Death in a Funhouse Mirror (39 page)

It was frustrating, but I knew it wasn't her fault. Lisa needed to work to keep herself sane, and I needed her to work to keep me sane. It wasn't the first time Lisa's mother-in-law had conspired to screw up Lisa's life, and therefore mine. She liked to change appointments at the last minute, forcing Lisa to scramble around rearranging things to accommodate her. Any refusal to cooperate brought on sulks and accusations and a massive display of injured feelings. In the office, we'd devised a creative way of handling the woman. On days when Lisa had plans with her mother-in-law which the woman was likely to try and change, Sarah or Magda would field the call and declare Lisa either out of the office and then going on to a lunch meeting, or in conference where she could not be disturbed.

Sarah, especially, had enjoyed handling the calls. When asked to interrupt a conference to inform Lisa that the scheduled lunch would have to be moved to later, she always took great pleasure in informing Mrs. Elliot that Lisa's schedule could not accommodate a schedule change and suggesting she arrange for another day. That always left Mrs. Elliot sputtering and backing down and Sarah grinning maliciously.

"It's too bad we can't just get Sarah to deal with your mother-in-law."

"Don't I wish! Well, it won't happen again. I'm afraid I'm about to be on her blacklist forever, because when I pick Charlotte up tomorrow, I'm going to tell her we can't do this anymore, that I need reliable child care so Charlotte will go to a sitter on Wednesday, and Mrs. E is going to get all huffy and treat it as my refusal to let her see her grandchild. Sometimes I wish we lived in another city."

It was a situation I could relate to. My mother, like Mrs. Elliot, liked to be in control and was affronted when I thwarted her. She also found my lifestyle unacceptable, both the romance and the work sides. She wanted me settled down and married and doing respectable things like polishing my furniture and joining the Junior League. As she kept reminding me, soon I'd be too old to join. She was also beginning to breathe down my neck about grandchildren. It looked like I was her only hope. My brother Michael's girlfriend Sonia, assuming they ever got around to considering children—an unlikely scenario since they were both so selfish— was so sour she'd curdle his sperm. And Michael was still a child himself. I laughed aloud at the notion of an army of little helmeted sperm, charging forth on a procreation mission, encountering Sonia's hostile environment. "Back up, guys," I could hear them shout, "it's a death trap ahead." Too many Woody Allen films, I guess.

"What's so funny?" Lisa asked.

"Thinking about your family got me thinking about my family. I guess every family has its dysfunctional elements."

"I think the functional family is a myth."

"So, speaking of dysfunctional, how'd your day go?"

"It was good. Can you believe no one asked me how I felt about anything?"

"As long as you found out how they felt about things."

"In spades. They were dying to talk about Bartlett Hill. If I had to summarize, I'd say: first, it's a great place. Best clinical treatment facility in the area. Second, they're too tight with money and regulations and don't understand how clinicians work. Third, Cliff Paris walks on water."

"Sounds like my day, too. Only one person suggested it might be a good idea to look into the water."

"Clever. Well, I'd better run, before the front of this suit gets soaked with milk. Nasty thing to think about, isn't it. See what you have to look forward to?"

"That was an aspect I hadn't considered. No matter. Motherhood isn't imminent. I'm still enjoying being a swinging bachelorette."

"Now there's an ugly word."

"Swinging?"

"Bachelorette. Sounds like the degree you'd get from a girls' junior college. Besides, you can't be one of those. You've been married. You want an ugly diminutive, try widowette. See you tomorrow."

I stopped to check with Roddy about picking up our appointment schedules in the morning. Once again it was a pleasure. He had a doughnut bag on his desk and powdered sugar down the front of his shirt. There was a smudge of jam on his cheek. He glared at me like I'd interrupted some very important work.

"Don't let me disturb your feast," I said. "I just wondered what time Cliff planned for us to start in the morning. Does he want to meet first or do we just pick up schedules?"

"Schedules," he said rudely. He picked up two sheets of paper, shook off the sugar, and handed them to me. "He doesn't need to see you." As if I wasn't there, he pulled another doughnut out of the bag and bit into it.

I couldn't resist antagonizing him a little. "You do understand why we're here, don't you?" He glared at me. "That's right. We're here to find ways of making Bartlett Hill a more attractive place to refer patients. How do you suppose your behavior and your attitude fit into that analysis?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"That's what I was afraid of." I stuck the schedules in my briefcase and left. A lot of women can blame their hostile behavior on PMS, but I don't suffer from PMS. I just have a mean streak.

Outside, in the waning daylight, I felt the meanness recede, replaced by a kind of contentment. It's easy to be disagreeable in winter, when the weather matches my moods, but spring is so inviting and alive, it makes being grouchy seem silly. After the craziness and sadness of the past week, it was nice to be doing regular work on a reasonable schedule and not filling in all the crannies with hurried interviews, wedding preparations, phone calls and meetings. Sure I was on my way back to the office and I'd probably work there another couple hours, but it all seemed so normal without the wedding and Eve and Florio and Valeria also hanging over me.

My father had been delighted to get the affidavits and basically assured me that we were home free. I hadn't told my parents about the midnight intruder. They worry too much, and I wasn't about to try and fend off an invitation to go and live at home until the culprit was caught. I had no basis except intuition for my belief that the nocturnal visits were over—that and Harris's grudging admission about the local burglar—but I wasn't anxious anymore. I'd been in some pretty scary situations in my life, and when they were over I put them behind me and went on. I was too busy to dwell on the what ifs and what nexts.

How could I not feel good? With fear of the midnight visitor and the burden of Eve's request off my mind, I felt almost giddily light. So what if I'd earned her undying scorn? I wasn't Hercules. I didn't need to perform a series of difficult tasks to earn her forgiveness. I'd done what I promised and that was enough. I could sympathize with her situation and understand her grief without continuing to be drawn into her emotional morass.

No one could fix it for her. Eve would have to find her own happiness.

I knew very well how compelling the need for some resolution of a loved one's death could be. I'd gone through it with Carrie, determined to go ahead with my search over the objections of my entire family. In the end I'd found her killer, but it hadn't brought about a magical catharsis or a swell of satisfaction. Life isn't that simple. I'd achieved a resolution, but it had been a sad one. And Carrie was still irretrievably lost. I'd had to learn to live with that. As with David, the hurt and the loss have never completely gone away. Yet I thought of myself as an optimist, remembering the good about them, and generally finding the good in life. Maybe that's why I could be so happy today.

I'd also resolved the Andre question. The mental daisy plucking, the "he loves me, he loves me not," that I'd tried unsuccessfully to ignore had been laid to rest. We were back where we'd been before, or maybe we were closer, though to what, whether it was commitment or just mutual understanding, I didn't know. Maybe romance is never clearer than that.

I stood there gazing out over the rolling green lawns, warm sun on my back, and indulged in an enormous stretch, throwing my arms wide, bringing them slowly up over my head and slowly back down again. It was time to get back to aerobics. I was getting stiff.

"Penny for your thoughts," a voice behind me said. A coin dropped with a metallic clang onto the hood of my car. Cliff was standing there with his briefcase, unlocking his car.

"Daydreaming, I'm afraid. Must be a touch of spring fever."

"It's awfully nice, isn't it. Though it takes me weeks to finally trust that it won't snow again. How did things go today?" I had the sense he was suppressing his interest, trying not to seem too eager. I'd forgotten how excited he'd been about the project— excited and hopeful—his board was looking over his shoulder on this one.

"It's too early in the process to reach any conclusions, but today went well. We're enjoying your staff, and they're being very cooperative. They all think you walk on water."

The wind ruffled his gold and silver hair. I studied him, taking in his slim, elegantly dressed body and his well-worn handsome face. Sunglasses hid his eyes, and nowhere else could I detect a trace of the sorrow I'd seen the other day. "Oh, I do," he said, "but the maintenance on the underwater structures is very expensive. That's why we need you. To help us bring in the money we need to keep the illusions alive."

"Illusions? I thought you were here to help people?"

"We are. Part of how we help them is creating the illusion that we are a special place where they can be confident they'll get help. Or the people who refer them can." He opened the door and put the briefcase in, then he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He pushed his glasses up onto his head and squinted at his watch, looking impatiently toward the building. He was wearing a light blue shirt with wide darker blue stripes which emphasized the blue of his eyes. "Are you feeling better today?" It sounded perfunctory, as if he didn't really care. Something was bothering him but I didn't know what.

"Much. I don't see how anyone could feel bad in this weather."

"It's hard." He looked over my shoulder at someone whose approaching footsteps were crunching on the gravel. "So there you are. I was afraid you'd forgotten." Whoever it was got the warm, welcoming smile I'd missed. Rowan Ansel, in white shorts and shirt, carrying a tennis racket, walked around to the passenger's side and got into the car, his greeting a mere nod. "See you tomorrow, Thea," Cliff said. "I hope you don't mind. I've scheduled you for appointments until seven. There were some people I wanted you to talk to who weren't available earlier. Did Eve find you?"

"Was she trying to?"

"She called this morning, looking for you. I didn't want to disturb you, so I told her to try you around lunch time. She was going to leave a message for you to call her. Guess you didn't get it?"

I shook my head. "I thought she'd stopped speaking to me." There was an odd note in his voice that I couldn't identify. A warning? An admonition? Too subtle for me. If there was something he wanted me to know, he'd have to be clearer than that. I'd told him my efforts for Eve were over. If he didn't believe me, he could say so. "A long schedule tomorrow is no problem. We're used to it. See you in the morning." I left them in a laughing, animated conversation, trying not to hear Eve's words about her father's unseemly happiness. Even sad people are entitled to the occasional light moment.

The stacks on my desk perfectly reflected the personalities of the three people who'd left them. Everything Magda had left for me was in a folder and the entire stack was capped with a detailed memo explaining what sort of action was needed in each of the underlying categories. On the other side of the desk Sarah had arranged my own stuff. First the inevitable heap of pink slips, held together with a giant acrylic clothespin that had my name on it. Beneath them were things she'd typed for me, some of them topped with little sticky notes featuring the Cheshire Cat's irritating smirk, raising questions in her untamed scrawl. Below them, clipped together, was the day's mail. The last sheet was a typed memo, but unlike Magda's, it was very simple. "When you get here," it said, "put everything back on the desk, go to aerobics, get yourself a sandwich, and come back refreshed. Bobby was sad and lonely today. You need to give him more to do. Sarah."

"Okay, Sarah," I said. "I'll do it." I left Bobby's pile, neat but with a daunting number of oversized question marks, for my return, and spent an hour sweating like a pig while the divine Aaron, barely clad in a brief, form-fitting unitard, leapt and danced like a maddened pixie. I showered, secured a sandwich and headed back to work. I was waylaid by the realization that I had nothing to wear to work and Suzanne wasn't around to help me. Grimly, I veered from my fixed course into the parking lot of a high-fashion discount store and forced my unwilling legs across the parking lot and into the too bright fluorescent interior. Like all such places, it smelled like perfume. I resigned myself to a miserable hour.

Despite the fact that my build was supposedly every man's dream—a fact which had made my teenage years miserable, since most of the boys only came up to my chest, and that was all they wanted to look at anyway—clothes were rarely designed to accommodate my dimensions. By the time I found a size to fit my chest, the shoulder seams were halfway to my elbows and the sleeves came to my fingertips. And I have long arms. I headed for the suit rack, grabbed an armload of them and a few simple blouses, and carried them into the common dressing room.

My theory about common dressing rooms, where everyone stands around in a huge square walled with mirrors and tries on their clothes, used to be that we all have flaws so why be self-conscious. This place was an exception. Maybe the same people who care about fashionable clothes also care about their figures. I couldn't say. All I knew was that the women here seemed to have unacceptably nice shapes, no matter what their age. Grimly, I hung my possibilities on a hook, piled my own clothes up on the bench, and started trying things on. Ten suits later, I got dressed again, feeling like the hunchback of Notre Dame. How was it possible that nothing in my size fit me?

"Excuse me, dear," the pleasant-faced, henna-haired woman beside me said, "you're just not choosing the right things. Those were all dull and square anyway. With your height and looks, you can wear something with a little style."