The Class Menagerie jj-4 (2 page)

"I've seen this place from the road, but I've never been in here," Jane said. "I thought it was abandoned!"

"The Francisco family moved out the year Ted died and it was vacant until Edgar and Gordon bought it last January," Shelley replied as she wheeled her van into a parking spot by the carriage house behind the main house.!'

"So Ted died," Jane mused.

Shelley looked at her, perplexed, then said, "Sorry. I'm in my reunion mode. I forgot you haven't always lived in this neighborhood."

II

"Who the hell is Ted? The resident ghost?"

"Dear God! I hope not! I'll tell you about it later. There's Edgar waving at us."

They got out of the car and went to the back door. A cherubic man in his early fifties with thinning red hair, a hint of potbelly, and a huge smile was holding the storm door open to them. "Ghastly weather, isn't it? I hope it clears up for your guests. Come in, ladies," he said, beaming.

Jane stepped into the kitchen and came to a dead stop. Nothing could have been more in contrast to the outer aspect of the house. The kitchen was huge, brightly lighted, and seemed to hum with warmth and welcome. Gleaming copper pans, ladles, strainers, and baskets were hung from the soffit around the room. A big kitchen table by the windows was draped in a bright calico fabric that matched the ruffled curtains next to it. White tile counters reflected the bright lighting; a huge, bleached butcher block workstation was in the center of the room. The most gigantic refrigerator Jane had ever seen dominated the far end of the room and white, glass-fronted cabinets held arrays of china and sparkling crystal. There was a quarry tile floor with colorful rag rugs placed anywhere a person might stand for a few moments.

"Mr. North, this is the kitchen of my dreams!" Jane said reverently. "Heaven looks just like this."

"Darling, it's Edgar.
Mr.
North is my father in Cleveland. And I'm glad you like it. I'm rather pleased myself."

"You could store a small northern country in that refrigerator. But this is a bed and breakfast. Surely-"

"Surely I don't need this to throw together a bit of eggs and toast?" Edgar finished for her. "No, but I'm

a chef by profession. I've worked all over the country. And this is the kitchen I've always wanted for myself when it came time to settle down. We're going to do dinners, as well, you see. Not like a restaurant, just for planned parties. Maybe some catering when we're better established. Now sit down, my dears, and let me give you some coffee."

"Coffee" turned out to be a divine concoction that — tasted so nutty and rich that Jane didn't see how she'd ever go back to the ordinary kind. Along — with it Edgar served the tiniest, most delicate cream puffs on earth. Jane and Shelley complimented him effusively between bites. "Aren't you having any of your own marvelous treats?" Jane asked, wondering if Shelley would slap her hand if she took a fourth cream puff. She decided to risk it.:

"No, have to watch my tummy," Edgar said, patting his tidy little potbelly.

"BRBRBROEWW!" someone said from the next room. A second later an enormous, sleek Siamese cat sauntered into the room

"What a handsome cat!" Jane exclaimed.

Shelley looked at her as if she'd lost a considerable number of brain cells.

"His name is Hector. The noun and the verb," Edgar said. "He's supposed to be outside mousing to earn his keep, but he hates the rain."

Hector came over and rammed his head into Jane's leg, then flopped down and rolled over as if indicating that this luscious furry expanse of stomach he was exposing just might be available for petting. Jane obliged.

"Are you ready to take a look around? I'm sorry Gordon isn't here to help me show off. He's responsible for all the decorating. I'm just the cook."

"The understatement of the year," Jane said, licking powdered sugar off her fingertips and realizing too late-there was a bit of cat fur sticking to them as well.

"Where is Gordon?" Shelley asked.

"Still holding down gainful employment. He's design production coordinator for a greeting card company in Chicago. Dreadful job, of course. All cute little bunny wabbits and cripplingly sweet verse, but it keeps the wolf from the door. We're hoping that we'll rake in such pots of cash that he can quit when we get running."

The tour of the house left Jane gasping. Each guest bedroom had a name that matched its decor. The sunflower room, the apricot room, the moonlight room, the cornflower room, the tuxedo room, the lime room, the rose room. Bedspreads, curtains, carpet, paintings, lampshades were all exquisitely coordinated. The rose room was a symphony of femininity, all blushing cabbage roses, cherrywood, and quilting, while the moonlight room was as cool, classical, and masculine as Gary Grant. Hector preceded them into each room as if he were personally responsible for the decor. Every now and then he let out a spine-tingling Siamese yowl that made Shelley shudder and Jane giggle. Edgar kept giving the cat indulgent, fatherly looks. "I want to adopt Gordon," Jane said. "Do you two have rooms here or in the carriage house?"

"We have what we laughingly call a 'suite' on the third floor right now," Edgar answered. "Nasty place. Meant for stunted midget maids. Gordon's head is perpetually black-and-blue from crashing into the ceiling where it takes weird dives. We suspect bats, but the lighting is so poor we're not sure. We're probably going to live in the carriage house eventually, but

right now it's just for storage. And for mice, which Gordon claims Hector is afraid of."

"Then nobody will have a room there. Good," Shelley said. At Jane and Edgar's questioning looks, she added cryptically, "Bad vibes. Especially for this group."

Edgar showed them around the ground floor rooms: a vast-formal dining room, a living room with game tables, sofa groupings, and a sound and video system that would have made Jane's son Mike weep with envy. There was even a Nintendo game hooked up. "That's for guests with children," Edgar explained a little too hastily.

"I thought you didn't take children?" Jane said.

"Well, no — we don't plan to, but — I"..

Jane grinned broadly. "You're an addict. I know the signs. What's your favorite? Mine's Chrysalis."

Edgar actually blushed to the roots of his fine hair. "Actually, I like the maze kinds best. Lolo, that sort."

Shelley stared at the two of them, aghast. "You play those games?"

"Someday I'll get you hooked," Jane threatened. "Is this the library?" She glanced into a darkened room next to the living room. > i

Edgar went in and turned on the lights. It was the perfect library — three walls of dark oak bookshelves, a long library table with green-shaded lamps, chairs and sofas of soft, comfortable leather, and an |oak library ladder that slid along one wall. There was even a fax machine and a copy machine ready, for businessmen and women who couldn't, or wouldn't, leave their work behind.

Jane went to a shelf of paperbacks with matching orange spines. "P. G. Wodehouse! Are these yours? Edgar, I think I'll adopt you instead of Gordon. 'There

is only one real cure for gray hair. It was invented by a Frenchman. He called it the guillotine,'" Jane quoted.

" 'The magistrate looked like an owl with a dash of weasel blood in him,' " Edgar came back.

They were laughing happily and tossing quotes back and forth when they became aware of Shelley tapping her foot and clearing her throat ominously at ' intervals.

"Yes, all right," Jane said. "Edgar, you better tell me what to do and show me where the skivvy stuff is."

They toured the broom and vacuum cleaner closet and the linen closets, then Edgar said, "Now come out to the carriage house. The rags are there."

"A whole house, just for rags?" Jane asked as they hurried through the drizzle across the driveway and into the carriage house through the ground floor garage doors. Hector sensibly remained behind in the warm, dry house. There was, his expression suggested, a limit to what one would do for guests.

There was a jumbled heap of fabric in the middle of the floor. "These, ladies, were all the old rotten curtains and drapes in the house. I took out the hardware, washed them, and threw them in here to turn into rags as I need them. All the yard stuff's here, too, and extra cleaning supplies. I got a by-the-crate bargain on bathroom cleaner and dishwasher soap and over there is a mountain of toilet paper." He pointed into the gloom at the back of the triple garage.

"Is there more stuff upstairs here?" Jane asked.

"No, we haven't done anything to that yet. It's a relic of a boy's room. Sort of poignant, really — that the people left it. Posters, football trophies, a battered desk with school homework papers still in the drawers.

Sort of chokes you up to think of pitching it all."

"That's Ted's room," Shelley said.

"Dead Ted?" Jane asked.

"Dead Ted! That sounds like a rock group," Edgar said, laughing uneasily.

"Ted Francisco," Shelley said. "I guess I better explain to both of you — just in case anything awkward happens."

"Are you anticipating 'something awkward'?" Jane asked.

Edgar looked distinctly unhappy at this turn in the conversation.

Shelley didn't answer directly. "This house belonged to Judge Francisco. He and his wife had a son Ted, who was in our class in high school. He was handsome, smart, athletic, everything. We were all madly injlove with him. He had everything going for him." She paused for a moment before finishing. "The night of our senior prom, he committed suicide." ',

"Where?" Edgar asked quietly.

Shelley pointed above them. "In that room."

"Another cream puff?" Edgar asked Jane solicitously. They were back in the bright, cheerful kitchen. Hector was lashing himself against Jane's legs,

"My thighs will have to have their own zip code if I eat another," Jane said. She turned to Shelley. "How did he do it? Dead Ted, I mean."

"Carbon monoxide. Besides the stairway upstairs, there's a sort of hatch at the back of the garage. It opened next to Ted's bed. It used to be a joke with us. Ted could be out of there as fast as a fireman, flinging up the hatch, sliding down a rope almost into the front seat of his car. Anyway, that night he left the car running and the hatch open. His parents

were out of town overnight and when they came back, they found him fully dressed in bed. Dead. It was horrible for them. He was literally the light of their lives. An only child, born to them when they were in their late forties, I believe. Judge Francisco had a complete breakdown. By the time he recovered, his wife had closed the house and they moved away. I didn't realize they'd left Ted's room just like it was. I guess they couldn't stand to get rid of his things and just walked away and left it."

"Do you think this is why the house was vacant for so long?" Edgar asked. "We bought it from their estate."

"My guess is that they couldn't make themselves come back to the house, but couldn't bear to sell it either," Shelley said. "So they're both dead. Not surprising. They were a much older couple than the rest of our parents. They had Ted very late in life."

"It's a shame the house was left to stand vacant so long. It's a lovely place," Jane said.

"It wasn't so lovely when we got it," Edgar said. "In fact, I wouldn't have gone along with buying it if Gordon hadn't been so confident that something could be made of it. There had been transients living here off and on and the police told us — after we bought it, of course — that a drug ring had been operating out of here. Why, some of the riffraff have even turned up since we moved in. One night, we heard scrabbling noises and came down to find a young couple in what you might call 'a delicate situation' right in the middle of the living room. Thrashing around in a pile of sawdust. That's why we're awfully fussy about keeping the doors locked at night. We're going to ask guests to be in by ten-thirty or they'll have to wake us to get in."

"There must be a lot of details to work out when

you're opening a place like this," Jane said.

"Probably a lot more that we haven't even thought of yet. But your group will be a nice trial run, Shelley. I'm sure it's going to go wonderfully well," Edgar said with determined brightness.

Jane was surprised that Shelley didn't answer, but continued to stare out the window at the rain. She was frowning. It was always a bad sign when Shelley frowned. "I hope I haven't made a big mistake," she said, more to herself than to them.

Wednesday morning was wildly hectic. Jane's car pool schedule — as elaborate as a schedule of Mafia debts, her Uncle Jim claimed — fell to pieces. The mother who was supposed to drive Jane's high school son Mike's car pool called sounding like she was in the final stages of pneumonia and tried to get Jane to take her place.

"I'm sorry, but I've got the grade school this week and the whole junior high group has come down with something and I've got to drive my daughter, too. I'm really sorry, but you'll just have to press your husband into service," Jane said firmly. She probably would have caved in and helped if it had been humanly possible. It would have put the other driver under a terrific obligation. Being owed a car pool favor wasn't to be taken lightly.

"Oh, Jane, you know what an idiot Stan is about car pools."

"Stan runs a whole bank! He's just convinced you he's too stupid to figure out how to drive the kids so you won't ask him to help," Jane said. "It's selective idiocy. Steve used to do the same thing."

There was some more sniffling and whining at the other end. Jane sympathized. Her own late husband Steve, who had died in a car accident a year and a half earlier, had been just as discriminately parental.

Jane hung up on the other mother and screamed up the stairs, "Katie! Hurry up!"

"I'm doing my hair!" came back the indignant reply.

"You better get a move on. I've got to take you early so I can get Todd's gang picked up."

As Jane rounded up kids, helped hunt for lost math homework, and emptied her purse for lunch money, she reflected on how shortsighted she'd been to allow her children to be spaced out in such a way that they attended three different schools. Why couldn't she have just had triplets and been done with it? Everybody would have done everything at the same time— started school, lost baby teeth, gotten hormones. There would have been brief periods of absolute hell] but they'd have never been repeated with the next kid.