“Welcome! Come in!” I detected an accent. French, perhaps? When she threw the door wide, I got a full frontal view of a woman, nearly as tall as Paul’s six foot one, swathed in purple. A wide silver belt cinched her knit dress together at the waist and a fringed paisley scarf was tied and secured at her right shoulder by an antique silver brooch.
But it was the tiara that captured my attention, an astonishing object of intricately twisted silver wire from which crystal beads dangled and slender lavender feathers trembled in the breeze.
My husband was the first to recover his power of speech. “We’re Paul and Hannah Ives,” he stammered, extending his hand. “And this is our daughter, Emily, and her daughter, Chloe.”
“LouElla.” She leaned down to take a closer look at Chloe. “Well, hello, precious!”
I caught Paul with his mouth in mid-gape as he took in our superannuated prom queen’s too-black hair, parted cleanly in the middle and twisted into donuts at each ear, like Princess Leia in Star Wars.
“Where’s Darlene?” I asked, gesturing with the bag Ruth had sent.
“When last seen, in the kitchen.” LouElla indicated a square table set in the entrance hall on which gaily wrapped packages were piled like children’s blocks, by a not terribly well-coordinated child. “You can leave that there.”
There was no room on the table, so I set Ruth’s gift on the floor next to a rectangular package wrapped in silver paper and decorated with multicolored hearts. Paul placed the poinsettia carefully nearby, rotating the pot until the plant’s best face was forward.
“You can leave your coats in the upstairs bedroom, first door on the right.” LouElla clapped her hands together. “But I see you haven’t any!”
Paul chuckled. “No, it’s unseasonably warm out there.”
“But I’d love a place to change the baby.” Emily smiled at LouElla. “May I?”
“Of course, my dear,” she purred. “There’s a bedroom on the left and the bathroom’s at the end of the hall.”
LouElla’s eyes followed Emily as she mounted the stairs. “Just call if you need anything, dear!” Then she turned and glided ahead of us through the hallway and into the dining room, where a tweedy gentleman was fishing with a toothpick for a Vienna sausage floating in a reddish-brown sauce over a can of Sterno. “Dr. McWaters?”
The tweedy guy turned, eyebrows raised, the sausage now teetering precariously on the tip of his toothpick.
“Let me introduce you to the Iveses,” LouElla said. She extended her hand in his direction, palm up. “Dr. McWaters is a general practitioner,” she announced, giving equal emphasis to every syllable.
Dr. McWaters bent at the waist. “Guilty!” he said. “And it’s Patrick.”
The doorbell buzzed and LouElla twitched like a startled rabbit. “Whoops! Another customer!” She twirled smartly on one Ferragamo toe and wheeled out of the room.
“I see you’ve met LouElla Van Schuyler,” the doctor observed.
I snagged a carrot stick. “Who is she?”
“One-woman welcome wagon.” He dropped his used toothpick into a silver bowl, one that looked vaguely familiar. I inched my way closer to it. “Drinks table is in the kitchen.” The doctor gestured to his left with a glass of white wine.
“And our hostess, too, I presume?”
He nodded.
“I’ll look forward to talking to you later, then,” I said, not wanting to appear rude.
On our way to the kitchen, Paul and I passed through a well-organized pantry with a wall of glass-fronted shelves to the right and on the left, a zinc sink which might have been used in the preparation of the extravagant flower arrangements that filled Darlene’s house. “How many silver bowls with silver dollars set into their bottoms do you know of?” I asked my husband.
“What are you talking about, Hannah?”
I grabbed his arm, stopping him in mid-stride. “Those toothpick holders look very much like Mom’s little silver dishes.”
“You mean your father’s little silver dishes.”
“Why do you have to be so logical?”
Paul shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”
The pantry opened out into a large kitchen that extended a dozen or so feet from the back of the original house, almost certainly a modern addition. In the daytime, a wall of windows offered a panoramic view, I would learn later, of Darlene’s colonial-style garden. A handful of guests milled around a table strewn with bottles of wine, hard liquor, and an odd assortment of glasses. Olives, slices of lemon and lime, cocktail onions, and maraschino cherries were neatly arranged on clear glass saucers. Mixed nuts filled two more of my mother’s little silver dishes.
I located Daddy at once, lounging by the television, talking to a young woman dressed somberly in black with hair dyed to match. Darlene stood on his left, her back to him, engaged in an animated conversation with a twenty-ish guy dressed in blue jeans, high-top leather boots, and a short-sleeved University of Maryland T-shirt. As we entered Darlene looked up, smiled slightly, then returned to her conversation. Well, hello to you, too, I sneered, and welcome to my home. The only friendly face in the bunch belonged to a Chesapeake Bay retriever who lay comfortably on a beanbag bed, his head resting heavily on his paws as if the red bow tied around his neck had grown too heavy. The dog’s eyes were moving, following the to-ing and fro-ing of the guests like a tennis match.
I knelt in front of the dog. “Hello. You must be Speedo.” I stroked the silky blond hair between his ears. Daddy’s sob story about the harassment Darlene had been experiencing had failed to move me, but Speedo here, that was a different matter. Why would anyone want to hurt a harmless animal?
Paul found the drinks and poured us each a glass of red wine. He watched while I took a sip. “Drink up, Hannah. I have a feeling this is going to be a long evening.”
I gestured with my glass. “Do you suppose the girl in widow’s weeds and Biker Boy are Darlene’s kids?”
Paul studied the tableau, his eyes darting from one face to another as if searching for a family resemblance. “Good bet,” he said at last. “Check out the noses.”
I had been thinking the same thing. “And the chins. Well, wish me luck. Here I go!”
Paul closed his eyes. “I’m not sure I can bear to watch.”
I left Paul to carry on alone at the drinks table and swished over to confront Darlene.
“Hello, Darlene.”
“Hello, Hannah.” An introduction to her companion didn’t seem in the offing, so I extended my hand to the young man. “Hello. I’m Hannah Ives, George’s daughter. And you are…?”
“Darryl Donovan.”
“Ah,” I said. “I thought you might be.” After a prolonged silence during which I took two sips of my wine and listened to the mourning dove on Darlene’s bird clock who-WHO-who-who-who seven, I asked, “Tell me, Darryl. What do you do?”
He shrugged. Clearly he’d learned the niceties of social intercourse at his mother’s knee.
“Darryl manages tables at McGarvey’s,” Darlene supplied.
Darryl snorted. “What Mother means to say is that I’m a waiter.”
“Really?” Another sip of wine slid down my throat. “I must have seen you there, then.”
“I think I would have remembered.” Darryl cast a sly eye at my décolletage, which, I must admit, pleased me enormously. He was practically undressing me with his eyes. If Darryl had actually managed to charm me out of my sweater, though, he would have been in for a shock. The plastic surgeon had done a masterful job of rebuilding my breast, but I didn’t think Playboy would be renewing my centerfold contract anytime soon.
Over Darryl’s shoulder I watched as Paul was waylaid on his way to join us by an attractive, silver-haired woman dressed in a red plaid suit. “Is your sister here tonight?” I inquired.