Leave Well Enough Alone (11 page)

One step at a time. Seven steps and I’ll be at the ladder again. Her foot hit against something. She dropped the flashlight. It thudded softly on the earthen floor. Dorothy reached down to feel for it. Then her hand touched another hand, an arm and then a tiny shoulder. It was the body of a baby covered with a kind of slime.

N
ICE MISS BORG. SWEET
Miss Borg. Miss Borg had not told Mrs. Hoade. Dorothy shook out the frills in the dress she was to iron and Lisa was to wear. Mrs. Hoade was too worried about the clouds that were gathering in the afternoon sky, threatening her party. She had not even noticed the nettle scratches on Dorothy’s hands and elbows.

Dorothy did not remember screaming. She did remember the other trapdoor opening, the one that led up to the cottage. In the bright light that had suddenly flooded the cellar, she had seen both Miss Borg and the two stone cupids from the vanished fishponds at once. They lay side by side at her feet, one holding a jug, the other jugless, the two of them covered with a mossy growth. Body of a baby indeed! How she could have mistaken an old limestone statue for the body of a baby, she didn’t know, but Dorothy was determined not to let her imagination run away with her like that again. Dorothy had apologized profusely to Miss Borg, remembered the watch, forgotten the boots, and bowed her way up the ladder and out of the cellar like a mandarin.

Dinna clattered the dishes in the kitchen downstairs. Matthew’s lawn mower buzzed in the front garden and the birds outside sang and whistled like steam kettles.

“Push it to the right,” said Mrs. Hoade, examining the switch on the iron.

“I did,” said Dorothy. “It still isn’t working.”

Mrs. Hoade looked down at her right hand. She held her forefinger and thumb together as if to grasp an invisible pencil. “I’m sorry, the left,” she said. “I never can remember which is which and I’m thirty-five years old.”

“Mommy, do we have to wear dresses?” Lisa whined.

“Now, honey. This is something
very
special tonight.” Mrs. Hoade squinted out at the sky again.

“You always say whatever Daddy does is very special.” Jenny joined Lisa whining. “Just like when he was going to start a company and when he brought that man home from Las Vegas that you said was a...

“Jenny!”

“I want to watch
As the World Turns
” said Jenny with a sigh.

“And I want to watch cartoons after that,” said Lisa.

Mrs. Hoade smiled impishly at Dorothy. “Do you promise to be good tonight?” she asked them.

“Yes, Mommy,” came the answer from both of them.

“And go to bed when Dorothy tells you?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“And try to stay clean in front of Daddy?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Well, all right, but after that, after those two programs, it will be time to get ready. Are you sure you don’t mind ironing, Dorothy?”

“Not at all,” Dorothy said, glad for something to do that salved her very guilty conscience.
Stealing.
There was no other word for it. Going down and bothering Miss Borg was bad enough. Breaking Mrs. Hoade’s injunctions about going near the old foundations was worse. But almost stealing a pair of riding boots. I would have asked her—Dorothy tried to sound convincing to herself. I would have just brought them up to the house and then asked Mrs. Hoade if I could borrow them. But of course that wasn’t true, and she knew it....

Dorothy tried to remember just how her mother dampened cotton voile, exactly how Maureen laid a puffed sleeve on the point of an ironing board. Mrs. Hoade looked on approvingly as Dorothy turned the dress inside out, as if she were trying to learn something. Dorothy was not fooled, but she did wonder, if she were one day to marry a super, rich Englishman like David Niven, whether she too would simply forget all the humdrum things she’d known before, like how to iron a dress.

“Is...this man coming down in the same car with Mr. Hoade?” Dorothy asked, for she now had guessed that “N” was a man as well as a campaign.

“Yes, indeed. They’ll do some business on the way down,” Mrs. Hoade answered. “I hope it doesn’t rain. I hope there isn’t traffic. John’s always in a...bad mood when things go wrong.” She twisted her hands a bit and looked out at the sky again.

“I didn’t know Mr. Hoade was in politics,” Dorothy ventured.

“Politics and advertising are all the same,” said Mrs. Hoade. “Actually John is in public relations. That’s what he prefers to call it.”

“I was hoping,” Dorothy said as meekly as she could, “I mean I know how terribly important you said this man is to Mr. Hoade and to you, but if...well, I have to do a history term paper next year. It’s a big project in second semester and I was wondering if after the girls are in bed if I could just meet...or say I had interviewed a famous political...

“Of course!” interrupted Mrs. Hoade. “Now I’d better see what Dinna is doing. And Matthew ought to have brought in the flowers by now. I’ll tell John and I’m sure anybody you’d like to talk to tonight will only be flattered and glad to help you. You have the two hundred I gave you? I’m expecting people to call from the station within the hour and I may be out when the caterer delivers.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hoade.”

Since that morning, “N” had ceased to be a deodorant or a false-teeth adhesive. “N” was a man running for office, possibly a famous politician. SACRED HEART SOPHOMORE GETS SCOOP ON ELECTION! ran the headline in Dorothy’s imagination. Rather than start next term with a black mark against her, she might be able to impress the daylights out of her teachers, terrifying Sister Theresa in particular. Sister Theresa, according to legend, had once kept a boy out of Notre Dame because he’d written on his final exam that Henry the Eighth had married eight wives instead of six. Sister Theresa knew all about Dorothy, of course. All the Sisters would be watching her next year, watching for notes to be passed. If she showed some honest, innocent initiative, the sort of thing Sister Elizabeth always talked about, independent involvement, then perhaps she would be forgiven a little bit.

She was going to listen very carefully tonight. Apparently, if one got hold of politicians at parties, when their guard was down and they’d had a drop too many, one could learn the most amazing things. Dorothy wondered if she should take her exclusive interview to the school paper or the
Journal-American
first. Either way, her teachers would be impressed and her father tickled pink. She decided to wait and see if she could find out anything scandalous. Dorothy Coughlin, Girl Reporter: Dorothy liked the sound of that. It was much more exciting, really, than spending her life writing novels. Much safer and more realistic than being a secret agent. She would have an apartment all her own in New York City or Washington. She would wear one-hundred-dollar suits from Saks Fifth Avenue, and big floppy hats, and carry an alligator bag. She’d have a press card, too. That would guarantee entrance to the Pope himself. Her first assignment, she decided, once she’d been hired by a paper, would be to do an exposé on the senators and their free Scotch.

Dorothy finished the girls’ dresses. Eyeing them critically, she hung them on a clothesline in the laundry room. Shoes! she thought. I wonder if their shoes are shined. Mrs. Hoade was as impressed with her thoughtfulness and organization as Dorothy intended her to be. Dorothy was impressed herself. She polished the girls’ Mary Janes to a patent-leather glow, laid out their lace-topped socks and clean underwear, and then began on her own clothes. She had only the same cotton dress that she’d worn to every party, but Mrs. Hoade had given her a necklace of amber beads to wear that night and the whole effect was a little dressier.

Poor Mrs. Hoade. When she emerged clumsily from the car, after picking up two people at the train station, she looked so frowsy, so unwell-dressed. Dorothy watched from an upstairs window for a second, before going to bathe the girls. Mrs. Hoade had chosen a dress with enormous white peacocks on a black background. Her hair had not been set. She’s probably never had anyone to tell her, Dorothy mused, thinking kindly, for once, of Maureen. Maureen had taught her all about lipstick colors and hairstyles, fat clothes and thin clothes. Mrs. Hoade was hopeless. Perhaps, if I suggest it nicely...Dorothy considered, I can help her.

She ran Lisa’s bath. In case she got rumpled or splashed, Dorothy didn’t want to dress herself until both girls were totally finished. She’d bribe them with dessert to keep them quiet while she dressed.

“Two éclairs
each
,” Jenny made her promise. “Unless they have meringues. If they have meringues and no éclairs we get three meringues with ice cream and chocolate sauce and whipped cream, and if they have both, we get one of each apiece.”

Lisa upped the ante to one éclair and three meringues.

“We’ll just have to see,” said Dorothy, soaping Lisa’s knees. “I’ll do the best I can.”

A door slammed downstairs. She heard Mr. Hoade’s voice, then many other voices. Ice tinkling in glasses. Someone laughing.

After a few minutes, Mr. Hoade came bounding up the stairs and walked into the bathroom.

“Daddee!” said Lisa.

“Daddy’s little princesses!” he said, squatting down. He straight-armed a dripping Lisa away from him. “No!” he said. “Don’t you get Daddy’s new tux all wet!” Lisa’s face puckered up as if she were going to cry. Mr. Hoade stood up and cracked all the knuckles in his fingers. “How are you doing, honey?” he asked Dorothy.

“Fine, thank you, Mr. Hoade,” said Dorothy as she dried Lisa.

“That’s good. Here,” he said, producing a photograph from his jacket pocket. “My wife tells me you wanted this.” He turned and loped away down the stairs as quickly as he’d come.

Dorothy stared at the face. She didn’t recognize it. “Best Wishes to Dorothy,” the inscription ran. She’d never heard of the name either. Best Wishes indeed!

Politics, national and local, was the most discussed subject at her parents’ dinner table. Dorothy’s mother wasn’t overly interested, but politics for her father was an obsession and love. Although he never said so, Dorothy sensed he’d been disappointed that Kevin had not gone to law school, and Terrance had only a football scholarship. He would have loved it if either of them had run for office. Dorothy knew, without a doubt, that this man with the fleshy, drooping jowls and the slicked back hair had never been in newspapers she’d seen and she’d never heard his name mentioned even once, so he must be pretty small potatoes. Even if he was small potatoes, he might have been interesting, but if he thought Dorothy was just another autograph-seeking teenager, he’d never say anything important to her. He’d probably pat her on the head and ask how she was doing at school. Her heart sank. “Now wait in your room till I’m finished,” she told Jenny and Lisa irritably.

“Remember,” said Lisa. “Two éclairs apiece. Not one each.”

“I said I’d do the best I could,” snapped Dorothy.

“You promised!” Lisa whined.

“I did not! And if you keep that up you won’t get anything at all!”

See if I care, she grumped as she combed her hair. Still, perhaps things weren’t that gloomy. If she could find out how advertising controlled political campaigns, even small ones, it might make a good paper for Sister Theresa. If she could uncover some scandalously misrepresented issues, it might be of interest to some newspaper. After all, she told herself, you have to start somewhere.

She heard a terrible shriek from downstairs. It was Lisa. Dorothy dropped her comb and flew out of her room.

She brushed past Jenny, who stood mutely on the stairway, watching her sister. Lisa’s fingernails were dripping nail polish all over the rug, her shoes, and her freshly ironed dress.

“You got it on my
pants
!” Mr. Hoade was saying to her between his clenched teeth. “Dorothy, get down here!” he yelled as Dorothy ran downstairs. “Look what has happened! I thought you were paid to watch the girls!”

Where was Mrs. Hoade? Would she be angry after having been so nice all day? She’d even let Dorothy take the morning off to go riding. Dorothy could see her outside in the garden with the guests. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hoade. I just had to take five minutes and get ready myself. I couldn’t come down in dungarees in front of all these...

“You are paid to watch the girls, not to fuss with your own hair!”

“She said three meringues!” Lisa sobbed out. “And then she went back on her word!”

“What’s this about meringues?”

Dorothy took a deep breath. “All I said, Mr. Hoade, was if the girls were good I’d get them some French pastry. I didn’t think...

“You bribed them, is that it?”

“Two éclairs and three meringues!” Lisa yelled.

“I said I’d do the best I could, Lisa,” Dorothy began.

“Then you said we wouldn’t get anything at all!” Lisa’s words were nearly unintelligible. Mr. Hoade had marched off into the kitchen in search of kerosene.

“Dorothy’s right,” came a voice from the stairway. “And you know it, Miss Wet-Bed!”

Dorothy stopped Lisa’s lunge just short of Jenny, who’d come sashaying down and was now walking unconcernedly out the door to the garden. “If you get Dorothy into trouble, we won’t get anything, stupid!” was Jenny’s parting shot.

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” screamed the surprisingly strong little girl.

“Easy...easy,” said Dorothy as if to a shying horse. Dorothy held her around the middle firmly, but with one tremendous spasm, Lisa bit Dorothy on the wrist and sent them both tumbling backward into the silver liquor tray. Dorothy’s shoulder smashed into the side of the portrait that hung above the tray, but mercifully the painting did not shift in the slightest or swing out into the pointed corner of the breakfront as she had feared, or fall into the broken glass of the sherry decanter that lay at her feet.

“Give her to me!” said Mr. Hoade from the kitchen doorway. “Hold her there,” he instructed Dorothy. Dorothy, her good cotton dress soaked in sherry, with Lisa writhing like a tiger in her lap, sat motionless and watched as Mr. Hoade strode over and hovered above them. “You’re going to get a licking for that. Oh, yes, you are!” he shrieked, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeve.