The Wrong Stuff (19 page)

Jane and Oh couldn't continue their conversation so close to the porch without attracting attention. Indeed, Martine swept down the stairs and with a “My dears,” she swept Oh back up the stairs with her, leaving Jane admiring her skill at turning a plural word into a singular action.

The dinner bell, which, naturally enough at Campbell and LaSalle, was not a simple bell, but a hand-hammered copper gong affair, had not rung or been gonged or whatever the “we at Campbell and LaSalle” terminology was for summoning the troops. Because of the police presence, the questioning and searching that had gone on during the day, the later-than-usual dinner hour meant everyone had had time to get drunker than usual. Jane decided to take a quick detour before entering the lodge.

Jane needed to keep her wits about her. She hadn't really had a moment alone to allow herself any feelings about her chemical dousing. And now, instead of being scared like she really thought she should be, she found herself getting angry. Why was it that she never felt only one emotion, purely and simply? Whatever she felt was always coupled with vague guilt or unease because she suspected she should really be feeling some other emotion. She knew it was silly. Her Aunt Maxine, Don's wise and warm younger sister, had tried to warn her away from the “shoulds” thirty years ago.

“Whenever you start to say that you ‘should' do something, or worse yet, that ‘they should' do something, just stop it,” Aunt Maxine had said, sipping her hot water and lemon. “You either will or you won't, and whatever ‘they' do is beyond your puny controls anyway.”

Jane smiled remembering, then immediately felt guilty. “I should call Aunt Maxine,” she said aloud. “Oh, my god, and Charley and Nick! And Nellie! She's got a damn broken toe, and I haven't even thought of her all day.”

Normally, the woods and paths would be dark or, at the most, dimly lit, but Officer Murkel and his men and women had lit up Campbell and LaSalle like a stage set. Jane found a bench—carved, of course, with intricate spaniels standing guard at each upright post—directly across from the barn. The windows on the ground level were all open; shutters swung out from their top hinges. The light coming out from the windows pooled on the ground around the barn, small spotlights for the odd chipmunk or racoon that ventured out on this uncharacteristically warm fall night.

Jane looked up. Tim was right about the lights on the ground destroying any chance of seeing a star-filled sky. It was too early anyway, but Jane knew that the only constellation she'd see tonight would be some dizzying celestial pattern on one of Silver's caftans. Jane wasn't only looking for Orion's belt. She wanted to make sure there was no tree house above the bench where she was sitting. Claire had described the locations with which she was familiar, but Jane needed to see for herself. She had been growing angrier and angrier at the proponents of “we at Campbell and LaSalle” think-and-speak, and this whole tree house revelation did nothing to assuage her resentment. Not only did they act like they were above you on the ground; several of them, at any given time, really were above you. Jane hated metaphors that actually came to life.

Satisfied that she saw only sky above her, Jane settled herself between Fido and Fido and dialed Charley. Prepared to leave a message, she was caught totally off guard at the sound of his voice, not the one on tape, but the warm and husky real-life voice. No one could have been more surprised than Jane herself to find that she was more than caught off guard, she was speechless. And, feeling her face with her left hand, she found she was also crying.

“Jane? Jane? What's the matter? You might be cutting out, so if you can hear me, dance around a bit and try to…”

“No, Charley, I can hear you. I just…,” she began, “I just didn't expect you to be there.”

“Sweetheart, you called me. Hey, Nick, Nick! It's Mom, come on over,” he called. “We're poolside here. Tomorrow's an institute day, remember? So we're staying over. Did you get my message?”

“What message? Where?” Then Jane remembered that it was Sunday night. Charley would expect her to be at home. And she would be expecting them back because it was a school night, except it wasn't a school night. How could she have forgotten what day it was; how long they had been at this place? She knew that “we at Campbell and LaSalle” were not slaves to calendars or clocks—witness this nine o'clock dinner hour—but Jane shouldn't have been seduced by this timelessness. She, of Charley and Nick and Evanston, should have been home hours ago, cleaning, storing, filing, and making dinner. And packing a decent lunch for Nick to take to school. Should, shouldn't, should. Except it was a holiday tomorrow.

“Right, Charley, I knew Nick had tomorrow off, so Tim and I decided to stay another day,” Jane began, then remembered that she couldn't have left anyway. Murkel wasn't letting anyone leave Campbell and LaSalle just yet, especially the visitor who had found Rick Moore spoiling the hand-carved landscape. “It's a captivating place here.”

“Janie, you sound a little odd. Is there anything wrong?” Charley asked.

“Absolutely not, why should anything…” Jane stopped herself. Why did she get so defensive? Charley had never tried to stop her from being a detective. Charley had never tried to stop her from being a picker. Charley had never discouraged her from anything. Jane just always expected him to do it and defended herself before he had a chance to open his mouth.

“I just miss you, Charley. And I'm so grateful that you bailed me out with Nick. And I had a close call today, but I'm fine. Tell Nick I love him, okay?” Jane said.

“You're cutting out, honey, what did you say?” Charley was shouting the way everyone does when they themselves can't hear. “What?”

“What was your talk about? Tell Nick I love him. I love you,” said Jane. Those were all the important things she had wanted to get out.

“All I heard was blank blank my talk about. Blank blank blank hoaxes,” Charley said, cutting out on every two words or so. “Fake fossils. Blank blankologist blank so jealous of blank, blank salted blank site clank blank mishmosh of fossilized bones blank blank rival blank blank blank announce blank of blank find that blank could blank debunk by…,” Charley said, the connection finally failing entirely.

As soon as Jane pressed “end,” her phone rang. “Charley?” she answered.

“You're still not home with your husband?” Nellie said. Her voice was clear and the connection perfect. Jane heard every accusatory syllable.

Jane understood, clear as a hand-hammered gong. Nellie had installed the shoulds and shouldn'ts; and even if others—Charley, for example—never imposed themselves on Jane's free will, Nellie, working from her remote control, could flip the switch in Jane's brain so that actual spoken words from others, like “Hello, Jane, how are you?” were heard by Jane as, “Why on earth are you wearing
that?
”

“How's the toe, Mom?” Jane asked.

“Never mind my toe,” Nellie said, “how's your husband and how's your son? Remember them?”

“They are splashing away at an indoor water park in Rockford. All is well. Their names are Charley and Nick, and I'm sure I'll recognize the faces when I run into them in the upstairs hall when I get home. Satisfied?” asked Jane, knowing in her aching heart that the great gaping maw of Nellie's righteous indignation was never satisfied.

“Sure,” said Nellie.

“What?” asked Jane.

“As long as you're satisfied, I'm happy,” said Nellie. “Want to talk to your father?”

Oh, my god, Nellie had learned some new kind of trick, some new kind of torture. It wasn't enough that she had faced a chemical weapon that afternoon, now Nellie was coming in for the kill with psychological warfare.

“Tell me about Michigan, sweetie,” said Don.

“You tell me about Mom. She's never given up the phone to you without hand-to-hand combat. What's going on?”

“Sounds beautiful,” said Don, his voice loud and hearty. “Can you still hear me, Jane?” he asked, changing to a whisper.

When Jane whispered back that she could, her father told her that he had sneaked one of Nellie's prescribed pain pills into her rice pudding, and that ever since lunch, Nellie had been happy and content.

“Nothing they can do about the toe. It'll heal on its own, but she's supposed to stay off her feet and the only way I could think of to get her down was to, you know, drug her,” said her straight-arrow, crew-cut father.

“Why didn't I think of that in high school?” asked Jane.

“She's coming back. Insisted on making some soup for dinner, but in between stirring and tasting, she actually lies on the couch. I've got her all propped up with pillows, and I went out and got her some nut clusters from Fannie May,” said Don. “You ought to see this, Janie, it's quite a sight.”

“What's a sight?” Jane heard her mother ask. “Go get me a comb and brush, Don; I haven't fixed myself up all day.

Nellie took the phone back after Don told her goodbye. Jane could hear her father whistling as he went to fetch her mother a hand mirror and brush.

“Get my lipstick out of my purse, too, Don. It's out in the breezeway.”

Jane smiled, picturing her mother propped up on the couch, applying lipstick and eating chocolates. It pleased her to think that Nellie was resting, that she was calm and happy. Even if it took the tainted pudding, it sounded like it was worth it.

“Mom, I'm glad you're resting and doing what Dad and the doctor ordered. I'll probably be back in Evanston tomorrow or Tuesday if…,” Jane began, but was interrupted by Nellie whispering furiously, “You get yourself home, young lady. Charley and Nick need you there, and Tim doesn't need you anywhere. I have tried to tell you about the square peg in a…”

At least she called her “young lady.” That didn't happen so often these days. Poor Don. Right in the middle of his bowl of soup, Nellie was going to produce that little pill and accuse him of trying to poison her with her own rice pudding. For the first time in two days, Jane was happy to be where she was, right here at Campbell and LaSalle. Sure, there might be a murderer hanging around, but Jane thought maybe she might have a better chance against whoever that turned out to be than Don was going to have against Nellie, broken toe or no.

“You didn't take the pain pill, huh?” Jane asked.

“I don't need any pill to put me to sleep and turn my brain into mush. Working at the goddamn EZ Way Inn for forty-five years is doing that anyway. What does your father think he's doing anyway?”

“He thinks he's buying you candy and bringing you pillows and taking care of you, that's what he's doing. Why don't you sit back and appreciate it, for god's sake?”

“Why don't you? You're off with the peg head Tim instead of your own husband…,” said Nellie.

“What does this ‘round peg' thing mean anyway? It sounds sort of dirty, Ma, if you want to know the truth,” said Jane.

“Look,” said Nellie, “I'm trying to say that you don't belong with Tim or that detective. You belong at home. You're always trying to be something you're not, Jane. That's all. And you can't be something else until you're what you're supposed to be in the first place.”

“Oh,” said Jane. “Now I get it.”

“I don't have a college degree to explain it, honey, but I just think you do a lot of running around looking for the wrong stuff and trying to do things that don't make sense. Seems to me you've had the right stuff right in front of you. I don't see how that makes a life,” said Nellie. “Oh, thanks, Don,” she said, her voice softening. “Soup's almost ready. Go give it a stir, but don't taste it yet. It's a surprise.”

Jane didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her mother had managed a “young lady” and a “honey” in the same conversation; and despite the fact that she made no sense, she made perfect sense. Jane was profoundly touched. Even though she suspected her mother was wrong in her analysis, Jane so appreciated the effort. Along with this unusual surge of warmth toward Nellie, she was also filled with dread. Her mother was about to do something terrible to her father.

“Mom, what's in the soup?” Jane knew her mother had a little experience. Not that long ago, she had cooked up a valium-laced breakfast for some kidnappers and told Jane, with an evil grin, that it was as easy as taking cotton candy from a baby.

“No pills. Too easy to spot.”

“Mom!”

“Never underestimate the effect of chili pepper, jalapeño, and cumin on a man expecting a mild tomato lentil,” said Nellie. “It won't kill him. Where's the fun in that?”

Where indeed? Jane knew she couldn't get past Nellie to warn her father. She told Nellie not to hide all the antacids and hung up. It wasn't a pleasant thought, picturing her mother as a berserk cat who liked to play with the poor mouse before going in for the kill. On the other hand, she knew her father wasn't a mouse, and she had seen him put a lot of Tabasco on scrambled eggs. They'd work it out.

It was better to think about what else the conversation with her mother held. Two terms of endearment. Jane would accept. And even though Nellie was off-base about Jane's friendship with Tim—Nellie had just been born too early to believe men and women could be friends, best friends—she was on target when she talked about Charley. He might not have to hide a pain pill in her rice pudding, but Jane did find it hard these days to accept loving kindness when it came from Charley. What was wrong with her? She hit middle age and suddenly every time Charley offered to get her a drink of water, she took it as meaning he thought she was too old and infirm to get up and get it herself. She had always considered herself fiesty, now she was acting plain paranoid. Oh, my god, was she really turning into Nellie?