The Battered Body (17 page)

James felt a pang of pity for Lucy. She was utterly outside the circle of camaraderie and, instead, sat at the bar like a brooding P.I. from a vintage detective story. “Did you have anything to eat?”

Lucy nodded. Through clenched teeth, she whispered. “Go away, James. I’ve heard a lot sitting here, and I can’t listen if you’re talking to me. Besides, someone might notice.”

Thus dismissed, James remained in the bathroom until his countenance, flushed with injured pride, returned to a relatively normal hue. By the time he resumed his seat, the dinner party was busy sampling squares of tiramisu, miniature chocolate-covered cannoli, and slices of triple-berry cheesecake. James noticed that in his absence, fatigue and stuffed bellies had forced the assemblage to grow more taciturn, and he was relieved when the waiter finally presented the check to Chase.

“Just tell us what we owe you, my dear.” Milla fished her wallet out of her purse. “I’m helpless with dividing up checks after only one glass of wine.”

“There’s no need,” Chase replied magnanimously. “I’ll take care of it.” He slid a gold card on top of the check and handed the server book to the waiter.

As the rest of the party thanked Chase effusively, aware that their meal had cost hundreds of dollars, Chloe began to sulk unattractively.

“He can afford to be generous,” she whined as Chase’s attention was diverted when his Waterman pen rolled under the next table.

Willow gazed at Chloe in sympathy. “I know. It’s a messed-up world when lawyers make more than teachers or firemen or animal rescuers, right?”

Chloe nodded but was determined to be petulant. “It’s not just the huge salary he collects by ruining the lives of those wronged by drug companies. Mother’s left him all
her
money too. I’m totally broke, but I won’t get a dime because I didn’t follow the
recipe
she laid out for my life.
Chase
did everything she wanted, and that’s why he gets the big payoff.”

“I guess that’s going to be a fair amount of money,” James mused aloud.

“Royalties from her cookbooks and product endorsements alone will allow him to buy that house in the Hamptons. Now he can set up his
latest
mistress in style. I wonder how his
wife
would feel about that!” Chloe seethed, and James was taken aback by what now appeared to be a rather mercurial personality.

Chase had overheard that last bit and colored angrily. “You and your sea cows. If you hadn’t pissed mother off at every turn and then married a loser who got so drunk that he fell off his own boat and drowned, then you’d be sitting pretty too.” He signed his credit card receipt with a violent scrawl. “Let’s go, Wheezie. We’d better take you back to the roach motel before you fall face-first into the tiramisu. Willow? I’m assuming you need a ride,” he added ungraciously, all traces of his alcohol-induced gaiety gone.

“We’ll take her back to the Widow’s Peak,” James answered on Willow’s behalf, and Milla gave him a grateful smile.

Straightening his tie, Chase pushed back his chair, threw his napkin on the seat, and strode from the room without waiting to see whether his aunt and sister were ready to leave.

“Party’s over!” Wheezie declared with less energy than before, and she seemed to shrink into herself. Chloe mutely helped her aunt into her coat and then left, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

Willow and the supper club members stood up and gathered their coats and purses. James turned around to examine the bar area and saw that Lucy was already gone.

“Yes, the party’s over,” he said to Lindy as he helped her with her coat. “But now we’ve got
a lot
to talk about at the memorial service.”

James woke on
December twenty-fourth to the sound of Milla’s hand blender. He only had a half-day of work ahead of him, but with Paulette’s funeral services scheduled for that evening, he’d been hoping to eat a peaceful breakfast while finishing the last chapter of
The Thirteenth Tale
. From then, he planned to
move sedately through a quiet day. After showering and dressing for work, he arrived in the kitchen to find Milla baking, Jackson repairing the garbage disposal under the sink, and the coffee pot empty.

“I like your Santa tie,” Milla shouted over the whir of the mixer.

So much for quiet
, he thought.

Smoothing a small crinkle in his holiday tie, which featured Santa and several reindeer reading a book in front of a fireplace, James held out his clean coffee cup in accusation. “You’ve been up a while.”

“Dear oh dear,” Milla clucked. “We’ve gone and left you high and dry. Let me just get these in the oven, and I’ll brew you a fresh pot. Can I fix you breakfast?”

James eyed the array of dirty bowls, wooden spoons, cake pans, and deflated bags of flour and sugar. “No thanks. I’m just going to toast a Kashi waffle and have some fruit. I think you’ve got enough going on here already. Are you planning to feed cake to the entire town today?”

“Just those who show up to my sister’s memorial service,” Milla answered as she slipped two filled cake pans into the oven. “I want everyone who is kind enough to express their sympathy to have a slice of Paulette’s favorite cake.”

“Which one would that be?” James asked as he sniffed one of the batter bowls.

Gloomily, Milla cradled an egg in her palm. “She was my own sister and I didn’t even know. Willow had to tell me, but it’s the eggnog cake she made for the TV show last week. That woman and her eggnog.”

Stepping forward to wipe away the lone tear cascading down the curve of her cheek, James said, “I bet the time Paulette spent with you last week made a real difference to her, Milla. Look at things this way: She flew down to Quincy’s Gap to celebrate your wedding, she was over here in the morning chatting and having breakfast, and she cooked us dinner and laughed it up with Pop. I think it’s safe to say that her last days were some of her better ones.”

Milla stood on her tiptoes and kissed James on the cheek. “You are a darling boy, James Henry. I’m going to come over and cook three times a week when you move down the road.”

“I’m counting on it!” James declared, gave his soft paunch a pat, and carried his breakfast into the den. He finished the last page of Diane Setterfield’s excellent novel to the sound of Jackson releasing a torrent of expletives. Even from the safety of the den, James was able to discern that Milla dumped a bowl of refuse down the garbage disposal, having forgotten that there was no longer a canister attached to the sink. The entire contents, including raw egg spittle and clumps of cake dough, had ended up on Jackson’s face.

“I am
not
a trash can!” he heard his father splutter indignantly.

“You sure you don’t want a crepe, James?” Milla called from the kitchen. “I could scrape enough dough off your daddy’s forehead to make you one!” She chuckled. “Jackson, honey. You just got a free sugar facial.”

James made a hasty escape while his father was in the bathroom cleaning the muck off his face, knowing that Jackson would grow even more inflamed if there were another witness to his humiliation.

“Don’t expect to see him until it’s time to go to church,” Milla whispered and handed James his lunch sack and a thermos of coffee. “He’s determined to finish that painting of my sister’s hands before the service. I’ll be cooking him steak every night as punishment for making him fix this dumb disposal when all he wanted to do was sneak out to his shed.”

“That’s why you’re so good for him, Milla. You drag him out of that shed from time to time. Call me if you need me to buy out the rest of Food Lion’s supply of flour, sugar, and eggs on my way home.”

“I just might.” Milla’s eyes twinkled as she pushed him out the back door.

“Merry Christmas, Professor!” The twins exclaimed as he alighted from his truck in the library parking lot.

Scott held out a narrow strip of black cloth. “We’re going to have to open five minutes late, boss. We want to show you what we made you for Christmas first.”

James pointed at the fabric. “Well, if that’s meant to be a belt I’m very flattered, but I think it’ll take a few more meetings with Dr. Ruth before that’s going to fit around
this
waist.”

“This is a blindfold,” Francis declared with a boyish grin. “Your gift was too big to wrap, so we’ve got it leaning against the book return bin. May I?”

Leaning his head forward, James allowed Francis to fasten the blindfold. Each twin took hold of one of his arms and they led him over the curb, around a curve of sidewalk, and pivoted him so that he faced the book bin. With a flourish, Scott removed the blindfold and James sucked in his breath in amazement.

The twins had built him a custom mailbox. The box was wood and had been carved to resemble a shelf of books. Each book had been painted a different color and the titles of authors had been carefully engraved on the spines. Labels representing the library’s filing protocol had also been painted on each tome. Upon closer inspection, James was delighted to note that the books were in proper order according to the Dewey decimal system. Even the red flag was a miniature book, which the twins had cleverly entitled
The Scarlet Letter
. The post of the mailbox, which was a stake of plain wood, bore Cicero’s famous quote on books:
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

“We burned the letters into the wood instead of carving them,” Scott explained as James touched the black script. “It saves time and it’ll last forever because we covered that post with about forty thousand layers of polyurethane.”

Francis noticed that their boss seemed to have gotten something in his eye. “You okay, Professor?”

James nodded, too choked up to speak. Finally, after running both hands lovingly over the carved books on the mailbox, he turned and smiled at his employees, no longer caring that his eyes were glistening with tears. “This is a marvelous, excellent gift. You found out that my new house was number twenty-seven. I can’t imagine how much time went into this …” He hugged each twin and sniffed. “Bennett Marshall won’t believe his eyes when he puts my first letter in here. I’ll be on his route when I move, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this will be the finest mailbox he, or anyone else, has ever seen.”

Francis blushed and made a big show of tying his boot lace.

“He made one for that Willow girl too,” Scott whispered. “Looks like a box of chocolates. It’s a wall mount in case she ends up moving here and renting an apartment.” He nudged his brother so that Francis lost his balance and sprawled on the grass. “I think he’s in
love
.”

“Then he won’t have to ship that mailbox to New York, because Willow’s moving here after the holidays,” James informed the twins.Francis gaped at his boss in happy surprise. “And what about you, Scott? Did you make a newspaper column mailbox for Lottie?” James teased, allowing Francis a moment to recover his poise.

Scott’s face darkened. “That girlfriend of mine’s been acting weird lately, Professor. She wants me to stop playing video games and reading graphic novels for good! She even thinks I should …” he trailed off and looked to Francis to finish for him.

“Lottie wants him to get a different job,” Francis muttered. “A
career
, she calls it.”

James felt as though a cold wind had pierced his heart. “But you’re happy here, aren’t you?”

“Yes!” Scott answered hurriedly. “I’d never leave the library! I’m happy here, and I’m happy about who I am. I know I’m a geek who could use contact lenses and a car made in this decade, but I’m fine with riding a bike and living in Widow Lamb’s garage. My job is perfect, my boss is the greatest, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world to be able to work with my brother, my best friend, every day.”

“Stop it or I’ll cry again!” James clutched Scott on the shoulder. “And you
are
lucky. Some people spend their whole lives trying to figure out what makes them happy and you’re aware—in your mid-twenties no less—of exactly what you want and who you are.”

“So what do I tell Lottie?” Scott was clearly distressed. “Love me or leave me? That’s not how I talk, and I don’t want to lose her.”

In that moment, James had an epiphany. Lucy was basically telling him the same thing Scott longed to tell Lottie. She had made it clear that she would be devoted to upholding the law above all else and that was simply who she was. She had left it up to James to decide whether he could accept her and love her for who she was or sever their romantic ties once and for all.

But she
didn’t
let me decide
, he thought ruefully
. She just assumed that I wouldn’t want a life with her under those conditions. And maybe she was right. Maybe I want to be first in a woman’s heart. Maybe second place isn’t good enough for me anymore.

“Professor?” Scott’s voice brought James back to reality and he became aware that not only were they late opening the library but they were all shivering. The three of them had been standing on the grass, idly chatting in forty-degree weather as several patrons gazed at them with a perplexity that would shortly mutate into irritation.

Handing Francis the keys to the front door, James shouldered his beautiful new mailbox and looked at Scott with sympathy. “We can’t change people, Scott, no matter how much we’d like to. We must love them as they are or let them go so they’ll have the chance to be loved by someone else.”

Scott scratched his tousled hair in confusion. “Professor? Are we still talking about
my
situation?”

“What I’m saying is that you should be loved by someone who appreciates you
as is
, not as you
could be.
If Lottie doesn’t love you now, then she’s not looking for a smart, caring, loyal guy named Scott Fitzgerald and that’s
her
loss.” James smiled fondly at the young man. “It doesn’t mean you guys are done for as a couple, but you’ve got to be honest with her by telling her that you don’t want to change and see how she handles that declaration.”

“Great. I
do
have to give Lottie the love-me-or-leave-me speech, and I’ve got to do it before we go undercover tonight.” Scott sighed. “Poor Francis. He might be on a stakeout with the Grinch.”

“That’s right!” James had completely forgotten about Glowstar’s kidnapping. “The ransom handoff is at midnight. I hope your abductor actually shows up, or we’ll have to buy a new elf on eBay. I won’t let you and Francis face another holiday season without one.” With his left hand, he pulled envelopes containing generous gift cards to Best Buy from his coat pocket and held them out to Scott. “And I hope these will help take the
bah humbug
out of your day.”

As James headed toward the Bronco with his treasure, Scott tore open his gift card and his eyes widened in delight. He then read the inscription in his Christmas card. It said:

To Scott, fellow bibliophile, skilled librarian, and loyal friend. May your holiday be filled with barbarians wielding longswords and lovely maidens held captive by all-powerful warlocks. Merry Christmas. James Henry.