Spooky Little Girl (32 page)

“It doesn’t,” Lucy and Naunie said in unison.

Then Andrea took off in a sprint back around the corner of the house, and disappeared into the shadows.

“Ditch the braless broad,” Naunie called after her. “She’s only the name; you’re the talent!”

And then Lucy and Naunie collapsed into laughter.

At Jilly’s, almost everyone had left Tulip’s wake, when the doorbell rang one last time that day. Marianne, who had volunteered to stay and help her friend clean up, answered it.

She had not expected to see Martin.

He was holding a small bouquet of flowers, little pink carnations wrapped in green cellophane.

“I don’t know if this is appropriate,” he said, and nodded at the flowers. “But I saw them, so I got them.”

“Jilly,” Marianne called. “It’s Martin.”

They walked into the living room, where Jilly had set up Tulip’s little memorial, and Martin took a minute to look at the photos and toys Jilly had set out.

“She was a good girl,” he said as he tapped his fingers on the table.

Jilly came into the living room, drying her hands with a dish towel.

“I’m sorry to be so late. We had a late delivery and things took longer than I thought,” he explained.

“That’s all right,” Jilly said, with a little smile. “I’m just glad you came.”

“I’m—I’m not sure what to say, you know, except that I’m sorry about all of this and that this is all just such a mess,” he said, clearly flustered. “I didn’t expect this would happen. I didn’t know. I had no idea she was that sick.”

“Well, you had good intuition, Martin,” Jilly said. “We didn’t get to her illness in time, but at least we were able to help her a little bit at the end.”

“What did—” he started. “Where is she?”

“We’ll have her ashes back soon,” Jilly explained. “If you like, I can bring them by.”

“That would be good,” Martin agreed. “I think that would be good. Has anyone told Lucy?”

Jilly and Marianne looked at each other and then looked at him.

“Martin,” Jilly began, “when I told you that I hadn’t heard from her since the day she left here, I told you the truth. I wasn’t lying to you. You were the only one who heard from her. You got that letter. We never got anything.”

Martin pressed his lips tight and nodded. “I thought you might have heard something,” he said quietly. “I thought she actually might have been back around.”

He laughed abruptly. “At least Nola’s convinced that Lucy is back,” he finished. “And if she was back, you know, I know she’d drop by to see you. I figured at least. You sure she hasn’t come back around?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Martin,” Jilly said calmly. “But don’t you think it’s time you told us what happened between the two of you?”

“Aw, Jilly, you have to know!” he said, getting slightly louder. “You were there. You knew. You knew what she had done! Why do you wanna make me say it?”

“Martin, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied. “Even Lucy had no idea. We are all completely in the dark. It’s time somebody knew what this was all about.”

“She cheated on me!” Martin exclaimed, throwing one arm up into the air. “She cheated on me when you were in Hawaii. What else was I supposed to do, let her come back and get married?”

Jilly’s face dropped. “That’s not true—that’s not true,” she stammered. “I know it’s not. She would never do that to you, Martin, never. Besides, we were with each other the whole time, every minute of every day. There was no time for anything like that to happen. You’re wrong, I’m telling you.”

“I caught her!” he cried, shaking his head. “Red-handed, I caught her. And it wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before. I
caught
her. I heard it with my own ears.”

“What do you mean,” Jilly asked. “I don’t understand what you mean by that.”

“Nola called looking for the deposit, the one Lucy lost, right?” Martin explained, his face getting red. “So I called Lucy right after I hung up with Nola, to ask her if she knew anything about it, and
a guy answers the phone.
Her phone
. I asked who the hell he was, and he tells me that he’s a friend of Lucy’s, and when I told him to put her on the phone, he said she was too busy in the bathroom, getting ready for the party the two of them were going to have and that they did not want to be disturbed and that maybe she might call me later if she wasn’t too tired. So how’s that, Jilly? What do you say to that now?”

Jilly was quiet, and shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that, Martin,” she replied. “I’m sorry.”

Martin didn’t know what to say, either. There was a still quiet between them.

“I do,” Marianne finally said.

Martin and Jilly looked at her.

“I know about that,” she said. “But it’s not what you thought. I met that guy at the bar downstairs, and Lucy wouldn’t let me go to his room to play poker by myself, so she went with me. When we got to his room, I remembered I’d left my key card at the bar, and went down to get it. I was only gone for a few minutes, and when I came back, Lucy had just thrown up in the bathroom. She was still sick from the luau. We left, and she said he was a creep. Nothing happened, Martin. We went back to our room and watched a movie on cable. Nothing happened, she didn’t cheat on you. I was there. She had to have been in the bathroom when you called, and he just answered it. It was all a mistake.”

Martin looked at her and didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything. He swallowed hard. Then he handed the flowers to Jilly and without another word walked back across the living room and out the door.

The next morning, Martin was already showered, coffee-ed up, and looking for his keys when Nola shuffled into the kitchen.

“You were out late last night,” she said, looking puffy with her short, dark mannish hair askew. “You didn’t tell me you would be out so late.”

“I didn’t know I would be,” he replied curtly, clicking the closure of his watch into place.

“Did you have coffee already?” Nola asked, looking at the empty pot.

“I did,” he said, looking at her.

“What time did you get home?” she asked. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Martin shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “It was late.”

“It was well past midnight,” Nola informed him with an edge in her voice. It was this edge that tipped Lucy and Naunie off that this
was most likely a conversation they should indeed be eavesdropping on.

“I suppose it could have been,” Martin replied.

“It
was,”
Nola confirmed. “You told me you’d be home at nine.”

Naunie and Lucy slid into the hallway, where they were in earshot of the conversation.

Martin shrugged again and tried to move past her.

“Where were you?” Nola said, grabbing his arm.

“I was driving around,” he answered quickly, and ended it with a sigh.

“All night long? Are you sure?” she demanded.

Martin laughed.

“Why, Nola? Do you want to correct me again? Were you in the backseat?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. It remained hanging open, waiting for Nola to fill it with something, but she didn’t. She finally closed it and looked away.

“I was at Jilly’s,” Martin said matter-of-factly. “There was a wake, and I went. Tulip died.”

Lucy was immediately absorbed by numbness. Naunie grabbed her by the shoulder and drew her close in.

“Oh, sweetheart, oh, sweetheart,” Naunie said softly as Lucy broke into waves of sobs.

“You just can’t break free of her, can you?” Nola accused as Martin abruptly walked by her into the hallway and went for the front door. “She’s not coming back, Martin. She’s not. No matter how many pictures you hide of her in the top drawer of your desk, Lucy is not coming back for you.”

“Nola,” Martin said as he stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. “What is in my desk drawer is none of your business, but
what you tried to get rid of in the side table drawer is my business. I don’t have to listen to this. I don’t have to listen to you. And I won’t.”

With that, he picked up his keys on the console next to the door and walked out.

If Nola had had another digital picture frame within reach, it would have gone flying. Instead, she stood there for a moment, pouting and breathing angrily, her fists clenched on either side of her.

“I never liked that stupid mutt,” she forced out between her teeth, then marched into the bathroom and slammed the door.

The sound of the shower turning on followed within seconds.

Nola’s heartless comment was enough to make Lucy break from Naunie’s embrace. She put her face in her hands and took several deep breaths, neatly gathering her sorrow and her anger.

“I’m okay,” she reassured her grandmother. “I’m okay.”

She stood there for several moments, breathing in and out and collecting every bit of herself. She hadn’t been this angry since the day of her funeral. Then, after one final deep breath, she took three steps to the refrigerator and grabbed either side of it with both hands, standing in front of it as if she was pushing it up a hill.

“Lucy, what are you doing?” Naunie cried, watching Lucy’s glow getting more and more luminous and bright. “Lucy, stop and think for a minute!”

“I
am
thinking, Naunie,” Lucy replied staunchly. “I should have done this a long time ago.”

The refrigerator made a strange clicking sound, then the motor faintly ground to a halt.

Lucy moved on to the television, the answering machine, every lamp she could find, the microwave, even her very own broken coffeemaker. She mercilessly drained everything in the house until she heard the shower stop and her shine was almost as fiery as the sun.

When Nola emerged from the shower wearing a bathrobe with a towel around her head, it was hardly how she’d expected to look the next time she ran into Lucy Fisher.

Who was now sitting on the couch in the living room. Waiting for her.

“Boo,” Lucy said simply.

“How did you get in here?” Nola immediately demanded.

“I was already here,” Lucy said, getting up and walking toward her.

“You need to leave,” Nola barked. “I think you should leave, Lucy. You aren’t wanted here. You don’t belong here.”

Lucy smiled. “You see, Nola,” she said with a grin, “that’s where I think you’re wrong.”

Nola shook her head. “I was right, wasn’t I?” she declared, pointing her finger at Lucy. “I was right about you hanging around here, putting stickers on things, writing on the mirror. Even the mailman caught you. I
knew
it. I knew I wasn’t making things up! So, what, now you want it all back? What is it that you want, Lucy?”

“I want you to leave,” she said simply. “I want you to pack up your things and go. Because I promise you, I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

“You think I’m going to leave Martin just because you said so? You think that you’re the only one for him?”

“No,” Lucy replied. “I’m not the one for him, but neither are you. And you know that.”

“What makes you so sure? What makes you think that you can come in here and take this away from me, huh? What makes you think that I’d let you? I will never let you take anything from me again! You think you can decide to come back and just waltz through the door like nothing happened?”

“You can’t even imagine what’s happened, Nola,” Lucy said. “So much that it isn’t even a possibility. Everything I had is gone.”

“Everything
you
had is gone? Really? You think you know about losing everything? Well, let me tell you about that, Lucy, because I once had everything. I had a fiancé, too. Did you know that? I was planning on getting married, starting a family. Everything was all set. But then my fiancé, Ricky, went home with another girl one night. He was at the Round About when he met this girl. They started dancing, drinking, and the next morning, he woke up with her in his bed. He told me about it, said she was a friend of Jilly’s and her name was Lucy. He decided after his night of fun that he wasn’t ready to get married after all and broke it off. A few months later, a friend of Jilly’s came to interview with Dr. Meadows for a job. He told me to get all of the paperwork ready; he had hired her. Her name was Lucy.”

“Icky Ricky was your boyfriend?” Lucy gasped, amazed, disgusted, unbelieving, horrified, and wanting to take a shower even though she theoretically no longer had a body. “No, no, no, wait. Wait, wait, wait a minute, Nola. You mean that you think I ruined that all for you?”

“No, Lucy,” Nola barked back. “I don’t
think
. I know it was you. You ruined the rest of my life, and I swore I’d make you pay for at least some of it. I waited, and waited, and waited, and finally, the time was right. You made the wrong move, just like I predicted you would.”

“The deposit,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “I gave you too much credit, Nola. Even I didn’t really think you would stoop that low. You put that money in there on purpose, so that I would be responsible for it, and you counted on me being distracted.”

“Well, it
had
to be that night.” Nola chuckled. “A typical day’s draw would be maybe a hundred dollars in cash, the rest in checks and credit cards. No big deal if it went missing. Most of it could be replaced. But if twenty thousand dollars of the doctor’s money turned up missing, that was a different story altogether. I took a
chance and waited a couple of days before putting it in the deposit the day before you were leaving for Hawaii. It was just a matter of perfect timing.”

“Perfect for you,” Lucy replied. “How on earth did you manage to sneak the drug test in there? And how did you know it would be positive? Did you rig that, too?”

“Oh, that was luck in its purest form,” Nola said, and smiled. “I had nothing to do with that. There were pharmaceuticals missing. I had no idea whether you had anything to do with that or not. Turns out, you did.”

“I
didn’t,”
Lucy protested. “I had nothing to do with that, Nola. I didn’t
take
the drugs, I didn’t
do
the drugs, I knew
nothing
about the drugs. Just like I had nothing to do with your boyfriend. If he broke up with you, it had nothing to do with me. I did have too much to drink that night and I should have left with Warren and Jilly, but my biggest crime was passing out before I could tell Icky Ricky where I lived. That’s how I ended up at his apartment, and believe me, when I woke up the next morning, fully clothed, I should have been quarantined.
Had
something happened between us, I would have turned myself in to the Centers for Disease Control. At this point, I would love nothing more than to tell you I ruined your life, but the truth is, I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. Your jealousy, your rage, your hate, it’s for nothing. You wasted all that time and energy when you could have been doing something good with yourself. And, if I may impart some advice, I’d start working on your good deeds list now if I were you. You can make your first contribution by moving out of this house.”