Wreathed (26 page)

“Keep to your left. I would hurry, if I were you. Or you might want to savor your last moments on this planet. Up to you, really.”

Sheldon slouched off to his doom and Pacey motioned us over to the right. We followed her to a wooden divider that was topped with plastic bushes. “We don’t want to get too close,” she said. “But this is a good vantage point.”

“What are you doing here, Pacey?” I asked.

“You know me. I never want to miss a good show,” she said. “And Mother said her car was on the fritz.”

“You believed that?” I said.

“No. Quiet. It’s starting.”

Mother was sitting all alone at a table, with her arms folded. She looked as though she had swallowed all of the sour pickles in the world. In front of her was a large paper cup with words on it that I couldn’t quite make out. “What does she have in there?” I asked. “It’s not coffee, is it?”

“Milkshake from Haagen-Dazs,” Pacey said.

“I didn’t think she liked milkshakes,” I said.

“She doesn’t. And you’ll notice there’s no lid.”

“Oh.”

“Not to change the subject,” Pacey said, “but are you Adam? I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before.”

I rolled my eyes. I hoped Pacey hadn’t made the trip just to check out Adam for herself, but that seemed like the best explanation.

“That’s OK,” Adam said. “Good to meet you.”

“I have heard a lot about you,” she said. “Good things. Mostly.”

Adam just stood there looking uncomfortable, like someone had just put some tiny rocks in his shoes. Benjy and Simon were at his feet so you couldn’t rule that out, of course.

“I think she’s going to let Sheldon sit down,” Pacey said. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to hear her from here.” She took a step back, where Adam couldn’t see her. “
He’s cute,
” she mouthed. “
Nice bone structure.
”

“
Stop it,
” I whispered back.

“She’s getting up,” Adam said. “She’s doing something.”

“And here we go,” Pacey said, as Mother dumped the contents of her milkshake into Sheldon’s lap.

“Thank God she didn’t get the coffee,” I said.

“She wanted to,” Pacey said. “I talked her out of it. The risk of damages, you know.”

Sheldon, to his credit, didn’t flinch. Years of military training and living in Alaska, I suppose. Mother started shouting at that point, and Pacey knelt and covered her sons’ ears. Then Mother slammed her fist down on the table and upended it, sending it clattering. This aroused the attention of a couple of mall security guards, who began edging their way over.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I should have stopped and gotten cash out of the ATM for bail money, come to think of it.”

“She’ll be fine,” Pacey said. “You might not know this, Adam, but my dear sweet mother has an arrest record as long as your arm. Protests, you know. Nuclear freeze. Stop the war in Iraq. Save the whales, that sort of thing. She knows how to handle herself around law enforcement.” And, indeed, Pacey was proved correct, as the mall cops helped turn the table back upright and walked away.

Mother said a few more words to Sheldon, who was still sitting in his chair. I thought she was going to slap him, but something seemed to hold her back. She turned away, and then stalked off in our direction.

“The nerve of the man,” she said. “Astonishing. He’s lucky I didn’t stab him through the liver.”

“Nice seeing you too, Mom,” I said.

“Hello, Wendy,” she said. “And hello again to you too, Adam. You may pick up your miscreant uncle whenever you like.”

“I think I’ll get some napkins,” Adam said.

“That would be a merciful act and more than he deserves. I take it you had no part in this charade?”

“None whatsoever,” he said. “Thank you for returning him in one piece.”

“I was tempted to break him in half,” she said. “I mean, the
effrontery
of it all. You will explain to him that I have no interest in inheriting that house, should he manage to expire on his own?”

“Not a problem,” Adam said.

“So, are you done then?” I asked. “Or should we expect another form of retaliation?”

“He deserves much worse than a lap full of ice cream, but I don’t have the time and the energy to spend on him. And I have kept your sister here from the comfort of her home and hearth long enough. Thank you, Pacey dear, if I haven’t said so before.”

“Not a problem,” Pacey said. “Get that napkin out of your mouth, Simon.”

“Do you need a ride anywhere, Wendy?” Mother asked. “We might go get dinner somewhere, too, I suppose.”

“I’m good,” I said.

“Very well. I will leave you to scrape poor Sheldon out of his chair. Safe travels to you both.” She took Benjy’s hand, the one that wasn’t full of soft pretzel at the moment. “Come, dear. Grandmama is ready to go get dinner.”

“
Call me,
” Pacey whispered. I glowered at her but didn’t respond.

Adam came back with a double handful of napkins. “I’m going to try to get Sheldon cleaned up,” Adam said. “Do you want to help your sister get her kids in the car or anything?”

“I’m good,” I said. “If you let me know his size, I can run into the Gap and buy him a new pair of jeans.”

“I don’t know, but we can go ask. It would be a good idea anyway. I don’t think he’s bought any new clothes since 1997. After that, maybe we can get a sack of burgers or something else to eat on the way home.”

Sheldon was still sitting there when we made our way over to him, with the table hiding the stain on his pants. “She’s still beautiful,” he said. “Just as pretty as the day we met. But maybe a little more aggressive, come to think of it.”

Chapter 31

We filed out of the mall slowly, with me carrying Sheldon’s soaked jeans in a plastic bag from the Gap. We got back in Adam’s Jaguar for the long drive back down Route 9 towards Freehold. Nobody said much of anything. It was starting to get dark and Adam was concentrating on driving and I was borderline exhausted and Sheldon was still floating on his beatific vision of my mother. I was out within five minutes after I finished eating my burger. I slept the sleep of the just, untroubled by the resurrection of love-struck aviation mechanics or the state of my relationship with Adam, whatever that may have been at that point.

When I woke up, the Jaguar had made its way down to a cluster of big-box stores in Manalapan. Sheldon was snoring in the back seat. I yawned, wide enough to nearly unhinge my jaw. Adam didn’t acknowledge that I was awake, so I fished my phone out of my purse and checked my e-mail. I had three different coupons in my in-box from three different shoe stores, which was probably something I didn’t need to share with anyone else. I deleted two of them but kept the third, just in case I ever had something to celebrate. I switched over to Facebook, which had the same banal stuff it always did. A friend from law school had posted some inane celebrity drivel from the
Huffington Post.
The girl who had beaten me out for valedictorian my senior year at high school was linking to a bunch of cat videos.

Pacey had posted something snarky about getting to meet my boyfriend at long last, so I opened the Amazon shopping app and looked around for the most annoying toy I could find. I found these horrible-looking plastic kazoos that were guaranteed to be extra-loud. I ordered two.

“What are you snickering about?” Adam asked.

“I was snickering?” I asked. “I hadn’t realized.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Revenge. A cheap revenge, but I hope it will be effective.”

“Is that like a family tradition, or something?” he asked. “Because it seems to be.”

“It’s not directed at you.”

“Oh, good.”

“I mean, this time, anyway.”

Adam changed lanes and accelerated to get around someone in a maroon minivan. “Have you decided if you’re driving home or not?” he asked.

“Why do you ask?” I employed just the slightest coquettish simper, just to see where he was heading with this.

“You realize I’m in the middle of a renovation project with the house, right?”

“I may have noticed a few things seemed slightly askew.”

“Sarcasm. Great. Just what I was looking for. Anyway, you didn’t go upstairs, so you didn’t see the guest bedroom. It’s not in great shape.”

“Like six inches of sawdust all over everything?” I asked.

“Like, not having a floor.”

“That sounds problematic,” I said.

“I’m not exactly set up for house guests right at the moment. I know Uncle Sheldon doesn’t have any place to go, but I can put him on the love seat downstairs. He’s not finicky.”

“Are you calling me finicky?” I asked.

Adam said something under his breath that I couldn’t quite catch but sounded like
serenity, serenity, serenity.
I decided not to press the issue, but if he was going to tease me, he needed to learn to handle teasing better.

“I didn’t say that,” he said. “What I was thinking was that the best answer would be to put Uncle Sheldon up in a motel for the night. There’s a nice place that just happens to be across the street from the storage place where I put all his stuff. He likes to get an early start in the morning; he can walk over there and have everything loaded on a rental truck before breakfast.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“That’s kind of up to you, isn’t it? Like I said, it’s a nice motel. If you want, I can drop you off there. You can get a room, and Sheldon can give you a ride back to my house, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I want,” I said.

“So you’re driving home?”

“That’s not what I want, either.”

We dropped Sheldon off without too much in the way of grumbling. He’d had a long day, and wasn’t averse to the idea of going straight to bed. Adam left him the keys to the storage unit, and a credit card for the truck-rental place. It was a short drive from there to Adam’s house, but not a long enough drive for me to figure out what it was I wanted to do next.

I saw Vanessa before Adam did. She was sitting in her car, which she had parked in Adam’s driveway, blocking my car. I told him to keep driving, and he did as he was told, which I thought was a very good sign indeed.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Simple,” Adam said. “We find someplace to park, and go in the back door. Eventually, she’ll go away.”

“You don’t know Vanessa. She has something she wants from me. For all I know, she’s been following me all day. She’s relentless.”

“I don’t want her in my driveway, either, but I’m spending tonight in my own bed. Under the circumstances, you’re welcome to join me.”

Every time I think he can’t get any less romantic,
I thought,
he surprises me.

“I thought you wanted to take this slowly,” I said.

“It’s your decision,” he said. “You can come inside with me, or you can have it out with Vanessa. I know what I’d prefer, but the alternative should be entertaining as well.” It was too dark for me to see his face clearly, but I knew he had that irritating grin on his face.

He parked the Jaguar in an empty space in front of the house that was directly behind his. He crept softly through the yard, all the way to the back fence. I followed him, checking nervously over my shoulder to see if anyone was stirring in the house.

“There’s not a door in the fence,” Adam said. “So we need to go over. I can go first, and then help you over, but we have to do it quietly.”

“You’re not serious,” I said.

“Shush,” Adam whispered. “And keep it down. Voices carry, you know. I hate to ask you this, but you need to trust me.”

“You want me to trust you? You want
me
to trust
you
?”

“Well, sure. I mean, it’s not all that high of a fence. Let me show you.” He took a leap at the fence, hooked one of his feet in the lattice, and managed to vault over it without injuring himself. “See?” he said, as he picked himself up off the ground. “No trouble at all. And I can help you over.”

“This is not about whether you will catch me should I try to make it over this fence, which I am not about to do. This is about me not trusting you because you don’t trust me.”

“We can have this discussion later,” he hissed. “Right now, you need to go up and over.”

“You are out of your mind, Adam.”

“You want me to apologize? Is that what this is about?”

“All I asked you to do was believe me when I said your uncle was alive. You’re asking me to climb a fence in the middle of the night, for no good reason. I think there is an imbalance here.”

“If you want to try and see if you can get in the front door before your friend Vanessa tackles you, go right ahead,” Adam said. “This felt like it was maybe a little more dignified.”

“There is nothing dignified about making me climb this stupid fence,” I stage-whispered.

“You’re worried about being dignified?” he asked. “I’ve already seen you naked.”

“Do you want to see me naked again?”

“Yes. Very much so.” I could just see the wolf-like glint in his eyes through the darkness.

My alternatives, as I saw them, were to try to climb the stupid fence, or pull my phone out and see what kind of cab service they had in Freehold, New Jersey, this late on a Saturday night. I said something caustic and horrible under my breath.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Adam said.

“If you think this is adorable and romantic,” I said, “you are sadly mistaken.”

“All I’m asking is for you to meet me halfway,” he said. “You’ll see.”

I took a deep breath and asked the universe to suspend the law of gravity just long enough to get me over this stupid fence. I put my feet in the lattice, one small step at a time, and inched my way up. The structure started sagging under my weight. I applied forward momentum and managed to make it halfway up before I stalled. As I mentioned before, I am a little top-heavy, and I started to tip forward. Adam took my arms and started dragging me over, but my belt snagged on the top of the fence.

“Wait.
Wait
,” I hissed. “I am
stuck
.”

“Quiet,” he said, and kept pulling.