Getting Sassy (22 page)

Skipping the pleasantries, I went right to the point. “Wanted to let you know I’ve arranged for the séance, and I’ll come by to get you on Thursday morning at ten fifteen.”

Séance?

“That’s right. Yesterday you said you wanted to talk to my father.” I shouldn’t have been so blunt about it—I knew her short-term memory was terrible—but she had coerced me into this séance and now she had no memory of it.

“Oh.” A long pause. “And who was it again, dear? That woman?”

“Erika. Erika Starwise.”

“Of course.”

I guess it paid to have a distinctive name.

“Do I need to get dressed up for this?” she asked.

“No, Mom. Just come as you are.”

“Will he be able to see me?”

All I could say was, “What?”

“Will Robert be able to see me?”

“I don’t know, Mom.” But it was a good question. “Why?”

When she didn’t answer, I prompted her again.

Finally, with a sigh, she said, “I’ve gotten so old.”

I put a lid on my surliness, resisting the impulse to come back with:
He’s dead. How much worse can
you
look?

Instead, I said, “Mom, he knows how old you are. He was old, too, when he died. And, besides, you’re gorgeous. You’d win the Dryden beauty pageant hands down.”

“Oh, Rob—”

“I am serious.”

“Do you think I would?”

“Absolutely.” Vanity—the last thing to go.

“Well, all right.”

Before we hung up, I said, “Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Wear that washed silk blouse I got you. The one with the flowers. Blues and greens. You look real nice in that.”

“Perhaps I will.”

As I dressed for dinner with Jack, I marveled at the turn my social life had taken in the past week. Since I’d moved to Fowler, I’d been something of a recluse, occupying myself with my work and my mother. I assumed there was a social scene to this town, but I hadn’t made much effort to find it. Most of my friends were in Oak Park or the city, and to tell the truth, there weren’t a whole lot of them. I’ve never been one of those people who can juggle a bunch of people in her life. I suppose it came from growing up an only child. Back then I had a few friends, but kept to myself a lot. Even my mother and I didn’t hang out together very much. And it wasn’t the teen angst thing that kept us distant. She was a beautiful, vivacious woman. A little overwhelming. I guess I always felt invisible in her presence, and she must have thought so too, because she didn’t usually ask me to tag along with her. The one thing we did do together was go out and buy me new clothing at the start of the school year. To see her today in her mismatched outfits that seem to attract food stains was hard; she’d always been so well dressed. Everything matched. And she had flair. Actually, I thought her taste in clothing bordered on the bizarre, and I think to this day I dress conservatively because of that. But I could remember more than once when she’d goad me into trying on an outfit I wouldn’t have given a second thought to on my own. And I’d
find—to my surprise—that the short purple skirt really did make me look taller and my legs weren’t all that bad. She’d rag me about wearing baggy clothing—come to think of it, she still rags me about that—and tell me there’d come a day when my figure would either sag or turn thick, and I’d be sorry I didn’t show it off when I could.

These shopping excursions invariably included lunch, where she would indulge in a martini. Or two. She knew I’d never squeal to Wyman, and she had the whole afternoon to sleep it off. And I was easily bought off with a blouse or a pair of earrings. I was also someone who listened to her. She loved to talk about her childhood and the scholarship she received to college. But she was a little foggy about why she dropped out and downright evasive about the year or so before she met my father, but I guess I figured everyone was entitled to a few secrets in her past. So I nodded and listened, even when I’d heard the stories before, because I think I knew that Wyman wasn’t interested—or wouldn’t have approved. And my mother’s small circle of friends wasn’t as tolerant of the repetition. I guess I was her favorite audience.

Today I wore a fitted red jacket over a white shell and a khaki skirt. Yesterday’s storm had taken the humidity with it, and I was able to let my hair fall over my shoulders.

It was a short walk to Phinny’s Pub, a place I felt comfortable going by myself. Occasionally, I’d bring my laptop there and do a little work while listening to the juke box selections. In a way, I was a little uneasy introducing the place to Jack. What if he liked it and I didn’t like him? I’d hate to lose a good place because I was trying to avoid someone.

As I walked past the Psychic Place, I wondered what Erika would think of her little brother going to dinner with me. Probably wouldn’t care much. She was odd, but I didn’t recognize anything weird in that way. Then I wondered what Mick would think if he knew I was out on a date. Not that it mattered. Our relationship was over. If you could call one dinner and one makeout session a relationship. Whatever,
it had to be over. For one thing, when I refused to go in with him on the goat heist, that’d be it for us. Even if I were to lose my mind and agree to it, I wouldn’t want to be romantically involved with my partner in crime. I knew little about the criminal world, but that was a no-brainer. So either way, Mick Hughes was history. And that made me a little sad. I hadn’t started out interested in him at all. Never thought he was my type. But he’d surprised me. Sort of like one of those outrageous outfits my mother would pull off the rack.

Stepping into Phinny’s was always a pleasant experience. It was cool in the summer, cozy in the winter and smelled of rich, frothy beer and French fries. I waved to the bartender—Kathy was working tonight— and then saw Jack rising from one of the booths along the back wall.

He smiled as I approached and let me slide into the bench across from him before taking his seat. In front of him was a mostly full dark beer.

“Glad you could make it,” he said. “Short notice and all.”

I shrugged. “I’m not so busy that my Mondays are booked.”

“Would you like a drink?”

“Sure,” I said. The waitress, Danny, was on her way over. She said hi and instead of saying “I’ll have the usual,” I hesitated, as though considering my options, and then said, “I’ll have a Famous Grouse on the rocks with a twist.”

Danny bobbed her eyebrows at me, then glanced at Jack, who was occupied with the menu.

He looked up as she walked away, and said, “I like this place. It’s got a good feel to it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s comfortable.”

“Food good?”

“Uncomplicated, but good.”

“I’m starved,” he said, returning to the menu, and I took the opportunity to marvel at the way not a strand of his close-cropped silver-threaded hair dared go astray. “Had a late breakfast and haven’t eaten since.” He looked up at me again and his gray-green eyes lit up
as he smiled. “Want to share some nachos?”

“Sure.” My mother would love this man. And I might not be far behind. But I quickly admonished myself—I had stopped being impressed with looks when my soon-to-be-ex husband back-handed me into the stereo.

When Danny returned with my drink, Jack placed the order and then said we’d graze a while before ordering dinner.

“So,” I said, taking a sip. “What brings you to Fowler?” I figured it had to be Erika, but wanted to hear it from him.

“I’m in Chicago for a few days for a sales meeting. Meeting’s not until Wednesday so I took Monday and Tuesday off and decided to go visit my sister.”

“What do you sell?”

“I work for a pharmaceutical company,” he said, and named one of the big ones.

“Miracle drugs?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He smiled when he asked a question.

“Where do you live?”

“West coast. Oregon. Suburb of Portland.”

“I hear that’s a nice area.”

He nodded. “It is. If you like rain.”

“Actually, I do.”

“You’ll have to visit some time.”

I really wasn’t fishing for an invitation. But I was reminded of how awkward first dates are. You need to get all the information out of the way before you can cut to the important stuff. When Mick and I had dinner the other night, conversation hadn’t been much of an effort. Maybe because he’d been doing my taxes for a couple of years, I figured he already knew way too much about me. Still, I hadn’t been at all bored that night. I mentally kicked myself. Here I was sitting across from a handsome man, with a legitimate job, and I was thinking about the average-looking, dicey one I was cutting loose.

Gradually, the conversation crept away from the mundane. And by the time we started in on our meals—a cheeseburger for him and a teriyaki chicken sandwich for me—I was feeling pretty comfortable. I guess it had been so long since I’d had a first date that I hadn’t known what to expect.

Jack had transformed from an attractive stranger to an attractive man with an abundance of interests. He’d skied the Alps, scuba dived in the Bahamas and worked as a forest ranger one summer in Wyoming.

When prompted, he talked about his sister who, as it turned out, was about seven years older.

“She just about raised me,” he said around a bite of his sandwich. He finished chewing and swallowed. “Our father left when I was a little kid and our mother worked two jobs.”

“Was it just the two of you?”

“Yeah. Just us.” He dabbed a crumb on the table and flicked it off onto the edge of his plate.

“Is your mother still alive?”

“No,” he said, sighing. “She died when I was in college—Erika made sure I finished—and since then it’s been just the two of us.”

“But Erika has a daughter. Was there a husband?”

“Briefly. He died in a car accident. Lily—her daughter—she’s great.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

He smiled as he studied me for a moment. “So is yours.”

“Yeah, I guess there are worse birds to be named after.” I considered this as I chewed on a fry. “Like Grackle. Or Skua.”

He chuckled, then became serious. “So you moved out here from Oak Park so you could be with your mother.”

“Something like that,” I said. “Actually, it was a compromise. She didn’t want to move to Oak Park, and I didn’t want to move to her suburb. We found Dryden and liked it, and because it was in Fowler, this is where we both landed.”

“She’s lucky to have you.”

I laughed. “There are days you couldn’t tell her that.” I described our bout with the cigarettes.

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

I just shook my head.

“I’d like to meet her.”

I gave him a look.

“No, really. I think old people are great.”

“That’s because you don’t have one.”

“Seriously,” he said, laughing. “I used to play guitar and sing—you know, when we’re young, we all think we can play guitar and sing. I used to do gigs at nursing homes.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, I never rose above the nursing home venue.”

I nodded. “That’s telling you something, I think.”

We both laughed a little over that and then he said, “But, you know, I liked to joke around with them. Sometimes brought pizza. They liked me. I think they just tolerated my singing, but they liked me.”

I bet they did. He was handsome, personable and took time out for older people. What wasn’t there to like? “Well, you’re welcome to meet her, but I warn you, she hasn’t got a cuddly side, and if you buy her pizza it damn well better have something on it besides cheese.”

It must have been the scotch—or maybe the second one. But by the end of the evening he’d convinced me that we should stop by my mother’s tomorrow at lunch and bring a pizza.

I insisted on paying part of the bill, not wanting to be indebted to him for the price of a sandwich and a couple of scotches. He didn’t argue, and when he walked me home he gave me a kiss on the cheek before leaving me at my door without so much as a half-assed effort to get past that door. But he did promise to meet me at Dryden at eleven thirty the next morning, so I guess he wasn’t completely turned off to the idea of being with me. Or at least he was willing to tolerate me in order to meet my mother.

When I got home, my phone was ringing and I saw my mother’s phone number on the caller ID. I glanced at the kitchen clock. Nine fifteen. Not a good time for her.