The Sugar Queen

  Josey unbuttoned her coat as she walked into her room. She went straight to her closet, because that’s what she always did. It used to be just for the candy. Now it was also to see Della Lee, to talk and to argue. She was actually starting to look forward to it.

  Which meant that Della Lee had finally succeeded in driving her insane.

  When she opened the closet door, Della Lee was sitting where she always sat, on the sleeping bag, but she was no longer poring over those old notebooks. She was still wearing all her clothes, but she’d taken off her makeup and she was holding the small tiara in her lap, looking at it wistfully.

  “Della Lee?”

  She looked up and smiled. She looked younger without makeup, her skin even more translucent, like that of a child. “I won this in the Little Miss Bald Slope pageant when I was six years old.”

  Josey went to her knees. Her long coat spread around her on the floor. “You must have been a pretty child.”

  “I was.” She put the tiara on the floor and pushed it toward Josey. “Here, you can have it. Put it on.”

  Josey shook her head. “My hair wasn’t made for wearing a crown. It would get lost.”

  “Please?”

  With a sigh, she put it on her head, then she spread her arms, inviting snide comments.

  But Della Lee said, “Very nice. And nice scarf, by the way.”

  Josey looked down at it, then immediately took it off. Thank God it had been under her coat. “Thank you for reminding me. Nova Berry insisted I buy it, but my mother hates me in red. I bought you some nonperishables while I was at the market, things you can keep up here to eat, but they’re still in the car. I’ll get them when Mother goes to sleep. You have to stop moving things downstairs. You’re driving Helena crazy. She can’t figure out what’s going on. Oh, and I also got you a sandwich at Chloe’s but I ate it on the way home.”

  “Josey, there’s something important I have to tell you,” Della Lee said seriously. “I’ve been debating whether or not it really has anything to do with me being here, but I think it does, so I think you should know.”

  “Let me guess, you’re a serial closet squatter and I’m not your first victim.”

  “No.” Della Lee reached into a corner of the closet and brought out the box Josey had taken from her house. She set it in front of her, then she pushed it halfway between her and Josey. “Look inside.”

  Josey scooted the box the rest of the way toward her and lifted the lid.

  “See those notebooks?” Della Lee said. “Those were my mother’s. Go ahead. You can look in them.”

  Josey lifted the first one out. It was a regular spiral notebook, the kind kids carried to school in backpacks. The paper was thin and graying but the ink was still dark and feathery, like that from a felt-tip pen. “Are these diaries?”

  “More like logbooks. My mother liked to follow Marco Cirrini and write down what he did. She did it for almost twenty years. When I was a child she would drag me around town in our car, driving wherever he drove. I remember sitting outside homes and office buildings and the ski lodge for hours while he went inside. Mama would talk to herself the whole time, cursing him while scribbling in those books. Sometimes, when he would park his car, she would get out and break his windshield wipers or scratch his doors, then she’d run back to our car and laugh about it. She was obsessed with knowing what he was doing, and who he was with.”

  Josey looked over a few pages, feeling uncomfortable. Most of it was written like this entry, dated March 30, twenty-three years ago:

  Marco drove down Highland Street.

  Marco parked in the seventh parking space from the corner.

  Marco used two dimes in the parking meter.

  Marco was wearing his gray suit with a red tie.

  They stood on the sidewalk and talked.

  Marco laughed three times.

  She touched his sleeve.

  License plate numbers of cars in the street: ZXL-33, GGP-40, DIW-07, FNE-82, HUN-61, CMC-75, DFB-93.

  Josey closed the notebook, shutting out the frantic energy emanating from the pages. “I don’t understand. Why would your mother do this?” Marco Cirrini had been a very public figure, but as far as Josey knew, he’d never had any real enemies. She was ashamed to admit that she knew very little about her father, just how great everyone said he was, and the snippets he’d sometimes shared with her on their Sunday drives. He’d had his own apartment at the lodge, so he’d rarely even slept at the house.

  Della Lee ran her tongue over her crooked front teeth, thinking about her answer. “My mother was a troubled person,” she finally said. “And she was too beautiful for her state of mind. She always looked like she knew more than she did. She left home when she was sixteen because her stepfather was molesting her. She dropped out of high school and got a job as a checkout girl at the Winn-Dixie. When she met my father, she thought he was going to be her savior. She loved to tell me the story of how she was sitting on a bench downtown one Saturday, drinking a bottle of Pepsi-Cola with a straw, when he walked up to her and said, ‘You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Can I buy you dinner?’ It was like something out of a movie. I came along nine months later. She was eighteen.”

  Josey thought about it, and she vaguely remembered Della Lee’s mother, small and pretty and rough like Della Lee, but with big green doll eyes. “Your mother was Greenie Baker, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember seeing her around.”

  “I’m not surprised. Following you and your father on your Sunday drives was one of her favorite things to do.”

  “She followed him when I was with him?”

  Della Lee nodded.

  Time lines, like strings of thread, were weaving together, forming connections. “Were you with her?”

  “Sometimes. But as soon as I was old enough to stay home alone, I did. I hated following you. Hated it. But then I would always hear about it when she got home, where he took you, how you used to laugh when you were with him. Sometimes I would put my fingers in my ears so I wouldn’t hear it. I didn’t want to hear about him acting like a good father with you.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  “He died when I was nineteen.”

  “And he let your mother do this?”

  “I don’t know if he actually knew. I didn’t even know who he was until I was nine. He paid off my mother when I was born. Bought her the house. Bought her a car. Bought her silence.”

  “Why would he do that?” Josey asked, absolutely transfixed by this time.

  “Probably so his wife wouldn’t know. But my mother, God bless her, went to his wife when I was nine. ‘This is your husband’s daughter,’ I remember her saying. ‘Look at her. His own flesh and blood and he won’t even see her.’”

  “That must have been horrible for you.”

  “Actually, that was the day everything made sense,” Della Lee said. “That was the day I realized why my mother was following Marco Cirrini around town.”

  “Why?”

  Della Lee’s eyes went past Josey’s shoulder. She looked around the bedroom. “I’ve been in your house once before. That day when I was nine years old. I stood in your living room. Well, you weren’t born yet, so I guess it wasn’t your living room at the time. I couldn’t believe how beautiful this place was. It smelled rich.”

  Josey started coming back to herself, pulling away from the story. No, no. She didn’t want to hear the ending.

  “Your mother gave my mother more money. Bought her silence again. That Margaret is one smart cookie,” Della Lee said, shaking her head. “Marco may have had a child, but she was the only one who could give him a legitimate child. It was well known that Margaret and Marco didn’t want children, but a year after Margaret found out about me, suddenly there was Josey, their late-in-life baby! The baby that would bind Margaret to Marco’s fortune, no matter what.”

  Josey stood and backed away from the closet, half tripping over her lo
ng coat and ripping the tiara out of her hair. She stood across the room and stared at Della Lee in horror.

  “Hi, sis,” Della Lee said.

  8

  Jawbreakers

  It seemed like hours passed.

  They just stared at each other. Della Lee was sitting cross-legged with her hands placidly on her knees. Josey was breathing heavily with anger and indignation.

  “That’s it!” Josey said. “I’ve had enough!”

  “Finally,” Della Lee said.

  “I mean I’ve had enough of you! I will not tolerate anyone saying such things about my father. Everyone knows he was a great man. He loved my mother and my mother loved him. He saved Bald Slope.” She pointed to her bedroom door, her hand trembling. “Get out!”

  Della Lee rolled her eyes. “Oh, grow up, Josey.”

  She couldn’t believe it. Was there no way at all to intimidate this woman? “This is the real reason you decided to come to my closet. It had nothing to do with running from Julian. Are the two of you in this together?”

  “Julian and I are in nothing together anymore. And I didn’t run from him. He’s a bastard, but I was running from myself,” Della Lee said as she scooted the box back toward her and put the lid on it. She seemed a little sad, or disappointed. Well, what did she expect? That she could just say that Marco Cirrini was her father and have Josey embrace her?

  “If you needed money, why didn’t you just say so? I’ll give you money. You didn’t have to go through this whole production of pretending you wanted to help me.” Josey went to her purse on the chaise lounge and took out her checkbook. She opened it and poised her pen. “How much?”

  “I don’t want your money,” Della Lee said, moving her box back into the closet.

  Josey dropped her arms. “Then what are you doing here? Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things?”

  “Because they’re true. And I do want to help you. That’s why I’m here.”

  Josey snorted, because being angry helped hide the completely ridiculous hurt she felt. She should have known. She should have known Della Lee had something like this up her sleeve. “Nothing you say is true.”

  “You love your mailman. Is that not true? You feel stuck here. Is that not true? You’re trying to make up to your mother for something you did as a child, something she’s never going to let you live down. Is that not true? You want to leave this place. You want to wear red. You want to take your candy out of your goddamn closet and eat it in front of everyone!”

  “My father did not have a child with another woman,” Josey said, and the words fell out of her mouth with a clatter.

  “You don’t believe me? Ask your mother,” Della Lee said.

  “No!” Her mother would have a conniption if she got wind of Della Lee’s allegations. She turned and stuffed her checkbook back into her purse. “And don’t you dare say anything about this to her. Don’t say it to anyone. Just tell me what you want.”

  “Okay, I want you to ask Samuel Lamar.”

  Josey turned back to her. “My father’s old lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why ask him?” she said leerily.

  “Who do you think set up the money, house and car transfers? The confidentiality agreement?”

  Josey stared at her, not saying anything. She couldn’t believe this was happening. How had she let things get to this point? She should have kicked Della Lee out that first day. “Fine,” she finally said. “I’ll write him right now.” She went to her desk and pulled out a sheet of paper. She didn’t know Mr. Lamar’s address by heart, but it was in the address book downstairs. She sent him a Christmas card every year. He’d moved to Massachusetts some time ago, to live with his daughter’s family. “But I want you to agree, right now, to leave when I get his answer. When he writes and says my father never had any other children, you will leave this house and never bother me again. Understood?”

  “Sure,” Della Lee said. “But calling would be faster.”

  “I don’t have his number. I just have his daughter’s address in Massachusetts.”

  “Ever heard of dialing information?”

  “I don’t know his daughter’s married name.”

  “You could find that out from anyone in town.”

  “I’m writing him.”

  “If you really wanted to know the truth, you’d call.”

  “I already know the truth, Della Lee. I don’t need proof.” Josey closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Did it ever occur to you that I was doing this to give you time to leave? Time to make plans?”

  “No. That never crossed my mind.”

  “A week, maybe two, and I’ll get a response,” Josey said, putting pen to paper. “That should give you enough time.”

  “Okay. But be sure to ask him about all of Marco’s affairs. Ask him about the other woman, besides my mother, he paid off.”

  Josey had gotten as far as Dear Mr. Lamar. She stopped and turned to Della Lee. She felt hollow, and she wanted candy from her closet. When she finished this letter, she would take armfuls out, then close the door on Della Lee and eat and eat and eat until the hollow went away. “That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?”

  “Marco did everything in a big way.”

  “You’re really starting to get on my nerves. Is there anything about my life you haven’t insulted yet?” She turned back to the letter. I apologize for writing out of the blue like this. I hope you’re well.

  “I don’t know. Let me see your teeth.”

  “I think I hate you.” I’ve recently heard an upsetting rumor and only you, as my father’s lawyer and trusted confidant, can invalidate it. I can’t go to my mother with this, you understand. I don’t want to upset her.

  “Sibling rivalry,” Della Lee said. “It happens to the best of us.”

  Did my father have any other children? Specifically, did he have a child with Greenie Baker?

  Chloe couldn’t bear the thought of waiting hours to try the stinging-nettle tea. What if this was the thing that was going to make everything all right? She started getting excited about feeling better. As soon as she drank the tea, she would know what to do. She would make a decision she could live with, and she would finally stop hurting. At four o’clock she closed the shop early.

  When she left, Hank at the security gate asked what was her hurry. She happily told him she was going home to make tea. He didn’t ask her any more questions, just looked at her with sympathy, like losing Jake was making her lose her sanity. And she didn’t want to think about how close to the truth that might be.

  She dumped her purse and coat on the floor when she got home, and went directly to the kitchen. She ferreted out her tea infuser, then boiled water in a cup in the microwave. When she finally took that first sip, she was surprised to find it bitter. She had imagined it sweeter. She didn’t want to put sugar in it for fear that would change its power, so she gulped the rest of it. The warm empty cup still in her hands, she stood still for a moment, hoping the effect would be immediate. It wasn’t.

  She put the cup down and started to pace. This was worse than waiting for the results of the at-home pregnancy test she took two years ago. She and Jake always said they were going to wait to have kids, wait until they were married and had enough in savings that they didn’t have to be beholden to Jake’s parents. She had been scared, but Jake had been so excited. The results had been negative, of course, but she would never forget how buoyant the thought of being a father had made him.

  That couldn’t be the reason he’d cheated on her, could it? Did he want a child so much he was willing to have one with another woman?

  Half an hour later, several things were definitely more clear. She decided to take a long bath, not a shower, later that evening. She decided to have pesto pizza for dinner. She also decided to wait to vacuum until next week.

  But nothing was any more clear when it came to Jake.

  She stopped pacing, that familiar heaviness settling
back in her body, weighing down her limbs. It wasn’t working. The tea wasn’t going to tell her what to do.

  She went to the dining-room table and sat, then put her head down, resting her cheek against the smooth, cool surface. She felt tears come to her eyes. Why had she thought it would be so easy? She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she blinked a few times to clear the blurriness, then saw that she was eye-level with the salt and pepper shakers. There, tucked in between them, was the cocktail napkin with Julian’s number on it. She’d stuck it there days ago.

  She reached for it, then sat up and stared at it.

  Everything came back to this. She needed to know who had caused Jake to stray before she could decide if she could forgive him. There would be no moving on until she knew.

  She turned when she heard a rustling coming from the kitchen, a small sneaky noise, like mice scurrying around. She got up to see that battle-scarred Finding Forgiveness had knocked the paper envelope of stinging nettle off the counter.

  She picked up the envelope and put it in a drawer. “Stop that,” she said to the book beside the toaster.

  When she got back to the table, Old Love, New Direction was now lying on top of the napkin with Julian’s number on it.

  The old bait and switch.

  She pulled the napkin out from under the book with an exasperated sigh. She went to the phone and dialed quickly so her books wouldn’t have any more say in the matter.

  “Hello?” Julian answered. His voice was strangely calming. She sat down, right where she was, in the middle of the floor. He was that good.

  “Julian, this is Chloe.”

  “Chloe sweetheart, I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

  “I’m sorry about Saturday night.”

  “Don’t be. I know how a man gets when he thinks he’s lost the love of his life.”

  “I know you do,” she said with sympathy. “Still no word from your girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Have you, um, learned anything more about who Jake might have slept with?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. But I’m hurt. Is that the only reason you called?”