“What?” I said, and my mother pointed to the line on the back: Catalina, I’m going to miss you.
Dinah and I had taken that line to mean the island. “You said that’s what the baby’s name was, didn’t you? But she has hope they’ll be reunited,” my mother said and then appeared confused. “If it’s her baby, why is she having to say good-bye anyway?” Before I could tell her that Mary Beth wasn’t the mother, my mother looked at the crochet piece again.
“What about these other panels?” Her hand brushed the square with the plain ring and then the divided circle before moving on to the double-sized panel with the aqua rectangle. Her finger traced the open area in the middle.
I raised my hands, palms upward, in the universal I-don’t-know sign.
My mother continued to study the panels and then scrunched her face in disapproval. “Why would somebody put a switch in with all this other stuff?”
Just as I got out a “huh?” my mother held the panel up next to the light switch in the kitchen. It took a moment of my eye going back and forth, but then I saw that the panel image and the light switch were an exact match. How could I have missed it? “Mother, you’re a genius,” I said, kissing her cheek.
“I have my moments,” she said with a pleased smile. “As long as we’re playing detective—I think your father is having an affair with Belle Gladner.” When she got through laying out the facts, they were so ridiculous, I had a hard time not laughing. Her evidence: My father had gone shopping for a shirt without her and mentioned running into their former neighbor at the drugstore and noticing that her skin looked very good. My mother was back to thinking the world revolved around her.
DINAH MET ME AT CAITLIN’S CUPCAKES IN THE morning. “Think about it,” I said, discussing the crochet panel. “Switch. Like maybe switch Iris and Mary Beth and—”
“Ali’s mother is really Mary Beth,” Dinah said, finishing my thought. We were sitting at the counter that ran along the window.
“I think that’s Mary Beth’s secret,” I said.
“But there’s no way to prove it,” Dinah said. I looked out the window and down the street. I saw Ali and Iris heading toward the bookstore.
“Maybe there isn’t a way to prove it, but there is a way to prove Iris isn’t her mother.” I got off my stool. “I have a plan.”
“I guess that means you’re back on the case,” Dinah said, rushing after me.
It took some fast action, but when we got to the café at the bookstore I got Bob to make up a tray of iced tea samples. Then I got our head cashier, Rayaad, to carry the tray around the bookstore.
Ali and Iris were in the nature section, and I slipped behind a bookcase. As Rayaad headed in their direction, she glanced over her shoulder at me. I gave her the nod. I watched from my hiding place as our cashier stopped next to them and offered the samples. Other people came out of nowhere and took some of the small cups, but Ali and Iris shook their head. Rayaad looked back at me and I waved her back at them. She offered again, and persisted. They finally each took a cup and then walked away.
Dinah was right behind me as we shadowed them from the other side of the row of bookcases. We kept catching glimpses of them whenever we passed an aisle. They were drinking. Finally, they appeared to drain the contents and be looking around for someplace to discard the cups.
Before I could get Rayaad to swing by and pick them up, Iris found a trash can. Oh no. There went my plan. I’d never be able to pick out their cups from all the other trash. Iris pushed on the small metal door, but it didn’t move.
Hallelujah, somebody had forgotten to empty the can. With a shrug, Iris set her cup on top and then Ali did the same. I forced myself to count to ten before I made my move to get the cups.
But ten wasn’t enough. Iris turned back just as I snatched them.
“Sorry,” she said in a pleasant voice, and then she realized who I was. “Give them to me and I’ll throw them somewhere else,” she said, walking back to me. Her face had settled into concern.
“I have it covered,” I said, putting my hands behind my back and hoping there was enough saliva on them to do a DNA test. I even knew where to send them thanks to the dog DNA author’s event we’d held.
“But I insist,” she said. All pretense of pleasantness had drained from her voice. Our eyes locked and I knew she knew there was more than garbage at stake.
“Give them to me or I’ll make a scene. I’ll say you stole them from me.” She sounded shrill and panicky.
“I’ll call the cops for you,” I said. “When you throw something away, it’s no longer yours. And I have a witness.” At that, Dinah stepped out from behind the bookcase and waved.
“I need to talk to you,” Iris said, finally relenting. Ali had been watching the whole interchange and regarded her mother with concern. Iris told her it was okay and then urged her to go on to another department and said she’d catch up with her in a few minutes.
I took Iris to the bookstore office so we’d have some privacy. “Mary Beth is her mother, isn’t she?”
Iris sat down and put her face in her hands. I borrowed one of Barry’s interrogation lines. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Iris looked up; the color had drained from her face. “You have to promise you won’t tell Ali.”
I nodded in agreement. It took her a few moments to collect herself, but then she took a couple of deep breaths and started to talk. “It was not supposed to turn out this way. . . . I was Mary Beth’s assistant. I did whatever she needed whether it was handling an RSVP for a party or going with her to Catalina. If I had known—” She glanced out toward the bookstore. Ali was standing by the magazines. “No matter what, I love that girl as if she were mine. And as far as I’m concerned, she is my daughter.”
The story went that Mary Beth hadn’t told Iris she was pregnant until she was in her seventh month. “She was one of those women who barely show. She wore loose clothes, and not even her husband figured it out. She never gave me details, but I think she planned to leave Lance and go off with the baby’s father, and then something happened with him. She got panicky. Her husband couldn’t have kids, so there was no way she could pass the baby off as his. She came up with this plan. We’d spend her last month on Catalina and she’d have the baby there, only she would tell the doctor that she was me.”
Iris examined her hands. “You have to understand, I was broke. Just out of college with student loans and I wanted to start a business.” Her breath caught. “I’m so embarrassed I did it for the money.
“It wasn’t that hard to pull off. Mary Beth had dark hair in those days, and we both wore ours long and loose. We both wore baggy clothes and were always together. The local doctor delivered the baby. He didn’t know either of us, so he didn’t question it when Mary Beth gave him my name.” Iris had to stop for a moment, then went on.
“She had already gotten Lance to agree to adopting. I was going to take Ali home with me, and then we’d arrange a private adoption. But Lance flew into some kind of rage and said he’d changed his mind. At first Mary Beth thought she’d get him to change his mind back, but he completely refused. She stayed involved with us, but then we had this big blowup. She wanted to run things, but by then I’d fallen in love with the baby. For better or worse she was mine.” Iris had been staring at some spot on the floor as she talked. Finally she looked at me directly; her face was wet with tears.