Making it Write, page 15
The only breakfast things to clear off the table were some wrappers from the crackers. I spread the newspaper over the table in case he got carried away with the ink. I put out the supplies and invited him to sit. He didn’t need any demonstration this time and went at it right away. He had apparently been thinking about it because he started creating his own things. Meanwhile I asked him about his wife’s neighbors again.
‘I told you I watched her doing yoga in the yard,’ he said as he went wild with the art project. He’d lost interest in the hearts and flowers again and made a centipede with a creepy expression and a selection of spiders and bugs. ‘What about if we say I want to catch her in my web,’ he suggested.
‘That isn’t exactly what I would have thought of, but if that’s what you want.’ He nodded and I went back to my questions. ‘So that’s all you know about her?’
Caleb had fallen in love with a sort of fluorescent pea-green ink and was making what I assumed were outer-space creatures. ‘Sometimes there was someone with her.’
I tried not to appear too interested as I asked for a description of the person, which was – to use a cliché – like pulling teeth, since he wasn’t that observant. Once I heard that it was a he, I started to think Michael, but when Caleb added that his black hair was in a ponytail, I knew it couldn’t be. Michael had dark longish hair, but it was definitely not black and it barely brushed the back of his neck. Unfortunately, that was all I could get out of him.
I left him to work on his final cards and went into the kitchen to put together a new pot of vegetable stew.
When I went back to the dining room, Caleb held up the card he’d made. ‘Now we just need you to write something for the inside,’ he said.
I looked at it and tried not to show my reaction. It was original. He’d made a heart with a piece blacked out and a bug running away with something red in its mouth. Another had little green outer-space creatures and a pile of pumpkins with a witch flying over. ‘I thought I would make it seasonally appropriate,’ he said, clearly proud of his work.
I’d tried to get him to make something a little more romantic, but he was enamored with his own creations. It was a challenge to come up with some content that went along with his art. While he continued to play with the art supplies, I wrote: A piece of my heart is missing without you, You’re out of this world to me, There’s no trick with you, it’s all treat. And finally, I’m bugged that I can’t talk to you.
I hoped she had a sense of humor, which was doubtful since he didn’t seem to. But he could see the connection of what I wrote to the artwork. It was all like an equation to him. We made sure to add a line that it had been designed and executed for his Prime Number, as he called her, by him. He said he was going to leave one of them at her door with a bag of candy corn.
I thought of the quote I’d created for Maeve: that there was no good or bad art, just personal expression. His work was certainly that.
NINETEEN
There was something almost too quiet about Sunday night. Despite the way everything had become 24/7, it felt like the world took a last-minute deep breath before the new week began. But instead of doing the same myself, I was busy at my computer. I’d spent the whole time after Caleb left going through some more of Maeve’s notes. I found a half-done piece she’d written and gave it a polish. I kept her title of First Time the Star.
I wondered how Michael would react when we went to the first gallery reception where there were a number of the Scotty paintings on prominent display. If he was uneasy, he hid it well and, if anything, he acted as if he was in the place he was always meant to be. He’d never been one of the solitary artist types. He positively beamed when Zander introduced him to the invited guests. He had the story perfected, saying that the image of the Scotty had been lingering in his imagination since he was a kid. Seeing how happy he was after all his frustration for so long, all of it seemed worth it.
I was pleased with what I’d typed in the computer, and kept on going. This time I created an entry I called The House on Harper. I remembered how Maeve had talked about her attic enclave, and I found bits and pieces she’d noted about the house, though I knew that I still needed to get another look at the outside to pick out some details to include.
I remember the day we moved into the house. It was like a dream come true. Michael would have been happy in a high rise with a view of the lake, but I want a place with a porch and a yard. I had wanted to live on Harper for as long as I could remember. I had walked past those houses with their interesting details, thinking someday one of them would be mine. And the sales of the Scotty paintings made it a reality. We’d been sharing a small apartment, and Michael had used the room above the coffee house as a studio. The house gave us lots of space and the sun porch on the side was perfect for Michael’s studio. It would be what I considered part of the public space in the house. He liked the idea of company being able to wander through his studio to see his workspace and discover the painting he was working on.
For me, it was all about the third floor. I never thought of it as the attic. It was my own personal space. I wasn’t like Michael, throwing everything open for the world to see. I kept it for invited guests where I could limit their access. Michael and I were different, and I liked to think we complemented each other.
I planned to fill out the piece with the history of the street and the way it was like its own little neighborhood within the bigger one, after I’d had another look at the houses, so I could put in some specific details about the different styles.
I even found a way to use something from Rina’s rant and what I knew about Maeve’s relationship with Michael’s daughter. I called it Baggage.
I had to accept that Michael didn’t come unencumbered. Things would have been different if I had known he was married. I never would have gotten so involved until I knew he was free. But I have to wonder if his ex would have been any less hostile if they’d been divorced when he and I got together. I knew she was upset that his success had come when she received no benefit. She blamed me, but he was the one who wanted out. The personality of an artist?
I wanted to get along with his daughter, Suzzanna, but discovered that it had to come from both sides. She maintained a separate relationship with her father, becoming his assistant and part of his entourage. Did she simply not like me, or did she blame me for her parents’ breakup?
When I finally called it a night, I had a feeling of satisfaction that I’d found my stride with putting together the manuscript. No need for chamomile tea or crochet.
I spent Monday writing more entries. I used the poetic license that the publisher had talked about and filled out some snippets with my own words. It was pretty clear that things had changed. While Michael never tired of the gallery receptions and parties at the home of wealthy art collectors, Maeve did. I began to see entries in the journal that said things like: Not another party. Why do they even call them that? They’re no fun, for me anyway. I would call them endurance evenings. Michael doesn’t seem to care if I stay home.
And then it was Tuesday and time to get ready for the writing group. I always vowed to look over their work before the last minute, but it never turned out that way. Reading their material again never took long – it was writing the comments that took time. Having been on the other side of it, I knew how much the comments meant, even to Ed. Everyone was like Daryl in a way. They didn’t really want to hear criticism, but not insincere sugary kudos either.
Ed’s pages were easy. He’d made it clear he only wanted help with his grammar and punctuation. Even so I added, Good Work. Keep it up. I agonized with Daryl. I wanted to draw lines through half her copy and find a way to tell her it was crisper without all of it. But I didn’t. Instead, I reminded myself that a lot of it was taste. Not every style of writing pleased me, but it might be fine with other people. I ended up saying: Keep your eyes open for extra sentences. Always good to be straightforward. Definitely coming along. Keep going. Tizzy was easy. She actually wanted me to edit her writing. No problem if I took out sentences or made suggestions of word changes.
And then there was Ben’s. I’d left it to last because I had all kinds of emotions about it. He’d been doing so well at expressing himself and now he’d gone back to the cold, terse style he’d started with. He had zipped all his emotions back up. Finally, I wrote, What happened to the cop who helped the homeless guy? I want him back.
I wasn’t even sure that Ben would come to the group session. The way he’d rushed off the last time – not even coming in, but just dropping off the food from his sister’s and then saying he had to get home – had sounded ominous to me. Despite what Ben said about wanting his cake and eating it too, he didn’t seem cut out for juggling women.
When seven rolled around, Tizzy, Ed and Daryl all arrived together and went back to the dining room. I could hear by Ed’s tone that he was anxious to get started, and I was going to follow them when I heard the knock.
‘Sorry,’ Ben said, coming in the door. He had the impersonal cop tone, then it broke as he asked me if everything was OK. What was I supposed to say?
‘Things are kind of up in the air. I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ I said, trying to emulate his detached tone as the two of us joined the others.
Tizzy sensed the discomfort of the moment and tried to cover it. ‘One of Veronica’s clients died and she’s trying to piece together the person’s memoir.’ I flinched at what she said, even though it was hardly a secret anymore, and I had not told her not to tell anyone.
Nobody was interested in Ben anymore and everyone looked at me, waiting for me to say something. The only ones who didn’t know about Maeve were Ed and Daryl, so I decided I might as well fill them in. Ed was interested because he’d heard about the incident. Daryl seemed more concerned with my comments on the previous weeks’ pages, and kept trying to cover up the new tattoo of a rose on her finger.
I tried not to talk about my work during the group’s time, and I think they mostly agreed, but after what Tizzy had blurted out, they all wanted details. I explained the difficulty in the situation of working from note fragments. Tizzy interjected that she and I had already met the first Mrs Angel, only it was really Mrs Wolinski, which led to a discussion on pretentious names. The one that bugged them the most was when someone put their initial first before a middle name. That would have made me V. Helen Blackstone. I suppose it was pretentious, but it did kind of stand out.
As long as they were all talking about Maeve, I was curious about how they thought I should proceed. ‘You know it was the husband,’ Ed said. ‘It’s always the spouse. Maybe he wanted a divorce and it would cost too much and easier to just get her out of the way. You need to find out more about him. Maybe he was into kinky stuff that she didn’t like.’
Everyone else groaned at Ed’s comment, but he was right about needing to find out more about Michael Angel, as in, was there an immediate reason he might want to be free of Maeve? I put my hand up to stop the conversation and get down to their writing. I was surprised when Ed seemed disappointed. But he recovered quickly and wanted to be read first. His pages were the usual sexual acrobatics. And when anyone suggested he needed more romance and less heaving body parts, he glowered.
Tizzy and Daryl’s work were read without incident.
I couldn’t tell if Ben had any pages. Would he even have time since he was dealing with Assleigh? I had to stop thinking of her with that name or I’d mistakenly call her that to him. It would make me look like everything I didn’t want to be – petty and jealous.
He pulled out some rolled-up papers from his jacket pocket and handed them to Tizzy to read, explaining it was about a cop making a domestic violence call.
He had to deal with a fight between two women over a man. One woman was graspy, but also seductive and beautiful and they had a history together. The other woman was kind and funny. The cop talked to the two women, trying to make peace and figure out who to arrest. The seductive one was insistent that he should not arrest her. She blamed the other woman, and said that the man belonged with her. The kind, funny one offered herself up, saying she hadn’t meant to cause a problem between them. The man tells the cop to arrest the seductive one. And then it was time for comments.
‘You ought to spice it up a little. What about making it a ménage à trois?’ Ed said with a leer.
‘It sounds to me like it was a variation on the King Solomon story about the two women fighting over a baby,’ Tizzy offered.
‘And the judge says he’ll cut the baby in two and give them each half,’ Daryl added. ‘One of the women says to give the baby to the other woman rather than that. And then the judge determines that she loves the baby enough to be willing to give it up rather than allow it to be hurt, and he decides she should get it.’
Ed seemed perplexed until Tizzy explained it, and then he shrugged and said it wasn’t quite the same.
It was close enough to the situation with Ben to make me embarrassed, and I was glad that only Tizzy knew about the return of Ben’s wife. And maybe a little uneasy at the way he’d described the other woman. In my mind I’d imagined Ashleigh as a sharp-tongued shrew, not a hot babe. The other woman was kind and funny. OK, I knew that never in my wildest dreams would I be described as a hot babe, but kind and funny?
The group broke up after that and I followed them to the front door. Ben was in the rear and kept looking back at me. I had tried to keep a neutral expression, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job. ‘Do you need dinner?’ he said with a hopeful look.
‘I have my own,’ I said. ‘I made a big pot of vegetable stew.’
The others had already gone out my front door and he hung back. ‘Can we at least talk?’ he asked. ‘I need to explain.’
I am not good at being tough or even staying angry, so I agreed. Even though the others were already on their way down the stairs, he went through the charade of leaving.
When he returned, he was holding a piece of chocolate angel food cake. ‘You said you had dinner, but you didn’t mention dessert.’
I didn’t know what to do next and I was glad when he went right to explaining.
‘You know how you always say write what you know,’ he said with a small smile. ‘It just didn’t come off like I meant it. The woman who wins is the one who has substance and a heart. I played up the other one’s looks to exaggerate.’
‘You did a good job of talking your way out of that,’ I said.
‘That’s one of the things you learn in cop school. Conflict negotiation.’ He didn’t make a move toward the couch. ‘Well?’ And I picked up that he was waiting to see if I was going to need more. I didn’t want a flowery speech. I might write them for others, but they didn’t really do much for me. I always thought that the people I wrote love letters for got points for the effort more than the words. A bunch of clichés floated through my mind. It’s the thought that counts, actions speak louder than words and pretty is as pretty does. I smiled at him. ‘I’m good.’ I expected him to say he had to rush off as he’d done before, but he didn’t make a move and glanced toward the couch. It was probably a mistake, but I invited him to sit and offered him a bottle of the pumpkin ale with a warning that it wasn’t chilled.
TWENTY
Tizzy was going to be my wingman again, or should I say wing-person. It was getting so confusing with how people wanted to be referred to. Now there was ‘they’ and ‘them’ in addition to ‘he’ or ‘she’. I don’t think she really cared how I referred to her as long she got to come along. I was standing on the corner waiting for her. She had gotten Alex to let her go by telling him it was connected to the reception we’d gone to in his stead.
The sky was almost not cloudy, sort of like a half-smile. There was enough sunlight getting through to make shadows, but not bright enough to give the sky more than a faint apricot hue and certainly not enough to add any warmth. A breeze sent a shower of leaves cascading around me as it cut through my sweater, making me understand the value of a nylon jacket.
Tizzy came down the street with a spring in her step, obviously looking forward to our adventure. I was glad to have her along on another undercover mission. We were good at playing off each other’s conversation, which we wanted someone to overhear. It was also good to have another pair of ears to make note of what went on, too.
I had told her this was the combo plan. I was looking for material to put in the book and also to figure out who killed Maeve.
‘Ed’s probably right,’ Tizzy said when we’d started walking to the train. ‘Theo did more research and it pointed out that most murders were committed by people who knew each other. Who could be closer than a spouse?’
‘But what Theo really meant was that the murderer knew the murderee. There are other people who knew Maeve. After meeting Rina, I was ready to make a citizen’s arrest. But I need to consider everyone in Maeve’s orbit before I make a judgment. And, it’s always good to have proof, too.’
‘You have a point,’ Tizzy said. We went up the stairs to the Metra tracks just as the train was pulling in.
I had given up on talking to Michael Angel again. He’d been rather hostile, and I was worried that he’d press me more about seeing what I’d written. No way was I going to give him a chance to demand I change anything. It had been Tizzy’s suggestion we go to the gallery where we’d attended the reception. It was a public place, and it would seem natural to talk to them about Michael Angel and hopefully Maeve. I might even be able to check on his alibi for the time that Maeve was killed.
