Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (27 page)

She went in, picked
him up off of her mother’s chair, and sat with him on her lap on the adjoining sofa.

Besides
an upright piano, a big roll top desk, and the sofas and chairs, a large assortment of dressers, tables, and cabinets filled almost every square inch of the room. And on all these flat surfaces resided the current collection of Newfield nick-knacks, comprised mostly of heirlooms, personal gifts from dignitaries, small works of art, framed photos, and vacation keepsakes. Back in Great-Grandpa Archibald’s day there had even been a shrunken head, which he’d picked up on one of his Amazon safaris. According to rumor, when Mother married Father she refused to move in until the shrink head had vacated the premises.

On the table by the arched window with the fluffy, flowing, tied-back curtains,
Veronica saw a framed photograph she’d never noticed before. It was of her and her mother in New York City, and she remembered it clearly. It had only been a few years ago, and had started in this very room when Veronica complained that the shops around Prospect Park carried bell bottoms only in men’s sizes. Her mom calculated for a few seconds before breaking into a big smile. “We’ll go to New York!” she’d said. “They’ll have all the girls’ bell bottoms you could ever want. We’ll make a trip out of it.”

Veronica
hadn’t been fooled for a second. Mother didn’t care about bell bottom jeans. She wanted to get her daughter out of hot pants and miniskirts, which she called cheap and common. It didn’t matter. Veronica wanted new clothes so she went. And they had a good time.

She
gently ran her hand over Rufus’ head and said, “Mommy’s dead, Rufee. Mommy’s dead. How are we ever going to make it?”

The tears began to flow. She
surveyed the crystal decanters on the cabinet next to the upright piano. Veronica didn’t know shit about booze but planned to learn before the pain of going without coke got too bad. She’d crashed a couple of times before, once for a whole day, and it didn’t happen on the outside, like in the movies, with shaking and throwing up and crawling on the floor. It happened on the inside, inside her head. Cocaine bugs didn’t crawl on her skin. They crawled on her brain. They scratched and dug and demanded more coke. And when they didn’t get it, they made her want to die. She didn’t have the strength to go through that again, not now. She needed something to help her get by until the business with Dorthea got straightened out. Since her mother had been sloshed on vodka for the last few years of her life, she decided to give that a try.

She set
Rufus aside, weaved her way across the room, and pulled a bottle from the cabinet on which the decanters rested. It had a red, white, and gold label, with a Russian name on the top, and said Russian Vodka at the bottom. She poured some into a tumbler and took a drink. She’d tried rum before, at a friend’s house, and compared to that the vodka didn’t seem too bad—except for the fact that it made her want to gag.

When she heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway, and then a
knock at the door, Veronica rubbed the tears from her eyes. Sarah poked her head through the doorway and said, “Hello, Veronica.”

She came in, uninvited, wearing pilgrim clothes and the cutie-pie smile.
When she saw the vodka bottle, the smile disappeared. Predictable.

Veronica took
the drinking supplies and sat back down on the sofa. Rufus jumped back onto her lap.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“Oh yeah,” said Veronica, as she set the bottle on the coffee table. “The way things look right now, it’s the most decent idea I’ve ever had.” She took a drink.

“Veronica, do you know anything about this?” asked
Sarah, as she held up a gray card of some sort.

“No.”

“It has your name on it, along with Dorthea Railer’s.”

“
Don’t know anything about it.”

“You don’t know anything about a winter ball
at Sunny Slope that half the town’s been invited to?”

“I
didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know about that thing in your hand.”

“Ok…. So when
did you plan to tell me about it?”

“
How about never, Sarah? Or how about when you give back what you stole from me? And I hope you noticed that an invitation hasn’t been sent to you.”

“
Veronica, I only brought it up because throwing a ball so soon after your mother’s passing might not be the best idea.”

Veronica stared for a few seconds, and then said,
“Are you done?”

“No. That’s not even what I wanted to talk about. What I really wanted to say is that
I’m sorry about what happened this morning with the attorneys and I wish things could be different. But they’re not and there’s a reason for it. Your mother saw some things that worried her and this is her way of helping—”

“Save it
, Sarah. You planned it this way and you know it.”

“I didn’t, Veronica. I promise. This is the last thing I need but, just like you,
I don’t have a choice.”

“You have a choice
. Just refuse to do it. The lawyer told you that this morning.”

“I won’t do that to your mother.”

“You won’t do it because you don’t want to.”

“Has there ever been a time in your life when I haven’t wanted
only the very best for you, Veronica? Can you name a single time?”

“Has there ever been a time when you haven’t been
in my home taking things that don’t belong to you? That’s the question, Sarah. And we both know the answer, don’t we?”

Sarah
clammed up for a few seconds before saying, “I’m sorry you feel that way, Veronica, and I hope that after a while you’ll see things differently. In the meantime we’re going to honor your mother’s wishes. Tomorrow your charge accounts in town are going to be closed. You’ll receive money for necessities, which we can discuss, but your monthly allowance will also be cancelled. If you enroll in college or get a job, you’ll get part of your allowance back.”

“A job? What, like working at Dairy Queen?” asked Veronica, laughing.

“Any job, Veronica.”

“
Perfect. While I’m serving milkshakes for a dollar fifty an hour you get to be the Grand Dame at Sunny Slope Manor, just like you’ve always wanted. How come I get the feeling that somehow I’ll end up living in your little shack by the library? Then the switch will be complete, won’t it, Sarah?”

“Then go to college. Nobody’s telling you what to do.”

“You know I haven’t applied to any. What college am I supposed to go to?”

“
There’s always Crafton.”

“Junior college? You really
are mixed up, aren’t you? Your side of the family goes to JC, Sarah, and works at Dairy Queen, and shovels horse shit.”

“That’s fine, Veronica. You do what you think is best,”
Sarah said, as she turned to go.

“Why’d you have to
do it, Sarah? Why couldn’t you just be thankful for what you’ve got?”

Sarah
froze. Then she spun around, charged back, and sat on the sofa, her face just inches from Veronica’s. “I am thankful, Veronica!” she said. “And it’s the worst kind of thankfulness there is! To people who can’t be thanked because they’re dead! To people who deserved to be thanked but mostly got the back of my head. To people who thought I cared but never got to really know it for sure!”

Sarah
took a deep breath and leaned back. Veronica remained still.

“I’m thankful,” said
Sarah, as she got up from the sofa. “Just a few years late, that’s all—and it has nothing to do with your money.”

When she got to the door
, she turned around.

“And what about you
, Veronica? What are you thankful for?”

Veronica opened her mouth to say something and then looked away.

“It’s not that hard. Just tell me what you’re thankful for.”

Veronica ignored her.

“Then I’ll help you,” said Sarah. “Your mother loved you. Start with that.”

Veronica twisted her face like
she’d just heard something ridiculous. “That’s far-out, Sarah, but I don’t take advice from back-stabbing phonies,” she said, but her cousin had already left.

~~~

Sarah went to bed early that night, as if hitting the pillow earlier than usual might take away some of the rottenness from a rotten day. It didn’t work. She didn’t close her eyes, and she didn’t sleep. Instead she thought about how her aunt had taken advantage of her. For the better part of the last twenty years Aunt Judith had done her upmost to shelter Veronica from all forms of exertion and discomfort. Restraint and discipline had been banished from her home. Moderation had been ridiculed. And now she’d decided that these things didn’t seem so bad after all. Now that she didn’t have to worry about the fallout, the school of hard knocks didn’t look so extreme. Now that she had Sarah to do the dirty work, responsible parenting seemed like the only way to go.

Sarah
felt ashamed at this bitterness but that didn’t make it go away. If anything, it flowed uncontained, into new territory, where maybe it didn’t belong. Like her upcoming marriage to Grant Wynnethorpe. Aunt Judith had been the champion of that marriage. She’d made it look big and important and had helped Sarah to believe in it. But now that she found herself alone, Sarah wondered just how much she still believed. And sometimes she wondered if she’d ever believed at all. And if she hadn’t, if she’d allowed herself to be swept into an act of foolishness, what right did she have to blame her aunt? She didn’t and she knew it…except for the fact that Aunt Judith knew how to get her way by twisting Sarah’s arm in a way that made it look like no arm twisting had happened at all. And that was wrong.

So Sarah lay on her bed
in Sunny Slope Manor and benefitted neither from the suspension of grief that comes through sleep, nor from the glimmer of hope that sometimes breaks forth from the rehashing of a problem. A knock on her bedroom door finally dislodged her from this limbo. She slipped into a robe, crossed into the adjacent sitting room, and opened the door. She found Mr. Perkins holding a large object wrapped in brown paper. About two feet squared, it had the shape of a framed picture or painting.

“Hello
, Mr. Perkins. Do you have a present for me?”

“No, Miss
Sarah, I don’t. Unfortunately that honor belongs to someone else this time.” He handed her the object and said, “It was left for you on the front porch.”

“Thank you, Mr. Perkins.”

She closed the door and examined the package. On the wrapping, in bold black writing, it said “For Sarah.” It didn’t show the name of the sender or have any other writing. After getting comfortable on the sitting room sofa, she opened the package, and immediately recognized an embroidered Bible verse that said, “Trials produce endurance; endurance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:3-5” She removed a small card that had been wedged between the artwork and the frame. It said, “See, I know some ‘Shakespeare’ too. Love, Mack.”

She had to laugh. He’d put the word Shakespeare in quotations, which meant that if he hadn’t fully discovered her
Bible thumping heritage, he’d at least discovered that she didn’t mind telling white lies when the occasion called for it.

When her head hit the pillow again, she didn’t
think about the problems and the sadness. Instead, she went to sleep thinking about Mack.

The vodka had started to wear off, and Veronica felt the bugs in her brain going back to work. She wanted to scream wildly and pull out Dorthea’s hair. Instead, she sat on the red and gold sofa in the living room with the giant window and pretended to listen as Dorthea talked. The words didn’t matter. Veronica had no use for them. Nothing mattered except the little purple bag.

“Now my dear, I want you to look at me. Veronica, stop
fidgeting and look at me.”

Dorthea
moved from the chair to the sofa and held Veronica’s hands.

“
You’ve always been able to trust me with your problems, haven’t you?”

Veronica
nodded.

“
Yes, that’s right. And isn’t it also true that I’ve solved every problem you’ve ever brought to me?”

“Yes
.”

“Now you have a new
one and it’s the most serious of all. I’m talking about your Cousin Sarah.”

“
Sarah caused all of this,” mumbled Veronica.

“Yes, that’s right, she did
, but if you want me to, I can take care of it just like the other times.”

“
I just want things like they were before. That’s all,” said Veronica.

“
Yes, just like before. And I can tell you exactly how to do it.”

“How?”

“It’s simple, my dear. Just get married.”

“Married?”
She pulled away her hands.

“Yes. When you get married
, your inheritance becomes community property, owned by both you and your husband. Since Sarah has no authority over your husband’s property, the whole arrangement is voided. Then you annul the marriage and everything goes back to you—without Sarah Evans. It’s as simple as that.”

“
Is that why Ernest said those things yesterday?”

“
Oh, that was just Ernest being silly. It doesn’t matter who you marry. It’s not a real marriage anyway. Do you have someone else in mind?”

“No….”

“Well…maybe he should do it then. That way it will be easy keeping everything on track.”

The whole thing sounded wrong.
Her mother had known all about money and wills and trust funds, and when she made a plan, it didn’t get knocked over by two eighteen year olds and a fake marriage. Veronica didn’t believe it. When Dorthea leaned in, friendly and smug, Veronica wanted to back away. When she stared with those spooky gray eyes, Veronica wanted to break the spell. But she didn’t have the strength. She didn’t have the strength to do anything that might put her back on the wrong side of the little purple bag.