Dion.
None of her mothers had said anything to her about Dion the first time he'd come over. At least not anything serious or substantial. They'd alluded to him playfully, indirectly, letting her know that they were glad she was finally showing some interest in boys, and she'd found during the succeeding days that she felt a lot less reticent in talking about school, a lot less defensive in regard to her social life. If he had been nothing else, he had served as a validation of her normalcy, tangible proof that, despite her own and her mothers' worst fears, she was not a complete social misfit.
But of course he was something more than that, and she knew that that was what her mothers now wanted to talk to her about.
She looked from Mother Margeaux chewing her food thoughtfully at the head of the table, to Mother Margaret, across from her. She wished her mothers would just come out and say whaj was on their minds instead of putting so much weight and pressure on everything, turning every minor concern into a major topic of discussion.
But this was their way. Just as the rigidity of the dining arrangements was their way, although to Penelope, her mothers'
insistence of formal dinners every evening had always been something which rang false. Even as a small child, it had always seemed to her that her mothers were feigning civility and sophistication for an audience that was not there, mimicking scenes they had seen in movies or on television. She would never admit it to anyone, but more than once, surrounded by her mothers, eating elaborately prepared meals off expensive imported china, she had been reminded of monkeys dressed in business suits, going through motions they did not understand. It was a harsh assessment and not entirely fair, but the analogy did not seem to her that far off base. There was something wild beneath the calm exterior of her mothers, a sense of something untamed struggling to get out of a package of politeness. Mother Margeaux in particular always seemed so controlled, so unemotional, but Penelope knew from experience that her outward display of rationality was just that: a display. When Mother Margeaux was angry or she drank too much, when she let herself go, the results were truly frightening.
Penelope never wanted to see any of her mothers when they were really drunk.
Finished with her food, she pushed her plate away and swallowed the last of her grape juice. She stood, bowed, and addressed her mothers. "May I
be excused? I have a lot of homework tonight."
"You may not," Mother Margeaux said.
Penelope sat back down. In addition to its formality, dinner in their house was also uncomfortably ritualistic, and though she had lived with that every night of her life, it was still something that made her feel slightly uneasy. They dined at precisely seven-thirty every evening, and no matter what any of them were doing, they had to stop at seven, wash up, and change into a green dress. Her mother's dresses were all identical--simply designed full-length gowns--while hers was slightly different, not quiet as expensive. They began each dinner with a song, any song, which they took turns initiating. To leave the table after eating, each of them had to ask the permission of the others; if the decision was not unanimous, the person had to wait. Until she'd been in fifth grade and stayed overnight for the first time at a friends' house, she had thought all people ate this way. She had even begun to panic when she'd discovered that she'd forgotten to bring her green dinner dress to her friend's house. But after embarrassing herself by asking detailed questions of her friend's mother, she'd learned that not everyone ate dinner in such a ritualized manner, that in fact hardly anyone did. The knowledge had made her extremely uncomfortable.
She picked up her empty glass, poured the last few drops of grape juice onto her tongue. She fiddled with her fork.
It was Mother Felice who brought up the subject of Dion.
"So how's your boyfriend?" she asked casually.
"Dion?"
"Of course."
"He's not my boyfriend."
Her mother's next question died in her throat. She looked quickly around the table. There was silence.
"Penelope." Mother Margeaux's voice was quiet, but it was strong.
Penelope looked toward the head of the table. Mother Margeaux dabbed at her lips with a napkin and replaced the napkin in her lap. In the warm low light of the dining room, her lips looked almost as dark as her hair. The whites of her eyes seemed large as she focused her intense gaze on Penelope.
"I thought you and Dion were dating," Mother Margeaux said.
Penelope squirmed in her seat. "Not exactly. Not yet."
"Well, what exactly is your relationship?"
"Why do you want to know?'* Penelope felt herself reddening.
Mother Margeaux smiled. "We do not disapprove of Dion. Nor do we disapprove of you going out on dates. We would simply like to know the status of your relationship. After all, we are your mothers."
"I don't know," Penelope admitted. "I don't know what our relationship is."
"Are you planning to go out sometime?"
"I told you, I don't know."
"But you do like him?" Mother Felice asked.
"Yes!" She stood, exasperated, embarrassed. "May I be excused? I really do have a lot of homework."
"Yes, you may be excused." Mother Margeaux looked around the table.
There were no objections.
Penelope strode quickly from the room, running upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She had avoided the Big Discussion she'd been anticipating, but her mothers' quiet probing had been even worse. There seemed something secretive about it, something that made her uneasy. The questions themselves had been innocent enough, but they had been asked in a manner that was anything but innocent, and as Penelope flopped down on her bed, she could not get out of her mind the satisfied way in which Mother Margeaux had smiled.
TOHTV Lieutenant Horton stood in front of the printer and read the report as it ran out. He held up the long roll of perforated paper and frowned as he read the DUI statistics. Up two hundred percent from last month? Up a hundred and ninety-six percent from the same period last year? That wasn't possible. Someone must have made a mistake. He dropped the paper.
The printer continued to noisily click out its dot matrix, one line at a time.
Now he would have to spend an hour double-checking the input.
He was going to have a lot of comp time accumulated by the time this was all over. In addition to working full- time on the murder investigations, he still had to perform his regular duties, which meant that he was putting in twelve-hour days as well as working weekends.
He took a drink of his lukewarm coffee, put the paper cup down on one of the shelves housing the tech manuals, and bent down to peer through the printer's smoked plastic window at the latest lines of the report.
Drunk and disorderly arrests up a hundred and fifteen percent.
Something was definitely wrong.
When he had transferred here from San Francisco over a decade ago, Horton had been surprised by the relatively few alcohol-related arrests made in Napa and the surrounding communities. Incidents of public drunkenness, reckless endangerment, DUI, etc., were surprisingly low, particularly for a region so heavily devoted to the production of alcohol. It was as if people, overly conscious of the area's economic dependence on liquor, made a special effort to behave responsibly when it came to imbibing. It was something that had remained constant during his tenure on the force and which he and everyone else took for granted.