We were interrupted by the arrival of Eldon Naff, who made himself at home by telling me to move over and squeezing a chair between mine and Alicia’s as he introduced himself to Donna. Even though I didn’t care for Eldon’s company, I didn’t protest, because it was going to ensure a certain heightening of the drama at the table. Eldon had spent the last two months making a determined effort to pry Alicia’s attention away from any other man she happened to be with. I would be mostly ignored, which was fine with me.
For once, though, Alicia’s would-be suitor had his attention fixed on someone else.
Eldon’s chief way of trying to amuse others was to gossip. I know some people think women are the more gossipy of the two sexes, but I’m not sure I believe that. Eldon, in any case, loved to dish the dirt more than anyone I’ve ever met, before or since.
I’ll also give him credit for knowing how to be amusing at another’s expense. As he told the story of a professor whose shirt, if viewed after one o’clock in the afternoon, could tell you what was on the menu in the faculty cafeteria, Donna seemed relieved to no longer be the center of attention. Eldon claimed most of that, but I saw Mark and Donna exchanging shy smiles whenever Eldon focused on Alicia for a moment.
Eldon only got the one story in, though, before Donna glanced at her wristwatch and said, “Oh! I’m going to be late for my bus! Thank you all for being so nice to me today.” She stood and gathered up her handbag.
“Let me give you a ride home,” Eldon said quickly.
She smiled. “That’s kind of you, but I’m not going straight home. I-I have an errand.”
“My wheels are at your command,” he said gallantly.
“I’d be happy to take you anywhere you need to go,” Mark said.
“But Mark,” Alicia said, making one of her rare tactical errors, “we have our sociology class this afternoon.”
He looked miffed, but Donna said, “Of course you shouldn’t miss class. Perhaps I’ll see the rest of you another time?”
“I’d like that,” I said, and scribbled my phone number on a piece of paper. She returned the favor. “Great!”
“I’m parked in a good spot,” Eldon said before anyone else could exchange numbers with her, “but we’d better start walking out to Lot Four if you aren’t going to be late.”
She gave the rest of us a slightly helpless look and allowed Eldon to usher her outside.
Lydia arrived about then, and correctly interpreting a signal from me, engaged Alicia in an intense conversation. It allowed me to slip a piece of paper with Donna’s number on it to Mark.
“You’re a doll,” he whispered, and smiled.
“What secrets are you two whispering about?” Alicia demanded.
“If I told you, would it be a secret?”
“Irene,” Lydia said in exasperation. She was right-my teasing Alicia was only going to allow her to cotton on to our ploy to distract her from Mark.
“Oh, all right. I just bet Mark a dollar that Donna ditches Eldon before he can find out where she lives.”
“I think she’s more than happy to be with him,” Mark said. “So I’m betting it’s the start of true love.”
The idea delighted Alicia, so she was in a good mood when they left for their sociology class.
I stared after them.
“Okay,” Lydia said. “What was that all about? Other than someone Alicia called a phony scheming bitch?”
I was still staring.
“Irene?”
“Sorry. I just never realized before now that Mark could lie so smoothly.”
I told Lydia the whole story.
“Poor kid,” Lydia said. “Married, widowed, and-orphaned? All at the age of twenty?”
“I don’t know about the orphaned, part,” I said, frowning. “Come to think of it, she never mentioned her father.”
“Probably divorced when she was little,” Lydia said.
“Probably,” I agreed.
Later, at home, I called Donna’s phone number, but she wasn’t there. The woman who answered the phone was apparently her landlady, who took a message. “She came home for a little while, but I think she may be out until sometime this evening. How late can she call?”
I was a night owl, but Lydia had an early class, so I said anytime before nine would be okay. I didn’t hear from Donna that evening.
The next morning, I was studying in the library, when Eldon came up to me and took a seat next to me, big with news.
“Holy shit! Wait until I tell you about little old Miss Vynes!”
We received looks of annoyance from others who were reading, so I folded up my books and we went outside and sat under a tree on the quad.
“Okay, what?” I said.
“Yesterday, you remember she said she had an errand to run?”
“Yes.”
“Well! She gives me an address, and asks me if I know where it is. It’s down on Shoreline Avenue. ‘It’s a residential area,’ I told her, thinking she must have something mixed up.”
“And?”
“No, it’s the address she wants all right. Do you know whose home it was?”
“Eldon, I don’t even know which address it was. You aren’t telling this story in your usual manner.”
“Sorry, I’m just so rattled. I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell a soul.”
“Then never mind.”
I was just torturing him, of course. Whatever or whoever was at the heart of this was burning him alive with the desire to talk about it.
“All right, all right, I’ll tell you.” He drew a deep breath, then said, “That mansion belongs to Homer Langworthy.”
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s all you can say?”
“As far as I know, Homer Langworthy paid for the place, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t belong to him.”
“Paid for that and-with Auburn Sheffield-gave enough money to build the new city library. And then on this campus-”
“Everyone in Las Piernas knows that Homer Langworthy is as rich as Croesus, a confirmed bachelor, and all his money will probably go into a charitable trust.”
“Okay, that’s what everyone thinks they know about him-but listen to this. Donna asks me to take her there, and once we’re parked and I open her door for her and help her out of the Mustang, she tries to get me to leave.”
“Which would have been the polite thing to do.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. Anyway, I tell her I’m going to see her home safely. She’s insistent that I wait in the car. She’s acting really edgy. So, we compromise and I stay in the car. Wasn’t bad-I was parked under a big tree and I just put the top down and listened to the radio.
“She goes up the walk, knocks on the door, and is let in. The butler or whoever he is closes the door behind her. She’s in there for about twenty minutes, then leaves, carrying an envelope.
“When I see her coming back down the walkway, I get out of the car and open the door to let her back in. She stumbles a little over one of the tree’s roots, and when she puts her hands out to catch herself, the envelope and her purse go flying to the floor of the car.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, I caught hold of her and kept her from hitting too hard.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
“I was a perfect gentleman, and removed my hands as soon as I knew she had her balance again and wasn’t hurt,” he said, affronted. “But that’s not what’s important.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“You know what I mean. Anyway, while a few things scattered out of her purse, when the envelope fell, it spilled out cash. A lot of cash.”
He had my attention. “Define, ‘a lot.’”
“Seven thousand dollars.”