The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel (3 page)

The room was the standard setting for the back-to-college nightmare. There was the tile floor, matching twin beds with identical brown cotton bedspreads, chests of drawers built into the wall, sliding-door closets, two wooden study desks with an old straight-backed chair drawn up to each one, and one long window in a beige cinder-block wall. The view was of green lawn and shade trees. Just like college. Only this time she was majoring in grief.

At least she would have a few minutes of solitude before more medical personnel appeared. She opened her suitcase to put her clothes away. It was filled with casual clothes in muted browns and navy (what did a newly widowed woman pack when she was being committed?), and there on the top of the pile, in a leather case the size of a playing card, was a picture of Cameron Dawson on the deck of the boat, smiling into the camera, with his back to the sea and beyond it the cliffs of Scotland. Elizabeth picked up the photograph and looked at it for only a moment before she stuffed it into the top drawer under a pile of underwear. Why did the photo have to show the sea? She couldn’t bear to look at it. No use dwelling on it, she told herself. What was the point of trying to come to terms with bereavement if you were just going to wallow in memories. Best to put it away.

Elizabeth MacPherson sat down on the bed and wondered what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

T
he house-hunting expedition had moved at such a pace that Bill MacPherson had forgotten to be nervous. The pretty young real estate agent, whose name was Holly Milton, had bundled him into her car before he’d had a chance to say much more than his name, and now they were speeding through downtown Danville, apparently en route to Tara. Given a chance to study her as she drove, Bill decided that she was one of those society types who was doing real estate more or less as a hobby. He always had the feeling when he spoke to members of the southern aristocracy that they were communicating in some sort of code. On first meeting him, society types would be all gush and grins, but then after no more than ten minutes’ conversation, a marked civility would creep into their manner, the subtlest shading of distance that said, “You’re nice, but you’re not one of us, are you?” The difference in attitude was so slight that he would be hard-pressed to describe it to anyone for fear of being laughed to scorn, but he knew it when he saw it. It had just happened again. Bill wished he knew what the password was—not that he wanted to be “one of them,” but just so he didn’t have to wonder about it any more. Anyhow, Holly was being perfectly friendly, and if she realized that he could think of nothing to say to her, she gave no sign.

Holly seemed to know half the lawyers in town, although she had a unique way of classifying them: not as criminal or corporate, or prosecution vs. defense, but town house or subdivision, farm or condo.

“Now I wouldn’t have picked you as a Tara type,” she was saying as she sailed through the second yellow stoplight in a row. “You know—antiques, gardening, five-year subscription to
Colonial Homes
. Chinese import porcelain in a
stripped French pine cabinet. I wouldn’t have guessed that at all.”

Bill’s idea of gardening was picking the dead leaves off his Christmas poinsettia until around Groundhog Day, when it finally succumbed to neglect. The only thing he owned that might be considered antique was unfortunately organic and lay forgotten in a plastic container in his refrigerator. He decided not to share these facts with the Realtor for fear of discovering what sort of house she would envision for him.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m not into colonial anything or gardening techniques. I couldn’t decorate a shoe box. It’s my partner, really. My law partner,” he amended, correctly interpreting the look on the young woman’s face. “She thinks it would be good for our … our corporate image to have a picturesque old mansion for the law practice. And we thought we could live upstairs. A good investment, you know. Probably loads of tax benefits.”

“Mmm,” said Holly Milton, peering at him over the top of her sunglasses. “So this was your partner’s idea, but she sent you out to look at houses?”

“She’s in court this week. She stays busy, and I have some free time for the next day or so, so she thought that I could go out and see what’s on the market. I can make recommendations. Well, anyhow, I can take photocopies of property ads back to her.”

Holly Milton smiled. “You certainly picked the right day to go house hunting! A purchase agreement fell through, which put a great house back on the market as of this morning. I’ll make it easy for you. This is the perfect house. It’s just what you need for a law practice. You’ll have to see it to believe it. It’s just outside the city limits, so you’ll save a bit on property taxes, and
it is just beautiful. Or it will be—with some restoration work. Let me tell you about it.…” Holly Milton spent the rest of the drive reeling off statistics of square footage, number of bathrooms, fireplace locations, and other amenities calculated to make prospective buyers salivate.

“And you could have note cards printed up with an artist’s rendering of the house on the front. That would set such a tone for your firm. And corporate Christmas cards! A photo of the house with snow in the yard and Christmas decorations on the windows. Perfect!”

“I’ll mention it,” Bill promised, silently resolving to have nothing to do with such schemes. “How old is the house? Is it historic?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when you see it,” the Realtor promised. “We’re coming up on it now, and I want you to focus on that all-important first impression.”

She swung into a long paved driveway leading into a grove of pines and sprawling maple trees that shielded the house from view. As the car emerged from the canopy of leaves, Holly stopped just in the curve where the house would be framed in the car’s windshield. “There!” she whispered in theatrical tones. “Isn’t it heaven?”

Bill nodded slowly. It was. But, he thought, if you had to paint it or mow the lawn, it would be unearthly.

The word
house
did not do justice to the splendor of this building. Most people would call it a mansion. It looked like the photo on a postcard that would have “Hello from Virginia” emblazoned at the top, or perhaps like a movie set for an antebellum southern drama. Bill could picture Jane Seymour in sausage curls and hoop skirts sashaying gracefully down the wide
front steps. It was a Georgian-style house of mellow rose-colored brick with a curved portico supported by four ornate and massive white columns. He received the impression of the place in one overwhelming burst, so that if he had been asked later to draw a picture of it, he would have simply drawn a large dollar sign between two lollipop-shaped trees. They couldn’t possibly afford it, he thought sadly, but there was no denying that it was a beauty.

“I suppose it’s exactly what she wants.” He sighed.

Holly gave him a pitying smile. “Well, I guess it is exactly what she wants!” she declared. “It’s exactly what all of us want. It’s every little girl’s dollhouse, life-size. A woman might not kill to get this house, but I’ll bet you serious money that she’d commit matrimony to get it.”

Bill did not find this declaration as reassuring as it was intended to be. Besides, he couldn’t picture A. P. Hill as the kind of little girl who had ever played with dollhouses. She once claimed to have swapped her collection of Barbies for a Daisy Air Rifle. Still, she was the descendant and namesake of a Confederate general, so perhaps the desire to own a white-columned mansion was hardwired into her DNA. Bill tried to think of an appropriate question to ask the Realtor. Since they hadn’t even seen the inside of the place, “How much?” seemed a bit too precipitate. Finally he said, “Is it as old as it looks?”

Holly Milton laughed. “No, but that can be your little secret. Actually it was built around 1948 by a local gentleman who had suddenly become wealthy in … er … manufacturing.”

Bill nodded. Danville was famous for tobacco and textile mills. “Cigarettes or fabric?” he asked.

“Um … something like that. I think he got into some trouble at one time in his career.”

“Oh.” Bill digested this information. “Trouble?” He laughed nervously. “You’re not trying to tell me there are bodies in the basement, are you?”

“No, no. I think it was some sort of financial trouble. Taxes, perhaps. Anyhow, the old fellow was a shrewd investor, and despite his problems, he prospered. Apparently he put his profits from the business into the stock market, real estate, and blue chip stocks. I think he wanted to build an empire to leave to his children. Unfortunately, they didn’t inherit his business sense, which is why the house has to be sold.”

“They went broke?”

“Not entirely, but they put up the house as collateral in another business venture, and when it went sour, the other party forced the sale to recoup the money. I don’t suppose the children minded. They didn’t live here.”

“What a shame,” said Bill, still staring at the magnificent house. “It’s probably just as well that the old man didn’t live to see what happened to his house.”

“Actually, he did,” said Holly Milton. “But we’ll talk about that later.”

E
lizabeth MacPherson wondered what there was to do for a whole month in a psychiatric facility. The obvious answer—brood about her bereavement—was certainly not the activity that Dr. Freya had been aiming for. Elizabeth felt sure of that. She wished she had thought to bring some books along, but in her present state of sleepwalking through life, that much forethought had been impossible. She felt that given her present condition the fact that she remembered to bring clean underwear and a toothbrush should count as a triumph of will. I wonder if this is what the nursing home will be like someday, she thought. Maybe this month will be a preview of old age. I’ll get out again, and I’ll still be young, but I’ll know what’s in store for me at the end of the road. This thought depressed her so much that she sank down on the bed, feeling the tears well up again. She had also forgotten to bring tissues, she thought, rubbing
her eyes with the back of her hand. She wondered if she could call anyone and ask them to bring her things she’d forgotten. Were visitors allowed? Were there guards to search incoming packages, or did that sort of thing happen only in prisons?

Was this a prison? The room seemed more bare and cell-like than before, and she wondered if she’d be ready to claw her way out of it before the end of the month. If so, perhaps that would be a good sign. In her present state of depression, Elizabeth didn’t feel that she could summon the energy to dodge a runaway truck, much less object to restricted activity and minimalist room decor.

As she brooded about her present circumstances, Elizabeth sat on the bed facing the window so that she did not see the door open slowly behind her. “Nobody important,” said a voice from the hall.

Elizabeth spun around, forgetting her grief in the clutch of panic. A heavyset young woman with bangs and black-frame glasses stood in the doorway, inspecting her as if she were a new exhibit of sculpture. The woman was obviously a patient. No member of the nursing staff would come to work in a stained green shift and pistachio-colored flip-flop sandals.

“I beg your pardon?” said Elizabeth, wondering if she were being summoned for mealtime or some other group activity.

“I was talking to Lisa Lynn. She’s lurking out there in the hall. She’s shy.” The woman turned back toward the door and called out, “The new patient is nobody important, L. L. Go back to your room now.”

“What do you mean I’m nobody important?” Elizabeth demanded. “Is that any way to talk to a patient?”

The woman shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. But let me tell
you, kiddo, from one patient to another: it’s the best part of being sick. You get to tell the truth.” She shambled into the room and sat down on the other twin bed. “You’re a new fish, so you haven’t figured out the social order yet. It’s a brave new world in here.”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Kudan. Emma Owens Kudan, which is a mouthful. In here they call me Emma O. That’s what I answer to, anyhow. We were hoping you’d turn out to be a movie star or a country singer having a nervous breakdown, but I see you’re not. Too bad. We could use a little novelty.” She examined Elizabeth with the air of one doing a patient evaluation. “I see you’re not anorectic.”

“No. But if it’s contagious, I’d like to catch it.”

Emma O. shook her head. “Anorexia isn’t a disease. It’s a career move. At least, that’s what I tell Sarah. So … what are you in for?”

Elizabeth decided that sharing her emotional problems with this creature in green slippers was the most unappealing offer she’d had in ages. She smiled sweetly. “My voices tell me to go and save France.”

Her visitor shrugged. “I doubt that. The presence of delusional impersonators in mental institutions is highly overrated. I don’t think we have anybody famous at all—certainly not Napoléon, despite all the loony-bin jokes to the contrary. Oh, wait, we did have Jesus in here a while back. He had a few people convinced, autographed a few Bibles, but beyond that He didn’t cause much of a stir. If He can’t turn that sludge in the dayroom into decent coffee, what good is He? Still, if you
want to be Joan of Arc, kiddo, there are a couple of arson compulsives in the other wing who would dearly love to light your fire.”

“I’m not delusional,” snapped Elizabeth. “I just don’t feel like discussing my case with another patient.”

Emma O. gave her a condescending smile. “So group therapy will be news to you, huh?”

“I don’t intend to go to group therapy. I am here for depression.”

“Getting it or giving it?”

“My husband died!”

The young woman looked mildly interested. “Did he? I had a hamster once that died. It crawled under the cushion of the sofa and my brother sat on it.”

“That’s hardly the same thing.”

“What, death? I imagine it is, if you’re the one experiencing it. Still, I see what you mean. I don’t suppose your husband was smothered by a sofa cushion. Pretty careless of him if he was.”

Elizabeth was so stunned at this lack of sympathy for her widowed state that she was momentarily speechless. My husband died. Those three magic words had served her well for many weeks, gaining her privacy when she wanted it, special attention when she didn’t. People had been tiptoeing around her life, making no demands at all on her patience or her fortitude. It was unsettling to meet someone who was not cowed by the enormity of her loss. This madwoman seemed to think the statement was simply an interesting bit of trivia. Elizabeth didn’t know whether to be outraged or intrigued. She was still trying
to decide how to take it when the madwoman said, “Can they give you pills for grief?”