I nodded. “I heard that, too.”
“But I don’t know if it was anything serious.” He shrugged again. “I don’t think I can help you too much there.”
“Nor should you,” I told him. I offered another smile, this time one of apology. “I’m getting way too into all of the gossip. I just need to step away from all of it. Mind my own business for a change.”
He returned the smile and held up his phone. “Think I got everything I need. I’ll call my guy and we’ll probably be out here again in a day or two. We’ll get the vents cut and hopefully keep those pipes warm for the rest of winter.”
“That’d be great,” I said.
I followed him back upstairs. He reached for his boots and pulled them on, then dug his keys out of his pocket. I walked him to the door and opened it for him.
“I’ll try and call next time,” Rex said as he crossed the threshold. “Not just drop in on you.”
“If we’re here, you’re welcome to come by,” I said. “It’s fine.”
“Okay,” he said. He paused and the cold air rushed in through the open door. “I wish I could help you, Daisy. With figuring all this out.”
I shook my head. “Oh, gosh, don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Like I said. I need to just let it go.”
He nodded. “Yeah, suppose so. Just not meant to be. Sure would be nice to know who did that to poor Olaf, though.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah it would.”
THIRTY EIGHT
Emily dropped her books on the table. “Well, it’s official. I’m poison.”
I’d taken the kids to the library and to the pet store after Rex had left and spent the better portion of the day focusing on them instead of getting distracted by Olaf or Helen. We’d had a nice afternoon and I felt sort of normal after a major run of abnormal days. I was sitting at the table, checking the computer for how to make homemade hamster toys, when Emily stormed in the house and made her dramatic announcement.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m poison,” she said, slumping into the chair next to me. “No one wants to be around me.”
I pushed the laptop aside. “I want to be around you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Great.”
I took a calming breath and tried not to take her comment personally. “What do you mean?”
“Janie McClintock’s birthday party,” she moaned. “I’m not invited.”
A frown crossed my face. “I didn’t think you and Janie were that great of friends.”
“Well, we’re not. But that’s not the point,” she insisted.
“Okay. So what is the point?”
She tucked her chin to her chest and looked at me like I was a Neanderthal. Except I remembered that scientists had recently discovered that Neanderthals were actually probably capable of complex thought and communication so that analogy wouldn’t work anymore.
“That I wasn’t invited,” she informed me.
“Why would she have invited you if you aren’t friends?”
“Because she invited all of my friends,” she explained. She picked up a strand of hair and twirled it around her finger. “And because Carolyn told me she purposely didn’t invite me because we harbor dead bodies in our basement.”
“Coal chute,” I corrected. “We harbor them in our coal chute.”
“Not funny, Mom.”
“Sorry,” I said, thinking it was a little funny. “But if that’s honestly why she didn’t invite you, then you’re better off.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. Everyone knows Janie’s parties are awesome. They’re going roller skating.” Her shoulders rolled forward a little and her voice lowered. “And Nathan’s going.”
“Ah.” Suddenly, it all became crystal clear. “We’re back to Nathan, are we?”
She rested her elbows on the table and propped her chin in her hands. She reminded me of a sad puppy.
“He apologized,” she said. “To me. And said it was more about his parents than him.”
“Well, that sounds kind of nice.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “But guess who likes him?”
“Janie?”
“Yeah.” She sighed and picked up another strand of hair. “And she will totally wear some low-cut shirt at her party so he can see her boobs bounce all around while she skates.”
It still sort of freaked me out that my kid talked about other kids having boobs. And that she had a pair herself. Where had the time gone?
“If that’s what Nathan is interested in, then maybe we should move on from Nathan.”
She rolled her eyes again. “Mom. All of the boys like boobs. Jake probably likes boobs.”
Jake did, in fact, like boobs.
“Well, they don’t have them,” I reasoned. “I mean, they do, but the breasts on a man serve a different function. It’s normal for boys and men to be fascinated with them. And, if you think about it, they should have an attachment to them. An affinity. If they were breastfed—”
Emily cut me off. “Got it, Mom.” Her cheeks were beet red. “The point is, she’s going to be there and he’s going to be there and I’m not.”
I remembered dating woes from high school. And, for once, I was glad that I was in my forties and that my teens were a distant, distant memory.
“So, have you considered that maybe you weren’t invited for another reason?” I asked.
She frowned at me. “Like what?”
“Like maybe she knows you like Nathan—”
I didn’t think her cheeks could turn any redder but they did. “I didn’t say I liked him!”
“—and that she knows Nathan might like you—”
“Mom! He doesn’t! I mean, I don’t know if he does…”
“—and she doesn’t want you there because she likes him and wants to show off her boobs to him and you won’t be able to show off your boobs to him because you won’t be there?”
“Oh my God,” she muttered, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I tell you this stuff.”
“I’m just saying that there might be more at work here than you living in the murder pit,” I said. “Teenage girls are devious.”
“Were you?”
Her question caught me off guard. I’d gotten used to her huffing off when things got heated or embarrassing.
“I don’t think I was, but you know what? I probably was to some degree. It’s in our DNA. We can be terrible to one another. But I don’t think I was most of the time.”
She tapped her fingers on the table. “So you don’t think she didn’t invite me because of the dead guy?”
Double negative,” I reminded her. She frowned and I just smiled and continued. “It’s a possibility. But you aren’t friends with her, honey. Why would you expect to be invited in the first place?”
She sighed again. “I don’t know. But this sucks.”
I nodded. “It does. I’m sorry. Boys are frustrating and so are girlfriends. It’s gonna be like that for awhile, I’m afraid.”
“No,” she said, standing up and gathering her books. “I meant living in a murder pit.”
THIRTY NINE
“Rex quoted me two grand,” Jake muttered.
We were standing in the basement, staring at the pipes.
He’d come home shortly after my conversation with Emily and he was in a bad mood. When I questioned why, he just made a noncommittal grunt and went upstairs to change his clothes. I gave him his space and then followed him downstairs when he motioned for me to follow him to the basement. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had serious news he didn’t want the kids to hear or because he wanted a quickie.
It wasn’t the quickie.
“They’ll have to cut two vents and two returns,” he explained. “One in the crawl space that’ll go to the kitchen and then another right over there that’ll be in the living room.”
I stared up at the ceiling, pretending I knew what I was looking at. “And tell me why again?”