The Sky Beneath My Feet

Chapter 13


Bad Habit





Sounds like you had quite a time,” Holly says. “You should have invited me along.”

“I’m not sure you would have enjoyed it.”

“Why not? Am I not cool enough for your new friends?”

“Honey, even I’m not cool enough for them.”

We’re sitting by the window at one of our favorite lunch cafés, watching the rain pelt the outdoor furniture on the patio where we usually sit. The weather has taken a turn. It’s wet and cold outside and people are finally reconciling themselves to the end of a long Indian summer, wearing sweaters and scarves and raincoats as they dash from the parking lot into the restaurant. Holly sports a tailored tweed jacket, looking very equestrian, and this morning I dug out my favorite thrift-store find, a beat-up double-breasted leather coat from the seventies, hip-length and nipped at the waist.

The waitress brings our salads, more bread, another tea for Holly, who keeps sucking them down. “They put too much ice in these things,” she says once the girl is gone. “Anyway, I’m sorry things didn’t go better with Eli. I should have warned you. Kids these days? They’re all libertarians. They don’t want anyone telling them what they can or cannot do. As long as they’re not violating anybody else’s freedom, the government—and their parents—should just butt out.”

“Now you tell me. Are they libertarians, or just teenagers?”

“You think there’s a difference?” She smiles. “Don’t tell Eric I said that. He’s been testy ever since he got home.”

“Is it serious?”

She seesaws her hand. “Kinda, sorta. We go through phases. I guess that’s normal, right? The thing is, ninety percent of the time, the two of us are in sync. We’re not navel-gazers, Beth. We don’t psychoanalyze our relationship. That’s how my mother was, and I couldn’t stand it, always badgering my dad about his feelings, upset that he didn’t share enough. Me, I look at marriage differently. I want it to be a source of comfort, not anxiety. The best way to get that is to leave the scabs alone.”

“That’s not always easy. I’ve been picking at mine.”

“You have an excuse. I mean, I can hardly complain to you about Eric, can I? It’s not like he’s living in the backyard.”

“So what is he doing?”

“Little things. For example, he was giving me a hard time about my hours at the church. Every time we reclaim another section of that warehouse, he gets hit up for another donation. Usually, he likes it. The thing about Eric is, he wants to give money away. He loves doing it. He loves being able to help. And if he doesn’t have the money, he’ll go out and find it. All of a sudden, though, he’s complaining about getting calls from the pastoral staff. He’s acting like it’s my fault, like I’m trying to drain him by adding on to the building.”

“You’re the one trying to put the brakes on the crazy spending.”

“I know, right? They’d have gold thrones on stage if it wasn’t for me.” She laughs. “Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you know what I mean. Every time it comes up, I get the silent treatment. That, or he goes into this spiel about how I don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

She shrugs. “Finance. The way the world works. Take your pick. It’s like my dad telling me money doesn’t grow on trees. ‘It doesn’t? For real? Well, where does it come from?’ Duh. There’s some other stuff too, but it’s all trivial. He’s just picking a fight, and I don’t know why.”

“You are happy, though? Overall, I mean.”

“Sure, Beth. Of course we are. I’m certainly not unhappy.”

“You’re getting what you need from the relationship?”

She pauses, fork in air. “What does that mean?”

“Just . . . I don’t know. Sometimes you seem a little lonely. We have that in common.”

“Lonely.” She weighs the word on her tongue. “Look, you know me. I don’t subscribe to the philosophies of the marriage-industrial complex. I’m not looking to a man to fulfill me completely. That’s a lot of pressure to put on anyone. I like my space. I like having my own friends. I like to be alone sometimes, but that’s not the same as being lonely.”

“I realize that—”

“You feel lonely, Beth?”

“Of course I do. Like you said, my husband lives in a shed in the backyard. If I didn’t have Deedee’s painting, I’d have forgotten by now what the man looks like.”

“Seriously, though. Before Rick went nuts. You were lonely? That makes me sad.”

“It makes me sad, Holly. I don’t want to be this way.”

“What way? You’re great just how you are. There’s nothing missing about you. You know that, right?”

“I think there is. I’m not like you. I didn’t stick it out in school. I didn’t fulfill my promise. I was all set for law school and then I got pregnant with Jed. The first half of my life pointed one way, and the second half pointed the opposite direction. All the things I intended to do—to be—none of that ever happened. I know it’s my fault. Nobody forced me to give up anything. But still . . . I miss it. I miss what I should have become.”

“It takes a village, Beth. A husband can’t give you everything any more than you can give him everything. But you have your kids, you have me. You’re not alone, and you’re anything but a failure. Are you kidding me? That’s crazy talk.”

I smile wanly. “It runs in the family these days.”

“You’re depressed because of Eli. Look, if it will help, why don’t I take a crack at him? He might be able to shrug Mommy off, but when Aunt Holly sinks her teeth in, that’s another story.”

“It’s not because of Eli,” I say. “But you’re welcome to talk to him. I’d love that, actually. It’s not like I can ask Rick to help.”

Whenever I spill my guts like this, I always feel sick afterward. How much of what I said do I actually believe? To be honest, it’s hard to tell. Sometimes, when you process out loud, you say things you don’t mean at all. I’m not sure this is one of those instances. These existential complaints of mine, they all ring true in my ears. If that makes me superficial, the victim of midlife regrets, then what can I say? Guilty as charged.

“At least eat your food,” Holly says. “I can’t have you lonely and starving. That would be too much on my conscience.”





Some people have dessert after a meal. Holly likes to window shop. When she’s really in a funk (there’s that word again!) she starts trying things on, modeling new outfits in the mirror until I give her the thumbs-up or thumbs-down. This afternoon, as she disappears into one changing room after another, my head churns with conflicting ideas.

I don’t know what to do about Eli.

I’m afraid Jed will have his heart broken.

My cheek still stings from the slap Mother Zacchaeus gave me—not literally, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Something’s unsettled there.

“Is that a metaphor or what?” Vernon’s words keep coming back to me, the soundtrack to a confused crosscut of mental images: the worship team projected on-screen, Rick looking at the painting of himself as a saint, the Reflecting Pool casting no reflection of the stormy sky above. The square opening in the roof of a Quaker meeting hall that can never be found again, no matter how often I retrace my steps. Everything means something, only I’m too dim to make the necessary connections.

In my pocket, I carry the enamel pin with the image of the open Bible. I work the raised letters with the edge of my thumbnail the way an old Catholic like Deedee’s mother, Margaret, frets the beads of her rosary.

“What do you think?”

Holly stands before me in diaphanous silk, a decadent, clingy show-dress only appropriate for the kind of events I never find myself invited to. She looks good in it too. She should. While I ferry kids back and forth and do grocery runs, she meets her personal trainer for an hour of body sculpting. Whatever that is, it sounds like a lot of work.

“When they give you the Oscar, that’s the dress you should wear.”

She studies her reflection. Bites her lip. “So that’s a no.”

“Your uniform works for you. Why change it up?”

“Just so you know, I’m not leaving here with nothing. There’s one more outfit.”

While she’s busy, I wander through the shop, casting an eye on the shimmering dresses on their plush hangers. Behind the counter, one of the shopgirls is busily texting while the other rambles on about her Halloween costume from last year, and how this time she intends to go all out.

Halloween already?

Holly comes out in a strapless metallic number.

“You’re not serious,” I say. “Are you going to the prom on Jupiter or something?”

“You don’t like?”

“I was just thinking, we’re past the point of no return with Rick’s retreat. Closer to the end of October than the beginning.”

“He’s held out longer than I ever expected.” She turns in the mirror to get a look at the back of the dress. “You’re right. I’d never wear this.”

“Gregory said maybe this was my month, not Rick’s. It’s halfway gone, though, and what do I have to show for it? Some loose teeth from getting slapped.”

“And some civil disobedience.”

“And a stoner son. It’s not enough. I want to do something.”

Holly swishes toward me, eyes alight. “Something like what?”

“I don’t know—”

“You’ve still got Stacy’s keys, right? That’s what we should do. Serve our husbands right.”

“Not something like that,” I say. “I want to make a difference somehow.”

“Hold that thought.”

While she changes back into her tweed and denim, I head to the front of the store, gazing idly through the rain-streaked windows. In my pocket, the back of the pin works loose under the pressure of my thumb. I push the pad of my index finger ever so slightly forward, just enough to feel the point break skin. In the glass, my reflection stares forlornly, looking trapped. Not to mention transparent.

We have to run to Holly’s car to keep from getting soaked.

“I think I know what it is,” I say, pulling my seat belt on.

“Your meaningful thing?”

I nod. “The only problem is, if you go along with this, you might annoy that husband of yours.”

“Is that right?” she asks. “Tell me more.”





Eric Ringwald sees us through the glass wall separating his office from the secretary’s desk. He jogs over, smiling, then holds us up on the threshold to give Holly a kiss.

“Where have you girls been? Out shopping?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t drain the bank account. It’s a good thing too. Beth here thinks it’s time for you to whip out your checkbook.”

Eric raises his eyebrows. “Oh boy. Maybe we should sit down.”

This is only the second time I’ve visited Eric’s lair. From the tour during my first visit, I recall that all the surfaces are exotic hardwoods, that the pictures on the walls are not reproductions, and that the little bronze head on the pedestal behind him is by a Frenchman named Minaux (which Eric pronounces like minnow) and was a gift from a famous international diplomat, whose name I would certainly recognize if only he were at liberty to say it aloud. Not that Eric is a great appreciator of art. “I’m not,” he insisted, “not at all. It’s the stories that matter to me, not the pieces themselves.”

Nevertheless, there are plenty of pieces.

Before I sit in one of Eric’s chairs, I pause to consider that it probably cost more than my car. (What am I talking about? Of course it cost more than the VW!) A scientist somewhere engineered the cushions to make people entering this office in search of donations especially uncomfortable. The back tilts too far to the rear, and there are no arms. If I don’t exert abdominal strength to hold my body upright, I’ll be staring at the ceiling.

“I was surprised to get your call,” Eric says to Holly. “Surprised and intrigued.”

“I’ll let Beth explain.”

They both turn toward me.

“I thought about you the other day,” I tell him. “Remember your trip to Haiti? When you came back, we all went to dinner.” I pause long enough for him to nod at the memory. “You were talking about the children. How they had nothing, but still seemed so happy.”

“It’s true,” he says. “I’ll never forget those kids.”

“I met a kid not long ago. Not a child, a young woman. I found her in a place that seemed terrible in my eyes, an unimaginable place. But if she hadn’t been there, I believe she would be dead today. It’s here in Baltimore, this place. It’s called Mission Up, because I think it used to be one.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Eric says. He presses his fingertips together thoughtfully. “Tell me more about the girl.”

Starting from the moment Gregory arrived on my doorstep on the eve of Eli’s birthday, I recount the whole story of our visit to Mission Up. I tell him about Sam and about Mother Zacchaeus, pulling no punches along the way.

“This nun sounds like a real harpy.”

“Eric went to Catholic school,” Holly says. “He harbors some resentment toward the nuns.”

He smiles and raises a finger. “Only Sister Magdalen.”

“The thing is,” I say, “I feel like this place was dropped in my lap. I had no idea it even existed. The first time I saw it, I wished it didn’t. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that Mission Up needs our help. It needs my help. Of course it’s not what it should be. Of course it’s sketchy. That woman is doing the best she can with what she’s got, and she’s all on her own. The good guys evacuated that neighborhood a long time ago. Mission Up is all that’s left. But even as it is, in all its squalor, that place is still a sanctuary.”

“And you want me to find some money for it?”

I nod.

“How much?”

“I have no idea. All I know is she needs some help.”

“Is there a nonprofit? A foundation?”

“There’s a fleabag hotel full of recovering addicts, battered women, ex-prostitutes, and their kids. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing else, nothing official. Does that make a difference?”

“It could.”

“But, honey, not everybody who needs help has nonprofit status. Those kids in Haiti—”

“True, true,” he says, holding up a hand to silence Holly. “Tell you what, Beth. Let me make some calls. Let me see what I can do. I like this thing. It appeals to me. It would make a change to do something like this instead of adding another wing to the church building, right?”

Ouch.

“This is the real deal,” he says. “No, really. I like it. Leave it with me.”

He holds Holly back for a couple of minutes. I spend the time chatting with his secretary, an older Hispanic woman who idolizes her boss and thinks his wife walks on water too. I enjoy her company. To borrow Eric’s line, it makes a change.

Out in the parking lot, Holly tells me I did a great job.

“You hooked him. I can tell.”

“What about the part at the end, about the new wing of the church?”

“I don’t think he was joking. He’d love to tell them the money’s all tied up in inner-city projects, just to see the looks on their faces. He’ll come around, though. He always does.”

“I feel funny. This is the first time I’ve ever asked someone for money.”

“You’re not bad at it, Beth. Maybe you’ve found your purpose in life.”

She’s joking, of course. That doesn’t mean she’s wrong.

Maybe I have found my purpose.

Like Jim Shaw told me, you don’t need a law degree to make a difference.





That night I light some candles on top of the TV set and uncork a $5 bottle of Shiraz, pouring until I hit the halfway mark on my plastic juice glass. We don’t drink thanks to Rick’s employment contract, and even before that I never had much taste for wine. At least, I had no taste for cheap wine, which was the only kind I ever tasted. I’m celebrating, though, so tonight’s an exception. Before taking a sip, I run upstairs and fetch Deedee’s painting, propping St. Rick against the television screen.

“Who’s the saint now?” I ask, raising the juice glass to my lips.

Five-dollar Shiraz tastes like grapes and lighter fluid. I finish what’s in the cup on principle, then pour the rest down the sink.

Still, a good day’s work.

When Eli comes home, I make a point of going up and sniffing him. He takes it in stride and sniffs back.

“Mom,” he says, “have you been drinking?”

Two hours later Jed slips through the back door. He crouches in front of the refrigerator in search of something to eat.

“Where have you been?” I ask.

“With Marlene.”

“Of course you have. That’s every night since we got back from Washington. Aren’t you taking things a little quick?”

“We’re just hanging out,” he says.

“Then I guess everything is going well. She likes you?”

He shrugs. In the freezer he finds a bag of fish sticks. “Mom, do you mind?”

“Anything for you.”

While I’m heating up a tray of fish sticks, he goes into the living room and switches the TV on. “What’s this? Some kind of shrine?”

“If your father’s in the way, just move him.”

The smell of fish sticks brings Eli down the stairs, even though he’s already eaten. I bring a heaping plate in to the boys, who have their feet on the coffee table as they watch a reality show about a gun shop where they’re always blowing things up. I sit and watch with them, even munching on a fish stick or two.

“They’re kind of burnt,” Eli says.

“They’re not burnt,” I tell him. “They’re caramelized.”

Just as I’m starting to enjoy myself, an evening of normalcy in front of the TV with my sons, the telephone rings. It’s Jim Shaw. I take the phone into the kitchen.

“Look, Beth, I’m getting pretty worried here. Has something happened to Rick? I keep leaving messages and never hearing back. It’s been two weeks now—no, more than two weeks. I gotta tell you, this is really throwing me for a loop.”

As he speaks, I go to the sink and look through the window. The light inside the shed is on.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” I say.

“How can I not worry? I offer the man a job, he says he’ll get back to me, then nothing. If he’s not interested, Beth, then he should at least have the decency to say so. Unless . . . Beth, he is all right, isn’t he? Has something happened up there?”

This is silly. Jim and I have had this conversation two or three times since his visit at the end of September. I’m getting tired of giving him the runaround. It’s Rick’s problem, not mine.

“Nothing’s wrong,” I tell him. “Jim, he’s out in the shed. I’ll take the phone to him, okay? Just hold on a second.”

When I turn to go out, Jed is standing in the kitchen doorway. “What’s going on?”

I clamp my hand over the receiver. “I’m taking the phone out to your dad.”

“You want me to do it?”

I shake my head.

“Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine.”

The night air chills me. As I cross the lawn, I notice a heap of dried flowers at the foot of the shed door. He’s stopped bringing the offerings inside. Maybe Deedee will take a hint and stop bringing them.

“Rick?”

I stop a few feet from the shed, waiting for a reply.

“Rick, are you in there? I have Jim Shaw on the phone.”

Nothing.

“Just hold on a second, Jim.”

I hold the phone up to my eyes, find the Mute button, and press it down. Then I walk right up to the door and lightly knock.

“Rick? Are you asleep?”

Inside the shed, Rick coughs. The sound sends a tingle up my spine. This is the first sign of life he’s given since the birthday party.

“Can you open up a sec? I have Jim on the phone.”

Silence.

He hears me. He knows I’m waiting. But still he doesn’t come to the door.

“I’m done playing games,” I tell him. “I’m tired of making up stories. Here he is. You need to talk to him. Or if you don’t want to, then you tell him yourself. I’m through.”

I knock again, shaking the door on its hinges. There’s no way he doesn’t know I’m here.

He clears his throat and says something inaudible.

“What was that? I can’t hear you.”

“I can’t talk,” he says. His voice sounds strange, low and scratchy. “Tell him that for me, Beth.”

My name. Hearing him say it has a strange effect. I want to push through the door and see him. I want to touch him. I want to tell him to pull the plug on this insanity and come back inside. All that from hearing his choked voice utter that tiny syllable.

“I’m not going to tell him anything,” I say. “I’m going to leave the phone right here. If you don’t want to see your wife, that’s fine. I’ll leave it and go inside. Is that what you want?”

Silence again.

“Okay, then.” I push the Mute button again. “Jim, he’ll be right here.”

Then I set the phone down and back away.

After a moment, I turn and run.

Inside, with my back against the kitchen door, Jed appears again, his hand clamped over his mouth. “What’s wrong, Mom? Why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” I say, wiping my eyes. “In five minutes, I want you to look outside, and if the phone’s still by the shed door, bring it inside.”

“What about you?” he asks.

“I’m going to bed.”

At the top of the stairs, I find St. Rick hanging on the wall again. Eli must have brought him back up. I pull him down again and take him into the bedroom, intending some kind of desecration. In the end, I prop him against the lamp on my nightstand. With the light off, a faint luminescence remains in the room, enough to detect the shine of the painting’s surface.

“Who’s the saint now?”





“The sad fact is, you’re being taken for a ride.”

“I don’t understand,” I say.

Across the exotic hardwood desk, Eric Ringwald fixes me with his benevolent gaze. The summons was unexpected. I would have called Holly except I thought she would be here already. Instead, I’m alone across from Eric, who’s been doing his due diligence and has some news to report.

“I know some people in the Baltimore Police Department, so I made a few calls. This Mission Up place, it’s a blight on the neighborhood. If they could shut it down, they would.”

“I know it isn’t pretty—”

He holds up the silencing hand. “And this nun of yours, Mother Zacchaeus? She’s not a nun at all.”

“I had a feeling she wasn’t in an order or anything like that. I’m not familiar with how things work in other churches. Besides the Catholics, I mean. Not that I’m familiar—”

“What I’m saying is, she’s not a nun. Not a Catholic nun or any other kind. Her real name is Rosetta Harvey, and she’s got a rap sheet down to here. Possession, dealing, prostitution, you name it, going back more than twenty years. This is not a good person, Beth. She is not at all what she seems.”

I open my mouth to reply. Nothing comes.

“When she slapped you, you’re lucky that’s all she did. She’s done time for assault too. The guys I spoke with, they couldn’t make it any clearer. This is not somebody you want to get yourself involved with. You’re lucky you got that girl out of there when you did.”

The kindhearted secretary comes in with a tray of coffee. I pour cream into mine, no sugar, stirring slowly with the little spoon provided.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“The world is full of these people, Beth. Trust me, I deal with them every day. They’re out to get something for nothing, cheat the system, feed their ego, whatever. She’s got herself an evil empire down there, a captive audience to rule over. I don’t know what the scam is, and I don’t want to know. Neither do you, quite frankly. The depth of evil in this world would shock you, believe me. I’m just happy I was able to help this time.”

I sip my coffee. I’m sure it’s good, probably carried by hand from the dew-swept mountains of Jamaica. But I can’t taste a thing.

“I gave Holly a call and asked her to come over,” he says. “I thought you might need someone to talk to. And let me just say, I hope you don’t let this get to you. Just because this lady turned out to be a fraud doesn’t mean your instinct to help wasn’t sound. I’d never forgive myself if I thought you might walk out of here hard-hearted. The world needs more people who really care. Hold on one second.” He lifts the phone, which has just begun to chirp. “Beth, I’m gonna have to take this.”

I take my coffee into the lobby. The nice lady asks if I’d like a refill. I shake my head.

“It would be wasted on me.”

I don’t know what to make of this. My head is reeling. Of course she is a fraud. The ridiculous getup, the passive-aggressive manner, the bullying, a whole host of red flags. It’s not like I missed them. I just didn’t connect the dots. I let my newfound sense of purpose get ahead of me.

“I feel stupid,” I say.

“You know what,” the secretary says. “I feel that way every time I walk out of there. That man has a head on his shoulders, don’t you think?”

I put the coffee cup aside and wander into the corridor in search of a restroom. In the mirror, I appear remarkably composed. Not a hair out of place. I wash my hands out of habit, ball up the paper towel, and then look at myself again. Turn, then back. Turn, then back. But no, she’s never there. It’s always Beth in the mirror looking back at me.

Plain old Beth.

Who’s the saint now?





Before Holly shows up at the office, I decide to go.

I have no desire to talk.

I feel thwarted. Tricked. Like my good intentions have been thrown back in my face.

Maybe that’s what I deserve. Was this about helping people in need, or was I just trying to make myself feel better? Taking advantage of their need to meet a selfish need of my own? As my friend, Holly will feel duty-bound to reassure me. I don’t want to be reassured.

When I reach home, there’s a panel van in front of the Smythes’ house. The name of a local courier service is stenciled on the side. Curious, I park the VW and walk next door. The front door is open, and I find Margaret Smythe in the parlor, hands clasped, clearly agitated.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“It’s my daughter. She’s gone insane.”

“Where is she?”

Margaret lifts an open palm to the sky, as if to say Deedee could be anywhere. At the top of the broad winding staircase, a couple of men in work boots and zip-front overalls appear, carrying a large, bubble-wrapped canvas between them. They start down the stairs, backpedaling with care, the wood creaking under their weight. Then Deedee leans over the rail.

“Elizabeth,” she says. “You’re just in time.”

“I don’t see why you want to do this!” Margaret declares.

“Oh, Mother, don’t vex me. You simply cannot understand. Don’t mind her, my dear. She can’t help pitching her little fits.”

Being trapped between mother and daughter is always awkward. Deedee treats the eighty-something Margaret as if she were a child sometimes. And to be honest, the fine old lady does have an impish quality to her. More than once I’ve seen her stir up trouble for her own amusement. Not to mention mine.

“I am not having a fit. I just think you should be committed. It’s never a good sign when a person starts giving away all her treasured possessions.”

The movers are trying to focus on the bend in the stairs, but I can tell the women are making them nervous. Deedee follows close behind them. The sound of her voice seems to speed them forward. They reach the ground floor with a sigh of relief, propping the wrapped canvas against one of the balustrades.

“Is it going to fit through the door?” one of them asks the other, eyeing the front entrance with suspicion.

“How do you think it got in here to begin with?” Deedee asks.

The bubble wrap obscures the canvas. I already know what’s underneath. Margaret showed the picture to me once, not long after we moved in next door. It was the first of Deedee’s paintings I ever saw, back before I realized she was so accomplished in the art. She had led me up the stairs into a wood-paneled room that had once been her father’s study. There was a fireplace fronted by green glazed tile, and over the mantel this breathtaking painting.

“What do you think?” Margaret had asked.

“She’s beautiful,” I said. “Is it you?”

“Oh no. That’s Deedee. She did it when she was twenty-five. It’s the earliest painting of hers we have, and the only self-portrait. I keep it in here because she doesn’t like to see it. Deedee never comes in here.”

At twenty-five, Deedee’s thick, honey-blond hair hung heavily upon her shoulders. She looked out from the painting with cool, penetrating eyes, the expressionless expression of a young woman studying her own face in a mirror. The scale of the piece seemed immense, maybe six feet by six feet square, the whole of it dedicated to her face, her throat, the top of her shoulders. Deedee’s way of flattening things out hadn’t emerged by this point, it seemed. While the picture was as realistic as a photo and even more minutely observed, there was a depth to the contours of her face, a dimensionality that was to disappear later as her style progressed.

“I couldn’t imagine having a painting of myself at twenty-five,” I said.

That impish grin of Margaret’s appeared. “She was always very vain.”

Now the self-portrait is bundled up and being manhandled out the door by a couple of jumpsuited movers, much to Margaret’s displeasure. As they clear the door, Roy Meakin appears in the threshold.

“Deedee, you can’t be serious,” he says.

“Of course I am.”

“If you have to sell it, then let me buy it. I’d be happy to pay whatever price you name.”

“I’m sure you would, Roy. But I won’t have you gawking at my younger self.”

He turns to me. “Maybe you can stop her. The rest of us can’t seem to get through.”

“I don’t even understand what’s happening.”

“What’s happening,” Deedee says, “is a new period in my work. I’m done with the old. It’s time for the new. And that one especially has to go.”

“Why especially?”

“It’s an affront, that’s why. A painter painting herself, painting her own reflection, obsessed with her mirror image. Look what happened to Narcissus, so obsessed with himself.” She takes me by the shoulders, very intense. “The trick is to see through the glass, not to be distracted by the image it bounces back at you. You see what I mean?”

“Not really, no.”

“This thing goes to the gallery or the trash heap, one or the other.”

She follows the movers out, catching up just as they’re making the descent down the steps to the sidewalk. Despondent, Roy looks on. Margaret hobbles over, touching the wall for support until she reaches his side.

“Do you know which gallery?” Roy asks under his breath.

“I have it written down,” she says, passing him a folded slip of paper.

He inspects the paper, frowning with determination. “I’ll take care of this.”

Margaret directs a stern look in my direction. “You understand Deedee is not to know? This isn’t the first time we’ve had to save her from herself.”

“My lips are sealed.”

Leaving them to their conspiracy, I walk outside to see the canvas loaded into the van. Deedee stands on the sidewalk, arms folded in satisfaction, like she’s just pulled off a remarkable feat.

“They think they’ve outsmarted me,” she says. “But I told Mother it was going to the Annandale, when it’s really heading for Rooney & Gill. It’s not the first time they’ve tried to match wits with me and failed.”

I make a mental note of the name Rooney & Gill so I can pass the information along. The painting’s better off down the street at Roy’s than hanging in some stranger’s living room, surely. My promise to be the best neighbor ever is occasionally put to the test. This time I have a feeling Margaret’s the one to side with.

The van pulls away. Roy ambles our way, a hangdog expression on his face.

“Don’t pout, Roy. A man your age?”

“You don’t always know what’s best. Even for yourself.”

He heads down the sidewalk in the same direction as the van. Holly’s car passes him, pulling up to the curb near the mouth of my driveway.

“It’s that friend of yours,” Deedee says. “The loud one.”

She retreats to the house before Holly can catch up.

“I heard the bad news,” Holly says.

“Let me borrow your phone.”

Intrigued by the request, she hands it over. I punch Roy’s home number in and make the call. His voice mail picks up. “She didn’t send it to the place she told Margaret about. It’s going to something called Rooney & Gill. Good luck!”

“What was that all about?” Holly asks, dropping the phone back into her purse.

“Favor for a friend.”

“I’m glad to hear it. That’s the reason I’m here. To do a favor for a friend.”

“What kind of favor?”

We walk as far as the driveway, pausing next to her car.

“You’ve been holding on to the key to Stacy Manderville’s beach house for something like three weeks. I’ve had enough. We’re going.”

“I can’t leave now.”

“We are going to do this, Beth. Me and you. It’ll be an adventure.”

“Holly, I can’t afford the plane tickets, and I’m not having you pay for everything.”

“Not a problem. You said it yourself. Florida’s just a day away. We’ll have ourselves a road trip, two girlfriends on the open highway. It’ll be like Thelma & Louise. Minus the Brad Pitt, of course. Come on, Beth. You need this. If you stay around here, you’re going to end up going batty.”

“No,” I say.

“That’s settled, then.”

“Holly, no.”

“Remember to pack your bikini.”

“Yeah, right. Now you’re dreaming.”