North of Montana

“Do you believe this? Could you die?”

We are splashing through a half inch of water that covers the oak floor. The somewhat amusing source of this minor flood is a utility closet where rainwater is pouring in through the light switches and cascading in shiny sheets down the walls. A young girl wearing a white pants uniform is methodically moving everything that was in the closet to another room. Brooms, a vacuum cleaner, piles of wet rags, detergents, flowerpots, tennis racquets, and a slide projector are piled on the counter as she retrieves them one by one.

Whereas the girl moves with deliberate slowness, her boss is going at a couple of thousand rpms.

“I’ve seen this movie, thank you very much, I don’t need to see it again.”

She swipes at the water, slams a bucket with futility against the wall.

“Last year during the storms we had a mud slide. At three in the morning that whole mountain came roaring down, I thought we were all going to die.”

Through generous windows, past a brick barbecue area and planters crammed with impatiens, I can see a hill bandaged by a sheet of concrete.

“It tore through here like a bulldozer, took off the whole back of the house. We just finished remodeling the kitchen a month ago. I am absolutely beside myself. Where is Dirk?”

While mopping at the water she picks up a radio phone and angrily demands that Dirk, apparently the contractor, be beeped, car-phoned, lassoed, or otherwise delivered to her door immediately.

I don’t dream about kitchens, but if I did, this would be the one. Teddy Feign, still yakking fiercely into the mouthpiece, gestures for me to sit on a comfortable stool, which even has a backrest, at an is land with two stainless steel sinks set in about fourteen acres of polished green marble. The room is so large you can hear the air rushing past tiers of glossy white cabinets. You can tell it is a brand-new kitchen by the scent of fresh paint and the hot white clarity of the recessed lighting — the bulbs haven’t been there long enough to get filmed over with cooking grease.

She hangs up and drums short perfect nails manicured in clear polish on the edge of the marble. (If you’re going to use clear, why get a manicure?)

“Coffee,” she decides. “Now. You?”

“Great. How well do you know the Eberhardts?”

“I was their spirit guide to the mysteries of the West Coast.”

She wiggles her fingers and makes a mocking spirit face.

“They had just moved here, they knew nobody. I introduced them, I had them for dinner, I made an open invitation to play on my tennis court, I even said they could use my pro for free—”

The woman can get out more words per second than rounds off an AK-47.

“I referred patients to Randall, let their kids swim in my pool, although that didn’t work out very well—”

“I heard there was an accident.”

Her version is uncharacteristically succinct: “Laura fell in, I wasn’t home, she was fine.”

Then she pauses to tick off the rest of her kindnesses:

“And I tried but did not succeed in getting Claire out of those plaid flannel shirts of hers from L.L. Bean.”

“So you know them pretty well.”

“Intimately. Before they dropped me, but that’s another story.”

She opens cabinet doors, assembling cups, coffee, and measuring spoons in rapid succession.

“I understand there’s been some antagonism between you and Mrs. Eberhardt.”

“How would you know that?”

“It wasn’t hard to find out.”

She regards me curiously and pushes the glasses up on her nose. They have heavy black frames like some dorky engineer would have worn in the fifties, but on her fair delicate face they look exceedingly hip. Although she must be close to forty her dishwater-blond hair is cut in a rock ’n’ roll shag. She is wearing a black cashmere sweater and tight black crushed velvet leggings. The only accent to break up all this basic black is a pair of round diamond stud earrings with stones the size of raisins.

“Would you say the Eberhardts are under financial pressure?”

“Sports injuries? Are you kidding? Randall’s practice is huge.”

“Is he a big spender?”

She snorts. “He drives an Acura.”

“Have you ever seen him take drugs?”

“Never.”

“Has he ever offered drugs to you?”

“I don’t do drugs.”

“Maybe he wrote a prescription for you or your husband for some sleeping pills as a favor.”

“Never happened.”

“Tell me about his character. Would you say he’s one of these doctors on an ego trip?”

“Randall?”

She laughs and pulls the levers on a big polished copper contraption for making cappuccino like they have in restaurants.

“The first time I met Randall Eberhardt he was running down the street wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants, waving a frozen pork chop.”

Steam spits from the machine and she flinches away, murmuring, “Thing is out to kill me.” Then, back in control of her coffeemaker: “I’d gone over to take Claire out to lunch and I was just getting out of my car when I saw a good-looking man with a very nice chest running down the street after a dog that had shown up in their backyard, some pathetic little runt Randall called a ‘homeless dog,’ because it had that empty look in the eyes you see in homeless people. It wouldn’t get close enough even to be fed and eventually it just ran away. Here was this lady he didn’t know from Adam getting out of a Mercedes in an Armani suit and here he was in grungy sweats running after a stray dog, not at all embarrassed, and I thought, What a lovely guy.”

The machine rattles and a rich intense aroma pours out along with dark coffee into two large white cups.

“In fact I can’t imagine what Randall could have done to interest the FBI.”

“You tell me.”

“Gee, maybe he smoked dope in the sixties.”

I give her a goofy smile.

“You were close to his wife until she dropped you, you said. What was that about?”

Teddy Feign frowns. She’s not getting what she wants from me but she’s in this, she’ll play it out a little longer.

“The first time I met Claire was in that closet. It was leaking then just like it’s leaking now.” She points accusingly with a spoon coated with foamy milk.

“After the mud came down it was still raining and we had to get plastic over the hill to keep it from completely burying the house. We needed bodies. It was six in the morning. I had Reyna call everybody we knew, including everybody in my daughter’s preschool class.”

Teddy Feign walks across the slick oak flooring in her rubber boots and sets the steaming cups on the counter.

“Claire Eberhardt was the only one from the class who came.”

Her voice quavers.

“We had my husband’s relatives helping out and some hombres he hired on the spot in front of a hardware store, and I came back from Zucky’s with lunch for everyone and I find this strange woman with long black hair in a velvet headband wearing a Fair Isle sweater, trying to sweep three inches of water out of that closet. I asked if we’d met and she told me she was one of the mothers from the preschool. We had called every one of the parents from Diedre’s class. These are people we had birthday parties with and play-dates with and movies and dinners …” She continues with evident pain, “I didn’t even know Claire Eberhardt, but she was the only one who got off their butt and came over here to help somebody else. I was so touched by that, I lost it. I started to cry. She’s a nurse, she can be very comforting. So we sat here and ate hot pastrami sandwiches and became friends.”