My Dead True Love by Kim Pierce

Author:Kim Pierce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucobu Books
Published: 2022-09-30T03:25:02+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Oh, isn’t this fun?” Stella tittered, holding up her hands and drumming her fingers together. “It’s like we’re having a party.”

Having just come from confession, she wore high-waisted, navy bell-bottoms with a sailor look that harkened back to the 1940s. Wherever her current mind resided, her fashion sense lived in the past. Wanda, looking more mantis-like than I remembered, sat across from us in the TV lounger. Princess made barky-whining sounds, as if she didn’t want to be there.

“Hush now,” Wanda said, bending down to hold the dog’s muzzle in her hand and stare into her eyes. Princess hushed.

Ben had pressed me about whether I wanted to buy the Celica, and after the reading, I was sure it was the right thing to do. That’s how we came to be gathered—Ben, Stella, Wanda, Olivia, and I—in Stella’s overstuffed den, beneath a pall of smoke from Wanda’s cigarette habit. Judging from the pervasiveness of the stale odor, I guessed the two neighbors had been seeing a lot of each other. I was wedged next to Olivia, who had asked if she could come along, at one end of the oversized sofa. Stella sank into the other end. With the flamboyance of a ringmaster, Ben held court from in front of the fireplace.

“Let’s get on with this,” he said, taking up half the space in the room not because he was so large, but because of the way he loomed. I scanned the mantel behind him for the box containing Gregory’s ashes. It was no longer there among the photographs and memorabilia. Stella must have somehow gotten them buried in the family plot, probably with more of Ben’s intervention—the same way he had taken over the funeral arrangements and was here to orchestrate the selling of the beloved Celica. I sensed in him the same fealty I’d seen in Gregory to the cultural imperative about taking care of women. Especially mothers. As Stella’s closest living male relative, he was bound by this code.

His assertive nature, which had annoyed me during the memorial arrangements, gave me cover with this dubious gathering. You could say he brought a measure of control to unruly elements. Kept wandering minds focused. Badgered parties toward a goal. His goal. To sell the car. Which in this case coincided with my desire to buy the car. Despite misgivings about the parties gathered for this exchange, I was certain I was doing the right thing. So certain after the reading with Sasha that I drove Olivia and myself to the proceedings in the coveted automobile. It was parked out on Stella’s driveway next to Ben’s black Mercedes, and it would belong to us when we drove it home.

“Now you’re here because…?” Ben began, scrutinizing Wanda and pushing back a straight, slick lock that had fallen over his eye.

“I’m Wanda, Stella’s next-door neighbor,” she said, stroking Princess’s head. “I’m her friend.”

“I still don’t get why you’re here.”

It was like he could bellow softly. Even at a perfectly civilized volume, his voice resonated and bounced around the room.

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