Whiskey Sour (4 page)

“What else?” she asked.

“It’s a long list. I had six majors in college before I finally decided to teach history. My interests are varied.”

My father had liked to say that I’d lacked focus. My mother had always countered that I was just trying to find myself. I was starting to lose hope, because I still wasn’t all that sure I’d found myself. I’d just stuck me in a rut and kept paddling to make it seem like I was in control of things.

“I’ve also wanted to be a potter, an interior designer, a shoemaker, a trophy wife, an archer, a spy, and have my own show on the Travel Channel. Do you think there’s a job market out there for any of those?” I asked.

Rosemarie stared at me with her mouth hanging open, as if I
were the one with my breasts exposed this time, and I looked down just to make sure I was still covered.

“There are barely job openings right now for people who want to be bank tellers or receptionists. I’m not sure this list idea is going to work after all. Maybe you just need to get used to the idea of not being a teacher for a little while. Go file for unemployment, and then you can research your options.”

“You know,” I said, sitting up as a brilliant idea came to me. “I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve done for Kate these last few months.”

“
Except for the maimings and embarrassing mishaps—”

I glared at Rosemarie and she made a sign like she was zipping her lips.

“I bet I could make a lot more money if I became a full-time private detective. I could get my license and carry a gun and everything. I could be just like Jessica Fletcher, without the pastel sweater sets, of course.”

I didn’t think Rosemarie’s eyes co
uld get any bigger but they managed.

“That’s a great idea,” she said, bouncing a little on the chair across from me, the seams of her onesie stretching
to epic proportions. “Maybe I should take the classes with you. It’d be good to have a fallback if teaching doesn’t work out for me. I don’t want to be stuck in a situation like you with no career to fall back on. Do you think they’d want me to lose weight? I know I’m a curvy woman, but I could probably bench press a truck if I had to. Men like curves, and I’d hate to be forced to waste away to nothing just so I could be a spy. It seems to me that the best disguise is my own self.”

It’s true, I thought. No one would ever expect a spy to go around in an orange terrycloth jumpsuit. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something polite to say, but I
was at a loss. Though it wouldn’t have mattered because Rosemarie was now on a mission. Full steam ahead.

She gathered her purse and pushed herself out of the chair. “Make sure you tell me what we need to do to become real private eyes. I’m gonna go shopping for spy clothes. And don’t worry, I’ll get something for you too.
I know spy clothes won’t fit in your budget right now and you can’t go around dressed like that,” she said, waving her hand in the general direction of my borrowed clothes.

I closed my eyes when I heard the front door
snick shut behind her. Getting my private detective’s license was the most logical step to take, considering my current situation. Kate was going to have kittens when she found out this was what I’d decided to do. Nick would probably have a coronary.

But as crazy as the idea was, it felt like the right decision. I’d decide what to do about Rosemarie later. Much later. I drifted off to sleep with the image of Rosemarie wrenched into a black leather corset, knives strapped to her arms, and a Zorro mask tied over her eyes. Even my subconscious knew that things were probably about to get very interesting.

***

I woke to the overwhelming smell of onions and some kind of fried meat. My mom had never really gotten the hang of cooking, but it never stopped her from trying. She hadn’t killed any of us yet, and usually there was something salvageable
on the plate to tide you over until you could sneak back to the kitchen for a bowl of ice cream or Chef Boyardee.

Voices spoke in low whispers from the kitchen, and I buried my face into the couch cushions when I realized who was talking to my mother. His name was Vince Walker, and he’d been my
dad’s partner for a lot of years up until my dad died about a year and a half ago. Dad had been too young to die, but he’d had a massive heart attack while watching a Falcons game and was gone in an instant. No warning or early symptoms. It had taken us all by surprise. I missed him terribly.

Vince was a good cop and very distinguished looking, his dark hair threaded with silver
and his shoulders broad and muscular—kind of like James Brolin on steroids. He was a distant relative of the Walkers who owned the whiskey distillery our town had been founded around, and he’d been hanging around at the house a lot lately. His interest in my mom was plain for anyone to see, and she blushed like a schoolgirl whenever he was around. But my dad’s death was still too recent for me to deal well with another man in the picture. Yet another reason for me to escape the house as soon as possible.

I dragged myself off the couch and into the bathroom to splash water on my face, and then headed into the kitchen. My mom was at the stove doing something scandalous to potatoes and Vince was standing entirely too close be
hind her, as if the secret to frying potatoes was related to the movement of his hips. I narrowed my eyes and went straight to the fridge to get a beer.

My mom broke out of his embrace and came over to give me a hug. “I heard about your job when I was buying groceries this morning. It’s all that stupid Stella Larson could talk about standing behind the register.
She never did have a lick of sense.”

I put my head down on her shoulder and just took a minute to bathe in the comfort of her arms like I was a little kid again.

“Well, she has good reason to talk,” I said. “This should keep mouths running for a few weeks at least.”

“Nonsense,” my mother said, patting me once on the back before going back to the potatoes and draining them. “As soon as Mitch Clumsky gets arrested for beating on that poor wife of his again, everyone will forget all about you.”

For as long as I’d known Mrs. Clumsky, I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard anyone call her by her first name. Everyone always called her Mitch’s poor wife, since he’d been drinking away his paychecks and taking it out on her their entire married life. She would never press charges and she refused to take help from the neighbors who kept trying.

I grunted
in agreement and went to set the table. The three of us sat down and I looked at the meatloaf and the surrounding bowls of food, congealed and lumpy. Vince put on a brave face and started dishing out the food. He must have really liked my mom, and it made me smile a little at his determination.

“So have you thought about your other options?” he asked, trying to cut through the meatloaf with his fork. He finally gave up and went to get a steak knife out of the silverware drawer.

“I have, actually,” I said, tackling my own meatloaf. “Maybe you could give me some pointers.”

“Sure, what do you have in mind?”

“You know I’ve been doing surveillance work for Kate, but I figure I can make twice as much money if I become an actual agent. I’ve decided to get my private investigator’s license.”

The piece of meatloaf Vince had finally managed to get into his mouth fell out onto his plate and he covered his
face with his napkin as he started coughing. Before he could say anything about it one way or the other, my mother piped in.

“That’s a terrific idea,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Don’t you think, Vince?
She’s done such a great job bringing down those lowlifes. I saw her with my own eyes. She’d be a natural. Just like Jessica Fletcher. But without the sweaters.”

Vince ha
d the wild-eyed, panicked look of a man whose woman had him by the balls, and he nodded reluctantly.

“Do you know the requirements for the state of Georgia?” I asked Vince, a full smile coming to my face for the first time that day.

He cleared his throat and said, “Kate can probably give you the specifics, but as far as I know it’s a written test, and then you’ll
have to go through the Citizens’ Police Academy. You might want to see what Kate thinks about this. All of her agents are either current or former cops. They’ve got a lot of experience, which is why her agency has such a good reputation.”

“Kate’s going to think this is a
great
idea,” I lied cheerfully.

In reality, Kate was going to think this was one of the worst ideas I’d ever had, right up there with the time I’d decided to give the both of us home perms and burned our hair off to the scalp.

But I knew Kate. She was the best friend I had in the entire world. She’d bluster and try to talk me out of it, but when push came to shove, she’d be there for me because she’d know I needed the help.

After dinner and the dishes were done, I headed to my childh
ood room with a sense of peace I probably shouldn’t have felt considering the situation. The house was a perfect square—living room, dining room, and kitchen at the front of the house, and three bedrooms and a bathroom at the back. The master bedroom was in the middle and the two smaller bedrooms on each side. It was always best to keep me and my sister separated whenever possible, so there had been a modicum of peace in the house during our teenage years.

My room was still decorated with yellow walls and white lace Priscilla curtains. A
full size bed sat in front of the window and a chest of drawers was pushed into the corner. There were still Nirvana and Pearl Jam posters on the wall, a shelf filled with books and trophies, and pictures tacked to a bulletin board of me and Kate and me and my dad.

The room was comforting and terrifying at the same time, but now instead of seeing myself living out the rest of my days in this room, I saw the possibility of something else.
I had a purpose. I was making the right decision.
A good decision
. I was an intelligent human being. Surely I could become a competent agent over time. Maybe all I needed was the right mentor.

The th
ought had Nick’s face flashing through my mind, and I fanned myself with my hand like an adolescent girl. Maybe Nick and I had needed a few weeks of cooling off. It had been instant attraction between us, but we’d slowly been getting to know each other when the tranquilizer incident happened. And if I hadn’t seen red the moment I saw him with another woman—another woman who had no business touching him the way she had been, informant or not—then we would have already been sleeping together.

Maybe now that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was a good time to rekin
dle things as far as my love life went. With that settled, I turned my iPod on random and Patsy Cline’s Crazy came on first thing. I shook my head and went to bed, wondering if the Fates were also in charge of the soundtrack of my life. I couldn’t seem to turn my mind off, so I lounged on the bed, staring at a poster of Marky Mark above my head.

I’d lost track of the time somewhere, and maybe
I’d actually dozed for a while, but my eyes popped open when Def Leopard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me came on, accompanied by an unusual and atonal noise that didn’t belong. At first I thought someone had broken into the house. I reached into my nightstand drawer to grab my nail file just in case it was an axe murderer, while I felt around in the dark for my cell phone so I could call 911.

My eyes widened as the sounds became
more familiar and the need to retch violently became most prevalent in my mind. Apparently Vince had decided to stay the night. From the animalistic sounds coming from the room next to mine, and the rhythmic thumping of the bed hitting the wall, I was guessing he was planning to stay
all
night.

I’d spent eighteen years in this house growing up, and in all those years I’d never heard those sounds coming through the wall. Not that I didn’t think my parents had sex or anything. But I’m pretty sure they never had the kind of sex that my mother was now having with Vince. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever had that kind of sex.

I shook my head violently to clear out the images that were bombarding my fragile psyche. This was not something any daughter should have to listen to, no matter how old. And there was no way in hell I’d be able to face either of them in the morning.

I slapped a pillow over my head and tried to suffocate the sounds out, but they were hitting their stride and nothing but death was going to keep me from hearing. I waited patiently for half an hour, thinking surely it would have to end soon, but they were still going strong and I couldn’t take it any longer.

I got dressed quickly in denim shorts and a stretchy tank top and slipped on my flip-flops. I shoved a few belongings into an overnight bag and was glad I’d opened the window earlier so my escape didn’t make unnecessary noise. I’d perfected the art of sneaking out during my teenage years, and I hadn’t lost the touch.

I jumped in the Volvo and waited to close the car door until I’d pulled out of the driveway and was down the street. Not that I thought
Mom and Vince would stop what they were doing to listen to my escape, but I didn’t want to throw them off their stride.