Estate of Mind Read online

  “Thank you, Mama. And I do know how fond you are of him. I was just hoping you could be fond of a doctor as well.”

  “Greg’s going to medical school?” Mama looked positively rapturous.

  “No, Mama, but Buster already is a doctor.”

  Mama stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “Because it was my trump card, only now I don’t need it anymore. I’m back with Greg, and Buster has Hooter. So, you see, I traded a doctor for a detective. Mama, you got your wish.”

  Mama looked like a child in Miami who has just been given a new sled for Christmas. “So, you’re sure about Greg?”

  “Pretty sure. But you know how life is. Maybe Buster’s brains will lose their appeal, and she’ll angle for Greg again. But I sort of doubt it, seeing as how Buster’s brains are backed by big bucks. And I mean big bucks. He comes from old money.”

  “But this isn’t fair,” Mama wailed. “You withheld vital information.”

  “Don’t worry, Mama; I’ll sell the painting, and then I’ll have big bucks. In a couple of generations—if my kids don’t squander it—it will be old money, too.”

  Mama wrung her hands in anguish. She and Daddy were both teachers, a respected profession in their day, and they both descended from practical pioneer stock, but she has always longed to be part of the gentry.

  “Speaking of your children, dear, do you know what they’re up to?”

  “Of course. Charlie and his best friend are touring Europe on a rail pass. I keep his itinerary on the fridge. If I’m not mistaken, they’re in Belgium today—no, that was Tuesday. Today they’re in Denmark. At any rate, you know how kids are. They might have gotten tired of northern Europe and headed straight for Spain. I’m just glad the running of the bulls is over for this year.”

  “I’m talking specifically about your daughter, Susan.”

  “Well, that’s easy. Susan is sharing an apartment here in Rock Hill and taking a summer class at Winthrop before taking off to graduate school next fall. Oh, and she works part-time on the serving line at Jackson’s Cafeteria.”

  “That’s right, but do you know what she does in her spare time?”

  “Goes to the beach?” Susan is determined to become a prune before the age of thirty.

  “Yes, but who does she hang out with?”

  “Well, let’s see…could it possibly be her roommate, Jinna?”

  “I mean who of the male persuasion.”

  My daughter, Susan, is very pretty, if I do say so myself, and she has more personality than Bill Clinton. I wish I could say she had a bevy of suitable beaux waiting in line. The truth is, Susan had always liked boys—and now men—who were a bit on the wild side. Rest assured, my daughter has no designs on the gentry.

  “Mama, unlike some mothers I know, I don’t pry.”

  “Well!”

  “If the pump fits, Mama. I mean, you have to admit, I involve myself a lot less in my children’s affairs than you do in mine, and I’m almost fifty!”

  “Be that as it may, Susan is not keeping proper company.”

  “Is it that Thompson boy again?”

  “No. This one has a motorcycle. Abby, it may not be against North Carolina law to ride without a helmet, but it’s downright stupid to do so. Edwina Rankin’s son split his head open like a cantaloupe. They say he’ll never walk, and when he talks now, even Edwina can’t understand him.”

  “Susan was riding without a helmet?”

  Mama nodded with satisfaction. She would never think of herself as a tattletale, but that’s exactly what she was. My children knew it, too. As much as they loved their grandmother, they resented her for all the times she turned them in for smoking, drinking, what have you.

  “Well, then, I’ll just have to go straight over there and have a little chat with her.” But that is exactly what it would be: a chat, not a lecture. Susan is twenty-one, after all, and basically self-supporting.

  “Be careful, Abby, you’re no match for a motorcycle gang.”

  “Come again?”

  “Well, I don’t know that this man belongs to a gang, but I’d say it was a safe bet.”

  I tried to smile patiently. “And who used to always give me lectures about not stereotyping?”

  “Yes, Abby, but this man looks the part.”

  “The part?”

  “His vest,” Mama said irritably, as if I could read her mind. “It had more studs on it than Myrtle Beach the year the war ended.”

  I gasped. “You mean he had a vest like the one that man had on at church last night?”

  Mama crossed her arms and smiled. “Of course I didn’t know it then, dear—I only saw them together this afternoon—but that man is Susan’s boyfriend.”

  16

  Magdalena Yoder was wrong. I had a lot of hunches, but no facts to back them up. Just one fact from a man would have been very useful right then. I couldn’t very well tell Mama to barricade herself in the house simply because a black woman in braids and a flashy biker kept popping up. But I could feel that something was wrong, something undoubtedly connected to my fabulous new acquisition.

  Alas, there are folks in Rock Hill who still don’t lock their doors, and Mama is one of them. On the pretext of getting a glass of water, I locked the kitchen door, and I almost got away with surreptitiously locking the front door behind me on the way out. Unfortunately, Mama has eyes like one of the bald eagles that nest along the Catawba River.

  “I’m not a baby, you know,” she said, twisting the knob so that the button popped to the unlocked position.

  “I know you’re not a baby. But, Mama, Rock Hill isn’t the same place it was thirty years ago. Or even twenty.”

  “Don’t be silly, Abby. No one is going to know if my door is unlocked unless they try the knob. And anyone who tries the knob—well, what’s to stop them from forcing open a window if the door is locked? This is a big old house, and with the air conditioner going, I can’t hear from one end to the other.”

  “There’s no point in making it easy for a burglar, is there?”

  “It’s the principle of the thing, dear. I refuse to live my life in fear. In Africa—where I’m going—they don’t even have locks on their doors.”

  “That’s because they have nothing to steal!”

  “Exactly. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, lately. Things. Possessions are like chains, you see. We tie ourselves to places because of things.”

  “Is this going to be a lecture, Mama?” I was, after all, in the business of selling things.

  “Oh, no, dear. This doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s about me.” She waved her arm at the room behind her. “I’ve decided to get rid of everything. Who knows, maybe after I’m done being a missionary to Africa, I’ll volunteer for the Peace Corps. Or maybe I’ll get on a tramp steamer and sail the South Pacific. I could work in the galley. You always said I was a good cook.”

  “That you are. But you’re not serious about selling everything.”

  “Indeed, I am. You know, why bother with the time it would take to sell things? I could put a sign on the porch that reads ‘Come on in and help yourself.’ That way I could even sleep with the door open.”

  “What about your personal safety?”

  “What about it? We all die, sooner or later.”

  “Later is preferable, Mama. And I bet there are some things worse than death. But—I see your point. And since I’m here, can I take the pearls? You won’t be needing them where you’re going.”

  Mama’s hands flew to her throat. “Abby, how could you? They were a gift from your daddy.”

  “Then isn’t it better I have them, than some stranger?”

  “These pearls aren’t going anywhere. I’d feel naked without them.”

  “How about those silver candlesticks on the mantel? You won’t be wearing those to Africa.”

  “Those were a wedding present from my parents.”

  “That carriage clock, then. It doesn’t w
ork, and you bought it yourself. Or how about that little table under the window?”

  “But I always get so many compliments on the carriage clock. And that little table—don’t you just love its lines?”

  “Then lock your door, Mama. Double-lock it. Turn the dead bolt when I leave.”

  Mama nodded. There were tears in her eyes. Perhaps I’d been too hard on her.

  “I love you, Mama.”

  “I love you, too, dear. Yaya bimpe.”

  “What?”

  “That’s Tshiluba for ‘good-bye.’”

  “Yaya bimpe,” I said.

  “Actually, you would say shalla bimpe, which literally means ‘stay well.’”

  I hugged Mama. If she ever did go to Africa, joined the Peace Corps, or sailed the South Pacific, I was going to miss her. But right now, my daughter needed me more than my mother.

  “Remember to turn the bolt,” I said and hurried down the walk to my car.

  Jackson’s Cafeteria was closed at that hour, and Susan, bless her well-tanned hide, was actually at home. Much to my relief, she didn’t seem the least bit upset to see me. Apparently there were no reefers to hide, no condoms to stash back in the drawer, and no boyfriend to shove in the closet.

  “Come in. We’re just watching Ally McBeal.”

  “Ally is on Thursday now?”

  “We taped it. What’s up, Mama?”

  I glanced at Jinna, Susan’s roommate. Jinna, bless her pasty hide, could read my mind.

  “Hey, why don’t y’all talk in here? I’ve got a phone call to make in the bedroom. Besides, I’ve seen this episode before. It’s the one where Ally transports a prisoner’s sperm donation in a see-through food container. It’s really gross.”

  Susan blushed. “Jinna!”

  “Hey, sorry,” Jinna said and scurried off to the bedroom.

  Susan turned off the VCR, and I picked a reasonably clean spot on the secondhand sofa. The girls live in Gardenway Apartments, just a scalpel toss from Piedmont Medical Center, where Jinna is a first-year nurse. It isn’t the lap of luxury, but it sure beats at least one of the places Susan has found herself in since leaving the nest.

  “So, Mama, what gives?”

  “You know how I don’t like to interfere in your life, right?”

  Susan smiled. Thanks to Buford’s bucks, she has perfect teeth.

  “I love you anyway, Mama. You know that.”

  “But I don’t interfere,” I wailed. “Not like your grandmother!”

  “That’s true. Grandma is in a class of her own. But there are those”—she winked—“who might argue that you’ve been a pretty good apprentice.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding, Mama. So what is it you disapprove of now?”

  She wasn’t kidding, of course, and that hurt me to the quick. But trust me, all my so-called interference has been well intended. I’ve lived longer than my daughter, after all, and I’ve learned more lessons. If I can’t pass on my wisdom, than what’s the point?

  “I hear you have a new boyfriend,” I said, without sounding the least bit judgmental.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “The guy with the motorcycle.”

  Susan cocked her head. “I know lots of guys with motorcycles, but I’m not dating any of them.”

  “But your grandmother said—”

  Susan laughed. “Grandma must have seen me with Freddy. He gave me a ride to work this afternoon.”

  “Freddy who?” At last, a name. Now I was getting somewhere.

  “I don’t know his last name, Mama.” She looked me in the eye. “And grilling me isn’t going to do any good. I just met him this afternoon in the parking lot.”

  “And you rode with him? Without a helmet?” It was easy for me to forget that she was a grown woman.

  “Yeah, without a helmet. It’s too damn hot. Look, Mama, I know you think I’m still a baby, but I’m not. I’ve made some stupid mistakes—I know that—but at least I didn’t go out with Mouse.”

  “Mouse?”

  “Oh, some creep who came through the line at the cafeteria. He kept coming back through the line just to talk to me. That can get me fired, you know.”

  “Was Mouse his real name?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? But he looked like a mouse, that’s for sure. Great big ears, and teeth a mile long. Like I’d date him—not!”

  My head spun. Mouse…TRAP…they both had to do with rodents, didn’t they? Could this be the same man I’d seen at Pine Manor? The exterminator? If so, were there three people tailing me and/or my loved ones? Life was turning into a Martin Scorsese movie.

  “Was Mouse wearing green coveralls?”

  “You know him?”

  There was no point in worrying Susan. On the other hand, she deserved to know if there was even the slightest possibility she was in danger.

  “I bought a painting at a church auction last night. It has suddenly made me very popular. Unfortunately, it seems to have made you and Grandma popular as well.”

  “Mouse hit on Grandma?”

  “No.

  “Oh.” Susan sounded disappointed.

  “But a woman who was at the auction just paid her a visit. Freddy was at the auction, too. I didn’t see Mouse there, but he showed up at a nursing home today where the former owner of the painting resides.”

  “I don’t get it. What’s the connection?”

  “I sighed. Beats me. But it gets even worse. Gilbert Sweeny, who donated the painting to the auction, killed himself this morning.”

  “In the nursing home?”

  “No, the nursing home resident is his mother. It’s a long story.”

  “Spill it,” Susan said. “I don’t have anything better to do.”

  That was a compliment if I ever heard one. My daughter wanted me to stick around.

  “You have anything cold to drink?”

  “Sure. What would you like—juice, cola, beer?”

  I was tempted to choose beer. The very fact that Susan offered me alcohol was a sign that she had begun to see me as a fellow adult and not just as an oppressive parent.

  “Juice,” I said. We didn’t need booze to bond.

  “It’s the kind with grass in it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know, all the pulp.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s fine.”

  While Susan got the juice, I studied my surroundings. It was definitely an adult’s apartment. No psychedelic posters and black light—nor today’s equivalent, as far as I could tell. Jinna held the lease, so there were more of her things there, but I noticed touches of Susan. The framed and signed Robert Booth print titled Palmetto Sunset that I gave her for Christmas was on the wall behind me. On top of the TV was a photograph of Mama and me on Mama’s seventieth birthday. There was even a snapshot of Susan’s brother, Charlie. Notably missing, however, was anything to do with her daddy, Buford.

  “So out with it,” Susan said, returning with a plastic tumbler full to overflowing.

  I took a big slurp. “This will have to stay between you and me, okay?”

  “Of course.” Susan pushed aside a wobbly coffee table and sat on the floor in front of me, her legs crossed.

  “The painting I bought could be worth a lot of money.”

  “How much?”

  I smiled at her candor. “A lot. More money than I ever dreamed I’d have.”

  “Ten thousand?”

  “Try ten million.”

  Susan’s mouth popped open. “You’re shitting me, aren’t you?”

  I slurped again.

  “Sorry about the language, Mama, but I thought you said ten million.”

  “I did.”

  “Geez! You’re rich!”

  “Well, not yet. First I have to get the painting appraised, and then put it up for auction.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Well, that’s the tricky part. I don’t have the right contacts, but Rob Goldburg does. Unfortunately
, we’re not speaking at the moment. So I may end up taking the painting to New York myself.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I don’t know. You anxious to get your hands on some of that money?” All right, I know it. That was an uncalled-for remark. But I said it, and I can’t unsay it.

  Susan’s face clouded. “I don’t want your money.”

  “Well, not all of it, of course, but—”

  “Mama, I don’t want a damn cent!”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Mama, I want to make it on my own. Sure, Daddy paid for college and is going to help me with graduate school, but I plan to pay it all back. Well, the money for graduate school, anyway.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. Your daddy has so much money, I’m sure he doesn’t miss it.”

  “That isn’t the point, Mama. I want to feel like this is my accomplishment.”

  I stared at Susan. Where had the sneaky, conniving, irresponsible girl gone? What alien species had appropriated her body, and when did it happen?

  “Damn, but I’m proud of you,” I said.

  Susan blushed. “Let’s not get all mushy.”

  I stood. It was time to go before I ruined the moment by inserting tab A into slot B. A size-four shoe may be small by most people’s standards, but so is my mouth.

  “Be extra careful, okay? I don’t know what these people are up to, but it can’t be good.”

  “Have you told Greg?”

  “I’m calling him as soon as I get home. Oh, and by the way, we’re together again.”

  “You go, girl!” Susan was on her feet and, before she could help herself, had given me a tight hug.

  I kissed Susan good-bye, and while she made a great show of wiping her cheek, I knew she didn’t mind. It would have been polite, not to mention wise, of me to say good-bye to Jinna. Unfortunately, I had forgotten all about her.

  17

  Greg wasn’t in when I got home, so I left a garbled message. Then I crashed. I must have slept right through the act of shutting off my alarm, because when I awoke it was twenty after ten, and Dmitri, who often sleeps on my chest, had his paw in my open mouth.

  I spit out cat hairs. “Dmitri, dear, you were supposed to wake me an hour ago.”