Текст книги "Mama Gets Hitched"

Автор книги: Deborah Sharp

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“Look at you: smiling like a billy goat in the briar patch.” Maddie’s arms were crossed over her blue robe; she had the high beams on her principal’s glare.

“I’m tired, Maddie. Can you just give me the keys and save the lecture?”

She pulled them out of the robe’s pocket and handed them over.

“What exactly are you playin’ at, Sister? You’ve got a good man, and you’re ready to toss him out with the trash.”

I shrugged, like a seventh-grader caught without a hall pass. Maybe Mama was right about me.

The door to the kitchen swung open just then. Maddie’s husband Kenny came out with a piece of banana cream pie and two forks.

“Evenin’ Mace,” he said.

I waved. As I turned to leave, I noticed Maddie looking at her husband with pure love in her eyes. It might have been the pie, but I didn’t think so. She put a hand on my arm before I stepped out the door.

“You better straighten up, Mace. Maybe your relationship with Carlos isn’t perfect. No relationship is. But if a man makes you happy and treats you right, that’s as close to true love as you’re likely to get. Don’t screw it up.”

As I rolled down the unpaved drive to my little cottage, an owl hooted from a fencepost as if to welcome me home. A thousand stars lit the midnight sky. The beams from the headlights on Pam’s ancient VW bounced across the yard, catching a couple of raccoons loping away into the woods.

“Thieves!” I yelled after them.

My nemeses had returned, foiling an elaborate brick-and-bungee-cord garbage protection system. Cantaloupe rinds and chicken bones littered the grass; an empty potato chip bag tumbled across the driveway as the car passed by. I imagined constructing a raccoon-proof concrete garbage vault, complete with a steel top too heavy for them to lift. If I ever figured out how to foil the masked bandits, I could get a job as a government consultant on how to safeguard our borders from evil-doers.

Garbage cleanup could wait until the morning. I parked the car, threw a tarp over its broken convertible top, and made my way to the front door.

Once inside, I saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. I tossed the keys to the VW along with my own set into the gaping jaws of a preserved gator head I keep on my coffee table.

“Did you miss me, Al?” I said to the taxidermist’s specimen.

The gator and I had been on close terms once, since I helped wrestle him out of the pool of a newcomer who hadn’t pictured a ten-foot reptile with seventy-five razor-sharp teeth as a guest at his swimming parties.

Wila stalked out of my bedroom, making Siamese noises, which meant she sounded like a whole alley full of cats.

“Hush, Wila.” I scratched under her neck and on her back near her tail the way she likes. “I know I’ve been away all day. I know I’m a bad mama. And you’re right, a human child probably would have walked out on me by now.”

Meowr.

“It could be worse. If you were a little bit bigger, I’d set you on those damned raccoons outside.”

Meowr.

“Nah, I’m just kidding, baby. I didn’t save you just to see you come to harm.”

I shot a guilty look at Al, who had the bad luck of being classified as a nuisance gator after he got a little too used to being around people. That meant he could be trapped and killed, his hide and meat sold for profit.

“Sorry about that, buddy. There are just too many of you in places that used to be wild, aren’t there?”

Al didn’t answer. But I felt that beady glass eye of his judging me.

I added a little canned cat food to the dry stuff that Wila won’t eat unless she’s starving. It’s about time, her body language said.

Pressing the play button on the answering machine, I turned on the AC, shrugged out of my T-shirt and paced off the dozen or so steps from my living room to the bedroom of the tiny cottage. The first message sounded just as I tossed the dirty shirt into the clothes basket in the corner. The voice was pure Ivy League.

“I had a great time tonight,” Tony said. “I hope you did, too.”

Yeah, except for seeing my alleged boyfriend having a rendezvous with some gorgeous mystery woman, it was a lot of fun.

“I read in the Himmarshee Times about a rodeo next month at the Agri-Civic center. I’d really like to go, and I could use a local guide. Would you like to come with me?”

Hmmmmm. Maybe I would.

He went on about how he’d always wanted to see a real rodeo, how he couldn’t even believe they had rodeos in Florida, and how I’d have to tell him what was appropriate to wear. That was easy: Wrangler blue jeans, no matter how hot the temperature is. Nothing pegs an outsider faster than wearing Bermuda shorts and man sandals to the Himmarshee rodeo.

I had to give Tony credit. He seemed to really be trying to learn the way of life down here. Not like a lot of newcomers, who move South only to complain about how everything is different than it was up North.

Isn’t that the point?

The next message was one I’d saved earlier, when I called from my office to check the machine. There weren’t enough hours in my workday to listen to the whole thing.

“Mace, honey, this is Rosalee. Your mama.”

Mama always became oddly formal when she talked to the answering machine. I think she pictured it as a secretary, painstakingly writing down each message that came in.

“I was just thinking about our fitting tomorrow morning. Could you please not wear your boots? Obviously, those are fine for tromping through the swamp the way you do. But they’ll just ruin the drape of your bridesmaid gown.”

I doubted that lime-sherbet nightmare could get any worse, boots or not.

I slipped out of my jeans, brushed my teeth, and washed my morning coffee cup. Mama prattled on past the machine’s thirty-second warning, discussing the wedding favors again, telling me about a distant cousin who’d called and shamelessly invited herself to the wedding, asking whether I thought Alice would still want to come to the shower, considering what happened.

“I want to do the right thing, Mace. But, honestly, do you think a woman who just lost her husband to a crazed killer with a knife would want to sit there playing shower games?”

I wondered whether Mama was protecting Alice’s feelings or the party atmosphere. She finally began to wrap it up,

“Anyhoo … oh, yeah, there was something I wanted to tell you about C’ndee …”

Just as Mama was about to impart some news that might have been of actual interest, the machine cut her off. She probably had blabbed, unaware she’d exceeded the time limit until she heard the dead line. I had half a mind to call her back and wake her up to finish the message.

But it was beyond late now. I wouldn’t call her back tonight, or Tony either. In fact I might not return his call at all. I remembered what Maddie had said in the foyer at her house. What was I playing at?

I didn’t want to dwell too long on that question, as I had no answer. Instead, I took a shower so I wouldn’t have to bathe in the morning. I was surprised when I got out and saw the light blinking again. I hit the button to play the new message.

“It’s Sal. Sorry to call so late, but I need to talk to you. Call me tonight, no matter what time you get in.”

I immediately dialed the number he’d left. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine. But your mudder told me you two went out tonight with Tony Ciancio.”

“So?”

“You need to be careful with that guy, Mace.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to go into a lot of details.”

“Well, he’s C’ndee’s nephew,” I said. “She’s close to him and you’re close to her. I figured Tony was okay.”

“You’re right. I do like C’ndee. She was my late wife’s cousin. But she don’t have good sense sometimes. She married young, and got herself involved with the wrong family.”

“Tony’s family?”

There was a long pause on the phone. “Just watch yourself,” Sal finally said. “Tony Ciancio could charm the underpants off a Puritan.”

After Sal’s call, I felt tired but not sleepy. I was curious about Tony, even if I decided not to pursue things with him. And that decision wasn’t a done deal, despite Sal’s warning. I turned on my computer and checked my email. Mostly spam, as usual. I mean, my email address is countrygal. Don’t those marketers know I’m not interested in making my manhood bigger? I deleted a bunch of crap, and then navigated to Google.

I just entered Anthony Ciancio and New Jersey, since I wasn’t sure what part of the state he was from. Maybe the last name Ciancio was as common up there as Martinez was in Miami, because there were sure a lot of hits.

Scrolling quickly, I saw some newspaper headlines popping up with the name Ciancio and the kind of words you don’t want to see when investigating a potential date.

“Extortion” … “crime family” … “suspicious restaurant fire.”

“Fran, honey, I think you can take it in a smidge more, right here.” Mama tugged at a tiny gap on the bodice of my lime-colored abomination. “The Lord saw fit to bless Mace more with broad shoulders than a generous bustline.”

I slapped her wrist. “Hands off, Mama!”

The proprietress of Fran’s Formal Duds and Frocks leaned back and narrowed her eyes at my gown. “Nope. It’s a perfect fit, Rosalee. And Mace has a beautiful build. She’s not scarce at all in the bust department. If I made it any tighter, the guests would be staring at the bridesmaid and not the bride.”

Mama pursed her lips at the possibility. “Well, if you say so, honey,” she finally said. “You’re the expert.”

Maddie and Marty were still in the back of the shop, struggling into their gowns. There were stays and straps and petticoats, along with highly engineered parts I couldn’t even name. Fran had lopped about a foot off the bottom of Marty’s dress. She added a V-shaped panel of extra fabric under each of Maddie’s arms.

How she managed to nip and tuck and fit three such different shapes was a mystery to me. Then again, I can botch sewing on a button. I pictured her using seamstress magic, like that scene from Cinderella when adorable mice and birds pitch in to sew the ballgown. Of course, if our Fairy Godmother ever saw us in these sherbet-colored getups, she’d wave a wand and make at least five pounds of ruffles disappear.

Standing on a platform upholstered in rose-colored carpeting, I gazed at myself in Fran’s full-length mirror. I looked like Scarlett O’Hara meets Ballroom Barbie by way of Kermit the Frog.

A giggle came from the dressing area, followed by Maddie’s sternest voice. “I don’t find this remotely amusing, Marty. I’m a virtual mountain of those pink melty mints Aunt Ida used to give us every Christmas.”

Mama shouted, “Hush, Maddie. You girls are going to be absolutely stunning in those dresses. I’ve got a surprise for you, too. Remember C’ndee found your bridesmaid’s gifts? Well, it’s the perfect thing: press-on fingernails to match the colors of your dresses. Isn’t that incredible?”

“Incredibly tacky,” I said under my breath.

“I heard that! Now, you other girls c’mon out here so Fran can get a look-see,” Mama called.

My sisters filed into the fitting room, full skirts gathered up like color-blind debutantes picking their way through mud. Three pairs of eyes rolled in sisterly commiseration. Mama clapped her hands together and held them to her heart.

“Can’t you just see them at the ceremony, Fran? My three darlin’ girls, as pretty as pictures.”

The photo from Alice’s wedding popped into my head. That was followed immediately by the memory of Ronnie, stabbed in the VFW kitchen. And that made me think of what I’d discovered on the Internet about Tony’s restaurant-owning family. I’d been so focused on figuring out which of my parts went where in my stupid dress that I’d neglected to fill in Mama and my sisters with my news.

“Mama, did C’ndee ever tell you the Ciancio family’s restaurant business had some serious trouble with the law back in New Jersey?”

Marty’s eyes widened. A straight pin fell from Fran’s mouth. Maddie spun to stare at me, her cotton-candy-pink dress rustling like sabal fronds in a stiff wind.

Mama’s hand clutched at her throat. “Please don’t tell me they poisoned somebody with tainted food.”

I shook my head. “No, no food poisoning. More along the lines of extortion and questionable competitive practices.”

“Like what?” Maddie asked.

“Like some rival owners beaten bloody and having their restaurants set on fire.”

Marty’s blue eyes were huge orbs. “Was Tony involved?” she whispered.

“He wasn’t mentioned by name in the stories I read on the computer. Neither was C’ndee. But it’s got to be the same family, right?” I looked from one of them to the other. “How many restaurant businesses owned by Ciancios can there be in Hackensack, New Jersey?”

Marty shrugged, long hair brushing the orange-sherbet ruffles of her off-the-shoulder sleeves. Mama had no comment, for a change. Maddie, a thoughtful look on her face, picked an invisible speck of lint off her billowing skirt.

“We need to find out more about the Ciancios, Mace.” She raised serious eyes to mine. “Tony might be dangerous in a way that I hadn’t considered.”

Before Mama or Marty had the chance to process what Maddie might mean by that, I said, “Sal doesn’t seem to like him much, but he won’t say why. I’m going to add that to a list of questions I have for C’ndee.”

Marty said, “But nobody’s seen her, right?”

Mama nodded.

“Maybe we should ask Sal where she went,” Maddie said.

“I don’t know, girls,” Mama said. “They’re family. They’re thicker than ticks on a fat dog.”

“Meaning Sal might not want to tell us what he knows about her,” Maddie said.

I thought about our first acquaintance with Mama’s fiancé. “Remember how secretive Sal was, and how we were convinced he was Tony Soprano?” I said, as my sisters laughed.

“Who?” asked Fran, who was in her seventies and probably thought HBO was a kind of body odor.

“Like Don Corleone from the Godfather movies,” Maddie interpreted.

“Not the Mafia again, Maddie.” Mama sighed. “Just remember: you girls found out Sal’s one of the good guys, despite appearances. Maybe it’ll be the same for Tony. Not every man of mystery has a notorious past.”

Marty patted Mama’s arm in agreement. “When we met Sal, he just wanted to keep his business private. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Humph,” Maddie said.

“Yeah, Sal’s a private guy, all right.” I shot Mama a look. “Now just imagine the poor man marrying the Mouth of the South.”

That started a round of bickering about which of us was the biggest gossip.

“Well, maybe I am interested in people, girls,” Mama concluded. “But I’m never mean, like some I could mention.” She glared at Maddie, who acted like she didn’t notice.

“I was always taught, and I tried to teach you girls, that if you can’t say something nice you shouldn’t say anything at all.”

“Now, Rosalee, where’s the fun in that?” Fran’s smile was devilish, even bisected by several straight pins. “And what did y’all mean before about the Mafia?”

Marty whispered, “The day Ronnie Hodges was killed, somebody chopped off the head of a wild pig and left it on Alice’s front porch.”

Fran gasped.

“I said then that it looked like the kind of calling card the Mafia would leave,” Maddie said.

“Which Maddie knows because she watches the movies.”

We ignored Mama’s smart-aleck tone. “It was like a warning,” I told Fran.

Lowering herself onto a stool next to the rose-colored platform, she spit the straight pins into her palm. “That’s just awful.”

“Ronnie’s company was called Pig-Out BBQ and Catering, ” I explained. “Maybe somebody doesn’t want Alice to continue the business.”

Mama said, “Alice doesn’t even want to continue it. She told us it was bleeding money.”

Marty winced at the word choice. “Maybe somebody was trying to send a message to other restaurant owners to get out of the business or what happened to Ronnie …”

“… and that poor hog,” Fran interrupted.

“… will happen to them,” Maddie finished Marty’s thought.

“Maybe we should warn the Pork Pit and the Georgia Pig,” I said.

“Don’t forget that guy along State Road 70 with the trash can smoker who calls himself Pig Pickin’s,” Mama said. “He could be a target too, if somebody has a thing against barbecue.”

We all thought about that for a moment. Finally, Maddie shook her head firmly.

“Impossible,” said my sister, who never met a pulled pork platter she didn’t love. “It has to be about something else.”

I gazed into the woods of Himmarshee Park, all cool and green. The late-afternoon sun slanted through the branches of a cypress tree, washing me in slivers of golden light. This wooden park bench beat any pew beneath stained glass in a grand cathedral. In a way, the park was my cathedral.

“All set, Mace?”

Rhonda’s voice startled me out of my meditation on the glories of the outdoors.

“You bet, Boss. Heading home?”

She lifted an arm to show me her purse. Her car keys were in her hand. “You should have a dozen or so people show up for your nature walk. Some of the old folks from Leisure Lake trailer park are coming over in a van.”

“Sounds good.”

I actually preferred the senior citizens to students from Maddie’s middle school. Kids that age are tough to impress. The boys always try to act tough, and the girls squeal like idiots if they so much as see a spider.

“By the way, Mace …”

I cocked my head at her.

“Please show some patience if people ask stupid questions. Not everyone knows as much about the outdoors as you do.”

“I’ll be an ambassador of good will, Rhonda.”

She looked skeptical. But she waved anyway, gliding across the wooden deck outside our office. Her keys jingled like a soundtrack at a high-fashion runway show.

I glanced at my watch. It was almost six, which meant Rhonda was well past her quitting hour. I felt grateful, and not for the first time, that no one had ever seen fit to make me a manager.

The sunset walkers would arrive within forty minutes or so. And that would give me just enough time to feed the handful of injured or unwanted critters currently living in the park’s makeshift zoo. I hurried to the animal enclosure, where I was welcomed as usual by the white-striped presence of Pepe No Pew.

The de-scented skunk had been a pet, until his owner cruelly released him into the wild. As I pulled dinner together, he padded to the front of his pen. On the menu for Pepe: A chicken neck, a selection of chopped fruit and vegetables, and a couple of crickets and worms tossed into his pen so he could find them later.

Our residents generally included a few of the “nuisance” animals I trapped in my part-time job. The park had a wildlife license as part of our educational mission. I tried to expose visitors to some Florida critters; tried to convince them co-existence was possible. If only people could see how beautiful the corn snake was, for example, and how it wouldn’t hurt them if left alone, they’d be less likely to want it dead.

Or, that was my hope anyway.

“Hey, buddy. You get your mouse tomorrow,” I called out to the snake.

The creature lay coiled in the corner next to an elevated den I’d made of rocks, straw, and branches. A screen over the top of the pen kept him from slithering out.

“Not a bad crib, huh? You’ll be going back to the woods soon. Just think of this as an all-expenses-paid snake-cation.”

Carrying a large tray with the animals’ food, I made my way around the enclosure: The possum got a little moistened cat chow, bite-size chopped fruit, a raw egg, a splash of yogurt and, for the fish course, a couple of thawed silversides.

The raccoon got wet dog food, supplemented with a bit of fruit, fish, an egg, and a thawed baby chick.

My last stop was Pepe’s pad. Without his scent, the skunk was defenseless in the wild. So, he was stuck with us for life. Dropping food into his shallow bowl, I leaned in for a chat.

“You’re getting as fat as a fixed dog, you know that, Monsieur? Maybe we need to get you a little skunk-sized treadmill. Would you like that?”

Pepe raised his head. He seemed a tad dubious about that treadmill.

“Yeah, I know. I could stand to lose a couple of pounds myself. You should have seen me holding my breath to zip up this bridesmaid’s monstrosity that Mama’s making me wear on Saturday. Believe me, Pepe, that dress is awful enough without a big rip down the back to show off my lily-white butt.”

Pepe returned to his bowl as a low chuckle came from the entryway. I whirled, and felt my face catch fire.

“Tony! I didn’t hear you come in.”

He flashed a bright smile in the dim light of the enclosure. “I didn’t want to interrupt your Dr. Doolittle moment.”

“Yeah, Maddie gets after me for talking to the animals, too. It’s not like I think they’re going to open their mouths and talk back.”

“Of course not.”

His tone was amused. I couldn’t tell if he believed me. Better to change the subject. “What brings you to Himmarshee Park?”

“I saw a little blurb in today’s newspaper about the nature program. I thought I might be late. I stopped on the way to rescue a turtle trying to make it across the highway.”

Coming a bit closer, he peered into the snake’s section. He pulled back with a grimace, side-stepping away. So Tony was okay with turtles; snakes, not so much.

“The paper said this is the last walk until the fall brings cooler weather. I hoped you’d be leading it.”

I sensed another blush coming on. I was acting as silly as Maddie’s squealing schoolgirls. I had serious business to discuss. I couldn’t afford to be distracted by Tony’s charm, or those mesmerizing white teeth.

“Listen,” I said, draining all the levity from my voice, “I need to ask you some questions.”

“Should I have a lawyer present?” He smiled again, but a chill edged his voice. “Maybe your cousin Henry would agree to take me on as a client.”

“You don’t need a lawyer, Tony. And I apologize ahead of time if I’m out of line.”

I took a deep breath. “I was curious about you, so I went on the Internet and searched with your name.”

“And?” The cool edge had hardened to ice.

“And I found a lot of stuff about the Ciancio family being involved in restaurant-related crimes.”

He advanced a couple of steps toward me, then crossed his arms over his chest. His green eyes, smiley and warm before, were Arctic pools now.

“And?” he said, with a hint of menace.

I stepped to my right, positioning the snake’s pen between us. Tony moved no closer. I took the plunge.

“And I just wondered if any of the bad things that happened to your family’s restaurant rivals in New Jersey had anything to do with what happened to Ronnie Hodges down here.”

My question hung in the air. Tony lowered his chin and stared at the ground for the longest moment.

I could hear Pepe’s nose hitting the rim of his bowl. The raccoon splashed water as he washed his food. An ibis’ throaty call reverberated from deep in the swamp.

I was beginning to consider the sanity of raising this topic with a bunch of animals as my only witnesses when I heard a door slam in the distant parking lot. Faraway voices sounded. Human voices. Potential witnesses’ voices.

Tony’s face came up, his head tilted toward the lot. His gaze returned to meet mine.

“I wondered how long it would take for my family history to follow me here.” He seemed more resigned than angry. “It sounds like the other nature walkers are on their way. I don’t want to get into this now, Mace. I will tell you I had nothing to do with what you read about. My whole life, I’ve been trying to live down who my father is. What my family is.”

A flicker of pain lit in his eyes. I felt bad about putting it there. I resisted the urge to smooth out the wrinkle now marring his model-worthy brow.

The clamor of voices grew as my visitors made their way along the path. I also heard the rumble of a powerful motorcycle traversing the wooden bridge at the park’s entrance. The sound seemed out of place, since the bikers I’ve met generally prefer chicks and bars to birds and trees.

“I’d better get back to the office to meet them.” I nodded to the door. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to come along.”

His smile had been stripped of several thousand watts. But he managed a weak grin. “No, I really do want to see the park. And it’s not like you’re the first person who ever asked about my family. I’d like to talk later, though. Explain where I’m coming from.”

“Sure,” I said.

Collecting the food tray, I started for the exit. Before I could juggle the unwieldy tray to reach for the door handle, Tony jumped to open it for me. Apparently having a Mafia don for a daddy doesn’t rule out having nice manners.

As he stepped aside to let me pass, Tony bumped against the snake’s pen. A low hiss sounded as warning.