Got Your Number Page 5

  “A girl he used to date. She dumped him and married someone else.”

  “The gangrene guy?”

  She nodded, sniffling again.

  “Why the heck did you invite his old girlfriend to the wedding?”

  “It was Mother’s idea.”

  “Oh, that’s classic.”

  Angora laid her head back, and a fat tear rolled down her rain-soaked cheek. Her hair hung in wet globs around her face. Her face was striped with mascara, eye shadow, and blush. The dress was a droopy disaster.

  Roxann looked up. “What’s with the crown?”

  Angora reached up to touch it, then cried harder. “My Miss Northwestern Baton Rouge tiara.”

  Of course.

  “I’m a mess,” Angora blubbered. “What am I going to do?”

  Roxann fished a purse-pack of tissues from the center console and handed them over. “I don’t suppose you have any clothes to change into at the church?”

  She shook her head against the seat and blew her nose. “My trousseau is at home.”

  “How do I get to your place?”

  “I… still live with Mom and Dad. And I can’t go back there.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  Angora was quiet for so long, Roxann repeated the question.

  “I don’t know… s-somewhere D-Dee won’t f-find me.” Her teeth were chattering.

  Roxann turned on the air-conditioning, which, in Goldie, was the same as turning on the heat. “We could go to my dad’s. Your mother wouldn’t go near there.”

  “W-will Uncle W-Walt mind?”

  “He might not even be home.”

  “He doesn’t know you’re in town?”

  Roxann squirmed. “No, but I was going to stop by after the wedding anyway.”

  Angora gave a lethargic shrug. “Anything to avoid D-Dee for a few hours. Maybe you can help me figure out what I’m going to d-do now.” Angora pulled the stained seat belt over her sodden dress and clicked the buckle home. She sniffed mightily, then sighed. “Let’s g-go.”

  Roxann surveyed her bedraggled cousin with wonder—Angora still had a talent for sucking Roxann into her melodrama. Just yesterday she’d been dogged by a cop, the victim of a breakin, and the object of a subtle threat. Yet her potentially life-threatening situation had just been upstaged by Angora’s jilting.

  “Did I mention it was good seeing you again?” she asked sarcastically.

  For the first time, Angora offered a watery smile, and Roxann knew her cousin was going to be all right. Eventually.

  Chapter 6

  Angora had cried herself to sleep before they reached the part of town where Roxann had grown up. Roxann was glad, partly because Angora needed the rest, and partly because she wanted to experience the old neighborhood privately.

  The rain had slackened to an aggravating drizzle. Only the driver-side windshield wiper worked, slapping a clear path of vision every few seconds. The houses, the streets—everything seemed smaller and bleaker, if possible. River Hills was a postwar development that had fallen out of favor with realtors when a power plant was erected at its boundary in the late 1960s. Property values plunged, and many residents fled inland.

  Walt and Ava Beadleman had stayed put to show their support for her father’s employer, RTC Electric, so Roxann had had a close-up view of the rapid degradation of the area. Homes were turned into rentals, then abandoned altogether, and drug dealers took over the ballpark. Government housing brought in kids from broken homes with too much time on their hands. Graffiti spread from one end of River Hills to the other. And she had her own theories about the glowing power plant’s effects on the residents’ health—physical and otherwise.

  Her mother’s discontent with the area had been the beginning of the end of her parents’ marriage. Her father detested change, and refused to leave his circle of friends and his favorite fishing hole. The first day Roxann had come home from second grade and her mother wasn’t waiting by the front door remained vivid in her memory. She’d sat in the front-porch swing, terrified, until her mother arrived, flushed and apologetic, making Roxann promise not to tell her father.

  The disappearances became more frequent, then her mother gave her a key to let herself in the house after school. A blue car would drop her mother off in time to get supper started before her father came home from work. It was only a matter of time, though, before Walt discovered his wife was keeping company with another man. One day he’d torn the seat out of his work coveralls, and had come home for a change of clothes to find Roxann alone. He was there when the man dropped off her mother. He’d thrown a loose brick from the front steps through the back windshield as the blue car raced away, and he’d made her mother leave.

  The next few months were a painful blur, with the exception of the phone conversations she’d overheard. The ugly, ugly things her father had called her mother still stung. After the custody hearing, she rarely saw her mother. Her father hired a woman in the neighborhood to cook and clean, but Mrs. Holt was a dour person who didn’t like to be bothered while she watched television.

  Emotion crowded her chest as she slowed to turn onto the road where her father still lived. Braeburn Way seemed too pretty a name for an overgrown, shabby street. When she pulled into her father’s driveway, sadness plucked at her. The pale green bungalow looked tired and tucked into itself, the eaves sagging, the clapboard siding in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. The yard was a tangle of ivy and weeds, strewn with limbs from a wild apple tree that hadn’t borne fruit in years.

  The gravel driveway and covered carport were empty, so she assumed her father was out fishing or drinking. Or both. She pulled under the carport so they could enter the house without getting wetter. Lurching over the uneven ground roused Angora, and when Roxann turned off the engine, her cousin opened her eyes.

  “We’re here,” Roxann announced.

  Angora groaned and moved slowly, lifting her head to squint out the window. “Where?”

  “My dad’s, remember?”

  Her cousin winced. “Oh, yeah.” Her crown sat at a precarious angle.

  “Come on, Queenie, let’s get you into some dry clothes.”

  She swung down, then walked around to collect Angora, who practically fell out of the van after she unhooked her seat belt.

  Angora cried out when she saw the part of the train that had been flapping against the van for the past twenty-some miles. “It’s ruined.”

  “Were you planning to wear it again?” Roxann asked wryly.

  “No, but… ” Angora burst into tears again, and fell against Roxann, who hustled her to the side door.

  The key on Roxann’s ring still worked, as she’d expected. She led Angora into the musty kitchen, flipping on lights before depositing her into the only chair at the table that wasn’t stacked high with newspapers—her father was a voracious reader. A fishy smell permeated the air, and dust motes floated lazily, disturbed by the opening of the door. The old brown linoleum popped and cracked under her feet.

  A crucifix adorned the wall next to the kitchen table, testament to the fixation on morality Walt Beadleman had developed after the divorce. At every chance, but especially when he drank, her father sermonized the virtues of chastity and honesty. Look at what her mother’s deceit had done to their family, he would rail, and how it had led to her untimely demise.

  I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER, YOU FAKE.

  Shaking off the heebie-jeebies, Roxann glanced around the cramped space, her heart squeezing at the clutter and neglect. Old feelings of shame resurfaced. She’d hated other kids knowing that she lived in River Hills, and her father was so slovenly, she’d been too embarrassed to have friends over. Angora had never been there—God only knew what she must be thinking.

  “I’ll get my bag so we can change clothes.” Roxann trotted outside, and after two grunting attempts, slid open the van door.

  “Who’s there?” an elderly voice called.

  She looked out to see her father’
s neighbor standing in the weedy driveway, his neck craned.

  “It’s me, Mr. Sherwood. Roxann Beadleman.”

  The man’s face rearranged into a smile. “Roxann! Child, it’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too, Mr. Sherwood. Do you know where my father is?”

  He nodded. “Him and Archie Cann drove to Gramercy for a fishing tournament. Going to be gone all weekend long.”

  “I should have called,” she said, harboring mixed feelings. Although she felt an obligation to see her father, it was never a wholly pleasant experience. And with Angora in tow, the visit would have been doubly awkward.

  “You going to be staying a while?”

  “I’m not sure,” she hedged. “If I have to leave, I’ll write Dad a note.”

  “He’ll be sorry he missed you.”

  She managed a smile as she hauled out the bulging duffel bag. “Thanks, Mr. Sherwood. You take care.”

  She slid the van door closed and waved, then reentered the house. Angora stood at the sink that was piled high with dirty dishes, running water into a dented teapot. “I thought we could use some tea,” she told Roxann primly.

  The incongruity of a bride in full regalia making tea in her father’s dilapidated house was almost incomprehensible. Personally, Roxann was craving a beer, and she was almost certain her father didn’t have any teabags, but she said, “Sounds good,” then nodded toward her duffel. “Dry clothes.”

  “You’ll have to help me get out of this dress.” Then Angora proceeded to scare the crap out of Roxann by trying to light the ancient gas stove. The flash melted the sequins on Angora’s bodice and left Roxann’s eyebrows feeling crackly.

  “Let’s see if we can find my old bedroom,” she urged, then crossed the kitchen into the shabby living room, a throwback to the Harvest Gold and Burnt Orange decorating era. Books and magazines occupied every vertical and horizontal surface, including the floor. The faded carpet was footworn, and the familiar cabinet-model television squatted under the window, taking up too much room. A naked bulb in the center of the ceiling cast a garish glow that blinded while leaving the corners dark. More or less, everything was the sa—

  Roxann came up short at the sight of her college diploma hanging over the couch like a prized piece of artwork. Professionally matted in Fighting Irish Green and framed in satiny cherrywood, the piece was fantastically out of place against the peeling wallpaper. Getting a degree was the only thing she’d ever done that had pleased her father, but the precious piece of paper had led to an even bigger rift between them when she’d “thrown away her education” to become involved with Rescue. Her father had had his heart set on her attending law school—

  “Are you okay?” Angora asked.

  “Sure.” She made her feet move and picked a path across the living room. “I’m sorry—Dad’s a slob.”

  “He’s a lonely bachelor.”

  Her cousin had always had a soft spot for Roxann’s father. Probably because she only saw him at his best once a year at Dee’s Christmas shindig.

  “When was the last time you were home?” Angora asked.

  “Dad and I communicate best over the phone.” Besides, she couldn’t recall.

  She led the way down a narrow hallway and pushed open the door to the bedroom that used to be hers. She blinked. The room hadn’t been changed since she’d last slept there. Though the yellow comforter was faded, it was neatly made, topped with two denim pillows that she’d made in sophomore home ec. True to the Craftsman bungalow style of the house, the ceiling was low, and the room compact, large enough to hold only the bed, a bureau, and an upholstered chair. A small green braided rug lay at the foot of her bed. She used to leap out of bed and hit that rug, then jump to a fuzzy mat in the bathroom so her feet wouldn’t touch the cold wood floors.

  Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back. And the wood floors had had so many cracks to avoid.

  On top of the dark judges paneling that encompassed the walls, she’d hung panels of corkboard, which were still dotted with curled, yellowed clippings and snapshots of long-forgotten acquaintances. An eight-by-ten of her high school senior portrait sat on the headboard in a dated frame. She hadn’t been smiling. Roxann glanced at Angora—the Spartan little room was a far cry from her cousin’s wonderland boudoir, with a walk-in closet and sitting room with phone and TV.

  “Looks like your dad is hoping you’ll come back home to live,” was all she said.

  “Yeah, right, at my age?” Too late, she remembered her cousin’s housing arrangement. “Oh—sorry. I’m sure you have a good reason for living at home.”

  “Not really. Where do you live?”

  “Biloxi. For now.”

  “Oh.” Angora stepped out of her shoes, losing three inches in the process, but settled down to a respectable five feet and six inches anyway. They were identical in height. “If I don’t get out of this dress, I’m going to kill myself.”

  No wonder—she looked as if she’d been poured into the gown to begin with, and it had surely shrunk from the wetness. Roxann tackled the zipper, recalling that Angora had always struggled to keep her curves at bay, with Dee breathing down her neck at every meal. When the zipper gave way, her cousin practically groaned in relief. She peeled the wet silk from her shoulders and stepped out of the gown, revealing a strapless elastic bodysuit that extended from armpit to knee, and looked painful as hell.

  “The bathroom’s through there,” Roxann said, pointing. She dropped to sit on the foot of her bed, instantly reminded of the creaky springs. “But it’s just a tub, no shower.”

  “A bath sounds like heaven.”

  To her, too, but she’d give Angora first crack. The girl had had a bad day.

  Angora pushed open the door, then stopped. From her vantage point on the bed, Roxann saw her cousin’s eyes widen at her disheveled hair and makeup reflected in the wavy mirror on the opposite wall. Her chin began to wobble. She slowly lifted the rhinestone tiara from her head and placed it on the avocado-green sink, then removed what pins were left in her sodden hair. The look in her eyes scared Roxann—hatred?

  “Let me get the water started,” she volunteered, and slipped past Angora into the bathroom. “I remember the stopper was a little tricky.”

  The old porcelain tub was dusty, but otherwise still in good shape. She turned on the water, which ran rusty for a few seconds, then swished her hand around the sides. The rubber stopper nestled into place just fine and the water ran warm almost immediately. She checked the medicine cabinet and found some gel bath balls that were stuck together from age. After tossing a handful into the water, she turned a smile back to Angora, who was still staring at herself in the mirror.

  “In you go,” she said cheerfully.

  Angora’s shoulders started shaking, and her face crumbled. She let out a wail that Roxann was sure would have Mr. Sherwood looking out his window. Roxann caught her before she fell. “Let’s get this scuba suit off so you can relax.” Stripping the elastic suit from Angora while half supporting her weight was a feat, but she finally managed it.

  Angora’s breasts and hips sprang out to their normal proportions—generous. The suit, which was doll-sized in its original form, had left angry marks on her skin.

  “Did you jump out of a two-story window into this thing?”

  “It was worth it—my dress was a ten instead of a twelve.”

  Roxann looked back to the heap of soiled silk on her bedroom floor but said nothing. She helped Angora climb into the tub, then turned at the sound of the teakettle whistling. “I’ll get that—yell if you need me.”

  Angora nodded miserably and lay back in the tub.

  Roxann sighed, then walked back through the house to turn off the burner. She opened a few cupboards looking for tea, but found little except canned ravioli and chili. Her heart squeezed—her father wasn’t taking care of himself. And she wasn’t taking care of him, either.

  She scrounged up a box of garbage bags and went throu
gh the cabinets, tossing out anything that looked or smelled dangerous. Then she poured the kettle water into the sink and washed dishes, and took a shot at cleaning the counters. In the living room she cleared as much clutter as she could and ran the old canister vacuum, giving special attention to the crumbs and stains around her father’s La-Z-Boy.

  She peeked in on Angora, and as she suspected, found her cousin fast asleep—and snoring like a bear. A by-product of the nose job, Angora had insisted when Roxann complained in college. Roxann sighed. Sitting in an old tub in a seedy part of town probably wasn’t what Angora had envisioned when she rolled out of bed this morning. Poor little rich girl.

  Roxann returned to the hall and glanced toward her father’s bedroom. She didn’t want to intrude on his privacy, but neither did she want him living in squalor. The door was ajar, so she poked her head inside, pleased to see the bed passably made. Clothes were stacked on a straight-backed chair, but they appeared to be laundered. She picked up a couple of towels in the bathroom and rehung the sagging shower curtain. On her way out of the bedroom, though, she stopped, her heart in her throat.

  Chapter 7

  A colorized photo of her mother sat in a silver frame at her father’s bedside. Roxann remembered the photo because she’d thought her mother looked so glamorous with her flip ‘do and her off-the-shoulder dress. The photo had once sat on the fireplace mantel, but had disappeared, along with other photos of her mother, after the divorce.

  “Where are all the pictures of Mommy?” she’d asked.

  “Gone,” he’d said, and not nicely.

  “I want to live with her.”

  “Well, you can’t. Go get me a beer.”

  When her mother had been killed in a car accident four years later, she’d longed for a photo, but had to settle for the pictures in her head. Soon, though, the impressions of her mother’s scant visits had been overridden by the image of her mother lying in a casket. For the past few years, she’d been unable to conjure up her mother’s face at all. Seeing the photo now was a bittersweet gift. Her mother had been so beautiful, with full lips and expressive eyes. Roxann bit back tears, grappling, as always, with her father’s inexplicable behavior. When had he forgiven her mother enough to remove the picture from his hiding place?