Fast Women (44 page)

"And embezzling from OD fifteen years later with Lynnie," Nell said, over her vinegar and fries.

"And then Margie hits him with her pitcher and he disappears," Suze said.

"Unbelievable," Riley said, looking at the newsletter again.

"And Lynnie hits the road because she thinks Stewart will call her to join him and because she doesn't want to take the heat for the embezzling," Gabe said. "Then seven years later, she shows up on our doorstep and convinces Riley's mother to take a vacation. And she begins to blackmail Trevor and Jack and Budge and Margie for Stewart's disappearance."

"She got Budge for embezzling," Nell said, frowning. "That doesn't fit."

"Budge is the one who busted Stewart and Lynnie for embezzling," Riley said. "He always tattles. It fits."

"Why'd she come back now?" Nell said.

"Seven years," Riley said. "They were going to declare Stewart dead and collect the insurance. Except Margie kept stonewalling." He grinned. "Like father, like daughter."

"So she blackmails Margie and Trevor goes to meet her?" Nell said. "Is that it?"

"Or Budge," Suze said. "Or Budge might have told Jack. Budge tells Jack everything."

"And whoever it is tells her that there's been a snag in the insurance and to back off from Margie, but there are diamonds at our place," Riley said. "There is a way this makes sense."

"Why does Trevor care about the diamonds?" Suze said. "He has plenty of money."

"Because they were the last loose end," Gabe said. "My dad died without telling him where they were. And he couldn't come to me to look for them without telling me everything. So he-"

"Waited," Nell finished for him. "Did he kill Lynnie?"

"It could have been Jack," Suze said, her voice small. "He could have met her and done the same thing. He'd do anything to protect that law firm."

"We have to give this to the police," Gabe said. "Let them track it down."

Riley nodded. "Couldn't agree with you more."

"So is there a chance that Stewart's back?" Suze said. "Is Margie in trouble?"

"No," Nell said. "Lynnie said she was working alone. She didn't lie to me."

"Your faith in her is touching," Gabe said. "She lied to everybody."

Not me, Nell thought, and stood up. "I'm tired. I'm calling it a night. Suze?"

"I think I'll stay a little longer," Suze said, not looking at Riley.

Good for you, Nell thought.

"I'll give you a ride," Gabe said to Nell, and her pulse kicked up when he smiled.

His hand felt good under her arm again as he walked her out to the car, and when he was sitting beside her in the dark, she said, "I missed you." He leaned over and kissed her, and she said, "I missed the car, too. Do you think-"

"Not a chance," he said and started the car.

When they pulled up in front of the duplex, Nell said, "Are you ever going to let me drive this car?" and he leaned over and kissed her again, a long slow kiss this time, and then he said, "No."

"This relationship needs work," she said, but she kissed him again before she went inside.

She was asleep when she first heard the yelling, like part of a dream. Then Marlene barked, and she woke up and heard Suze screaming her name, and she sat up and inhaled smoke and heard muted crackling outside her door that could only be flames. She rolled out of bed and the floor was warm, and she grabbed Marlene, who yelped and tried to squirm out of her arms, and went to the door, her heart pounding.

The only way out was the stairs, so she opened the door slowly when she saw smoke and then all the way when she didn't see fire. She dropped to the floor, Marlene under one arm, and began to crawl, one-handed, toward the head of the stairs, trying to stay under the worst of the smoke.

She could hear Suze outside screaming, "Nell," but she was afraid to yell back, she needed all the oxygen she could get. At the top of the stairs, she could see an orange glow from below, and Marlene squirmed harder and fishtailed out of her arms to run back into the bedroom. Nell scrambled after her and found her back on the bed, pushing her nose under the chenille throw, and she gathered the dog up so that the throw wrapped around her and covered her eyes, and this time she made a dash for the stairs. She stumbled down through the orange light, afraid to look behind her until she got to the door. Then she turned around just for a second and stopped, horror-stricken.

The center of the apartment was an inferno, her grandmother's dining set glowing orange before her eyes. The glass cracked in the hutch, the Susie Cooper figurine fell forward, almost in slow motion, as the Clarice figure followed, looking over her shoulder as she slid down the glass door and the glass shelf collapsed under her. The kestrel teapot fell down onto the Stroud tureen and cracked the cartouche, and the Secrets plates pitched forward and crashed onto fragile bone china, which shattered on impact, bubble trees and houses and crescents and swirls, shattering in front of her

Then Riley was there, frantic, yelling, "Come on," and she said, "My china," and he pulled her out into the spring night, across the street to Suze who was crying and Doris who was swearing. The fire trucks were there, and she realized she'd heard the sirens all along. She looked over Riley's shoulder to the apartment, to the furnace that had been her living room, and thought of Clarice and Susie, melting and cracking, all those memories, all that beauty, murdered and gone.

"Somebody did this," she said to Riley when she was standing barefoot in the cold grass. "Somebody-"

Suze pushed Riley out of the way and hugged her. "Oh, thank God you got Marlene, I thought you were dead, I thought you were both dead."

"I think you saved me," Nell said, keeping her back to the house as a car fishtailed to a stop beyond them. "I woke up when I heard you scream, I-"

She heard a car door slam, and then Gabe said, "What the fuck is going on?" and she turned and went to him, letting him wrap his arms around her and Marlene both, and only then did she realize that Marlene was struggling to get out of the chenille. She leaned back a little and pulled the blanket off Marlene's head, and Marlene barked, three times, sharp high barks on the edge of hysteria, but she didn't try to get down.

"This is what I saved from the fire," she told Gabe. "Marlene and a blanket. Everything else is gone. All my china. My grandmother's dining room set. The rest of it I don't care about, but, Gabe, all my china. My grandma's china is gone."

Even as she said it, she knew she was being frivolous, she was safe and Marlene was safe and so was Suze, they weren't losing anything really important, but she knew when she closed her eyes again, she'd see Clarice, flirting back over her china shoulder, falling into the perfect world of the Stroud cartouche, everything shattering.

Two hours later, Nell sat exhausted at Gabe's kitchen table in one of Lu's nightgowns, still overwhelmed, while Marlene dozed in her lap.

"You need sleep," Gabe said.

"I'll never get the smoke out of those blue pajamas."

"No," Gabe said. "I wouldn't even try."

"You used to like them."

"I liked what was in them. If you remember, I got rid of them as soon as possible every time."

"Right," Nell said and tried to smile.

An hour later, she was in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the comforting sound of Marlene's snores, hearing that crackle again, and the crash of the china. Susie's crescent bowls and kestral teapots, Clarice's Stroud and Secrets. The china had rung with her mother's and her grandmother's voices. Tim had bought her the pieces to the Secrets teaser one by one when he still loved her. Jase had given her the sugar bowl when he was ten, his face lit with excitement. Her throat grew tight. The son of a bitch who'd torched her apartment had dissolved her past, melted it down into slag. It was almost more than she could bear, and she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow and wept until she gasped.

Eventually she realized there was something cold on her neck, and she pulled back from the pillow to find Marlene, poking at her with her nose, probably telling her to keep it down. "Sorry, puppy," she said, and Marlene licked the tears from her cheek, and then Nell broke down again, cuddling the dog to her while Marlene licked her face. When she finally stopped crying, Marlene flopped down on the bed, exhausted, and Nell kissed her furry little head and went into the bathroom to wash off the tears and the dog spit.

She scrubbed her face hard and then looked in the mirror. Her face was full, her cheeks ruddy from the towel, her eyes tired but bright. She'd survived divorce and depression and arson and life in general, and now she was going to survive the loss of her china, too.

She was suddenly so tired, she wanted to sleep on the bathroom floor. She plodded back to Lu's bedroom and saw into Gabe's room. He'd left his door open so he could hear her if she called, and in the moonlight from the skylight, she could see him asleep in his bed, his dark hair a slash against the white pillows.

She went in and crawled under the covers with him, and he woke and made room for her, circling her with his arm as she sank into his bed.

"I almost died tonight," she said.

"I know." He tightened his arm around her.

"I lost everything."

"You've still got me."

"Thank God," she said and buried her face in his shoulder.

"I think we should get married," Gabe said after a minute, and she pulled away from him.

"What?"

"After I dropped you off, I thought about what you said, about me not changing, that I'd tell you you're a partner just to get you back. And you're right. I would. I'd tell you damn near anything to get you back."

"I know," she said. "I'd believe damn near anything to get you back."

"So let's make it legal and binding," he said. "Let's get married for the reason marriage was invented, to make sure we take each other seriously and stick with each other through the bad times and don't quit because that's easier than making it work. I sign over half of my half of the agency to you. You put the money from the insurance agency into the business. We divide up the responsibilities three ways with Riley, and we make the big decisions together. No wishy-washy feel-good promises. We put it down on paper and sign it."

Nell felt dizzy. "Riley will have fifty percent. That's a controlling share. Can you stand that?"

"Against you and me? In his dreams. He wouldn't want control anyway. And besides, two years from now, he's going to give half of his half away, too."

"You'd give me half of your share," Nell said, her heart pounding. "Even though you don't-"

"If I don't, you'll take all of it," Uabe said. "And then we'll both be miserable. Look, I can't create an epiphany here. You're right, I still don't see how you can demand an equal voice in an agency you've worked at for seven months and I've run for twenty years. But you've sure as hell got an equal voice in my personal life, so I'm willing to take the rest on trust."

This is it, Nell thought. Whatever she decided, he'd take her seriously. If she married him, she'd be a partner, but she'd be answerable to him forever. He swore now it was what he wanted, but now he was shaken and desperate. She'd have to trust that when the apartment fire was just a memory, when passion cooled, when he was tired and they disagreed about work and he regretted giving up what he'd had, that then he'd still honor his promise, that he'd be faithful to it even though he didn't want to be, that he'd pay the price for the deal he made tonight.

That was a lot to take on trust.

"Will you marry me?" Gabe said.

"Maybe," she said.

"Not the answer I was looking for," he said, "but it's a start," and she curled against him in the circle of his arm, her arm across his chest, and felt safe as she finally fell asleep.

Nell met the fire marshal at eight the next morning and told him everything she knew.

"It looked like somebody set out to burn your china cabinet," he said. "Shoved a lot of paper on the bottom shelf and lit it. What I can't figure out is why anybody would want to burn a bunch of dishes."

"Symbolism," Nell said. "It's personal. I don't know who did it, but it was somebody who knew I loved that china."

"The police found a vandalized car a couple blocks from your place with kerosene cans in the backseat. Looks like somebody stole it, and then somebody else slashed the tires while the first guy was at your place. It belongs to a Jack Dysart. Ring any bells?"

"A few," Nell said and explained the situation to him. When he was gone, she went back upstairs and thought about Jack, about how much he hated her. Would he torch her hutch just for revenge on the same day he'd tried to kiss her? And then leave his car sitting around with kerosene cans in it? That made no sense.

But Budge might. He hated her that much for Margie. Would he frame Jack for it?

That was such a ridiculous thought-Budge was a lot of things, but he wasn't devious-that she knew she was tired. She took off Lu's sweats and crawled back into Gabe's bed, and Marlene jumped up beside her. She was going to have to call Tim and say, "You know that renter's insurance I bought from you? Pay up." Nell lay back and tried to imagine Tim's face when he read the itemization of Marlene's wardrobe: one dachshund angel costume, one dachshund cashmere sweater with heart, one dachshund trenchcoat…that stuff hadn't been cheap.

She heard Gabe come in the apartment and forgot Marlene's trenchcoat.

"Nell?" he called, and she called back, "In here," and waited for him with her heart beating faster.

"Tired?" he said sympathetically, and she said, "Not exactly."

"I ran into Suze on the stairs and told her you were moving in here," he said. "In fact, you're in since you've got nothing left to move."

Nell nodded. "I didn't even ask, where did Suze spend last night?"

"Riley's bed," Gabe said. "He was on the couch. Don't ask me what they're doing, I don't know. I don't care as long as you're in here with me."

There was something in his certainty that hummed in her veins. It was like a tuning fork, when you heard the right note from the right person, it vibrated inside you.

She smiled at him. "Do you know how long its been since anybody made love to me?"

"To the minute," he said, coming toward her.

"I think I'm going to be better soon," she said, and then he crawled into bed with her and put his arms around her and she was.

When she woke up, Gabe was gone, and Suze was shaking her. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty. It's four. Margie didn't show up to run The Cup today, and she sounded funny when I called her. I think Budge is pushing her over the edge. I quit work early so we could go get her out of there. We have to go up there to get our old clothes anyway."

"What?" Nell sat up and yawned, squinting at Suze who was lost in a gray T-shirt that said "FBI" on it in big black letters and a pair of black sweats that pooled around her ankles. "Cute."

"One of the many reasons we're going to Margie's," Suze said.

"Right," Nell said and got out of bed. "She sounded funny when you called her?"

"Very," Suze said.

"So we'll hurry," Nell said.

"The boxes of your clothes are all down in the basement," Margie said, after she'd been horrified about the fire and wept for Nell's china, all in the space of about five minutes.

"Great," Nell said cautiously. "You know, Margie, you should come back to the Village with us. It'll be like a slumber party."

"Oh, I can't possibly. I'm selling my Franciscan Desert Rose on eBay. If I sell it all this week, I can start buying the Fiestaware without filing for Stewart's insurance. Isn't that a good idea?" Margie's cheeks had two bright circles on them, and her eyes glowed, and her milk glass was full.

"Super," Suze said, casting a doubtful look at Nell.

"And you can help!"

"Okay," Nell said. "What do you need?"

"You bring up the extra pieces from the basement," Margie said. "I've done all the pieces up here, but I got tired running up and down those stairs." She stopped and smiled at them. "And dizzy."

"Stay off the stairs, Marge," Suze said, and they went to the basement. "We have to do something about her," she said when they reached the bottom. "She hasn't stopped drinking since we left her yesterday. It's that damn Budge, pressuring her about the insurance, not letting her move out of here. She has to get out of here and start over again. Without him."

"For right now, we get our clothes back and take her the Franciscanware." Nell pulled the chain on the light and Margie's basement sprang into view: an old bicycle, a lopsided plastic Christmas tree, a chest freezer with the boxes of their clothes stacked on it next to an ugly golf trophy, and floor-to-ceiling shelves with box after box after box labeled "Desert Rose." It was a sad comment on the extent of Margie's existence: her ex-husband's freezer, her inlaws' clothes, and her stockpile against an earthenware shortage.

My basement used to look like this, full of china and other people's things, Nell thought. Of course, now she didn't have a basement. Or china.

"How much of this stuff does she have?" Suze said, appalled.

"More than God." Nell squinted at the boxes that filled the shelves on the far wall. One was labeled "sandwich sets," another "cake plate," another "pitcher," and another one just said "cups." There must have been twenty boxes there, all with "Franciscan Desert Rose" printed at the top in Margie's neat little script.

"Did you find the boxes?" Margie called from upstairs.

Nell looked at the wall of Franciscanware. "Yes."

An hour later, they had their clothes in Suze's Beetle and most of the Franciscanware upstairs, and Margie was much calmer, typing in descriptions and posting to the auction site.

"It's like therapy," Suze said when they went down for the last of the boxes.

"It's mindless," Nell said. "Maybe if we let her go for a while longer on the computer, we can get her out of here without a fight, and she'll be okay." She looked around the now almost barren basement and added, "We just have to get her out of here."

Suze picked up a box and read the side. "An entire box of cups?" She put it down, pushed the golf trophy out of the way on the freezer, and boosted herself up on the dustsmeared top. "I'm exhausted. No sleep last night, I worked all day, and now I'm schlepping two thousand pieces of this stuff. How long ago did she lose her grip?"

"Oh, please, how many running egg cups did you own?" Nell said. "You don't even eat eggs in cups. Come on. Let's get the last of this upstairs before she changes her mind and decides to keep it."

"She can't," Suze said, sliding off the freezer. "She needs the room for her incoming two thousand pieces of Fiestaware." Suze dusted off the seat of Riley's sweats. "You know, while she's at it, she should get rid of Stewart's golf trophy and Stewart's freezer. After all, she got rid of Stewart."

"Let's just get her out of the house." Nell slid a box labeled "breakfast set" off the shelf and then, as she turned, caught sight of the freezer chest with the golf trophy sitting on top like a tombstone.

Don't be ridiculous, she told herself.

"What?" Suze said.

You're just sensitive about freezers, Nell told herself. Lynnie would make anybody morbid about ice cubes.

"Why are you looking at the freezer like that?" Suze said.

Nell put her box down on the concrete floor, her heart pounding like mad.

"You're breathing funny," Suze said, breathing a little funny herself.

Nell swallowed and walked over to the freezer. She picked up the trophy carefully and set it on the floor, and then she took a deep breath and tried to lift the lid.

It was locked.

"We need a key," she told Suze.

"I'll get it," Suze said and came back a minute later with the key, saying, "Margie didn't even ask me why."

The lid stuck at first, and then gave way with a creak, as if it hadn't been opened in years, like a casket in a Vincent Price movie. But when Nell looked inside, it was full to the brim with everyday white packages labeled in black marker "porterhouse, 6/93" and "sirloin, 5/93."

"Thank God." Nell leaned on the side of the freezer in relief. "Talk about a morbid imagination."

"They're all from 1993," Suze said, her voice sounding odd. "They haven't used this freezer since Stewart left."

They looked at each other, and then they began to unload the top layer of white packages.

"This stuff should be thrown 'out anyway," Nell said, stacking beef. "It can't be any good anymore."

"If it was, Margie wouldn't eat it," Suze said. "It's not-"

Her breath went out on a whoosh, and Nell forced herself to look at Suze's end of the freezer.

There, wrapped in green plastic, one cheek against a package labeled "grilled hamburgers 6/93" and the other next to a package labeled "grilled porkchops 5/93," was something the size of a man's head.

Nell swallowed and took a deep breath and then she tore the brittle plastic away. Beneath it was an unpleasantly blue, pudgy face topped by blond hair with a lot of brown stuff crusted in it.

"Stewart," Nell said.