Valerie Wolzien: Death In Duplicate

What Susan thought was that they’d look like miniature deadheads, but she just smiled. This was Chrissy’s problem, not hers. Besides, Stephen had managed to open the champagne and was trying to keep a half dozen little white Styrofoam cups upright while he filled them. Susan helped to pass them around, serving her daughter first.

“A toast!” Rhythm said rather loudly, raising his glass in the air. Some champagne sloshed out onto the floor just as the same nurse who had chastised Jed in the hallway appeared.

“The babies will be brought into the room in fifteen minutes. Perhaps you might want to tone down this party before then… You certainly will have your work cut out for you,” she added to the woman holding the balloons before sweeping out the door.

Susan looked at the woman. “I can take those, if you need to get to work,” she suggested.

“No, the babies are fine.”

“The babies? Don’t you work in the gift shop?” Susan asked, confused.

“No. That’s what I was going to tell you. You see, my parents-,” Stephen began, but Chrissy interrupted.

“Mother, this is Shannon Tapley. Rhythm and Blues hired her. She’s going to be our baby nurse for six months. She’ll be coming with us to your house,” Chrissy announced.

CHRISSY, STEPHEN, AND THE BABIES WERE TO ARRIVE around dinnertime. Susan had spent the past three weeks reorganizing, cleaning, and childproofing her home and she was showing the results of this hard work to Nadine Baines, her new next-door neighbor.

“… Chrissy and Stephen will stay in her old room as they always do. I had it redecorated right after they were married, so all I had to do in there was empty the closet. I’ve been using it to store clothing that I… well, that I wasn’t wearing.” Susan decided not to explain that she wouldn’t be wearing those clothes again until she lost the ten pounds she had gained in the past two years. She didn’t want that particular information spread all over town and Nadine Baines did love to gossip.

“I turned our guest room into a nursery.” Susan opened a door farther down the hallway and stood back so the other woman could peer in. “Fortunately it’s large enough for two babies and all their stuff.”

“This is absolutely adorable!”

“Do you think so?” Actually, Susan thought so, too. After many hours of indecision, she had chosen a fairy-tale theme. Wanting lots of bright colors and animals, she had found a local artist to paint a room-sized mural depicting her favorites. Little Red Riding Hood was strolling through the woods, carrying an impossibly large straw basket to the right of the doorway. After a few feet, the mossy forest path to grandmother’s house became a cobblestone road leading up a flowery peak to Cinderella’s castle. Knights leaving that castle continued down the path on the other side, their horses clad in chamfrons and poitrels, and their banners spread out across a lapis blue sky as they paraded toward a gleaming sword embedded in a large gray stone. Right behind the stone, three houses, each with a pig lounging nearby, lined the dirt path that led to a thatched roof dwelling. A lovely young woman leaned out of the top of the dwelling’s Dutch door, waving to seven dwarfs as they marched off to greet two children on their way to a house fashioned from candy and cookies. At the far side of the witch’s house of sweets, the path turned into a stream where a scruffy looking baby bird tailed a flock of geese. A little mermaid watched from a rock nearby.

The room’s two windows had been hung with white muslin which Susan herself had stenciled with a fantasy collection of animals, flowers, stars, suns, and moons. Two white cribs were covered with quilts, now appropriately personalized, as well as matching sheets, blankets, and see-through crib bumpers. A pair of changing tables stood nearby. Deep wall-to-wall mossy green carpeting covered the floor. The alcove between the windows was Susan’s favorite spot in the room. A carefully chosen selection of children’s books shared a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with a new CD player and a collection of CDs appropriate for children’s listening. Two rocking chairs, lined with plush pillows, were ready for late night feedings. Susan couldn’t wait.

“You have so many closets,” Nadine said, looking at the three doors.

“Only two. The other door leads to a bathroom. And the bathroom is connected to what used to be my sewing room. I turned it into a place for the baby nurse to sleep… just temporarily,” Susan added, leading her guest into that room.

Susan’s sewing machine had been pushed into the far corner of the room and covered with a flowered sheet. A narrow single bed was made up with matching sheets. Susan had emptied the top two drawers of the dresser and half of the small closet. She didn’t understand why Rosie and Ethan needed a baby nurse when they were going to have a grandmother available twenty-four hours a day and this room showed it.

“This should be comfortable,” Nadine said.

“I’d better get back downstairs. I have to take the leg of lamb out of the refrigerator…”

“Yum. Leg of lamb. My favorite.” Nadine followed Susan out into the hallway. “Are you going to roast it with garlic and rosemary?”

“Not this time. It’s marinating in a mixture of raspberry vinegar, whole grain mustard, and herbs. Chrissy loves it. I’ll give you the recipe if you would like,” Susan offered.

“Oh, I don’t have time to fuss with fancy meals. You can just ask us over for dinner the next time you make it.”

Susan laughed, although she wasn’t absolutely sure Nadine was kidding. “I suppose I’d better get started in the kitchen,” she said, hoping Nadine would take the hint and leave.

“I’ll keep you company.”

“Oh… great.” Susan was too polite to say anything else. Maybe Nadine would get bored and go home. Nadine, however, discovered the real estate section of the local paper occupying the middle of Susan’s large pine kitchen table and sat down to enjoy herself.

“Are you planning on moving?” Nadine asked, flipping through the pages.

“No, I thought that Chrissy and her husband might want to look at what’s available locally.”

“Oh… We looked at this house. Gorgeous outside, but a real dump inside. You should have seen the bathrooms. Tacky linoleum on the floor, old square tiles on the walls and the original fixtures.” She shuddered as though describing the bleakest buildings in an urban slum rather than a spacious ranch built in the late 1950s and standing on land now worth more than a million dollars without improvements. “And you wouldn’t believe what they wanted for it.”

“I would,” Susan said. She had been shocked to find herself on the other side of the real estate game Connecticut style. After decades of being thrilled by the growing worth of her own home, she had come face-to-face with the reality of young couples looking for their first home-prices way beyond their budgets.

“Well, remember Donald if you’re seriously looking in the area. No one knows more about real estate in Connecticut than Donald. He’s got a lot of inside info and I’m sure he’d be happy to find a real deal for your daughter.”

“If we start looking seriously, I’m sure having a real estate broker living next door will come in handy,” Susan agreed.

Nadine continued to comment on the homes for sale and the real estate market in general while Susan prepared dinner. She was making a leek tart and garlic mashed potatoes to go with the lamb and she was rummaging through the cabinet where she stored her baking pans when Clue began to bark.

“I wonder who…?” It was a question Susan didn’t have to complete. Two large bullmastiffs plunged into the kitchen, followed by a hysterical golden retriever. Nadine’s startled scream then joined the wails of an exhausted baby-or two-from the hallway. Susan rushed to open the door into her backyard so the dogs could become reacquainted without destroying the house just as Chrissy and Stephen, each with a baby tucked into a baby carrier, entered the room. They looked so tired. The baby nurse, whose name Susan could not remember at the moment, brought up the rear. Bags and boxes were slipping from her arms and Susan hurried over to clean off a spot on the counter-and realized that the lamb roast had disappeared.