Читать книгу Wash And Die - Barbara Colley - Страница 8

For more reasons than she could count, the very last person on earth that Charlotte wanted to see was Joyce Thibodeaux, the ex-wife of her tenant, Louis Thibodeaux. Before Joyce had finally been forced to enter a substance abuse program at a local hospital, she’d caused enough trouble and heartache for ten people, including Charlotte.

Poor Louis. Charlotte sighed. Did he know that Joyce was out of the hospital earlier than she was supposed to be? More than likely, he didn’t. If he had known, he would have said something before he left Sunday afternoon for an assignment in New York.

“Oh, boy,” she whispered. Louis was going to be furious when he did find out. But who could really blame him after what Joyce had put him through. After abandoning Louis and their troubled teenage son years ago, she’d come back into his life and claimed to be dying. But it had all been a lie. Knowing how Louis felt about her alcoholism, and desperately needing to get out of California, Joyce had used the dying ploy to play on Louis’s sympathies and to cover up the fact that she was still a drunk.

Charlotte switched off the engine. Not looking forward to the confrontation with Joyce, she took her time gathering her stuff.

You did this…. This is your fault…. Joyce’s accusation on the day she was taken away by paramedics whispered through Charlotte’s head. Considering that she was partially responsible for helping Louis persuade Joyce to agree to a drug rehab program, Charlotte had a sneaking suspicion that Joyce wasn’t there to pay her a social visit—especially since Louis hadn’t given Joyce much of a choice in the matter. It was either agree to go into the program or fend for herself on the streets.

Knowing she couldn’t delay the inevitable confrontation any longer, Charlotte finally climbed out of the van. Both women simply stared at each other, and neither spoke as Charlotte approached the porch.

The first thing that caught Charlotte’s eye as she climbed the short flight of stairs was that Joyce had lost weight and was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she had entered the hospital weeks before. Joyce was a couple of years younger than Charlotte, and according to Louis, Joyce had always been a thin woman, but now she looked even skinnier than before. Of course the fact that she had pulled her red hair back tightly into a ponytail made her look even more emaciated.

She must be cold, Charlotte thought, her gaze taking in the short-sleeved T-shirt Joyce was wearing.

The next thing that Charlotte noticed was the large bundle at Joyce’s feet. It was wrapped in what appeared to be towels and tied up like a gift with a thin rope.

Since Joyce had nothing but the clothes on her back when she’d entered the hospital and had no income, and assuming that the bundle belonged to Joyce, Charlotte wondered how she had acquired anything during her time there. Of course it was always possible that Louis or Stephen had sent her a few of the clothes she’d left at Louis’s house. And, too, it was possible that one of the many charities could have contributed clothes to the hospital.

The second that Charlotte stepped onto the porch, Joyce abruptly stood and took a step toward her. Charlotte immediately tensed, unsure just what to expect.

“Hi, Charlotte.”

To Charlotte’s surprise, Joyce’s tone was subdued, as was the expression on her face. With a nod of her head, she returned the greeting. “Hello, Joyce.”

As they stood staring at each other, an awkward silence stretched out into several long minutes. Joyce was the first to finally break the silence. “I—I know that I’m probably the last person on earth that you want to see, and I apologize for showing up without calling first. But frankly, I was afraid that you wouldn’t take my call either. Neither Louis nor Stephen will answer my phone calls. And yeah, I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. After what I did, what can I expect?”

A tear rolled down Joyce’s cheek, and Charlotte felt the resentment inside crumble.

“Truth is, I’m scared, Charlotte. I was just released from the hospital. They don’t have enough beds for the psych patients as it is, never mind those of us with addiction problems, so they released me to free up a bed.” Joyce shrugged. “And now I have nowhere else to go and nobody to turn to.” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

“I’m scared, Charlotte. Scared to stay by myself. Right now, I’m clean and I’m sober, but I’m terrified of falling off the wagon again. The doctors told me that my fears were normal, and that after a few days on the outside, I’d get better. I do plan to get my own place as soon as possible, but I need somewhere to stay besides on the street until then. I know I have no right to ask you this, but could I please stay with you—just until I find my own place?”

More tears filled Joyce’s eyes and spilled over, but Charlotte steeled herself against the pity she felt and reminded herself that Joyce had proven to be a habitual liar…and a consummate actress.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…. Judge not, lest ye be judged….

When the Bible verses popped into her head, Charlotte knew in that moment what she had to do. Faults or no faults, she couldn’t turn Joyce away, but try as she might, she couldn’t stem the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Just because it was the right thing to do didn’t mean she liked it.

Before she could change her mind, Charlotte forced herself to nod her head, and though the words were like chewing nails, she said, “Yes, you can stay here for a couple of days, but just until you find your own place.”

The look of relief on Joyce’s face was heart-wrenching. “Thank you, Charlotte,” she gushed. “I promise I won’t be any trouble, and I promise you won’t regret it.”

Yeah, right. Famous last words….

Ignoring her inner voice of doom and gloom, Charlotte nodded again, then turned and stepped over to the front door of her half of the double and unlocked the door.

The moment that Charlotte entered the living room, her little parakeet, Sweety Boy, began to squawk. “Missed you, squawk, missed you.”

Charlotte grinned. “Good boy,” she crooned. “And I missed you too.”

Joyce closed the door behind her, and upon hearing the exchange between Charlotte and the bird, she stopped in front of his cage and frowned. “Never have liked birds,” she muttered. “Especially in the house.” After a moment, she faced Charlotte. “Why on earth would you want to teach that wretched thing to talk?”

Oh, boy, here we go. Not only was it a rude thing to say, but it amazed Charlotte that Joyce would be so…so…inconsiderate of her feelings about her pet. Charlotte never had been the type who liked confrontations, so she counted to ten before she tried to speak. Then, swallowing back the sudden spurt of temper she’d felt, she chose to change the subject, instead of answering Joyce. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the guest room. And by the way, I hope you like red beans and rice. That’s what I was planning on eating for supper tonight.”

“Oh, anything’s okay with me, especially after that awful hospital food. One thing, though, you wouldn’t happen to have some garlic French bread to go with the beans and rice, would you? I love garlic French bread.”

Usually, Charlotte fixed her plate at suppertime, then went into the living room to watch TV while she ate, or sometimes she’d sit at the table and read, if she was into a good book. Since she had company, she decided they should probably eat at the table.

“That was delicious,” Joyce told her after they had eaten and were clearing the table.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Charlotte said as she unloaded the dishwasher. “It’s the recipe that my mother always used.”

While Charlotte began stacking the dishwasher with dirty dishes, Joyce seated herself at the table. “Is your mother still living?”

“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “She and my father both died in an accident while I was in college.”

“You went to college?”

Joyce’s astonished tone put Charlotte immediately on the defensive. Ever so carefully she closed and locked the dishwasher, when what she really wanted was to slam it shut. As she rinsed and dried her hands, once again she made herself count to ten to calm down. Finally, she faced Joyce. “Yes, Joyce,” she said evenly. “I went to college—Tulane University, in fact. But I never finished. After my parents were killed, I had to quit and go to work.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

Charlotte shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“I never went to college,” Joyce confessed as Charlotte seated herself across from Joyce at the table. “But I did go to beauty school and became a cosmetologist. At first, that’s how I made my living when I moved to California. I actually worked for one of the big studios for a while.” Joyce sighed, then bowed her head. In a voice barely above a whisper, she added, “But all the glamour in the world can’t take the place of family.” She raised her head and looked Charlotte in the eyes. “Leaving Louis and Stephen was the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life—that, and drinking. And not a day goes by that I don’t regret what I did.”

Charlotte could almost believe that—for once—Joyce was telling the truth. But then she remembered how convincingly Joyce had played the part of a dying woman.

“I don’t know just how much Louis told you about me,” Joyce continued, “though I’m sure that none of it was good, but I want you to know that I’m not all bad. You’ve been really kind to me—much kinder than I deserve or could have expected.” She paused, then, with a tight-lipped smile and a shrewd look, she said, “Especially considering that you’ve got the hots for my ex-husband.”

Charlotte’s mouth dropped open, and all she could do was stare at Joyce speechlessly. Her immediate reaction was to deny Joyce’s crude words, but the denial seemed to stick in her throat. How could she deny Joyce’s accusation when, deep down, on a level she’d rather ignore, she knew it was true.

“Oh, don’t look so outraged,” Joyce told her with a laugh. “Lighten up. I can’t say as I blame you. My ex is a good-looking man for his age. And if you can get past the male-chauvinist side of him, he’s also pretty nice. Besides, as much as I regret what I did, I’ve tried to move on with my own life, and I can hardly fault Louis for doing the same.”

“I guess not,” Charlotte finally said, for lack of anything better to say.

Joyce shrugged, then sighed. “There’s also something else I need to tell you.”

Great! Just wonderful. It took every bit of self-control Charlotte could muster to keep from groaning aloud. Why me, Lord? she wondered. The last thing she wanted was to be Joyce’s confessor.

“I tried to tell Louis, but after…” Joyce’s voice trailed off, then she took a deep breath. “After he found out that I’d lied to him about dying, he wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.” She twisted her mouth into a grimace, then shrugged. “Anyway, when Louis found me in California, I wasn’t really a homeless drunk then. Oh, I’d been a homeless drunk before, but that particular time happened to be one of my sober periods.” Joyce suddenly leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I was actually working undercover as a snitch for a police detective and just pretending to be a drunk.”

Charlotte frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand. If you were working with the police, then why on earth would you lie to Louis to begin with?”

“Because the only way I could know for sure that he would bring me back to New Orleans was if he believed I was dying. You see, my cover got blown, and some really bad dudes were after me. I needed to get out of town fast.”

Up until that moment, Charlotte had believed Joyce, but the snitch story was more than she could swallow.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Joyce said, her tone belligerent.

Time to take off the kid gloves. Charlotte leveled a no-nonsense look at her. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Joyce. I truly don’t know what to believe about you anymore. I want to believe you—I really do—but trust is a delicate thing. Once trust is broken, it’s almost impossible to win back.

“And another thing, if you’d been honest with Louis in the first place about these so-called bad dudes, he would have helped you. For pity’s sake, Joyce, he’s a retired police detective, plus he works as a security guard now. Who better to have on your side? I’m telling you, he would have helped you.”

Joyce simply stared at Charlotte with a pitying expression on her face, and then she slowly shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t have, Charlotte. Not in my reality. Maybe in yours, but not in mine.”

On Wednesday morning, Charlotte poured birdseed into Sweety Boy’s feeder, then placed it back inside his cage. “There you go, Boy,” she murmured, giving the little parakeet a head rub with her forefinger. “Now you be a good little bird today. We’ve got company, so none of that squawking and carrying on like you do when Madeline and Louis come over.”

For the life of her, Charlotte had yet to figure out why the silly parakeet reacted like he did when her sister, Madeline, and Louis were around. There had been a couple of times she’d had to remove him and his cage from the room to keep him from injuring himself as he’d thrashed against the inside of the cage.

“Be good,” she repeated as she rubbed his head one last time. Not for a second did Charlotte believe the little bird understood what she said, but she did believe he could understand the tone of her voice. Or was that dogs? Whichever, she thought. Talking to Sweety Boy beat talking to herself all the time.

She pulled her hand out of the cage and latched the door. Glancing over at the cuckoo clock, she decided that if she hurried, she could get the dishwasher unloaded before it was time to leave for work.

With a sigh, Charlotte hurried to the kitchen. Today was her regular day to work for Sandra Wellington. Sandra’s Italianate-style mansion was gorgeous on the outside and exquisitely decorated on the inside, but cleaning it usually took her all morning and half the afternoon. Sandra was a really sweet woman who paid Charlotte better than any of her other clients, but she was a dreadful housekeeper.

Charlotte had just put away the last of the clean dishes when Joyce, fully dressed, entered the kitchen.

“Thank goodness,” Joyce said. “I was so afraid I was going to miss you.”

“You almost did. I’m just about to walk out the door.”

“Well, if it isn’t too much trouble, I was wondering if I could catch a ride with you as far as the streetcar line on St. Charles Avenue. I have several appointments lined up today to look at rental places. I’m ready to go,” she added. “I just need to grab my bag and my lunch.”

“Your lunch?”

Stains of scarlet darkened Joyce’s cheeks. “Well—ah—I—I hope you don’t mind, but—but I took the liberty of making myself a sandwich last night before I went to bed, so all I’d have to do this morning was grab it out of the refrigerator.”

“I don’t mind, Joyce.”

“Oh, good. And I can ride with you?”

“Sure, just hurry,” Charlotte answered. She’d be willing to take Joyce to Timbuktu if it meant getting her out of her house sooner. “I’ll be in the living room waiting.”

“Great, and thanks!” Joyce did an about-face and headed toward the guest room.

After Joyce disappeared through the doorway, Charlotte went to the living room. But as she slipped on a sweater and picked up her purse, she couldn’t help wondering how Joyce intended to pay for an apartment. As far as she knew, Joyce didn’t have an income, and it was unlikely that she had any type of savings account. After what Joyce had pulled, it was for sure that neither Louis nor Stephen was giving her money.

So why don’t you just ask her?

Charlotte shook her head. “Nope!” she whispered. “Not gonna happen.” Besides, it was really none of her business.

At that moment, Joyce appeared in the living room doorway. “What’s ‘not gonna happen,’ and who are you talking to?”

Eyeing the red, white, and blue-striped tote bag Joyce was carrying, Charlotte chose to ignore the first question and answered the second one, instead. “Just gathering wool, as they used to say. Talking to myself.” She purposely turned to look at the cuckoo clock. “Good grief. Just look at the time. I’ve got to go.”

“I saw you looking at my tote bag,” Joyce said a few minutes later when Charlotte backed the van out of the driveway. “I’m sure you recognized it, but I’m hoping you won’t mind me borrowing it to carry my sandwich and things, just for today. My purse isn’t big enough to put the sandwich in. I found the tote bag in the bottom of the guest room closet and figured you didn’t use it much.”

“I don’t mind, Joyce, but next time I would appreciate you asking ahead when you want to borrow something of mine.”

When Joyce didn’t say anything, Charlotte figured she’d ticked her off. She glanced sideways, but Joyce had turned her head and was staring out the passenger window, so all she saw was the back of Joyce’s head.

Yep, she’s ticked.

Well, that’s just too bad, Charlotte decided. Joyce could just stay ticked off. Just because she’d agreed for Joyce to stay with her a couple of nights didn’t give the woman the right to take whatever she wanted without the common courtesy of asking first.

Shame on you. Shame, shame. Since when did you become such a grumpy, stingy old woman? Some grandmother you’re going to be.

For several seconds, Charlotte grappled with her conscience. Just the thought of her yet-unborn grandchild made her ashamed of how she’d been feeling and acting lately. Any day now, her daughter-in-law, Carol, would have the baby, and after years of longing, Charlotte would finally have a grandchild.

Charlotte decided to vow, right then and there, to try to do better, to try to be more charitable and thoughtful, the kind of grandmother that her grandchild would be proud of.

When Charlotte approached St. Charles Avenue, she flipped on the right blinker and pulled over near the curb. “There’s a streetcar stop across the street,” she said. As soon as she stopped the van, Joyce opened the door and climbed out.

“I probably won’t be home till late this afternoon,” she told Charlotte, her tone cold enough to freeze ice cubes. Without waiting for a response, she slammed the door and marched away.

No thank-you or even a kiss my butt. “Humph! So much for manners,” Charlotte grumbled as she shoved the gear into drive. And for a second, Charlotte was glad that she hadn’t apologized to Joyce, but only for a second. After all, what good was knowing the Golden Rule if you didn’t live by it and use it?

Charlotte was a bit later than usual finishing up at Sandra Wellington’s house. Out of the blue, Sandra had decided that she wanted Charlotte to clean out all of the bedroom closets.

Charlotte grinned to herself. She’d chosen to start with the walk-in closet in the master bedroom first. By the time she’d finished making Sandra choose what to keep, what to throw away, and what to give to charity, Sandra had changed her mind about cleaning the rest.

The day had warmed up considerably, and was so beautiful, that on her way home Charlotte lowered the driver’s and passenger windows almost halfway down to let fresh air into the van. If not for the errands she had to run later, it would have been the perfect day to sit out on the front porch and read one of the books that Bitsy had given her.

Except Joyce will probably be there.

Charlotte groaned. Maybe not…Maybe Joyce was still out apartment hunting. She could always hope.

That’s not very nice.

“Great,” she muttered. “Here we go again.” All day long, she’d been fighting with her conscience over Joyce, and she was good and tired of it. All she wanted was a little peace and quiet. Surely wanting some alone time couldn’t be so terrible, she thought as she turned onto Milan Street.

She was several houses down from her driveway when she noticed the black SUV parked across the street from her house. If she wasn’t mistaken, the SUV was the same one that she’d seen the day before.

Just before she turned into her driveway, she got a good glimpse of the license plate and the driver. Sure enough, it was the very same car and the very same man sitting in the driver’s seat.

Maybe it was time to find out just what he was up to, Charlotte decided as she shoved the gear into park and switched off the engine. Between having to worry about everyone that came to her door and putting up with Joyce, she’d just about had enough.

And if he’s up to no good?

“Time to find that out too,” she muttered.