Outfoxed (8 page)

CHAPTER 14

Later that night three short knocks brought Cody to the front door of her small house. She opened the door.

“Hi, Sis.” Jennifer leaned against the doorjamb, the hall light framing her hair like a halo.

“Jen, get in here.” Cody clamped her hand around Jennifer's wrist, pulling her inside and shutting the door behind her. “You asshole.”

Jennifer, unperturbed, unsteadily walked for the couch and dropped onto it. “Shut up.”

“What'd you take?”

“Nothing.”

“Don't jam me.” Cody bent over Jennifer to check out her pupils.

“Couldn't go home.”

Cody picked up the phone. “Hi, Mom. Jen's with me. She's going to spend the night.”

“What about her clothes for school?” Betty asked.

“She can wear mine. She needs help writing her history report.”

“Well . . .” Betty's voice faded. Then she said, “All right.”

Cody hung up the phone. “Don't do this.”

“You do.”

She bent over Jennifer. It was like looking into her own face. “Because I'm weak. I don't want to do it. I don't even want to drink a beer. Something happens and I just do.”

“Yeah, well, me, too.”

“No one's got a gun to your head. Stay off the stuff. I've wasted the last five years and I'll never get them back and I'm trying to get straight. Hear?”

Jennifer nodded. “Everything is so fast.”

Cody sat next to her sister, patting her knee. “Yeah. And everything is so clear. Cocaine. I'm a genius on coke until I come off.”

“Black.” Jennifer rocked a bit.

“Heading down?”

“Yeah. There's got to be something to cut that, I mean cut the down. I heard speedballs do it.” She mentioned a potent cocktail of cocaine and heroin.

“That'll kill you if you get the mix wrong,” Cody replied.

“Got anything?”

“No.”

“You wouldn't give it to me if you had,” Jennifer flared.

“If it would soften the drop, I would. I've been on that ride, little sis.”

“What am I gonna do?” Jennifer cried.

“Feel like shit. There's nothing I can do.”

Desperation contorted Jennifer's beautiful features. “You gotta help me.”

“I am. I'm letting you stay here.” Cody sighed. This would be a long night. “Where'd you get the stuff?”

“Easy to get.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Jennifer laughed. “Why the hell do you care? You get it where you can get it. I can buy it at school—lots of places.”

“Jen, you're gonna stop if I have to lock you up and throw away the key. I'm not gonna let you screw around and fuck up like I have.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jennifer just wanted her racing heart to slow down and the black clouds to disperse.

CHAPTER 15

The night promised a light frost. Sister Jane made the rounds before turning in for the night. She checked Dragon, head swollen but beginning to feel better. She said good night to the rest of the hounds, hearing a few good nights in return.

She walked back over the brick path to the stable. The horses slept in perfect contentment.

With Raleigh at her heels, she walked in her back door, removed her barn coat and scarf, draping them over the Shaker pegs. Then she slipped her feet out of the green wellies.

She clicked off the lights in the kitchen, the hall, and the front parlor. Then she climbed the front stairs to her bedroom. Two windows, the glass handblown, looked over an impressive walnut tree. Beautiful though it was, the sound of dropping walnuts on a tin roof could waken the dead during the fall.

Golly, already on one pillow, opened an eye, then shut it when Sister and Raleigh entered the room. An old sheepskin rested at the foot of the bed. Raleigh jumped up, circled three times, finally dropping like a stone.

“You weigh more than I do,” Sister teased him.

“Close,”
Raleigh replied.

A chill settled in the room. Built in 1707, the house was a marvelous example of early American architecture. Insulation was horsehair in the walls, some of which also had lathing. Years ago when Ray was still alive they'd blown fluffy insulation down the exterior walls and it helped cut the cold. Materials had advanced since then, and she often thought of just ripping out the walls from the interior and putting up those fat rolls of pink insulation with numbers like R-30.

The expense halted that pipe dream, as did the total disruption to her life. Bad enough to be disrupted at forty but by seventy her tolerance had diminished proportionately.

She hopped out of bed, slipped on a sweatshirt, and hopped back in.

She picked up Arthur Schnitzler's
The Way into the Open
, published in 1908. There was a line in the novel she appreciated, “the bereavements of everyday life.” She read a bit, then put it down. Neurotic, edgy Vienna displeased her tonight.

She reached for George Washington's foxhunting diaries, which had been compiled for her by an old friend who worked at Mount Vernon. The good general had kept diaries, notes, letters from the age of fourteen on.

She read a few lines about hounds losing a line on a windy day. Then she put that down, too. Normally she loved reading Washington's foxhunting observations. He was a highly intelligent man and a forthright one about hunting. But she needed relief from hunting. Right now it was causing as much headache as joy.

She opened a slim red volume of Washington's
Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation
. These notes, written in 1746, when the general was fourteen, were, he hoped, going to be engraved on his brain. The physical act of writing pinned the words in the mind as well as on the page. But for the young, tall youth, the main purpose was mastery over himself.

She read out loud to Golly and Raleigh: “In the presence of others sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet.” She paused. “Well, that leaves Kyle Dawson out of polite society.”

“Sister, you haven't seen Kyle Dawson in years,”
Raleigh reminded her.

She peeped over the book, speaking to the animals. “Here's one for you. Number thirteen. Ready? ‘Kill no vermin as fleas, lice, ticks & c in sight of others; if you see any filth or thick spittle, put your foot dexterously upon it; if it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately; and if it be upon our own clothes, return thanks to him who put it off.' ”

“I don't have fleas.”
Golly rolled over, reaching high into the air with her left paw.

“Liar.”
Raleigh lifted his head.

“That got a response.” Sister turned the page. The phone rang. No one close to Sister called after nine-thirty in the evening. It was now ten. “Hello.”

“Hello, is this Mrs. Raymond Arnold?”

“Yes.”

The deep male voice replied, “This is Dr. Walter Lungrun. I was hoping I could cub with you this Thursday.”

“Are you a member of another hunt, Mr. Lungrun?”

“No, ma'am, I'm not. I've just returned to the area to do my residency.”

“Ah, well, come on ours anyway. You'll have to sign a waiver and release form saying you know this sport is dangerous and if you break your neck so be it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“It will be good to have a doctor in the field. What's your specialty?”

“Neurosurgery.”

Sister glanced at the silver-framed photograph of Raymond in his army uniform that rested on her night table. “Lungrun. From Louisa County?”

“Yes. I left to go to Cornell and then to NYU School of Medicine.”

“So you're smart, Dr. Lungrun.” Her voice lightened.

“Smart enough to call you.” He was light in return.

“Well then, I'll see you at seven-thirty at the Mill Ruins.”

“I look forward to it.”

“Good-bye, Dr. Lungrun.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Arnold.”

She hung up the phone, folded her hands over her chest. “How extraordinary.”

CHAPTER 16

“Why do I have to do it? I don't see why,” Jennifer, just a shade shorter than her older sister, argued.

“Because I said so.” Cody slipped her arm through her sister's arm. “Come on.”

However, before they were out the door an irate Betty was pounding up the front steps. “Just where do you think you're going?” She pointed at Cody. “You were supposed to take her to school.”

Betty pushed both her daughters through the door, slamming it behind her.

“Mom, I can explain,” Cody started.

“In a minute.” Betty held up her hands for silence, turned her bright blue eyes on her youngest. “Well, miss?”

“I got tired so I crashed with Cody.”

“And I just won the lottery.” Betty was having none of it.

With a slow step the young women moved toward the sofa. There'd be no getting out of this.

However, Cody tried. “Mom, why is Dad supporting Crawford Howard for the joint-mastership? Crawford doesn't know anything about hunting.”

“Since when have you been interested in the politics of the Jefferson Hunt?” Betty plopped onto the chair facing the sofa.

“Curious.”

“Yeah.” Jennifer picked up the theme.

“Crawford will put the club on a financially secure base. Right now that's crucial. Sister knows enough about hunting for ten masters. What we need is money or an angel.”

“Crawford could write checks.”

“Cody, no one is going to write out thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year above and beyond the annual budget simply to help the club. That kind of commitment demands a joint-M.F.H. behind his name.”

“Fontaine is a better choice.” Cody brushed back her black hair, which had fallen in her eyes.

“Fontaine can't keep his dick in his pants.” Jennifer sniggered.

“Mom, they carry on like that in Washington all the time. If presidents can do it, why not Fontaine?”

“This is Virginia, not Washington.” Betty's jaw jutted out.

Her girls stared at her. There was no rejoinder. Another quiet sigh escaped them.

“Cody and I overslept. It's my fault. I didn't set the alarm like I said I would,” Jennifer explained.

“Lame.” Betty crossed her arms over her impressive chest.

Cody thought to herself that a lame excuse was better than no excuse, but the weight of the lies, at first so gossamer thin, bent her shoulders. She'd lied about herself since high school and now she was lying for Jennifer. While these fabrications might solve the problem temporarily, they only seemed to worsen it long term. Cody knew the only reason she was still acceptable at Jefferson Hunt was that she could ride. Her beauty attracted men. Her problems eventually repelled them, except for Doug. She studied her sister. In Cody's eyes, Jennifer was more beautiful than herself. Where her hair was black, Jennifer's was a rich seal brown and her light-coffee-colored eyes made her so warm, approachable. Cody's eyes were beginning to betray hard living.

“Mom, I'll go to the principal. This is my fault.” Cody squared her shoulders.

“That's noble of you. However, we aren't leaving this room until I get the truth. And if I don't, Jennifer, you are coming home with me and you're grounded, and I mean grounded for the next month. No allowance. No parties. No hunting. Zip.”

“Mom!”

“That's right,
Mom,
” Betty shouted.

“I didn't feel good, so I came here. It was closer than home.” Jennifer stretched out her long legs, crossing them at the ankles.

Betty wordlessly looked to Cody, who finally said, “She was—”

“High.” Betty cut in. “Do you think I'm blind? Jennifer, we went through this last summer. You promised you'd stop but”—she weighed her words—“that's proved beyond your powers.”

“Mom, it wasn't so bad. I mean this is the only time since June. Since last time. Really. I just felt like it. I was stupid. It won't happen again.”

“What amazes me is that you are seventeen years old and you can find dope or whatever you call it these days and the police can't. We're beyond apologies, Jennifer. We're going into a treatment program.”

“No.” Jennifer's face turned crimson.

“And if you know what's good for you, Cody, you'll cough up the money and go in, too.”

Cody pinched her lips together.

“You can't do this to me!” Jennifer jumped up, towering over her medium-sized mother.

Betty rose but Jennifer pushed her back onto the chair.

Cody shot from the sofa, grabbing Jennifer. “Don't touch Mom, Jen.”

“She's a fucking saint?” Jennifer snarled.

“She's our mother and she's a lot closer to it than we'll ever be. Don't touch her.”

“Fine.” Jennifer hauled off and socked Cody instead.

Cody, bigger, stronger, and smarter, ducked the next punch, stepped inside a roundhouse swing, and with the back edge of her hand chopped Jennifer hard in the throat. Both of Jennifer's hands went for her throat. She choked and Cody grabbed the back of her collar, dragging her to the sofa.

Looming over the coughing girl, Cody said, “You're going to treatment.”

Betty never imagined her younger daughter would attack her. The corroding effect of drugs even when one wasn't on them shocked her. She would have died herself before lifting a hand against her own mother.

Jennifer started bawling. She choked a few times, then snarled at Cody. “You hurt me.”

“You hurt yourself,” Cody fired back. “Mom, how much is the treatment program?”

“I don't know. Central Virginia Hospital has an outpatient program. I hear it's good. Cody, we can't afford to send you. You've been out on your own and you need to do this for yourself.”

Jennifer bellowed, “What am I going to say to my friends? I'm in drug rehab. Mom, this will ruin me. I won't have any friends.”

“Then they aren't really your friends.” Betty raised her voice. “And I'm not worried about your friends. I'm worried about you.”

“You can't tell me what to do.” A flash of defiance illuminated Jennifer's eyes.

“As long as you're under my roof, you'll do as I say. We're going to Central Virginia.”

“Now?” Jennifer's voice dropped, betraying fear.

“Now. Cody?”

“I'm coming.”