The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) (15 page)

But here there were lots of things—all kinds of fruit, and Sara Lee cakes, and chocolates (which Carol kept refrigerated), and strange cheeses that Torian would never have heard of if it hadn’t been for her dad and Carol, with a whole selection of crackers to eat with them. Sometimes there was leftover shrimp or chicken or ham, and if she wanted a sandwich, there was a choice of breads, whereas Lise bought only one loaf at a time, and there was never leftover anything at her house, because what’s left over from a frozen dinner?

And sometimes there were special treats from weddings and cocktail parties Carol had catered.

Carol cooked for a living. What could be more feminine, more nurturing? So different from hard-edged Lise, with her set mouth and the nervous way a vein in her neck jumped.

Carol was a little plump, especially her hands, which were soft and lovely and often manicured, despite her job. Torian could never understand how she kept them that way, given her job, but she supposed Carol didn’t take on as much work as she used to before Marly was born.

Her hair was two colors of blond, with lots of highlights, and it was curly as well. She wore plenty of gel in it, which made it seem both lionlike and sophisticated at the same time, never fluffy. She wore beige and taupe most of the time, sometimes a kind of gold color, and white in the summer, so that the effect was a pleasing monochrome.

She was nice to Torian, which was more than Torian could say for Lise.

Her dad had met Carol at a party she had catered, which made it no surprise to Torian that he had fallen in love with her—it was probably for her cooking. That and the fact that she was nice to him, after Lise had been such a shrew.

Everything in their house was new and nice, which wasn’t Torian’s favorite style—she would have preferred beautiful antiques—but it was infinitely preferable to Lise’s early Goodwill look. Not that she blamed her mother for not being able to afford better, but then … she did. She did and she always would.

Lise could have kept Wilson—Torian’s father. She had chosen not to. Wilson wasn’t the type to run out on his family—he’d have stayed and put up with Lise as long as she was willing. She had dumped him. How was Torian supposed to forgive a thing like that?

She slammed the car door. “Hi, Dad.” He looked tired; his tie had been loosened.

He reached over and touched her cheek. Lise never did that. “Hi, baby. How’s my girl?”

She shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

“Listen, something’s come up at the last minute. What would you think about babysitting tonight?”

“You’re going out?”

“Well, we could. Carol has this opportunity… it’s a potential client.” He glanced at her, looking distracted. “But of course it’s up to you, baby. It means a lot to her, but you know how important our time together is to me.” He smiled. “It’s just that these days you don’t have much time for your old dad.”

He meant last Saturday, when she had gone back to Lise a day early for Sheila’s birthday party.

“Oh, Daddy, you know I…”

“I was just teasing you, sweetheart. I want you to do whatever you like. I just thought you might have something more important to do than hang with an old man, that’s all.”

“Well, I do. I’m going to hang with a young woman— a very young woman who can’t even walk yet.” She gave him a big smile, knowing she was being more of a baby than Marly to feel so disappointed. What he said was perfectly true—she bagged the adults when she felt like it. Therefore she couldn’t expect them to hang around as if she were royalty or something.

Her mother’s voice echoed in her brain:
Oh, is the princess distressed tonight? Perhaps we could just stop the world and start it again at the speed the princess prefers. Would that meet with her highness’s approval?

Her dad squeezed her knee. “That’s my girl.” He sounded so smug, so sure of himself that Torian almost wished she’d refused.

Don’t be like that,
she told herself.
What’s your problem? Can’t you act your age?

* * *

Loud music was playing when they arrived. Carol was in her underwear, hair wet, flying between the hall bathroom—usually Torian’s alone—and her bedroom.

“Hi guys,” she called. “I’m late.” The hair dryer went on.

Torian’s dad looked at his watch. “Me, too,” he said. “You can amuse yourself, can’t you? Marly’s in there.”

He pointed to the dining room, where Marly was cooing in a playpen, and he was gone.

Torian felt melancholy. Somehow disappointed without knowing why.

Some other feeling nagged at her, something she couldn’t identify, but it had to do with a sense of things not being right. It reminded her of Noel, and that confused her.

Things were right with Noel. Things were right with her father. What was her problem?

Needing human companionship, she went in and picked up Marly, who smiled at first, but almost instantly began crying. She was wet and probably had been for a while.

Sighing, Torian went to the bathroom for a diaper, but Carol was still drying her hair. “What is it?” she snapped.

“I—uh—need to change Marly.”

Without speaking, Carol reached into a cabinet behind her, pulled out a diaper and held it out, all the while staring in the mirror, scrunching her hair to keep the curl in.

She looked very beautiful in her lacy bra and panties, champagne-colored to match her hair and skin. Lise wore underwear that looked as if a nurse had chosen it—white and plain, often cotton.

Feeling small and in the way, Torian took the diaper and went back to Marly, who was fussy and not good company either. She hated the noise of the hair dryer, Torian thought, or maybe she sensed her parents were going out and she was cross about it.

Torian took her out of the playpen along with some of her toys, and sat on the floor, ready to cheer her up. Marly was restless. She flung a rubber pig at Torian, which glanced off her nose.

“No, Marly. No.” She spoke louder than she meant to. Almost at the same instant, the hair dryer went off, and the baby wailed. Carol came running out. “Now what?”

Torian had leaned forward, and was starting to pick the baby up, but Carol tore her out of the girl’s arms. “What is it, baby? Mmmmm? What is it, darling girl?”

Torian thought:
Lise never talked to me like that in her life.

“What’s wrong with her, Torian?” Her voice had a dangerous edge to it.

Torian shrugged. “Nothing. I just…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I haven’t got time for this now.”

She shoved Marly back at Torian, and the baby began to wail again. Carol disappeared on bare feet, leaving Torian the task of calming her.

Having had lots of experience with Joy, and some with Marly herself—and furthermore having quite a bit of patience—Torian went back to the rubber pigs and fuzzy kittens, until she had a calm baby again, happily drooling and exploring with her hands.

For some reason, Marly turned from Torian and her toys, back to the playpen. She pulled herself up and looked over her shoulder. Torian, sitting a step away from her, scooted back and held out her hands. “Come, baby,” she said. “Come on, Marly.”

With that inquisitive look that comes over kittens and sometimes babies, Marly stared at her and held out a hand.

“Come to Torian, baby.”

Marly put a foot forward, so that she was standing sideways, one hand still clutching the playpen. Torian scooted back a little more and leaned forward, her hands moving towards Marly, barely out of reach.

The baby let go of the rail and stood there a moment, swaying. Torian half expected her to sit down hard, but somehow she found her center of balance. Her front foot moved forward and then her back one. She had taken a step.

Torian leaned back. “Come on. Just a little farther. Come on, Marly.” The baby’s front foot moved forward again and she fell into Torian’s arms.

“Good girl! What a good girl, Marly. What a girl! Let’s go see your mom and dad.”

She picked the baby up and raced to her father and Carol’s bedroom, smiling and excited. “Dad, guess what?” she said as she reached the door, and she saw motion as her father’s head turned to look at her. But she never saw his expression. What she remembered most about that moment was the side view of his naked butt.

His shorts were around his ankles, his penis in the mouth of Carol, who sat on the bed, still in her bra and panties. His hair was wet; he must have just come from the shower.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he yelled, and then she did look at his face. It was red; furious. A vein in his neck worked.

Mortified, Torian gasped and ran, not knowing where to go. Finally, after a false step or two, she took the baby into her room and slammed the door, terrifying Marly, whom she dumped unceremoniously on the bed, and who began to howl inconsolably.

Torian, too, burst into tears, unable to contain her embarrassment and horror. Mostly what she felt, besides stinging humiliation, was anger.

What the hell are they doing, she thought, when they’re supposed to be in such a goddamn big hurry? Why couldn’t they be bothered closing their goddamn door? How can he be mad at me? What did
I
do?

She really couldn’t get to the bottom of this. To her, it seemed that if anyone were at fault, it was they, certainly not her. Why had her father yelled at her? She couldn’t fathom it, but she didn’t think she was ever going to get over the pain of this.

Also the shock.

She had heard of what they were doing, even had some vague notion what it was called, but it hadn’t really occurred to her it was something married people did before going out for the evening on a Friday night. And certainly not with the door open.

Her father came in, tucking a half-buttoned shirt into a pair of trousers, not bothering to knock. “Torian, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Couldn’t you have closed your goddamn door?”

“Look, don’t give me any lip. You had no business being there. You were supposed to be taking care of the baby, not walking unannounced into people’s bedrooms.”

For the first time he looked at Marly, who was lying on her back, legs up in the air, knees at right angles to her body, yelling like she was being tortured. He picked her up.

“You’re doing a lousy job of that, Torian.”

Torian turned her face away from him. “I was coming to tell you she took her first step.”

“What?” His voice was suddenly gentler.

Hearing the click of high heels in the hall, Torian turned to see Carol, dressed in a beige silk suit, the skirt short enough to reveal chubby knees and thighs that looked like nylon sausages. It was the first time Torian had found fault with her.

She was standing in the doorway, one hand on the jamb. Her eyes caught her husband’s, and she echoed his question:

“What did you say?”

“Torian says Marly walked.”

Torian nodded and smiled, her embarrassment, in spite of herself, giving way to pride. “She did. She took two steps.”

Her dad shook his head. “Honey, I’m sure you must be mistaken.”

Carol looked panicked. “She wouldn’t do that. Not for Torian.”

“She did! I don’t care if you believe me or not. Marly walked!”

“It’s not that we don’t believe you, Torian. I’m sure you’re just mistaken.” Carol entered the room and sat on the bed. Torian’s dad held the baby out to her, but she refused, gesturing toward her outfit, which she obviously didn’t want mussed. “Look, I know you need a lot of attention right now, and I don’t blame you if you need to make up stories.”

“Bullshit, Carol! Marly walked. Your baby took her first step while you were writing an addendum to the Kama Sutra.”

“Writing what?” Her dad laughed as the penny dropped. “Hey, honey, that’s pretty funny.”

Carol’s eyes were a storm-tossed sea. “Wilson. Didn’t I tell you? She thinks she’s in competition with me.”

“Excuse me. She’s in the room with you. She’d like to be addressed as ‘you’ if Mrs. Gernhard the Second wouldn’t mind.”

Carol stood up. “Mrs. Gernhard the Second! All right, Torian, that’s it. You may not come into my home if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head.”

“I beg your pardon. This is my dad’s home. And he’s known me a lot longer than he’s known you.”

“All right, ladies, all right. Chill out, okay? We’ll talk about this later. Carol, we’re late.”

When they were gone, and she had put Marly to bed, Torian went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There were only condiments in it, and some packaged ham. Carol must have cleaned it out.

Finally, Torian found a frozen pizza, and while she waited for it to heat, she thought about the time she had asked her dad why she couldn’t live with him instead of Lise. “I wish you could, sweetheart, but your mama won’t let you. It’s as simple as that.”

“Have you asked?”

He nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes. You betcha I’ve asked. It’s Lise’s decision.”

Torian had never understood that. Lise hated her, so why would she want to live with her? Now it seemed that Carol hated her as much as Lise did. She wondered if that was the real reason she couldn’t go live with her dad.

* * *

Skip had decided there was little point in heading to southwest Louisiana on the weekend. She could go first thing Monday morning. She felt fairly driven, but supposed there was something to Cappello’s advice about resting.

Anyway, she had some things to do in New Orleans. She called a witch she knew and asked about Layne’s problem. The witch said she’d consult the coven, and if they tackled it, Kenny could watch.

Skip went to find Jimmy Dee and the kids. He and Kenny were in the kitchen, Kenny stirring something that smelled like liquid gold.

“We’re making pralines,” said Jimmy Dee.

Kenny consulted a candy thermometer. “This thing won’t get to the soft ball stage.”

“Yes, it will. You just have to be patient.”

Skip said, “I’ve got good news. The witches might magic Layne—they have to take a vote or something— and if they do, I think you’re in, Kenny boy.”

Kenny turned around, delight on his young features. “I can go? Cool.”

“He can?” said Dee-Dee. “Did I say he can?”