Page 6 of It Happened on the Lake

H er nerves were shot.

She couldn’t sit still.

She paced back and forth across Gram’s Persian carpet, from the window to the couch and back again. Sat down between some of Gram’s dolls, then was on her feet again.

The sound of the grandfather clock in the hallway, ticking off the seconds of her life, only made it worse.

She checked her watch.

For the thousandth time tonight.

Because she was stuck “Gram-sitting,” as her father called it, and it was making her crazy.

She’d already suffered through an episode of The Lawrence Welk Show followed by Mannix. She’d nearly gone out of her mind. All the while that she’d stared at the boob tube she’d been thinking of Chase and how she had to meet him tonight.

Alone.

Once Gram had fallen asleep.

If the old lady ever went to bed and began to nod off.

I don’t have time for this , she thought, pacing back and forth in the parlor. Licking her lips, she made her way to the window and stared out at the dark night. No sign of life on the black water.

But it wasn’t time.

Not yet.

Still, her nerves were stretched tight.

She had to see Chase. To tell him.

She heard the sound of Gram’s wheelchair as she rolled into the room.

“Good Lord, girl, you’re going to wear out the carpet!

” Gram said. After her stroke last month she’d spent most of her days in a wheelchair, though with physical therapy she was determined to walk again.

“Come over here. Sit. We can play a couple of hands.” She was wearing her favorite kimono—red and gold silk decorated with wide-winged cranes. “It’ll be fun!”

Great . Just what Harper wanted to do, square off in a gin rummy match against her wily grandmother. Tonight. Of all nights.

“Come on.” Gram motioned awkwardly for Harper to join her at the small inlaid table Gram had picked up “outside of Tokyo,” a lifetime ago. “Sit,” she repeated.

Harper glanced out the window to the dark waters of the lake and pulled up a chair, startling the one-eared orange tabby who had been curled on the cushion. It hissed its displeasure before hopping to the floor and slinking into the shadows.

“Oh, Earline, you stop that,” Gram said, amused as always by the cats she’d adopted over the years. She claimed there were only five, but Harper felt that there were at least a dozen. At least! And none of them liked her.

The feeling was mutual. “Okay,” she said, hoping she sounded more interested in the card game than she really was.

Any thing to pass the time.

Again, she glanced at her watch as Gram tried to shuffle the playing cards—a deck she’d picked up in Malaysia.

“Here, you do it,” she muttered, obviously irritated at being unable to perform the simple task.

Harper did as she was bid, shuffling the deck and dealing out the cards just as the grandfather clock in the hallway bonged out the half hour. Eleven-thirty. Past Gram’s usual bedtime.

Unfortunately Olivia Dixon seemed wide awake tonight.

Silently Harper cursed her luck.

Why had Matilda picked this very night to suddenly take time off? It was almost as if that wily caregiver had guessed what Harper had planned and was determined to thwart her. Miserable bitch.

In Harper’s opinion, Matilda Burroughs was a pain in the backside. Harper lumped Matilda into the same categories as the cats: Disliked and Not Needed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Gram asked, frowning as she picked up her cards and placed them in her card holder. “You’re as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers.”

“Nothing,” Harper lied. Her grandmother might have had a stroke, but she was still sharp as a tack, could still read Harper like a book.

“Hmmm.” Gram moved the cards around in the holder, adjusting them to her liking. “If you say so.”

Harper wanted to argue. Yes, she was on edge. More anxious than even Gram guessed. The fact that, at the last minute, she’d been called to “Gram-sit” only made things worse. Lots worse. Harper scratched the back of her hand absently, then stopped when she caught her grandmother watching her.

“Seriously, Harper.” Gram’s voice had grown soft. “If something’s bothering you, you know you can tell me.” She smiled. “Trust me, I know how to keep a secret.” One eyebrow raised over the top of her reading glasses. “I’ve kept my share.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Harper forced her most bland expression.

“If you say so,” Gram repeated. Sighing when Harper didn’t respond, Gram motioned to her pack of Salems lying on the table next to her favorite ashtray and Grandpa’s lighter. “Would you be a darling?”

“Sure.” Harper rounded the table, plucked a long cigarette from the pack, and placed it between her grandmother’s lips before helping her grandmother light up. As Gram drew deep on the filter tip, Harper clicked the lighter shut and set it down.

Gram let out a cloud of smoke and sighed. “Ahh . . . A horrible habit, I know, but so . . .” She thought for a second and waved away the smoke. “Satisfying. In a naughty way, I suppose.”

“If you say so.”

“Don’t ever start,” she warned, taking another long drag and pointing a finger across the table. “Seriously, Harper.”

No worries there , Harper thought as the seconds ticked by and she played cards distractedly.

“Oooh. Got that one!” Gram picked up a card from the discard pile, the cigarette dangling from her peach-colored lips.

She stared at her granddaughter over the rims of her readers.

“You’re not on your game tonight, Harper.

That was a sloppy move. Worse than a play by Louise Chilcote, the mayor’s wife.

And, believe me, she’s the worst!” Gram snorted as if disgusted at the thought of the woman with the flaming red hair back-combed high on her head.

“I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Umhmm.” Gram sucked on her smoke and adjusted the cards on the tray in front of her. “I can smell boy trouble a mile away, you know.”

“No trouble,” Harper lied.

“Is it Craig Alexander?” she asked. “I can tell he has a crush on you.”

A crush? Really? And ick, no! Not Craig, the groundskeeper’s rangy son with his shaggy blond hair and cocky attitude. “I said, ‘no trouble.’”

“Umhmm. Right. If you say so.” Gram didn’t push it.

But she didn’t hide the skepticism in her eyes when Harper made another stupid play.

Gram swept up the discarded Jack of Hearts with some difficulty and said, “Gin!” with satisfaction.

Then, “Another hand?” she asked, fumbling to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray.

“Shouldn’t you go to bed?”

“You want me to?”

“No, it’s not that, but Matilda said—”

“Oh, bah! Who cares what she said?” Gram’s lined face twisted in irritation. “I’m a grown woman, not a four-year-old!”

“I know, but Matilda told me you should be on a schedule, you know, for your physical therapy and pills and—”

“Matilda can go stuff herself!” Gram let out a disgusted huff. “A drill sergeant, that’s what she is!” She snorted, then softened a bit. “Besides, I so enjoy your company, Harper. I’m glad Matilda was called away, for whatever reason.”

She rapped her knuckles on the table. “You give me a good run for my money in cards.” Then she caught Harper’s gaze. “Well, usually.” She cast Harper a knowing look. “When you’re not distracted.”

“I’m not—”

“Oh, bull!” Gram pushed away from the table. “Go ahead, keep your secrets,” she said, muttering under her breath as she spun the chair and rolled into the bedroom, the only one on the main floor. “Don’t forget to leave the nightlights on in the parlor.”

“I won’t.”

It was nearly midnight.

Chase would be coming.

Nervously Harper hurried into the kitchen, pushing through the swinging doors, then found the pills that Matilda had measured into two ramekins that were used to bake crème br?lée at Christmastime.

One was clearly marked “evening,” the other “morning.” Easy enough.

Harper ignited a burner on the oversized stove and heated water for Gram’s chamomile tea. Matilda had it all set up.

With one eye on the clock, Harper impatiently waited for the water to heat. God, it was dark outside. Maybe Chase was already on his way. She hoped so. She had to talk to him. Tonight. It couldn’t wait any longer.

The teakettle began to whistle, steam erupting from its spout. Good. Swiftly, she poured water into the waiting cup where Matilda had left tea in an infuser. Immediately the sweet scent of chamomile drifted upward.

Balancing the teacup in one hand and the ramekin of pills in the other, she backed through the swinging doors to the dining room.

And tripped over a cat. “Shit!” Harper tried to catch herself and failed.

The cup and saucer toppled, sloshing scalding water over her wrist before smashing into the floor.

Pills scattered across the wood. A second cat scrambled out from under the table. “Shit, shit, shit!”

She tried like crazy to collect all the pills.

God, how many were there? Seven? Eight? More?

She scraped them up, as many as she could locate, even using Gramps’s old weak-beamed flashlight to check under the buffet, chairs, and bar.

She came up with eight, all covered in dust and cat hair, some wet from the tea.

Now what?

She hurried into the kitchen, heated more water, found the broom and mop, and while waiting for the water to get to temperature, she picked up the shards of the cup, mopped the floor, and swept it as best she could.

She heard the clock strike midnight.

Oh God.

She was out of time.

She was supposed to meet Chase. Right now!

She knew the other pills were locked in some cabinet that only Matilda and Gram knew about, and she didn’t have a key, nor did she have time to explain to Gram about what had happened.

Quickly, she washed off the pills, feeling some of the tablets beginning to disintegrate, then dumped them all into the hot water.

She swirled the infuser with its already-soggy tea inside it around in the cup and walked into Gram’s room where that awful Diablo was waiting, seated at a chair at Gram’s secretary-type desk and glaring at her with his hateful gold eyes.

“Shoo,” Harper said, sick of the felines, especially this long-tailed devil of a cat.

“Are you talking to me?” Gram, devoid of makeup, rolled out of the washroom where she’d brushed her teeth, something she still insisted upon doing by herself.

She also managed to wrap a netting over her head to keep her short curls in place before her next visit to the hairdresser.

As Harper helped her into bed, she complained, “Getting old isn’t for sissies. ”

“So then, you’re okay?” Harper said. “Because you’re not a sissy.”

“You always were a sassy one.” But Gram managed a smile before, propped up on fluffy pillows, she reached for her cup. “Where are my pills?”

“I, um, I goofed. Added them to the tea.”

“What?”

“I tripped, spilled everything including your medication, so I washed off all the pills and put them into the cup with the tea. Because they were disintegrating.”

“Oh . . . my.” Gram blinked. Hesitated. “All of them?”

“Yes.” Harper sat on the edge of the bed and bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Gram. I broke one of your cups.”

The old woman sighed and shook her head.

For a second Harper thought she was going to be scolded, but instead Gram said, “Accidents happen. That’s life.

” She lifted the cup to her lips and took a tentative sip.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that’s bitter!

” Sucking in her breath on a whistle, she shook her head.

“Though I guess I’ve tasted worse. That’s the same thing I said about whiskey when your grandpa introduced me to it.

” Her eyes brightened. “Oooh.” She sucked in a delighted breath.

“Now, there’s a thought. Be a dear and bring in the bottle—not the whiskey, though, get the gin. You know where it is?”

Of course she did. Harper was familiar with gin, and as a teen had tasted it on more than one occasion. From the very bottle Gram was requesting. “You sure?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s fine. Be a dear and go get it.”

Harper retrieved the bottle, returning to the room just as Gram drained her teacup and made a sour face. Harper said, “I don’t know if you should—”

“Oh, for the love of God, Harper, I’ve been drinking gin for fifty years—er, maybe even a little longer.”

Harper hesitantly poured, and when she tried to pull back the bottle, Gram motioned quickly for more and coaxed, “Don’t be shy.”

Okay. Fine. Maybe a little alcohol would help Gram sleep better.

Harper filled the cup to Gram’s satisfaction and recapped the bottle as her grandmother sipped.

“That’s better,” she said with a satisfied sigh as she leaned back on pillows where two of her favorite dolls, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, were nestled.

“Thank you.” Another sip and she added, “Listen, Harper, whoever this boy is who is giving you so much worry . . .”

“No, Gram, I—” Harper tried to cut in, but her grandmother held up a shushing finger.

“He’s not worth it.” And before Harper could say another word, Gram buried her face in her cup and took a very long swallow. Then Gram dismissed her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Harper started to leave, but Gram wiggled her fingers at the bottle. “Just leave it.” The old lady winked. “In case I need a little nip in the middle of the night.”

Harper was pretty sure that by-the-book Matilda wouldn’t leave a half-full bottle of gin on the bedside table, but then Harper wasn’t the nursemaid, and her grandmother, as she’d pointed out earlier, was a grown woman.