Murder With Peacocks(4)

It could have been my imagination--or the influence of one too many glasses of cider--but as I was wishing everyone good-night, I thought I saw something like a snarl cross Barry's usually placid face. Perhaps he was beginning to realize that pursuing me was futile, I thought. And resenting it. Ah, well; even a surly, resentful Barry would be more interesting than his customary bovine self.





Thursday, May 26



What a relief it was the next morning to get up with the chickens (the few who had survived Steven and Eileen's care) and hit the road at 7:00 a.m. By the time I was actually wide awake, I'd put a good hundred miles of winding mountain roads between me and Barry.

Well before noon I found myself driving down the long, tree-shaded driveway to my parents' house. Well, Mother's house, anyway; Dad had moved out. Although I could see him up in a ladder pruning an ornamental cherry tree. I made a mental note to compliment him on the gardens, which were looking superb, and to hint that the house needed painting before all the relatives came for the weddings. On second thought, maybe I should just arrange to hire someone; painting three stories of rambling Victorian house with gingerbread trim was not something a sixty-six-year-old should be doing, though Dad would try if I mentioned it.

Mother was on the porch, her slender frame draped elegantly over the chaise lounge. She was dressed, as usual, as if expecting distinguished visitors, with not a single expensively natural-looking blond hair out of place. I suppressed the usual envious sigh. I'm the same height, and not at all bad-looking in my own fashion, but I'm not slender, I'm not a blonde, and nobody's ever mistaken me for elegant.

Mother wasn't even surprised to see me arrive several days early.

"Hello, dear," she said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek. "There's lemonade in the refrigerator. Why don't you help your sister with lunch? We'll all be able to eat that much sooner."

From the relief on Pam's face when I showed up in the kitchen to help, I suspected she was regretting her decision to pack off her husband Mal and the four oldest kids for a summer with Mal's parents in Australia. I could have warned her that the two youngest, Eric and Natalie, weren't much defense against Mother's tendency to enlist anyone within range as unpaid labor. But she'd known Mother eight years longer than I had; if she hadn't learned by now, there wasn't much I could do.

Dad was the only one who seemed surprised by my early arrival. He came in just as we were sitting down to lunch and took his usual place. Jake, the fiance, was not here. No one else seemed to find this odd, so I said nothing.

"Meg!" he cried, jumping up to give me a bear hug as soon as he noticed it was me taking the chair beside him. "I thought you weren't coming down till Saturday! You're supposed to be resting at Steven and Eileen's farm! What happened?"

"It wasn't relaxing. Barry was there."

"Barry who?" my sister, Pam, asked.

"Steven's brother. The one they keep pushing at me."

"The dim one?" Dad asked.

"Precisely."

"Is he nice?" Mother asked.

"Not particularly." I'd explained to her several times before, in excruciating detail, exactly how much I disliked Barry, but since she obviously paid no attention I'd given up trying.

"I can't see how any brother of Steven's wouldn't be nice," Mother said.

"Well, he'll be down for the wedding, so you can see for yourself. For that matter, he'll probably be down for Eileen's family's barbecue on Memorial Day."

"You could call and tell him to come down for our picnic," Mother suggested.

"Mother, I don't want him here for our picnic. I don't like him."

"I suppose it would be awkward, with Jeffrey here," Mother said.

"Jeffrey's not--oh, I give up," I muttered. I'd also failed to convince Mother, who liked my ex-boyfriend for his vapid good looks, that Jeffrey was out of the picture. Dad patted my shoulder.

"I know your mother really appreciates your coming down," he said. "There's such a lot to do."

"Yes, Meg," Mother said, her face lighting with the sudden realization that at least for the moment she had me solely in her clutches, free from the competing influences of Samantha and Eileen.

We spent the rest of lunch discussing wedding details, followed by an afternoon of debating redecorating plans and a supper split between these two equally fascinating topics. I ate both meals with my left hand while scribbling several pages of notes in the notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. Dad made intermittent attempts to talk them into giving me tomorrow off, and was ignored. After lengthy discussion, Mother, Pam, and I all agreed that a visit to the local dressmaker was the first order of business. I was about halfway through the job of nagging three brides, three flower girls, and fourteen bridesmaids into visiting the dressmaker and had even talked to her on the phone several times, but hadn't actually made it to the shop myself.