Mummy Dearest (42 page)

Once we’d been supplied with tea and cookies, I repeated my question. Caron and Inez nodded, one forcefully and the other tentatively.

Miss Parchester sighed. “About a year ago, old Mr. Stenopolis died of a heart attack. He was well into his eighties and quite a neighborhood character. I remember as a child when he and Papa would exchange angry words concerning Mr. Stenopolis’s disinclination to keep his grass mowed and his sidewalk swept. Papa was on the state supreme court, as I must have told you, and often entertained distinguished visitors.”

“Who lives there now?” I said before we were treated to a lengthy recitation of Papa’s accomplishments in the realm of jurisprudence.

“Mr. Stenopolis left the house to his nephew, Zeno Gorgias. The young man moved in two weeks ago. He’s certainly charming and personable, but he has some ideas that are… unconventional. Mr. Stenopolis once told me that
Zeno is a nationally renowned artist whose paintings sell for a great deal of money.”

“Why did he move to Farberville?” Caron asked. “It’s so utterly middle-class and boring. If I were famous, I’d live in New York or Los Angeles or someplace where people don’t sit around and drink”—she noticed my ominous expression—“diet sodas all day.”

Miss Parchester smiled sweetly at her. “He said he was tired of all the pretentious, self-appointed critics of the art world. He was living in Houston when he learned he’d inherited the house and came to have a look at it. It is a lovely old house, although Mr. Stenopolis never threw away so much as a tin can or a piece of string. The last time I was inside it, I was appalled. Every room was piled high with rubbish, odds and ends of scrap metal, jars, broken appliances, magazines, wads of aluminum foil, and so forth. I told Mr. Stenopolis that it was a firetrap, but he simply laughed. He had a very infectious laugh.”

I tried once more to nudge her into the present. “This artist named Zeno moved in two weeks ago. What’s he done that has lured such a crowd?”

Miss Parchester’s blue eyes watered and the cup clinked as she placed it in the saucer. “He told me that he’s exploring what he calls ‘interactive environmental art.’ People are supposed to be startled into reacting to his stimuli.” She took a tissue from her cuff and dabbed her nose, then sniffled delicately and said, “He’s been very successful in his goal. So far he’s relied on word of mouth, but he mentioned that he’s been in contact with the local television station, as well as the newspaper. Before too long everyone in Farberville will be in our heretofore peaceful neighborhood, trampling flowers, discarding litter, making it impossible for any of us to take our cars out of our driveways.”

“Isn’t that a public nuisance?” asked Caron, who has committed an impressive number of misdemeanors in the past and therefore been obliged to take more than a cursory interest in the law.

“I should think so,” Miss Parchester said sadly, “but the authorities have refused to become involved. I’m in a muddle myself. I’m adamant in my support of freedom of speech and of religion, but walking to the grocery store is a taxing chore, as well as bending over to pick up litter or trying to salvage my zinnias. Nick and Nora are so distressed by all the confusion that they won’t come out from under the back porch. I’ve considered joining them.”

I set down my cup and saucer and gestured at the girls. “Perhaps we’d better take a look for ourselves, Miss Parchester.”

Caron and Inez leapt to their feet, and we were thanking our hostess when the front door banged open and a man literally bounded into the room.

“Miss Parchester,” he said, snatching her hand and noisily kissing it, “I have come to beg a favor of you. Do you have an extension cord that I might borrow?”

She tried to give him a stern look, but her cheeks were pink and she was twittering like a debutante. “Let me introduce you to my three dearest friends, Zeno. Then I’ll see if I can find an extension cord in the garage.”

While she rattled off names, I coolly studied him. He had long, black hair that hid his ears and flopped across his forehead when he moved. And move he did, as if he’d been wound too tightly or had imbibed an excessive amount of caffeine. His hands darted through the air and his feet scarcely made contact with the carpet. His expression shifted continuously, which is why it took me a moment to put his age at thirty despite his sweaty T-shirt, sandals, immodest gym shorts—and the Mickey Mouse beanie perched on his head. How it managed to remain on his head was as much a mystery as what he was doing next door.

“I am enchanted,” he said to me, lunging for my hand.

I put it behind my back. “Welcome to Farberville, Mr. Gorgias.”

He threw back his head and laughed so boisterously that I glanced uneasily at the light fixture above his head. “No one calls me anything but Zeno, my dear Claire. When I die,
there will be only one word on my tombstone:
Zeno.
It will be the perfect summation of my life.” Abruptly sobering, he spun around and caught Caron’s arm. “And what do you wish as your epitaph?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

He may have intended to try the same ploy with Inez, but she was well out of reach and still retreating. “I am sorry I cannot stay,” he continued, “but I must find an extension cord. Everything is at stake—everything!”

Miss Parchester announced she would look and shuffled through the kitchen and out the back door. Caron and Inez clutched each other and warily watched him from behind a settee. If it would not have been misconstrued as an act of cowardice, I would have joined them. In a nanosecond.

“So you are a widow,” Zeno said, turning back to me. “It is a crime against nature for a woman to sleep alone, you know. This is what my grandfather told me when I became a man.” He shoved back his hair and gave me a disconcertingly wicked grin. “Or maybe it’s a line from a movie. Who cares?”

“Why do you say I’m a widow?”

“I love women, from rosy little babies to the oldest crones with hunched backs and gnarled hands. I study them very closely. Women are more complex than men, more analytical, more likely to allow an occasional glimpse of their souls. Also, Miss Parchester told me the tragic story of how your husband was killed in a collision with a chicken truck. I wept as I envisioned the bloodstained feathers fluttering down the desolate mountain road.”

Before I could respond, Miss Parchester returned empty-handed. “I can’t think where else to look, Zeno,” she said. “I’m sure I have one somewhere, but it’s been years since I last saw it.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the tip of her nose. “Don’t worry, my darling. After all, art should be spontaneous, and it has been dictated by fate that I shall have only one stereo speaker today. Tomorrow I may have two, three, or even a hundred!”

He bounded out the door.

“Goodness,” I said as I sank down on the sofa and took a sip of cold tea. “He’s energetic, isn’t he?”

Caron snorted. “If you ask me, he’s psychotic. He just admitted he doesn’t know the difference between real life and the movies.” She flung herself beside me and continued making vulgar noises to express her low opinion of Zeno, or, more probably, adults in general.

“I’m glad I don’t live near him,” Inez contributed, her eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them. “Does he always just barge in like that, Miss Parchester?”

“He said that doorbells limit the spontaneity of the encounter, since both parties are warned in advance. Zeno is enamored of spontaneity, among other things. It’s refreshing, but also tiresome. There have been times after his visits when I’ve taken to my bed to recuperate, or been obliged to pour myself a glass of elderberry wine.”

I didn’t point out that she found other occasions to seek solace in the bottle, one of which had required some dedicated sleuthing on my part. “I guess we’d better see what Zeno is doing,” I said as I stood up.

We were thanking Miss Parchester again when the doorbell rang. It’s possible that at least one of us flinched, but the door stayed shut as Miss Parchester went across the room. She opened it, then gasped and stumbled backward, knocking over a pile of old yearbooks and a spindly floor lamp.

A young woman stood on the porch. Her streaky blond hair was cropped at odd angles, reminding me of the roof of a thatched cottage—after a windstorm. Her eyes were large and dark, her lashes thick with mascara, her mouth caked with scarlet lipstick. Her ample body was flawless except for a few freckles scattered on her shoulders and a puckery white scar that might have come from an appendectomy.

I could arrive at this judgment at the approximate speed of light because she was wearing only the bottom half of a string bikini and silky pink tassels on her breasts.