Tell Me Lies (39 page)

A gold cat pendant with enormous green glass eyes caught her attention, and she’d just picked it up when somebody poked her in the back.

“I hear they’re putting up a plaque here in memory of the battle,” Treva said from behind her. “Your name is to be featured prominently.” Maddie turned and Treva added, “God, that’s an ugly necklace. It’s one thing to throw your reputation away, do you have to look like a skag, too?”

“It’s for Gran.” Maddie sat on the edge of the counter, so glad to have Treva and conversation back that she didn’t care that Susan behind the register was giving her dirty looks for leaning on the merchandise. “And you can spare me the hassle about yesterday. My mother has more than discussed my ruin. The Olympics don’t get the slow-motion replay that I’ve had to put up with.”

“Well, at least this time they have an expert commentator,” Treva said. “I suppose you just endured.”

“No, I was great,” Maddie said. “I told her that being a scandal was a hell of a lot more fun than talking about one and that she should go out and be one, too.”

“So she did,” Treva said. “Wow.”

“Of course she didn’t,” Maddie said. “I got another hour on what it means to be a Martindale. I’ve never heard anything like it. Evidently, for the purposes of Frog Point, we’re the Kennedys with morals. And now she and Em are left to tell the tale.”

“I think it’s just Em,” Treva said. “My mother saw your mother last night at the bowling alley having coffee with Sam Scott, and she told Esther. There goes the neighborhood.”

“You’re kidding.” Maddie laughed and leaned toward Treva in shared delight. “Oh, this is so great. I love this. Wait’ll I tell Gran. Blood tells after all.”

“Oh, I’ve got better than that,” Treva said. “I told Howie about Three.”

Maddie’s smile faded and she braced herself until she realized that Treva was more relaxed and content than she’d seen her in months. “I gather he took it well?”

“He’s known all along.” Treva sat down beside Maddie, her smile wide with remembered relief. “Something about blood types in the hospital. I carried that damn secret for twenty years, and he’s known all along.” Treva rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “He doesn’t care. He says he raised Three, and that makes him his kid, and that’s all that matters. I couldn’t believe he was so calm, but he said he’d been mad and hurt for about a day twenty years ago, and then he held Three and thought, ‘The hell with it,’ and it didn’t bother him again until a couple of weeks ago when he thought I was sleeping with Brent again.” Treva shook her head. “Like I’d sink that low twice.” She realized what she’d said and jerked her head toward Maddie. “Not that you were low for sleeping with him. He was your husband.”

“Dear God,” Maddie said, still back on Howie. “All that guilt for nothing.”

“I know,” Treva said. “I wanted to kill him, but I love him. What can you do?”

“Go scream ‘fuck’ out in front of the bank,” Maddie said. “I’ll wait here.”

“Yeah. Candace.” Em swung her feet against the dock. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Mel said. “But it’s pretty awful.”

“Yeah.” Em swung her feet harder. “Is Phoebe close to the water?”

Mel craned her head to look. “Nope.” She pulled her pole out of the water and got serious. “Are you okay, Em?”

“Yes.” Em said the word strong, the way C.L. always did when he was serious. “I talked to my mom and I talked to C.L. and everything’s over. I wish my dad wasn’t dead—” she stopped and swallowed and gripped her pole tighter “—I really wish that, but everything else is okay. Nobody is trying to hurt us. We’re okay.”

“All right.” Mel dug into her backpack and pulled out a box of cookies, Archway soft chocolate chip this time. “Here. These are the best.”

Em took one of the big cookies and stared at the blue September sky while she ate it, trying to think only about being okay. She wished Mel would stop talking about her dad, but that’s the way it was. People always wanted to talk about the stuff you didn’t want to talk about.

“So is your mom going to marry C.L.?” Mel said. “I mean, you never talk about this stuff and I’m dying to know.”

Em sighed. “I think so. Not right away, and Mom says no, and she means it because she promised she’d never lie to me again, but I bet C.L. talks her into it. Probably next summer ‘cause that’s when the house will be done, and that way we can live out in the country where Phoebe can run around and I can see Anna every day. Mom says no, but C.L. says it’s going to happen, and he never lies.”

Mel sat up. “Wait a minute, if you live out in the country, I’ll never see you again.”

“Sure you will.” Em bit into her cookie and talked around the bite. “C.L. will come get you and bring you out or bring me in. I asked him, and he said sure because he’ll be working in town. I think he’s going to work with your dad out at the company. Everything’s okay.”
Except my daddy’s dead,
she added silently, but the thought didn’t hurt the way it once had, it hurt bad but not like it once had. Em closed her eyes and thought of her dad again, baseball cap on and butter pecan ice cream cone in hand, and she remembered him perfectly. “We’re going to be okay,” she told Mel, and took another bite of cookie.

“Well, that’s good,” Mel said. “Now, did I tell you what Cindy Snopes told me about Jason Norris?”

“No.” Em sat up straighten “What?”

“Have another cookie,” Mel said, passing the box over. “This is going to take a while, but it’s good.”

“Yeah, I decided I wanted to be like you.” Maddie handed the extra-large five-pound gold box to her grandmother, who was temporarily speechless with delight. “Lots of chocolate,” she said finally. “Wonderful.” She ripped the plastic off and then the red ribbon and when she opened the lid, the box positively teemed with calories.

Maddie took the milk chocolate turtle before she could get it.

“Hey, that’s my favorite,” her grandmother said, and Maddie said, “You spit the nuts out. It’s disgusting. Besides, there’s a dark chocolate one, too.”

Her grandmother leaned back against her pillows, pouting. “I don’t like dark chocolate. I’m not going to be with—”

“Good,” Maddie said. “Then I’ll eat that one, too.” She picked it out of the box and bit into it. The chocolate was rich and dark and the caramel strung out between her teeth and the nuts were savory and crunchy. “Heaven.”

“You’re eating all my candy,” her grandmother snapped, seriously annoyed. “You’re a terrible girl.” She ducked her head and went back to her refrain. “I’m not going to be with you for much longer, you know.”

“You’re going to outlive all of us.” Maddie sat down to finish off the dark chocolate turtle. “You’re like this town. It’ll take a stake through the heart to stop either one of you.”

“Damn right,” her grandmother said. “But you’re still a fool to have let that all come out. All that scandal. And now there’s your mother, flaunting herself at the bowling alley with Sam Scott. I’m appalled.”

“You’ll get over it,” Maddie said. “I can’t believe you heard about Mom already. I just got it an hour ago.”

Her grandmother sniffed. “I talk to people. You’re probably spending all your time in bed with that man. Tramp. You’ll never live it down.”

“I don’t want to.” Maddie bit into the other turtle. “You know, this is excellent chocolate. I can’t think why I haven’t been eating it with you for years.”

Her grandmother picked a walnut-topped cream out of the box and put the whole thing in her mouth. Maddie waited until she’d spit the walnut across the room and then she said, “That’s really gross, Gran.”

“That’s why I do it,” Gran said. “Tell me about this man.”

“He’s excellent in bed,” Maddie said. “Em loves him. He bought her a dog. I’m thinking of marrying him.”

“Can’t be too soon,” Gran said. “Your reputation is shot to hell.”

“You must be so proud,” Maddie said.

“I am,” Gran said. “You wouldn’t believe the attention I’m getting. That’s a pretty necklace you’re wearing.”

“A gift,” Maddie said. “From my new fella. Couldn’t possibly give it up.”

“I’m not going to be with you long,” Gran said. “My heart.”

“A symbol of his love,” Maddie said. “I sleep with it on.”

Gran hacked and wheezed herself into a coughing fit that didn’t end until Maddie had gotten some water down her and the nurse had come in to make sure drastic measures weren’t required.

“Don’t do that again,” Maddie said when the nurse had left. “You’re scaring me. I’m just starting to appreciate you, so you can’t die on me yet.”

“I’d feel so much better with something pretty to keep me company,” Gran said. “That cat necklace sure is pretty.”

“You win.” Maddie handed it over. “Just don’t do that coughing thing anymore. Now tell me about Mickey.”

Gran moved the candy box out of Maddie’s reach and strung the pendant around her neck. “The hell with Mickey. Tell me about this new man of yours. I want to meet him. How good is he?”

“Incredible,” Maddie said. “Absolutely the best. I come screaming every time.”

“Well, keep it quiet,” her grandmother said. “We have to live in this town.”

“This is an obscene phone call,” C.L. said when she answered, and just the sound of his voice made her warmer. “What are you wearing?”

“A smile and what I wore at the Drake farm. Why aren’t you here inside me?” Even as she said it, the thought of the weight of him and of his hands and his mouth and his smile and his love made her breath go and the heat spread., and it evidently had the same effect on C.L. because she heard him exhale over the phone.

“That’s it, play hard to get,” he said. “Jesus. Where was I? Who cares? Brace yourself, I’m on my way.”

“Wait a minute,” Maddie said. “What about Em? Is Henry going to call?”

“Anna’s planning on watching Em and Mel into the next century, and Henry’s got the books and the invoices from that box at the station, and I have nothing to do but make you come your brains out.”

Maddie bit her lip and leaned against the wall. Phone foreplay. For the first time in weeks, she thought warmly of AT&T. “Couldn’t think of anything else, huh?”

“I thought about rotating my tires, but if you’re going to talk dirty, I’ll come rotate yours. I have tools, and I know how to use them.”

“My grandmother’s going to love you,” Maddie said.

“So are you, babe,” C.L. said, and the determination in his voice made her laugh.

“I already do,” Maddie said, giddy with it. “I love you madly, passionately, hopelessly, loudly. Break the speed limit and park in front of my house. We’re going to leave the windows open.”

C.L. hung up without saying good-bye, and Maddie pictured him leaping over the door of the convertible and fishtailing down the road. He wouldn’t, of course, he was a sane and sober citizen now, but she could still see it, and she loved it.

But it would take him at least twenty minutes to get there. She could call her mother and demand details, but she didn’t want to do anything that might discourage her from making a fool of herself at sixty-three. She could call Treva, but she’d be spending the rest of her life talking to Treva.

She could sit and think obscene thoughts about C.L., but she was already hot and shivering from the phone call. Twenty minutes . . .

There were brownies in the freezer. Cashew brownies. And she had a functional microwave thanks to her functional lover, and she could nuke one into hot heaven in thirty seconds.

Hot heaven made her think of C.L. again. She stripped off her baby blue bikini underpants and left them on the hall floor for him to find, and then reconsidered and went out on the front porch and hung them on the doorknob instead, waving to Mrs. Crosby, who was squinting at her from her own porch. Then she went back inside. She was sure finding the pants would have an electrifying effect on an already electrified C.L., and her afternoon, already a good one, would turn out to be cataclysmic.

And in the meantime, there was chocolate.