I didn’t.
“It just, you know....”
She picked up a glass casserole that looked like it had been scorched, even after I cleaned it. Well, rinsed it.
“This is Bev’s.”
“Okay.”
“This red one is Muriel Sanderson’s. It’s hoity-toity.”
I had no idea who Muriel Sanderson was. Nor did I know a baking dish could be hoity-toity.
“This one,” she said, picking up a metal sheet cake pan with a clear plastic lid. “This one belongs to the Hessels.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. There was a tuna casserole in there, wasn’t there?”
“I guess.”
“Which one of them brought it? Was it the reverend or Ivy?”
I had no clue. I would have remembered Reverend Hessel, I’d met him. And I certainly would have remembered the name Ivy Greene. On the other hand, if she’d come late in the afternoon, I might have been a little… relaxed.
Maybe I already mentioned this, but while Nana Cole was in the rehab center, I would take the occasional Oxy vacay. Late in the afternoon, when I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be needed. Me time.
Maybe it’s pointless, but there’s this feeling I’m chasing. One I remember from being a kid. I’d get into bed at night, the sheets and blanket would be warm, cozy. I’d be on the verge of sleep, knowing the sleep would be deep and the dreams sweet, but still I’d try to stay in that spot between wakefulness and sleep. Linger there as long as I could. A delicious feeling.
I chased it in L.A. I would go out to the bars on Santa Monica, take an Oxy or two, and then have a few drinks. The right combination would get me there. I’d find that warm, cozy, safe place.
But then there were nights where I’d get greedy and have one drink too many, or take an extra Oxy and wake up the next morning, naked, in some guy’s bed. God knows where, having done God knows—well, fine, I always had a pretty good idea what I’d done. Even if I couldn’t exactly remember it.
“How well did you actually know Reverend Hessel?” I asked Nana Cole.
It took a moment before she answered, which struck me as odd since it wasn’t exactly a difficult question. “I saw him everySunday. And when you did what you did, he came to sit with me.”
Deciding to avoid the reference to my ‘doing what I did,’ I asked, “Do you remember the first time you met him?”
“Well, he played the organ. I don’t remember when we met, exactly. He was just there.”
“Do you remember people saying he’d moved here because he had family in the area?”
“No. I don’t—I think someone said he was a fudgie who liked it so much he stayed.”
Fudgie was the word people used for the tourists who flooded the area every summer. Many of them liked it enough to buy second homes or even stay year-round. “Yes. I’m sure that’s what happened. He fell in love with us.”
“It didn’t seem weird that he took over the choir and then the whole church?”
“Why does that matter? He was killed by a drug addict.”
“If you’re sure about that, you should pay me the money you promised me and we’ll forget the whole thing.”
She did her best to look confused, but I saw right through it. She deliberately changed the subject, “What’s on TV tonight? Is itAmerica’s Best Model?”
“America’s Top Model.” I corrected her. “Yes, it is.” I’d gotten her hooked on the show while she was in the rehab center, even though she’d had to start with episode three—the one where Adrianne gets food poisoning and they posed with snakes.
“Good. What are they doing?”
