A House by the Side of the Road (13 page)

“Sit down,” she mouthed. Out loud, she said, “About a hundred and fifty thousand.” She listened, then continued. “Four boys and two girls. Just like stair steps—two, four, six, eight, ten, and twelve.”

Meg poured herself a cup of coffee, refilled Christine's, and sat, watching her friend and openly listening. Christine had pulled her pale hair into a French braid, and the sophisticated look was flattering.

“Let's see. We buy Champion and Adidas and Hanes that I can think of, right off the bat. No. Yes, I guess so. Oh, absolutely. ‘Made in America' labels are big at our house.”

Meg caught her friend's eye and raised her eyebrows.

“I've got to go,” said Christine. “Is that enough to be helpful? Sure. No problem.” She hung up.

“What in heaven's name was that?” asked Meg.

“Market research,” said Christine.

“Oh, ugh,” said Meg. “I hate those calls!”

“Tell me about it,” said Christine, sitting down at the table and lifting her cup. “This was something about sweatshirts.”

“But what was the ‘one hundred and fifty thousand'? And the six kids?”

“That's our mythical income and our mythical children,” said Christine.

“Why mythical?” asked Meg.

“I don't buy sweatshirts at a store,” said Christine. “I buy sweatshirts at church rummage sales. So the truth wouldn't help the poor researcher at all. And our income, which is considerably less than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, is nobody's business. And two children isn't very interesting. But
six
 … now that's interesting. And the poor woman was very friendly and polite, and she has a horrid job. Can you imagine having to call up complete strangers and ask them what kind of sweatshirts they buy?”

“So you just make things up?” Meg was aghast.

Christine smiled and shrugged. “Why not? Do I care how sweatshirt manufacturers make their decisions? I don't think so. But some woman is trying to support her family by getting statistics for them, so…”

“Do you always do this?” asked Meg, looking at her friend. It would never have occurred to her to pull the answers to a researcher's questions out of the air.

“No, sometimes I don't have time and just say the kitchen's on fire. But when I have time, I try to be helpful. You want toast? It's homemade bread. Best thing you ever tasted. Five of my six children helped me make it. The two-year-old just played with some dough.”

The toast was good. Meg licked a finger and picked up the last of the crumbs. “I think we should start Jane at first base,” she said. “Her height's a real advantage. And her arm won't be a problem there. Not that her arm is weak; the problem is she's too strong. From third, she's likely to put the ball into the bleachers. If she overthrows home, at least there's a backstop.”

“I don't want to talk about baseball,” said Christine. “I want to talk about something interesting, like the possible dangers of two-timing Mike by having breakfast with Jack.”

“I should never have told you about that breakfast,” said Meg.

Christine swung a crossed leg under the table and kicked Meg. “I'm voting for Mike. Dan, on the other hand, is all for Jack. Dan thinks Jack went through hell with Stephanie and deserves a really nice girl for a change. He's chosen you to be the really nice girl.”

“What does Dan know about me?” asked Meg. “We sure haven't spent a lot of time together, and I thought you guys weren't talking much.”

“We talk,” said Christine. “Conversations about other people are easy. You are a subject of great fascination. I would look askance at you, except that Dan's interest seems merely friendly. We have a wager.”

“Good grief,” said Meg. “What happens when you both lose?”

“Aw, come on! You can't be dumb enough to break
both
their hearts.”

“I am not,” said Meg, “breaking anyone's heart. Including my own.” She was annoyed and wondered why. Probably because she knew how unrealistic Christine's joking assumptions were. “I'd think you had better things to worry about.”

Christine swallowed hard and blinked.

“Gosh, I'm sorry,” said Meg, realizing her clumsiness. “I meant generally. I didn't mean…”

“No,” said Christine weakly. “It's not your fault.”

“Come on, Christine. You don't really think Dan's carrying on with someone, do you?”

“No. Yes. I don't know.” She got up and brought the coffeepot to the table, then stood holding it for a moment. Meg watched her in silence.

“I must think something,” Christine went on after a moment. “My house is spotless. I'm deeply into the ‘when you can't clean up the mess inside you, clean up the mess outside' syndrome.”

“It is noticeably sparkling,” said Meg. “I didn't realize that wasn't normal for you.”

“Not like this, it isn't. The only activity that gives me real pleasure these days is pouring boiling water over clean dishes.”

She put the coffeepot back and sat down. “If he's not feeling guilty about something, then I've lost my mind. Talk about the classic symptoms. The other night I woke up, and he was standing by the bedroom window, just looking out, not moving. I asked why he was awake, and he kind of started and then he said that Teddy had been having a bad dream.”

Meg was dubious. This hardly sounded suspicious. “So you sleep more soundly than he does. Teddy
does
have bad dreams, doesn't he? All kids do.”

Christine shook her head. “Teddy has bad dreams sometimes. And yes, I sleep more soundly than Dan does. But Harding was down at the foot of the bed. When Teddy has a bad dream, he can't go back to sleep unless Harding's in bed with him, which is, believe me, just fine with Harding. The only way to keep him out of Teddy's bed is to shut his door. So that means Teddy's door was shut, which Dan would never do to a child who might call out again. And Harding wasn't in there.”

She traced the top of her coffee cup with her forefinger. “Oh, blast! I'm just going to say it. I have to talk to someone; I just have to! I was looking for my sunglasses the other day while Dan was taking a nap. And I'd looked everywhere, so I tried his truck because we'd been downtown together.”

She stretched out a leg to jam her hand down into her jeans pocket. She withdrew a crumpled piece of paper and pushed it across the table. “This was in the glove compartment.”

Meg smoothed the creases and looked at the paper. It was the purchaser's receipt for a money order. It was made out to a Leslie McAlester, and it was in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars. She looked up at Christine.

“No, there's no Leslie McAlester in town. Dan is not doing work for anyone named Leslie McAlester. Or any other McAlester. And that's a money order. If Dan was buying materials or refunding what he'd charged for a roof that blew off because he forgot to nail it down, he'd use a company check, not a money order. If, for some mysterious business reason, he used a money order, he'd fill in the blank line after ‘For.' It would say, ‘Italian floor tiles' or ‘Refund,' or
something.
This line is just blank. If he used company money for this, how are we going to get by? That would be the entire profit on the job he's been working on for three months.”

“You've got to talk to him.”

Christine looked past Meg's head, out the window next to the table. Her blue eyes were dull. “There isn't a single finch anywhere near the bird feeder,” she said. “I need to get some thistle.”

“Christine…”

“Somebody called this morning, really early. He talked in the hallway. Then, while the kids and I were eating breakfast, he went into the living room to make a call. There's a phone right here.”

“And you think it wasn't just a regular business call?”

“At seven-thirty? Maybe. But why go off to the living room?”

“For quiet?”

“Or for privacy.”

The question, thought Meg, was, did Christine really want to know? Surely she would have thought of how to find out, if she did.

Christine reached for the phone and pushed “redial.” She listened and hung up.

“It was the weather,” she said. “He called the weather.”

“Well, then,” said Meg, lifting her cup in a congratulatory gesture. “See, you
have
lost your mind. Isn't that a relief?”

Christine took the plates to the sink. She held them above her head and dropped them. China crashed against cast iron and broke to smithereens.

“He never calls the weather. He listens to the radio, which is free. That was a second call.
He
thought about redial, too.”

*   *   *

Meg sat by the edge of the creek, her arms around her knees. The water flashed in the sunlight. A cardinal sounded nearby, and a darting redness caught her eye. The creek made its noises, but Meg was not soothed. Fifteen thousand dollars!

She had spent most of the morning working, with varying degrees of success, and finished a unit of lessons. Needing something more active, she'd carried the abandoned boxes down from the attic and gone through them. None contained anything nice enough to have belonged to her great-aunt. They must have been left behind on purpose, filled, as they were, with the kinds of things that seem worth saving just long enough for one to find a carton and become rubbish the moment the lid is taped shut.

These lids weren't taped shut, though they once had been. It appeared that the tenant who'd left them had opened them to see if there was anything worth hauling to a new home. Meg reached the same conclusion that person had. There wasn't. There was an engagement calendar from seven years before, costume jewelry with broken clasps, half-used spools of thread, old letters, empty cologne bottles … There was no point in going through it all. There was nothing that could conceivably be of any value, though at least Meg could tell from the addresses on the few letters with envelopes that the boxes had belonged to Angie Morrison and that she had lived in several different places prior to taking up residence in Harrison, Pennsylvania. It wasn't surprising she'd abandoned the boxes. Meg didn't hesitate to dump the contents into large garbage bags and set them out by the toolshed, where they could stay until she'd gathered enough trash for a trip to the dump.

Someday soon, she'd have to take similar steps with the contents of the heavy built-in drawers at the back of the pantry. She had tugged them out while unpacking, seeking a place for tablecloths, and discovered a sizable collection of junk—rusty screws, dented ice-cube trays, a coiled clothesline, an electric frying pan with one of its legs missing. She'd pushed everything back in and stored the tablecloths on the shelves in the back bedroom closet. Worse than dealing with the drawers, she'd have to wash and repaint the shelves. That would be a major job. They rose to within eighteen inches of the ceiling, and Meg didn't even want to think about the depth of the dust and grime on the ones too high for her to see. She grimaced, thinking about it. Anything could be up there.

The dog was lying not far away, having returned from chasing something through the trees. She was wearing a collar. It had a ring for a leash to be snapped onto. It did not, however, have a rabies tag. The dog had submitted to a bath the day before, standing patiently in the creek and looking aggrieved. She smelled good.

Meg slapped her thigh encouragingly. The dog came closer and sat. Meg reached out and stroked her, moving down her sides and legs. The dog didn't move.

“Good girl,” said Meg.

The dog nudged her hand, and Meg resumed petting her. “We're going to go see this person called a vet,” she said. “I don't know if you've ever seen this kind of person, but you have to go because it's against the law for you not to have a rabies shot. I don't do things that are against the law, and it wouldn't be right for you to ask me to. I am trusting you to be nice in the waiting room. I know you like other dogs. Or put up with them at least. That is, if we can extrapolate from Harding. But you can't go growling at elderly gentlemen with their cats. Understand?”

The dog wagged her tail.

“Good,” said Meg.

*   *   *

Christine hadn't been home when Meg called, but Mike had recommended a veterinary clinic outside of town. “I've never filed a malpractice suit against any of them,” he said.

The waiting room at the clinic attested to its popularity. Unsure of her dog's sociability, Meg found a seat separated from other pets and looked around. A woman across the room, holding a puppy on her lap, seemed familiar. As Meg caught her eye, she nodded, smiled, and got up to move closer.

“You're Meg Kessinger, my son's coach, aren't you?” said the woman, glancing at Meg's dog. “What a … an interesting dog.” She sat down and placed the puppy on the floor, where it nuzzled against and pawed at Meg's dog. The older dog, to Meg's relief, responded tolerantly.

“
That's
where I know you from,” said Meg. “You're Brian's mother?”

The woman nodded. “Cheryl Warren,” she said. “I'm so glad you decided to coach. I wasn't going to let Brian play this year, but when I heard there was a new coach…”

Meg frowned slightly to indicate confusion.

“Brian was on Michael Mulcahy's team last year,” said Cheryl. “It was not a happy situation.”

She lifted the puppy back onto her lap and Meg reached over to pet it. It was a fat, wiggling cocker spaniel the color of honey.

“Never again,” said Cheryl.

“Why?” asked Meg. “Isn't Mike a good coach?”

“Oh, I shouldn't say anything,” said Cheryl. “I'm sure Mike is a wonderful coach for skilled players. But Brian's just a little boy, and it was hard on him, not being so skilled, to work with a coach who only really cares about winning.”