A Crack in Everything by Angela Gerst

Author:Angela Gerst [Gerst, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781615953202
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-07T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Visualize Whirled Peas

“Had lunch?”

“Brunch with Cordy at Idlebrook.” Johanna pushed her glasses up into her hair, brown and thick, like some New England critter’s winter pelt. Afternoon glare threw shadows around her head, sharpening her profile.

“Your mother-in-law’s a lovely woman, beautiful eyes. Must have been hard on her, the breakup of your marriage.”

“Not at all. She couldn’t grasp the idea. Cordy is not fully compos mentis, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Compos mentis. Getting, and keeping, it together. Had I really seen beauty in Cordy’s empty face? Eyes may or may not mirror the soul, but in Cordy’s I had seen Chaz. Before age stole her memory, she’d probably been as magnetic as her son.

“For Cordy, nothing changes now. Every day she waits for Charles; and for all his faults, he was a good son. If only he’d been as good a husband, or father.” Melancholy softened Johanna’s voice, but not her self-possession, which made her impossible to warm to. From the corner of my eye I saw her press a hand to her cheek, though I couldn’t imagine her crying.

“If you want to talk, I’m a good listener,” I said. I’d be the mythical stranger who offers an insight, then gets off the bus before you do.

She found a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Charles was a monster with smiling eyes. He cheated on me so smoothly I only found out that first time when he left a draft email open on his computer. The love-mail, I called it. No address or name, just a few honeyed phrases he probably lifted from a book.”

“It’s possible he wanted you to find it.”

She nodded. “To punish me for using his computer. For invading his space.”

For snooping, did she mean? “Or maybe he invented a lover.”

“No. His affairs were compulsive.” She brought out a compact, which opened under her thumb. Brittle chimes tinkled out. A musical compact? I couldn’t help staring.

“Present from Glenn. When he was a little boy, he used to save up his allowance and order doo-dads from those on-line catalogs.” In the angled mirror, she powdered her face, dabbing her chin so fiercely I figured she’d pounced on a zit.

“Chaz was awfully proud of him,” I said. “Told me how Glenn was going to manage his campaign, how he made the Dean’s List at Dartmouth.”

“Dean’s List?” She clamped down the lid on a thin middle C. “From the day Glenn entered college, he’s been on academic probation. He has so many incompletes they’ve suspended him.”

Another of Chaz’s white lies, though this one bothered me more than the lie about being divorced, which was almost the truth, give or take a quibble. Hold on, Susan, I chided myself. A lie that was almost the truth? That’s called sophistry, and it leads to sleaze and corruption and SNL sketches of national candidates. A lie is a lie is a lie.

“As a boy,” Johanna went on, “Glenn was a bundle of so-called disabilities, ADD and the like. He’s still shy. Gravitates to bossy people like that Darcy.

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