The Ming and I Page 4
Greg called around ten. “Any word on the Ming?”
“No. They all swear they haven’t taken it. In fact, I may have made a few enemies.”
“Is there anyone else who might possibly have a key?”
His tone was so formal, it nearly broke my heart. And all because I wanted to fantasize that some stupid vase was mine. How could I have let my daydreams get in the way of common sense? Who knows; if the damn thing had been an Etruscan urn of exceptional beauty, I might have sold out my children.
“No one, Greg.”
“Not even your mother?”
“Mama’s time warp doesn’t go back past Victorian, and she’s not into Oriental.”
“But does she have a key?”
“I don’t remember. I’ll ask her.”
“Do that,” he said, and hung up. Just like that. No good-bye, no lip smacks. Nothing but a dial tone.
5
Mama picked up on the first ring. “My nose was twitching,” she said smugly.
My mother claims her proboscis is capable of smelling the future. There have been enough coincidences for me to keep an open mind, although I won’t be totally convinced until she takes her shnoz to Vegas and comes back a millionaire.
I asked her about the key.
“You gave me a key once, Abigail, but for the life of me I wouldn’t know where to lay my fingers on it now. It may be in my box at the bank. You did say it was in case of an emergency—in case something happened to you. Are you all right, dear?”
“I’m fine, Mama.”
“It isn’t cancer, is it, dear?”
“No, Mama. There’s just been a little mix-up, and a rather valuable Ming vase seems to be missing.”
“Is that the vase you were telling me about at supper, dear?”
“Yes, Mama. You didn’t borrow it, did you?”
There was a stunned silence.
I should have slapped myself, asking my own mama a question like that. After all, I had just offended three friends, and all but alienated the fourth with the same question, and none of them had suffered through thirty-four hours of painful labor on my behalf.
“Mama, I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “I shouldn’t even have asked.”
More silence, but I could hear her pearls clicking against the receiver, which meant she was angry but had at least come out of shock.
“It’s just that I’m in big trouble, Mama. That Ming may have belonged to June Troyan, the woman who was killed by that hit-and-run driver yesterday.”
The pearls stopped clicking. “June Troyan?”
“Yes, Mama. Did you know her?”
“Of course I knew her. Why didn’t you tell me her name last night?” Mama was back to normal.
“I didn’t know anything about her last night. Did she live in Rock Hill?”
“She lived in Tega Cay,” Mama said, referring to a lakeside community about fifteen minutes north of town, “but she was a member of the Apathia Club.”
Apathia is a social club to which Mama tried for years to gain entree, but when she was finally admitted, she had turned the gals down. It was her way of snubbing them back. But Mama still saw many of the members on a weekly, if not daily basis. They all lived in her neighborhood, shopped the same stores, and attended the same cluster of churches. A few of them were even in her bridge club. In Rock Hill politeness is a given, and dirty laundry is never aired in public. Back stabbing is relegated to the privacy of one’s home, and then only shared with one’s closest friends or spouse. A voodoo doll vendor could make a killing in my hometown.
“Did you know she was a docent at Roselawn Plantation?”
“Yes, I guess I did.”
“So you knew that Roselawn was already open to the public?”
“Of course, dear, everyone in Rock Hill knows that. You really should move back to town, Abby. Then you’d know everything that’s going on. You could have your old room back.”
“Thanks, Mama, but I have my own house now, remember?” I tried not to sound as sarcastic as my own kids, but for a brief moment I empathized with them.
“I saved all your stuffed toys, Abby. They’re in the attic, all sealed in airtight bags. Next to your prom dresses.”
“Mama, do you know anyone at the Upstate Preservation Foundation?”
A sudden, furious clicking told me my question had offended Mama. She probably not only knew them, but had undoubtedly turned down invitations to their homes.
“If I wanted to become a docent, Mama, who would I speak to?”
The clicking slowed.
“I’m serious, Mama.”
It stopped.
“Okay, Mama, so I want to snoop around a little. I won’t get into any trouble or make a pest of myself. I promise.”
“What do you hope to find, dear?”
“I don’t know. More about June Troyan, I guess. Maybe I’ll learn something from the other docents. Roselawn Plantation is the only clue I have.”
“That’s only part of it, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me, Mama?”
“You’re miffed, aren’t you? Your feelings are hurt because you’re a Rock Hill native and an expert on antiques, and yet no one from the foundation even as much as asked for your advice.”
“Mama!”
“Admit it, dear. And believe me, I understand totally. Imagine the Apathia Club taking all those years to invite me to join, when our ancestors were among the very first settlers in Rock Hill.”
“Okay, so I’m unhappy that the place is already open for business and I didn’t even hear about it. Just tell me who’s in charge, Mama.”
“I forget,” Mama said, but I knew she was lying. It was a mother’s lie of protection, however, which is almost always justified.
“They could at least make me a docent,” I said doggedly. “Even an honorary one.”
“It would have to be an honorary position,” Mama said, “because your shop is a full-time job, Abby. I hardly get to see you as it is.”
“I could help out part-time, Mama. Is it open in the evenings?”
“I’m pretty sure it is not. But I could ask.”
I smelled a favor in the asking.
“In exchange for what, Mama?”
“You know quite well, dear. Tiny Tim’s Tattoo Palace on Cherry Road.”
It was another incredibly busy day at the shop. I hate to have to say this, but the hit and run was definitely good for business. Although the day had started out sunny, it was drizzling by noon. Still, the customers continued to pour into my shop.
The Observer had carried a rather graphic description of the incident, and a number of folks wanted to know the exact spot where June’s body had come to rest. I had, of course, removed the Louis XIV chair that June had inadvertently dismantled, but the rest of the display remained the same—that is, until I discovered that the items in the immediate vicinity sold like hotcakes. Thanks to a ghoulish public and my own lack of good taste, I spent the bulk of the day hauling merchandise over to the window display area. The rest of my day was spent at the cash register.
I even went so far as to unplug my phone—a first in my shop’s history—but not soon enough.
“Hello,” I said breathlessly, having just returned from the window display. “Den of Iniquity here—I mean, Antiquity!”
“It’s me.”
It was a familiar voice, but I couldn’t place it. “Me who?” I asked politely.
“You don’t need to know who I am. But I know who you are.”
“Ah, you’re the Lock, Stock, and Barrel person,” I said. “I recognize your voice.”
“You do not!”
“You bet I do, dear. Androgynous, muffled—what’s not to recognize?”
There was a long silence, but no sound of pearls clicking, so I knew it wasn’t Mama. “I want my Ming,” the caller said at last.
“Excuse me?” I felt my heart drop down into my stomach. If it wasn’t for my small pelvis, it might have hit the floor.
I took a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, courtesy of Lamaze. “Describe it.”
“The same vase Ms. Troyan carried into your shop the day before yesterday.”
It is times like this I could kick myself for not subscribing to the caller ID service my phone company offers. I should, at the very least, keep a cassette recorder by the phone, and record these kinds of calls. By replaying them when I am not so stressed, I might be better able to pick up on clues. Not that I get many mysteriously ominous phone calls, mind you.
“I don’t have your stupid vase,” I said loudly, my dander rising. Fear and anger are the flip sides of the same coin, and in my case the coin was spinning like a whirling dervish.
There was a muffled gasp. “What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t do a damn thing with it, because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Listen,” the voice growled, “if I don’t get my vase back, the same thing that happened to Ms. Troyan might happen to you.”
“So you’re the hit-and-run driver,” I said stupidly.
Androgynous hung up.
I hung up as well, but was still staring stupidly at the damn machine when it rang again. I snatched up the receiver, angrier than the day Buford announced he was trading in my forty-plus years for Tweetie’s forty-plus bosom.
“Your calls have been traced,” I spat. “No doubt the police are right outside your door, waiting to pounce on you.”
“Mama?”
“Charlie!”
“Mama, I didn’t make all those 900 calls. Phil made at least half of them. Derek made some, too.”
“Charlie—”
“Mama, please don’t tell Daddy. I promise I’ll never make them again, and I won’t let the guys make them, either. I’ll even help you out at the shop this weekend, but please don’t tell Daddy.”
“Charlie, dear, he’ll see them on the phone bill.”
“He will?”
I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, and my kids more so. But why it is my kids just assume they can get away with their many misdemeanors is beyond me. Surely they know about such things as phone and credit card bills, and that the school does call and report their absences. I like to think that they have always gotten caught. Still, I shudder to think of the possibility that they might, in fact, be getting away with oodles of things—so many things that the few times I catch them misbehaving aren’t even worth remembering.
“Charlie, dear, the best thing you can do is to tell your daddy right away. Tell him before the phone bill comes. You’ll save yourself a whole lot of grief.”
I could hear Charlie gulp. “But I can’t, Mama. He’s already pissed at me.”
There were three customers lined up at the counter, waiting to buy. One was actually waving a fistful of money. I recognized the man, fat but well-groomed, always a big spender. What was a mother to do?
“Why is Daddy angry?” I asked.
“Because I don’t want to be his clone, that’s why!” Ironically when Charlie is angry he sounds just like his father.
I glanced at the man waving the money. In his other hand he was holding a sixteenth-century Castelli painted porcelain box with a lid. One slip of his pudgy middle finger and the lid would shatter on the counter, along with the box’s value.
“You’re not his clone, dear. You are your own person,” I said as patiently as I could. “You’re free to be whoever you want.”
“So I don’t have to be a lawyer like Daddy, do I?”
I bit my tongue. Buford is the prototype lawyer of all the lawyer jokes. I should have checked him for a dorsal fin when we were on that water slide. That Charlie wouldn’t become a lawyer like his daddy was my daily prayer.
“You want my money or not?” the cash customer called.
I nodded and gave him a little wave. “You had talked about becoming a teacher,” I said to Charlie. “Winthrop has a good education program. You could stay with Grandma.”
“Uh—I don’t think so,” Charlie said.
“No, of course not. You should experience dorm life. I’ll talk to your father tonight.”
“Mama, I don’t want to go to Winthrop.”
“Where then?”
“I don’t want to go to college at all.”
There were now five people lined up at the counter, and the boor in front was now waving the box instead of his money.
“What do you mean you don’t want to go to college? Charlie, in today’s world a college degree is a must. It’s like high school used to be.”
“Mama, you don’t need a college degree to be a vacuum cleaner repairman.”
“What?”
“That’s what Derek’s going to do. He says there’s big bucks in it. Everyone has to vacuum, right? And with the economy like it is, people are going to want to hang on to their old vacuum cleaners longer. Right? Derek figures that we can make eight dollars an hour easy. Maybe more if we move to a really big city like Atlanta.”
The fat-fingered, cash-carrying customer said it was my scream that made him drop the porcelain box along with its lid. Since I do have a “You broke it, you bought it” sign prominently displayed, he had no legal recourse but to pay. I did agree to meet him halfway, which paid for my cost. Nonetheless, I lost a customer forever.
6
It had been a long, hard day. I had managed to strain all my important relationships and lose a good customer, and now my only son was eschewing college in order to overhaul Hoovers. I would have to resort to drastic measures if I was to avoid a plunge into a virtual slough of despondency.
I locked up early, treated myself to a supper of chicken cordon bleu, took a relaxing soak in a gardenia-scented bubble bath, and settled down to watch a taped episode of my favorite sitcom, “The Nanny,” with Dmitri purring contentedly in my lap. Life, if not redeemed, was at least manageable.
Lord only knows why I answered the phone when it rang.
“Yes?” I said, somewhat tersely.
“This is your mama!” When it comes to terseness Mama can give tit for tat.
“Sorry, Mama,” I said quickly. “What is it?”
“You know our little agreement, Abby?”
“Mama, I haven’t yet agreed to go with you to Tiny Tim’s Tattoo Palace.”
“Nonsense, Abby, you all but promised. Anyway, I want you to know that I have already lived up to my half of the bargain.”
“Oh?”
“I found out what you wanted to know, dear.”
“Oh?”
“It turns out that Anne Holliday, who is a member of my bridge club, is also on the board of directors of the Upstate Preservation Foundation. She filled me in.”
“Oh?” Dmitri had stood up and was beating me around the face with his tail.
“Is that all you can say, Abby?”
I spit out a mouthful of fur. “What exactly did you find out?”
“Why, how to become a docent, of course. That’s what you asked.”
“And how do I become a docent, Mama?”
“By showing up at meeting room number one at the Rock Hill Library.”
“When?”
“Tonight at eight,” Mama said with just a hint of mirth in her voice.
I glanced at the clock above the TV. It was seven-thirty on the dot.
Under the best of conditions, it takes me forty minutes to get from my house to Mama’s down in Rock Hill. The library is five minutes farther. Usually when I drive that route I am fully dressed, not lounging about in flannel pajamas with wet hair and a face scrubbed as clean as one of my mama’s copper pots.
It took me half an hour just to get presentable, so I hope you understand why it is that I barreled down I-77 at more than ten miles over the speed limit, passing all the cars going my way except for that unmarked state trooper’s car just past the border in South Carolina.
“Where’s
the fire?” Smoky asked.
I thought it would be clever to answer a cliché with a cliché. “My wife’s having a baby, officer. Would you escort me to the hospital?”
Officer Belinda Daniels was not amused.
“My boyfriend is Investigator Greg Washburn,” I said desperately. “He’s with the Charlotte Police Department, Division of Homicide.”
Officer Daniels was even less amused. She vehemently assured me that she was not in cahoots with the CPD or any other police department. When she had made that perfectly clear, she laboriously wrote out the longest traffic citation I had ever seen (not that I’ve seen that many, mind you). Another lecture followed.
So it was that a thoroughly chastised Abigail Timberlake showed up at meeting room number one a full hour late. I may even have perspired a little. The door was tightly closed, and I knocked timidly.
“Come in,” a muffled voice said.
I opened the door slowly and stepped in as gracefully as I could. Believe me, I could not have been scrutinized more intensely had I been strolling down the runway at the Miss Universe pageant.
There were five people sitting at a round table in the room, four women and one man.
“Yes?” the man said. His eyes in particular were giving me the once-over. In the short time it took me to respond, I could feel him undress me, reject me, and dress me again.
“My name is Abigail Timberlake. I am a native of Rock Hill. My mother is Mozella Gaye Wiggins. I believe she spoke to one of you about the possibility of me becoming a docent.”
They looked at one another accusingly. Finally one of them, a little old lady who looked like the Queen Mum, waved perfunctorily.
“That might have been me,” she said in a high, girlish voice. Apparently the Queen Mum and Anne Holliday were one and the same.
The man, who was seated next to her, raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s a moot point, isn’t it? That part of our meeting has been concluded.”
The Queen Mum turned to the neighbor on her right. “Well, Madame Chairman,” she chirped, “it’s your call. I was only doing Mozella a favor.”
Her neighbor considered this, and I considered her neighbor. I knew the woman from somewhere. The newspaper, that was it. The Herald doesn’t have a society page per se, but society does have a knack for finding its way into print, sometimes even as far as the Charlotte Observer. This woman’s face had been reproduced in ink enough times to make it indelible. If only her name had stuck. Some kind of color perhaps.