Page 103 of The Night the Lights Went Out
“She’s asked me to contact her ex-husband. He apparently has ready cash, and Merilee believes he won’t say no.”
“I would hope not,” Sugar said, her opinion of Michael rising slightly above that of a boll weevil, but still less than most human beings of her acquaintance. “I can bring her anything she needs from home.”
“She said you’d think of that, but she doesn’t want you driving in this weather. She mentioned something about your newly returned Lincoln not being reliable in wet weather. Anyway, she said she’ll manage.”
Sugar pressed her lips together.
“I’ll keep you posted on any new developments. And please don’t worry. The case against her isn’t very strong, and she’s in good hands.”
They said good-bye and Sugar immediately dialed Wade’s cell number. It went straight to voice mail, as did his office number. She left messages in both places, letting him know that it was an emergency and to call her back. Not that she would ever admit it to anybody, and not that she’d ever put an answering machine in her own home, but being able to leave a voice message was the best thing since sliced bread. So was indoor plumbing, but she wasn’t going to advertise that, either.
With her thoughts somewhat more at ease after hearing the attorney’s reassurances, Sugar decided to vacuum and dust the whole house before returning to tidying the kitchen. Housecleaning always had a calming effect on her, and besides, Merilee would appreciate a clean house when she returned.
Sugar popped back into the front room a few times to check on the weather. Carolina coastlines were underwater as the hurricane continued to churn. Although now downgraded to a Category 3, its power was still evident in the harsh weather it was dumping across three states. She checked her hearing aids, making sure the batteries were still strong, knowing without them she wouldn’t be able to hear a tornado siren even if it was going off right beside her bed.
Sugar continued tidying the kitchen, wiping the crumbs from the table. The children had left the yearbook opened on the corner of the table, and not wanting to get any water on it, she picked it up. She was about to close it and move it to the clean counter when something caught her eye. Three letters spelling out “Moo” were big enough for her to see without her reading glasses, but everything else on the page was a blur. This had apparently been the page the children were giggling over.
She put the book faceup on the counter, telling herself she’d get to it later, but found she kept looking over at it, curious as to what they’d found so funny. Finally, she put the sponge on the sink and dried her hands, then pulled her reading glasses from her pocketbook. Settling down in the chair with the yearbook opened on the kitchen table, Sugar studied the page.
Printed in bold letters across the top of the page was the wordSENIORS. She remembered flipping through these pages before with Lily. They were different from those dedicated to the underclassmen. Each student was given a third of the page for their photo, a quote, and a little saying about where they expected to be in ten years.
Sugar only glanced at the photos on the page, barely pausing to read the silly aspirations of eighteen-year-olds—as if they had any idea about life at that age. Her attention was drawn to the bottom third of the right-hand page, the one with the word “Moo” written on the photo that Lily and Colin had been laughing at earlier because they said the person reminded them of someone they knew.
The girl’s first name had been scratched out with black marker, making it indecipherable. Written in large letters underneath the picture was the single word “Daisy.” What must have been meant to be cow ears had been drawn on the sides of her head, and a cartoon bubble coming from the girl’s mouth had the word “Moo” written inside it.
She stared at the face, past the brown hair, limp and dirty as it hung over the girl’s forehead. Her face was round, the hint of a second chin already appearing below a face covered with splotches of mild acne. But looking at the face, she could see exactly what it was that Lily and Colin had seen. The smile, the shape of the nose. The pretty blue of the eyes. Sugar’s gaze traveled to the section beside the picture, where the girl’s quote and aspiration were. The aspiration had been scratched out and something else written beneath it in black ink. “In ten years I will weigh six hundred pounds and be in theGuinness Book of World Records. And even then John Cottswold won’t know or care that I exist.”
There were two short quotes and they’d been left alone. Sugar read them twice, the second time out loud.
Revenge is sweet and not fattening.
Alfred Hitchcock
Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold.
Don Corleone,The Godfather
Sugar sat back, feeling the tightness in her chest again, and wondered if her nausea was related to that or was simply from looking at the yearbook page. When she felt she could breathe normally again, she sat up and looked at the girl’s last name: Waters.
With shaking fingers, she flipped to the index and went directly to the “W’s.” There was a long column of last names starting with “W,” but only one female, who had just two page numbers next to her name—one being her defaced senior page, which Sugar had already seen. She turned to the second page listed, surprised to find herself on the cheerleading team page.
Leaning in closely, Sugar spotted the girl’s unmarked photo on the bottom right, the caption reading onlyCheerleading Trainer.Sugar only knew what that was from what Lily had told her—how one of her teammate’s younger sisters was their trainer but complained when she had to refill their water bottles or touch dirty towels. There was a whole lot of difference between a cheerleader and a trainer, then. And looking at the plump, unsmiling girl in the photo holding a limp pom-pom, Sugar understood all too clearly the quotes she’d chosen for her yearbook page. Not just the irony that they were both about food, but that they were both about revenge.
Holding on to the edge of the table, Sugar stood, waiting a moment for her equilibrium to return. She wished Wade would call her back so she could share what she’d just learned. She’d call the attorney, Cynthia, and let her know just in case. But first she had another phone call to make.
The school directory Lily had given Wade and Sugar to look up Lindi’s phone number was still on the kitchen counter. She opened it and, after adjusting her reading glasses, began turning the pages until she’d reached the right letter of the alphabet. A low rumble of thunder rolled through the sky, the rain continuing to fall in heavy sheets as Sugar moved toward the phone and picked up the receiver. She carefully dialed each number, checking each time to make sure she had it right, then waited for someone to answer. The voice on the recorded message was as familiar as it was hateful, and Sugar enjoyed leaving her message probably more than she should have.
“Hello,Daisy. We know who you are. It might not be enough to put you behind bars where you belong, but it’s certainly a good start. Revenge might be best served cold, but karma has its own icy boot, and you’re about to feel it up your backside.”
With shaking fingers, Sugar hung the receiver in the cradle and sat back down in the chair to regain her strength. When she could breathe again, she picked up the phone to dial the attorney’s number, written carefully on the notepad by the phone, but heard only empty space. She hit the receiver twice before acknowledging that the phone was dead, a pole most likely taken down by the storm. For the first time in her life, she wished she had a cell phone.
After putting on her raincoat and grabbing her pocketbook and car keys, she headed out into the storm and carefully made her way to the carport on the side of her house, where Wade had parked her Lincoln. He’d reluctantly returned that foreign car and given back her own—not promising that it would crank in wet or cold weather. There was only so much that duct tape and glue could accomplish, he’d said, and she wasn’t sure if he’d been entirely joking.
She turned the key in the ignition and listened with satisfaction as it hummed to life, the engine not as smooth as it could be but humming nonetheless. She pulled out of the carport and had made it to the front of her house before the car jerked, coughing and spluttering, and then the engine died completely. She tried turning the key again, hearing only the dry chugs of breath of a dying old man before she couldn’t get even that when she turned the key over and over.
Pursing her lips, she stared out the windshield, going through her options again and again before deciding that at least until the rain let up and she could walk to the main road, all she could do was wait.
• • •
