“Oh, no. We never wanted for money, but Paul only became a millionaire after I left him.”
“Bummer,” Tina says.
I add, “Did you ever wish you’d stuck with him for a little while longer?”
Not that Mrs. Dahl is the kind of woman who has regrets, but I’m interested in hearing her take.
“Oh no,” Mrs. Dahl said. “He was very dull, always going on about something or other, none of it interesting, and it was after I left him that I met Henry. I’d decided to enjoy my freedom and take aviation lessons. Henry was my teacher.”
I flip open my notebook and start feverishly taking notes, but I’m going to have to ask if I can record our conversation. Every other word out of her mouth is pure gold. I remember how Cal said she’s slipping into dementia. I’ve spent time with plenty of elderly people, enough that I know it doesn’t present the same in everyone. But Mrs. Dahl is a spitfire. I hate to think of dementia sliding its insidious tentacles into her mind, taking away any of the things that make her her. The thought makes me more anxious to document anything she’s willing to tell me.
Before I can open my mouth to ask about the recording, she leaps out of her chair with a speed that belies her age.
“Everything okay?” I ask. “I have lots of questions. Like, seriously, a lot.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, dear,” she says. “I just have to visit the water closet. I won’t be a minute.” She waves grandly at the shortbread, and even the gesture seems to make Tina choke in remembrance of that one bite she took. “Help yourselves to cookies and tea, and feel free to look at the pictures.”
I take her at her word. She’s barely turned the corner before I open the album.
“You’re looking for the furry, aren’t you?” Tina says in an undertone.
“Duh,” I say with a smile.
But I don’t make it there, because a few pages in I see a photo of Mrs. Dahl standing in front of a tiny biplane. Next to her is a tall, handsome man with intense brown eyes that do kind of remind me of Cal. And the way Mrs. Dahl is looking at him, so enraptured, as if he is more magnificent to her than the plane, than flying…
Something about the image makes me shudder. Those feelings discomfit me. Because they remind me of my mother, who always looked at my father like he hung the moon. And because I’d promised myself I would never let a man sweep me off my feet, but right now, at this very moment, I kind of want one to.
There’s a loud sound of metal striking metal, followed by a bursting noise.
Tina and I exchange a panicked glance, because, really, what the hell could have happened? Unless Mrs. Dahl has a bionic leg, I’m at a loss. And then we’re off running toward the “water closet,” which she showed to us before getting us settled at the dining room table.
Mrs. Dahl opens the door, her scarlet dress dripping wet, although her full makeup is miraculously undisturbed. Water is spraying everywhere from the pipe beneath the sink, which I can only assume she hit with the hammer that is now resting across the top of the toilet.
“Goodness, girls,” she says. “They don’t make pipes the way they used to. My first husband, Gerald, was a plumber, God rest his miserable soul, and he would be disgusted by how quickly that thing crumpled. I’d better go get Cal from next door. Lea told me he’d be replacing a faucet for her today, and I know he keeps some tools in his truck.”
“God damn,” Tina says in an undertone. “Note to self: don’t get on her bad side.”
“Might want to hide the hammer,” I say, stepping into the fray. “That undermines your story some.” The water sprays across the front of my dress, because of course, but I manage to turn off the faucet. Then I grab a heavy, thick towel from the bar next to the shower and throw it over the soaking wet floor. Not a fix, obviously, but I know nothing about plumbing despite having written a piece called “Plumber’s Crack: Fact or Fiction” during one of our slow periods a couple of years ago. All I learned was that there was something like a fifty-fifty split.
By the time I get out, Mrs. Dahl and Tina are both gone, presumably to fetch Cal.
Good God. They’re going to collude, aren’t they?
Since the last thing I want is for him to come in here and find me with a hammer at the scene of the crime—hello, desperate—I grab it and stick it on top of the mounted cabinet, probably too high up for Mrs. Dahl to reach it without help. For now, that’s probably best.
I head back out to the tea service, tugging on that annoying wet spot on my dress, and when I get there, that photo of Henry and Mrs. Dahl is staring up at me, almost accusatorily.
It’s not ten seconds later that I hear them coming.
There’s Mrs. Dahl’s voice—“I can’t begin to know what happened. I turned on the sink, and the pipe just crumpled like it was made of tinfoil.”
“Well, in these old houses sometimes things do happen that way.” That’s Cal, but from the way he says it, it’s clear that while sometimes these things do happen, he doesn’t believe that’s what happened today.
“What luck that you happened to be right next door,” Tina says brightly.
Some weird alchemy is going on inside of me. Part of me wants to duck out the back door so I can avoid this whole scene. The rest of me wants to see how Cal will play this. Maybe I can tell him about my plan—the compromise that’ll keep his name out of this. If the pressure of me writing about him is off the table, is there a chance he might be willing to consider a repeat of yesterday?
But another glance at the photo—specifically the way Mrs. Dahl is looking at Henry—makes me question whether I’m fool enough to want that.
Because up until now I’ve kept my word to myself. I’ve never once lost myself to a man. Why risk that?
Then suddenly they’re at the threshold to the dining room. Tina and Mrs. Dahl look like they’re getting away with something, even though the normally flawless Mrs. Dahl is still sopping wet, and Cal has a slightly bemused look on his face. He must have had a clean shirt in his truck, because his impressive chest is once again hidden from view.
It strikes me that he’s not sorry he’s here. And when he sees me, his eyes linger on my dress, which must be plastered to my chest, for long enough to tell me he’s thinking of yesterday too.
Good.
“I hear there was an accident?”
“Miss Scarlet with the hammer in the bathroom,” I say. Because what the hell. It’s not like he won’t be able to tell in about five seconds.
His eyebrows lift, his lip curling in amusement.
A rogue part of me wants to bite it.
“Molly,” Mrs. Dahl gasps as if I’d accused her of murder or wearing a stained dress, “I can’t imagine why you’d joke about such a thing. Now, I trust I can leave you to it,” she says to Cal. “I must change before the evening’s entertainment.”
I’m not even mad at her. If anything, I’d like to follow her around like her own personal paparazzo.
I am, however, mad at Tina, who peers conspicuously at her watch and shakes her head sadly, even as Mrs. Dahl walks off in her sodden dress.
“Would you look at that,” Tina says. “I’m supposed to get to Ghost’s house before six so his humans can go on a date night. Don’t ask me why they think their dog needs a sitter because they’re going to be gone for a few hours on a Friday night. I think it’s because they’re very particular about his schedule. He eats his dinner at six fifteen, precisely. I’m pretty sure they keep a camera in the teddy bear on the mantel, because one time I gave it to him at six sixteen, and his mom called me on it.”