Jack Daniels Six Pack (50 page)

Back at my apartment building, I was annoyed to hear piano music filling the hallway on my floor. Jazz, and someone playing it much too loudly. My mood was just foul enough to start banging on doors and flashing my badge, but when I discovered the source of the noise, I knew my badge wouldn’t do much good.

“Mom?”

When I opened my door, the music hit me like a wind. I never liked jazz—I preferred my music to have structure and balance. I also never liked piano, having been forced into two years of lessons by a mother who thought it built character.

The living room offered more unpleasant surprises. My couch faced a different direction than it had this morning. It now also had three pink throw pillows on it, which matched the new pink curtains on my windows.

I liked pink about as much as jazz piano.

I hit the Off button on the stereo.

“Mom?”

“In the bedroom, dear.”

I took a deep breath, blew it out, and walked into my bedroom. My mother was hanging a painting on my wall—one of those framed prints available at department stores for under twenty bucks. The subject was a tabby cat, with a pink bow on its collar, wrestling with a ball of yarn.

“Hello, Jacqueline. What happened to Midori?”

“Midori?”

“Midori Kawamura. The CD that was playing.”

“It was too loud. The neighbors were complaining.”

“Philistines. She’s one of the greatest jazz pianists on the planet.”

“I don’t like jazz pianists.”

“Perhaps you suffer from pianist envy.”

I was too annoyed to smile at that.

“Mom, why is my sofa turned around?”

“You had it facing the wall. Now it’s facing the windows. Do you like the pillows?”

“I don’t like pink.”

“You never liked anything girlish. When you were six, all of your friends played with dolls, and I had to buy you toy soldiers. What do you think of your new picture?”

She motioned, with both hands, at the cat with the yarn.

“Adorable,” I deadpanned.

“Reminded me so much of your cat, I had to buy it. Frisky? Where are you?”

Mr. Friskers bounded into the room, onto the bed, and into my mother’s arms.

“Frisky?” I asked.

“Look at him, isn’t he a ringer for the cat in the picture?”

She held Mr. Friskers up, and he did, indeed, resemble his framed counterpart—right down to the pink bow my mother had tied around his neck.

“A dead ringer, Mom. Can you take off the bow? You’re emasculating him.”

“Nonsense. Frisky loves pink, unlike some people. Right, Frisky?”

She stroked his chin, and the damn cat purred at her. I sat on the bed, which my mom had made—much better than I ever had. Not so much as a wrinkle anywhere.

“How’d you do all of this?”

“Alan took me out, the dear man. He’ll be back soon with the plant.”

“Plant?”

“I asked him to pick up a floor plant. This place is so sterile and lifeless. You need a plant.”

Resistance was futile, so I kicked off my shoes and shrugged out of my clothing.

“Jacqueline? You’re not mad, are you?”

“No, Mom. I just had a tough day.”

She set the cat down and put her hand on my head, stroking my hair.

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“Maybe later. I need a shower.”

My mom smiled, nodded. Then she limped out of the bedroom.

A minute later, the jazz came back on.

I slammed the door to the bathroom and set the shower dial to poach. Ten minutes under the needle spray went a long way toward washing the Fuller meeting off of me. I shaved, deep-conditioned my hair, and used the shower mirror to do some serious eyebrow plucking.

I was wrapped in a towel, moisturizing, when the bathroom door opened.

“Jacqueline? There’s a strange man at the door.”

A jolt of panic gripped me, then let go when I realized it couldn’t be Fuller.

“Does he have red hair?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Latham, Mom. My boyfriend. Didn’t he use his key?”

“He tried to. I had the chain on.”

“Can you let him in and tell him I’ll be right there?”

Mom gave me a small frown, but nodded. I slipped on my bathrobe and wound the towel around my wet hair, turban-style.

Latham and Mom stood in the kitchen, Latham in his work clothes—gray pants, red tie, gray jacket. Mom stared at him like he was something she’d stepped in.

“Hi, Jack. I thought I’d stop by, take you out for a bite.”

My mother smiled politely. “We have plans already.”

I shot my mom with laser eyes, but she pretended not to notice.

“We weren’t planning anything special, Latham.” I smiled smoothly. “We’d love to have you join us. Right, Mom?”

Mom managed to fake an enthusiastic smile. “Absolutely. It would be just lovely, Nathan.”

“Latham,” he and I said in unison.

“I’m sure Alan won’t mind either.”

Shit. How’d I forget about Alan?

“Your boyfriend?” Latham ventured, looking at Mom.

“Jacqueline’s husband,” she answered, primly.

“Ex-husband. He was good enough to accompany Mom into town.”

“He’s helping me with the transition. Wonderful man.”

“Transition?” Latham raised an eyebrow at me. I felt like going back to my bedroom and hiding under a pillow.

“Mom has decided to move in with me after all.”

Latham, to his credit, barely flinched. I held his hand, gave it a hard squeeze that I hope conveyed everything I was feeling.

He didn’t squeeze back.

“Well, that’s wonderful. Jack has wanted that for a long time. She speaks the world of you.”

“How sweet. It’s a shame she never mentioned you.”

I gave Latham another hard squeeze, and then released him to escort my mother before this got worse.

“Excuse us just a moment, Latham. Girl talk.”

I steered Mom into the bedroom and shut the door.

“What is it, Jacqueline?”

“Cut the BS, Mom. You’re acting horrible.”

“Horrible? How?”

I raised an index finger, in scolding mode.

“I’m serious. I happen to love this guy. If you keep—”

“You love him? You never told me you loved him.”

“I never had the chance, Mom. You only started taking my calls recently, and then the conversation has mostly been about you.”

I regretted it as soon as I said it, and my mother’s reaction held no surprises. She seemed to grow smaller before my very eyes.

“You don’t want me here, do you?”

“Mom . . .”

“I would have never chosen to come up here if I’d known you were in love with this man. Has he asked you to move in with him?”

“Mom, we can talk about all of this later.”

“If you love him, why did you kiss Alan this morning?”

It just kept getting better.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I was faking.”

“That was a mistake. Mom, look, I’ve had a terrible day, I just want to get dressed and go out to eat. Can you please,
please,
go out there and make friends with Latham?”

“I’ll do my best, dear. I’m suddenly not up for conversation.”

I bit my lower lip, wondering how this could possibly get any worse.

Then I heard the front door open.

“Mary? I’ve got the plant.”

Alan. I hurried over, preparing myself for damage control. Latham eyed me as I walked up.

“I should have called.”

“I should have told you. We’ll get through this. Be brave.” I pecked him on the cheek, but he didn’t offer me anything in the way of nonverbal encouragement.

Alan had a large floor plant in his hands, something with long green pointy fronds. He set it down, smiled at me, then noticed Latham and the smile vanished.

“I didn’t mean to barge in.”

“Alan, this is Latham Conger, my boyfriend. Latham, this is Alan Daniels, my ex-husband.”

Neither moved to shake hands, and I watched them size each other up. If they’d been dogs, I would have expected each of them to lift a leg and start marking territory.

“Hello, Alan! What a lovely fern!” Mom made a show of limping up to him and kissing him.

I glanced at Latham. He was staring at his watch.

“So.” I clapped my hands together and put on a big fake smile. “Who’s up for pizza?”

CHAPTER 28

The two slices of pizza I managed to choke down sat like rocks in my stomach. Neither Latham nor Alan had said more than ten words during dinner, having expended most of their energy trying to ignore each other.

That left my mother to dominate the conversation, and she was on her third drink, inhibitions falling away by the sip. She hadn’t mentioned the kiss yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“Spicy.” Mom smacked her lips. “When you get older, your tastebuds—well—don’t taste. But a good bloody Mary with a healthy dose of hot sauce makes this tired old tongue dance a jitterbug. Plus it’s so much fun to order a drink with my name in it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a hoot.”

“Are you in town long, Alan?” Latham asked.

“I’m here until Mary settles in.”

“So that’s how long? A week? Two?”

“As long as it takes.”

Latham played with his drink straw, spearing at the ice.

“Don’t you have a job you need to get back to?”

Alan folded his arms—one of his defense postures.

“I’m a freelance writer. I’m not tied to an office job, stuck in that nine-to-five rut, making my employer rich from my efforts. But I’m sure it’s not like that at all in the accounting world.”

“I don’t mind nine-to-five. It pays the bills.”

“Boring, though, isn’t it? Jack usually falls for creative types.”

“Maybe she realized how badly that’s worked for her in the past, and decided she needed a change.”

I raised my hand. “Does anyone want to hear about my day? The crazy guy I put behind bars threatened to kill me.”

I’d intended to provoke sympathy, but Latham took that as a cue to assert dominance. He put his arm around me, like we were drinking buddies.

“Stay at my place tonight, Jack.”

“Jack doesn’t look too thrilled there, Latham. Maybe you’ve begun to bore her already.”

“Why don’t you go run home and write about it?”

“Okay, guys. Enough.” I pulled away from Latham and stood up. “You’re all acting like jerks.” I glanced at my mom, to let her know I included her in the statement.

“I’ll drive you home.” Latham stood up. So did Alan.

“I’ll drive myself home.” I dug into my pocket, threw some bills on the table. Both Alan and Latham fell all over themselves, trying to give me my money back. I left them there, heading for the front door, stepping out into the cold Chicago night air.

Home wasn’t an option. I needed time to think. A Checker cab was at the stoplight, and I yelled to it and climbed in.

“Where you headed?”

Good question. After tonight, I was willing to swear off men forever. Parents too. And police work. Where was I headed? Unemployed orphan spinsterhood.

I settled for Joe’s Pool Hall.

The cab spit me out in front, and I beelined to the bar, ordered a whiskey sour, and scoped the action.

As usual, Joe’s had enough secondhand smoke swirling around to cause cancer in laboratory animals. All twelve tables were in use, but I gave up being shy for my fortieth birthday, and got on the board for pickup games.

Four beers and two hours later, I’d done considerable damage to both my liver and the competition. Pool offered a refuge from my problems, and sinking ball after ball put me into an almost zenlike state. I’d forgotten all about Alan, Latham, Mom, Fuller, Herb, my job, my apartment, my insomnia, my life.

Then the balance shifted. The alcohol that had once calmed my nerves, now made me sloppy. I lost three games in a row, and decided to call it quits.

The night had gotten colder, and my jacket wasn’t enough to keep the chill out.

Mom snored on the couch. My machine had eight messages on it, but I didn’t feel up to dealing with them. I got undressed, curled up fetal on my bed, took my nightly sleeping pill, and cried softly to myself until it kicked in and ushered me into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 29

They were torturing me with a horrible beeping sound, playing it over and over until it drove me to the brink of madness, and I couldn’t get away and I couldn’t make it stop, and finally something registered in my head and I opened my eyes and glanced groggily at my alarm clock.

Irritating little sound. But I suppose the pleasant melody of whales singing or frogs croaking wouldn’t wake someone up.

I turned it off, and sat up, dizzily, in bed. My head hurt. I yawned, my jaw clicking from overnight calcium deposits, and then spent a minute trying to get my bearings.

Sleeping pill hangover. I forced my feet out of bed, thought about doing some sit-ups, touched the scars on my belly and decided I wasn’t ready yet, and took a cool shower.

The soap, which promised to open my eyes, didn’t. Neither did the cold water. When I got out, I was just as sleepy, and shivering as well.

“No more,” I said to my face in the mirror. Along with making waking up one of the labors of Hercules, the pills also did wondrous things for my complexion. I hadn’t had a pimple since junior prom, but now, staring at me like a third eye on my forehead, was a blemish.

I played fast and loose with my concealer, slapped on the rest of my face, and went to the kitchen to dump yesterday’s coffee and make a fresh pot.

My mom, whom I knew to be an early bird, hadn’t gotten up yet. I went to check on her.

She lay on her back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Absolutely still.

I moved closer, looking for the telltale rise and fall of her chest, but I couldn’t see under the blanket. Closer still, holding my breath so I could hear her breathing.

I didn’t hear a thing.

I considered panicking, realized I was being silly, and bent down over her, reaching for her neck.

Her skin was warm, and her carotid flittered with her heartbeat.

“Are you taking my pulse?”

I jumped back, almost screaming in fright.