Tickled to Death by Joan Hess

Author:Joan Hess [Hess, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1994-10-10T22:00:00+00:00

9

The Gallinagos’ house, like the Gordons’, was familiar, but only because I’d driven down the road on several occasions. The house was built with the same materials as most of the others: native rock, redwood, and glass. I parked and followed Sid inside. The living-room decor was a profusive jumble of corals and fuchsias and other subtle designer colors with exotic names. It was the perfect roost for Agatha Anne, who undoubtedly had a closet filled with clothes chosen to coordinate with the upholstery.

I opted for iced tea. Sid supplied it, as well as a beer for himself, then sat across from me. “I’ve known Dick for thirty years. We were roommates at the Kappa Sig house all through school. Opening a practice together seemed natural, even though Dick had to twist my arm to get me to specialize in pedodontics. We got married the same year, bought houses in the same neighborhood, and joined the same country club when the practice began to thrive.”

“And later bought lake houses only a few miles apart. Do your boats match?”

“We don’t go around town holding hands,” he said, giving me a narrow look. “Dick plays a lot of tennis and racquetball; I play golf every spare moment. Agatha Anne and Jan were friendly, but Jan was a little too shy to keep up with the country club matrons and their incessant golf and tennis tournaments, charity affairs, luncheons, and so on. She always looked uncomfortable at cocktail parties. We used to tease her about the number of times she called home to speak to the babysitter.” He put down his drink and rose. “Let me see if I can find something,” he said as he left the room. A minute later he returned with a framed photograph and handed it to me. “This is of the four of us on a vacation in St. Croix about ten years ago.”

They were standing in front of a row of bright flowers, with palm trees towering behind them. Jan was attractive in a puppyish way, with cropped dark hair, a large and noticeably sunburned nose, and a strained smile. Her sundress emphasized her thick waist and freckled arms. Sunglasses hid her eyes, but I had an idea they would have been lowered. Sid wore a gaudy shirt, Bermuda shorts, and sandals. He held up a drink festooned with fruit and a pink paper umbrella; his grin was lopsided and his eyes unfocused. Dick and Agatha Anne could have graced the cover of People magazine, all tanned and sleek, toasting the camera with glasses of champagne. He wore white shorts and a shirt emblazoned with an animal. Agatha Anne’s starchy white tennis dress brushed the top of her thighs, and a fuzzy yellow sweater hung around her shoulders. Her wristbands and socks were yellow. I wouldn’t have been astounded to see a yellow tennis racquet in the background.

I studied Jan’s expression for a minute, then handed back the photograph. “You look as though you were having fun,” I said.

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