The Class Menagerie jj-4 (11 page)

"The Joker again?"

"And how!"

Jane opened the door cautiously and didn't know whether to be shocked or to laugh at the sight. The room was festooned with underwear. Bras draped over lampshades, panties suspended from television knobs and drawer handles, slips hanging over the coffee table, pantyhose spread-eagled on the sofa.

Jane closed the door and came back into the kitchen. "Crispy's?"

"Probably. Part of it anyway. You'll have to take a closer look later. Some of the stuff is
real
raunchy. Crotchless panties with obscene sayings, bras with the nipples cut out. The embroidered phrase 'Tuesday's

Tits' sticks in my mind. If she really brought that stuff along, she was expecting this reunion to be a lot more fun that most of us were anticipating."

"Where was the cop they left here while this was being done?"

"Probably asleep on the sofa in the library. He'll probably be in big trouble for not apprehending somebody, even though it's not a crime to redecorate with lingerie."

"Does Edgar know? Poor Edgar."

"No, but I think he's beyond caring. I believe Gordon's really worried about his state of mind. He stayed home today, too."

A shriek of laughter came from the other room as someone else discovered the underwear. "This trick's odd, Shelley," Jane said. "It seems more elaborate. More personal. It seems to actually 'mean' something."

Shelley picked up her purse. "I'm too tired to analyze the fine points. I'll be back later. Or maybe I'll just go to the airport and ask them to put me on the next plane leaving the country."

As Shelley left, Edgar came into the kitchen. If Gordon was worried about him, he shouldn't have been. Edgar looked rested and relaxed. "Jane! You're bright and early," he said, opening the door to the mammoth refrigerator.

"Edgar, you're so perky!"

"I think I'll do the creamed eggs and asparagus this morning," he said. "Yes. Over toast points. Maybe a breath of curry…"

He was back on form. As Jane made the basic white sauce for him and was inordinately pleased when he complimented her on it, Crispy came in the kitchen, her eyes red and her voice trembling. "Where is the

wastebasket?" she said, holding out a wad of flamboyantly colored underwear as if it were soiled.

"Over there," Edgar gestured. "What's that?"

"Disgusting underwear," Crispy said. "A nasty, filthy little trick."

She was genuinely upset, which surprised Jane. In the back of her mind, Jane had been assuming that Crispy herself was the Joker. She hadn't even consciously realized this before now. But obviously this wasn't a joke Crispy had played on herself to avoid suspicion. This joke had really bothered her. Jane kept stirring the sauce, turning the heat down slightly. It was possible, though, that Crispy had played the other tricks, and someone else — suspecting her — had engineered this one. It was difficult enough to imagine that this group contained one practical joker, let alone two.

Jane had a desperate craving to just sit down and think for a long time. These last two days had dumped so much information and so many impressions into her, that her subconscious seemed to have sunk under the weight of them. She was sorry that she and Shelley couldn't sit out on the patio, or at one of their kitchen tables, and chew it over together. They were such good, familiar friends that they could communicate in a verbal shorthand that was very comfortable. And sometimes very productive.

Edgar took over the sauce and Jane went to the dining room to set the table. Most of the women had gathered there and were standing around the silver coffee urn. They were discussing the fund-raising activities that had been decided on the evening before. Shelley would have been pleased.

As preoccupied as she was, Jane couldn't help but notice the change in Kathy. Instead of the dreadful

luu

hick/hippy clothes she'd been wearing before, she had on a very smart, crisp plaid blouse and neat denim skirt. This preppy, casual outfit even included a colorful woven belt, hose, and apparently some very effective underpinnings that did wonders for her rather generous figure. She was still a big woman, but a very tidy big woman.

Mimi and Beth were still in robes, albeit a very elegant black silk robe that would have done as a hostess gown in Mimi's case. Beth, in a tailored blue robe that looked utterly sexless, had gone remote, as if she'd fully realized that this wasn't a good place for a woman who had to maintain an impeccably orderly public life to be.

Avalon, in jeans and an elaborately knitted beige sweater with beads and what appeared to be twigs woven in, had really gotten into the fund-raising spirit and was chattering with Pooky about a craft booth someplace. They were deeply involved in the theoretical pricing of tie-dyed scarves. Crispy was still sulking.

Jane went back to the kitchen to eat. Gordon and Edgar were at the kitchen table, where they'd set a place for her and the policeman, who'd apparently heard about the practical joke with the underwear and was looking distinctly worried. Gordon was studying a piece of paper. "It's very clever, isn't it? Look at all the details."

"What's that?" Jane asked.

"One of the women gave Edgar this picture," he said, turning it so she could see.

"Oh, Avalon's drawing of the carriage house. I thought Pooky had probably gotten it away from her. It is clever. That was nice of her to give it to you."

"I'll get it framed next week. A deep gray mat with

a narrow black frame, I believe," Gordon said. "Where do you think it should go?"

"Upstairs for now," Edgar said, "if one of the guests is hot to get her hands on it. These women are really odd."

Echoing Mel, Jane said, "No, not all of them. Only one."

12

"Where's Shelley today?" Crispy asked from the kitchen doorway.

"She's gone home for a while — to punch out her sister-in-law, probably," Jane answered, stacking the last of the breakfast plates in the dishwasher.

"And what's become of Edgar?"

"He needed a few things from the grocery store. I told him to go on and I'd clean up."

"Want some help?"

"No, but I'd love company. There's some coffee left, if you'd like."

Crispy poured herself a cup and sat down with it and a cigarette. "Want one?"

"When I'm done," Jane said. "I'm trying to cut down to six a day. But I went off the rails last night and smoked four in a row because I couldn't sleep."

"I wish I could stop entirely," Crispy said.

"Unfortunately, it takes more than wishing," Jane replied.

"Listen, I'm sorry I was such an ass this morning about the underwear. It was just such a nasty trick and it really embarrassed me."

Jane put a dishcloth in the bottom of the sink and laid the crystal juice glasses on their sides on it before running hot water over them. "Crispy, answer me honestly, okay? Haven't you been the one playing the tricks?"

"God's truth, no!"

Jane poured dishwashing soap over the glasses and began to wash them. "But when I first met you, you implied that you were here just to cause trouble."

"Yes, but it soon became apparent to me that Lila was going to cause quite enough without any help from me," Crispy said wryly.

"But Lila wasn't responsible for the underwear. Or that antique thing of Pooky's being stolen and hidden."

"No…."

"Then who do you think it is playing the tricks?"

"I really haven't the faintest idea. Mimi, maybe?"

"Surely not! She was really angry about that thing of Pooky's being taken. She's the one who made everybody look for it."

"How do you know that wasn't a good act?" Crispy asked. "She's quite an actress, you know. Always had the lead in the school plays. We did
Oklahoma
our junior year and she played the goody-two-shoes role. Five minutes into it, you forgot all about her Chinese features and believed she was that girl. She played Lady Macbeth just as well."

"Is that so?" Jane said. That was interesting information, and put her conversation with Mimi the previous afternoon in'a whole different light. Jane had accepted everything Mimi had said about the others without question. Maybe she should get a second opinion.

"Tell me about the others," she said, carefully rinsing the crystal glasses and setting them on the counter on a dry towel.

"The kind version or the catty version?"

"Have you got two versions for everybody?"

Crispy laughed. "No, I've only got the catty version. Well, you know everything I know about Kathy."

"I mean what they were really like in high school. Not now."

"Kathy in high school — hmmm, a spoiled rich girl with too much energy and intelligence, looking for something to focus it on that would make people pay attention to her and drive her parents crazy at the same time. She had attention and respect and love all mixed up and thought they were the same thing."

Jane finished with the glasses and came to sit down at the kitchen table with Crispy, who pushed a leather cigarette case and silver lighter toward her. "You've thought about them a lot, haven't you?" Jane said, taking a long drag.

"I did then. You probably won't believe this, but I was really shy and insecure then."

"Come on."

"I was. I thought I was the most boring person in the world — which was probably quite true — and so I paid a lot of attention to everybody else. Trying to decide which one of them I wanted to be when I grew up, I guess. Living a vicarious life through the others. I did have the sense, thank God, to know I didn't want to be Kathy, though."

"Who
did
you want to be?"

"Either Beth or Lila," Crispy answered without hesitation. "That's odd, considering the way Lila turned out, but I did admire her then. She was a snooty little bitch, but she carried it off with style. Sort of like a young Katharine Hepburn. She always wore clothes that looked like they were hand-me-downs from a maiden aunt, but she wore them with such self-assurance that I envied her. I thought she seemed much more mature than the rest of us. I suppose it was

really only discontent, but it seemed like sophistication

to me."

"You admired her more than Beth?" "Not more. Just in a different way. Beth was absolutely perfect, but sort of remote, without any interesting sharp edges. Like she was always concentrating very hard on not turning into her mother. Poor Mrs. Vaughn, if she
was
a 'Mrs.' She tried so hard to fit in for Beth's sake. Came to all the Mother's Meetings and things, but always with too much makeup and clouds of cheap perfume and a voice a little too shrill. Beth was the kind of girl who probably didn't dare make very close friends with anybody because then she'd have to let them come to her house like friends do. And that might have wrecked her ambitions. Still, I admired her style and grace and brains." "What about Pooky? What was she like?" "Dim as a twenty-five-watt bulb. But gorgeous. You'd never know it now, but she was really stunning. The kind of person that strangers in the street stop to look at with amazement and admiration." "I know. I saw her picture in the yearbook." " — but
so
stupid. I had a whole slew of stories saved up to embarrass her with, but when I saw her ruined face, I just didn't have the heart. I was prepared to deflate her vanity, but life's done that to her already. She was the kind of person they tell dumb blond jokes about now. The boys were crazy about her. Naturally. She was a pretty good athlete, too. She could run like the wind, and do acrobatics, and dance. She was head cheerleader and Prom Queen, but you could have used her skull to drain lettuce. It must have been devastating to her to lose her looks, with nothing to fall back on like brains or skills or personality. It's actually pretty brave of her to have come to the

reunion. She's actually quite a nice woman now that she's not beautiful."

"Watch it," Jane said. "Your cattiness is slipping."

Crispy grinned and lighted another cigarette. "Then let's talk about Avalon. That'll bring it back."

"You didn't like her?"

"What was to like? She was an egotistical wimp. Still is. She sort of crept around like a morbid shadow, drawing her oh-so-precious little pictures, looking like she was always on the brink of tears. She was the kind of shy person who's totally self-absorbed, always seeing reasons to get their feelings hurt and imagining that people are talking about them when nobody even knows who they are. And she loved the opportunity to be the martyr. She's still doing it. Didn't you hear her going on and on about all her dear little handicapped foster children?"

"How come she got into the Ewe Lambs? I thought they were a pretty exclusive group. She doesn't sound like she fit the image."

"She didn't, but every year they had to have a token artsy-fartsy person. That was to give the illusion of democracy. Sort of like having a bulldog as a pet— to suggest that you could look beneath the surface appearances. She nearly drove Ted crazy." 'Crispy suddenly fell silent.

"Ted—?" Jane said encouragingly.

Crispy looked away. "Ted was my friend. My only real friend," she said. "We grew up together, like a brother and sister. He was an only child and so was I. All the others were after him as a boyfriend, a date that would give them status. They were all using him, even Beth. Especially Beth. But I was the one he talked to, really talked to. I sometimes think that if he hadn't died, he and I might have eventually—

well, that's stupid. He did die, the son of a bitch!"

"I'm surprised you don't hate Beth," Jane said.

"Oh, you've heard the story about how she broke his poor, fragile heart and he couldn't face life, huh? Well, he didn't kill himself over her," Crispy said.

"No?"

"No. He didn't care that much for her anymore. The bloom had gone off the rose, as they say. He knew she was only dating him because of his dad, because of the judge's status in the legal community."

Or so you'd like to believe,
Jane thought.

"No, whatever the reason was, it wasn't Beth."

"Then what was it?"

"I've never known. I'm not so sure he
did
commit suicide, not deliberately."