A Catered Birthday Party (17 page)

T
he moment that Sean and Samantha got down the stairs he regretted his prior suggestion to Samantha. He should have waited for the girls. So, he’d been a little bit bored. So, he’d been feeling a little bit sorry for himself. So what. It would have passed. But he hadn’t waited. He’d been in such an all-fired hurry to get out of the house. And now he had to contend with the matter of Samantha’s car. A Mini Cooper.

“Isn’t she too cute?” Samantha had squealed when he saw it. “Her name is Esmeralda. Don’t you think that’s a good name? You know, green? Emeralds? Get the connection?”

“Of course,” Sean muttered.

He didn’t think the vehicle was cute at all. It reminded him of a fancy tin can that had been painted green with checkerboard trim along the sides. Even the bumper cars in the amusement parks that he used to go to when he was a kid were better made than this thing.

Personally, he liked solid metal between him and every other vehicle on the road. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if one of these things collided with an SUV or a pickup truck. That’s why he hadn’t let Bernie buy one when she’d wanted to. He’d told her the vehicles were too dangerous and now he was going to be riding in one. Terrific.
Karma, baby,
as Bernie would say. She would find it funny. He, however, did not.

He looked at the Mini Cooper again. Of course, he was going to have to get into the thing first before he went for a ride. And that was going to be difficult. It was fine for a twenty-something like Samantha, who popped up and down like a jack-in-the-box. It wasn’t fine for someone like him, someone large and stiff in the knees. Even when he was younger it would have been a tight fit. In order to get in he was going to have to fold himself into an accordion shape. Frankly, he was too old to be pleated.

The only good thing was that Trudy wasn’t along. If she were she’d be sitting on his lap. Since there wasn’t room to move, his legs would probably go numb from her weight. Now that would be a disaster. They might go numb anyway if the ride was long enough, which he didn’t think it would be. And he didn’t even want to think about having to get out of the blasted car. That was a whole separate issue.

It would be worse than getting in. He could see it now. He’d get stuck and Samantha would have to grab his wrists and pull. He’d finally pop out and fall on his face like one of those clowns in the circus. Or maybe the fire department would have to come. That would be unspeakably degrading. No, he wasn’t going to think about that.

He swore that he would never complain about riding in Marvin’s hearse again. Ever. Well, at least not for a month. Unless Marvin was using it to pick up a client, as he so euphemistically put it. But really that had happened only twice. And it couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t that Sean had anything against dead people. He’d seen plenty of them in his time. It just seemed kind of…well, tacky…to be combining errands, as it were.

And speaking of Marvin, Sean would never complain about his driving again. Samantha’s was even worse, Sean decided once he was in the car. Mario Andretti she was not. She’d peeled away from the curb in front of the shop without looking and had come within two inches of tearing off the sideview mirror on Mrs. Gupta’s Infinity. Then they’d torn through the streets without regard to pedestrians, or traffic, or lights, with Samantha shifting with gay abandon.

“You are all right, aren’t you?” Samantha asked as they sped through a yellow light at Ashcroft, Ashcroft being one of those tricky intersections where five lanes of traffic merge. It was just sheer luck that the SUV that Samantha had cut off had been able to brake in time.

Sean came out of his state of shock for a moment. “Are you talking to me?”

“Who else would I be talking to?” Samantha demanded.

“The traffic police,” Sean couldn’t help saying.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“It’s not funny. It’s true.”

“I’m not driving too fast for you, am I?” Samantha asked as she took the corner at Ash and Oak at fifty miles an hour. They actually went up on two wheels. “I mean, I know old folks like to go slow, so if you want I can gear down.”

Sean considered that option for all of two seconds. He wanted to say,
Yes, please slow down, I don’t want to die yet
, but his pride wouldn’t let him. Sometimes it sucked being a guy.

“No. It’s fine,” Sean heard himself telling Samantha. “In fact, you can go even faster if you like.” What had his mom said about pride being a terrible thing? Well, it looked as if she was correct.

“Good,” Samantha said as she revved the car back up. “You know, you really are pretty cool.”

“Despite being practically an antique?”

“Yeah. Despite that,” Samantha said as they whipped around Longworth and headed toward Route 63. A few minutes later they were on it.

“I still don’t see why you can’t keep Trudy,” Samantha said to Sean as they bounced down the road toward Ramona’s house.

“Because I would be receiving stolen property,” Sean explained for the hundredth time. Somehow he managed to keep off the topic of Samantha’s driving.

“Trudy isn’t property,” Samantha protested. “She’s a living, breathing thing. And I didn’t steal her; I acquired her.”

“Oh. Excuse me. Acquired. I like that. Listen, I’m not arguing with you. I’m just telling you that in the eyes of the New York State Agricultural Code, a dog is considered property.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It may be terrible, but there it is. The law is the law.”

“It needs to be changed.”

“Then call up your congressman and complain. Get a petition going.”

“I know what I could do,” Samantha said. “I could call up Animal Control and complain that Trudy is being treated meanly. Then they’d take her away and I could adopt her.”

“You could,” Sean agreed, who doubted that Animal Control would ever set foot in Richard Colbert’s house no matter what the cause. “But somehow I don’t think that being kept in the kitchen and being fed dog food would be considered cruelty to animals. That’s what a lot of people do. And I’m sure your father wouldn’t be too pleased if you brought Trudy home.”

“First of all, Trudy is locked in a crate,” Samantha protested. “And if that isn’t cruel, I don’t know what is. How would you like to be in a cage all day?”

“I’m not a dog,” Sean replied. “So I wouldn’t know. And remember, you told me you found her wandering outside, which means she wasn’t in her crate.”

“Oh, yeah,” Samantha replied. “I forgot.”

“Don’t forget,” Sean said.

“It’s true. She was lost,” Samantha continued. “The poor thing didn’t even have her coat on. And no one noticed. I was there two days after Annabel died and Trudy was whimpering. It was heartbreaking. When I tried to take her for a walk, Richard yelled at me.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He said he didn’t want Trudy tracking dirt through the house. But my therapist said that Richard was treating Trudy badly because she was Annabel’s dog. Or something like that.”

Sean thought that might be true.

Samantha continued, “My therapist calls it displaced anger. But Trudy is lonely. She needs to be with people. And anyway, she used to be treated like a princess when Annabel was alive. I mean, even if Annabel didn’t love her she got good food and walks and doggie treats.”

“You’re telling me she was a trophy dog?”

Samantha stared at him.

“Like a trophy wife,” Sean explained.

“Oh. I get it,” Samantha said. “Yeah. That’s what she was and now she’s like Cinderella BPC.”

“BPC?” Sean repeated.

“Before Prince Charming, of course.”

“Of course,” Sean agreed. Who didn’t know that? Of course, he’d just recently learned what OMG and LOL stood for. He could still hear Bernie saying, “Dad, I can’t believe you don’t know what that means.” Well, believe it.

Sean gazed out the window at the snow piled up on either side of the road. He hadn’t driven Route 63 since he’d chased the Lipton boys down for stealing the high school principal’s Lincoln Continental and spray painting it purple. The road wasn’t in any better shape now than it was back then. But why should it be? There were no big developments on it; hence, no tax dollars were spent on maintaining it.

The road had no traffic signs and very few vehicles, which meant that Samantha could go as fast as she wanted on it. And she was. Never mind the ruts in the road. Actually, he was amazed Samantha could get as much speed out of the Mini Cooper as she was getting.

“She handles pretty well,” Sean heard himself observing.

“She does, doesn’t she?” Samantha responded. “I was pretty surprised. But it makes sense considering who manufactures them.”

“You didn’t buy this car?”

“With what? No. My dad gave it to me, so he wouldn’t have to deal with me. He figures that way I can go off on my own and I don’t have to bother him.”

“That’s too bad,” Sean said, thinking of all the time he’d spent driving his daughters. Some of their best conversations had occurred when he’d picked them up from school. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Samantha shrugged. “I don’t care. I’d rather have the car anyway.”

Then she stopped talking. Sean could see she was blinking the tears out of her eyes. They finished out the ride in silence. Five minutes later, they pulled up in front of Ramona’s house. Sean looked at his watch. It would have taken any normal person half an hour to drive there. It had taken Samantha ten minutes. Maybe even eight. On the plus side, at least his legs hadn’t had time to numb up.

Samantha parked. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“Do you mind if I smoke one of these before we get out?” she asked.

“Only if you give me one,” Sean replied.

This was the first good thing that had happened today, Sean thought as Samantha held out the pack for him.

“Just don’t tell my daughters,” Sean cautioned Samantha.

“They don’t know?”

Sean shook his head. “No. They don’t know that I started again.”

“That’s okay,” Samantha said as she blew a smoke ring and watched it drift across the front window. “Neither does my dad.”

“You shouldn’t be smoking,” Sean admonished.

“Neither should you,” Samantha shot back.

“Yeah, but you’re young. I’m old, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not that young,” Samantha said. “In two months, I’ll be twenty-one.”

“That’s very old,” Sean told her with a straight face. “I didn’t realize you were an antique.”

Samantha giggled. “I suppose it’s not that old from where you sit.”

“Not exactly,” Sean said wryly.

Samantha rolled down her window, cupped her hand, tapped the ash from her cigarette into it, and dumped it out the window. “Not to change the subject or anything, but what if Ramona’s not here?”

“Then we’ll come back another time,” Sean said, doing the same thing with his cigarette that Samantha had done.

“I don’t see her car.”

“It’s probably in the garage.”

“We should have called first.”

Sean shook his head. “No, we shouldn’t have. Then we’d give up the element of surprise.”

Samantha just grunted and took another drag.

Sean took a moment to study the structure in front of him. It was one of those ramshackle buildings that seem to have grown themselves. The place was tucked away on the back end of the Colbert estate. It was separated from the main building by the swimming pool, the tennis courts, and the flower beds on one side, and bounded on the other side by Route 63 and Freemont Woods. You had to know it was there to find it.

Sean decided that the structure must have been built—or maybe cobbled together would be a better description—with the intention of housing the hired help. If the house that Richard Colbert lived in was built for show, this place was built for function. The bungalow-style cottage had once been painted red, but although patches of the original color remained close to the ground, the wind and the weather had combined to scour the color off the rest of the walls. An empty dog run and a small garage stood a short distance away.

Samantha pointed. “That’s probably where Ramona keeps Trudy when she stays here.”

Sean didn’t doubt it. “Some people keep their dogs in places like that,” Sean said. His dad had always kept his hunting dogs in an outside run.
Otherwise they’ll get spoiled
, his dad used to say.

“Maybe,” Samantha answered. “But Trudy isn’t that kind of dog. Trudy has outfits. And shoes. My, there are a lot of cats here,” Samantha noted, changing the subject.

“Yes, there are,” Sean agreed.

He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t seen them at first, but maybe they’d been scared off by the sound of Samantha’s Mini Cooper when it roared to a stop. He knew he would be. And then after a few minutes of quiet, they’d crept back out. He counted ten at least. Maybe twelve. Most of which were hanging out near the garage. Then he spotted another couple near the blue spruce over to the left.

“I bet she feeds them all,” Sean said as he opened the car door.