Mama turned around in the front seat again to look at me. “I’ll fix you up a bed on the couch. Just until you feel better. I can look after you if you’re downstairs. I don’t think I can manage all those stairs, though.”
My current bedroom was my parents’ old bedroom. Once they figured out that all those steps up and down every day were not contributing positively to their arthritic aches and pains, they made the old parlor their bedroom. It’s right off the living room and much easier on them. I love the new arrangements. Their bedroom has what used to be a sleeping porch back in the old days before air conditioning made life in the South livable from April to November. When I was still a child and we kids were all at home, Daddy had turned the sleeping porch into a sort of sunroom/sitting room connected to the bedroom by French doors. It’s lovely, and I still like to sit there and watch the day turn to night or listen to the rain.
“Oh Mama,” I said, “don’t go to all that trouble. I can get up and down the stairs just fine.” As I said that, a pain shot through me from my toes right up to my eyebrows. I think my body went into detox at even the thought of all those stairs. But I didn’t want my mother fussing over me, either. I’m a terrible patient, usually cranky and frustrated at being held prisoner by my own body. Also, I did
not
want to be asleep on that couch right next to my parents’ bedroom if they got frisky. That would send me screaming into the night, I was quite sure.
Sometimes, fate is quirky. Really.
Kit’s cell phone rang while Mama was telling me it would be
fun
, just like the pajama parties we had when I was ten or eleven—ignoring the fact there had been a few other ten and eleven year olds present—and so I just nodded and smiled and tried to think of a way to kill myself so the insurance company wouldn’t know it was suicide. It would be preferable to the alternative.
Then Kit held out his cell phone. “It’s for you.”
“Me?” I looked at it a bit warily. Transferred cell phone calls are unpredictable. I have rarely had one turn out to be good news. He waggled the phone in front of my face and I took it just to make him stop. I knew the moment I recognized the voice that my convalescence was going to be fraught with peril.
“Yes, Jackson Lee,” I said politely, “I’m doing just fine, thank you.”
“Good, good,” he said a bit too heartily. “You ladies had quite a scare. Scared the hell out of the rest of us, too.”
“Unh hunh.” I had to watch what I said and not accidentally commit myself to something. Jackson Lee can be tricky.
“How’s your family doing? Parents okay? They were mighty upset when I called to tell them what had happened.”
“They’ve recovered nicely.”
“That’s good, that’s good. I know you came back home to take care of them, and here the shoe is on the other foot now. But I’m sure your parents can manage. They take care of all those cats very well, and your mama keeps up the house and cooks—I’m sure it won’t be
too
much extra effort at all for her to nurse you back to health.”
I had a sudden vision of Mama trudging from the kitchen to the couch with trays of food, bringing wet cloths for my forehead . . . .
“It’s not like I’m an invalid,” I said to banish the vision. “I can walk. Slowly, but I get there sooner or later.”
“Oh, I know, Trinket. Just like I know you always take good care of family. It’s what we do. Family is everything to most of us. I doubt we’d get along nearly as well as we do without our kinfolks helping us out.”
I saw where this was going. Maybe I’d known as soon as I heard his voice on the phone, but now I knew what I’d say.
“I’ll do it, Jackson Lee.”
“Do what, Trinket?”
“Stay with Bitty. That is why you called, isn’t it?”
He gave one of his warm, lawyerly chuckles. “I had you figured for the smart one, and I see I was right. You know how she is, always busy doing something and talking to her friends . . . sometimes she just forgets herself. The boys are a big help, but they’re young and get distracted easy. I knew she could count on you to be here for her.”
“Of course. Where else would I rather be? Maybe Whitfield, but I hear they no longer take reservations.”
Jackson Lee laughed. I was sure he was just humoring me since he’d gotten his way. I was equally as sure that I’d be an excellent candidate for Whitfield by the time I’d been at Bitty’s for a half hour. But, patients don’t always get to choose their insane asylum.
CHAPTER 11
While I’ve been told a couple of times that “insane asylum” is no longer politically correct, I could not imagine Six Chimneys being referred to as anything else at the moment. It looked like the inmates were running it, too. Not an adult in sight.
Oh Bitty was there, all right, in plain view. But she was hardly being the adult. Her feet were bandaged up to her ankles. Instead of a wheelchair or crutches, she sat in a sturdy leather office chair with arms, while one of the kids pushed her hither and yon. I wasn’t in the house thirty seconds before I considered opening the front door and giving that chair a pretty good shove out onto the porch. Let the chips—or wheels—fall where they may.
Using my good arm, I snagged the first kid that happened past. He was a rather tall, gangly young man who seemed horrified when he got a close look at me. I smiled, which must have terrified him since my lips were swollen and cracked, my face a rainbow of bruises and cuts, I had a black eye, and I still lisped a little.
“I want everyone out,” I said as clearly as I could.
“Out!”
Kids scattered like roaches under a sudden spotlight. Evidently my lisp carries. I stood by the front door with it left open in invitation, and before Kit could even get my overnight bag up the front porch steps, the house was cleared. Blessed silence fell around us. It did not last long.
“Trinket!” Bitty said, and shoved away from a Regency table to roll toward me. “I thought you’d never get here. Good god. You look awful.”
“Thank you. I feel awful.”
“Poor thing . . . come on in here and lie down. The boys made up a bed for you in the parlor, so you don’t have to go upstairs. Jackson Lee told me you insisted on coming to stay with me. You shouldn’t have, really.”
Jackson Lee owed me. Big time.
“Where
is
our illustrious lawyer?” I asked as I followed the leather desk chair down the hallway. Kit tagged along behind, and I thought I heard him laugh, but when I turned around to look at him, he had a straight face. I must have been mistaken.
“In court,” Bitty sang out gaily. “Or doing something legal. I can’t remember.”
Bitty powered the chair by pushing herself away from walls and furniture, or kicking her heels against the floor. It worked just fine until she hit a carpet. The chair balked, teetered, and she spun around in it trying to keep it upright. She looked like a toy top gone berserk. If I hadn’t been so wobbly on my feet, I might have tried to stop her mad spin, but with my luck we both would have ended up on the floor.
Kit came to her rescue just before she pitched out of the chair. He caught her as she launched toward the parlor carpet, and kept her from landing on her face.
“Oooh, ouch, oooh!” she said.
“That’s Bitty-speak for thank you,” I interpreted when Kit looked concerned. “She has stitches in her feet. Just put her in that chair over there. The one without wheels. We’re all safer that way.”
True to her word, Bitty had a bed for me in the parlor. Really, it was just one of the oversized chairs and oversized ottoman put together, but it looked inviting with soft blue Egyptian cotton sheets, a light summer quilt, and fat goose feather pillows stacked up so high I’d have to take away at least two if I wanted to sleep lying down. Bitty knows how to treat guests. I was lucky she considered me a guest this time instead of just family.
“Brandon and Clayton are going to take good care of us,” she said from her spot in the matching chair-turned-bed. “I’ve given them their orders.”
“Did those orders include inviting half of Ole Miss to homestead your basement?” I asked. “Why on earth were all those kids here?”
“Oh, Trinket, they were just having fun. I kinda enjoyed them.”
I looked at her more closely. Her eyes were a little too bright, and she was a little too mellow.
“Bitty Hollandale, have you been drinking?”
She blinked. “No. Well, nothing but sweet tea. Why?”
Kit set my overnight case down by the small sofa against the wall. “Excuse me, but I think I’ll be running on now,” he said. “Bowel re-section waiting on me.”
Bitty turned toward him with a big smile. “Tell Mr. Recession I said hello, will you?”
For the first time since I met him, Kit seemed at a loss for words. Then he nodded and said, “I sure will, Bitty. You two take care now. Trinket—” He came to where I sat on the edge of my little bed, bent and kissed me on probably the only spot that didn’t have a big bruise—the tip of my nose—and whispered, “Valium. Percocet. Morphine. One of those, I bet.”
He was probably right. Bitty did have a glazed look in her eyes, and she was too happy for someone who had gotten stitches in both feet. And—the biggest clue—she was not wearing a pug. There was no sign of Chen Ling.
I squeezed his arm with my left hand to let him know I agreed, then he left. Bitty sat back in the chair and regarded me with that same smile. It did look a bit sloppy. But maybe it was best if she was dopey. I mean medicated.
While I was contemplating my options, Brandon appeared in the parlor doorway. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”
Before Bitty could answer I said, “Sweet tea. Lots of it. We’re both on antibiotics so shouldn’t drink anything else.”
It was true. Especially if taking pain killers. My prescription had been filled at the drugstore, but so far I hadn’t taken anything. I needed to get the antibiotics in me, and I’d see how quickly I’d need something for pain.
A funny thing about me and medications: I often have adverse reactions. During my divorce from Perry, my doctor had given me Xanax to sleep. Let me tell you—Xanax does anything but put me to sleep. I was as wired as if hooked up to a car battery. It got so bad I couldn’t even stand to be in my own company, and that’s when I knew I was in no danger of ever getting addicted. Same thing with Valium. After that, I discovered I can have a glass of wine or two and get nearly the same effect. I’ve been cautious about pain medication ever since. It may not be exactly the same thing, but why take chances?
When Brandon returned with our tea, he was accompanied by a girl who looked vaguely familiar to me. Blond, petite, pretty, I knew I should know her. When she smiled as she handed me my glass, it suddenly came to me: “Heather?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m surprised you remember me.”
I turned to Bitty. “Do you remember me telling you about applying for a job at Carolann Barnett’s lingerie and gift shop? Well, this is the lucky young lady who got there first.”
Ice clinked in her glass as Bitty took it from Brandon. “I don’t know about lucky. Do you have to have experience with dildos to sell them?”
“Mama!” Brandon said, sounding scandalized.
“Well, that’s what Rose Allgood is selling in there. Isn’t she, Heather?”
Laughing, Heather nodded. “Yes, ma’am, she sure is.”
“Do you sell lots of them? And who to? I know—I bet I can tell you just who comes in to buy those!”
Heather held up her hands palms out as if to ward off Bitty’s guesses. “No, no, I can’t rat out our customers. Miz B would fire me.”
“That’s okay. I pretty much know who some of them are. Trina Madewell, for one.” Heather got a funny look on her face, and Bitty laughed. “See? I knew it, I just knew it! Can’t fool me all the time. Or some of the time. How does that go?”
“Let it go,” I said, and surprising me, she did.
“So,” Bitty went on, “how do you and Brandon know each other? I’m pretty sure he doesn’t shop at Carolann’s.”
Brandon grinned at that. “Not lately,” he said in the same dry tone his father used to use, and I wondered suddenly if he and Clayton visited Frank much. “Heather and I both go to Ole Miss. She’s in my psych class.” Bitty looked sharply at Heather. “Who are your people, dear?”
“Oh, I’m from Pass Christian, near Biloxi.”
“Really? I have friends there. Do you know the Granville family? No? Perhaps you know the Fontaines? Well my goodness, they’re very well connected, so I thought you might know them.”
Since Bitty seemed to be exercising her snobbery gene at Heather’s expense, I took the conversation in another direction:
“You’re taking
psychology?
” I said to Brandon. “I thought you were going to be a lawyer.”
“Yes, ma’am, but good lawyers have to know psychology. It’s one of the basics of figuring out which clients are lying.”
“Oh,” said Bitty with a flap of her hand, “they all lie. It’s just what people do. If they’ve been charged with a crime, I usually figure they’re guilty. Otherwise, why would the police arrest them?”
Coming from Bitty, who had been arrested just a few months before on a murder charge, and who was even now under suspicion for another murder, it should have earned a lightning strike on her roof at the very least. Of course, nothing more happened than me and Brandon shaking our heads at one another.
When I glanced at Heather, she was still staring at Bitty with that strange look on her face. I knew how she felt. Dealing with Bitty can be trying for anyone, but especially those unaccustomed to her.
“It’s okay,” I leaned forward and said in a loud whisper, “we don’t let Bitty near courtrooms.”
Heather looked at me, then smiled. “Oh, I think she’d make a formidable defendant.”
“Not any time soon, I hope.” I lifted my tea glass in a salute to Bitty. “I propose we do our best to keep us all out of courtrooms—at least, as clients.”
Brandon laughed. “I’d drink to that if I had anything. Come on, Heather. Let’s go back downstairs before Mama and Aunt Trinket find anything else for us to do.”
“Turn your cell phone on,” Bitty called after them. “Just in case I think of something I need.”