South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [86]
“I’m seeing Randi, Madeline.”
“What?”
He shifted Uneasily. “I’m seeing Randi. I thought I should tell you.”
She stepped back from him, gave him an imperious, clueless look. “Why? Why should you tell me, particularly? I don’t care.” She closed the door in his face and straggled back Up the stairs, clinging to the banister, the brandy having quite suddenly caught up with her. So you’re with Randi, so what. I’m buying the hotel, what do you think of that? Before she got all the way to the attic she turned around and straggled back down. She was going home. She didn’t want to stay here tonight, drunk and alone.
Gladys was sitting at the kitchen table with Marley, who was the very worst kind of traitor.
“What’s the matter with you?” Gladys asked, and Madeline told her nothing. Or rather, noshing. Gladys’s eyes narrowed. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes!” Madeline said, suddenly Unrepentant. Yes she was, and she wasn’t sorry, either. She was thirty-five years old, thank you very much, she guessed she had a right to go out and get sloshed every now and then if she wanted.
“Unbelievable,” Gladys said, shaking her head. Madeline erupted.
“Really? And why is that? I mean, considering my mother, why is it so surprising, huh? And Joe? Good old Joe, was he a teetotaler? I doubt it. Emil told me they’d tipped a few back together down at the Trackside. Hard to imagine an old toughie like Joe taking it easy on the booze. Maybe that’s why Jackie was such a—” Even drunk and furious, Madeline could not quite say “fuckup” in front of Gladys. “Mess,” she finished lamely.
“Joe was not a drunk! That’s not true! I’ll not have you saying such things. Why, you’re no different from her. Just say whatever you want to suit your own ends.”
“How would I know what’s true and what isn’t? I’m not so different from her, huh? I wouldn’t know, because no one’s ever seen fit to tell me.”
“Blood tells,” Gladys spat.
“Why don’t you tell? Just go ahead and tell me what happened. Tell me all about it. What are you afraid of anyway?”
Gladys glared at her, her mouth pulled down into a pinched and worried frown.
Something woke Gladys up, she didn’t know what. Did she smell smoke? Maybe. She peered at her bedside clock. Two in the morning. She sniffed again and decided she did smell a very faint hint of smoke. Kids having a late-night bonfire on the beach, probably. She lay in bed for a while, hoping to get back to sleep, but that was impossible. She kept thinking of Madeline’s accusations. Some of them were right on target. Gladys was afraid to tell the whole truth.
Finally she got Up and put on her bathrobe, went into the kitchen. For lack of anything else to do she warmed Up a cup of coffee from what was left in the pot on the back of the stove. She drank too much of the stuff, she knew. “Hello there, cat,” she said to Marley when he jumped in her lap, and wondered how she’d ever done without him. Half an hour later she was yawning, thinking of getting back into bed, when a knock came at the kitchen door. What on earth?
She opened the door to find John Fitzgerald, wearing his fireman’s clothes.
“Hoped you might be Up,” he said, his round face creased with worry. “Saw your light. Hate to be bringing bad news, but I figured you’d better know right away.”
“Know what?”
“It’s the hotel. There’s a fire.”
Gladys was dressed and out the door with John in minutes. She couldn’t take in anything he was telling her. Couldn’t get past those first words.
The fire was out by the time John got her there. Someone coming out of the bar had seen flames in the attic window and called the volunteer fire department. There was really, thank goodness, very little damage. A curtain had caught fire and led the flames Up the wall to the ceiling. The old wallpaper was burning, and the lathe beneath the plaster was getting hot, and things were just about to explode when the fire department got there.
The damage was contained to the attic sitting room. Right now everything was dripping and smoky, but