The Glass Is Always Greener Page 5

  Chanteuse Goldburg answered the door looking as if she were about to head out to South Park Mall. In fact, her purse was waiting in the howdah of a wicker elephant just inside the door. South Park, for anyone who is unfamiliar with area shopping, is the place to shop in Charlotte. Another way to put it is thusly; that’s where Neiman Marcus is located.

  “It’s you,” she said, and nothing more. She didn’t even stand slightly aside.

  “And it’s you.”

  “Look, Addie, I’m not receiving unexpected visitors today.”

  “Mrs. Goldburg, you know very well that my name is Abby. We’ve known each other for years. May I come in?”

  “No.” No? For heaven’s sake, the woman was as Southern as sweet tea, and here she was refusing to invite me in? What on earth was going on? Was she being held hostage? Was there a gunman hiding behind the thick, genuine silk, floor-to-ceiling drapes?

  “I just wish to speak to Rob,” I said quickly, fearing the door might be slammed in my face. “We can do it out here on the porch—if you prefer.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Mrs. Washtub, do you have any idea how much that emerald ring means to me?”

  “The name is Washburn, dear, and I’m sure I don’t understand how the ring’s sentimental value has anything to do with you allowing me to talk with your son.”

  “Why you arrogant little—tiny—woman, you. I never really liked you, from the moment I met you. I don’t think my Robbie was truly gay until you got your hooks into him. You’re what they call a fag hag, aren’t you?”

  Me? A fag hag? Was that a pejorative term? And if so, for whom? For little, tiny me, or for my gay friends? Well, it certainly wasn’t cool for Rob’s mother to be calling me that, because it was clear that her intent was unkind.

  “Mrs. Goldburg, your son is certain that he was born gay; he experienced same-sex feelings from a very early age. And he was certainly acting out on those feelings long before he met me. Like decades before.”

  She bit her lip and shuddered. “Enough with that crude talk. Come in—but just for a second.”

  Stepping into the house was like entering a mausoleum to good taste. Chanti had been a high-end interior decorator who’d retired from the business in the mid-1970s. During her working life she’d acquired some very nice pieces, some unusual ones as well. However, Chanti was still using 1970s wallpaper and fabrics, so that the overall affect was somewhat discombobulating. Depressing was another word that immediately sprung to mind.

  The second she closed the door, Chanti grabbed both my hands. “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Don’t be obtuse, Mrs. Washbum. Where’s the ring?”

  I yanked my hands away and put them behind my back. “What ring, damn it?”

  “The emerald ring, you blockhead! The one my sister gave you. The one she should have given to me. It belonged to our grandmother, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. And please read my lips—I don’t have your ring.”

  “I heard her leave it to you in the will. We all did.”

  “Yes, but I refused to accept it. You all heard that as well.”

  “Look, missy,” Chanti snarled, as she leaned over my airspace, “you can play games all you want; but I know the truth. I am family after all. I officially identified my sister’s remains.”

  I shrank back toward the door. “The truth? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The ring was missing, you imbecile!”

  “Finally! A three-syllable insult. Of course it was missing, Chanti. The police always remove the valuables from the victim for safekeeping. Did you ask about it?”

  “You exasperating, harebrained twerp!” she screamed. “I don’t know what my son sees in you.”

  And there, as if by magic, the fruit of her womb appeared on the staircase behind her. He was dressed in chinos and a pale blue chambray shirt that set off his deep salon bed tan. Since sandals—without socks, of course—have, as of late, been given a thumbs-up by the mavens of the fashion world, Rob sported an extravagant pair of designer straps. Even from this short distance he appeared cool, elegant, and unflappable.

  “Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Abby.”

  Since Rob hung the sun it was only natural for Chanti to turn and greet him. I could have used those precious seconds to scoot out the door, but I had come to see my friend, damn it.

  “Boker tov,” I said.

  “Boker or,” Rob said, and laughed.

  “What was that?” Chanti barked.

  “That was Hebrew,” I said.

  “I learned it in NFTY,” Rob said. “You know, Mama, my Reform Jewish youth group.”

  “Abby’s not Jewish,” Chanti said. “You shouldn’t be teaching her things.”

  It was an absurd statement, but one not to be argued with. I’d just hit a home run in the game of “irritate Chanteuse Goldburg,” and I sure the heck wasn’t going to rub my victory in.

  “Abby,” Rob said. “Come with me to the back porch.”

  I needed no further urging.

  Once we’d settled into some comfortable recliners, and were sipping mimosas, Rob cleared his throat.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Uh-oh, what?”

  “You’re not going to yell at me for getting into it with your mother?”

  “If that was getting into it, then I’m going to insist you come back home with me every time I visit. Her imperial highness thrives on discord, as you might have noticed. When she went to finishing school she got an A+ in How to Make People Miserable. By the way, I’m all for you having that ring; that’s what Aunt Jerry wanted. But I am curious as to how you managed to get to Aunt Jerry and get the ring before she was—I mean, you didn’t take it off after, did you?”

  I may be a petite woman, but my mouth opened wide enough to swallow the state of Delaware. “Rob Goldburg! You’re not suggesting that I killed your aunt, are you? Because if you are, I’ll—I’ll—let’s just say that Dick Cheney will wish he’d had me working for him.”

  “Ouch! So much meanness in such a small package of pleasantly arranged molecules. Abigail, darling, it didn’t even flash across my mind—not for a microsecond—that you had anything to do with Aunt Jerry’s horrible send-off. I only meant that, given both your love of jewelry and knowledge of gems, you might have felt tempted to slip that boulder off her finger before screaming bloody murder. It was, after all, your ring.”

  I carefully set my champagne flute on an onyx coaster before getting up. When I leaned to give Rob a hug, he virtually pulled me into his chair.

  “You don’t need to be forgiven,” he said. “But you need to join me. It’s times like this that I feel very much alone.”

  “Oh Rob—”

  “She left me a million dollars, Abby. Free and clear. No strings attached.”

  “She did? Where was I?”

  “You’d jumped off the table and run into the house for some reason. What did you do, go to the bathroom?”

  “No. I was embarrassed by that ring episode. So, who else was named a beneficiary?”

  “Uncle Ben, of course. The catastrophe was held at his house, so you can guess that they were kind of close—well, he got along with her better than anyone else in the family did. Anyway, she left him two million dollars—also free and clear.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “The Mecklenburg County SPCA.”

  “Really? For how much?”

  “Approximately three million in real estate.”

  I sipped my drink. “No offense, Rob, but your aunt was loaded.”

  “None taken.”

  “Do you think your family will object to the dogs and cats of Mecklenburg County sharing in her largesse?”

  Rob’s laugh was as hollow as a store-bought cheese straw. “Three lawsuits have already been filed—and no, none of them are mine.”

  “So that means your bobble-headed Uncle Aar
on—well hush my mouth, how shallow can one get? Sorry, Rob, that just slipped out.”

  Rob laughed. “Not to worry, Abby. We call him Bobby on that account. Not to his face, of course.”

  “Who is we?”

  “Why Bob, of course.” The irony—and perhaps Rob didn’t see it—is that if Aaron shaved his mustache, he and Bob Steuben could pass for identical twin brothers.

  “So far that’s one. Who are the other two?”

  “My righteous cousin, the pastor; and The-One-to-Whom-All-Is-Owed—that would be my mother.”

  “You’re kidding! Your mother, who just inherited a million dollars—plus ten thousand for supposedly—well, you know—anyway, she’s contesting the will? Doesn’t that seem just a little bit—uh—”

  “Not as long as the animals of Mecklenburg County get more. We’ve never been an animal-oriented family, Abby. No pets of any kind. That was such a hard and fast rule that when I was in the third grade and every kid got head lice, I was the only kid who didn’t; they didn’t dare violate Chanti’s ‘no pet’ rule. Once I found a carp swimming in the bathtub. I got so excited, thinking I was finally getting a pet. I named the behemoth Moby. It ended up the next day on my plate as gefilte fish.”

  “That’s a sad story, Rob.”

  “Too bad it’s not true,” a female voice said.

  Chapter 6

  I was so startled that I literally tossed the rest of my mimosa in the air, glass and all; a stranger might even have guessed that I had a small role in an ABBA movie and that he or she had caught me rehearsing. But believe me, the worst part about being vertically challenged is that I will forever have to look up to individuals like Chanteuse Goldburg.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I really didn’t mean to get that all over your clothes. If you’d leaned just a little bit lower, I might have been able to get most of my drink down your cleavage.”

  Rob’s mother can recoil faster than a striking cobra. “I beg your pardon! What did you say? Robbie, did you hear what this white trash just said to me?”

  “Not now, Mama; I’m still laughing!”

  “Why I never! Not in all my born days! Abby, do you treat your mama like this?”

  “Oh no, ma’am. When she asks me a direct question, I always answer; no matter how hard I’ve been laughing.”

  “No, I meant—well, never mind what I meant. I’m just glad to know that you respect your mama. Robbie, did you hear that? Abigail wouldn’t dream of being so rude. Honestly, I don’t know where I went wrong. You had the very best of everything. And I mean everything—yet, ironically, it’s like you didn’t want much of anything. He was a very hard child to please, Abby, because he had no desires. Can you imagine that?”

  “And who says mankind is incapable of change?” I said. The Rob I knew was a collector of everything beautiful, both for his home and for his shop, The Finer Things. In fact, at this stage of his life, his desires had moved beyond a lust for the exquisite, and into the realm of the limitless. I knew for a fact that he’d recently spent ten grand on a silver flask said to have touched the lips of Marilyn Monroe on the night of her tragic demise. When I asked him why he wished to own such an object in the first place—never mind pay such an exorbitant price—his answer was simply “Well, somebody has to own it, so why not me?”

  “Mama, that’s a dig,” Rob said. “Abby’s picking on me.”

  Poor Chanteuse, I almost felt sorry for her. Her fierce love for her son would have been admirable had not some of that ferocity traditionally been reserved for me. But now we were allies, were we not? Surely that presented her with a dilemma.

  “Get out of my house, you gold-digging little strumpet,” she barked. “How dare you cuddle up to my son in the same chair, pressed against his manly chest, like a young nubile Jewish woman—which you are anything but! It’s temptresses like you, Ms. Timberquake, who have convinced my dear Robert that he is a homosexual. So if you don’t leave before I count to ten, I will—”

  She’d stopped to give her son a meaningful look. Meanwhile she was huffing and puffing like the Little Engine That Could.

  “You’ll what?” Rob said casually.

  Just to be safe, I got out of the chair and backed well away onto the lawn.

  “I’ll call the police, dear. You know I will.”

  “I dare you to call them, Mama.”

  Chanteuse disappeared into the house but returned just a few seconds later bearing a cordless phone. Already she was speaking to someone on the other end.

  “Of course this woman is an intruder,” she said. “Would I have called you otherwise? She was in my living room just a few minutes ago—I’ll swear to that in court. Yes, I think she’s armed. I mean she definitely looks the type. You know, beady eyes, scar across the left cheek, that kind of thing.”

  Rob hoisted himself out of the recliner. “Mama, I’m leaving,” he said.

  “But darling, I only want what’s best for you—and a grandchild! Is that too much to ask?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Come on, Abby, we can leave through the back gate.”

  “But what about your stuff? Didn’t you bring in your suitcase?”

  “Screw my stuff,” Rob said.

  Rob said he needed to work off some steam so I left him to hike the greenway that begins across from Trader Joe’s and ends approximately six miles later on Johnston Road, not far from Pike’s Nursery. Meanwhile I dropped in on Tuesday Morning. I remembered Lauren Bacall doing the TV ads for these stores a couple of years back, but had never taken the time to visit one.

  My verdict, based on this one store, is that they are fabulous if, like Rob, your need for things is endless. Since the merchandise in Tuesday Morning is always changing, it is hard to shop for specifics, although one will always find something that is indispensable. It’s when our desires become our needs that we’re in trouble, if you ask me.

  Chanteuse Goldburg wanted a grandchild, although she couldn’t have one; as a consequence she was becoming mean. Rob wanted just about anything, and as for me, well, there was a piece of resin sculpture in Tuesday Morning that spoke to my soul. It was a particularly well-crafted Southern magnolia blossom displayed against a background of the dark shiny leaves that characterize this species.

  The sculpture had probably been mass-produced in China. The truth is that some beautiful things are being cast in resin today; if this technology had been available three hundred years ago, and just a few pieces had been made, only kings would have owned them. But unfortunately beautiful items are available to the masses, and in my Charleston home I had room to showcase only the rare and valuable, no matter how homely those collectibles might be.

  I fondled the delicate sculpture, turning it this way and that. This magnolia blossom could pass for a real one and never wilt, and it was only $26.99. I could buy it and use it as a paperweight—but to weigh down my papers from what? The breath of a giant? A hurricane? I never kept my windows open; it was always too hot, or too cold, or too buggy. Call me wasteful, but I loved my air—

  “Do ya honestly think,” said a woman turning into my aisle, “that I would do something like that?” She was of sufficient girth to appreciate the benefit of leaning on her shopping buggy.

  “Honey,” said her male companion, “I honestly believe that anyone is capable of anything.”

  “Uh-uh, ya did not just say that, because that’s a flat-out accusation.”

  “I call them as I see them, dear.”

  “Then screw ya, Malcolm, and the horse ya rode in on!”

  The fellow—who was actually quite handsome—took off at a lope, and without another word.

  “Damn him,” the woman said as she approached me. “Damn his sensitive hide.”

  I sucked in all my vibes, willing a shield of invisibility to surround me. It was soon clear that I was out of practice.

  “Can ya believe that?” she said to me.

  I said nothing.

  “Ya don’t have to be rude,” she sai
d.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’ve been a mite distracted lately. Yesterday I found a dead woman in a freezer, and I think I might be a suspect in her murder, and now my best friend left home because his mother thinks I turned him gay, even though he’s almost fifty and I’ve only known him a dozen years, and my own mother tracked me to town along with my second best friend and ex-sister-in-law who really is part goat—although I refuse to believe that. You wouldn’t believe that, would you?”

  “Say, you gonna buy that magnolia or not?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Because that piece of junk looks just like the one my mother-in-law used to have until I broke it. Of course it was an accident—sort of.” She laughed. “That’s what me and my husband was fighting about. He thinks he seen me do it, and maybe he did. But I’m just messing with his head. If I buy this one and put it where the old used to be, that will really get him good.”

  “Ah, too bad,” I said, “that I already have my little heart set on buying this for myself.”

  “Ya sure? I’ll pay ya ten bucks more than it’s worth.”

  “No thanks. I’ve got a spot already picked out for it.”

  “Bitch.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  I had some time to kill before I had to pick up Rob, and what better way to kill it than at a coffee shop? There is something about purchasing a cup of overpriced java and sipping it on the premises that makes it feel like a mini-event, rather than a first-rate rip-off—which it is. I, for one, like to imagine that the folks hunched over their laptops are serious novelists and that if I affect a distinctive set of mannerisms while sipping my brew, I might just show up in a book as part of a character.

  “Why are you twitching, Abby?”

  Holy crap, I thought, what did I do to deserve this? “Mama,” I exclaimed. “Where did you come from?”

  “The ladies’ room. You know what caffeine does to me, dear.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Wynnell is getting her upper lip waxed just up the road from here and C.J. is still in the ladies’ room. Apparently there was some graffiti in one of the stalls that read something like: ‘I’m being held prisoner; call me at blah, blah, blah.’ She’s taking it seriously. You know how she is.”