Page 4 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

So, when I Googled “how to start a hobby” the first advice given was to break it into small steps so you’re not overwhelmed. For Christ’s sake, I didn’t Google how to embezzle diamonds from the Russian mafia, I was simply thinking I might take up cookie making or something. How could I get overwhelmed?Anyway…then I learned that professional cookie decorators call themselves “cookiers” and I just found the term so irritating I gave up on the whole thing.

Then Millie told me I could knit with her and I told Millie that she’s shamefully cliché, and how does she not have carpal tunnel by now? And it’s not really a hobby, is it? She’d be sitting in front of the television watchingBonanzawith or without her knitting in hand, so it’s quite mindless, and I don’t think a hobby should be mindless. Bernie has taken up winemaking, but his room smells like a boiled egg, so I don’t think he’s doing it right. It’s still at the top of my list, though.

Gardening was a contender too. I was quite the gardener once, but the snow won’t melt until April, so that seems a long wait. I could be dead by then for all I know. But then Herb said I should make a podcast about gardening and share my wisdom with the world. This intrigued me—because I was once a news announcer on public radio, and in a way it’s a perfect idea. My love for plants and helping people learn, hmm. But how would one even begin? I just showed up and talked into a mic at the station, and that was long ago. I would need to figure out a lot of things, but learning it all would keep me busy, and maybe that’s a hobby all in itself. I was almost sold on the idea.

But then something very serendipitous happened. I was at Murph Moyer’s funeral, which was such a sad occasion since Murph had just had a hair transplant he was very excited about, and had planned a trip to the Bahamas to swim with the pigs. I guess that’s a thing… He even bought a bottle of spray tan on Amazon, and then just like that, a fall on the ice on his way down to The Angry Trout for a pint one night and that was it. And now he looks orange in his casket, poor Murph, and he never even got to put his new hair to good use. It’s like that these days, though. When you get to be our age, you start receiving invitations to a lot more funerals. And part of you gets used to it, but the main part of you never does.

At the reception, I was chatting with Rosie and Susan by the punch bowl. We were sitting in metal folding chairs and holding little slices of white cake on napkins when I noticed Winny pouring a long pull of scotch into a Santa Claus coffee mug and sitting by herself next to a fake ficus in need of dusting. She was hunched over her drink, and I saw her dot her eye with the corner of a napkin, so I excused myself and went to sit with her.

I could tell it wasn’t her first scotch because she had a glassy-eyed look and loose lips, but that’s a good thing. It was easy to get her to confide in me and tell me why she’d missed our bridge game last Tuesday and what in the world was the matter. I mean, I know her husband passed only a couple of months ago, of course. But he’d been battling severe diabetes complications and was in the hospital for who knows how long. He was even left unable to speak after a diabetes-induced stroke. Lord help him. It was a mercy, really, him passing. It was very expected. So I am quite surprised at what Winny tells me—that she thinks her husband was murdered and didn’t die of natural causes. Well, I had to set my punch on the floor next to me and rest my hand on my heart a moment.

“Sweetheart, why would you say that? Otis was so sick, bless him,” I say to her, placing my hands on her knees. I thought she lost the plot, if I’m honest, but I was still going to be sympathetic. She picks at Santa’s chipping glitter beard and talks into her lap.

“Something wasn’t right there,” she says with a haunted look on her face.

“What do you mean, love?” I ask, trying to look in her eyes so she’s forced to look back at me, but she continues to mumble. And I suppose I would speak quietly too if I were saying the crazy thing she was about to say.

“Someone there killed him,” she whispers.

“At the hospital?”

“Yes, Florence. I… Yes. I’m not just—I’m not crazy. I’m not making shit up.”

“Of course you’re not, dear,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. “Well, did you tell the police?” I ask, because what else does one ask in this sort of situation?

“Of course, but they don’t believe me. I can tell. They say they’ll ‘have a look,’ whatever that means, but I know when I’m being condescended to. They will not have a look. Plus that old detective Riley has a head full of chipped beef. Has he ever helped anyone solve anything in this town?” she asks, becoming louder and more agitated as she goes. She puts her mug down and takes a deep breath.

To be fair, the only crime I can remember happening in the last few years in this town, besides petty bike theft or drunk fistfights, is the tragedy that happened to Mack and Shelby that terrible night last year, but I can’t blame Riley for that. It absolutely baffled everyone. He does have a head full of chipped beef though, I’ll give her that.

“Why would you think something like that, love? You know all of the hospital workers,” I say, which is a given. She pretty much knows everyone around here.

“You think one of them hurt Otis? That’s…” I stop, because I don’t know what to say. It’s absurd and makes me worry for Winny. I wonder if she’s gone around telling other people this sort of thing.

“He told me,” she says, and since I know he was unable to speak, now I really zip my lip and just look over at the bottle of scotch on the refreshments table with a longing gaze, wondering how to kindly extract myself from the conversation.

“Something’s goin’ on around here, Flor. Something is happening. First Shel and Mack, and poor Leo wherever the hell he really is. Now this.” It’s strange to hear someone say “poor Leo,” because the general, mostly unspoken consensus is that he’s a rat bastard who ghosted his wife. I hope I’m using that term correctly.Ghosted.Anyway, I wonder if it would be rude to lean over and pick a few cucumber sandwiches off of the table while she’s talking. I do hate to be rude, but I really am famished, and I know Liddy Wingfield made them, and she uses the pimento cream cheese on them, which is a dream.

Before I can decide, Winny leans in conspiratorially.

“Can I show you something?” she asks.

“Of course,” I agree, giving up on my chance for a cucumber sandwich as she motions for me to follow her. The reception is at Dusty Waltman’s house because he and Murph were very good friends. I suppose he’s a nice enough man, I just can’t get past the urge to take a bottle of Pledge and a washrag after him each time I hear the name Dusty. Not his fault, I suppose, and his house is quite tidy, although too drafty for my taste.

Even so, I follow Winny down his front hall with the brown plaid wallpaper and creaky wood floors, and we pull our coats from a pile of other sad-looking black and navy down coats draped over an old steamer trunk near the door and walk out into the frozen air. It’s so cold the snow is having trouble trying to fall, and it swirls around the lampposts in light, icy specks. Before I can complain about freezing to death, I hear “My Heart Will Go On” start to play inside, and now I’m happy to be out here, so I give her a minute as I shift from foot to foot and blow on my hands while she pulls something from her pocket. Why do they play songs like that at funerals? Everyone is already sad, and now I can hear sobs from inside. I hope they play “Another One Bites the Dust” at my funeral. And have it at a Dave & Buster’s, where everyone will get free mojitos and play free Skee-Ball, and not in a drafty house with peely wallpaper and stale sheet cake.

Winny finally fishes out whatever it is she’s been digging for, then shoves the pieces of a ripped-up sheet of paper at me. I take it, examining it and have no idea what the hell she’s playing at.

“What is it?” I ask. She takes the papers back, swipes a layer of snow off of Dusty’s porch swing,and sits. I sit next to her, and she lays them out on her knees.

“Look,” she says, and I do. I see a scrap with the words “Help me” scrawled across it, and another that reads “Trying to kill me.”But the words before it are torn away. She stares at me, waiting for a response.

“Well, what is this?” I ask.

“Otis wrote it. Look! This is the clearest one.” She puts a scrap on top of the others. It says, “You have to tell someone what’s happening here.” The last part says, “Warn Mack and Shel…” but the end of her name is torn away.

“See,” she says, “and then it stops, like he couldn’t finish.”

“I don’t… Why is this in scraps? Why would he write this?” I’m shivering from the cold, and my words come out in white puffs.

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