Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

The dozen people gathered on porches stared with avid interest as my van chugged down the street. One man shook his head at my noisy progress. His red scalp blazed in the warming sun. Along the street, the velvety lawns glowed like chartreuse carpets.

Suz Craig took my place. But it could so very easily have been me.

3

The cat howled the two miles to Hadley Court. I pulled up in front of a three-story, white-brick-and-blue-gingerbread-trimmed Victorian-style mansion that was about as far from a mountain contemporary as it was from Mars. Marla’s Mercedes squealed around the corner as I eased to the curb. Behind her tinted windshield I could see she was talking excitedly on her car phone, which she quickly hung up when she spotted me. She threw open her door and came bustling toward the van.

Marla’s raspberry-colored sequined sweatsuit did not flatter her portly figure. In one hand she held a covered glass and in the other a paper bag. My dear , friend always brought something that she thought would make you feel better. Usually the only thing I needed was to see her, and as usual, the sight of her rushing toward me, her rhinestone-studded sunglasses jiggling up and down on her concerned face, brought a wave of relief. Wealthy by inheritance, talkative by nature, and pretty in an unconventional way, Marla had endured being married to John Richard for six years less than I had. After John Richard’s first few rampages, Marla had also shown much more confidence than I had when it came to ridding oneself of a burdensome spouse. She’d shoved an attacking John Richard into a hanging plant and dislocated his shoulder. She’d then managed to cut the marital knot with great expertise. She and I had become fast friends when her divorce was final, proving that even the worst marital experiences can hold some redemption. Last summer she’d survived a heart attack. Earlier this summer, she’d survived a disastrous breakup with the one guy she’d been serious about since divorcing the Jerk. We had a history, the two of us. And I loved her dearly.

“Okay, tell me,” she began without preamble when I hopped out of the van to greet her, “are you okay? Probably not,” she added with an opulent, scarlet-lipsticked frown.

I fought off an unexpected wave of dizziness. “I don’t know. No. Probably not.”

“Let’s get back in your van, so people don’t come out and start asking a bunch of questions. Jeez, this town – I’ve already had two calls on my cellular.” Her brown eyes softened with sympathy and she proffered a plastic-wrapped crystal glass. For the first time, I noticed her hair was damp. “Look, Goldy, I brought you an iced latte. Well, actually half espresso and half cream dumped over ice. Very naughty, but oh so good.” She held up the brown bag in her other hand. “And here we have a whole bunch of meds that I just dumped out of my medicine cabinet. They’re mostly tranquilizers. Which do you want first?”

“Coffee and downers?” I asked incredulously. I sagged against the van door. I wondered if any Furman County victim advocates carried lunch-bags full of prescription tranquilizers. Probably not. “Come on, back in you go.” Marla hustled me into the van, where the air was even warmer than it was outside. But the interior of my vehicle was familiar and smelled faintly, even pleasantly, of cooked food. The cat was uncharacteristically quiet. I rolled down my window; Marla did the same.

“Just drink this,” she commanded, thrusting the glass into my hand. “Tom said to bring you – ” Abruptly she stopped. She blinked. “One of my friends on Jacobean called. Suz is dead? Are they sure? Lynn Tollifer, you know her? She and her nosy teenage son, Luke, live across the street from Suz. Luke told Lynn that Suz’s body was in a ditch at the end of her driveway. Who found her? You?” I nodded and took a tiny sip of the chilly liquid. It tasted like melted ice cream. Marla clutched the top of her frizzy brown hair. “Suz dead! I don’t believe it, but I do believe it.”

“It should have been me. But he got Suz Craig instead.” My voice cracked. I sagged against the headrest. “Gosh, I’m feeling-” John Richard’s glare, his anger, haunted me. And I’d had such a strong feeling that he’d been acting, playing a part, but why? And what part? Why come over the morning after you’d had a fight with your girlfriend, bearing flowers, if you’d hurt her badly? If you’d killed her? But he hadn’t meant to hurt her badly. At least that’s what he always said. He probably hadn’t meant to kill her, either.

“Do you think he beat her up so badly she died?” Marla asked.

“Yes, I do. Suz had a black right eye. And I bruises on her arms – ” I choked.

“Mother of God.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Drink your coffee,” Marla ordered sharply. “We can talk about all this later. If you don’t look better in five minutes, I’m calling an ambulance for you and taking Arch home myself.”

The air inside the van, despite the open windows, felt stifling. Marla slid toward me smelling of floral soap and powder. She’d obviously just jumped out of the shower when Tom called her, and I felt a fleeting sense of regret to have caused her trouble. Then the weight of the morning’s events smacked me like one of those Jersey-shore waves you’re not expecting, and I didn’t know whether I wanted the espresso or enough tranquilizers to put me out for a few days.

“Okay, Goldy, look at me,” Marla commanded sharply. “Keep drinking that coffee.” I took another sip and stared into her large, liquid brown eyes. “Still feeling light-headed?”

“I’m doing a little better,” I replied in a voice that didn’t even convince me.

“Your first problem is Arch. Think what –

“The sob that nearly choked me turned into another and then a whole barrage that wouldn’t quit. Marla hugged me and spoke soft words of no import. Still crying, I glanced up. Gail Rodine was staring out her front window. She probably wasn’t expecting to see two women, one with a Mercedes and one with a beat-up van, hugging each other while one sobbed effusively, out in front of her elaborate Victorian cottage. On second thought, Gail Rodine probably was about to call the vice squad.

I”I have to get my act together,” I croaked.

“Yeah, you do,” Marla replied hopefully. “What you need is some medication. Chill you out a little.” She thrust the brown bag into my hand and I peered tentatively at bottles of Librium and Valium, foil-encased capsule samples of God-only-knew-what, even a hypodermic. I carefully pulled out the needle, which was labeled Versed. From Med Wives 101, I knew this was a high-potency tranquilizer.

“Where on earth did you get all this?”

“Goldy, with the legion of doctors who are either treating me or going out with me, and an ex- , husband who’s a doctor, you wonder that? Which tone do you want?”

“None. I need to parent, cook, cater, and drive this van without, benefit of altered states of consciousness. I won’t be able to perform any of those tasks if I’m floating inside a drug-induced cloud somewhere in the stratosphere.” And just as uncontrollably as the sobs had begun, they ended, and I giggled. Marla shrugged philosophically, dropped the needle back into the bag, and shoved the bag into my glove compartment. Then she started to laugh herself.

“Look, Goldy, I promised Tom I’d help and that’s what I’m going to do. Okay, here’s what you tell Arch. You say there’s been an incident and his father might be in trouble. Dear old Dad’s gone down to the sheriff’s department to talk to the folks there. Dear old Dad will be talking to his lawyer over the weekend. With school out, with no town paper until Wednesday, and with the Denver TV stations covering their own murders, Arch won’t hear about the arrest except from the Jerk himself, maybe tomorrow.” Marla exhaled triumphantly.