Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out (12 page)

Rufus had already stalked over to the laundry room door, the fur on his back bristling, when I ran upstairs to get some first-aid cream and a couple of Band -Aids.  I examined my wounds in the mirror; thanks to Snookums, it now looked like I had racing stripes on my left cheek.  At least the bleeding had stopped.  I slathered cream on my face, bandaged my swollen thumb, and headed out the front door to pick up my kids. 

Nick was feeling much perkier when I picked him up.  As I buckled him into his car seat, Becky hovered beside me. 

“Thanks for watching him for me,” I said.  “Did he throw up any more?”

“No, he didn’t.  And the fever’s completely gone.”  She eyed my cheek and my bandaged thumb.  “But what happened to you? I didn’t realize car repair shops could be such dangerous places.”

“Oh, I had a run-in with a cat.  It’s a long story.”

“Any word on the minivan?”

I glanced at the mangled back end.  “I called around, but I don’t have a quote yet.” 

“Did you find out anything about the transvestite?”

What was this, twenty questions? I shook my head.  “No, but Peaches is looking into it for me.”  Becky was my best friend, but I wasn’t ready to tell her what I had found on the Christmas list in Blake’s office.

“Peaches?”

“The woman who runs the agency.”

“Oh.  That’s nice of her.”

I changed the subject.  “Do you want me to pick up Zoe and Josh this afternoon?”

“No, that’s okay.  I promised to take them to Zilker Park anyway.  Want to join us?”

Part of me wanted to, but another part of me wasn’t ready to talk yet.  And it would be impossible to spend two hours with Becky without spilling everything.  “I’d love to,” I said, “but I’ve got to swing by Randall’s and pick up a cake for Prue’s birthday.”

Becky stood at the end of the driveway and waved as I drove away.  As I waved back, part of me I wished I’d told her everything.  The dull ache in my heart might be relieved by talking it over with someone who cared about me.

But part of me wasn’t ready to admit what I had discovered to myself, much less anyone else. 

#

Ten minutes later, I pulled through the drive-through pickup lane at Green Meadows.  As Elsie hurled herself into the car, I accosted the perky twenty-year-old teaching assistant whose job it was to make sure the kids were buckled in.  “How did it go today?” I asked.  “Any problems?”

“None at all,” she said. 

None at all? Mrs. Bunn had told me Elsie was acting like a wolfhound in the late stages of rabies.  I’d expected to see her foaming at the mouth, a fragment of another child’s shirt hanging from her clenched teeth.

I smiled, relieved.  “Well, that’s good to hear.”

The teaching assistant’s smooth forehead wrinkled.  “But Mrs. Bunn wanted to talk to you… did she get in touch with you?”

“I met with her this morning,” I said.

She tightened Elsie’s buckles.  “Well, then.  I guess you’re good to go!”

Despite Attila’s grave admonitions, Elsie was chipper, cheerful, and anything but doglike.  Relieved, I put on a June Cleaver smile as we pulled onto the highway.

“How was your day, sweetheart?”

“Great.  Mommy, what happened to your face?”

“A cat scratched me,” I said. 

“Rufus?”

“No, a different cat.  I’m fine, though.”  I glanced back at her.  “So, did everything go okay today?”

“It was Madeline’s birthday today, so we got cupcakes for snack.”  Her chubby face darkened.  “Miss Lawson took mine away, though.”

“I thought Miss Grayson said everything went fine.”

“Oh, she wasn’t in my classroom today.”

Well, that explained the glowing review.  The pit in my stomach started to deepen again.  “Why did Miss Lawson take your cupcake away?” I asked.

Elsie shrugged.  Had she been eating off of the floor again? I inspected her in the rearview mirror for telltale frosting smudges, but both her dress and face were clean. 

“Mrs. Bunn tells me you’ve been pretending you’re a dog,” I said.  “Is that true?”

“Mom.  It’s just a game.”  She sounded exactly like a sullen thirteen-year-old.  I shivered.

“That may be,” I said calmly, “but you need to do that at home, not at school.”

She was silent for a moment.  Good, I thought.  She was thinking about it.  Then her voice reverted to five-year-old’s again.  “Mommy, did you find my fry phone?”

I stifled a groan.  “Not yet, honey.  But I’m still looking.”

#

We swung by Randall’s to pick up the cake, a card, and a bouquet of electric blue carnations Elsie insisted we buy for grandma.  I’d voted for a tasteful blend of purple irises and yellow roses, but Elsie had stood firm.  “But blue’s her favorite color, mom,” she whined.  Normally I wouldn’t have given in, but after everything that had happened that day, I was in no mood to argue.

We made it the entire way home without any evidence of doglike behavior from Elsie.  She even helped me carry the groceries into the house, one paper towel roll at a time.  Was this something she saved just for Attila, I wondered?

I slid the cake box onto the counter and filled a vase of water for the carnations.  Then I emptied a package of graham crackers and some grapes onto a plate for the kids’ afternoon snack.  As I returned the bag of grapes to the fridge, I was confronted by a photo of the four of us smiling in Zilker Park. Nick was clinging to his daddy’s leg, Elsie had her arms around my waist.  I touched my husband’s face in the picture.  Grinning, carefree.  Things had changed lately.  Why?

As I closed the fridge, my thoughts turned to our most recent squabble.  When I’d suggested getting a part-time job, Blake’s reaction had surprised me.

“What about the kids?”

“Blake,” I had said, “we’re not living in the 1950s anymore. Most women work full-time.  It’ll only be fifteen or twenty hours a week.  I’ll still have plenty of time for Elsie and Nick.”

“I guess it’s okay.  But just until my promotion comes through,” he said.  But when I came home and announced I was working for a private investigator, he looked at me as if I’d announced I was taking up nude hang-gliding.  And now he was trying to get me to join the Junior League.

I knew that his suggestion that I get involved with the organization Herb McEwan’s wife chaired was another way of ingratiating himself to his boss and moving up the ladder. 

My thoughts turned to the promotion Blake kept striving for. The one that never came.  I had always wondered how a person could work so hard and never reap the benefits.  Now, the unpleasant thought occurred to me that maybe the reason he never got promoted was that those night hours weren’t spent at the office.  I had always trusted him implicitly. Now, I wasn’t sure about anything.  My stomach churned.  If he wasn’t spending them at the office, where was he spending them?

As I filled two sippy cups with apple juice, I thought with a pang of our early years together.  When I met Blake my senior year in college, I was bowled over by his self-assurance.  Our first date had been at Paggi House, a romantic Italian restaurant twinkling with candles and out-of-season Christmas lights.

Unlike most of my previous boyfriends, who considered going Dutch to be chivalrous, Blake was a gentleman. He opened my door for me, pulled my chair out for me, stood when I stood.  Over the lobster ravioli, Blake talked about his passion for his future career.  He had wanted to be a lawyer since sixth grade, and had pursued it ever since.  He was so serious, so sincere. I had fallen for him for him by the time the waiter delivered a plate of cannoli with two forks. 

Although his passion for me never seemed to equal his passion for schoolwork and his future career, I told myself that once he had made it through law school and had established himself with a firm, he would have more energy for me and for the children I already imagined us having.  He was never particularly romantic, with the exception of that first Italian dinner, but he was solid. A man of integrity.  Exactly what I was looking for in a future husband.  After my years shuttling from apartment to apartment with my single mother, security was important to me.  And with Blake I would always feel safe. 

Which was why the lie he had told me this morning was so shattering. 

I paused at the sink, blinking back tears.  Where had things gone wrong? 

I squared my shoulders and wiped my eyes on the back of my arm. Even though my life was in an uproar, it was important to keep things steady for Elsie and Nick.  As I turned to carry the snack plate to the kitchen table, the flashing light of the answering machine caught my eye.  Had Peaches found something out already? I slid the plate onto the table and hurried over to the machine.

The first was a call from my mother, asking about tea again. Then Mrs. Bunn’s voice burbled from the tiny speaker.  “Mrs. Peterson, I need you to call me as soon as possible regarding the photographs from the school festival.”  I sighed and jotted down the number.  Probably not enough of them featured Attila herself.

Detective Bunsen’s drawl was next.  “Mrs. Peterson, this is Detective Bunsen.  A few things have come up during the investigation of the Maxted homicide.  We need to talk.  Call me.”

I copied his number down below Attila’s. 

Had they already figured out I had visited Maxted’s building? For the first time, I felt a prickle of fear. 

TEN

We arrived at Sullivan’s only ten minutes late.  Elsie carried the blue carnations, which I had removed from the vase and wrapped in wet newspaper and a Target bag.  Not the classiest presentation, but it was better than tipping over a vase and swamping the minivan—or my mother-in-law—with a half-gallon of smelly water.

Blake strode ahead of us and held the door open as we straggled through.  We had been in such a rush to get out of the house that we hadn’t had much of an opportunity to talk.  Which was good, because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold it together if we did.  Besides, I wasn’t ready to spring the news about the rabid cat in the laundry room just yet.

Prudence and Phil were already seated at a round table by the window.  When we made our entrance, Prudence stood up and rushed over, looking natty as always in a royal blue Chanel suit that matched her eyes.  “Darlings, where were you? We were worried something had happened!” Her eyes alighted on my striped face.  “Margie, what happened to your face?”

“Just an accident,” I said.

“A cat scratched her,” Nick said. 

“Oh, that Rufus.  He’s been trouble from the beginning, hasn’t he? What you need is a nice terrier, or a poodle.” She kissed Blake on either cheek, a habit she had picked up during the seven days she had spent in Paris the previous year.  Then she turned to the children.  “How are my sweet grandchildren? Elsie, come here, darling, your face is smudged.  And let me tuck that shirt in for you.”

“Happy birthday, Gramma.”  Elsie proffered the bouquet.

“She picked them out herself,” I said hurriedly.

Prudence formed her mauve-lined lips into a faint moue of distaste.  “Did she? Well.  They certainly are interesting.”  She laid them on the table and hugged her granddaughter.  “Thank you, sweetheart.  That was very thoughtful of you.”  Elsie beamed.

Then my mother-in-law turned and pinched Nick’s cheek.  Her powdered brow furrowed as she looked up at me.  “He’s looking kind of skinny, Margie.  Are you sure you’re feeding him enough?”

I pasted on a smile.  “He must have inherited your great metabolism, Prue.  I just took him for his annual checkup.  He’s doing fine.”

She eyed him critically.  “It’s not all metabolism, my dear.  It’s willpower.”  She sighed.  “Well, we’ll get him a big, fat steak tonight, anyway.”

I bit my tongue and turned to my father-in-law.  He was a quiet, benevolent presence in my in-laws’ household, and I’d grown quite fond of him over the last eight years.  As I watched, he squatted down and enfolded Elsie into a big hug.  “How’s my favorite girl?” he asked.

“Good, Grandpa.  Do they have spaghetti here? Because Lady likes spaghetti.”

Uh-oh.

But Grandpa took it in stride.  “Oh, so you’re Lady today?” He chuckled.  “Well, Lady, we can order whatever you like.”

Phil stood up and pulled me into a brief hug.  “You’re looking lovely tonight, Margie.  Thank you for coming to meet us.”

I flushed.  My black pants were still wrinkled. Some had yanked them off of their hanger, and I had found them crammed into the corner of my closet.  The blouse was one I had bought in better, slimmer times, and I was just praying the buttons would hold. 

“Thanks,” I said.  “I wouldn’t have missed it.”  We all took our places at the table, and after I had distributed crayons and coloring books to Elsie and Nick, I turned to Phil, who was sitting to my right.  “How’s work?”

“Oh, same-old same-old,” he said.  Although retirement age had come and gone for Phil, he continued to put in fifty-plus hours a week at 3M.  He said it was so he could keep up with his wife’s spending habits, but I harbored the private suspicion that he just couldn’t face twenty-four hours a day at home with her. “How about you?” he said.  “I heard you got a part-time job.”

Before I had a chance to answer, Prudence leaned toward me.  “Margie, darling, I was wondering if you wanted to help me organize the Junior League fashion show.  I know decorating’s not your thing, but we could really use help addressing and stamping the invitations, and arranging for rentals.”

The Junior League again? I shot Blake a look, but he was focusing on arranging his napkin in his lap.  “Actually,” I said, “I’m really pretty busy right now.”  I had nothing against the Junior League Fashion Show. After all, it consumed my mother-in-law’s attention for fully half of each year, for which I was grateful. But I just wasn’t very interested in clothes or fancy events.  Or in the Junior League itself.

“It’ll be so much fun,” she said.  “Bitsy McEwan’s debuting her new line,” she said.  “All the profits go to charity, of course.”

“How nice,” I said. 

Blake perked up.  “She is?”  He turned to me.  “You should think about it, Margie.  It’s a good networking opportunity.  It could really help with my career.”  Of course.  In addition to being the president of the Junior League and a budding fashion designer, Bitsy McEwan was married to Herb McEwan, one of the founding partners of my husband’s law firm.