Dead Weight (9 page)

‘But how else are we going to find out anything?’ I asked.

‘I’m with Trisha on this,’ Tom said. ‘I really don’t want my client putting herself in harm’s way.’

‘I disagree,’ Ken said. ‘I think E.J.’s right. If Berta stays here we’ll never know anything. We’ll never know who Berta really is, or who killed my wife.’

‘I don’t mean any disrespect, Ken,’ Tom said. ‘We just met, and I didn’t know Kerry. But aren’t you thinking more about finding the murderer than you are about Berta’s well-being?’

‘No,’ Berta said. ‘Tom, don’t. He has every reason in the world to want to find out who killed Kerry. I don’t think either he or E.J. want to see me hurt. I’m just a big old scared-e-cat.’

‘No one’s saying that—’ I started.

‘I am,’ Berta said. ‘I’m scared of my own shadow. I leaned on Kerry for everything! She not only paid for my groceries, she went to the store and got them and brought them to me – I was too afraid to leave the house. The first time I ventured out was when we decided to try the twelve-step groups.’

‘You say when you woke up you knew you were in trouble, right?’ I asked.

‘Well, I was alone for quite a while before they discovered I was awake. It was like, well, I was lying there, all bandaged up, with a little buzz from the painkillers, and I didn’t know why any of this was happening, and I started asking myself why I might be there, and it didn’t take long to discover that I had no idea about that or who I was.’

‘But you realized you were in trouble?’ I persisted.

‘It was a feeling, at first. And as time moved on it became a certainty. Then the doctor came in and told me I’d been hit by a car, a hit-and-run driver,’ Berta said.

‘Who has paper and a pen?’ I asked the group in general. Tom the lawyer pulled his briefcase to the tabletop and pulled out a legal pad and pen.

I started a list called ‘facts,’ putting down ‘hit by a hit-and-run driver’ in the number one slot. ‘So you knew you were in trouble. What else did you know?’ Berta looked at me like I was special. ‘Do you have a favorite color? Do you prefer regular or Diet Coke? Or do you like Pepsi? Or Dr Pepper?’

‘Diet Coke,’ Berta said. ‘And blue. And I love Mexican food, but I’m not crazy about Chinese. I prefer Reeboks to Nikes and I don’t like sandals, which sucks in this weather. I like to wear lipstick but not much else make-up-wise, and I like NBC news the best. I like
Survivor
and the
Amazing Race
. Can’t stand the music shows or the dance ones. I prefer to wear blue jeans and although I think I might like shorts, I don’t wear them because of the weight I’ve gained. I think I’m usually thin. It took a lot to gain this weight. And, oh! I love ice cream! Rocky Road’s my favorite!’

Berta was smiling when she finished – the first smile I’d seen from her. And it was lovely. White, even teeth, the mouth full and generous, her eyes shining. I took that moment to really look at her eyes. ‘Your eyes,’ I said. ‘They’re violet! Like Elizabeth Taylor’s!’

Berta pointed her finger at me. ‘I know who that is!
Cleopatra
!’

Trisha grinned at me. ‘She likes old movies!’

Both men had leaned forward and were studying Berta’s eyes.

‘Wow,’ Tom said. ‘They are violet!’

‘Violet, like purple?’ Ken said. ‘’Cause her eyes are purple!’

‘Violet’s a lighter shade of purple,’ Trisha told Ken.

‘Really pretty,’ Ken said.

Berta’s face was turning scarlet. ‘And she blushes!’ I said, adding that to my list that was growing longer.

‘And I prefer baths over showers,’ Berta said, ‘and turkey over ham at the holidays.’

‘What holidays have you had since your accident?’ I asked.

‘Ah,’ Berta started, looking around, ‘well, Kerry brought me leftovers from Thanksgiving last year and Christmas.’

‘But we had ham at Thanksgiving,’ Ken said, ‘and leg of lamb at Christmas.’

‘Then how do you know you prefer turkey?’ I asked Berta.

The smile left her face and she stared at me. Finally she said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s a memory!’ Trisha said, jumping up and down in her seat.

‘I’ll be damned if it isn’t!’ I said, smiling.

‘What if I have a family? What if I have kids? We’ve established that I’m in my mid-thirties – which is the age Kerry was – so I should have a family, right? The age of Kerry’s twins or younger, right? What if I left them alone to come to Codderville and now they think I’ve abandoned them?’ She began to cry. ‘How selfish am I that it took me this long to even consider those I probably left behind? Oh my God, what if I’m married?’ And the sobs began for real.

I grabbed her hand. ‘Berta, we’re going to find out. I swear to you, we will.’

SIX

L
ater that afternoon we all met at the house to get ready for Graham’s graduation. He had the highest GPA of his graduating class, but because of his antics with the cherry bombs, wasn’t allowed to be valedictorian. Or to graduate with his class. I got the kids upstairs to get dressed, Willis in our room to actually put on a tie, and answered the door when the doorbell rang. Vera, Willis’s mother, stood on the front porch.

‘I brought a pie,’ she said, thrusting said pie in my general direction as she moved around me into the house.

‘Thanks,’ I said. It was pecan. Vera Pugh’s home-made pecan pie. My favorite. I took a deep whiff then hurried into the kitchen to hide it from myself.

‘I hope that young man has learned his lesson,’ Vera said, sitting at the kitchen table, tiny feet not touching the floor.

‘I hope so, too,’ I agreed.

‘What was he thinking?’ she said.

I shrugged. I could hear the pecan pie calling to me. It was a siren’s song – so sweet.

Willis came out of the bedroom. On seeing me still in my robe, he said, ‘Are you going to get dressed?’

I shot him a look. About this time he noticed his mother. ‘Oh, hey, Ma. I didn’t know you were here.’

‘If you’d known, I hope you wouldn’t have talked to your wife in that manner, young man!’ she said. I didn’t have the easiest of relationships with Vera Pugh, but right then I could have kissed her.

‘I’m off to get dressed,’ I said.

‘About time,’ Vera said.

I ignored her as best I could. This was certainly a dress-up occasion but I wasn’t about to wear my little black dress again. This called for something festive. OK, I admit it, I’d gone wild when I bought the black dress. For a woman who heretofore had worn nothing but blue jeans and T-shirts everywhere but to church, I had a vastly different wardrobe to go with my new body. I picked one of the four dresses I’d bought – a white spaghetti-strapped sundress with a skirt with a graduating floral design that ended in a riot of color at the hem. I found a necklace that went well with it and stepped out of the bedroom into the kitchen.

Willis and Vera were still sitting at the kitchen table, and had been joined by three of my four children. Megan, of course, was the tardy one.

‘Whoa!’ my husband said on seeing me.

Vera beamed. ‘I always said you should wear more dresses. You look very nice.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. I may have blushed. Or maybe not.

‘Yeah, Mom,’ Graham said, ‘you’re looking good.’

‘Love the dress, E.J.,’ Alicia said, and Bess just smiled at me.

Megan finally came down and, upon seeing me, said, ‘Nice dress. Can I borrow it?’ Her highest form of compliment.

We managed to get the entire crowd into the minivan and headed to the high school. The extra graduation ceremony (the one paid for by the parents of the four cherry-bombing bad boys) was to be held in the school’s theatre. We dropped Graham off at the back and drove to the front. Since there were only four boys graduating, the parking spaces were plentiful. Willis parked the minivan in front and we trooped in.

One of the women from the committee was in the foyer, right at the doors leading into the theatre. She was handing out programs, which were quite small. We found seats near the front, next to the parents of Graham’s partners in crime, and I glanced at the program. All this trouble and they’d misspelled Pugh. Graham’s name was listed as ‘Graham Pug.’ Good thing this was the end of high school; if it had been the beginning, he would have been stuck with the moniker for four years.

It appears we didn’t merit the principal, or even the vice principal. The diplomas were handed out by the school counselor, who appeared totally bored with the entire thing.

But that didn’t matter. We got to stand up as a family when Graham appeared and cheer like he was a Beatle. After, we went out to dinner as a family at an Olive Garden that had just opened in Black Cat Ridge.

I sat back and watched my family, the kids picking on each other, Willis laughing at them, and even Vera with a smile on her face. I was happy. That never bodes well.

The next day Willis had taken a half day off work, which he occasionally does when he’s not hip deep in it. Although things had gone well the night before, for some reason he seemed to no longer be speaking to me.

‘I discovered a new restaurant in Codderville yesterday,’ I said. He was sitting on the sofa in the family room, a
Popular Mechanics
magazine in front of him. He made no reply to my opening gambit.

‘I only had iced tea and the menu was vegetarian, but it looked cool. Reminded me of college,’ I said. ‘Molly’s Munchies. Have you heard of it?’

Direct question. Would he be childish and not answer? Or would he be adult and let this go? Or somewhere in the middle.

‘Yes,’ he said, taking the middle ground.

‘You ever go there?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I loved the patchouli and Grateful Dead posters. Very retro.’

‘Um,’ he said.

‘How was the food?’ This would get him. No way could he answer with a yes or no!

‘OK,’ he said.

‘I want to rip off your clothes, stick your junk in hummus and lick it off,’ I said.

He put down his magazine and stared at me. ‘You always think you can sway me with sex, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You always think no matter what you’ve done, I’ll forgive you just for a romp in the hay.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He stood up. ‘You’re mostly right,’ he said, coming over and picking me up in his arms. ‘Lose another ten pounds and this would be a lot easier,’ he said. I forgave him as we headed into the bedroom.

Twenty minutes later we heard Megan coming in the front door and scrambled to get dressed.

‘You promised me hummus,’ Willis said.

‘Next time,’ I countered.

‘I’m supposed to forgive you now, right?’ he said.

I stopped, blue jeans halfway up. ‘Forgive me? For what? Not
obeying
you? Remember I took that part out of our marriage ceremony!’

‘Are we going to start this again?’ he demanded.

‘I believe you started it!’ I shouted.

‘Don’t shout at me!’ he shouted.

‘You stop first!’ I shouted.

He pulled me to him John Wayne-style and slapped a big, fat, sloppy kiss on me.

‘I think we’re going to have to stay in bed until this thing is over,’ he whispered in my ear.

‘Probably,’ I whispered back.

‘Mo-om!’ Megan said, opening the door. Willis and I sprang away from each other.

‘Oh, gross!’ she said. ‘Were y’all doing it in the middle of the afternoon?’ she said, following that with a retching sound.

‘We were taking a nap,’ I said. ‘Daddy came home because he wasn’t feeling well.’

Megan shook her head. ‘And then you lie to your innocent child. I’m not sure which is worse,’ Megan said, still shaking her head as she turned and left the room. ‘Azalea and D’Wanda’s brother is taking us to the mall. I’ll be back by curfew.’

I knew Trisha was actually paying Megan money to watch TV while she was gone (God knows and I know Megan wasn’t actually watching Trisha’s daughters). I could only hope that what Megan brought home from the mall was at least PG13 and not triple X. My daughter had inherited my chest, which is not a terrible thing for an adult woman to deal with, but a teenage girl has to deal with teenage boys and a thirty-two D cup is more than teenage boys can handle without an immediate cold shower. She had tried to leave the house with three buttons unbuttoned on a shirt, only to have me button them right back up again before she got out the door. Yes, I know, she just unbuttons them once out of my sight, but I do what I can. I buy two-size-too-big T-shirts, only to catch her washing them in hot water. I take them away and give them to her sisters. It’s a battle I’ll be waging until she goes off to college and/or gets pregnant and they droop.

I left the bedroom and headed into the kitchen, opening the freezer. ‘Graham’s doing the night shift tonight, and Bess and Alicia are doing something at the church—’

‘It’s a sleepover,’ Willis said. ‘A lock-in. Why isn’t Megan going?’

I shrugged. ‘She said she was going to the mall.’

‘You let that child run wild,’ he said.

I looked inside the open freezer. ‘Nothing in here worth defrosting,’ I told Willis, while looking at a plentiful assortment of defrostable food. ‘How about we go out to eat?’ I slammed the freezer door and turned to look at my husband.

He was back on the couch, magazine back in his hands. ‘You really think I’m going to take you out to dinner and ignore all of this?’

‘All of what?’ I said, my voice cold as ice.

He threw down the magazine and stood up. ‘You know what! I don’t want you involved in another goddam murder, E.J.! How many times and in how many ways do I have to say it?’

‘Tell you what,’ I said, straightening my jeans and grabbing my purse, ‘I’ll check and see if Trisha or Berta – oh, hell, both! – would like to go out to dinner! I’m a little tired of dealing with you!’

‘You’re tired? Put yourself in my shoes! Every time you walk out the door, I’m not sure if you’re coming back! I feel like the husband of a cop or something, and I’m not! At least they get a paycheck! You’re just doing this for . . . I don’t know, what, E.J.? Why are you doing this? For kicks? Is that it? Is it fun for you? Because it certainly isn’t fun for me! You’re going to get yourself killed and I’m going to end up being a single dad to four kids, two of whom I never wanted!’