Authors: Rita Mae Brown
“What a great cat Skippy was.”
This aroused Mrs. Murphy from her half-slumberous state.
“Not as great as the Murphy!”
“Ha!”
Tucker laughed.
“Shut up, Tucker. There was a dog before you, you know. A German shepherd. His photo is on the desk at home, for your information.”
“Big deal.”
“Playtime.” Harry heard the meows and thought Mrs. Murphy wanted a push in the mail bin. Although it wasn’t what the cat was talking about, she happily rolled around in the canvas-bottomed cart.
Mrs. Hogendobber unlocked the front door. She no sooner turned the key than Blair appeared, wearing a heavy red Buffalo-checked jacket over a flannel shirt. He rubbed his boots over the scraper.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hogendobber. I enjoyed our dance last night. You float over the floor.”
Mrs. Hogendobber blushed. “Why, what a sweet thing to say.”
Blair stepped right up to the counter. “Harry.”
“No packages.”
“I don’t want any packages. I want your attention.”
He got Mrs. Hogendobber’s too.
“Okay.” Harry leaned over the other side of the counter. “My full attention.”
“I’ve been told there are furniture and antique auctions on the weekends. Will you tell me which are the good ones and will you go along with me? I’m getting tired of sitting on the floor.”
“Of course.” Harry liked to help out.
Mrs. Murphy grumbled and then jumped out of the mail bin, sending it clattering across the floor. She hopped up on the counter.
“The other request I have is that you accompany me to a dinner party Little Marilyn is giving for Stafford and Brenda tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice but she called this morning to ask me.”
“What’s the dress?” Harry couldn’t believe her ears.
“I’m going to wear a yellow shirt, a teal tie, and a brown herringbone jacket. Does that help?”
“Yes.” Mrs. Hogendobber answered because she knew Harry was hopeless in these matters.
“I’ve never seen you dressed up, Harry.” Blair smiled. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.” He paused. “I looked for you at the Cancer Ball last night.”
Harry started to say that she wasn’t invited but Mrs. Hogendobber leapt into this breach. “Harry had another engagement. She’s kept so busy.”
“Oh. Well, I wanted to dance with you.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “That Craycroft woman is a real motormouth. Never stopped talking about herself. I know it isn’t gallant of me to criticize someone who made such an effort to have me meet people, but jeez”—he let out his breath—“she likes to party.”
Both Harry and Mrs. Hogendobber tried to conceal their delight at this comment.
“BoomBoom knows you’re rich,”
Mrs. Murphy piped up.
“Plus you’re single, good-looking, and she’s not above driving Fair crazy with you, either.”
“She has a lot to say this morning, doesn’t she?” Blair patted Mrs. Murphy’s head.
“You bet, buster. Stick with me, I’ll give you the scoop on everybody.”
Blair laughed. “Now, Murphy—I mean, Mrs. Murphy; how rude of me—you promised to help me find a friend exactly like you.”
“I’m going to throw up,”
Tucker mumbled from the floor.
Blair picked up his mail, got to the door, and stopped. “Harry?”
“What?”
He held up his hands in entreaty. Mrs. Hogendobber kicked Harry behind the counter. Blair couldn’t see this.
“Oh, yes, I’d love to go.”
“Seven tomorrow.” He left, whistling.
“That hurt. I’ll have a bruised ankle tomorrow.”
“You have no sense when it comes to men!” Miranda exclaimed.
“I wonder what got into him?” Harry’s gaze followed him to his truck.
“Yours is not to reason why. Yours is but to do and die.”
Just then Susan sauntered in through the back door. “‘Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred.’ ”
“Blair Bainbridge just asked her to a dinner party at the Hamiltons’ tomorrow night and he wants her to take him to some auctions.”
“Yahoo!” Susan clapped her hands together. “Good work, girl.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Susan, help me with her. She nearly told him she didn’t have a date for the Cancer Ball. She’s going to iron her jeans for the dinner party and think she’s dressed. This calls for action.”
Miranda and Susan looked at each other and then both looked at Harry. Before she knew it, each one grabbed an arm and she was propelled out the back door and thrown into Susan’s car.
“Hey, hey, I can’t leave work.”
“I’ll take care of everything, dear.” Miranda slammed shut the door as Susan cranked the motor.
30
The Allied National Bank overlooked Benjamin Seifert’s tardiness. No one called Cabell Hall to report Ben’s absence. If Ben had found out about such a call the perpetrator wouldn’t have kept his job for long. Often on the run and not the most organized man in the office, Benjamin might have made morning appointments without notifying the secretary. Ben, a bright light at Allied, could look forward to taking over the huge new branch being built on Route 29N in Charlottesville, so no one wanted to get on his bad side. The more astute workers realized that his ambitions extended beyond the new branch at 29N.
When he didn’t phone in after lunch the little group thought it odd. By three, Marion Molnar was worried enough to call his home. No answer. Benjamin, divorced, often stayed out into the wee hours. No hangover lasted this long.
By five, everyone expressed concern. They dialed Rick Shaw, who said he’d check around. Just about the time Marion called, so did Yancey Mills, owner of the little gas station. He recognized Benjamin’s car. He’d figured something was wrong with it and that Benjamin would call in. But it was near to closing time and he hadn’t heard anything and there was no answer at Ben’s house.
Rick sent Cynthia Cooper over to the gas station. She checked out the car. Seemed fine. Neither she nor Rick pressed the panic button but they routinely called around. Cynthia called Ben’s parents. By now she was getting a bit alarmed. If they found no trace of him by morning they’d start looking for him. What if Ben had refused a loan, or the bank had foreclosed, and someone had it in for him? It seemed far-fetched, but then nothing was normal anymore.
31
It was her face reflecting back from the mirror, but Harry needed time to get used to it. The new haircut revealed those high cheekbones, full lips, and strong jaw so reminiscent of her mother’s family, the Hepworths. The clear brown Minor eyes looked back at her too. Like everyone else in Crozet, Harry combined the traits of her parents, a genetic testimony to the roulette of human breeding. The luck held in her case. For others, some of them friends, this wasn’t true. Multiple sclerosis haunted generation after generation of one Crozet family; others never escaped the snares of cancer; still others inherited a marked tendency to drink or drugs. The older she got the luckier she felt.
As she focused on the mirror she recalled her mother seated before this very mirror, paint pots out, lipsticks marshaled like stubby soldiers, powder puffs lurking like peach-colored land mines. Much as Grace Hepworth Minor had harassed, wheedled, and bribed her sole child, Harry steadfastly refused the lure of feminine artifice. She was too young then to articulate her steely rejection of the commercialization of womanness. All she knew was that she didn’t want to do it, and no one could make her. As years sped by, this instinctual rejection was examined. Harry realized that she thought she was clean and neat in appearance, healthy, and outgoing. If a man needed that fake stuff, in her opinion he wasn’t much of a man. She was determined to be loved for herself and not because she’d paid out good money to fit the current definition of femininity. Then again, Harry never felt the need to prove that she was feminine. She felt feminine and that was enough for her. It ought to be enough for him. In the case of Fair it turned out to be enough for a while.
In this respect BoomBoom and Harry represented the two poles of female philosophy. Maybe it was why they never could get along. BoomBoom averaged one thousand dollars each month on her upkeep. She was waxed, dyed, massaged. She was awash in nutrients which took into account her special hormonal needs. At least that’s what the bottles said. She dieted constantly. She thought nothing of flying to New York to shop. Then the bills truly rolled in. One pair of crocodile shoes from Gucci was $1,200. Sleek, up-to-date, and careful to cover any flaws, real or imagined, BoomBoom represented a triumph of American cosmetics, fashion, and elective surgery. Her self-centeredness, fed by this culture, blossomed into solipsism of the highest degree. BoomBoom marketed herself as an ornament. In time she became one. Many men chased after that ornament.
When Harry inspected the new Harry, courtesy of the strong-arm tactics of Miranda and Susan, she was relieved to see a lot of the old Harry. Okay, blusher highlighted those cheeks, lipstick warmed her mouth, but nothing too extreme. No nasty eyeshadow covered her lids. The mascara only accentuated her already long black lashes. She looked like herself, only maybe more so. She was trying to make sense of it, trying to like the simple suede skirt and silk shirt that Susan had forced her to buy upon pain of death. Spending is worse than pain, she thought; it lasts longer.
Too late now. The check had been written, the merchandise carried home. No more time to fret over it anyway because Blair was knocking at the front door.
She opened it.
He studied Harry. “You’re the only woman I know who looks as good in jeans as in a skirt. Come on.”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stood on the back of the sofa and watched the humans motor down the driveway.
“What do you think?”
Tucker asked the cat.
“She looks hot.”
Mrs. Murphy batted Tucker.
“Aren’t you glad we don’t have to wear clothes? Wouldn’t you look adorable in a little gingham dress?”
“And you’d have to wear four bras.”
Tucker nudged Mrs. Murphy in the ribs, nearly knocking her off the sofa.
That appealed to Mrs. Murphy’s demented sense of humor. She rocketed off the back of the sofa, calling for the dog to chase her. She dashed straight for the wall, enticing Tucker to think that she was trapped, and then hit the wall with all fours, banking off it, sailing right over Tucker’s head while the dog skidded into the wall with a hard bump. Mrs. Murphy performed this maneuver with a demonic sense of purpose. Enraged, Tucker’s feet spun so fast under her that she shook like a speeded-up movie. Around and around they ripped and tore until finally, as Tucker charged under an end table and Mrs. Murphy pranced on top of it, the lamp on the table teetered and tottered, only to wobble on its base and smash onto the floor. The crash scared them and they flew into the kitchen. After a few moments of quiet they ventured out.
“Uh-oh,”
Tucker said.
“Well, she needed a new lamp anyway. This one had gray hairs.”
“She’ll blame me for it.”
Tucker already felt persecuted.
“As soon as we hear the truck, we’ll hide under the bed. That way she can rant and rave and get it out of her system. She’ll be over it by tomorrow morning.”
“Good idea.”
32
“The meringue tarts.” Little Marilyn triumphantly nodded to Tiffany to serve the dessert.
Little Marilyn practiced nouvelle cuisine. Big Marilyn followed suit, which was the first time mother had imitated daughter. Jim Sanburne complained that nouvelle cuisine was a way to feed people less. Bird food, he called it. Fortunately, Big Marilyn and Jim weren’t invited to the small dinner tonight. Cabell Hall was, though. Fitz continually flattered the important banker, his justification being that three years ago Cabell had introduced him to Marilyn. Little Marilyn’s septic personality had been somewhat sweetened by the absence of her maternal unit, so she, too, showered attention on Cabell and Taxi.
“Tell Blair how you were nicknamed Taxi.” Little Marilyn beamed at the older woman.
“Oh, that. He doesn’t want to hear that.” Taxi smiled.
“Yes, I do.” Blair encouraged her as Cabby watched with affection his wife of nearly three decades.
“Cabell is called Cabby. Fine and good but when the children were little I hauled them to school. I picked them up from school. I carried them to the doctor, the dentist, Little League, dance lessons, piano lessons, and tennis lessons. One day I came home dog tired and ready to bite. My husband, just home from his own hard day, wanted to know how I could be so worn out from doing my duties as a housewife. I explained in vivid terms what I’d been doing all day and he said I should start a local taxi service, as I already ran one for my own children. The name stuck. It’s sexier than Florence.”
“Honey, you’d be sexy if your name were Amanda,” Cabby praised her.
“What’s wrong with the name Amanda?” Brenda Sanburne asked.
“Miss Amanda Westover was the feared history teacher at my prep school,” her husband told her. “She taught Cabell, me—she may have even taught Grandfather.
Mean
.” Stafford Sanburne and Cabell Hall were both Choate graduates.
“Not as mean as my predecessor at the bank.” Cabell winked.
“Artie Schubert.” Little Marilyn tried to recall a face. “Wasn’t it Artie Schubert?”
“You were too young to remember.” Taxi patted Little Marilyn’s bejeweled hand. “He made getting a loan a most unpleasant process, or so I heard. Cabby and I were still in Manhattan at the time and he was approached by a board member of Allied National to take over the bank. Well, Richmond seemed like the end of the earth—”
Cabby interrupted: “It wasn’t that bad.”
“What happened was that we fell in love with central Virginia, so we bought a house here and Cabby commuted to work every day.”
“Still do. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays I’m at the branch in the downtown mall in Charlottesville. Do you know that in the last ten years or so our growth rate has exceeded that of every other bank in the state of Virginia—by percentage, of course. We’re still a small bank when compared to Central Fidelity, or Crestar, or Nations Bank.”