Lavender Lies (6 page)

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Pauline,” I said quietly.

She straightened her shoulders and shot me a look like the one Harry Truman must have worn when he signed General MacArthur’s walking papers. “And why not? If there’s anything I hate, it’s insubordination.”

Pauline isn’t dumb, but sometimes she’s like the old Texas mule—it’s next to impossible to get her attention. “McQuaid isn’t being insubordinate,” I said. “He’s being careful. Don’t you
get
it, Pauline? Coleman’s attempt to blackmail you has given you a motive for murder.”

She stared at me as if I’d whacked her with a two-by-four. “A motive!” she gasped. “But I had nothing whatever to do with—”

I checked her denials. “Now that he’s heard about the blackmail, McQuaid has no choice. Like it or not, he has to treat you as a suspect, which means advising you of your right to legal representation before saying anything—
anything
at all, Pauline—that might relate to the crime.”

“He has to—” She stared at me for a long moment. “Oh, God,” she whispered.

“God won’t be much help, I’m afraid,” I said ruefully. “If I were in your shoes, I’d call Charlie Lipman instead. And I’d do it tonight.”

Her lower lip was trembling and her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. “But I ... I can’t tell Charlie. Darryl might find out.” She gave me a pleading look. “You’re a lawyer, China. Couldn’t you—”

Darryl? What did Darryl have to do with this? “Sorry,” I said. “I sleep with the enemy.”

She frowned. “I don’t—Oh, yes, I see.” She sighed. “Well, in that case, I suppose I’d better ...”

She stood and picked up her purse, her face drawn and sagging. Pauline has so much stamina and energy that I’d never thought of her as being any age at all. Now, I realized that she was probably closer to sixty than to fifty and was feeling every year of it. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Tonight,” I repeated urgently. “Call Charlie tonight. You’ll probably be hearing from McQuaid first thing in the morning.”

“All right,” she said numbly. She turned toward the door. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “What have I done? What have I
done?”

Farther south around Arkansas and Texas a prickly
ash grows that was more familiarly known as the
toothache tree,
Zanthoxylum clavaherculis.
The
bumpy bark is hot to taste and will help a toothache.
So deeply entrenched in the affections of the people
has this weird tree become that it has accumulated
several other names, including the sting tongue, the
tear blanket, and pepperwood. For a toothache, dry
the inner bark, powder it, and apply in the aching
tooth cavity.

Plant Medicine and Folklore
Mildred Fielder

 

 

 

I don’t know about you, but going to the dentist ranks at the bottom of my list of preferred activities, right along with doing my income tax return and getting my tonsils out. For a long time, I put off even the most necessary dental work until there was absolutely no escape. My attitude improved, however, when Dr. Carl Jackson moved here a year or so ago and took over old Dr. Smelser’s practice. Dr. Jackson is the only dentist I know who has mastered the technique of administering Novacain so painlessly that you never even feel the needle. And while you’re waiting to get numb, he hands you a headset and points to a rack of cassettes. You choose the music and when he starts to drill, you turn up the volume to drown out the noise. I usually pick Wagner, because he’s so loud—
The Ride of the Valkyries
is good. The Valkyries thunder around the heavens while Dr. Jackson messes around in my mouth.

I showed up in the clinic’s waiting room before nine, as I had been instructed, but I was not Dr. Jackson’s first appointment. That honor belonged to Melissa, who in addition to being Brian’s girlfriend, is my dentist’s daughter. She had come in early to get her braces checked.

If I were choosing a girlfriend for Brian—or a daughter for myself—Melissa would be high on my list. She’s not a cute kid. Her nose is too chunky for prettiness, her face is splattered with freckles, and her hair is a bright orange—brighter, even, than Ruby’s. And there are, of course, the braces. But she’s smart and unselfconscious and independent and seems to have resisted (so far, anyway) our culture’s efforts to convince her that life’s most important decision is choosing the right Barbie doll. I also appreciate the matter-of-fact way she relates to Brian as a buddy, rather than as a boyfriend. She says she wants to be a botanist when she grows up, and a while back asked if she could get some practice by working in the Thyme and Seasons garden. I said an enthusiastic yes, and she showed up last weekend. She has a stout back, exactly as many hands as someone twice her age, and an admirable willingness. What’s more, she brought Brian, who is more interested in lizards than lavender and isn’t quite so willing. Between the two of them, they pulled several bushels of weeds, harvested the yarrow, and deadheaded the echinacea. At the end of the day, she announced that this was even more fun than going camping, and she’d love to come back and help some more.

“Hey,” she said when I walked into the clinic. “Hi, China.”

“Hi, Melissa,” I said, and gave her a quick, affectionate hug. Unlike Brian, who believes he is too old for such things, Melissa hugged me back. I held her at arm’s length so I could look at her. “Hey, that’s a cool shirt.”

She stuck out her chest. Her green T-shirt said
Trees Come First. People Came Later.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s my birthday present from my dad. Yesterday was my birthday. I’m twelve now.”

“Happy belated birthday,” I said. “Twelve is a big year.” At twelve, I got my first period and my first boyfriend, who turned out to be a total jerk. He threw me over for Gloria Gaye, who had curly blond hair and 32-B boobs.

“Thank you.” She bent over to rebuckle the tab of her leather sandal. She straightened up, flipped her hair back, and said, “Listen, if I bring my mom to your shop, will you help her pick out some herbs? I’m digging her a garden in our backyard. It’s a present for her,” she added.

“A good one, too,” I said. I don’t know many young girls who would be willing to do the spade work.

“I like that stuff that’s growing beside the patio at the back of the shop,” she said. “It smells good.”

“That would be rosemary,” I said. “Your mother will enjoy that.”

“Actually, she’s my stepmom,” Melissa confided. “But it’s a pain to keep calling her that, so I don’t bother. How about sage? It’ll grow big enough to have some for Thanks-giving, won’t it?”

“Sure thing. Why don’t you draw a diagram of the garden you’re making, with the dimensions, and we’ll see what we can fit into it. My treat.”

“Cool,” she said. “Hey, about those frogs.”

“Frogs? Frogs? What frogs?” I frowned, pretending to think. Then I snapped my fingers. “Oh, sure—you’re talking about the plate of refrigerated frogs I found between the pickles and the marmalade.”

She giggled. “Yeah. I hope they didn’t gross you out. I was going to put a lid on them but I couldn’t find one.”

“After living with Brian,” I said, “I think I’m gross-proof.” I looked up as the clinic door opened and a petite, pretty woman came in, dressed in a stylish belted shirtwaist that matched her blue eyes. Her ash-blond hair was attractively waved but stiff with spray, like a doll’s hair, and her brows and lashes had the same quality of careful artifice. I shifted, feeling uncomfortably that my jeans and plaid shirt—perfectly fine for the shop and gardens—were out of place in Mrs. Jackson’s company.

She smiled at Melissa. “All finished, my dear? We’d better get you to school before you’re late.” Her voice was soft and cultured.

Melissa made a face. “I’d just as soon be late. It’s English, and Mrs. Carlisle is a bummer.” With aplomb, she swung into introductions. “Jennie, this is Brian’s mom. Her name is China.”

“Oh, so
you’re
the one I’ve been hearing about.” The woman gave a light laugh and extended a hand, her slim wrist decorated with bangle bracelets. “I do hope that Melissa isn’t making a nuisance of herself. She told me about leaving those awful frogs in your fridge.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” I said, trading a brief handshake. Mrs. Jackson’s fingers were cool and delicate and wondered whether she would appreciate her stepdaughter’s present. “Melissa is a girl after my own heart,” I added. “Frogs and all.”

Mrs. Jackson shuddered. “When I was her age, my friends and I were putting on lipstick and perfume and.going to sock hops with our boyfriends-not grubbing around in the mud and weeds, looking for lizards.” She gave Melissa a reproving look. “I’m not asking her to wear dresses or play with dolls—just to learn a few feminine graces. I’m afraid that most of the men in her life won’t be terribly interested in lizards.”

“They will be if she studies herpatology,” I said. Melissa giggled. Mrs. Jackson’s face tightened. The situation was saved by the appearance of Dr. Jackson, a man in his mid-fifties, tanned and slim and as youthful-looking as his wife, with wavy brown hair touched with gray.

“I thought you were off to school, Melissa.” He spoke severely, but with a smile. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

Melissa blew him a kiss. “We’re just leaving, Pops. ’Bye.” She headed for the door.

Mrs. Jackson stepped close to her husband, and put her cheek to his. Their heights matched, their bodies fitted together—a romantic, picture-book couple. He held her affectionately, his arm circling her waist. “I hope you have a good day, my dear.”

She put her hand possessively on his cheek. “I shall,” she said, with something like determination. Her eyes were on his. “Don’t fret, Carl.”

He seemed to sigh, and I noticed that he wore a worried look. “No, of course not, Jen.”

Mrs. Jackson turned to me. “I enjoyed meeting you, Ms. Bayles,” she said formally. “Perhaps you and Mr. Bayles might come to dinner one evening.”

“That would be fun,” I replied with a straight face. Actually, I wondered just what Mrs. Jackson did for fun—and I much preferred Melissa’s approach to growing up female. When they had gone, I turned to Dr. Jackson. “Your daughter is very special. We enjoy having her around our house. Please let her come as often as she likes.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Jackson said. “As long as she isn’t a pest.” We went to the window and watched through the blind while Melissa climbed into Mrs. Jackson’s blue Taurus. “I would do anything for that child,” he said intently. “Anything in the world.” He watched for a moment longer, then turned back to me. “So, China, I understand you lost that temporary we put on last week. Shall we see what we can do about it?”

Refitting the temporary required no needles, no drilling, and no Valkyries. I reconfirmed Friday’s appointment to get the permanent crown installed and headed for the shop, relieved to have survived another dental ordeal.

Thyme and Seasons is located on Crockett Street, a couple of blocks from the town’s main square, in a century-old building with foot-thick walls constructed of hand-cut limestone from a nearby quarry and pine floors milled from old-growth trees in East Texas. There are two retail shops in front, mine and Ruby’s, and what used to be a similar-sized residential space in back, where I lived until I moved in with McQuaid. That’s the space Ruby and I are converting into our tearoom. But this morning, the conversion seemed to have hit a snag.

“Look what they’ve done!” Ruby pointed to the newly painted beadboard wainscoting that extends partway up the stone wall in the new dining area. “It’s the wrong green! It’s hunter green, when it was supposed to be chrome green.”

I bent over to inspect the paint job. “It looks fine to me, Ruby.” I turned around. “If you ask me, the place looks pretty darn good.”

I wasn’t just saying that to calm Ruby down. The green of the wainscoting was echoed in the chintz chair seats and place mats, baskets of ivy and philodendron hung from the old cypress ceiling beams, and through the door I could see the gleam of the new stainless-steel kitchen. The expensive kitchen that the inspector from the Texas Department of Public Health would soon pronounce kosher. At least he ought to, seeing how many dollars we had poured into it.

“Do you really think so?” Ruby asked uncertainly. She was dressed for her tearoom-hostess role in a long blue-denim jumper, flowered print top, white stockings, and white Alice-in-Wonderland shoes, and her red hair was a mass of artfully frizzed tangles. “You don’t think it’s the wrong green?”

“I think it is absolutely the right green, Ruby. When’s the inspector coming?” As far as I knew, we were ready—unless we had overlooked some important but obscure requirement, like a drain in the floor, or an exhaust fan. I’d gone over everything carefully, but you never know.

“The plumber has to hook us up to the water main and the sewer before the inspector comes,” Ruby said. She frowned at the offending wainscoting. “Really, China, I can make them repaint it if you think—”