her as he steered the convertible away from the curb, though she was hidden behind the curtains in the parlor. He waved to her, though he couldn’t see her at all, or know if she was even there.
Flat on her back on the old striped couch on the porch, Angie focused on the moth that was bumping its way around the lampshade. Her head felt too heavy, and her stomach too full, and that was the price to pay for chasing wine with beer.
“Ogilvie is not good for my health.” She said it out loud to nobody at all. Tony was in Savannah, most probably in a bar scanning the women for a Harriet Darling look-alike, or maybe Harriet had snuck back there somehow and they were holed up in a motel. Rivera was at Old Roses with Caroline, and no doubt John would end up there after he dropped off Tab. Which was the way it should be.
Then Rivera would come back here and sit on the floor with her back against the couch and listen to what Angie had to say, no matter how absolutely ridiculous it might be. Because as many times as Angie turned things around in her head, the sentences that presented themselves were going to be hard to spit out.
I almost kissed John Grant
was no better than
I wanted to kiss John Grant,
but certainly not as bad as
I still want to kiss John Grant
or, God forbid,
All I can think about is kissing John Grant
. All those things were true, and here was another one she would have to get out in the open if she was ever to sleep another hour:
John Grant wants to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him, but he’s too dumb to figure that out. Dumb as a sack full of hammers.
was no better than
I wanted to kiss John Grant,
but certainly not as bad as
I still want to kiss John Grant
or, God forbid,
All I can think about is kissing John Grant
. All those things were true, and here was another one she would have to get out in the open if she was ever to sleep another hour:
John Grant wants to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss him, but he’s too dumb to figure that out. Dumb as a sack full of hammers.
And the real kicker:
He’s getting married in a week.
He’s getting married in a week.
The wonderful thing about Rivera was that nothing was ever complicated. An overdue gas bill, war in the Middle East, an affair gone sour, she could resolve any problem in three sentences or less. She would say,
Figure out what you want, calculate the costs, make your plans.
And:
Start by getting get your pitiful self off the couch.
Figure out what you want, calculate the costs, make your plans.
And:
Start by getting get your pitiful self off the couch.
But Rivera wasn’t back yet to shame Angie into saving her own life. Instead there was a moth bumping against the lampshade and rain on the roof and a smell of wet grass. It had been a very long day; Angie fell asleep.
John meant, once he had dropped Tab off, to drive over to Caroline’s, and instead found himself parked in front of his own house in Tab’s convertible, which smelled of cigars and hot sauce and boys’ sweaty gym clothes. It was surprisingly comfortable, and he might have gone to sleep just where he was, glad of the quiet and the dark and the rain.
He made himself reach for his cell phone. It felt warm in his hand as he listened to the ringing on the other end. He was thinking of hanging up when Caroline answered, a little out of breath.
“I was wondering about you,” she said.
He said, “Caller ID takes all the excitement out of answering the phone. Leaves nothing to the imagination.” And neither did the Rose girls, it seemed; Caroline had already heard from Pearl and knew all about his car trouble and the trip home from Savannah on the train. Her tone was light and friendly and solicitous as always, with an edge of something slightly frazzled. Of course, the story he had to tell about Tab Darling roving through Ogilvie fueled by beer fumes was the kind of news to make anybody nervous.
“I’ve got some pasta left,” Caroline was saying. “And some beer, if you want to come over.”
“Beer.” John couldn’t remember the last time Caroline had drunk a beer in his presence, much less brought any home to Old Roses.
“Rivera brought it. She came over to keep me company.”
“Rivera?” He sounded like a parrot, and was powerless to stop himself.
“She brought some DVDs, too, of a sci-fi cult classic called
Farscape
. Strong women kicking butt and the men who love them.”
Farscape
. Strong women kicking butt and the men who love them.”
“Much like Ogilvie,” John said, and she laughed at that, a distinctly non-Caroline laugh. The idea of Rivera at Old Roses teaching Caroline how to appreciate beer and high-end sci-fi must mean something, but the one thought that presented itself to John was the fact that Angie had not exactly lied, but had certainly misled him. The whole time he sat in the kitchen with her he had assumed that Rivera was somewhere close by, and she had let him.
“Unless you wanted to come over?” Caroline finished, and John woke up enough to realize she had been waiting for him approve of her plans. No doubt Rivera was listening to that half of the conversation and shaking her head in disapproval, and with some reason.
Just that suddenly the question that had been nagging at him for a long time came into focus: Where did the intelligent, self-aware, confident Caroline, the one who chaired international meetings and wrote sharp critical reviews, disappear to when she left her office for home? Which of these two Carolines was he about to marry? And, most important—to him at this moment anyway: Why had he been avoiding this question for so long?
Right then the one thing John knew for sure was that he couldn’t cope with Caroline and Rivera, not just now. Not this evening.
“I’m beat,” John said. “I’m going to get some sleep.”
There was a pause. Embarrassment? Relief? He couldn’t tell. Then she said, “You do sound tired. Sleep is what you need.”
They could agree on that much, at least, and so John left Tab Darling’s convertible where it stood and went to climb into bed, alone, where he found, to his considerable irritation, that the thing he needed most was simply beyond him.
ELEVEN
By rights I might have been Miss Maddie’s brother-in-law, because my eldest brother Moses intended to marry her. He told Daddy so just before he went off to Korea, but he didn’t come back. Ever since the two sisters have kept house together. If you can get Miss Maddie to invite you to Sunday dinner, I’d be pleased to come along too. I’ll bet I can get her to tell some stories she keeps for special, and I’ve got a few of my own to share. Some of them are even true.
Your name:
Alfred White. I took early retirement from the railroad on account of my bad knees, so most days you’ll find me on the Liar’s Bench outside the barbershop.
At three o’clock on Saturday afternoon, just when Angie was starting to believe that she might actually survive her hangover, the doorbell rang. Rivera, who had fallen asleep on the couch with a book on her lap, didn’t even flinch at the sound. Angie might have ignored it, too, but then an image came to mind of a still-drunk Tab Darling come back to find Tony, this time with a shotgun.
She unfolded her legs with some difficulty and made it to the door, where she found Rob and Kai Grant. Until that moment she had forgotten completely about Kai’s car, but the keys were still on the windowsill where she had put them.
“Come for your Mini?”
“We have an invitation for you,” said Kai, lifting herself up on her toes in her excitement. “We are having an opened house. Will you come?”
“We just bought a house,” Rob interjected, grinning.
“Time for a celebration,” Kai agreed.
Angie said, “Now?” And: “Oh, I don’t—”
“Come on,” said Rob. “It’ll be fun.” He took the keys that Angie offered, tossed them in the air, and caught them again.
The two of them reminded Angie of kids on their way to a prom, which was both a little unfair and oddly right. More than that, she had the idea that they would come across in exactly the same way when they had been married fifty years.
“Right now?”
“No time like the present,” said Rob. “We’re paying rent until we can close, so the place is ours. You got something better to do on a Saturday night than come to a party with old friends?”
Angie heard Rivera’s feet hit the floor.
“Party?”
“Oh, come along, too,” Kai called. “Please come to our opened house, it will be good fun.”
“I never say no to a party,” said Rivera.
“But I—” Angie started, and felt Rivera’s hand on her shoulder.
“—and neither will Angie. Can we ride with you?”
Rob took off in one direction in the Mini and the three women got into his old Volvo, Rivera in the front and Angie spread out on the backseat.
“We’ll stop at the liquor store,” Kai announced, then she hit the gas and they were off, roaring down the street. Angie didn’t know if it was the idea of more alcohol or the way Kai was driving, but she was just about to lose the little bit she had eaten when they pulled, screeching, into the parking lot of the liquor store, which was called Dewey’s Package for reasons Angie hadn’t been able to pinpoint.
Kai was kind enough to park in the shade, and the breeze was cool. The smart thing to do, Angie decided, was to spend a few minutes lying right where she was. She propped her head on a book called
Complex Algebraic Surfaces,
put an arm over her eyes, and tried to remember how to breathe while she contemplated the evils of alcohol.
Complex Algebraic Surfaces,
put an arm over her eyes, and tried to remember how to breathe while she contemplated the evils of alcohol.
“Pardon me, miss?” The voice was deepest Georgia, baritone and hesitant. She moved her arm and opened one eye, squinting into the bright.
From this angle the guy looked to be seven feet tall and built like a refrigerator. Blond hair, green eyes, deeply tanned; Angie decided he could have been the model for every prince Disney had ever drawn, right down to his smile, which made him look like a sweet if somewhat dim ten-year-old. And he was a cop, by his uniform.
Either he was after Kai for her driving, or Angie was violating some local law, sleeping in the backseat of a car. In any case she could hardly work up any real worry, because the cop was smiling at her in a way cops in New Jersey never smiled unless you were related to them.
“Yes?” She couldn’t quite make herself sit up, but she did manage what she hoped would be taken for a smile.
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