"What should Janet have done instead?" Marshall asked her, a sweep of his hand inviting Becca to show us. She got up in one fluid movement. Becca often braided her hair for class - and she'd done so tonight - but she didn't lay off the makeup. Her toenails were bright scarlet, which for some reason struck me as improper for karate ... though scarlet toenails didn't seem to bother Marshall, and it was his class.
Marshall Sedaka, our sensei, was also the owner of Body Time, where we were holding the class in the big aerobics room. I'd known Marshall for years. At one time, he'd been more to me than a friend. Now he straightened and moved closer to get a better view.
Janet moved away and Becca took her place, lifting and cocking her leg slowly so everyone could see what she meant to do.
"So," she said, her narrow face intent, "I kick, like so...." Her foot began moving toward my abdomen, as Janet's had. "Then Lily takes a little hop back and her hand reaches for my ankle. That's what she did with Janet."
I obliged, imitating my movements of moments ago.
"But," continued Becca cheerfully, "that was a feint. I snap it back and aim it higher this time." Her leg floated back toward her, bent double at the knee, and lashed out again at my head. Becca was one of the few people in the class who could even attempt a head kick with any hope of success. "See," Becca pointed out, "she's leaning to reach my ankle, so her head's a little lower than usual."
I held still, with some effort, while Becca's foot with its bright nails flashed toward my face. Becca pulled the kick about an inch from my nose. I exhaled, I hoped silently. Becca winked at me.
"Good move, Becca," Marshall said. "But not an option open to many of the people in this class. Carlton, what would you do?"
Carlton was my next-door neighbor. He owned a little house almost identical to mine on Track Street, so if I stood facing my house, his would be on the right, and the Shakespeare Garden Apartments slightly uphill to my left. With his thick dark hair and large brown eyes, Carlton, single and self-supporting, was a real honeypot to Shakespeare's buzzing little hive of single women. Carlton went from one to the other, dating one for a month or two, then another; he wasn't as reckless as Deedra by a long shot, but he wasn't as careful as I was, either. In karate, Carlton was too slow and cautious, to his detriment. Maybe that caution, that deliberation, came from his being an accountant.
"I wouldn't kick at Lily at all," Carlton said frankly, and Janet and Raphael laughed. "I'm heavier than she is, and that's my only advantage with her. I'd try to strike her harder and hope that would take her out of the fight."
"Come try." Marshall returned to his spot against the wall.
With a marked reluctance, my neighbor scrambled to his feet and approached me slowly, while Becca folded gracefully to the floor with the rest of the students. I dropped into my fighting stance, knees slightly bent, one side turned toward Carlton.
"I'm supposed to stand and let him try to hit me?" I asked Marshall.
"No, give him some trouble," Marshall directed, so Carlton and I began circling each other. I moved in a sort of smooth, sideways glide that kept me evenly balanced. My hands were up, fisted and ready. Carlton was a lot taller and heavier than I was, so I kept reminding myself not to discount him as an opponent. What I didn't allow for was the macho factor and Carlton's inexperience. Carlton was determined to best me, and inexperienced enough to gauge his strike wrong.
He struck at my ribs, seiken, with his left fist, and I blocked him, my right forearm coming up under his striking arm to deflect it upward. I didn't propel his arm sideways enough - definitely my mistake - so instead of his punch landing in the air to my right, as I'd intended, his momentum carried him forward and his fist smacked my jaw.
The next thing I knew, I was down on the mat and Carlton was leaning over me, looking absolutely horror-struck.
"Dammit, Lily, say something!" he said frantically, and then Marshall shoved him aside and took his place.
He peered at my eyes, asked me several interesting questions about what parts of my body I could move and how many fingers I could see, and then said, "I think you're gonna be okay."
"Can I stand up?" I asked peevishly. I was deeply chagrined at having been knocked down by Carlton Cockroft, of all people. The rest of the class was crowding around me, but since Marshall had said I was in no danger, I swore I could see some suppressed grins.
"Here," Janet Shook said, her square little face both worried and amused. I gripped her outstretched hand and she braced her feet and pulled. With a little help from my own feet, I stood upright, and though everything looked funny for a second, I decided I was almost normal.
"Line up!" Marshall barked, and we took our places in line. I was sandwiched between Becca and Raphael.
"Kiotske!"
We put our heels together and stood to attention.
"Rei!"
We bowed.
"Class dismissed."
Still feeling a tad shaky, I walked carefully over to my little pile of belongings, pulled off my sparring pads, and stowed them in my gym bag. I slid my feet into my sandals, thankful I didn't have to bend over to tie sneakers.
Janet joined me as I walked out to my old car.
"Are you really feeling all right?" she asked quietly.
My first impulse was to snarl at her, but instead I admitted, "Not quite." She relaxed, as if she'd expected the snarl and was pleasantly surprised at the admission.
I fumbled with unlocking my car, but finally got it right.
Janet said, "I'm sorry about Deedra. I'm sorry you had to find her. It must have been awful."
I tilted my head in a brief nod. "I guess you and Deedra had known each other for a long time, both growing up here and all."
Janet nodded, her thick brown hair swinging against each cheek. She'd let it grow to chin length, and wore bangs. It became her. "Deedra was a little younger," she said, leaning against my car. I threw my gym bag in to land on the passenger's seat, and propped myself against the open door. It was a beautiful night, clear and just a little cool. We wouldn't have many more evenings like this; summer practically pounces on spring in southern Arkansas.
"I was a year ahead of her in school," Janet continued after a minute. "I went to Sunday school with her at First Methodist. That was before they formed Shakespeare Combined Church, and way before Miss Lacey's first husband died and she married Jerrell Knopp and began going to SCC. My mom is still real good friends with Miss Lacey."
"Was Deedra always ....romiscuous?" I asked, since I seemed to be expected to keep the conversation going.
"No," Janet said. "Not always. It was her chin."
And I understood. Her severely recessive chin was the only feature that had kept Deedra from real prettiness, the flaw that had kept her from being homecoming queen, head cheerleader, most prized girl to date - everything. It was easy to imagine Deedra gradually coming to feel that if she couldn't achieve those things, she could be remarkable in another way.
"Wonder why her parents didn't do anything about it?" I asked. "Is there anything you can do about chins?"
"I don't know." Janet shrugged. "But I can tell you that Lacey has never believed in plastic surgery. She's real fundamentalist, you know. A great lady, but not a liberal bone in her body. That's why she took to Shakespeare Combined Church so well, when she married Jerrell and he wanted her to go to church with him."
A tap on the jaw seemed to have much the same effect on me as a glass or two of wine. I felt disinclined to move, oddly content to be standing in a parking lot having an idle conversation with another human being.
"Jerrell and Deedra didn't get along so well," I commented.
"No. Frankly, I've always wondered..." and Janet hesitated, her face compressing into an expression of both reluctance and distaste. "Well, I've always wondered if he ever visited Deedra ... you know? Before Lacey's husband died, before Jerrell ever imagined being able to marry Lacey?"
"Ugh," I said. I turned this over in my mind for a minute. "Oh, yuck."
"Yeah, me too." Our eyes met. We had matching expressions.
"I would think he would hate remembering that," Janet said, slowly and carefully. "I would think he'd hate wondering if Deedra would ever tell."
After a long, thoughtful moment, I replied, "Yes. I'd think he certainly would."
Chapter Three
Lacey Knopp called me the next morning. I was about to leave for Joe C Prader's house when the phone rang. Hoping it was Jack, though the time difference made me fairly surely it wasn't, I said, "Yes?"
"Lily, I need you to help me," Lacey said. I hardly recognized her voice. She sounded like she'd been dragged over razor blades.
"How?"
"I need you to meet me at Deedra's tomorrow. I need help packing up the things in her apartment. Can you do that for me?"
I try to keep Wednesday mornings free for just such special projects. I wasn't more than a little surprised that Deedra's mother was in such a hurry to clear out Deedra's apartment. Many, many people react to grief with a furious flurry of activity. They figure if they don't hold still, it can't hit them.
"Yes, I can do that. What time?"
"Eight?"
"Sure." I hesitated. "I'm sorry," I said.
"Thank you." Lacey sounded shakier, suddenly. "I'll see you tomorrow."
I was so buried in thought that I took the wrong route to Mr. Prader's, and had to turn around and go back.
Joe Christopher Prader was as old as God but as mean as the devil. Called "Joe C" by all his family and cronies (those few still surviving), he'd been known for years for stalking around Shakespeare brandishing a cane at everyone who crossed his path, lamenting the passing of the better days, and bringing up old scandals at the most inopportune times.
Now Joe C's stalking-around days were pretty much done.
Some visits, I kind of enjoyed him. Others, I would have decked him gladly if he hadn't been so frail. More than once, I wondered if he was really as fragile as he seemed, or if maybe that show of frailty was a defense against just such impulses as mine.
Shakespeareans were inexplicably proud of having Joe C as a town character. His family was less thrilled. When his granddaughter Calla had hired me, she'd begged me to work for at least a month before I quit. By that time, she hoped, I would be over the shock of him.
"If we could get him to move out of that old house," Calla Prader had said despairingly. "If we could get him into Shakespeare Manor ... or if we could get him to agree to live-in help!"
Joe C was definitely not in the business of making life easier for anyone but himself, and that only when it suited him.
But I'd lasted my month, and was now into my third.
Joe C was up and dressed by the time I knocked on his door. He adamantly refused to let me have a key, so every week I had to wait for him to shuffle from his bedroom to the front door, which I tried to bear philosophically. After all, keeping his keys to himself was his right, and one I understood.
But I was sure he wouldn't give me a key simply out of meanness, rather than from principle. I'd noticed he came to the door especially slowly when the weather was bad, and I suspected he relished the idea of keeping me out in the rain or cold; anyway, keeping me at the mercy of Joe C Prader, all-powerful doorkeeper.
This morning he swung the door open after only a short delay. "Well, here you are, then," he said, amazed and disgusted by my persistence in arriving on time for my job.
"Here I am," I agreed. I tried not to sigh too loudly when he turned to go ahead of me to his bedroom, where I usually started by stripping the bed. Joe C always had to lead the way, and he always went very, very slowly. But the man was a nonagenarian: What could I say? I looked around me at the remains of the grand house as I followed the old man. The Prader House, the only remaining home on one of the main commercial streets of Shakespeare, was a showplace that had seen better days. Built about 1890, the house had high ceilings, beautiful woodwork, restored but cranky plumbing, and an electrical system that had seen better decades. The upstairs, with its four bedrooms and huge bathroom, was closed off now, though Calla had told me that she cleaned it about twice a year. Joe C wasn't fit to go up stairs anymore.
"I'm all stopped up this week." Joe C opened the conversation, which would not let up until I left the house. He lowered himself into the old red velvet chair in a corner of the large back bedroom.
"Allergies?" I said absently, stripping the bedding off the four-poster and pitching it into the hall, where I'd gather it up and take it to the washer. I shook out the bedspread and draped it over the footboard.
"Naw, I reckon I ate too much cheese. You know, it binds you."
I exhaled slowly, calmly, as I stepped out into the hall to open the linen cupboard.
"Did you get Calla to get you some prunes?"
He cackled. I was one ahead of him. "Yes, missy, I surely did, and ate them all. Today's the day."
I wasn't in the best mood to put up with Joe C this morning. The charm of this particular town character was lost on me; maybe the sightseers the Chamber of Commerce was trying to attract would appreciate hearing colorful stories about Joe C's intestines. I couldn't imagine why any tourist would want to come to Shakespeare, since its only possible attraction would have been antebellum homes - if they hadn't been burned to the ground in the Late Unpleasantness, as Joe C's best friend, China Belle Lipscott, called the Civil War. So all Shakespeare could boast was, "Yes, we're old, but we have nothing to show for it."
