anything’s okay with me, especially after that awful hospital food. One thing, though, you wouldn’t happen to have some garlic French bread to go with the beans and rice, would you? I love garlic French bread.”
Usually, Charlotte fixed her plate at suppertime, then went into the living room to watch TV while she ate, or sometimes she’d sit at the table and read, if she was into a good book. Since she had company, she decided they should probably eat at the table.
“That was delicious,” Joyce told her after they had eaten and were clearing the table.
“Glad you enjoyed it,” Charlotte said as she unloaded the dishwasher. “It’s the recipe that my mother always used.”
While Charlotte began stacking the dishwasher with dirty dishes, Joyce seated herself at the table. “Is your mother still living?”
“No.” Charlotte shook her head. “She and my father both died in an accident while I was in college.”
“You went to college?”
Joyce’s astonished tone put Charlotte immediately on the defensive. Ever so carefully she closed and locked the dishwasher, when what she really wanted was to slam it shut. As she rinsed and dried her hands, once again she made herself count to ten to calm down. Finally, she faced Joyce. “Yes, Joyce,” she said evenly. “I went to college—Tulane University, in fact. But I never finished. After my parents were killed, I had to quit and go to work.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”
Charlotte shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“I never went to college,” Joyce confessed as Charlotte seated herself across from Joyce at the table. “But I did go to beauty school and became a cosmetologist. At first, that’s how I made my living when I moved to California. I actually worked for one of the big studios for a while.” Joyce sighed, then bowed her head. In a voice barely above a whisper, she added, “But all the glamour in the world can’t take the place of family.” She raised her head and looked Charlotte in the eyes. “Leaving Louis and Stephen was the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life—that, and drinking. And not a day goes by that I don’t regret what I did.”
Charlotte could almost believe that—for once—Joyce was telling the truth. But then she remembered how convincingly Joyce had played the part of a dying woman.
“I don’t know just how much Louis told you about me,” Joyce continued, “though I’m sure that none of it was good, but I want you to know that I’m not all bad. You’ve been really kind to me—much kinder than I deserve or could have expected.” She paused, then, with a tight-lipped smile and a shrewd look, she said, “Especially considering that you’ve got the hots for my ex-husband.”
Charlotte’s mouth dropped open, and all she could do was stare at Joyce speechlessly. Her immediate reaction was to deny Joyce’s crude words, but the denial seemed to stick in her throat. How could she deny Joyce’s accusation when, deep down, on a level she’d rather ignore, she knew it was true.
“Oh, don’t look so outraged,” Joyce told her with a laugh. “Lighten up. I can’t say as I blame you. My ex is a good-looking man for his age. And if you can get past the male-chauvinist side of him, he’s also pretty nice. Besides, as much as I regret what I did, I’ve tried to move on with my own life, and I can hardly fault Louis for doing the same.”
“I guess not,” Charlotte finally said, for lack of anything better to say.
Joyce shrugged, then sighed. “There’s also something else I need to tell you.”
Great! Just wonderful. It took every bit of self-control Charlotte could muster to keep from groaning aloud. Why me, Lord? she wondered. The last thing she wanted was to be Joyce’s confessor.
“I tried to tell Louis, but after…” Joyce’s voice trailed off, then she took a deep breath. “After he found out that I’d lied to him about dying, he wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.” She twisted her mouth into a grimace, then shrugged. “Anyway, when Louis found me in California, I wasn’t really a homeless drunk then. Oh, I’d been a homeless drunk before, but that particular time happened to be one of my sober periods.” Joyce suddenly leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I was actually working undercover as a snitch for a police detective and just pretending to be a drunk.”
Charlotte frowned and shook her head. “I don’t understand. If you were working with the police, then why on earth would you lie to Louis to begin with?”
“Because the only way I could know for sure that he would bring me back to New Orleans was if he believed I was dying. You see, my cover got blown, and some really bad dudes were after me. I needed to get out of town fast.”
Up until that moment, Charlotte had believed Joyce, but the snitch story was more than she could swallow.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Joyce said, her tone belligerent.
Time to take off the kid gloves. Charlotte leveled a no-nonsense look at her. “I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Joyce. I truly don’t know what to believe about you anymore. I want to believe you—I really do—but trust is a delicate thing. Once trust is broken, it’s almost impossible to win back.
“And another thing, if you’d been honest with Louis in the first place about these so-called bad dudes, he would have helped you. For pity’s sake, Joyce, he’s a retired police detective, plus he works as a security guard now. Who better to have on your side? I’m telling you, he would have helped you.”
Joyce simply stared at Charlotte with a pitying expression on her face, and then she slowly shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t have, Charlotte. Not in my reality. Maybe in yours, but not in mine.”
On Wednesday morning, Charlotte poured birdseed into Sweety Boy’s feeder, then placed it back inside his cage. “There you go, Boy,” she murmured, giving the little parakeet a head rub with her forefinger. “Now you be a good little bird today. We’ve got company, so none of that squawking and carrying on like you do when Madeline and Louis come over.”
For the life of her, Charlotte had yet to figure out why the silly parakeet reacted like he did when her sister, Madeline, and Louis were around. There had been a couple of times she’d had to remove him and his cage from the room to keep him from injuring himself as he’d thrashed against the inside of the cage.
“Be good,” she repeated as she rubbed his head one last time. Not for a second did Charlotte believe the little bird understood what she said, but she did believe he could understand the tone of her voice. Or was that dogs? Whichever, she thought. Talking to Sweety Boy beat talking to herself all the time.
She pulled her hand out of the cage and latched the door. Glancing over at the cuckoo clock, she decided that if she hurried, she could get the dishwasher unloaded before it was time to leave for work.
With a sigh, Charlotte hurried to the kitchen. Today was her regular day to work for Sandra Wellington. Sandra’s Italianate-style mansion was gorgeous on the outside and exquisitely decorated on the inside, but cleaning it usually took her all morning and half the afternoon. Sandra was a really sweet woman who paid Charlotte better than any of her other clients, but she was a dreadful housekeeper.
Charlotte had just put away the last of the clean dishes when Joyce, fully dressed, entered the kitchen.
“Thank goodness,” Joyce said. “I was so afraid I was going to miss you.”
“You almost did. I’m just about to walk out the door.”
“Well, if it isn’t too much trouble, I was wondering if I could catch a ride with you as far as the streetcar line on St. Charles Avenue. I have several appointments lined up today to look at rental places. I’m ready to go,” she added. “I just need to grab my bag and my lunch.”
“Your lunch?”
Stains of scarlet