Page 24 of Rest In Pink

“Anemone, your life is not a TV show, it’s not a series of episodes, it’s one coherent story. And this rewrite is going to show that. It will pull everything together, but only if you’ll stop resisting the idea that everything builds on the previous thing, that you are, yes, a multitude, but also a single life, everything tied together. Now why the hell did you stop working on low-income housing when it had been a fixation for three decades? And go into homeless shelters, which is just another flavor of low-income housing.”

“They were doing fine without me,” she said, her chin in the air. “I’d put good staffs in place. Even the construction company is still going strong, so they didn’t need me anymore.”

I blinked. This wasn’t a wrinkle I’d thought of before, that Anemone might need to feel needed.

“There are a lot of people who need you,” I said, slowly. I nodded at Peri who was oblivious, lost in her book. “And me.”

“It was time to let go,” she said.

“I need to think about this,” I told her.

“I don’t,” she said.

If the housing projects and the homeless shelters were something she needed, then she had a thing for sheltering people. Like Peri. And me.

“What kind of house did you and Anthony have?”

She pulled back a little, surprised. “Just a little cottage. Two bedrooms. Anthony said it was a starter home, but I loved it.”

“I think it needs to go in the book.”

She nodded.

“Can you write a couple of paragraphs on it, not just what it looked like, but what about it made you happy?”

She nodded again, but this time she didn’t look grumpy.

“Okay, then,” I told her. “I’ll do a copy edit, some tightening on this chapter, and you write the things about the house that made you happy, and I’ll slot them in tomorrow.”

Then I moved back into the library to finish knocking out Chapter Two. I was on target for a chapter a day, but what I was really thinking about was the last chapter in the book, the one that would pull everything together.

I was pretty sure it was going to be about houses.

* * *

At six, I came downstairs, dressed to kill, or at least maim.

Anemone had been on my ass for a while about my clothes, and she’d handed me a box shortly after I’d moved into the Blue House with her to thank me for . . . Okay, I can’t remember what excuse she’d used, but she wasn’t thanking me for anything, she was trying to get me to dress like a woman instead of a teenage boy (her words). I’d pointed out that a lot of teenage girls dress in t-shirts and jeans, and she’d pointed out that I was thirty-three. Anyway, it didn’t matter because when I opened the box, it had a plain stretchy short black dress in it—I could stand that, it was almost a t-shirt—and some very lacy see-through underwear—Vince could stand that—and a pair of over-the-knee thin socks that had a stretchy red band at the top and red bows. Big floppy red bows.

I loved them. I was even willing to wear a stretchy black dress since the bows would have made big lumps under my jeans. And after last night, I was thinking about alternate uses for them. Somebody else could get tied up tonight.

Okay, yes, I know, sex is a drug, or at least a way of escaping from reality for a while, but my reality has been tense lately what with all the family and friends and enemies setting off explosions in my life, and if I’m using a guy who lives in a diner in the woods as my personal form of anti-depressant, I don’t see what the problem is as long as the guy doesn’t. So far, Vince seemed pretty cheerful about the whole thing, which is significant because as we all know, he’s dour.

Sorry. I just find that hysterically funny. I won’t mention it again.

The point is that I was wearing lacy underwear, a little black dress, and over-the-knee stockings with red bows when I went downstairs to tell Anemone I was leaving.

I’d already cleared it with her that she would babysit Peri for the night, and I’d take tomorrow night, so she and Peri were on the couch, looking for dog clothes on the internet while they waited for Marianne to start dropping plates on the table. I’d have tried to intervene to save Veronica, but Veronica had picked Anemone over me, so she could just deal with the crinoline skirts and a dog t-shirt that said,Classy, Sassy, and a Little Bit Bossy.

“Is that for you or the dog?” I said as I went past.

“You look very nice, dear,” Anemone said. I’m sure she wanted to say something snarky about my bows and Vince, but Peri was sitting right there. “Your pearls would look lovely with that dress.”

My pearls would look lovely with any dress, a long string of perfectly matched calcium carbonate that Cleveland Blue’s father had willed to his oldest granddaughter, and that MaryLou Blue had used to kill Lavender Blue. The family pearls. I’d had them professionally cleaned to get the blood off and then buried them in my mother’s safe deposit box at the bank. I don’t care if I ever see them again. When Peri hits twenty-one, she can have them.

“I don’t think so, Anemone,” I said. “Good night, Peri.”

“Why are you wearing a dress?” Peri said.

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