The Ladies Farm (22 page)

The manager met her in the lobby and escorted her to Kat’s room.

They knocked first, the manager rapping with authority and calling, “Ms. Naylor?”

They heard fumbling, heavy steps.

Kat was a mess. Bunches of hair stood at right angles to her head. Her eyes were swollen, her clothes—the ones from yesterday’s meeting with Hugh Jr.—bunched and wrinkled. Della caught just a whiff of the alcohol before the door started closing.

Della caught it before it slammed shut and pushed her way into the room. “Thank you,” she said to the manager as she walked toward Kat. “We’ll be out of here in just a little while.”

“Get out,” Kat said. “You get out now.”

“Can’t. The cops downstairs won’t let me leave without you.” Della grinned, trying to ignore the smell of alcohol-based sweat. “I hear you did a little redecorating.”

“Bastards!”

Kat weaved her way over to the bed and swung at the tangled covers, then sat. Her words, when she spoke again, were precise. “I am
not going back to the farm.” She smiled and her red eyes glittered. “You just can’t keep ’em down on the farm.”

“Not after we’ve seen Richard,” Della agreed.

“Shut up!”

“Can’t, Kat. You’re the only one I can talk to about it. You’re the only one who knows. Well, you and Hugh Junior.”

Kat considered this a moment, and Della took the time to survey the room. No puddles of vomit, she inventoried. One empty bottle of pre-mixed Margaritas. That was it.

“You’re … only one too,” Kat was mumbling. “One, two.” She stared up at Della.

“We can’t tell Barbara,” Della said.

“No.” Tears welled up in Kat’s eyes. “Barbara’s dying. Soon they’ll both be dead and it’ll be just us. Us two.”

“Kat … Richard and I … that was a long time after you broke up with him.”

“I know.”

“I thought I’d go the rest of my life without telling anyone else.”

“You told Pauline.”

“Wouldn’t you, if you could have?”

“Tried,” Kat said. “Married Grant, called her. Lunch. But she canceled. Something … kids. Canceled.”

“I wish now I hadn’t told her,” Della said. “Because of the journals. But it would have driven me crazy not to tell someone.”

“Yeah,” Kat said dully.

“You going to fight with me if I say we should go home?” Della asked.

“No fighting.” She didn’t look as if she could fight anyone.

“We need to settle your bill.”

“Plastic.” Kat was listing as she whispered and ended curled on her side amid the covers.

Della stepped over a mass of pillows and towels to help herself to the remote control. She checked Kat, who was awake but lying
peacefully, then flicked on the television and walked herself through the on-screen directions for automated checkout.

The screen displayed an impressive bar bill from the previous evening, but no charge for damage. That’ll come in a letter from the lawyer, Della thought. She selected the option to add any remaining charges to Kat’s credit card and ordered the bill sent to the guest’s address of record, then she looked at Kat again. The problem now, Della posed, is how to move this inert mass from bed to car without rousing her to resistance.

Stepping over the pillows once more, Della seated herself at the desk and reached for the telephone. In less time than it took to formulate and say “I’ll rid you quietly of this guest if you’ll cooperate,” the young manager was at the door with a wheelchair.

“Kat, honey,” Della whispered, kneeling close to the spot where Kat’s head was sliding off the bed. “Kat, honey, I’m going to take you for a ride now.”

The manager, whose name was Jennifer and who must have been working out regularly, helped hoist Kat to a sitting position and then slide and drag her into the chair. As Della propped Kat up, Jennifer, in a grand gesture, swept a blanket from the bed, folded it deftly, draped it over Kat’s shoulder, and tucked it securely across her body. In one motion, Della realized, this child had concealed Kat’s clothing and impeded escape.

Grabbing Kat’s purse as she passed, Della backed the chair out of the room, and Jennifer motioned her toward the service hall.

“We’ll just take a nice ride in this elevator.” Della pushed the chair in and smiled at Jennifer, who pushed LOBBY. Della fished for her keys. “My car’s right in front. The blue Accord. Can you get it to where we’ll be?”

Jennifer smiled and took the keys. There was a loading dock with a ramp on which Della had only to hold the chair to brake its descent. Then they waited until the Honda appeared. You just never know, Della thought, picturing Kat at her most familiar, suited and
coifed and ready to take on the world. The car stopped in front of them.

Again, Jennifer’s strength made it possible to load Kat into the car. “It’s almost like a big sack of flour,” grunted the young manager. “Except maybe riper.”

Della smiled. Looks like Kat, talks like Rita, she thought.

“I cannot thank you enough,” she told the young woman. She tried to press a twenty on her, but Jennifer resisted. “There’ll be too many times when no one gives you a nickel,” Della insisted, tucking the bill into Jennifer’s pocket. “Indulge an old broad. Besides,” she said, “I took it out of Kat’s purse.”

She eased the Honda through traffic, glancing now and then at her seat-belted charge. Kat’s head hung to one side, her eyes were closed, and she snored a little.

Once she hit the farm-to-market to Sydonia, she started to plan her explanation to Rita and Barbara. We’ll get Kat upstairs and into bed, she planned, then I’ll tell them about Hugh Jr. and Castleburg and the Huttos. But not about Pauline’s journals. Or why Kat’s so mad.

Then I’ll take a nap, Della thought. On the recliner in Kat’s room. So I’ll be there when she wakes up.

But Kat woke up in the car.

“Who else besides you and the real estate agent?” she asked. “Who else?”

Della shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“Would you tell me if you knew?” she asked.

“Probably. But I don’t know anymore. I’ll tell you something: I’ve lived with this for a while and the truth is, I’ve lost my curiosity about it. What difference does it make? Don’t you think,” Della asked, “it’s funny he could do the same thing with you and me and some real estate agent?” She paused. “And Barbara.”

“Who could?” Kat complained. “I used to think he just put up with her, but since she’s been there … I don’t know, she’s not just some fat slob he ended up married to.”

“No.”

“But she’s not like either one of us. And we’re pretty different from each other.”

Della grinned. “And he loved sticking his dick into all of us!”

She expected a strenuous protest, but Kat only gazed out the window and returned a muttered, “Yeah, he did.”

“It was a lot more important to us, that’s all. We thought it was meaningful. Maybe he did too, but not nearly the same way.”

“It seemed pretty meaningful when it was happening,” Kat said.

“I think that’s what growing older means,” Della advised. “You learn how time puts everything in its place. That body we thought was so glorious, that brought us so much pleasure? First it rotted, then it crumbled to dust. You could probably crush a fistful of his bones into powder now, that man who mattered so much to us.”

Barbara was sitting on the porch when they pulled up to the Ladies Farm. Several guests were seated with her, and Della guessed she was reading them their horoscopes.
Be cautious with family member
, Della recited silently.
Romantic relationship heats up. What seemed a problem will furnish its own solution
. She pulled the car around to the back and they went in through the kitchen.

“I’m taking a shower and then a nap,” Kat announced, heading for the stairs.

There was a note from Rita to call Tony and a note from Barbara that she couldn’t wait to hear about Della’s date. And then there was the voice mail from Hugh Jr. instructing Della to call him immediately. “Let me know when you’re done with the shower,” Della called after Kat. She started for the stairs. You must have been crazy to start up with Tony again, she told herself. Absolutely crazy.

She waited until she had showered to call Hugh Jr. back. Wrapped in her terry-cloth robe, her wet hair still dripping, Della took the phone
from its base in the hall and carried it into her room before she dialed his number. Hugh Jr. answered on the first ring. He got right to the point. “I guess your friend Barbara told you she’s offered me two-ninety.”

“I … we haven’t talked,” Della replied, seating herself on the bed.

“She’s really determined to hand that property over to you,” Hugh Jr. said. “It’s touching.”

“Hugh,” Della said, “Honey, I know how tough all this has been on you.”

He laughed. “You’re all the same, all that sympathy crap. Look, you don’t know a thing about me or my life. All you know is that I have half of something you want and Barbara’s got the other half. And you’re playing us both for all it’s worth.”

Della closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath. “Hugh,” she started again, “what I’m trying to say is that I know, and I’m sure she told you, that Barbara is very sorry for what happened with your dad. But Hugh, that was a long time ago and you can’t—”

“I don’t care who’s sorry,” Hugh Jr. cut her off. “I’m just interested in getting done with this … getting done and maximizing Mom and Dad’s investment for Melissa and me.”

“Hugh, what is it you want?”

“Barbara’s offered me two-ninety. Why don’t you offer three-fifty? That way, you can have the Ladies Farm and I won’t tell Barbara you screwed her husband.”

“Hugh,” she started again, then stopped. Della had run out of responses.

“Think about it,” he urged her. “It’s your shot to get what you want: giving me what I want.”

She held the phone away from her for a second, stared at it, then spoke into it. “Good-bye, Hugh,” Della said.

Chapter 14               

I
t was Saturday evening before Barbara, Della, and Rita gathered in the office. The guests had followed a dinner of beef Burgundy and crusty bread with a walk to the movie theater on the square.

“Kat’s sleeping like a baby,” Barbara reported as she sailed in.

“If your baby snorts in like a hog and whistles out like someone’s grandfather,” Rita amended.

“Hugh Junior’s not going to be easy,” Della announced to Rita and Barbara to get things started. “He’s got a great offer from Castleburg—two-eighty for his half, five-sixty for the whole property.”

Rita looked shocked, but Della could tell that Barbara was not surprised. “I met with him for breakfast,” said Barbara. “He thinks his ship’s come in; not only does he want me to sell to Castleburg, he wants to forego the cash for a percentage of the gross.”

“Unless, of course, we offer him even more cash. His latest call to me ups the ante to three-fifty.”

“Three-fifty! For half?” Rita slapped Barbara’s arm. “Honey, you’re sitting on a gold mine!” She turned to Della. “Count me out. I’m not buying the Ladies Farm for seven hundred thousand dollars!”

“No one is,” Della rejoined.

“Why don’t you just move the Ladies Farm to another big house on the Nolan?” Barbara asked. “Or a big house in some other town?”

“Move the Ladies Farm?” Della reacted in mock horror, then slipped into an Irish brogue. “Why Scarlett O’Hara, land’s the only thing in the world that amounts to anything, and we’ll not be partin’ with any piece o’ it!”

“Well, Barbara’s got a point,” Rita said. “You might … we might do better with a less expensive piece of land.”

“This is the Ladies Farm,” Della said. “This house is perfect for the Ladies Farm, our barn is perfect for Ladies Farm classes, our riverfront is perfect for Ladies Farm canoeing, and our kitchen and dining room are perfect for Ladies Farm meals. If we have to, we’ll go somewhere else. But for right now, we’re staying here.”

“Until I die, you mean?” Barbara’s expression showed how well she understood Della’s intent.

“Oh, honey,” Rita started, “I’m sure that’s not what she meant.”

“It’s exactly what I meant,” said Della. “It’s what we want, and I don’t want you worrying about it.”

“Besides, you shouldn’t worry about anything,” Rita chimed. “That’s the worst thing you should be doing, it’ll just, you’ll just—”