somehow they kept it going. Last I heard, they were still together, living in Maryland somewhere.
The front drape moved a finger’s width, then Trish opened the door.
“Well, I’ll be darned! Deborah? Come on in!” She stood back to let me pass.
Time had been nice to her. She had to be early forties, yet her reddish-blonde hair fell softly around a smooth face, her breasts were still firm inside a cotton peasant blouse, her legs as magnificent as ever in cut-off jeans. She was barefooted, and I smelled the open bottle of nail polish on the coffee table just as I noticed that seven of her toes sported glistening pink polish.
On the couch sat another woman, in white slacks, tailored apricot silk shirt, and gold-tooled thongs. Short dark hair, green eyes, probably in her late thirties. Her triangular, catlike features were softened by the few extra pounds she carried.
“You and Margie know each other, don’t you?” asked Trish, and when I shook my head, she introduced us. “Deborah Knott, Margie McGranahan. Margie works in our Makely branch. Deborah’s my ex’s sister.‘
“Oh, yes,” said the woman with a smile. “You’re running for judge. Congratulations on your win Tuesday.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a chair opposite. “I like your sandals.”
Other women notice jewelry. I always notice shoes.
“These old things?” She stretched out a shapely foot and I saw that her toenails had been freshly painted in the same pink shade as Trish’s. “I got these on sale at the end of last summer. At the Bigg Shopp, of all places.”
She capped the nail polish and slid it across the coffee table to Trish, then began gathering up her purse, car keys, and a folder of papers.
“Did I interrupt?” I asked, noticing the opened bottle of wine and nearly empty glasses.
“No, no,” Trish reassured me. “Margie was just leaving. We did all we were going to do tonight.”
“My husband had to work late,” Margie explained, “so this was a good time for us to talk and catch up on some bank mess, but I really do need to get on home. When do you want to let’s try and finish this, Trish? Monday night?”
Trish had drifted over to the front door and opened it. “How about I give you a call when I see how things are working out?”
“Fine. Nice meeting you, Deborah,” said Margie. “And good luck in the runoff.”
She glanced out the open door and hesitated. “I’m afraid you’ve got me blocked in.”
“Oh, is that your car?” I was surprised. “I thought it was Trish’s.”
“No, mine’s in the garage,” said Trish.
“But isn’t it the same model?”
“Yes, isn’t that a funny coincidence? I reckon you were confused.”
As I backed my car out of the driveway so Margie McGranahan could leave, I had a vague sense of deja vu, yet no matter how I grabbed for that tag end of subconsciousness, the whole memory wouldn’t come.
Margie tapped her horn in thanks and sped off toward Makely as I pulled back into the drive.
Since Cotton Grove’s town limits were less than a thousand feet away, streetlights were few and far between out here. The trees had matured amazingly since I last stood in Trish’s yard. Coupled with the overgrown shrubbery all around, the place was effectively shielded from its neighbors on either side and had an unexpected sense of privacy for a town lot. The moon hadn’t yet risen, but Jupiter shone with a steady white fire in the western sky in competition with all the other bright points now pricking through the darkness.
“How about some wine?” asked Trish as I followed her back into the softly lit house.
“No thanks, but I could sure use some iced tea.”
Every refrigerator in the South holds a jug or half-gallon jar of strong sweet tea, and Trish’s was no exception.
I trailed her out to the kitchen and sat down at her breakfast table while she poured us both tea and then began stacking the dishwasher with the things she and Margie had dirtied at supper. She’d redone the room completely. Everything was blue-and-white gingham and white ruffles. Very feminine.
“Haven’t seen much of you these last few years,” said Trish. “What’ve you been up to? Besides work and running for judge, I mean?”
“You mean how’s my love life?”
She laughed. “Well, I was going to work up to that more subtle-like. I heard you were seeing Jed Whitehead again.”
“Who on earth told you that?”
A fork clattered to the blue-tiled floor and she stooped for it gracefully. One side of the loose scooped-neck blouse slipped off her shoulder and she pulled it up absent-mindedly. “Let me think. It was either Toni Bledsoe or Ina Jean Freeman, I forget which. Whichever it was said she saw you leaving some political dinner or something with Jed. Was she wrong?”
“No, I did ride home with him, but that was to talk about Gayle. I’m not actually seeing him.”
“Why not? I remember what a crush you used to have on him.”
“God! Was it all that obvious back then?” First Scotty Underhill, now Trish.
“Not really.” She finished stacking the plates, closed the dishwasher, and then sat down across the table from me. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed only Janie thought it was so cute.”
“Cute?” A brand-new wave of mortification washed over me. “Oh, Lord! Janie said that?”
Trish looked uncomfortable.
“What else?” I demanded.
“Well,” she said reluctantly, picking invisible crumbs off the blue tablecloth. “You know how you used to go over and help out before the baby was born? And then all that cheap babysitting after? Janie said that you’d probably work for nothing if Jed could just get himself home early enough to drive you back to the farm every evening.”
I could almost hear Janie’s ripple of laughter and for the first time in years I felt lumpish and homely again, the way I always got whenever I compared myself to her.
“I don’t know if you remember, but I tried to warn you,” said Trish. “She could be a real bitch, Janie.”
“Is that why you broke up with her?” I blurted.
Trish frowned. “Broke up?”
“Why you quit being friends with her. You and Kay Saunders and Janie used to run around a lot together, and then a couple of weeks before she died, it was like y’all had never met.”
She stood abruptly. “Look at me! I forgot to turn on the dishwasher.”
As she started to measure detergent and rearrange the load, I went down the hall to the bathroom. It was tacky, still, long as I was there and already snooping, I checked out her medicine cabinet. There was an extra toothbrush, but no condoms, no birth control pills, no shaving lotion or aftershave. Trish’s love life must be in even worse shape than mine, I decided.
The dishwasher was chugging and Trish was wiping cabinets and cleaning the sink when I returned to the kitchen.
“You don’t have time for another glass of tea, do you?”
“Sure,” I said cheerfully, ignoring the delicate hint to say thanks, but I probably ought to be getting on home. “So why did you all quit being friends?”
“I don’t really remember. It was so long ago.” She poured us both fresh glasses of tea, added several ice cubes and said, “Let’s go to the living room where it’s quieter.”
We carried our glasses inside, away from the noisy dishwasher. Trish immediately uncapped the nail polish, propped her foot on the coffee table, and returned to the three toenails that had been left undone. As the smell of acetone filled the room, she started to inquire about some of my farther-flung family, but I interrupted.
“Look, Trish, I didn’t ask about you and Kay and Janie just to be nosy. Gayle’s asked me to do an informal investigation-find out what was going on in Janie’s head back then, see if any of it had to do with why she was killed.”
She finished with her toes. A hair clip was lying on the end table and she gathered her long strawberry-blonde hair up into a loose knot on top of her head. “Aren’t you a little old to be playing Nancy Drew, Girl Detective?”
“It’s not much different from what I do now when I take depositions from witnesses before a trial,” I said stiffly.
“But I didn’t witness anything to do with her death.”
“How do you know? Maybe y’all’s fight triggered something.”
