Authors: Jeffrey Allen
Stay At Home Dead (20 page)
Sharon Ann attempted to catch the booklet but missed it completely, and it whacked her in the chin. Twenty-three percent of the audience laughed. She bent over, picked it up, and ripped through the pages. When her face went from strawberry red to a four-alarm fire, it was clear that she had somehow skipped over page four of the Rettler-Mott bylaws.
Julianne put a hand to her ear. “Can’t hear you, Sharon Ann. Did you find it yet?”
Sharon Ann was scouring the booklet, searching vainly for an out. It wasn’t there.
“And before you get any ideas about trying to get fifty-one percent of the women together,” Julianne cautioned, “I’ve already made a few phone calls. I’m not sure what the vote here tonight would be like, but the chances of you getting fifty-one percent here are slim and none, and none just kicked slim out of town.” She smiled her most evil smile. “Seems my husband has a few more friends in this school than you do.”
The whistles from the audience morphed into catcalls, along with some sporadic applause. Sharon Ann stood at the podium like a dog that had just had its teeth removed. Without anesthesia. People were standing up to leave, and there was nothing she could do but watch.
Julianne held out her hand. “Let’s go, my man.”
I grabbed her hand and stood.
Sharon Ann fumbled around behind the podium for a moment, grabbing her purse and whispering violently in Deborah’s ear.
Sharon Ann McCutcheon made the one mistake of not knowing the one thing I was most certain of in my life.
My wife kicks so much ass.
50
Most men probably would’ve had an issue with their wife defending them in public.
Please. That is so sexist.
“I have a serious mind to jump your bones right here in this parking lot,” I told her as we walked out.
“Now, that might actually be cause to remove you,” she said, grinning at me. “Let’s wait until we get home.”
“Can we at least make out in your car?”
“Deal.”
And that’s what we did for a good five minutes before coming up for air.
“How was that?” Julianne whispered in the same throaty tone she’d used the first time she asked me stay over in her dorm room.
I was about to answer her with another round of kissing, but a car leaving the parking lot caught my eye.
Specifically, a red Ford Ranger pickup truck leaving caught my eye.
Julianne punched me in the sternum. “Hey. I’m trying to be all attractive to you, you idiot.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, watching the truck creep along the opposite side of the parking lot.
Julianne saw my eyes were elsewhere and turned in her seat. “What?”
“That truck,” I said, squinting. “It’s the truck Victor saw.”
“The one he got the partial plate on?”
“Yeah. He found that Stenner kid who owns it, but we don’t think he was the one driving it,” I said as its red brake lights flared in the dark as it arrived at the edge of the lot.
She twisted back around to me. “How do you know all this?”
“Victor and I,” I said, watching the truck turn out onto the street. “We, uh ...” I pointed to the truck. “Come on. We need to go after it.”
“You’re kidding me.”
I smacked the dash. “Come on, Jules. Now.”
She made a grunting sound but turned over the ignition and backed out of the parking spot, following in the direction the truck had gone.
“You and Victor are buddies now?” she asked, hitting the accelerator.
I watched the road in front of us, the taillights on the pickup coming into view. “We’re not buddies.”
“Then what exactly are you?”
“We’re sort of... partners.”
She cut her eyes to me. “You’re what?”
“Watch the road,” I said.
“You better start explaining yourself, Deuce Winters,” she said, focusing back on the road.
“I helped him do a little investigating,” I said. I gestured at the windshield. “Come on. Faster.”
“I am driving fast.”
For her, that was true. But I expected a toddler on a Big Wheel to fly by us at any moment.
The pickup came to a halt at a red light and allowed us to catch up. I could make out two people in the car, but all I saw was the backs of two heads and those were obscured by the headrests, to the point that I couldn’t even tell the gender of either person.
“Start talking, Deuce, or I swear I will stop this car dead in the street,” Julianne said, her needle hitting her own personal redline. “And then kick you out into it.”
I reluctantly told her about all Victor and I had done during the day. As the light turned green, my wife’s face was turning bright red.
“You are such an idiot,” she said, easing the Lexus forward, behind the pickup.
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t. Because if you realized what an idiot you’re behaving like, you’d hit yourself in the head.”
I doubted I would ever hit myself in the head.
I was trying to think of an appropriate response when the pickup shot forward, nearly doubling the speed it had been traveling at before.
“Go!” I said, leaning forward in my seat.
Julianne increased our speed by approximately three miles an hour, and the taillights were getting smaller in front of us.
“Jules, please!”
She muttered something under her breath, but the Lexus engine roared and we jerked forward.
The pickup hung a hard right, the rear bed fishtailing wildly behind it. Four seconds later Julianne turned the Lexus around the corner as if she was driving her normal speed.
I doubted that my minivan would’ve cornered so well.
“Are we really in a car chase?” Julianne asked, her tone somewhere between disbelief and excitement.
“They obviously spotted your car behind them,” I said.
“Obviously.”
We were on a street that was bordered on the left by a neighborhood of homes and on our right by horse pasture. Julianne pressed the accelerator again, and our headlights came up on the rear end of the truck. I didn’t want to stop the truck. I just wanted to see who was inside.
And whoever was in there very clearly wanted to make sure that we saw nothing.
The truck swung right and jumped the curb. It crashed through a three-line barbed-wire fence and into the pasture. A group of horses scattered in all directions as the truck came toward them.
Julianne hit the brakes, and the Lexus rocked to a stop. “Not a chance I’m following them through there.”
I didn’t expect her to follow the truck into the pasture, but I was disappointed as the truck crossed the pasture and disappeared over a berm. I knew the other side of the pasture was bordered by another street, and by the time we got over there, the truck would be long gone.
“I’m sorry,” Julianne said, touching my arm. “I’m really disappointed.”
I threw my head back against the seat. “I know. Me, too. I just feel like there’s something with that truck. Knowing Victor saw it in the lot the other night and now seeing it again ...”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Julianne said.
“What did you mean?”
“I’m really disappointed that not once did you yell, ‘Follow that car!’”
51
I woke up the next morning not feeling nearly as good as I figured I would.
After taking down Sharon Ann and her cronies and retaining my Room Dad responsibilities, I thought I’d be flying high. But now, after the day Victor and I had and after another visit from the red pickup, I was more on edge. I wasn’t celebrating my victory. I was waiting for the next battle.
Which, you know, was really dumb, because I was a stay-at-home dad in a town called Rose Petal, and it wasn’t like I was some sort of superhero out looking for trouble.
But whatever.
Julianne, as usual, was out the door early, probably attempting to make up for being out of the office the afternoon before. After I showered, dressed, and ate, I drove to my parents to pick up Carly.
She was sitting between my parents on their front porch swing, her hair in pigtails, her backpack strapped over her shoulders, and her Dora lunch box perched in her lap. Julianne and I enjoyed the freedom we had in being able to drop her at my parents for afternoons or overnights, but every time I saw her after she’d been gone for a night, I realized how much I missed having her chasing around my heels in the house.
She jumped off the swing and hopped down the stairs, my mother warning her not to get dirty. I swung her up and kissed her cheek. “Hello, dude.”
“I’m not a dude,” she said, pulling back and looking at me like I was crazy.
“That’s right. You’re a dinosaur.”
“I’m a girl, Daddy.”
I kissed her again. “If you say so.”
My mother stood and came down the stairs. My father remained in his lounging position on the swing.
“She behave herself ?” I asked.
“Of course,” my mother said. “She was perfect.”
I knew she wasn’t, but she could’ve set fire to the house and then stabbed a random farm animal and my mother would’ve told me she behaved herself.
“Beat down all those women last night, huh?” my father called from the porch.
I raised a hand. “Victory.”
“Never thought you had it in you.”
“Then you thought wrong.”
“I meant I didn’t think you had being a Room Daddy in you,” he said with a sly grin.
An attempt to flip him the bird was squashed as my mother smacked my wrist before I could get the finger extended, so we said our good-byes and headed off to school.
Sally Meadows met me at the door to her classroom with a big smile. “Nice to see you this morning.”
“I would’ve been here, regardless.”
She bent down and gave Carly a hug. “Good morning, Miss Carly.”
Carly, as usual, said a quick good morning and scampered into the room to begin her day.
Sally stood. “And as much as I’d like to let you enjoy your victory, I think I’m going to have to ruin it.”
“Why’s that?”
She glanced at her classroom before looking back to me. “I need you to run an errand for me. In your Room Dad capacity.”
“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.”
“The T-shirts are done,” she explained. “For Play Day.”
Play Day was the next to last day of the school year, where the kids participated in a kind of preschool Olympics. Each classroom competed as their own country, and though I had yet to witness it, it sounded hilarious and I looked forward to seeing Carly and her classmates compete as Team Turkey.
“Okay, cool,” I said.
“So I’d like for you to pick them up if you could,” she said. “I need to make sure they fit, make sure they look all right and all that.”
“Sure. I can go get them. Where are they at?”
The smile on her face wilted. “Sharon Ann’s.”
Why not just kick me in the shins?
“You’re kidding me,” I said.
She shook her head. “She had a printing connection, remember? So she got the shirts done. And Mitch was the one who came to school this morning, and he didn’t bring them.”
That made sense. Sharon Ann probably had no intention of showing her face after going down in public flames.
“But I really would like to have those shirts, Deuce,” Sally said, wincing as if asking me was painful for her.
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll go get them.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? You don’t mind?”
“It’s my job. It’ll be fine. We’re all adults,” I told her, not for a moment believing that Sharon Ann would act like an adult.
52
Rose Petal actually sits on a strip of diagonal land between two large lakes. Lake Taitano to the south and Lake Gentry to the north. The McCutcheons lived out on the southern shore of Lake Gentry, one of the most prime pieces of real estate in not just Rose Petal, but in all of North Texas. The homes were behind gates, walking trails wound beneath huge Spanish oaks, and people drove by, wishing they were going home rather than just wondering what was behind those gates.
The gentleman at the guardhouse made a quick call after I told him who I was there to see. After hanging up the phone, he gave me a polite wave and the massive iron gates swung open, an invitation to enter.
I’d been to Mitch and Sharon Ann’s several times. They played host to numerous charity events in Rose Petal, and Julianne and I had been invited to them. Before I’d impeded on her territory at the preschool, she publicly pretended to like us and therefore included us on her party invitation list. That had, of course, all changed, and after the previous evening, I was certain it had changed again for the worst.
Their home was a sprawling two-story mini-mansion, complete with faux pillars in front of the entryway and a semicircular cobblestone drive. The perfectly mown lawn ran down to the edge of the lake that kissed the back of their home. Selling cars was a good way to make a lot of money, apparently.
I parked the minivan in the drive and walked up to the huge oak double doors, sticking my finger on the doorbell. Chimes echoed behind the doors, and a shadow grew larger behind the smoked glass slats in the middle of the doors.
The door on the right opened, and Sharon Ann was standing there wearing khaki capris, a sleeveless white blouse, and a painful, fake smile. “Hello, Deuce.”
“Hello, Sharon Ann.”
“Won’t you come in?”
It was a testament to her Southern upbringing that she was inviting me inside her home. Even as angry as I assumed she was with me, her manners and hospitality did not take a backseat.
I walked into the entryway of marble floors and raised ceilings. The pleasant aroma of citrus wafted through the air. Not a single square inch of the home was anything but gleaming.
Sharon Ann worked her cleaning ladies hard.
“Sally called and said you’d be stopping by for the shirts,” she said, shutting the door behind me. “I’ve got them out here in the kitchen.”
I followed her into the expansive kitchen that looked out over both a huge oval pool and the lake. Maybe Mitch was able to tolerate her because the views were so magnificent.
She pointed at two square cardboard cartons on the island in the middle of the kitchen. “There they are.”
I pulled back the flap on one of the boxes. Light blue T-shirts, a silhouette of the country of Turkey in the middle, with a small turkey in the middle of the silhouette. “These look great.”
Sharon Ann nodded, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes bouncing from the box to me to the box and back to me. She tapped her long red nails against the slate on top of the island.
“I’m not going to apologize,” she said finally.
“I didn’t expect you to.”
“I was doing what I thought was right. What I still think is right.”
I folded the flap back on the box, closing it up. “Sharon Ann, if I ever thought for a second that anything I was doing in any way put any child in danger, I’d stay at least a hundred miles away from the school. But I like participating in my daughter’s class, and not you or anyone else is going to prevent me from doing that. You don’t have to like it, but you better understand it.”
We were locked in a stare down when her phone rang. She grabbed the cordless and answered it.
“Hello? Oh, hi, Deb.” She smiled at me, as if Deborah calling her proved something. “What? You’re what? What are you talking about?” She blinked several times, then covered the mouthpiece. “Excuse me, Deuce.” She walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway, her voice lowered as she spoke into the phone.
I had to hand it to her. She had the polite thing on autopilot.
I checked the contents of each box, matching up the numbers of shirts and their sizes with the packing list in each box. If the shirts were any indicator, Turkey would be a heavy favorite in the preschool Olympics.
Sharon Ann returned to the kitchen, the phone in her hand and an irritated expression on her face. She set the phone on the island, next to the boxes. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
She started to say something, caught herself, and straightened her posture. “Thank you for coming by, Deuce.”
A polite way of telling me to get lost.
“Not a problem,” I said, grabbing the boxes and sliding them off the island.
The corner of the second box, though, caught the phone and knocked it to the floor, sending it clattering across the brushed concrete.
Sharon Ann folded her arms across her chest and pursed her lips.
“Sorry about that,” I said, setting the boxes down, angry with myself for feeling like an idiot.
I bent down and picked the phone up from under the cabinet. I took a quick look at it to make sure I hadn’t busted it.
The last number from the last call, the one Sharon had walked out of the room to take, was on the readout, the name registered to the number across the top of the digits. I stared at it for a long moment, then rose and handed the phone over to Sharon Ann.
“I’ll let you know if it’s broken,” she said, barely looking at the phone as she set it back in the cradle. She stared at me for a moment, taking a deep breath, not bothering to hide the fact that she wasn’t happy I was still there. “Did you want something else, Deuce?”
My eyes were glued to the phone. She followed my gaze. “Are you worried about the phone? I’m sure it’s fine. We drop it all the time.”
I didn’t say anything.
Sharon Ann rolled her eyes, stomped to the island, picked up the boxes, and held them out to me. I took them, started to say something, then stopped.
She put her hand on the small of my back and guided me back toward the entryway, opening the massive front door.
I stepped through the door and turned around, clutching the boxes. “That was Deborah on the phone?”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, placing a hand on her hip, “but, yes, it was Deborah. Good-bye, Deuce.” She shut the door a little harder than necessary, the slam echoing across the cul-de-sac.
I walked slowly toward the minivan, the boxes balanced carefully in my arms, my mind spinning.
I hadn’t meant to knock the phone to the floor, but that small accident now had me more confused than ever.
Sharon Ann said it was Deborah on the line, and I had no reason to doubt her. I’d heard the beginning of the conversation. She probably called Sharon Ann half a dozen times a day. Her calling was nothing out of the ordinary.
But where she was calling from ... well, that was the confusing part.
I opened the minivan and set the boxes of T-shirts on the floor, then closed the door and turned around to take another look at the McCutcheon home.
The readout indicated that Deborah was calling from Land O’ Rugs.
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