The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [73]
Caroline reiterated that they all appreciated everything she was doing to help them, and that she hoped Nance wasn’t wearing herself out. And, besides, the house looked clean to Caroline. In fact, the room they were in was not only free of dirt and dust and clutter, but it was also free of personality. Every bit of furniture looked new, large, and beige, even the coffee table and the lamps. Framed photographs were lined up on a low table against the beige wall, but Caroline couldn’t get a good look at them. She told Nance that her house looked neat as a pin.
“Don’t look too close,” Nance said. She had a rather large pecan-shaped head, and she sat up straight as if she had to balance her head on her shoulders, which gave her a dignified air. “I’m trying to get things done round here today,” she told Caroline. “If I get distracted, it’s all over for me. The TV has to stay off.”
“I don’t want to take up your time,” Caroline said, like a salesperson. “I just wanted to pay you a visit, since you’re helping out at our house so much.”
Nance didn’t respond to this illogical statement. “Well,” she said, “there’s somebody out there who doesn’t appreciate me. Has it in for me, seems like. Keeps calling here and hanging up. Lets it ring twice, and then hangs up before caller ID clicks on. They know exactly what they’re doing.”
“Why would someone do that?”
Nance snorted. “Heck if I know.” She told Caroline she’d been hearing strange sounds on the roof at night, like somebody was walking around up there. It drove Buster wild, she said. “Here’s the scariest thing,” she said, lowering her voice. “The other evening, round eight, I saw someone wearing a Richard Nixon mask peering in the kitchen window at me. I ran outside, but the person had run off. It was a grown person! Couldn’t tell whether it was male or female.”
“You should call the police,” Caroline said. Maybe Nance was closer to totally losing her marbles than she’d thought. “You want me to call them for you?”
“Oh, no, no,” Nance said. “They’ll just think I’m a crazy old lady. Maybe Vic could come down here and spend the night sometime. He could catch them, I bet.”
“Maybe.” Vic would never agree to that.
Nance dabbed at her lips with her napkin and set down her glass and uneaten cookie on the doily-covered table beside her. Buster, lying beside her, stared intently at the cookie, as if waiting for it to leap up and dance.
Caroline resumed eating her crumbly cookie and sipping tea and asked Nance about working at FTA.
“It’s a hoot,” Nance said. “Just a hoot. I’m loving every minute of it. Except for that loud woman who helps Vic. Buff Coffey’s sister.”
“Gigi?” Caroline said.
“Flirty little filly,” Nance said. “ ’Tween you and me, she’s terrible at her job. But Vic covers for her.” Nance gave her a creepy little smile, cut her eyes toward her and then away.
“Sounds like Gigi,” Caroline said, feigning lightheartedness. At one point, back when Vic was in graduate school, she’d suspected Vic and Gigi of being attracted to each other—they always ended up side by side at parties—but Vic had always denied it. Gigi had always gotten plastered at those parties, but that was back when lots of people drank too much, she and Vic included.
“Now.” Nance’s voice changed and became confiding and caring, “Suzi told me that Otis and Ava have—Is it ass burger? What’s that?”
Caroline went into her Asperger’s spiel and after a while, as Nance’s expression grew more quizzical and then doubtful, Caroline’s mind started wandering back to the fake flowers in the yard. Did she actually pretend to water them and think she was fooling the neighbors?
Nance said, “Well, I can’t tell there’s a thing wrong with Otis and Ava. They’re just as smart as can be. And cute. They seem perfectly normal.”
Caroline took a deep breath. In the old days