The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror (6 page)

There was the Depot Tavern, a Mogas station, a general store with a post office, five houses whose first floors had been converted into antique shops and a handmade toy shop, the Shade Tree restaurant, and Eban Parrish’s real estate office.

No one really cared that Deerford never grew. The reason the two thousand year-round residents stayed was because they could count on stability, count on their friends, count on the fact that aside from those who stopped at the restaurant or an antique store no one was going to bother them with progress. The county maintained the roads and the sewers, the cable company gave them television, and whenever there was a problem they held a town meeting.

Permitting construction of the Meadow View development had been a mistake, and everyone knew it. It had opened with six basic models duplicated four times, and stayed that way. It took the developer four years to sell the nineteenth house, and he never bothered to build any more. To live in the country was one thing; to live close to nothing at all but rolling fields, treed hills, and a traffic light that never turned red was something else again.

Those who did remain did so because they either couldn’t afford to move again, or because they realized that Deerford was what they had been looking for all along. It wasn’t unusual, then, that the “new folks” were the most militant about restrictions in town, the most enthusiastic about local affairs, and the most eager to be accepted.

And for the most part they were, and by the time the sapling maples planted along the curving streets had grown large enough to have foliage worth the name, it seemed as if they had been there forever.

And the last time a farm went up for sale the whole town chipped in and hired Eban Parrish to buy the land for them and lease it to a farmer who would work the fields hard and leave none of it to fallow.

If it seemed boring, it was only because some people had lost the knack of imagination.

And if it seemed tranquil, it was only because Winterrest was still sleeping.

2

The darkened house just to the left of the Depot was a squat, bulging Victorian that had been, at some time in it’s recent past, shorn of the ornate gingerbread that had coiled around the rim of its house-long porch, the tiny-paned gables at each corner, and just above the sagging eaves on the black slate roof. It was freshly painted white, its shutters black, and its windows low enough almost to be square. Just inside the solid oak front door was a tiny vestibule barely wide enough for guests to utilize the coat closet on the left; and the inner, glass-paned door couldn’t be opened if the closet was in use. Few visitors lingered there; it was too much like being in a glass-fronted casket.

The large, high-ceiling parlor which held most of its original, overstuffed, or back-breaking furnishings was on the left, the dining room with a refectory table and eight-foot china closet was on the right, and a narrow, red-carpeted staircase loomed directly ahead, climbing to a broad landing above which was a rose window perpetually dark.

The walls were papered in floral patterns now faded, the trim was dark and polished, and the fireplace in the parlor was made of grey stone.

At night the house, because it was not air conditioned and the untended attic did not have a circulation fan in either its front or back windows, tenaciously held the summer’s worst heat to an unpleasant degree; it was, however, cool during the day.

Judith Lockhart sat on the heavy, embroidered couch facing the long front window and watched the day’s light traffic pass by on Deerford Road. Her short-sleeved blouse was pale green, her jeans were faded, and her feet were bare with the toenails lacquered dark red.

She was alone.

All the other shades in the house were down, and she shivered in the faintly golden light, rubbing her thin arms and thinking she ought to go upstairs and find herself a sweater. It was ludicrous; hot outside, and here she was raising a bumper crop of gooseflesh on skin that had very little meat beneath it. What she ought to be doing was getting some sun—lying in the standing hammock in the backyard and listening to the trees tell her stories and the squirrels telling her to mind her own business; or trimming the dense privet hedge that surrounded her property; or going to the Depot to get ready for Friday night.

She ought to be behaving like ordinary people.

Instead, she sat in the midday gloom and watched the traffic, and listened patiently for signs of her brother returning.

And as she did she thought about Douglas Muir, and the trouble he was causing her because he was so damned stubborn, and so infuriatingly polite, and so maddeningly determined not to relinquish any control over his life.

He was getting to be a pain in the ass.

But it was almost time to force him into a decision. Not that he wasn’t aware of her plans for him, and not that he had ever given her any solid encouragement. On more than one occasion over the past five years she had thought with certainty he would ask her to marry him, yet she had not pushed him because she knew she had plenty of time. She had not pushed, and Doug had not asked, and more than one tavern regular had told her with a sly wink that if she didn’t get moving she’d surely lose him to that blond lawyer who lived over in Meadow View with her two children.

She had not pushed, and time, without her realizing it, had run out on her. Only a few days remained, if that, and then it would be too late.

She knew it would help her courage a lot if she loved him, but she wasn’t sure she knew exactly what love was, or would even know it if it came up and bit her on the rump. God knew she had had her share of failures, spectacular and otherwise, the latest though not the most painful one with a man from New York City who thought it marvelously quaint that she lived in what he laughingly called bucolic isolation, a throwback to the pioneer days when men were men and women were women and the only thing they had to do in winter was fuck their little brains out while the snow piled up to the roof.

That he was a lousy lay didn’t help, and that he refused to leave the city for Deerford sounded the death knell.

She shook herself to shed the disgust, ran a steady hand though her curly black hair and stood, walking stiffly back into the kitchen where she busied herself with the kettle and the instant coffee. She checked her watch and sighed. Two o’clock. One more hour and she would have to head next door, open the tavern, and get ready for the influx of the Friday crowd. There were a few, generally the newcomers like those in Meadow View, who wondered aloud and not very politely why she didn’t open the place as early as the law allowed. On Saturdays she did; the rest of the week there was no call for it. The Shade Tree had its own liquor license and the lunch crowd, such as it was in a place like this, and she didn’t think she really had to work herself frazzled to the nub just to provide a shot of rye for the drunks and Bloody Marys for those desperate for the hair of the dog.

And she certainly didn’t need the money. The Depot provided for her well enough. Her needs were quite simple. Certainly more simple than most of them knew. Deerford proper never complained, and the others . . . they only waited for her to open the damned bar.

Now if she could only get Doug to move his butt out of the Hollow and into her bed, she could show him that just because she didn’t have big tits or long legs didn’t mean she didn’t know a thing or two about screwing around, or making love.

Her abrupt laugh was short, bell-clear, mirthful, and she shrugged. In good time, Judy dear, all in good time. Don’t panic. Keep calm. If you lose him too it won’t be the first time.

The coffee made, she took her cup to the back door and looked out, hoping that maybe Casey would be there. He wasn’t. Her eyes closed and she muttered a short prayer, warning him to be careful, warning him to stay away from Winterrest today.

Damnit, Sis, I saw that light,
he had protested vehemently on Tuesday morning.
It
was
upstairs, in back, one of the bedrooms, I guess. It was there, and I wasn’t drunk.

But he was drunk when he told her, or well on his way—the first time he had slipped in over a year. She had been so furious at him for his weakness, and for what he might say to the wrong people at the wrong time, that she had hauled off and slapped him, so hard her palm stung and she had to blow on it to keep it from bursting into flame. Casey had staggered back a step, his eyes gone wide, his lower lip trembling, and before she could turn away he had burst into pathetic tears. He stumbled around the house weeping, raising his fists to heaven and demanding justice for himself, and retribution for the sister who wouldn’t believe him if he gave her the time standing in front of Big Ben.

Then he had left. And stayed away, returning only that night to snore in his bed. He was gone by dawn Wednesday, was sober by the afternoon, and that night in the Depot she was begged by several of the regulars to chain him, or lock him up, but for god’s sake do something because he was driving them all crazy with his talk of folks moving back into the estate.

She understood their nervousness.

Winterrest wasn’t a place you visited willingly, even at noon.

At three o’clock there was still no sign of him, and though she was worried, she was furious as well. She should have known that her brother wasn’t strong enough to face the dying again.

She wasn’t really sure she was either, but considering the alternative, she didn’t give herself much of a choice.

Ten minutes passed while she rinsed out her cup, dried it, set it back in the cupboard, emptied the copper kettle, put away the jar of coffee, rinsed off the teaspoon and placed it in its drawer.

Casey was still gone.

She wondered what people would say if he tried to tell them what was happening. Crazy, is what; drunk, stoned, and Christ, Judy, don’t you think he ought to be looked at or something?

Her red lips parted; it might have been a smile.

The hell with you, pal; you’re on your own now.

Shortly before four she switched on the neon Miller sign in the Depot’s window, unlocked the door, and checked the bills and change in the register drawer. She hummed. She assayed a buck-and-wing across the floor to turn on the lights. A glance at her watch proved it broken again, and she dumped it in the trash; watches and she did not get along—a sign, perhaps, that Time and Judith Lockhart did not mean much to each other.

She hummed louder. Once in a while she pulled out a compact and examined her makeup, pursed her lips, fluffed her dark curly hair, smoothed her ruffled red blouse down over her chest.
I made you love me,
she sang silently to an image of Doug striding through the door;
you didn’t wanna do it, you didn’t wanna do it.
She opened the blouse’s top button and told herself it was all in a good cause and the hell with what her employees thought.

Then she looked down at the cleavage and groaned loudly; if she wanted anything to show she’d have to gain about thirty pounds; then, for good measure, shove a box of tissues into her bra.

Not quite that bad, actually, but loosening a provocative button would only make someone ask her to redo it.

“Judith,” she told herself as she pulled out the week’s work roster, “you are insufferable. And very, very sick.”

And Casey still hadn’t shown up, though he knew damned well he had to work behind the bar tonight.

The sonofabitch had probably forgotten.

Or was too frightened to show his face.

It really didn’t matter now; she had her work to do.

Being Friday, there’d be waitresses in to help her after six, local girls under orders not to wear tight skirts or blouses or sweaters, to wear honest-to-god Wranglers or somewhat baggy slacks and definitely not something out of a designer’s wet dream; she wanted her customers to concentrate on their drinks or each other, not a single hip, breast, or rolling buttock that worked for her. She checked the big-screen TV to be sure it was tuned, checked the jukebox to be sure it wasn’t going to balk again. There was no need to go in back; Gil Clay had been in earlier to count the weekend stock and take the deliveries, and she noted with satisfaction that he was, as usual, right up to snuff. He was a good man, if a bit on the thin side in meat and hair for her taste, and though in the early days of their relationship he had come on to her, she had made it clear that what she wouldn’t tolerate from her girls she wouldn’t tolerate from herself. Amazingly, he had understood, and they’d been friends ever since.

The stool behind the register was high and padded, made especially for her by Bud Yardley, who lived in the next house down from hers. She could sit and rest her feet, yet still see everything that went on in the tavern. As she settled down and waited for the first drinker, she noted that her feet barely reached the first rung. Short. Very short. But not too short, she comforted herself; she didn’t even mind hiring girls taller than she.

A sudden grin sent many of her freckles sliding into her dimples.

Girls. God almighty, here she was only a handful of years over thirty—and lord, if they only knew how over thirty she was—and here she was calling women under twenty-five girls. Jesus, that had to be symptomatic of something or other.

At fifteen past four she heard the wind—soughing, then screaming, though none of it reached the Depot; at the same time she thought she smelled smoke, and could definitely feel a subtle, subterranean
rumbling
that set the tiered glasses in front of the bar’s mirror to trembling.

Singing to each other softly.

Settling after several minutes into a crystal-bright, brittle silence.

She touched a hand to the register drawer and slid off the stool, walked unhurriedly to the pay phone by the side door, and dropped a dime into the slot. Dialed. Waited as she looked blindly at the walls, the floor.

The handset was picked up at the other end.

She said nothing but her name; then she only listened.

A moment later she rang off, hummed some more, and turned with a big smile as Piper Cleary walked through the door.