This was why I didn’t care for gossip. Almost everything she’d said was wrong. “I talked to Gus about it earlier today.”
“Oh.” Her voice drooped, but it took her only a moment to perk back up again. “Well, anyway, that’s not why I called. Erica, our PTA president? She asked me to set up a memorial service for Agnes.”
Ten bucks said a service was Claudia’s idea from the get-go, and Erica had washed her hands of it by saying the project was all hers.
“So I’m putting together a program,” she said, “and that takes hours and hours to do a nice job. But it’s for Agnes, so I want to do it right.”
“Mmm.” I made a noncommittal noise. Claudia was one of those perennially underappreciated volunteers, according to Claudia. And, to be fair, she was probably right. She did a tremendous amount of PTA work, but it was hard to feel sorry for someone who spent a lot of time asking for people to feel sorry for her.
“Listen to this,” she said. “None of Agnes’s family can make it tomorrow. Can you believe it? Six brothers and sisters and none of them is driving down!”
“Mmm,” I said. Engaging her in conversation was like making eye contact with a large slobbery dog. You didn’t want to do it unless it was absolutely unavoidable. Either one could be a long, messy process.
“So,” she said, “it only makes sense that everyone on the PTA committee says a few words. Service starts at two in the auditorium. Be there fifteen minutes early, okay? See you!”
“No, wait. Claudia—” But she was gone. I pushed the buttons to call her back and got a busy signal. I tried again; still busy.
I stared at the phone cross-eyed, making my headache worse. I didn’t want to speak at the memorial service. I didn’t even want to go, though I would because I was a Good Girl. But speaking? What on earth could I say that wouldn’t make me worry about lightning striking me dead? Maybe I’d get Marina to help. I considered the possibility for half a second, then rejected it completely. The cat would be better help than Marina.
My phone rang again. “Beth? This is Gloria Kuri, Agnes’s sister.”
“Hi, Gloria. Sorry you can’t make it down to the memorial service tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a good turnout.” I wasn’t sure at all, and for my own sake I was hoping for a small showing. Public speaking wasn’t my forte, and the smaller the crowd, the less my knees would be knocking.
“Yeah, well.”
I massaged the skin at the middle of my forehead. My siblings and I weren’t the closest, but if one of them died, I’d move heaven and earth to attend a service given in their honor. Clearly, Agnes’s family was even more messed up than mine.
Gloria went on. “You know, I was wondering if you already went to Agnes’s house and cleaned out the fridge and stuff.”
“Did it this morning.”
“Oh.” There was a pause in which no profusion of thanks was forthcoming. “Then I wonder if I could ask you one more favor.”
I could tell how this was going to go. Every week one sibling or other would remember that Agnes had something he or she wanted. Gloria would call me and I’d be asked to trot over to the house and hunt for an object I may or may not find, then box it up, and ship it north. The object would undoubtedly be ungodly heavy and cost me a fortune in postage, a fortune for which I’d get promises of repayment, but repayment would mysteriously never appear. “Well . . .”
“I’m looking for a photo album,” Gloria said. “Agnes was the oldest daughter, so she got all the family photos when Momma died. Now I’m oldest, and I don’t want that album sitting in an empty house all winter. I’m sending you money ahead for the postage, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Shame heated my face. Misjudgment was my new middle name.
“Sure,” I told Gloria. “I’ll stop by tomorrow before the service and get it in Monday’s mail.”
We disconnected, and I wondered if I’d misjudged Claudia, too. Maybe I should stop judging altogether. Maybe I should assume that people’s intentions were honest and kind, and if their actions didn’t show that, well, then, there was some miscommunication—that was all.
I’d almost convinced myself when I remembered the stricken expression on Paoze’s face after his bike had been stolen—and the scattered papers in Agnes’s office at Tarver and the stain on Agnes’s living room floor.
My headache throbbed in time to the beat of the windshield wipers. Swish, swish, swish.
To my right, dark figures hurried down the sidewalk, bending their heads against the rain. I watched them for a while—watched one particular large and lumbering figure for quite some time—then I put the transmission in drive, signaled, and when the road was clear, merged into the eastbound traffic.
Without Marina at my side, Agnes’s house seemed darker than before. I turned on all the lights in the living room, but none of them penetrated the gloom. The scent of the stain remover Marina used had faded away, and the house already had the stale smell of abandonment.
I strained to hear something—the ticking of a clock, the hum of a furnace, any noise at all—but the only sound was that of my own breathing. On this quiet postchurch Sunday noon, no noises penetrated from outside. There were no car doors shutting, no children’s voices calling. The owner of this house was dead, and the house was, too.
“Stop that,” I said out loud. If I creeped myself out, I wouldn’t be in any shape to read what I’d prepared for the memorial service.
I checked the living room end tables and looked through the entertainment center. No photo albums. Not even any photos.
I bypassed the kitchen and headed down the carpeted hallway. In the soulless guest bedroom there were books on the shelves of one of the nightstands. Automatically, I glanced at the titles. Maybe nine out of ten women peeked into medicine cabinets; I did my peeking at bookshelves. Books said a lot about a person. Plus they were in plain sight, so there was no need to feel guilty about snooping.
The collection included Little Women, hardcover, bound in a deep rich blue and inscribed “Agnes Heikkinen” on the inside cover in a young hand; seven Nancy Drews, paper dustcovers intact; The Little Colonel; a couple of dingy Bobbsey Twins books. I took down a copy of The Princess and the Goblin. Inscribed on the front flyleaf was “To Agnes, from her aunt Agnes, Christmas 1910.”
From Agnes to Agnes, and then passed to our Agnes. A triple play. I slid the book back onto the shelf and was grateful that my family didn’t curse succeeding generations with increasingly inappropriate names. I’d have to thank my mother next time I talked to her—which might be before Christmas, or might not.
Since the most likely place for the photo album was also the place it would take longest to search—the book-lined study—I took on Agnes’s bedroom next.
I looked at the nightstand. The specifications for the school that had been Agnes’s last nighttime reading was thicker than the Chicagoland phone book. I flipped to the end and whistled—829 pages. Why on earth was Agnes reading this? It was something for builders to read: contractors, plumbers, electricians, but not school principals, for heaven’s sake.
“This isn’t frying the eggs,” I told myself, quoting Marina. If I didn’t get a move on, I’d have to come back after the memorial service, when darkness was closing in.
With sturdy resolve, I opened the dresser drawers. I pushed my hands through the stacks of clothing and felt around for any booklike shape. Nothing.
I shut the last drawer with a bang and opened the bifold closet doors. A long line of gray, navy, and maroon suits marched down the clothes rod: an army of lifeless, flat Agneses. I shivered, hoping the image wouldn’t slide into tonight’s dreams.