The Notorious Mrs. Wright

“I said, we’ll see. Now scoot or you’ll be late.”

Tom started up the back stairs still grumbling.

Houdini squawked. “This is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tom told him.

Abby laughed, and Emma couldn’t help chuckling, too. She leaned into the stairwell. “And Tom,” she called out. “Before you leave, make sure the TV is set on cartoons or PBS. I don’t think Houdini needs to watch any more Clint Eastwood movies.”

BACK IN HER OFFICE, Emma fixed herself a cup of hot tea and one for Abby, then plopped down in her chair again.

“That menagerie is going to be the death of me. If I’d been smart, I’d have given them away when we moved in here. You know how important this place is to me. Every one of our inspections has been perfect, and I want to keep it that way. No parrots in the kitchen.”

“Even fricasseed and stuffed?”

Emma laughed. “Especially not that.”

“Tom would be upset if you gave them away.”

“I know. Maybe it won’t come to that.”

She’d threatened almost daily to find other homes for the animals, but she’d have a difficult time following through. Tom cared about them. They’d been a bequest to him from Marie Marshall upon her death eighteen months ago. Marie was the same woman who’d earlier given Emma her collection of movie costumes and props.

Emma had kept the collection in storage for several years, thinking Marie would change her mind and want it back. But then Marie had died brutally. She’d surprised a burglar in her Hollywood home and been slashed repeatedly with a knife.

Emma saw no reason to hang on to the items after Marie’s death. She looked into the value of movie memorabilia and found, to her astonishment, she owned a gold mine.

The most valuable costumes she had put up for auction. She used the money to finance the restaurant and create a trust fund for Tom’s education. Those remaining were displayed in the dining room and stored on the third floor. The staff wore imitations rather than the real thing.

Without that generous gift, Emma would still be waitressing, working for tips and soaking her aching feet every night. She felt an obligation to take care of the pets Marie and her late husband Bert had loved. But living with a smart-mouthed bird and a three-foot iguana was beginning to try her patience.

“I see Tom’s still got his heart set on being a navy diver,” Abby said, sitting on a corner of the desk. “I thought he’d outgrow that.”

“Me, too.”

“Has he said anything else about enlisting?”

“Yes, but I told him he’d have to do it over my dead body.”

“Susan, honey, you can’t blame him for wanting to be like his father.”

“I don’t, but he’s got the opportunity now to go to college and make a life for himself that’s far more desirable than the one I’ve given him. I refuse to let him throw that away over an idealized image of a man he never met.”

“You act as if he’s had a terrible life, but you’ve done okay by him.”

“I could’ve given him more.”

“How? By working three jobs a day instead of two?”

“By providing a more stable home. I counted it up the other night, Abby, and in seventeen years we’ve lived in nine different places. I was doing the best I could at the time, searching for better jobs and better pay, but it was hard on Tom to keep starting over in new schools.”

“He hasn’t suffered from it. He has perfect grades. He’s never been in any trouble. Tom’s a great kid.”

Emma smiled, proud of her son’s accomplishments. Tom was the one thing she’d done right in her life. “I know he’s a great kid, but sometimes he zeros in on something and won’t turn it loose.”

“Like his mother.”

“I admit it.”

“Have you talked about this with him?”

“I’ve made it clear that he can’t, under any circumstances, drop out of high school. I want him to get a college degree, too, maybe even go on to graduate school or medical school. He knows I won’t give him my permission to join the navy.”

“Honey, when he turns eighteen in two months he won’t need your permission.”

“I know.” She’d suffered many a sleepless night over that horrifying fact.

Payback for her sins. That was it. The older Tom got, the more he wanted to know about his father and to be like him. And Emma perched precariously atop a powder keg of past lies, waiting for it to explode.

His father hadn’t been in the navy. He hadn’t died during a training dive, as her son and everyone else believed. William Wright was only a fake name on Tom’s birth certificate and a couple of fake photographs over the mantel. He didn’t exist.

“Well,” Abby said, standing. “I need to go check the setups for the Scott rehearsal dinner. Oh, before I do…what happened last night? I’m dying to know.”

“We had a good crowd again. I had multiple compliments on the sleight-of-hand artist, so I’m going to talk to him about performing at least a couple of weekends a month.”

“Oh, knucklehead, I don’t care about that! Tell me about the cute guy. Did he come in again? Did you find out anything about him? Was he wearing a wedding ring?”

“Who?” Emma asked, playing coy.

“Don’t tease me. You know who I’m talking about. Blue eyes and a fine set of shoulders. The one you’ve been sighing over all week.”

“I was not sighing over him.”

“Aha, so you do know who I’m talking about.”

“Mmm, I might vaguely remember a fine set of shoulders.”

She remembered them, all right. And the beautiful eyes. He’d had a nice smile, too, with a dimple on the left side of his mouth that showed when he laughed.

“Did you talk to him?” Abby asked.

“For a few minutes. I told him my spaghetti joke, and he thought it was funny.”

“Lord have mercy. Rope and tie that one before he gets away.”

“He’s from Michigan. Vacation.”

“Oh, no!”