A Dangerous Woman by Mary McGarry Morris

Author:Mary McGarry Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504048064
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

The next morning, Martha was polishing all the silver in the house, urns and flatware, nut dishes, candy dishes, the tea-and-coffee service, so many pieces that the kitchen counters and table were covered. Dawn was on her hands and knees, washing woodwork. She was a tall slim high-school girl one of Frances’s friends had recommended.

Mack opened the refrigerator. He had finally made it over to the house after another insistent call from Frances. He looked exhausted. Martha knew his light had stayed on most of the night, because she had been up herself, writing Birdy a ten-page letter about what she had seen in town yesterday.

“Do you realize I’ve been waiting forty-five minutes for you?” Frances said.

Mack’s eyes flicked coldly and, whatever he had been about to say, he swallowed in a smile. “Forty-five minutes, that’s nothing,” he scoffed. “Hell, some women have been waiting a lifetime,” he said, winking at Martha as he sat at the table with a glass of juice. He looked down at Dawn. “Now, this is what I call a work crew.” He leaned over and asked the girl her name.

“Dawn,” came her soft voice.

“Dawn, that burst of light that spawns this mighty thirst,” he said, holding up his glass.

Dawn wrung out her rag in the bucket, and a wedge of her fine straight hair slipped over her red cheeks. Smiling, Mack sipped his juice while he watched her crouch down to scrub the black rubber baseboard under the cabinets.

“If you don’t mind,” Frances said, glaring at him from the doorway.

He jumped up and Dawn giggled nervously.

In the hallway, Frances showed him how to run the floor polisher. She stepped aside now and gestured for him to turn it on. He did, and it skittered out of his hand.

“Bear down!” she called, stalking him as he got hold of it again, letting it take him where it would, along the hallway, bumping off table legs and the brass umbrella stand. “Steer it!” she called, charging back up the hallway after him. “In a straight line!” She was still shouting when the machine died.

“If you want this done, then leave me alone!” he said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t just want it done. I want it done right,” Frances spat back.

“Then I guess you better do it yourself!” He threw down the cord.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Mackey!” she said, kicking the cord back at him.

They glared at one another.

Dawn watched from the dining room. Martha held her breath until she saw Mack smile and pick up the cord. Without a word he plugged it in and steered the polisher so expertly down the hallway that she knew it must have been an act.

By mid-afternoon all the hardwood floors were glassy with wax. In the kitchen Martha and Dawn were cleaning the pictures and mirrors Frances had taken down before she left for Hanover with Steve. Martha turned her rag in the grimy whorls of this gold-leafed frame. No matter how hard she tried to put her mind on other things, images of Getso and Mercy kept seeping in, poisoning her thoughts.

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