“Can I open the letter now?”
I managed a weak smile as I smoothed back my mussed auburn hair and pulled it into a ponytail. “Of course you can, honey. It’s addressed to you, isn’t it?”
I slipped around my son and lunged for the coffee my aunt had made before she went downstairs to open the shop. I was hoping the brew wasn’t too old and bitter, though at the moment I had too desperate a need for caffeine to care one way or another.
Spencer dropped back down in his chair at the kitchen table and tore at the expensive stationery. The beige fauxparchment envelope addressed to “Calvin Spencer McClure, Esquire” had arrived yesterday, courtesy of Seymour Tarnish. The mail had arrived while my son was at Friday day camp, so he hadn’t noticed the letter until this morning.
I’d seen the invitation, with the hand-stamped “M” on the back flap, and felt a shudder of dread. My in-laws, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the McClure clan, were summoning the rest of the scattered family members for their annual “gala reunion.” The gathering was a massive affair—an obligatory dynastic retreat worthy of an Aaron Spelling miniseries.
Supposedly staged for the “immediate family,” there were usually so many guests in attendance that it seemed like everyone in the United States with a McClure in their name and a trust fund worth a cool million was obliged to attend.
The reunion was held at Windswept, the manor house that once belonged to my late husband’s parents, but which passed to Ashley McClure-Sutherland upon her mother’s wishes, after Calvin’s death.
As the Widow McClure—and not a particularly popular widow with the rest of the clan—I dreaded the reunion as much as my son looked forward to it.
“So what interests you in the events schedule?” I asked, feigning interest for Spence’s sake. “Clowns? Pony rides?”
Spencer made a face. “Clowns and pony rides? Nuts to that, Mom. That’s kiddie stuff!”
Nuts to that, I silently repeated, shaking my head. Spencer’s occasional use of 1940’s slang never ceased to amuse me—although, from his incessant viewing of old cop shows, it didn’t surprise me.
He continued to read the glossy brochure that came with the invitation and his eyes went wide. “Wow! They’re going to have a paintball game!”
“Paintball?” I shook my head. “That sounds dangerous. And I’m sure it’s restricted to the older crowd.”
“Mom. I’m nine years old,” Spencer stated in a deadly serious tone over a depleted bowl of Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries. I did my best to keep a straight face.
“We’re gonna go, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are,” I replied. The real invitation had actually come weeks ago, and I’d already responded in the affirmative. Spencer’s missive was simply an events schedule for the younger members of the McClure clan.
Grinning, Spencer deposited his bowl and spoon in the sink. “I’m going to watch Crime Town on the Intrigue Channel,” he announced.
“But didn’t you see that same show last night?”
“I fell asleep before the end and I didn’t see who the bad guy was. Lucky for me, they’re repeating the same show this morning.”
“All right, but you better be ready to go in an hour when your ride to day camp gets here.”
“I know!”
His feet bare, he stomped through the hall to the living room. A few moments later, I heard the television.
With a sigh, I dumped the rest of the old coffee down the sink and brewed a new batch. The stress of Angel Stark’s volatile author appearance, not to mention Jack’s strange, unfinished case of a dream, drained me, and I didn’t have enough sleep—or coffee—to function properly. Then there was the reminder of having to attend that damn McClure family soiree—not exactly a mood lifter.
If you don’t like the tune, don’t get on the dance floor.
“Good morning, Jack,” I silently replied. “And it’s not that easy. . . . Just because I have a problem with the McClure family, that doesn’t mean my son should suffer. Spencer has every right to see his cousins, and participate in family events. Besides, he loves these family reunions, and he’ll have a great time.”
So you’re just gonna put on a happy face and go? Sounds like you are dancing—like a puppet on a string. Sounds like you are dancing—like a puppet on a string.
“Listen, Jack. No one knows the McClures better than I do. They are master manipulators. My husband controlled me for years with his passive-aggressive assaults on my self-respect, along with his ‘mood swings’ and ‘emotional problems.’ But the days when Ashley or any of the McClure clan can manipulate yours truly ended with my husband’s suicide—”
Turn down the heat, baby, your soup’s boiling.
“—I have refused their considerable bribes, even if their money would make my life a whole lot easier. I removed my son from the obscenely expensive private primary school where generations of McClures traditionally matriculated into class-A snobs. And I broke out of that East Side apartment owned by my in-laws—a gilded trap if ever I saw one—whose plans for Spencer, after Calvin’s suicide, suddenly included English boarding school.”
Although I was wiser now, I was still angry with myself for having allowed them to push me around for longer than they should have. I slammed the coffee cup down on the counter harder than I realized. Hot coffee sloshed on my hand and drenched the counter. Inside my head, I could feel Jack recede.
“I’m sorry about my tone,” I told him. “This just isn’t the best time for a conversation, any conversation, about the McClures.”
But Jack was already gone, his cooling presence on this already too warm summer day dissipated into the upstairs air. “Damn,” I whispered. I hadn’t wanted to talk about my past again. After that dream, I’d wanted to talk about his.
“Fine, leave then,” I muttered as I sopped up the mess with a paper towel. “But once in a while it would be nice to get a little sympathy and acknowledgment for my parental sacrifices from someone in this world—even if it’s only a disembodied voice inside my head.”
Of course, that voice inside my head was another reason I dreaded the coming reunion. I knew full well that the McClures blamed me for the death of their oldest male heir, and that they would love to get sole custody of my son, just so they could turn my beautiful, brilliant boy into a surrogate for my neurotic and spoiled late husband.
If Ashley McClure-Sutherland ever found out that I was “talking” on a regular basis to the ghost haunting my bookstore, she would surely have me committed for life—the McClures had the money and the clout to do it, too. Building an entire wing of the St. Francis Psychiatric Hospital pays for a lot of influence.
Suddenly glum, I dumped the remainder of the coffee into my cup and switched off the coffeemaker. After a quick shower, I threw on khaki pants and a white sleeveless cotton blouse, then trudged downstairs to help my aunt open the bookstore. As I descended the stairs, I saw Sadie eyeing me over her spectacles.
“Late night, dear?”
“Mina came back to the store. Johnny Napp was supposed to take her home last night but something happened. So she called her roommate and I waited up with her until her ride came.”
Sadie frowned and removed the spectacles, letting them dangle from a red beaded chain. “I think we both saw that train wreck coming. The way that Angel Stark flirted with Johnny—and right in front of Mina. Shameless . . .”