It Started With A House: Lizzie. Book 1 (The Westport Mysteries) (24 page)

Chapter
Twenty Four

Later
that night, lying in Riley’s bed, lights out, I let the events of the evening
play through my mind. I felt a whole lot better now that everyone—well
almost everyone—knew about Scott. I felt like a huge weight had been
lifted off my shoulders. Once I told Mum and Dad, I could get on with my life
and put Scott behind me. Listening closely, I could hear Riley moving around on
the couch.

“Riley? Are you
awake?” I called out quietly.

“Yep. I’m
awake.”

“Are you okay? You
haven’t said very much tonight.”

“Yeah…I’ve just
got a bit on my mind, that’s all.”

“I was thinking
I’m going to move back home tomorrow. There’s not much point to staying here
now he knows I’m here.”

I heard Riley
sit up. “Who knows you’re here?”

“Sedan Man. He
was here today.”

I quickly
filled Riley in on my visitor that afternoon and by the time I’d finished, he
was sitting beside me on the bed, taking up way too much air space.

“I really
appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but it’s time for you to have your
life back.”

Walking away
from Riley would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it was getting
too painful to be so close to him all the time.

“I promise you,
Lizzie, if you move back to your house then I will be moving in there with you.
At least until this is over.”

“But that’s not
fair to you. This is my messy life and I need to learn to sort it out for
myself.”

“How do you
think I would feel if I stayed here and something happened to you? I would
never forgive myself.”

I have to admit
I did sleep a lot better when Riley was around. I felt him shift his weight on
the mattress. “Why didn’t you tell me about Scott?”

The answer to
that was easy. Telling Riley about it was a whole lot harder.

“Riley, you don’t
have to feel responsible for me,” I said, trying my hardest to ignore his last
question. “Take tonight for example—you could have been out dating some
gorgeous woman, instead you’re stuck here with me and my crazy family and all
the dramas that come with the package.”

“I’m not stuck
with you, Lizzie,” Riley said, patiently. “And I happen to like your family. Life’s
never dull with you all around.” I could feel him smile in the darkness. God,
this was torture. I could not only smell him, but I could feel him too. “And
you didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you tell me about Scott? If I’d known
about it, I would have handled things a whole lot differently.”

“It’s
humiliating,” I said in a small voice. “I just want to pretend the last two and
a half years never happened and hide in a hole for a while.”

I couldn’t bear
it any longer. Thank goodness the lights were out and I didn’t have to see the
look of pity in Riley’s eyes. Slinking down in the bed, I pulled the sheets up
over my head and hid. I felt Riley move, obviously unsure of how to handle me. After
a while, he took the hint and left me alone to sulk.

* * * *

Sunday
night came around way too quickly for my liking. It was time to tell Mum and
Dad about Scott. I couldn’t put it off any longer. To make matters worse—Lord
only knows how—Riley had scored an invite. He’d worked on my house all
day and had been playfully teasing me that tomorrow my newly renovated bath and
shower would be fitted.

We hadn’t spoken
anymore about me moving back home, but my mind was made up. With the bathroom
in, I no longer had any excuses to stay at his house. I suspected Riley had
accepted the job in Loganville and wanted my place finished so he could move on
and not have any loose ends. Working at the house all weekend, we’d only
spotted the black sedan once, yesterday. Riley went running out to try to grab
the driver. He’d quickly driven off as Riley approached and we haven’t seen him
since.

Walking into
Mum’s, we found everyone in the lounge and heard Molly squealing.

“Eew. That’s
disgusting! Andrew has been drinking from that glass,” she squirmed. Looking
over at Danny, I could see he was drinking out of Drew’s glass.

“So?” said
Danny looking at her.

Personally, I
didn’t see the problem with it but I knew Scott had pretty much the same
reaction when I drank from his glass once.

“Why is that so
gross? He sticks his tongue in my mouth when he kisses me, so what’s different
about it?”

Good point. One
to which Molly had no response as she picked up her own glass and drank, all
while glaring at Danny.

“If you have a
problem with that, lucky you weren’t at the party Drew and I went to the other
night. It wasn’t just drinks people were sharing,” Danny chuckled at Molly’s
reaction.

I looked over
to Dad and could see he’d gone very still, not quite sure what Danny was
talking about.

“Everybody went
dressed as the opposite sex. I went in my high heels, red g-string and little
black dress. Drew here, was hysterical. He went dressed as a sexy granny, with
the knitted cardigan and long socks under a sexy little dress.”

This image made
me smile. I could not picture Andrew, who always dressed very conservatively,
dressed as a sexy granny. To prove his point, Danny pulled out his iPhone and
started showing us all the photos. Dad couldn’t take it anymore. He had a lot
of tolerance for gay couples, but to see his own son cross-dressing, even if it
was for a fancy dress party, was obviously too much for him.

“I’m going
outside. Call me when dinner’s ready,” he said, heading for the back door.

“Ha,” laughed Grandma.
“That reminds me of a fella when I was younger. Well, maybe I shouldn’t call
him a fella. It was really a girl. She used to dress as a man all the time so
people wouldn’t know she and her partner were them lesbians. Of course we all
knew. Even though, she was a very convincing man. She certainly wasn’t the prettiest
girl I’ve ever seen.”

Danny passed
the phone to Grandma. She took one look at Drew in the photo and burst out laughing.
She laughed so hard her teeth flew out of her mouth, across the room and landed
at Molly’s feet. In one fast movement, Grandma was up out of her chair, raced
over to Molly, picked her teeth up and popped them back in her mouth. Looking
around the room at us, she smiled as if nothing had happened.

The look on
Molly’s face was priceless. She was so grossed out that Grandma’s teeth came
within a millimeter of her, she was almost frozen in place. Danny and I burst
out laughing, while Andrew was slightly more composed, managing to discreetly
cover his laugh. Riley just had the full on smile. Mum looked horrified. I’m
not sure what horrified her more, Grandma’s teeth flying across the lounge room
or the fact Grandma put them back in her mouth without washing them.

Riley leaned
over and whispered in my ear, “See, I told you it was never boring when your
family’s around.”

* * * *

After
we’d all eaten, I volunteered to help Mum with the dishes. I will admit I had
an ulterior motive. I wanted to tell her about Scott without all the family
listening in.

“So, what did
you want to talk to me about that couldn’t be said in front of everyone else?”

I hadn’t said a
word about needing to talk to her. “Can’t I help with the dishes without having
a reason?”

“Yes, you can. But
usually you don’t,” she said, staring me down.

“Okay!” Taking
a deep breath, I continued on. “Scott and I broke up.” Holding my breath, I
waited for her to respond.

“What did you
do?”

Why did
everyone always think it was me? “I didn’t
do
anything! Scott was playing up and I caught him.” The familiar lump sat in the
back of my throat again. Looking down at the ground, I saw Mum’s big toe start
to tap. This was a habit she had when she was getting angry. As kids, it was
our cue to run.

“Well, Karma
will get him. What goes around comes around.” She turned to face the sink and
started on the washing up. Molly, who’d been standing in the wings, came over
and put her arm around my shoulder.

“Karma
sometimes gets a bit of help,” she said with a smile.

Oh no. I can
only imagine what little plan she’d been concocting. “It’s okay. I’m not
bothered by it. I just want to move on and forget all about him.”

“But what about
work? You’ll have to see him there,” snapped Mum. She was obviously pretty
upset about my news.

“Yeah, about
that.”

Let’s just say
the conversation that followed was not a pleasant one.

* * * *

Later
that night, lying in the dark and listening to Riley breathing, I started to
think about the party Danny and Drew went to. The photo of Danny in his red
g-string had been the most disturbing. Danny was way too hairy to be a
convincing girl. Before long my brain started on a bit of a path that led me to
thinking about the person I see on my walks. You know, the one who I tried to
get Riley to figure out if they were male or female? Anyway, I started thinking
about Avis and Will and the photo I’d once owned of the two of them standing on
my front porch.

All of a sudden
the pieces clicked into place. How Avis’s letters had read that they couldn’t
be together, how people didn’t understand them and how Will had said he had
changed for Avis. Of course he’d changed. Will was a girl.

Jumping out of
bed, I ran down the stairs and stood in front of Riley. Looking at him in the semi-darkness,
lying there asleep, naked from the waist up, I almost forgot what I’d come down
for. Oh, yes, that’s it. Putting my hand on his shoulder, I gently shook him
until he woke up.

“Riley. Riley. Wake
up.”

“What’s wrong?”
he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“I’ve figured
it out!” I said excitedly. “All this time the answer was right in front of us.”

“What are you talking
about, Lizzie?” he asked.

“Avis and Will.
I know why they couldn’t be together.”

I sat on the
lounge next to him, my hand touching his leg in my excitement. Riley leaned
around and turned the lamp on. Blinking in the bright light, it took me a
minute for my eyes to adjust. Wow, that’s better, I can see his muscles a whole
lot better now. Gee, I’d really like to trace the hair on his stomach right
down to where it disappears into his pajama pants.

“Why couldn’t
they be together?”

“Hmm? What?” I
asked. Feeling a bit flushed, I looked up at Riley and wondered what the hell
he was talking about.

“Avis and Will.
Why couldn’t they be together? You just woke me up to tell me.”

“Oh! That’s
right.” Getting my thoughts back to where they should be, I said, “Will was a
woman.”

Riley didn’t
say much to this, he just sat and stared at me, then rubbed his eyes a little
bit more.

“I must be
really tired, because I thought you just said Will was a woman.”

“I did. Think
about it. All the things written in the letters, the fact their families didn’t
approve of them,” I said ticking off my fingers as I spoke. “And remember that
photo I had? That day at the library, when we saw the photo of Avis with that
lady, I said to you I thought she looked familiar. I just couldn’t figure out
why. Well, it’s because she was the same person in the photo I had. Only in the
one I had…she was dressed as a man.”

Riley didn’t
look as convinced about this as I was. “But why would she dress as a man?”

“Remember what
Grandma Mabel was telling us? About the ugly woman who pretended to be a man so
the community would think they were just your everyday couple. But how they
were really gay? Gay people weren’t accepted back then like they are now, so
they had to hide. I mean, we are talking about fifty-something years ago,
remember.”

“So you think Will
gave the ring to Avis so they would appear to be an engaged couple and then
their families found out and disapproved?”

“Yes…something
like that.”

“But it still
doesn’t tell us who Will is.” This was true. Feeling slightly deflated, I sat
back and tried to think this through.

“I wonder if
Brian Hogan knew who he was. He did say he had an interesting story to tell
us.”

“Well, we’ll
never know the answer to that.”

“Well, it’s
more than we knew this morning,” I said.

“If we’re being
honest here, we don’t know anything for a fact.” I thought about this for a
minute.

“I think we
should go back to the library and take a look at those old photos again. I just
wish I hadn’t lost the photo I had, then we could compare them properly.”

“Do you think
you’d remember it enough to be able to know if it’s the same person?”

“I don’t really
know. The photo was pretty old and wasn’t the clearest photo I’ve ever seen. Only
one way to find out though. Tomorrow, we’re going back to the library.”