“Okay,” Pat said. “Talk. What’s got you scared this time?”
Babs chuckled. “Cuts straight to the chase, doesn’t she?”
Mattie bridled feebly. “You make it sound as though I’m a big fraidy cat, always frightened about something. I’m not like that.”
“Yes, you are.” The affection in Pat’s wide grin took some of the sting from the words. “You never call me unless something’s really got you spooked, do you realize that? Might be a thing you saw on the news, a hooha with your husband, a pain somewhere there shouldn’t be a pain. Maybe a lump you’re worried about-maybe just a scary dream.” She put her hand on Mattie’s hand. “It’s fine, it’s you. Talk. Tell.”
She and Babs remained absolutely silent while Mattie told them about the Bridge Group, and about Olivia Korhonen. She was aware that she was speaking faster as the account progressed, and that her voice was rising in pitch, but all she wanted was to get the words out as quickly as she could. The words seemed strangely reluctant to be spoken: more and more, they raked at her throat and palate as she struggled to rid herself of them. When she was done, the roof of her mouth felt almost burned, and she gratefully accepted a glass of cold apple juice from Babs.
“Well,” Pat said finally. “I don’t know what I expected to hear from you, but that was definitely not it. Not hardly.”
Babs said grimly, “What you have there is a genuine, certified stalker. I’d call the cops on her in a hot minute.”
“How can she do that?” Pat objected. “The woman hasn’t done anything! No witnesses, not one other person who heard what she said-what she keeps on saying. They’d laugh in Mattie’s face, if they didn’t do worse.”
“It does sound such a silly story,” Mattie said wretchedly. “Like a paranoiac, somebody with a persecution complex. But it’s true, I’m not making it up. That’s just exactly the way it’s been happening.”
Pat nodded. “I believe you. And so would a jury, if it ever came to that. Anyone who spends ten minutes around you knows right away that you haven’t the first clue about lying.” She sighed, refilling Babs’s glass and her own but not Mattie’s. “Not you-you have to drive. And we wouldn’t want to frustrate little Ms. What’s-her-face, now would we?”
“That’s not funny,” Babs interrupted sharply. “That’s not a bit funny, Patricia.”
Pat apologized promptly and profusely, but Mattie was absurdly delighted. “You call her Patricia, too! I thought I was the only one.”
“Only way to get her attention sometimes.” Babs continued to glower at an extremely penitent Pat. “But she’s right about the one thing, anyway. Even if the cops happened to believe you, they couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Couldn’t slap a restraining order on the lady, couldn’t order her to stay x number of feet away from you. Not until…” She shrugged heavily, and did not finish the sentence.
“I know,” Mattie said. “I wasn’t expecting you two to… fix things. Be my bodyguards, or something. But I do feel a bit better, talking to you.”
“Now, if you were in the hospital”-Babs grinned suddenly and wickedly-“we really could bodyguard you. Between old Patricia and me, nobody’d get near you, except for the surfers we’d be smuggling in to you at night. You ought to think about it, Mattie. Safe and fun, both.”
Mattie was still giggling over this image, and a couple of others, when they walked her out to her car. As she buckled her seatbelt, Pat put a hand on her shoulder, saying quietly, “As long as this goes on every day, you call every day. Got that?”
“Yes, Mama,” Mattie answered. “And I’ll send my laundry home every week, I promise.”
The hand on her shoulder tightened, and Pat shook her a little more than slightly. “I mean it. If we don’t hear, we’ll come down there.”
“Big bad bull dykes on the rampage,” Babs chimed in from behind Pat. “Not pretty.”
It was true that she did feel better driving home: not at all drunk, just pleasantly askew, easier and more rested from the warmth of company than she had been in a long time. That lasted all the way to Moss Harbor, and almost to her front door. The almost part came when, parking the car at the curb, she heard a horn honk twice, and looked up in time to see an arm waving cheerfully back to her as Olivia Korhonen’s bright little Prius rounded a corner. Mattie sat in her car for a long time before she turned off the engine and got out.
Is she watching my house? Was she waiting for me?
She did not call Pat and Babs that night, even though she lay awake until nearly morning. Then, with Don gone to work, she forced herself to eat breakfast, and called Suzanne for Olivia Korhonen’s home telephone number. Once she had it in hand, she stalled over a third cup of coffee, and then a fourth, before she finally dialed the number and waited through several rings, consciously hoping to hear the answering machine click on. But nothing happened. She was about to break the connection when she heard the receiver being picked up and Ms. Korhonen’s cool, unmistakable voice said, “Yes? Who is this, please?”
Mattie drew a breath. “It’s Mattie Whalen. From the Bridge Group, you remember?”
If she has the gall to even hesitate, stalking me every single day… But the voice immediately lifted with delight. “Yes, Mattie, of course I remember, how not? How good to hear from you.” There was nothing in words or tone to suggest anything but pleasure at the call.
“I was wondering,” Mattie began-then hesitated, listening to Olivia Korhonen’s breathing. She said, “I thought perhaps we might get together-maybe one day this week?”
“To practice our bridge game?” Somewhat to Mattie’s surprise, Olivia Korhonen pounced on the suggestion. “Oh, yes. That would be an excellent idea. We could develop our own strategies-that is what the great players work on all the time, is it not? Excellent, excellent, Mattie!” They arranged to meet at noon, two days from that date, at Olivia Korhonen’s condo apartment. She wanted to make cucumber sandwiches-“in the English style, I will cut the crusts off”-but Mattie talked her out of that, or thought she had. In her imagining of what she planned to say to Olivia Korhonen, there would be no room for food.
On the appointed day Mattie woke up in a cold sweat. She considered whether she might be providentially coming down with some sort of flu, but decided she wasn’t; then made herself a hot toddy in case she was, ate Grape-Nuts and yogurt for breakfast, went back to bed in pursuit of another hour’s nap, failed miserably, got up, showered, dressed, and watched Oprah until it was time to go. She made another hot toddy while she waited, on the off chance that the flu might be waiting, too.
The third-floor condo apartment turned out as tastefully dressy as Eileen and Suzanne had reported. Olivia Korhonen was at the door, smilingly eager to show her around. The rooms were high and airy, with indeed a good many paintings and prints, of which Mattie was no judge-they looked like originals-and a rather surprising paucity of furniture, as though Olivia Korhonen had not been planning for long-term residence. When Mattie commented on this, the blond woman only twinkled at her, saying, “The motto of my family is that one should always sink deep roots wherever one lives. Because roots can always be sold, do you see?” Later on, considering this, Mattie was not entirely certain what bearing it had on her question; but it sounded both sensible and witty at the time, in Olivia Korhonen’s musical voice.
Nevertheless, when Olivia Korhonen announced, “Now, strategy!” and brought out both the cards and the cucumber sandwiches, Mattie held firm. She said, “Olivia, I didn’t come to talk about playing cards.”