Bright Young Women(37)
I heard my name, and Brian grabbed my hand protectively, his eye on the reporters who had broken away from their camera crews at the gravesite, pretending to head back to their cars when, really, they were eavesdropping, encroaching, paring their vicious angles.
“Pamela,” Tina wheezed. She’d had to run to catch up to me. Peripherally, I noticed she was carrying a thick stack of the funeral programs, which I did think was odd.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” I said stiffly. I was acutely aware of the way Brian was looking at Tina, then at me, then back at Tina, like he was owed an explanation about who she was and how I knew her. Anything I said would only invite some kind of patronizing reminder that it wasn’t my job to investigate a double homicide; that I needed to sit back and relax and trust the police would find the person who’d put Denise into the ground seventy years too soon. Whenever he said some version of this to me, Brian always sounded a touch irritated. Why did I have to insist on making everything so much more difficult than it needed to be?
“You haven’t returned any of my calls,” she said, matching my stride so that I was stuck between her and Brian, whose neck had assumed an ostrich-like quality. His face bowed toward Tina with an expression I can only describe as territorial. How dare this beautiful woman in the hat (that day a black fedora, bordering on a gag at that point) speak to me like we’d known each other ten years and not ten seconds?
“I’ve had a lot on my plate,” I said, eyes straight ahead. Later, there would be a picture in one of the newspapers of the crowd departing the funeral, and I would see that both Tina and Brian were turned toward me expectantly, like I was the deciding vote on a polarizing issue, which in some ways I was.
I was wary of Tina after my conversation with Sheriff Cruso. I’d advise you not to spend time alone with the woman, Pamela. I’d advise you not to spend any time with her at all, for your own safety.
“I’m leaving for Colorado on Friday,” Tina announced, “and I want you to come with me.”
It was such an absurd request that I laughed impatiently. “Excuse me?”
“Did she say Colorado?” Brian asked me, pointedly ignoring Tina, who pointedly ignored him right back.
We overtook a group of Denise’s high school friends, and Tina offered them one of the funeral programs. “This man is very dangerous,” she said to them as we passed. “Please keep your eye out for him.”
I looked at the stack in her hands and realized it wasn’t funeral programs she was hoarding. Tina had made a flyer using The Defendant’s mug shot. Large bold font blared the question she’d been asking since 1974: Have You Seen This Man? Tina had come to the funeral not to honor Denise but to implement her own version of a neighborhood watch. How tacky.
“What the hell is in Colorado?” Brian asked, addressing Tina for the first time.
“The prison where he escaped,” Tina said, exasperated. She didn’t have time to explain it again, especially not to him.
“The prison where who escaped?” Brian pumped my hand, hard. Hello. Answer me. “What is she talking about?”
Tina leaned close to me and said, “I’m staying at the Days Inn in Tallahassee. Practically roughing it. Come talk to me when you’re back.”
“You are clearly disturbed, and I’m going to kindly ask you to leave us alone now,” Brian said in the genteel twang that had surfaced here and there over the years when it served him, which is to say when he wanted something he wasn’t getting. Respect, namely. With his easy, loping pace and hippie hair frizzing in the humidity, he was suddenly repugnant to me. As hypocritical as a Christian lawmaker in a strip club.
“Well,” Tina said, “since you asked kindly.” She bumped my shoulder with her own. “Room two-oh-three.” With that, she did leave us alone.
Brian threw an arm around my shoulders and glued me to his side possessively. “All the crazies are out today, huh?”
I felt squeezed all over, like my skin was too tight for my body and I needed the seams let out. We were coming up on Aunt Trish helping Mrs. Andora into the limousine, and I saw my out: I ducked under Brian’s arm and reached Mrs. Andora just in time to cup the back of her head in my hand, the way cops do to suspects right before they put them into the metal cage of their cruiser, so that even if they fight the inevitable, they don’t hurt themselves.
* * *
I was putting out the second bowl of potato salad when Aunt Trish came up behind me.
“He’s ready for you, Pamela.” I turned to see she’d pressed too hard when she’d applied a fresh coat of lipstick, pruning the tangerine tip with her front two teeth.
“Remember to talk about Denise’s faith,” Aunt Trish coached me as we made our way into Denise’s childhood bedroom with the lilac walls and butterfly bedspread. A strange man was examining a piece Denise had hung in the space between the window and the chest of drawers.
“This one of Denise’s?” he asked, turning to me. He had a pencil tucked behind one ear, dark green eyes and thick black eyelashes, prominent horse teeth. His clothes were bad, his pants too short and his shirt too long. I couldn’t stop the terrible, snobbish thought from forming—he looked like he had dug his clothes out of a bin at the Salvation Army.
“That’s a weaving,” I said.