Runaway Mistress

  “Does this mean you’re going to come regularly?”

  “I don’t know if I can. But this was fun, thanks.”

  “All right, ladies, enough chatter. Get a mat and let’s stretch out!”

  The tempo of the music calmed as they went through the motions of stretching and doing some floor exercises. It was during this phase that Jennifer’s mind wandered to last night and her most amazing lovemaking with Alex. He was completely there for her, putting her needs and desires ahead of his own. His touch was thrilling, his technique creative and satisfying, his character loving. She had never felt like this before.

  And he was there with her when she woke up in the morning. He was there for her.

  This was an entirely new experience. Even as a child, she had been conscious that the needs of someone else superceded her own. Although her mother loved her very much, she couldn’t really take care of her. Jennifer had to look out for Cherie.

  “Now, doesn’t that feel better?” Rose asked her as they were leaving the class.

  “Much,” she replied quietly. It was just beginning to occur to her that she could bring elements of her old life to her new. She didn’t have to choose between being an overpaid mistress or an underpaid waitress. She didn’t have to choose between being a caretaker or being taken care of. There was a vast and interesting area in between. “But I have a lot of things to straighten out,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Oh. Sorry, Rose. My mind was wandering. Listen, thanks so much. I’ll wash these things and get them back to you right away. After a quick shower, I’m going to write to Louise and tell her Alice is a little—I don’t know—under the weather.”

  “Oh, phoo. Neurotic, that’s what she is,” Rose said.

  Jennifer found that her roommate was the same—morose and without appetite. She sat on the floor beside her and tried to hand-feed her a morsel, but Alice wasn’t interested. She wrote a long e-mail to Louise and mentioned Alice but didn’t want to alarm her. Jennifer promised that she was watching her closely.

  It was the end of May; Jennifer had been in Boulder City for three months and her life was completely changed. She was dead in love with Alex and had no idea what to do next. She had never dared believe life had happy endings for girls like her—poor girls from disjointed and dysfunctional families. But before she could address that, she had to find a way to straighten out that mess in Florida.

  Doc Gunterson called to say Alice’s blood work was fine, and aside from being a little overweight, she appeared to be in the best of health.

  It was five o’clock when there was a knock at the door. With a lift in her chest, hoping it would be Alex home from work, she rushed to open it. But it was a man in a suit. With a briefcase. “Doris Bailey?”

  She felt a jab of fear. “Yes?”

  “My name is Wendell Phillips. I’m an associate with the Johnson McGee law firm. I’m afraid I have some bad news. Mrs. Louise Barstow passed away yesterday in her London flat. She was found by her charwoman.”

  Jennifer’s hand went to her mouth and tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, she can’t be gone,” she said.

  “The word I was given was that it was a peaceful departure. She was sitting in her favorite chair with a morning cup of tea and a newspaper. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ve been asked to notify Mrs. Gillespie and Mr. Nichols, as well.”

  “It’s Miss Gillespie. Rose has never married,” she said with a sniff. “Alex Nichols is not at home. He’s a Las Vegas police detective. Should I call him at work?”

  “That would probably be best. And Miss Gillespie?”

  “Let me go with you,” she said. “Oh, God, poor Rose. Louise was her very best friend.”

  Rose took the news stoically. She was relieved that Louise had slipped away painlessly, as though just going to sleep. “But I hate that she was so far away. I wish she’d been next door.”

  “She left instructions to be cremated,” Mr. Phillips informed them. “What shall I tell them is to be done with the remains?”

  “Oh, get a gaudy urn of some kind and ship her home,” Rose said with a flourish of one hand, turning away. Jennifer heard a sniff. “We’ll take care of her. We know what to do.”

  “Let me get something for you, Rose. A cup of coffee or glass of wine?”

  “Thanks, but if you wouldn’t be hurt…” She turned back and there was a little glistening in her eyes, and for the very first time since Jennifer had known Rose, she looked drawn. As though she’d aged suddenly. Her face, usually taut and smooth, seemed lined. Her eyes were very sad. “If you wouldn’t be terribly hurt, I’d like to be alone for just a bit.”

  “Sure,” Jennifer said. “Of course. I’ll go home and call Alex.”

  “Do. He’ll have a hard time with this. He adored Louise. Comfort him, and I’ll be along after a while.”

  She wants to have a good cry, Jennifer thought. And she wants to do it alone.

  “We have a little paperwork,” Mr. Phillips said. “But I believe everyone involved in Mrs. Barstow’s estate is clear on what she intended.”

  “Yes,” Rose said. “There’s plenty of time for all that. I’ll be glad to call you.”

  As they walked back to Louise’s house, Jennifer said, “Mr. Phillips, I’m simply house-sitting for Louise. I’m taking care of her dog. Is there something I should be doing? Should I turn Alice over to someone else and move out?”

  “I’m sure there’s no hurry on that, Ms. Bailey. For the next couple of weeks, at any rate. Sit tight and I’ll be in touch.”

  “Poor Alice. Mr. Phillips, she’s very, very old. She can’t change roommates too many times. She’s having a rough time right—” She suddenly stopped both talking and walking. Wendell Phillips paused and turned to look at her. “What time did you say Louise died?”

  “Sometime yesterday morning. Her charwoman went to the flat around 9:00 a.m. and, according to the surgeon, she hadn’t been gone long.”

  “And the time difference is—?”

  “It’s seven hours later in London.”

  “I see,” she said, continuing on to the house. When she got to the door she turned and extended her hand. “I’ll call Alex now.”

  He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her as she was going inside. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Alice was still lying on the floor, looking into Louis’s office. Jennifer went to her, kneeled down and, with gentle hands, lifted her head. “She’s gone, Alice,” she said. “It was gentle and now she has no pain when she walks. And she’ll be waiting for you. It’s going to be okay now.” She kissed Alice’s head and stroked her for a moment.

  Alice looked up at her and then slowly got to her feet. She walked over to her food dish, looking back at Jennifer once, and then began to eat.

  After calling Alex, Jennifer hooked Alice up and walked her to the diner. It was the most efficient way she could think of to get the word out that Louise was gone. This time Alice behaved as usual—slipping under the bench at the front of the building and waiting patiently for her water and biscuit. It seemed she was done looking for Louise.

  Jennifer got there just as the changing of the guard between Hedda and Gloria was taking place, and everyone present accepted the news with sadness and loss. She gave Hedda a hug and told her to go home, get all her homework done and get some beauty sleep. Just a few days till the prom, and not a time for a sixteen-year-old to be sad.

  “Should I come over tonight?” Hedda asked in a whisper.

  “I want to be sure Rose is all right, and she might not feel like visiting. But of course if you need a place…”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sure,” she said somberly.

  Jennifer hopped up on a stool at the counter. “I just don’t want to go home yet. I can’t stand to think there won’t be an e-mail from Louise.” And there was another small matter—her house-sitting job was likely to come to an en
d very soon. Where was she to go? She wasn’t ready to even think about returning to Florida.

  Gloria delivered a couple of plates of the house special—meat loaf with a decidedly Spanish flair—then sat down beside Jennifer. “Buzz, I think our girl here could use a little bump.”

  “What say, Doris?” he asked, already pulling the flask out of his pocket.

  “Thanks, but not in the coffee, okay?”

  Buzz grabbed a coffee cup from the rack under the counter. He poured the amber liquid neat into the cup and then fixed her an ice water chaser.

  She took a tiny, tentative sip. It made a nice warm path down her throat, a calming river of, to her surprise, delicious brandy. “Buzz, that’s wonderful,” she said appreciatively.

  “You thought it was some old rotgut, didn’t you?” he grinned. “You oughta know I take better care of my people than that.”

  She took another sip. “That’s a very expensive brandy, Buzz.”

  His eyebrows under his floppy hair lifted and he didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “Why am I not surprised that a little bald girl in army dungarees would know something like that?”

  “Oh,” she said, surprised. “I tended bar once or twice. You know.”

  “Hmm,” Gloria said. “I’ll have a shot of coffee, Buzz.” She took an appreciative sip of her own and said, “I’m going to miss that old girl, but I’m sure not going to miss watching her struggle for every step. At least I’ll sleep easy knowing her joints don’t pain her anymore.”

  “Amen,” Buzz said.

  “I wish old Harmon could slip off like that. Poor old guy—I know he’s miserable half the time. I can see it in his eyes. I even thought about saving up drugs—but the problem is I don’t have any really good ones. The kind that’ll kill you.”

  “Gloria!”

  “It’s no kind of life, is all,” she said. “But that old Louise, for all her struggling down the sidewalk every morning, I think she had a good time. Don’t you, Buzz?”

  “I do,” he said with a nod.

  “Imagine that old woman dividing her time between two cemeteries!” They both had a good laugh over that and Buzz got himself out a cup and tipped his flask three times.

  “If Doris here is going to start drinking with us, I’m going to have to buy a bigger flask,” he said, and again they laughed until they had tears in their eyes.

  But not Jennifer. She just stared at them. “Did you two get an early start today or something?” she asked.

  “No, honey. This is a little on the early side. I say we drink to Louise. May she find peaceful rest.”

  They lifted their coffee cups, clinked and put them back on the counter. The two diners got up from their booth, wandered over to the counter to pay Buzz, and left. Gloria went to bus their table.

  “Does Louise have any family anywhere?” Jennifer asked Buzz.

  “I don’t believe so. In thirty years, I’d have heard.”

  “Not even a great-great niece or nephew?”

  He shrugged. “I think you’re looking at her family right now. And, of course, her best friends, Rose and Alex and Alice.”

  “I’m a little worried about something,” she said. “The lawyer who came with the news said I should just stay put for the time being, and of course I can’t even think of leaving Alice, but I want to do what’s right. Should I be clearing out?”

  Gloria came up behind her with her arms full of dishes. “It’s like you say, girl. You can’t leave Alice. You just stay put till someone says otherwise.”

  “Hmm,” she said, taking another sip. She had investment and bank accounts, not to mention personal items in Florida. The way she had felt yesterday, she could put off getting that all sorted out for months to come. But in this case, it might be necessary to get that mess in Florida handled soon; it might be the only way she could get on with her life, afford the rent and expenses that would no doubt come due. She was no expert in legal affairs, but it seemed to her that if someone died, their accounts were closed.

  “I’d better get going,” she said. “Thank you for the nip, Buzz. I don’t think it cleared my head, but it might’ve calmed my nerves.”

  “Doris, I know I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s real important you remember that Alice isn’t going to be far behind Louise.”

  “I know,” she said, and she said it very, very softly.

  “You’re fond of that old dog, it’s very plain to see.”

  “I am. But I’m a big girl. And I think she wants to be with Louise.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. Reckon they have pooper-scoopers in heaven?”

  Jennifer hadn’t been home long when Alex came to the door. She threw herself into his arms and that’s when the tears came. “I know we shouldn’t be so surprised,” she cried. “But you just don’t know how much I depended on Louise. We e-mailed every day. Sometimes they were so brief. Sometimes just a couple of lines. But there were times I sat writing for what seemed hours.” She sniffed back tears and looked into his sad eyes. “I told her everything before she died. Everything.”

  “And let me guess—she accepted you completely.”

  “Completely.”

  “It was a lucky day for all of us that you ran into Louise and made friends.”

  “You can’t know how much I owe her.”

  “Rose isn’t answering her phone or door,” he said.

  “I’m not surprised. She asked to be left alone for a little bit. I think she wanted to have a good cry. You know how proud Rose is—appearances are everything to her.”

  “I’ll let her be for a while,” he said. “I’ll try again later.”

  “Alex, Louise died at about two in the morning. Nine o’clock in the morning in London.” She could see that he wasn’t making any connection. “I think maybe she swung by and said goodbye to Alice.”

  He frowned, thinking about that. And as he remembered the howling from the night before, a smile grew on his lips. “Wouldn’t that be just like her. How’s Alice doing now?”

  “All calmed down. I really think she got riled up and wanted to go with Louise.”

  Alice was back in her usual spot, and he went over there to give her a pat. “You’ll be going with her soon enough, old girl. You stay with us for a while, okay?”

  Alice rolled over on her back, acquiescing.

  Jennifer came up behind him and put her arms around him. “Will you be all right if you don’t have Louise to look after?”

  He rubbed the arms that circled him. “As long as I have you.”

  “You have me.”

  She asked him to stay with her. She had never before asked a man to stay the night. But for probably the first time in years this solitary person who’d survived quite well without friends just didn’t want to be alone. In fact, loneliness was a new feeling for her, and she welcomed it. It meant there were people in her life she craved.

  They turned on the TV and nestled into the couch cushions, their bare feet on the coffee table and Alice lying peacefully in the space between the sofa and table, under their raised legs. Alex found some basketball game but turned the volume down low. By nine o’clock he was sleeping, every once in a while emitting a snore or soft grumble. She thought about just pulling the throw at the end of the sofa over the two of them, and then remembered Rose.

  There were soft lights behind the blinds in Rose’s living room, so Jennifer knocked. Rose didn’t answer, so she rang the bell. Still nothing, so she pounded on the door. Since that didn’t bring any answer, either, she became worried. Her fleeting and hysterical thought was, I can’t lose both of them in one day! She turned the knob and, of course, the door opened right up. No one bothered with locks around here except police officers and women who were hiding out.

  There were candles lit in the small living room and Rose sat in the corner in her chair. She wore a pale pink dressing gown and held a box of tissues in her lap. “Louise was right,” she said. “We really should start locking our doors.”
br />   “I’m sorry, Rose. I couldn’t help it—you scared me by not answering.”

  “Now you see I’m fine, you can go.”

  “Alex is also worried,” she said.

  Rose didn’t say anything.

  Jennifer went closer and knelt on the floor before Rose. She reached for her and lay her head in Rose’s lap. Almost reluctantly, Rose began to pat the soft cap of dark hair that covered her head.

  “Where did you come from, little Doris? How is it you’ve come into our lives and taken Louise’s place?”

  She lifted her head in surprise. “I can’t have done that, Rose. I miss her, too. We were becoming good friends through our e-mails every day.”

  “You know I don’t have a computer,” Rose said.

  “We’ll get you one.”

  “I don’t want one. I think it’s devil-inspired. I’m saying, I never e-mailed her.”

  “I know…”

  “But I talked to her every day.”

  Jennifer’s eyes were wide with shock. “You never—”

  Rose was shaking her head. “I never said.” She swallowed. “She was my oldest friend. Even though there were others I knew longer, Louise was my oldest and dearest friend.”

  “You talked every day? She wasn’t sick, was she? Was it like they said—that she just went to sleep?”

  Rose nodded. “I told her all about you. About you and Alex, about the party at Adolfo’s house. About Hedda and the prom. She was proud of you. She said, ‘See Rose, I told you she was quite a girl.’ And I said, phoo. She’s no girl. She’s thirty already and hasn’t begun to settle down.”

  Jennifer felt the tears wet her cheeks.

  “I wasn’t able to tell her about Alice acting up. There was no answer at her flat. She may have already been gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “I scolded her for not telling you about Rudy and she said it wasn’t that important. She said she wasn’t going back and forth for quite the same reasons anymore. It was more or less habit. She was an odd old duck. But so good. And she was more than ready. She complained much more often about the pain of her joints. It was, at times, unbearable. But do you know the worst for me? To know she was alone. I didn’t want her to be alone when she died.”