The Glass Is Always Greener Page 8

  Tina, bless her heart, was as homely as stump full of spiders; honestly, there is just no kinder way to describe her. No doubt when she was born, her mama had to borrow a baby to take to church. Such mean observations on my part may seem uncalled for, so I’ll come right out and say that I’m no prize myself. But I did bring up Tina, and I did so because she was married to a very handsome man. Think of Sam Champion with six-inch lifts in his shoes; this man really was a head turner. Right away this begged the question, how did someone like Tina, bless her heart again, snag a looker like that? And one to the manor born, to boot?

  To put it another way, what did Sam see in Tina? In my opinion the Ovumkoph family kept more secrets than a stadium full of mummies. Anything they had to say could, and would, be used against them, until they were proven not guilty by a court of law.

  “I hate to bring this up,” I said, after I’d eaten enough of my steak to be fully nourished, “but have you heard the news?”

  Tina pressed her hands to her cheeks. “You mean about them tornadoes over ta Oklahoma? Warn’t that just terrible? ’Twas like the Devil was wrasslin’ with the breath of God.”

  “How very poetic,” I said, “but that’s not the news I meant. Sam, didn’t anyone tell you that your aunt’s green ring has gone missing?”

  “Say what?”

  “She means the emerald ring,” C.J. said, just before I kicked her.

  “Ouch, Abby, what was that for?”

  “I’m sorry, C.J., I guess there’s just enough room on this banquette for one murder suspect who’s trying hard to clear herself. Everyone else is going to have to stand.”

  “But Abby, I wasn’t even at the good-bye party. How could I be a suspect?”

  “C.J.,” I said, “remind me what your IQ is again.”

  “Hold everything,” Sam said. “I think the rules of this game have just changed. If you’re a murder suspect, then you’re no better than the rest of us.”

  “Except that this isn’t a game,” I said. “Not for me. I hadn’t even met your aunt until that afternoon, and I sure the heck didn’t know she was in possession of a ring that valuable.”

  “One sixty-five,” C.J. said. “My low score was such a disappointment for Granny. I’m telling you, Abby, she wept bitterly the day those test scores came back.”

  “So how’d you do it?” Sam said to me. “Aunt Jerry wasn’t alive when you put her in the freezer chest, was she?”

  I drew upon what little experience I’d had in acting in Sunday school pageants: one year I got to play a bleating sheep, another year a silent Mary; and in elementary school plays: one year as a snowflake, two years as pilgrim, and one year as a leprechaun. Unfortunately my roles didn’t improve much in high school or college.

  “She struggled,” I said, “and please keep in mind that she was much bigger than I—of course everyone is—but what else could I do? I’d forced her to rewrite her will, right there in front of the watermelon, at knifepoint, so I couldn’t very well let her blab to everyone, now could I?”

  “Ooh, Abby,” C.J. moaned, “your mama’s going to be so disappointed. But I promise you that I will come to see you every visiting day, and if you marry someone from the outside—like one of the Menendez brothers did—I’ll still come to see you, unless it’s your turn to do the bird with two backs.”

  “That’s beast, not bird,” I said. “No wait; you probably know of some exotic bird that procreates in mid-air.”

  “Your nose is as long as a telephone wire,” Tina said, before C.J. could respond. It was the most grammatically correct sentence I’d heard come out of her mouth.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “It’s from a children’s saying,” C.J. explained, “only instead of ‘nose’ we used to say ‘ears’ on account of—”

  “Hush,” I said gently. “Mrs. Ovumkoph, are you calling me a liar?”

  “I are.”

  “On what grounds?”

  Tina stared at her husband. “I just know that you ain’t tellin’ the truth; you ain’t the killer.”

  “Maybe you should hush as well, baby doll,” he said. He had his arm around her with his hand on her shoulder. As he told his wife to stifle it, Pastor Sam’s fingers dug into her shoulder, causing her to wince. I could see the tendons in his talons; every one of them was clearly delineated.

  Nothing gets under my skin quite like a bully. As a miniature person of so-called normal proportions I was still tormented beyond endurance. I had a very robust brother, but he was younger, his name was Toy, and his sexual preferences were yet undecided. He had his own battles to fight.

  So the teasing persisted, and sometimes it progressed to worse things, like when Sarah Newhart and her cronies tied me up and put me on the top shelf of the paper supply closet. This was on a Friday afternoon. Thank heavens Mr. Sodt wanted to mimeograph some handouts at the beginning of eighth period. Right or wrong, I skipped school for the next two weeks.

  To this day the issue of school bullies raises a visceral response in me, but now that I am a woman of means and am married to a very buff man who is six feet four, I no longer have to put up with it. I also learned that bullying doesn’t stop just because one becomes an adult. Nor does it happen just to those people with obvious differences. There are those folks who will bully anyone who will allow them to get away with it. Apparently Pastor Sam was just that sort.

  “Get your manipulative mitt off her,” I said.

  “Beg pardon?” he said.

  “You heard me,” I said. “Now process it. And you, Mrs. Ovumkoph, don’t let him stifle you like that.”

  There were tears in her eyes. “But ma’am, you just told your friend to hush.”

  “Touché,” I said.

  “But that was different,” C.J. said. “Abby and I have this agreement; anytime I go off on a tangent with one of my Shelby stories, then she has the right to tell me to put a lid on it.”

  Tina’s right homely face got within six shades of pretty. “Are you from Shelby, North Carolina?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “By jingle, so am I!”

  “You wouldn’t, by any chance, happen ta know Lyudmila Parsons Ledbetter, would ya, ’cause she’s my granny.”

  “Get out of town on a dirt road! She’s my granny too!”

  “Why shoot a monkey, but don’t hurt it none! If this don’t beat all! Cousin!”

  “Cousin!”

  The women flew at each other across the table, and dishes and food flew to both sides. Due to the ruckus that they caused I insisted that we move the show outside, and since Pastor Sam pretended to have left his wallet at home that morning, I also paid for the broken crockery—in addition to the meals, of course.

  “Is there a Shelby dialect?” I asked Pastor Sam as we walked behind the two very animated ladies to the car.

  He laughed, sounding almost pleasant. “Maybe it’s a Ledbetter thing. Have you ever met any others in her family?”

  “Yes, an aunt. But she wasn’t much for talking.”

  “Mr. Ovumkoph, how is it that you manage to live with yourself?”

  “Dagnabit, Mrs. Timberlake, I thought I’d made it clear that I did not murder my aunt. She was always a favorite, by the way.”

  “No, what I mean is: how can you fleece your own flock, shear your own sheep, hide your own herd as it were, and not feel guilty?”

  “Give me a break, Mrs. Timberlake, will you? Tina’s going to be giving the money back on my behalf, remember?”

  “Yes, but how can you possibly remember everyone you’ve ever bilked? After all, you do it on a weekly basis.”

  We were almost to the car, where the ladies had stopped and were carrying on an animated conversation, so Pastor Sam put a hand gently on my arm and we slowed our pace considerably. Fortunately the weather was fabulous and there were no biting insects about.

  “It’s like this, Mrs. Timberlake,” Pastor Sam said, turning to face me. He had the whitest, straightest set of chompers I’d ev
er seen this side of a TV camera. “I was never good at school. And I really sucked at sports. But I did have a gift for remembering people’s names and faces. When you’re part of a four-thousand-member congregation, Mrs. Timberlake, and the pastor remembers your name, and possibly a little something personal about yourself, that’s when you feel important. You feel singled out and special. You’re in denial that he can do the same in regards to everyone else there.”

  By then we’d caught up with the others. “And you can do that?” I said. “You can remember all four thousand of your congregants by name?”

  “That’s how I make my living.” He chuckled. “And I keep track of who’s been healed of what, and when. Call it my gift. And just so you know, I never ‘heal’ anyone who I know to be really ill. That would be just plain wrong.” He tried to lock his blue eyes on mine, but I refused to let him. “I only bring my brand of healing to those folks who are already whole in body and spirit, and together we dance in the light. If in the process I help them be shed of some collateral ailment, then I say praise the Lord!”

  “Hallelujah!” Tina said.

  “Ooh Abby, wasn’t that just the most inspiring thing you ever heard?” C.J. moaned.

  “Au contraire, my dear,” I said. “That was a bucket of merde.”

  Chapter 10

  Ooh, Abby, you better explain yourself,” C.J. said. “Those are fighting words and this man’s kinfolk now.”

  “C.J.,” I said calmly, “get ahold of yourself. He’s a con man. Surely you didn’t buy that ‘dancing in the light’ baloney.”

  “Abby, aren’t you the big liberal that’s always preaching that ‘hey, whatever works, that’s what counts’? If Cousin Sam’s congregants feel better after dancing in the light with him, then it really isn’t your business, is it?”

  “C.J., don’t desert me. We’re supposed to solve Aunt Jerry’s murder before six. Time’s a-wasting.”

  “Abby, let me be,” my buddy said, her voice quavering. “You know how important family is to me.”

  Indeed I did. My ex-sister-in-law wants nothing more than to belong. Maybe it’s the herd instinct she got from that supposed goat DNA, or maybe it’s because she grew up believing that it really was a stork that dropped her off on Granny Ledbetter’s doorstep. Whatever the reason, she has a thirst for roots and a hunger for the type of validation that can never be awarded her in the city she chooses to call home.

  In Charleston, South Carolina, a newcomer is anyone whose people arrived after the War of Northern Aggression. For a handful of the elite, it is the War for Independence from Britain that is the marker. Charleston is “it,” the epicenter of creation, the mile marker from which everywhere else must be measured, for to be from anywhere else is to be from “off.” This is not merely hubris on the part of Charlestonians, mind you; to be fair, one must keep in mind that Charleston is where the Ashley and Cooper rivers join together to form the Atlantic Ocean.

  So, yes, I understood where my dear friend was coming from. However, that didn’t mean I had to like it.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ovumkoph,” I said. “Somehow I don’t think this is the last you’ll be seeing of me. And just so you know, if you harm even one hair on C.J.’s chinny-chin-chin, you’ll have me to answer to.”

  “Ooh, Abby,” C.J. squealed, “you’re the best friend ever!”

  “Yeah,” I said, as I gave her a great big old hug. But if that was really true, then why did I feel like I had a flock of Canada geese wearing miniature army boots marching over my grave?

  Melissa Ovumkoph answered the door with freshly painted toenails. I know this because she told me so, although I might have guessed that by the special thongs she was wearing: there was a division between each toe. Her hair was in curlers and there was something on her face resembling egg white. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about her appearance was her lips. Whereas they had once been enormous, they were now leaking collagen, and resembled half-inflated inner tubes. She shared that with me too.

  In short, I would not have answered my doorbell looking like that, so I gave her extra points to start with. Melissa was either a very self-confident woman, and to be admired, or extremely depressed, and to be treated lightly.

  “Life really sucks when you don’t even have the money for a pedicure,” she said, waving a foot through the crack in the door.

  “I know what you mean. I had to do my own highlights one year when my kids were in high school; it was the pits.”

  “Hey, you’re serious, aren’t ya?”

  “You’re darn tooting, I am. I snagged too much hair through the cap with that thingie and ended up looking like a skunk.”

  She opened the door wide. “Fiddle-dee-dee. Wherever are my manners? Please come in. You must be Robbie’s friend. Aggie, isn’t it?”

  “Abby.”

  “Ya sure?” Her speech was somewhat muffled, given the challenge of speaking with flapping, out-of-control lips. “I mean, ya look more like an Aggie ta me. You know, old-fashioned like. Now myself, I always thought I looked more like a Caitlyn instead of a Melissa. Ugh, Melissa, I can’t stand my name.”

  “Then why don’t you change it?” I said.

  “I just might,” she said. “Now that the old lady didn’t leave me nothing.”

  I cringed at hearing her callousness, even though I’d come prepared for just that. But somehow I wasn’t prepared to see how utterly middle class Aaron and Melissa Ovumkoph lived. Family money had either not trickled down to this branch, or had run right through them like a sieve. It was no wonder they’d been so disappointed not to be mentioned in the will.

  Melissa threw several armloads of clothes off a sagging purple and brown plaid sofa. “I was doing laundry and hadn’t gotten around to folding yet. Heck, I’m always doing laundry. Betcha ain’t never seen a man sweat as much as Aaron.”

  “I won’t contest that,” I said. I glanced around the room. Their decorating style consisted of dark, faux wood paneling and cheaply framed prints of dogs playing cards.

  “Ain’tcha gonna sit?” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Ain’t them pictures cute?” she said. “We seen them at a garage sale. Aaron says we oughta hang on ta them ’cause someday some snooty professor type will say that they’re folk art, and then even copies like these will be valuable. I tell ya, Aggie, he ain’t worth much as a husband, but that Aaron is pretty smart. Hey, ya want something ta drink? Got some red wine, and some white wine, and some Cheerwine.” Cheerwine is a popular Southern soft drink that goes well with Moon Pies in the event that RC Cola is unavailable.

  One of the tricks to good sleuthing is to always accept an offer of refreshments. That allows one at least a modicum of time to do some snooping. A body should take care, however, not to ingest the comestibles—unless said goodies are also consumed by the host or hostess—lest one should awaken in a crate in the port of Shanghai, staring up at the face of a Cantonese madam named Huang Lu. Been there, done that, is all I want to say about that experience.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Do any of those wines come with a cork—no offense.”

  “Oh, none taken. I just hate them uppity folks and their corky ways, don’t you? Screw them, I say!” She roared with laughter, as she tossed back her long bleached mane and slapped her thighs.

  “Yeah, what a bunch of winers,” I said, and pretended to carry on as well.

  Laughter is indeed contagious, and it is best caught from our own selves. Just by pretending to laugh, I began to laugh, and soon I forgot that I was pretending. Then suddenly Melissa and I were laughing at cues taken from each other, and then we just couldn’t stop. Together we laughed until there were tears in our eyes, and I felt my bladder dangerously constrict.

  “If you don’t quit making me laugh, I’m going to—”

  “What? Pee in your pants?”

  And then we were off again, me and the woman who had egg white on her face and curlers in her hair, and with whom I had nothing in commo
n. But I had a job to do, so after several minutes of shamelessly rolling about on the brown and purple plaid sofa like a college student stoned on pot, I got it back together enough to ask for wine in a box—color unimportant—and some Moon Pies if she had some.

  Then, as soon as she’d padded out of sight, I was all business. A more careful look around the room confirmed my initial impression: this was a family that either had no assets, or chose not to invest them in feathering their nest. If suddenly handed a thumbnail-size bar of soap and a towel no larger than a dinner napkin, I might be persuaded that I was back in the one-star West Virginia motel in which Buford Timberlake and I spent our honeymoon—oh, but there had to be a footprint on the ceiling to complete the mood.

  Of course poverty doesn’t necessarily equate with pedestrian taste. We’ve all heard of folks down on their luck who’ve still managed, through creativity, to build very attractive and sometimes astonishingly beautiful spaces for themselves. But not so Aaron and Melissa Ovumkoph. I even did a two-second reconnaissance of their downstairs powder room. The only bit of decorating in there was a hand-lettered sign hanging over the toilet that read: just do it!

  “Here we go,” Melissa said, barely giving me time to throw myself back on the sofa. This second time around I learned that there was a broken spring.

  “This is mighty gracious of you,” I said.

  “ ’Tain’t nothing.” She handed me a glass tumbler half filled with a murky, deep maroon substance. It looked like the fake wine we used in high school plays, and which was supplied by Miss Odell Jordan, one of the English teachers. We were instructed not to drink the foul fluid, so of course we did, and we all got sick, but we never did find out what it was.

  “To chai-yum,” she said, murdering the pronunciation of a great Jewish toast.

  “Skoal,” I said.

  “Well, drink up. It’s fresh. I just now broke the seal on the box.”