His Perfect Family

“It seems Mrs. Harvey Rhodes needs a carpenter to do a little remodeling project,” Jonathon went on, “and my thoughts immediately turned to you. Alone in the house all day, knocking holes in things, it would be the perfect opportunity to find out just what Mrs. Rhodes has got in her piggy bank.” His smile this time would have gotten him icebreaker duty in the Arctic—in January. “By the way, our man Harvey was too cheap to take out any life insurance. He left her with nothing but a piddly IRA and a passbook savings account”

“How do you find out this stuff, Johnny?” Cutter asked mildly. He pulled a fresh sheet of sandpaper from the package on top of the unfinished buffet. “Have you been opening her mail?”

“I’ve kept my eye on her. We dragged our feet for six months, but First Fidelity finally had to pay up. If there’s a chance I can get that money back, I want it.”

You would, Cutter thought with contempt. “Twenty-five grand’s a drop in the bucket for a company the size of yours. Why don’t you let it go? Raise somebody’s premiums or something and let the lady keep her nest egg.”

Jonathon shrugged, bunching the shoulders of his suit. “It’s my account. Happened on my watch. Payouts don’t look good on your record, no matter how small.”

“Especially for an up-and-comer like you.”

“That’s right.”

Sarcasm went right over the head of this guy. No, he didn’t like little Johnny at all. But he did like to eat and he could use the money. “How much?”

“Mrs. Rhodes will pay you, of course,” Jonathon said quickly. “Whatever it takes to turn a pantry into a spare bathroom. I’ve already got it taken care of through a friend of a friend. She thinks you come highly recommended and can start Monday.”

“Forty an hour plus expenses.”

Jonathon sighed and looked pained. “All right. But I want an itemized account.”

Cutter nodded.

“Just see what you can come up with. That money’s got to be somewhere. I’ve been watching Adrianne Rhodes like a hawk for the last six months and she sure as hell hasn’t spent it. Who knows, if she thinks it’s safe now, she might pay you with my money.”

“Okay, Johnny boy, I’ll rummage through her pantie drawer for you. It looks like you’ve snooped through just about everything else.”

“Hey, I wish I got the panties, let me tell you.” That smile again. “The lady is a real looker. Southern, icy little blonde. Bet she’s heavy into cool satin and scratchy lace.”

Cutter turned the drawer he was sanding upside down and tapped. Sawdust cascaded over Jonathon’s shiny black shoes, covering the neat tassels and filling the cuffs of his pants. “Sorry.”

He had to credit the guy—Jonathon didn’t blink an eye as he delicately shook each foot. Instead he laid a smooth, white hand on the top of the oak buffet and gave it a tentative pat. “Nice work. How much do you get for a piece like this?”

“I’m charging him eight thousand dollars.”

“Good lord! I had no idea—”

“Go home, Johnny. I’m busy and you’re in my light.”

“Uh, right. Well, I’ll be expecting a report from you by the end of the week.” The man shifted uneasily. “I’ll just see myself out.” He scurried from the garage, empty except for the heavy piece of raw furniture, and the even larger, more raw man that caressed it so lovingly.

“Adrianne, darling, I’m so glad you’ve finally given in and decided to see things my way.” Blanche Munro swept into the kitchen where Adrianne Rhodes diced carrots for stew. A long, pink-tipped nail whisked under the descending knife and neatly extracted a carrot square. Blanche popped it into her mouth. “Lisa, sweetie, come over here and tell your mother how thrilled you are to get your own bathroom.”

The girl obediently crossed to the counter and gave Adrianne a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the bathroom, Mom. It’ll be great.” Then she turned to the refrigerator, hanging on to the door as she studied the leftovers.

“Lisa’s thirteen now,” Blanche went on, stealing another carrot from the growing pile on the cutting board. “Any day now she’ll be thinking about nothing but makeup and boys, makeup and boys.”

“Grandma.” Lisa groaned, pulling out bologna and a jar of mayonnaise and swinging the refrigerator door shut with her hip.

“Your mother practically lived in the bathroom at your age.” She looked at the carrots critically. “You should cut them larger or they get mushy.”

“Lisa likes them tiny,” Adrianne told her mother, her voice mild.

“Hmm. So, tell me, when do we begin this construction project?”

“He’s supposed to start first thing Monday morning.”

Blanche moaned. “It will be such an enormous headache, the mess, the noise, some strange man in your house all...” Her carefully plucked eyebrows rose. “Have you met this man?”

Adrianne shook her head. “But a friend at the bank said her sister had a friend who used him. I guess he made a beautiful coffee table for her.”

“Lisa, child, there are a million calories in every spoonful of that.” Blanche hurried to the table where the girl lavishly spread mayonnaise on a piece of bread and grabbed the jar, twisted on its blue lid and returned it to the refrigerator. “You’re getting to the age where you’re going to have to start watching your figure, you know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Adrianne saw Lisa deliberately lick the knife, savoring every calorie behind her grandmother’s back. She sighed and added the carrots to the pot of boiling meat on the stove. Even with a long, bulky sweater over her dance leotard, Lisa’s tummy was obvious. And her black tights did little to slim her heavy thighs. Of course it was only baby fat, Adrianne assured herself. Even Blanche said so. Thirteen was too early to worry about her weight, she had lots of growing to do yet, but still...

She watched her daughter attack the sandwich with gusto. They really couldn’t afford to do any remodeling right now, with the bills still piling up after Harvey’s death, but if it would help Lisa’s self-esteem to have her own little private space... She just hoped the girl really meant it when she said she wanted the new bathroom. It was hard to tell what Lisa wanted, she tried so hard to please everyone, intent on being so—good.

“Well, I have to be going now,” Blanche told them, pressing air kisses all around. “Another meeting of the library board.” She caught her wavering reflection in the door of the microwave and gave a slight tug on the jacket of her pale pink suit. Then she bent down until she could see her face in the square, patting at her carefully frosted blond hair and fluffing her bangs.

“Thanks for picking Lisa up from dance class,” Adrianne told her. “This working late on Fridays is getting to be a bad habit.”

“I enjoyed watching her. She dances like an angel, a cloud, so much talent... That color looks good on you, dear,” Blanche interrupted herself as she eyed Adrianne’s apricot skirt and matching blouse, “but you have a run in your stocking. You don’t want to let yourself get sloppy now that you’re a widow. Harvey would have loved you in that, wouldn’t he? He always liked you to look so feminine.”

Adrianne stiffened at the mention of her late husband, felt the knot inside her stomach pull another notch. “I don’t think Harvey paid much attention to my clothes, Mother.”

“Nonsense. He thought you were gorgeous, the dear, dear man.” She picked at a stray thread on the jacket of Adrianne’s suit, which lay hooked over the back of a chair at the table. Her voice softened dramatically. “High-school sweethearts. Just like your father and me. So romantic.”

She sighed, then straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Well, I’m off. I’ll stop by tomorrow evening and we’ll visit.”

Blanche swept from the room—exit stage right. Adrianne always added mental stage directions to her mother’s exaggerated movements.

Mother and daughter looked at each other as the front door slammed. Lisa made a face and said, “Trust me, Mom, if I danced like a cloud, it was a rain cloud.”

Adrianne laughed. “Now, you know that’s just the way your grandmother is. She likes to see everything a little larger than life.” She fished a potato from the dusty plastic sack and began to peel it into the sink.

“Compared to the other girls in my class, I’m definitely larger than life,” Lisa said dryly.

Adrianne winced. “How are dance classes going?” she asked cautiously. Lisa had been in ballet for two years now. She insisted she liked the classes, but...

“Fine.”

She shot her daughter a look over her shoulder, but Lisa didn’t meet her eyes. The girl stood and shoved in her chair. “Really, Mom, everything’s fine. I’ve got to start my homework now. Call me when supper’s ready.”

Adrianne listened to her daughter’s heavy tread start up the stairs. Everything’s fine. Adrianne gave the potato a vicious jab. That’s right Everything was always just fine.

Cutter glanced at the address again on the fussy contract Jonathon Round had prepared for him, signed in triplicate, yellow copy to accounting, goldenrod to client and mint to file. He threw the paper on the dash and squinted into the morning sun as he drove slowly down the cul-de-sac of a middle-class suburb on the edge of Little Rock. Except for the trim, the houses were identical. The owners had managed to wrestle some individuality from the landscaping, and took obvious pride in their new spring flower beds and carefully, edged grass. greening up nicely from the April rains.

He pulled his truck into the driveway of a house with steel blue trim, recently pruned rosebushes and a split-rail fence, and cut the engine. He glanced up and down the street. The American dream—and a burglar’s paradise. Everyone off to work, garage doors pulled down tight, curtains drawn, but always a window somewhere left open—just a crack. But it gets so warm in the afternoon, they’d tearfully tell the officer when they came home to find a dusty square instead of their TV.