With Friends Like These... (31 page)

Hattie nodded.

“How did you do it?” I demanded. “Where did you get the seeds?” What to say while waiting for your paramedic.

“Guate…ma…la…” Hattie was having trouble with her syllables. She gasped and put her head back on the pillows. “Collect…interesting…wanted to be…”

Wanted to be a naturalist. I remembered, but her desires, realized or squelched, were at the bottom of my current priorities. What I wanted was information. “I mean that night,” I said. “Where did you get the seeds? You wouldn’t have brought them with you.”

“Home.”

Home? And then I remembered. My mother had wanted to fix Hattie up with somebody, but she had gone home—to rest, we were told. Her apartment, full of pods and specimens, was only minutes from Queen Village. Maybe, less of a purist than Lizzie, she believed in canned whipped cream, and even had one on hand to stick in her purse. If not, it was no big problem stopping the taxi at a convenience store. “After the paramedics get here and save you,” I shouted, “I’ll make sure you go to jail!”

She shook her head. “Can’t save me. Heart too old.”

“You—” I sputtered. “You are the most—” There were no words.

“Then Mandy,” my mother said in that same, nearly paralytic voice, “Mandy—you ate the candy, too.” Her voice took on more color and energy and she glared at Hattie. “You let
my
daughter eat poison!” She stood up. I thought she was going to strangle the old lady, but instead she simply stood there, looking as stunned as if someone had just clubbed her. And in a way, someone named Hattie had. “My child!” she said. “My child! You gave her poison!”

“Mom, be careful. Take it easy.” I had this theory that you shouldn’t do anything physical, as if by sitting like lumps we could slow the flow of poisonous blood through our veins. I thought I had seen a Western where that was recommended for snakebite, but maybe not. Still, I couldn’t think of what else to do. “Sit back down. Don’t forget,” I said, “you ate it, too.”

She gasped, and I wasn’t sure if it was terror or the beginnings of the poison’s deadly course. “I can’t believe it!” she said, blinking back tears. “You hurt my daughter!”

How long did it take paramedics to arrive? I thought of all the hostile drivers I’d seen blocking ambulances, making their path even more difficult. And it was maximum rush hour. And then there was the impossibly slow elevator.

We were dead meat.

“Spock!” my mother screamed while rushing to a door off the living room.

The poison had gone directly to her mind.

“Spock!” my mother shouted again as the door swung behind her. Forget the still-blood theory. I bolted across the living room, duplicating her exit.

“Mom!” I said when I was in the kitchen. “Please. Don’t panic. The ambulance will be here any second.”

But she was busy, running water at the sink, shaking something. And then she turned around, holding two glasses of murky water. “Drink!” she shouted.

“Shhhh. Calm down. The paramedics will be—”

“Drink! Right now. Immediately! This is your mother speaking!”

“It looks awful. What is it?”

“Emetics! First aid, poisons.” She spoke rapidly, double-time. “‘Vomiting is the best first-aid treatment for suspected poisoning with most substances but not the following: kerosene, gasoline, benzene, cleaning fluids—’”

“That’s the Spock you meant? Doctor? You memorized it?” Beth and I had often privately joked about that possibility, but we’d never meant it seriously.

“‘If your child is old enough or cooperative enough to do something unpleasant, have him drink a glassful of water to which has been added a tablespoonful of salt—’ Mandy, you are definitely old enough to do something unpleasant. Are you cooperative enough?”

“You did! You memorized him!”

“Memorized everything in the emergency sections.” She handed me a glass. “Drink. Emergencies happen away from home. Drink more. That’s why they call them emergencies. Wanted to protect you girls wherever we—so afraid I wouldn’t know—Drink all of it!”

And I did. Disgustingly salty water. An entire eight ounces. She watched me down it, then handed me the second glass. “Just in case,” she said. We were now beyond Spock. This one was sudsy with dish detergent. “He mentions both methods,” she explained.

“One or the other, maybe?”

“Drink! Can’t be too safe!”

After she was convinced that I’d done my bit, my mother chugalugged her share. I had known she wouldn’t begin till I finished. In a crash, she would ignore the airline’s warnings about putting on your oxygen mask before your child’s. It would go against her basic fiber. Children first, and nothing else a close second.

Maria’s impassivity gave around the mouth as she curled a lip in scorn. She did not approve of our drinking habits. “Oh, Maria,” I said, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” And to clarify my meaning, I then had to rush to the sink and be sick, to be joined within moments by my mother, who said “Sorry” between each retch.

Long after we’d first bent over, we heard a bell and pounding on the door. The medics had finally made it through the congested streets and up the sluggish elevator.

Our heroes. And to think I’d spent a portion of my childhood and perhaps adulthood believing that rescue meant Prince Charming on a white steed, not panting paramedics with purgatives.

However, I didn’t need either version’s services. Dr. Spock had done the trick for the Peppers.

I staggered rather woozily into the living room, where Hattie was being hooked to wires and tubes.

“Hey!” I shouted at her. Even my mother didn’t squelch my rudeness at this stage.

Hattie’s eyes fluttered open.

“Look! We’re alive,” I said. “No thanks to you.”

She closed her eyes. It didn’t matter to her one way or the other. We had wandered into her plan. We weren’t a part of it.

One of the paramedics turned and faced me. “Lady,” he said, “give us a break.”

“Your trap for Lizzie isn’t going to work, Hattie!”

Despite all its preexisting wrinkles, the old woman’s forehead creased noticeably. At some level, I knew, she heard me. I also knew this was cruel and unusual punishment, because all she had left was the illusion that she had set matters right, but she wasn’t entitled to that satisfaction. “The police won’t believe Maria or Alice or you, because Lizzie was with them the whole time! Do you hear? She has the one perfect alibi on earth. The game is over, Hattie, and you lose.”

“Lady!” the paramedic said. “Have some respect. This woman’s in bad shape.”

It was obvious. Her skin was parchment dry and pale, and her breath, no matter what they did, raspy and sparse. She’d been right about her heart not being able to take the strain of the poison. “I’m finished,” I said. But not out of respect. Respect is earned, and she had forfeited her share long ago.

On the other hand, my mother had won and rewon her share countless times. I hugged her. Overprotective, definitely. Annoying, absolutely. Interfering, most positively. But there were worse arrangements between people.

The paramedics insisted that we be observed at the hospital. After showing no symptoms, we were discharged, but not before my mother lectured the entire staff on how much time and energy Dr. Spock, salt water, and soap could save them.

“Were you telling the truth when you said that Lizzie was with the police?” my mother asked as we made our way back to where I’d parked.

“Didn’t you teach me never to lie? She’s with Mackenzie. He’s been involved with this case from the beginning.” I rooted for my car keys in my purse.

“The case is solved now, sweetie.”

I unlocked the car doors. “We’re a good team.”

My mother slipped into the passenger side and looked at me. “Why don’t we detour to the station, then?” she said.

I started the car. “Fine. It might be nice, you know, to have Lizzie meet Dad after all these years. Nice for both of them.”

She nodded. “That, too.”

“Too?”

She sighed. “As I said, darling, the point is that the case is solved, so your young man—”

“Mother, he’s absolutely not my—”

“—now has the evening free, and I’ll bet he can come to dinner after all.”

Now I understood the meaning of my recent existence. It had been no more than Bea Pepper’s unique, hair-raising method of getting me a dinner date. Motherhood to the nth degree, but who was I to knock it?

“Which is lovely,” she continued, “because—”

There was a further agenda. I held my breath.

“—I was afraid we wouldn’t have the chance to spend real time with him—”

“But Mom—”

“—before we leave tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Florida?”

She nodded.

“No problem.” I put the car into gear and we were off. I just love happy endings.