The Resurrection of Tess Blessing (36 page)

It’s Tuesday. Friday is their wedding anniversary. He must’ve planned
something
. If for no other reason than keeping up appearances in front of the kids. Dinner out, probably. It’s not often the Blessings get the chance to paint the town, but when they do, Will makes a reservation at The Edge of Town. A popular supper club in the forties—it was once a favorite amongst Chicago gangsters—the abandoned building had fallen into disrepair until family friend and fellow restaurateur, Tommy McMann, bought it five years ago and renovated it. Besides offering the best prime rib on the North Shore, he’d brought back crooner-type live music, a parquet dance floor, and hat check girls. Same as the diner, it’s the kind of establishment that attracts folk who are hungry for the good old days.

Birdie asks, “So how’re you gonna do that?”

Lost in her thoughts, Tess asks, “What?”

“Find out if Will’s cheating on you.”

“I was thinking we’d follow him tomorrow night.”

Her sister bolts up and yanks the covers off Tess’s face. “We’re gonna
tail
him?”

Like her, Birdie is a mystery buff from way back. The girls had spent much of their childhood tracking down answers to life’s little mysteries. They were lovers of Nancy Drew and any and all television crime or whodunit shows. They spied on people in the neighborhood. During those summer nights out on the stoop, they’d even talked about having their own detective agency when they grew up. Tess’s natural abilities led her to ballroom dance and then comedy, but Birdie seriously considered becoming a gumshoe after she moved down to Boca Raton. Private detection is a good job for the hypervigilant. They like being alone for long periods of time without stimulus, excel at puzzle-solving, and are superb at spotting dangerous situations. Barely anything escapes their eagle eyes. Conversely, they lack patience, can get sidetracked by their emotions, and cars can be claustrophobic, which is why Birdie decided to become a medical transcriptionist instead.

She eagerly says, “What’s the plan?”

It’d been a momentous and monstrously long day, and Tess feels too pooped to participate one minute longer. She reaches over and switches off the bedside table lamp and says, “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, okay? I’m beat.”

She spoons Birdie, who a few minutes later, confirms, “So we’re going sightseeing and shopping in the morning, eat lunch at the diner, and we’ll have pepperoni pizza for supper, and then follow Will around to see if he’s cheating on you with Connie Lushman.” She’s organizing tomorrow in her head. She
needs
to know what she’ll be doing every minute because her idle mind is the devil’s workshop. “Right?”

Already half-asleep, Tess mumbles, “Uh-huh. ’Night, Bird.”

Moments later, “Tessie?”

“Yeah?”

When Birdie rolls over to face her, she has the red wax lips stuck in her mouth.

After Tessie gives her four kisses, the Finley sisters drift off in each other arms to sleep the sleep of the ones that were lost and now are found.

When they were kids, Tessie called her sister, who tended to rise the same time the sun did, “Early Bird,” and the nickname still holds true.

When my friend came down to the kitchen the next morning, it was to find that Birdie and Will had whipped up breakfast together. Now that she was used to him, Tess could tell that her sister found her husband charming, but everybody did. Despite her doubts about his fidelity,
she
did. She couldn’t help it if he still made her heart beat faster and her inner thighs tingle.

Tess says, “Morning!” and offers to help, but they push her out of the kitchen. “Sit,” they say. “Your tea’s coming right up.”

From her place at the pine table, she can’t hear what Birdie and Will are talking about while they bustle about preparing pancakes. It feels almost conspiratorial, but that’s ridiculous, she tells herself. She’s allowing her paranoia about Will to color the most innocent of exchanges. What’s next? He slipped curare into the Log Cabin bottle? Birdie blended Ebola into the butter?

Spring vacation is over for Henry, so after the six of them, including Garbo, chow down, he heads outside to wait for his ride over to Ruby Falls High. Haddie, who had eaten a silver dollar-sized pancake and didn’t pay a visit to the bathroom afterwards, is spending the day in Chicago at the Art Institute with her boyfriend, Kevin, so she left with her dad, who’ll drop her off at the train station in downtown Milwaukee before he heads over to the diner.

As Birdie loads the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes, she says to Tessie, who’s cleaning up batter flecks on the stove, “I really like the kids. I feel bad about not playing a larger part in the lives. Haddie is sweet and so talented, and Henry is a lot like you, but a much, much better card player. I’m still holding a Gin Rummy IOU from 1961, by the way. A dollar and a box of Jujubes. I’d appreciate payment at your earliest convenience.”

Tess chuckles and says, “The kids still have a lot of growing up to do and you could be a part of that.” She wants to add on,
Up close and personal
, but she’s got to be careful. If she pushes too hard, she’ll scare her. Same as Tessie, more than anything Birdie wants to be wanted, but grows suspicious when people do.

When the kitchen duties were a fait accompli, Birdie, still in her pretty pajamas with frills, put on her rubber gloves and got right to work scrubbing the powder-room sink that she’d wanted to tackle last night. She says very seriously to Tess, who’s sitting on the toilet lid keeping her company, “I spent some time thinking about it, like two or three hours, and I’m pretty sure I figured out why Will doesn’t want to do the Scorpion Dance of Love with you anymore.”

All ears, Tess says, “Why?”

Birdie points at the ratty cows-sipping-
café-au-lait
-on-the-
Champs-Élysées
nightie and says, “Talk about a penis shrinker.”

Tess grins and goes back to staring at the To-Do List that’s become so worn and creased that it looks like it should be kept under glass at the Ruby Falls Historical Museum.

Birdie glances over and asks, “One of your lists?”

Tess holds it up and points to the last item to be crossed out—number four. Convince Will to love me again. (What about Connie?)

Birdie shrugs, resumes scrubbing, and says, “Things seem really good between you two other than the hoochie-koochie stuff. You sure you want to follow him tonight?

Tess considers all the Wednesday nights Will’s told her that he’ll be home late because he was doing the books or meeting with a supplier or reviewing an employee, but would come home smelling like Connie’s perfume. “Wish I didn’t
have
to know what he’s up to, but I do.” She couldn’t give her heart to him any longer if she wasn’t certain that she could trust him. She’s always felt that wives who turn a blind eye and the other cheek are not virtuous, just slow learners. How would he respond if she catches him red-handed tonight? Would he blame his midlife crisis? Her emotional instability? Something else entirely? Whatever his reaction, the marriage would be over. They’d keep living together, for Henry’s sake. If he noticed that she was sleeping in the guest room, she’d make a crack about his dad’s snoring. But once he left for college, she would…what? Leave Will? A life without him is unimaginable.

Tess replaces the To-Do List back in her nightie pocket, inspects the sink, gives her sister a thumbs-up, and says, “Time to get the show on the road.”

Birdie surprises her by not putting up too much of a fuss. She strips off her Playtex gloves and throws them in the bucket. “Fine, but I’m not through here. Your tile needs caulk…caulk…caulk…caulk. Can we stop at a hardware store when we’re out?”

Birdie attended her sister’s wedding at St. Lucy’s, but all she’d seen of Ruby Falls was the inside of the church, and the ballroom at the country club where the reception had been held. Given how much she loves and intimately knows the town, Tessie is an extraordinary tour guide. She takes Birdie around to the historical spots first—the covered bridge, the granary, and the falls. They even swing by the old convent where Tess gets her up to speed on the rest of the adventures she’d had with Sisters Faith, Hope, and yours truly before they hit the downtown stores. Birdie
loves
to shop. She tries to talk Tess into buying a new purse at one of the many boutiques, but only as a joke. She knows her sister would rather die than surrender her lucky black one. Birdie is especially knocked out by the sweets section at The Emporium. She left the old-fashioned store with a pound box of chocolate-covered cherries, her all-time favorite.

Uptown, Tess points out Peaches ’n Cream, the salon that she so rarely frequents. Birdie, who takes enormous pride in her appearance and is meticulously well groomed, like their mother was, talks her into a walk-in visit. “Your hair…God. And I could use a manicure.” She steers her sister toward the salon door. “Let’s see if they have any openings.”

Tess doesn’t resist because she knows they won’t. The salon is the busiest in town and the chance of her popular stylist being available is nil.

But when the Peaches ’n Cream receptionist, Katie, checks her computer, she tells them, “Wow! Talk about luck. We have a manicure opening
and
Suzanne just had a last-minute cancellation.” (The events that unfold later this evening will be imprinted forever in Birdie and Tessie’s brain. When they flash back to tonight’s showdown, it’d be nice for them to look their best. The manicurist was already available, but I went ahead and flattened the tire on Ellie Thompson’s car, which opened up the spot in Suzanne’s schedule.)

Once they’ve completed their beautifying treatments, Birdie who had her nails painted purple, pokes fun at risk-adverse Tess’s new do. “What’d Suzanne take off…a sixteenth of an inch?” and then she reminds her for the fourth time that before they head over to Count Your Blessings for lunch, they
need
to swing by Hoover’s Hardware.

After Birdie finishes obsessing over the different colored caulks—“I should’ve dug some of the old stuff out and brought it with me for comparison”—bawdy Babs Hoover rings them up. As she suggestively slips the white tube into the sack, she asks Tess, “You and the hubby doing a little crack-filling tonight?” followed by one of her air-raid siren laughs that sends both girls running.

There’s a sign taped to the front door of Count Your Blessings. CLOSING AT 7:00 TONIGHT.

“That’s not gonna mess up our plan is it?” Birdie asks Tess.

“No. Will’s only closing to the public at seven. One of the cooler motors has to be replaced. It was supposed to happen this Sunday, but then the health inspector….” It’s too long an explanation. “He and the staff are going to do inventory until the usual closing time. (That’s what he told her anyway.)

Birdie, who was fussed over by Will when he shows them to a table near the window, is predictably captivated by the diner.
Johnny Angel
is playing on the jukebox, and the ’50s decor and food really is fantastic. “It’s like being a kid again and having lunch at Dalinsky’s Drugstore!” she says.

Tess is famished and orders them both today’s Blue-Plate Special—a Blessing Burger, fries, and a chocolate phosphate. She thought her svelte sister would only pick at the food, but her appetite must’ve been whetted by the nostalgia and excitement over tonight’s adventure, because she wolfs down her burger. She dips the last of her crispy fries into the ketchup, then tilts her head to the left when she hears, “Welcome to Count Your Blessings. How many are in your party?”

Birdie whispers across the table, “Is that her?”

Since Will had seated them, Tess’d thought that Connie Lushman must’ve taken the day off to rest up for her tryst with him tonight, but she must’ve been on a break. My friend finishes off the remainders of her phosphate and says, “The one and only.”

“Holy shit. No wonder you’re freaking out. She’s hot.” When Tess kitten mewls, Birdie removes her foot from her mouth and adds on, “I mean, ya know, only if you like alabaster skin, naturally blond hair, and geeze, I think her bellows are real.”

Tess can’t fault her for thinking the same thing she is. She tosses the napkin onto her plate and says, “If you’re done….” They have to get a move on, they have a timetable to stick to. “Let’s get the spy equipment from Otto.”

Will gives Tess a kiss on the cheek and winks at Birdie when they approach the cash register. “Lunch good?” he asks.

Birdie says bubbly, “Best I’ve had in years,” because she’s already figured out that there is no better way to compliment her brother-in-law than by lavishing praise upon his vittles.

Will grins at the kudo, then pulls Tess aside and says, “Sorry, but I won’t be home for supper after all. I forgot that I’ve got to empty out the cooler and move everything into the other ones during the break.” Lester Holt, the county health inspector, had paid a surprise visit during Monday’s dinner shift. The temperature had dropped another degree in the meat cooler and Lester
insisted
that Will get mechanic, Frank Morton, to come in and replace the motor
immediately
rather than Sunday night as planned.

Just to make sure what she told Birdie was true, she asks Will, “But you’re still going to call it quits around nine?”

“Hope so,” he says. “I’ll let the staff go then, but I’ve got to stick around until Frank is finished working on the motor. You know how pokey he can be.”

She puts on her Brownie smile and says, “I’ll see you when I see you.”
Which will be sooner than you think, you big fat liar.
“I’m gonna give Birdie the tour.”

Even more determined now to expose Will’s dallying, she returns to the cash register, picks up her sister’s hand, and tugs her into the kitchen.

“Behind…behind…behind,” she says as she steers through the chaos of the busy shift. On their way to the sink, she introduces Birdie to Juan and his cousins, who are overwhelmed in front of the deep fryers, and then to waitresses, Sandy, Nancy, and Alison, who are darting about filling and placing orders. After she calls out loudly to the dishwasher and he doesn’t respond, she taps Otto on his shoulder to get his attention.