Not Your Everyday Housewife (8 page)

“You did what for whom?”

“I matched the animals’ outfits to their owners,” Derry said, shrugging. “This Senator’s wife likes Versace and Prada? Fine. The white Pomeranian gets a Versace sweater and a Prada collar.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in all of my years on this earth,” Tula Rae said, sipping on a glass of homemade Chablis. “Someone should’ve reported it to the papers.”

“They did.
Glamour
carried an exclusive, and guess what? People weren’t outraged, well, except for maybe a handful, but you know what the majority said? Where can I get one?”

“Them’s crazy people,” Tula Rae muttered, hacking a Vidalia onion with her cleaver. “Damn crazy.” She and Derry were making bouillabaisse, just the way Earl Gray liked it.

“This is his favorite. It was his mama’s recipe, handed down from her mama, and all the way back four generations.”

“You ever going to let him make an honest woman out of you?” Derry asked, peeling a shrimp.

“Honey, there’s no more honest woman than Tula Rae, but I had no luck with husbands. Four dead. That’s God’s way of saying, ‘You aint’ meant to be married.’”

“I think marriage should be a contract, renewable every five years. At the end of the fifth year, you renegotiate. If you want another five, you sign up.”

That made Tula Rae laugh. “So, if you get your eye on some other woman’s husband, you just wait until the contract’s up and then grab him? Sounds like an invitation to a hell of a lot of cat fights.”

“Unless you’re the one trying to get rid of the husband.”

“Ah, I see how it is. Hurt’s an awful thing, but losing ‘em for good, that’s a worse pain. And if you let pride push ‘em away, that’s the worst kind of hurting you can imagine. Even worse than death, ‘cause you know you did it.”

“What if they’ve done the hurting? Doesn’t it make it easier?”

“No.” Tula Rae chopped the Vidalia onion into tiny pieces with her stainless steel cleaver. “A while back, Earl Gray asked me to marry him and I told him I didn’t need no man, least ways one fourteen years younger than me. I booted him out of my life.”
Whack!
She slammed the cleaver into the onion. “And right into the arms of a she-devil. It wasn’t ‘til I started cleaning out the drawer by the phone and found this recipe for his mama’s bouillabaisse, that I realized what I’d done.” She looked up and her eyes glistened with tears. “There was no way to fix it, ‘cept to bury my pride and go to him. And that’s just what I did, seven years ago this past July.”

“What if the hurt’s too deep?”

“No hurt’s too deep if the love’s strong enough,” Tula Rae said, matter-of-factly. “You just have to decide, one way or the other”—she leaned over and her silver earrings dangled against her bronzed face—“but don’t wait too long because a person can only take so many ‘no’s.’ If you lose him, you might not get him back.”

Earl Gray’s strong laugh filtered through the screen door. Tula Rae lifted her bony shoulders and smiled. “Here he comes now, the old codger.” Her face shone when he opened the back door carrying four roses, three pink and one red. “Pink for the ladies and red for
my
lady,” he said, brushing a kiss on Tula Rae’s lips.

Derry hadn’t spoken to Alec in twelve days, since the night she’d had sex with him. Did he miss her? Did he even think about her? Had he discovered her wedding ring, thrown in the back of the toothpaste drawer?

Charlie called her every night at 7:30. She didn’t ask about his father anymore, not since the first night when Charlie told her,
Daddy went out wearing that smelly stuff.

Maybe Alec had already found his own she-devil.

So what?

Tula Rae yanked Derry from thoughts of Alec. “Tomorrow, we’ll make sushi, like my third husband, Raymond Nudel taught me to do.”

“Which husband was Italian?”

“Cici, number four.” She smacked a loud kiss with three fingers. “Best stromboli you ever tasted.”

And thus, continued the culinary education of Derry Rohan.

***

Katherine Rosemary Cintar spoke complete sentences at age two. By age three she read Golden Books and at seven she competed in the county spelling bee against twelve and thirteen year olds.

Her parents, eager for her to utilize all possible brain power on more cerebral tasks, excused her from the mundane duties of picking up the litter of shirts and jeans on her bedroom floor, loading her own cereal bowl in the dishwasher, or cleaning her toothpaste spit out of the bathroom sink. The education of Katherine Cintar continued as she learned French, Spanish, and Japanese, all introduced before age eight.

Her younger sister, Janie, though not quite as academically inclined as Katherine, possessed more street smarts. She learned early on that parents could be conned. A pretend sore throat got Mom to rush to Fresh Mart for Push Ups and chocolate ice cream. A crying spell would convince Dad that his little girl really did need an extra half hour of television to unwind.

And on life went, with Katherine, aka Kiki, (because her sister couldn’t spit out that many syllables at age three), believing she would be the first female president, and by virtue of this position,
never
have to pick up her own socks. Janie grew determined to create a job where she made
and
changed the rules.

No one faulted Sam and Cyn Cintar’s overzealous expectations for their daughters. The girls
were
smart and special. But everyone traded whispered bets on the inevitable downslide of the Cintar sisters.

Why?

Because smart still needed to wash a dish and take out the garbage. And savvy shouldn’t be excused from vacuuming carpets and scrubbing toothpaste from the sink. Kiki and Janie’s reality shock hit three years ago when their parents recognized their mistakes and attempted to teach them basic living skills.

Kiki resisted. Janie cried.

Sam got angry and Cyn, the weakest link, dropped from parent monitor to child facilitator, making the rules and then more often than not, completing the tasks she’d assigned.

Until now.

Cyn perched on the craggy rocks of Ogunquit, the wind sifting through her red-tinged hair, canvas on her lap, palette at her side. Derry bought her the artist’s tools because as she said, “How do you know what you’re good at if you don’t start trying something?”

Last week, inspired by the torment of the ocean, Cyn attempted to write a few lines of poetry. Disastrous. She’d turned the lines into the opening of a short story, which, while not half bad, wasn’t anything she’d sign her name to either.

The sky rolled into the ocean, lapping over it in calm waves of color, as seagulls and fishing boats trolled along the coast. The perfect artist’s backdrop. But Cyn knew before she took the first stroke that she was no artist, knew too that coming here had nothing to do with finding herself and everything to do with working up the courage and a game plan to tell Sam the truth about these last five months. But she couldn’t explain that to Derry or Shea, so she just pretended to really care about discovering her untapped talents.

All she really wanted to do was go back to the way her life used to be. Before the lies.

And knowing that only made her thoughts race faster, center around the current crisis which happened to be Kiki and Janie’s angry silences. Janie had called twice, once to ask what
spot clean
meant and another time to inform her that the shower had clogged again. Kiki called one time, with nothing to say, a call most certainly coerced by her father.

And Sam? He said less and less each night. Did he suspect? Had he uncovered something? She’d been so careful…

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”

She looked up to see a man standing a few feet from her. He was tall and tanned, fifty or so, with cinnamon eyes and a Robert Redford boyishness about him. He carried a very high tech looking camera in one hand and a tripod in the other

“No, of course not.” She slid along the rock. “I was just getting ready to leave anyway.”

“Don’t go.” His smile slipped over her, wide and disarming. “I was watching you just now, sitting so still, your hair blowing behind you, the sky almost the exact same shade as your jacket, and I thought what a beautiful shot that would make.” The smile spread. “I’m always in search of the perfect picture.”

“You’re a photographer?”

He nodded, his thick, sandy hair blowing about his forehead. “
People Magazine
when I’m on the clock, the real world when I’m not.”

They both laughed and he sat beside her on the huge rock, close enough for her to smell his cologne, a spiced musk that reminded her of Sam’s Lagerfeld. “Steve,” he said, extending a hand.

“Cynthia Cintar. My friends call me Cyn.” She shook his smooth, uncalloused hand.

“Cyn then.” He rested the tripod next to him. ”You’re not from here, are you?”

“No, just visiting. I’m from Northern Virginia, Reston, actually.”

He removed the cap from his camera lens, inspected the lens. “You here by yourself?”

“No, I came with two of my friends. It was a last minute idea, not planned at all, which is so unlike me, but we decided it was something we really wanted to do and here we are.”

His gaze slid over the ring on her left finger. “No complaints from your husband?”

“Not really.” She forced a small laugh, and said, “My daughters were the ones who had the issues. They’re teenagers, what can I say? They only live in the world of their own needs, no one else’s.”

“How long are you here?”

“Until the second week in October.”

“Perfect time. Are you staying nearby?”

“We’re at The Bird’s Nest, a quarter mile or so from here.”

“Tula Rae’s place.”

“You know her?”

“I know of her.” He laughed. “Everybody knows about Tula Rae.”

“She’s a character all right. I’ve never met anyone quite like her.”

“Just be careful what you eat.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t heard the stories?”

“No.”

“It’s all hearsay, but half the town thinks it’s the truth. Then there’s the other half that thinks she’s Mother Teresa in spandex.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They say she poisoned one of her husbands.”

“What?”

“Sliced up another with a cleaver. Drowned one in a tub.” He adjusted the lens of his camera, closed one eye and added matter-of-factly, “And shot one at point blank range.”

***

“Cyn, what are you doing?”

“We’re getting out of here.” Cyn stuffed a handful of underwear in her suitcase. “Where’s Shea?”

“Helping Tula Rae in the garden. Why? Did something happen with one of the kids?”

“It’s Tula Rae,” Cyn whispered. “She killed her husbands.”

“What?”

“Poisoned one, chopped one with that cleaver she’s so damned fond of, drowned one, and shot one.”

“Where’d you hear that bullshit?”

“A man told me.”

“Who?”

“Steve.”

“Steve? Steve who?”

Steve who? While she’d been shooting off enough information to fill a directory, Cyn hadn’t gotten much from him. “I didn’t get his last name.”

“Cyn, we’ve been here twelve days. We’ve sat at Tula Rae’s table,
eaten
her food. You’re still breathing aren’t you?”

“If it’s arsenic, it could be a slow death, several more meals before it gets us.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, does she seem dangerous to you?”

“No, but neither did Ted Bundy.”

“You should’ve been a writer with that imagination.”

“Think about it. Isn’t it always the least likely ones? Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, even Jeffrey Dahmer seemed like the last person you’d ever imagine whacking somebody.” Cyn grabbed her hair dryer and deodorant. “I think we should get out of here. There are plenty of places for rent around here.”

“Tula Rae is one of the best parts of this whole trip. Just because she can wield a cleaver like the Iron Chef, and some man you just met, whose last name you didn’t get, made a few outrageous accusations, doesn’t mean she’s a murderer.” Derry laughed. “For God’s sake, Cyn, do you realize how ridiculous you sound?”

Cyn stuffed a handful of socks into the side of her bag. “She’s had four dead husbands.”

“So, she’s got the best of both worlds. She got their money and she didn’t have to put up with them when their prostates go haywire.”

“I want to leave.”

“Wait a minute. Just stop, okay?” Derry pulled a bunch of socks from Cyn’s suitcase. “What if we find out how the husbands died?”

“And just how would we do that?”

“How else?” Derry threw one of Cyn’s shirts at her. “Ask her.”

Derry heaped a slice of vegetable lasagna on Earl Gray’s plate. “There you go. And don’t forget the pepperoni and asiago bread.”

“Little Miss City Girl made it herself,” Tula Rae said.

“With a little instruction.”

Tula Rae tossed her a grin, the creases around her eyes fishing out in all directions. Tonight she wore a yellow and purple caftan with rows of wooden fuchsia buttons clustered along the hem. Her wrists jangled with stacks of bracelets, also fuchsia, and long, wooden beads dangled from her ears. Fuchsia, of course.

“This is delicious.” Cyn took the tiniest nibble, her gaze darting from Tula Rae to Derry as if to say,
Ask her, right now. Ask her.

Shea had nothing to say. She was still caught up in the loser husband drama.
But
she did have on the pink velour sweat suit.
It was a start.

“Tula Rae, how’d your husbands die?”
Watch this Cyn. You’re going to feel like a fool.

The older woman pointed her fork at Derry. “Poison, hacked, drowned, shot.” Her eyes gleamed as she looked around the table. “Someone’s been talking.”

“How?” Cyn pushed out one, small word.

“One was pure foolishness,” she said, piercing a chunk of eggplant. “One was bad timing, one was bad luck, and one was”—she shrugged, met Cyn’s startled gaze—“an accident.”

Silence. So thick Derry could hear the rooster clock perched on the oak mantle in the living room.

“I guess I can’t leave ya’ll hangin’ now, can I? Earl Gray’s heard this story more times than he likes to think about. It’s one of the reasons I won’t marry him.” She shot him a matter-of-fact look and said, “He’d just end up dead.”

“I’m willing to take my chances.”

“I’m not. You’d end up dead before we celebrated our first anniversary.”

“How did they die?” Cyn again, staring at Tula Rae. Even Shea had perked up, her body bent into the conversation, as if to get closer to the truth.

“All Eddie Mame ever wanted was to be a farmer.” Tula Rae shook her head, and went on, “He was born in New Jersey where there’s more cement than fields. He wasn’t no farmer, didn’t even know a dandelion from a mustard green. But Eddie thought he did and there was no telling him anything. So, one day he went out in the woods behind our house and started picking mushrooms. I love mushrooms. He probably was picking them for me.” She sighed and her cinnamon eyes glistened. “The dogs found him around supper time, blue as a herring, lying face down in the dirt, a satchel of mushrooms beside him. They was all poison ones, damn idiot.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Damn fool idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” Shea said, her voice trembling. “I know how terrible it is to lose someone you love.”

You mean Richard, Shea? Or the first asshole?

“Fredo Lay was just awful bad timing. I was raised on a farm, so by the time I turned ten I could fire a shotgun when the fox tried to steal the chickens and I could skin a rabbit better than my older brother, Clyde Gene. Fredo grew up in an orphanage with the nuns of St. Rosita. Closest he came to a weapon was whacking a set of rosary beads around like them numchucks the Chinese use. He was learning, though. I was teaching him how to handle a machete.” She shook her frizzy head. “I went to the neighbor’s to borrow two cups of flour for the tortillas I was making him, and when I got back, there he was, sliced in the gut and bled out like a skinned deer. Five minutes sooner, I mighta saved him.”

Derry shifted in her chair and hazarded a glance in Earl Gray’s direction. Unless he had a serious Death Wish, maybe he should rethink the marriage thing.

“And then came Raymond Nudel, six years later. Handsome rascal with those slanty eyes and that black braid hanging down his back. Sassy and stubborn to boot.” Her thin lips turned up in a smile of remembering. “We’d been living in Ogunquit for about a year. Raymond went down for an early morning swim and that was the last I saw him until they pulled his body out of the water three miles down.”

“This is scarier than a Stephen King novel,” Shea murmured.

Tula Rae sighed. “I could write a book. It’d be a best seller— love story, comedy, thriller, all wrapped in one.”

“Maybe you should.” This from Derry. “I know some people in the publishing business.”

Tula Rae shooed the idea away with two bony fingers. “I ain’t no writer, that’s for sure. Past is past. Too many people keep trying to drudge up their pasts, what with hows, and whys, it’s too confusing on a person. All it does is mess up their head.” Her voice dipped. “Cici died fourteen years ago. All’s he ever wanted to do was protect me, but he ended up shooting himself in the jaw when he was cleaning his rifle. It was the one in the chamber that got him. I told him about it too many times, but still, he forgot.”

Cyn’s words filled the silence. “I’m so sorry, Tula Rae. I thought…”

“You thought I killed ‘em all, didn’t you?”

“He said…”

The rest of her words seemed to jam up somewhere in Cyn’s brain, so Derry blurted out, “Some guy told her you did.”

A wide mouthed howl burst from Tula Rae, big enough to reveal the silver in her back molars. “It’s old Gus Habernathy’s doings. He’s the mayor in town. He’ll do anything to keep the tourists coming, like I was some kind of Lizzie Borden.”

“Maybe I need to pay him another visit,” Earl Gray said, stroking his thin, black mustache. “Guess he didn’t hear me the first time.”

“I’ll leave you sitting in the emergency room next time if you do,” she said. “See if you can hobble back here on crutches, ‘cause you know Gus’ll go for that bum knee of yours again.”

“I’ll take him from behind. He’ll never see me coming.”

“And I’ll lock you out,” she snipped.

“I thought you didn’t lock doors,” Shea said.

“I’ll damn well start.” Her dark eyes targeted Earl Gray. “This ain’t your business, Earl Gray. It’s Gus’ way of bringing in business, and giving the town a little entertainment.”

“But people believe it.”

“Who?”

“Whoever told Cyn, and now Cyn, too.”

“People who know me know I do what’s right, maybe not what they want me to do, but what’s right by me.” She jabbed her chest.

“Why won’t you ever let me help you?” Earl Gray’s sorrowful plea filled the room.

“It’s like I been telling you for seven years, Tula Rae don’t need no help.” She set her napkin on the table beside her half-eaten plate of vegetable lasagna and stood. “Every man that’s ever tried to help me ended up dead anyway.”

And with that, she marched out of the kitchen, head high, gray braid swinging.

***

Shea slipped out the back door and headed for the water. She pulled her sweat jacket close to her, fighting back the brisk morning chill. Thank God the house was quiet. At least there wouldn’t be any questions.

She needed to be alone. Kirsten called last night, at 10:30 p.m., to tell her she’d been chosen to play Emily in
Our Town
. And she’d gotten A’s on all three of her exams.
And
, she’d just met a guy, maybe
the
guy. The good fortune went on for fifteen minutes, until Shea pleaded a horrible headache, which she actually had by then, and hung up. She spent the rest of the night sparring with self-pity, guilt, and hate.

The sun lifted rays of gloom from its shadows, casting brightness like a grand illuminator. Shea grabbed a low fat blueberry muffin at The New England Beanery, wishing it were a Krispy Kreme doughnut instead and thought of what she’d do once she got back home—schedule an OB appointment, sign up for a Baby Makes Two exercise class, clean out the spare bedroom for the nursery, register in the After 40’s Mom’s Group at the hospital. Too soon for Lamaze. Besides, she’d need a coach. Maybe Richard could coach her and Tanya together.

She worked her way along the water toward the edge of Main Street, not stopping until she was in front of
Music and More
. Despite the dark storefront, she could still make out the glint of brass from the instruments in the window.
If I’d kept up with the flute, would I have been good enough to play at Carnegie Hall?

Her gaze drifted to the Baby Grand in the corner. She pictured Marcus’s long, graceful fingers moving over the keys…

“Would you like to go inside?”

Shea swung around to find Marcus standing in front of her, wearing black sweats and worn Nikes. He wiped his face with a towel and slung it over his shoulder. “Hello, Shea.”

“Marcus. I…want to apologize for what I said last time—”

“No need.” He held up a hand. “I barged in where I shouldn’t have. I should probably be the one apologizing.”

“Can we start over?” She extended a hand. “Shea Donovan.”

“Marcus Orelean.” He grasped her hand, and gave it a firm shake. “Let’s go inside and I’ll make you a latte.”

And just like that, she relaxed. Gay men made wonderful friends. Shea breathed out softly, watching him as he flipped on lights and worked his way to the tiny kitchen in the back.

“Do you have decaf?”

His gaze shot to her belly. “Sure.” He pulled a Starbuck’s decaf from the cupboard. “How’s everything going?”

“Okay, I guess. I’m relaxing, taking walks to the water, reading.” She stared at his calf muscles.
What a waste
.

“And the other?”

“If you mean my husband, I haven’t heard from him since his girlfriend told me she was having his baby and I should butt out of their lives.”

“Sounds a little backward to me. Isn’t the wife usually the one who cleans house and gets rid of the girlfriend?”

Shea let out a hysterical little hiccough that exploded into full-blown laughter. “You’re right.”

Marcus grinned at her over his shoulder. “And why is the girlfriend doing the talking anyway? Is your husband hiding behind her?”

“He’s a coward,” Shea said, emboldened. “A worthless, roach on society.”

“A miserable miscreant?” Marcus offered.

“A thousand time loser.”

“A wimp?”

“A milquetoast.”

“A no good sonofabitch?”

“A bastard.”

“But you love him.” A simple statement.

Shea sunk into a chair, deflated. “But I love him.”

And so began the remarkable friendship of Shea Donovan and Marcus Orelean, proof that men and women could have close relationships without sexual intimacy. It also helped if one of those partners was gay. For the next six days, Marcus acquainted Shea with every instrument in his shop, beginning with the flute. Once in her hands, she remembered the feel, the sound, the grandness of producing notes and the music that elevated her from a mundane existence. He was a wonderful teacher, and a good listener. In between lattes and lessons, she shared the disaster of her first marriage, the fear of raising two children alone, the desire to find a soul mate, and the heartbreak of being unable to conceive.

And then finally, finally, the exhilaration of a baby, only to be squashed with the words,
Get rid of it.

Marcus listened mostly, advised rarely. He and Shea spent much of their time at
Music and More
, making music, singing, even composing a few lines together. On the third day, Marcus talked her into letting him play with her hair, which he styled into a trendy bob. By the fourth day, he’d taken her to The Kittering Outlet Mall and between a morning latte and an evening decaf, he’d changed her color palette and her fashion sense. Green cotton became history.

“So, who is this guy and when do we get to meet him?” Derry sipped cinnamon tea on the patio as the sun plunked slowly into the ocean.

“Marcus?”

“Hell, yes, Marcus. For the past five days, every sentence out of your mouth begins and ends with Marcus. You got the hots for this guy?”

“No,” she laughed, shaking her head so a mass of soft curls swung side to side.

Derry fingered her whacked up hair.
The guy knows his stuff.
And she’s wearing makeup, not just lip gloss. Did he do that, too?

“I’d like to meet anybody who talked you into ditching the scrubs,” Cyn said.

“Marcus just has really good fashion sense.” Shea shrugged, smoothing the pale blue turtleneck she wore. “And I was tired of looking like a green tent.”

“ALLELUIA!” Derry whooped. “Praise be to Marcus. So, when do we get to meet this god?”

“Whenever you like.”

“Tomorrow?” Cyn asked, touching her hair. “I think the whole Sophia thing has dried out my hair. No offense, Derry, but maybe Marcus can pick up where Clairol left off.”

“Actually, I’m kind of tired of the Susan Powter look. I’m ready to go back to black.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe
I’ll
be Liz.”

“Being Derry is radical enough, trust me.” Cyn leaned forward and studied Shea. “God, you’ve got this glow.”

“I am pregnant, you know.”

“It’s too soon for that kind of glow. This is something else. Confidence, maybe?”

“Maybe.” Shea’s pink lips pulled into a tiny smile.

“Or maybe it’s the guy,” Derry said. “You know, Shea,
the
guy.”

“We’re just friends.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“No, I mean really. We’re just friends.”

“For now.” Cyn threw Shea a sly look.

“For good.” Shea shifted in her chair, leaned forward and whispered, “Marcus is gay.”