Strong Spirits [Spirits 01] (9 page)

      
Edie glared at me. “You promised, Daisy.”

      
“I know, I know. But you’re
not
taking care of it.”

      
“I will.”

      
“Oh, brother.” I glared back at her for a second or two, then gave up. Edie was a good friend, even if I did think she was being stupid about Mr. Kincaid and Quincy. Still and all, it was her life, and if she didn’t want me poking into it, that was her choice. I still had an urge to scream at Mr. Kincaid. Even kick him, although that was a mean thought since he was confined to a wheelchair.

      
Which he used for immoral purposes. All right; he deserved to be kicked.

      
Screaming at and kicking Mr. Kincaid weren’t within my list of allowable options, however, thanks to that dumb promise I’d made to Edie. Standing and looking down at her, I sighed. “I don’t like leaving you here with that awful man, Edie. He can get around faster with his wheels than you can with your feet.”

      
“I know.” She sounded as if she’d had vast experience learning the truth of this, actually.

      
“I still think you ought to tell Quincy, if not Mrs. Kincaid.”

      
She heaved one more gigantic sigh. “I know you do.”

      
Another second of silence ensued. After I realized I’d said everything I had to say and to repeat any of it might only produce a rip in the fabric of our friendship, I allowed my shoulders to relax. They’d been squared for battle. “I’d better get Brownie home now, Edie. Take care of yourself.”

      
She stood, too. “Thanks, Daisy. I know you’re only trying to help.”

      
“Yeah. I am.” Too bad she didn’t have a dead relative I could talk to for her. I could get Rolly to tell her to quit this stupid job and find another one. Unfortunately, Edie didn’t have the money to hire me. Anyhow, I’m sure she was too smart to believe I could really communicate with the dead. I could offer her my assistance if she ever needed it, though, so I did. “If you ever need me, don’t hesitate to call, Edie.”

      
Her countenance softened and she gave me a shaky smile. “Thanks, Daisy.” She reached out and took my arm to walk me to the back door. “I appreciate your offer, and if I ever do need help, I’ll be sure to call.”

      
I gave her a mock-stern scowl. “You’d better. I’ll be mighty mad if you don’t.”

      
We parted on good terms, thank goodness, although I still thought she was being pretty dumb for a smart girl. I couldn’t stand the thought of being touched by the monster Mr. Kincaid. The mere notion gave me the willies.

      
It was Quincy who brought Brownie out to me. I itched to talk to him about Edie, but I’d promised. Darn it.

      
“How’d it go?” he asked, handing over the reins.

      
Now that I knew from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, that he and Edie were in love with each other, I understood why he seemed so cheerful all the time. Edie was a good catch, because she was a good person. And a pretty one. I’m sure men cared about that sort of thing, although I gave Quincy credit for being interested in more than beauty in a wife. This might yet prove to be credit not earned, but I liked to give people the benefit of the doubt.

      
Brownie looked as if he was a good deal put out with me for forcing him to take me home after he’d gone to the effort of bringing me here, but I was used to it. “Great,” said I, meaning the séance and being unable to talk about anything else. “Everything went very well.”

      
“Glad to hear it.” He took off his cap and scratched his head, as if he’d like to say something else. About Edie? I smiled at him, hoping to encourage confidences.

      
“Say, Daisy . . .”

      
“Yes?” I smiled harder.

      
“Um, did you see Edie Marsh in there?”

      
Aha. Triumphant and trying not to let it show, I said gently, “Yes, I did. Edie and I are great friends, you know.”

      
“I know. She’s always talking about you.”

      
“Really? You two talk a lot?”

      
He scuffed a toe in the dirt. “We’re aiming to get married as soon as I’ve saved up enough money to give her a good life.”

      
I gave him a quick peck on the cheek which made him turn pink with embarrassment. “I’m so happy for you both, Quincy.”

      
“Thanks. Er . . . Did she seem okay to you? She’s been sort of nervous lately, unless it’s my imagination.”

      
Oh, boy. I wanted so much to break my promise to Edie that my jaw ached from holding the words in. “She seemed fine to me.”

      
“Oh.” He nodded. “Good.”

      
I climbed aboard the pony cart and clucked to Brownie, who turned his head and frowned at me before beginning the short walk home. Quincy walked alongside the pony cart down the long driveway, undoubtedly having to slow his pace so as not to reach the gate first. Brownie walked slowly enough for a herd of babies to crawl along with him; in fact, they’d probably beat him home.

      
“How come you named this horse Brownie?” Quincy asked, grinning, hands shoved into his pockets, looking like a cowboy. He really was a cutie-pie, but I was sure glad he’d dropped the Edie subject.

      
The question was a valid one, too, since Brownie was sort of a dirty white color. I shrugged. “Not sure. When Pa brought him home, he said his name was Brownie, and that’s what we’ve always called him.”

      
“Hmmm.”

      
Quincy appeared as stumped as the rest of us over why anyone would name a white horse Brownie. It had occurred to me on occasion that Brownie’s name might be one of the reasons he was such a grump all the time, but that was certainly mere fancy on my part. I mean, what would a horse know about colors?

      
Billy was waiting up for me when I got home. Fortunately, he seemed to have overcome his nasty mood, and we laughed a lot about the séance and Stacy Kincaid. I didn’t tell him Harold wanted me to do a séance for him.

      
As the Good Book says, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” I’ve never been quite sure what that meant, but it seemed to fit this occasion.

 

      
 

Chapter Five
 

      
Our house on Marengo Avenue was what they called a “bungalow.” Bungalows are popular in Pasadena. A couple of brothers, Greene and Greene, are building them all over the place, and other architects copied them. Ours had three bedrooms downstairs, one of which we used as a back parlor and for sewing, a large kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. There were two rooms upstairs, too, that would have been perfect for a young married couple, provided they could both climb stairs.

      
Only one of us could do that. Therefore, Billy and I shared a back bedroom, the one off the kitchen. It was large, and had a door to the back yard. God bless Pa, who was a truly wonderful man, he built us a little screened-in sun porch right outside our bedroom door. He and Ma gave us a small but pretty wrought iron table and two chairs for furniture.

      
Thanks to Pa’s thoughtfulness, Billy and I could sit out there and be private sometimes, smelling the orange blossoms and roses and looking at the San Gabriel mountains. The sun porch wasn’t a whole lot of privacy, but it was the best we could do, and we both liked to take advantage of it.

      
When I woke up the morning after the séance, Billy was already awake and dressed. I saw him sitting on the sun porch, reading the
Pasadena Star News
. Every new day brought with it a certain degree of edginess in my soul until I gauged Billy’s mood. Today he seemed perfectly happy, or as happy as a man his age who’s in constant pain and confined to a wheelchair can be.

      
After throwing on a robe, I went out and kissed his glossy black hair. “Morning, Billy.”

      
“Morning, love. Beautiful day.”

      
It was, and my heart leaped in my chest to hear him acknowledge it. Poor Billy no longer had the capacity to enjoy the weather very often. “Be right back.” I went back through our bedroom to the kitchen, kissed Ma on the cheek, and poured Billy and me each a cup of coffee. I could tell by Ma’s worried eyes that she, too, wondered how Billy felt this morning, so I gave her a thumb’s-up sign. The expression of relief on her face made my heart ache. Damn the Kaiser, anyhow.

      
I tried always to show only a pleasant demeanor to Billy, so I braced myself as I walked back to the sun porch. When I set Billy’s coffee cup down in front of him and plopped myself into the wrought-iron chair across from him, I asked, “So what’s new in the world?”

      
Women had finally, after decades and decades of struggle, been given the vote. It burned me up that I wasn’t old enough to take advantage of the new law. I liked to keep up with the candidates, though, in spite of the fact that I wouldn’t be allowed a voice in choosing one. Not this time. In four years, the whole country’d better watch out. Daisy Majesty would darned well flex her political muscles and exercise her right to vote.

      
Billy glanced up at me, his old twinkle back. Broke my heart to see it, since it happened so seldom nowadays. “Say, Daisy, you’re good with words. Is
normalcy
a word?”

      
Furrowing my brow in mock concentration, I pondered the question. “I don’t think so. What’s it mean? The same as
normality
?”

      
“I don’t know, but according to Harding, we all want a return to it.”

      
“Normalcy?”

      
“Yup.”

      
“Interesting.” Sometimes, like this morning, all of the old feelings rushed back and fairly swamped me, and I loved Billy so much I ached with it. “Didn’t he want to give somebody a generalcy the other day?”

      
Billy laughed. “I think so.”

      
I sighed as I took in the full glory of my husband. Only the evening before, I’d decided Lieutenant Delroy Farrington was the most splendid-looking man I’d ever seen. Looking at my husband this morning, I had to alter my opinion. Billy had always been a looker. Nowadays, even though his black hair contained a few premature silver streaks—and why not, given the circumstances?—and even though his legs had lost their muscular tone and he tended to slump, he looked like heaven to me.

      
He’d dressed in tan slacks, a soft-collared white outing shirt, a blue-striped tie, and a smart and casual smoking jacket, although Billy didn’t smoke. Couldn’t. Not with his lungs in the shape they were. Except for the lungs part, I was glad he didn’t smoke, since I didn’t like the smell.

      
“Who do you favor, Billy? Harding or Cox?”

      
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Harding tends to make up words, and I’m not sure if he has a brain. Then again, maybe a president with a brain is a bad idea. We already had one of those, and look where it got us.”

      
I didn’t have to look. I knew. I’d probably feel sorrier for President Wilson, whose health had been permanently ruined by the war and its aftermath, if I weren’t married to Billy. I mean, Wilson was an old man and his infirmity hadn’t been visited upon him until after he’d fulfilled his life’s goals. Most of them, anyhow. Nobody but him seemed enthralled with his League of Nations idea, but at least he’d been president. My Billy’d been a boy and a soldier, and now he was a cripple. Didn’t seem fair to me.

      
“I think I like Harding,” I decided, “even if he’s a chucklehead and has trouble with his suffixes.”

      
“Yeah,” said Billy. “Me, too. At least he looks the part.”

      
“True.”

      
After I’d drunk half my coffee, I went back into the bedroom and pulled on a pretty pink plaid gingham house dress, again made by yours truly’s own ten talented fingers, and trimmed with organdy lace. No corset. Thank God corsets were no longer considered a necessity of a lady’s toilette, because I hated them.

      
I wandered back out to the sun porch and sat down across from Billy again. “Have you had breakfast yet, Billy?”

      
“No, I waited for you.”

      
“Want some eggs and bacon? Pancakes? Waffles?” I’d wound my hair in a bun, stabbed pins into it as I talked to my husband, and recalled with longing Stacy Kincaid’s simple bob. Darn, I wished I could get a bob.

      
He grinned over his newspaper at me. “Feeling domestic this morning, Daisy?”

      
I grinned back. “You bet.”

      
“Eggs and toast would be nice. Maybe a little ham, if there’s any left.”

      
There was always ham. Thanks to Aunt Vi, we ate really well. Outside of Delmonico’s in San Francisco, she was possibly the best cook in California. She was assuredly the best cook in Pasadena.

      
I got up again. Billy grabbed my hand and pulled me into his lap. I loved it when we got along like this. Every time we had a good time together, I hated the Kaiser more, damn his eyes.

      
We smooched for a while, and I’m sure we both wished Billy was the man he once was. It might be nice to have a real marriage. And kids. I know Billy would have been a good father if he’d had the chance.

      
The blasted phone rang just when things were getting interesting. I sighed. Billy said, “Damn.”