Little Girls(5)

“B flat,” Ted said.

Susan pecked out the correct key. It rang in the stillness of the otherwise silent room.

“D sharp,” Ted said.

Susan said, “Oh,” and her index finger moved up and down the keyboard like a dowsing rod, counting the keys silently, but with her mouth moving. She tapped another key, lower on the fingerboard.

“Yuck,” Ted said from the loveseat. “Are you sure? D sharp? Try again.”

Under her breath, Susan mumbled, “Sharp is . . . up. . . .” Her lithe fingers walked up a series of notes until she rested on one. She hammered the note a few times, smiling to herself.

Ted stuck his tongue out between his lips and produced a sound that approximated flatulence. This set Susan to giggling. She turned around, her face red, her eyes squinting in her laughter. Laurie watched her daughter, smiling a little herself now. She was glad to have Susan back to her old cheerful self again, after the sullenness of the long car ride down from Connecticut. Then Susan’s laughter died and the girl’s smile quickly faded from her face. Laurie followed her daughter’s gaze to the alcove that led out into the main hall. A woman stood in the doorway. Her face was sharp and white, her iron-colored hair cropped short like a boy’s. She wore a paisley-patterned frock and was in the process of wiping her hands on a dishtowel when Laurie spotted her and offered the woman a somewhat conciliatory smile.

“You must be Dora,” Laurie said, moving swiftly across the room with her hand extended.

“That’s right,” said the woman. She had a clipped, parochial voice. She stuffed the dishtowel partway into a pocket of her frock and shook Laurie’s hand with just the tips of her fingers. She looked to be in her early fifties. There were faint lines bracketing her mouth and crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes. The eyes themselves were an icy gray.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m Laurie Genarro. That’s my husband, Ted, and my daughter, Susan.”

“I’m sorry we must meet under these circumstances,” Dora Lorton said as she nodded her head at each of them curtly. “My condolences, Mrs. Genarro.”

“Thank you.”

“If you’ve got bags with you, Felix can help bring them in from the car.”

“That isn’t necessary,” Laurie told her. “We haven’t decided whether we’re staying here or not.”

“Why wouldn’t you stay? It’s your house now.”

The thought chilled her.

Ted stood from the sofa, straightening the creases in his linen pants. “There’s supposed to be an historic inn downtown. It sounded interesting.”

“George Washington stayed there!” Susan chimed in.

Dora’s brow furrowed. “Downtown?”

“Annapolis,” clarified Ted.

“Well, it’s your house now,” Dora Lorton repeated, and not without a hint of exasperation. “I suppose you folks can do as you like.”

Ted shot Laurie a look, one that she interpreted as, Cheerful old coot, isn’t she? Once again, Laurie had to fight off spontaneous laughter.

“The house is clean and everything in it is functional,” Dora went on in her parochial tone. “Your father was not a man of excesses, Mrs. Genarro, as I’m sure you can see, so you’ll find very little items of a frivolous nature in the house. There are no televisions, no radios, nothing like that. What items there are—Mr. Brashear’s personal items, as opposed to house items, I mean—have been relocated to his study. When was the last time you were here at the house, Mrs. Genarro?”

“Not since I was a teenager, and that was just for a brief visit. I can hardly remember. And, please, call me Laurie.”

“Do you recall where the study is?”

Laurie considered and then pointed down one of the corridors that branched off the main hall. It had been a small library when she had been a child, and she could easily imagine it as a study now. “Is it the room just at the end of that hall?”

“Yes. Do you require a rundown of the rest of the house?”

“A rundown?”

“A tour of it, in other words. Seeing how it’s been such a long time.”

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary. I remember it well enough. And what I don’t remember, I can figure out.”

“Nonetheless, there are a few things I feel I should show you.” Dora’s chilly gray eyes volleyed between Laurie and Ted. “Which one of you does the cooking?”

“Mostly, it’s me,” Laurie said.

“Laurie’s a splendid cook,” Ted added. His smile was charming, but Laurie could see that it held no influence over Dora. “I can hardly microwave a salad.”

“I figured I would ask nonetheless, just so my assumptions wouldn’t offend anyone,” Dora said, marching right past Ted’s attempt at humor.

“Oh,” Laurie said, “not at all.”

“Very well,” said Dora, those cold eyes settling back on Laurie. “You’ll come with me then?”

“Of course.”

“Can I go play outside?” Susan chirped to her mother.

“Not just yet, Susan.”

“But I’m bored!”

“I’ll go with her,” Ted said, taking up Susan’s hand.