Besides, I hadn’t actually done anything yet.
Giles fell back into his chair and stared into his sherry again.
“We should be going,” I said. “After all, we have a long day of sleuthing ahead of us.”
“Right,” Giles said.
“She’s right,” Michael said. “To say nothing of the yard sale.”
He and Giles stood up and headed for the front door.
Before following them into the foyer, I hung back long enough to do a bit of quick redecorating, changing ACNE ELOPE to ENLACE POE, something I’d been itching to do the whole time I’d been here. I wondered how long it would take Giles to notice.
“Sorry you have to do all this,” Michael said, as we pulled out of Giles’s driveway.
“All this yard sale stuff or all this proving Giles innocent stuff?” I asked.
“Both.”
I nodded. I was sorry, too, but anything I said would only sound like complaining. I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes.
“I wonder how many divorces this yard sale will cause,” I said, and then wondered if it was wise to drop something quite that ominous into the conversation. So, I told him about Morris and Ginnie.
“Good grief,” Michael said. “When I saw the booth, I assumed she had one of those home selling franchises. Like Tupperware, only with lingerie.”
“No, it’s all from her own wardrobe,” I said. “I can’t imagine selling that stuff.”
“So you side with Morris, then?”
“No,” I said. “I understand why she wants to declutter, but I wouldn’t set up a booth at a yard sale to do it. And I can’t imagine anyone buying the stuff.”
“Why not?” Michael asked.
“Secondhand lingerie?”
“It all looked brand-new to me,” Michael said. “After all, they’re not the sort of garments you’d keep on for long, and given how large a collection she has, I doubt if she wears any one piece very often.”
“Still, it’s the idea. Who could possibly be buying it all?”
“Just look for the lavender bags with silver trim,” Michael said. “You can’t miss them.”
“And you know this because … ?”
“I’m highly observant,” Michael said. “I would never think of insulting you with secondhand lingerie.”
“That’s good,” I said. “But I’m worried about Morris.”
“If you like, I could talk to him,” Michael offered. “Try to get him to see it as a positive thing. That what matters is the whole experience—buying the presents, opening them, putting them on, and taking them off. Not the actual garments.”
“Precisely,” I said. “That would be great.”
He nodded.
“Wonder if Ginnie takes returns,” he said, after a few moments.
I smiled faintly at the joke. At least I hoped it was a joke. We rode for a couple of minutes in silence, and I was close to falling asleep when he spoke up again.
“I was really hoping you could come with your mother and me tomorrow,” he said. “But I suppose it will have to wait for a while.”
A long while.
“Your mother really does have some interesting ideas for the house.”
Had I ever mentioned to Michael that “interesting” was what Mother had taught us to say instead of nasty words like “ugly” or “hideous?”
“I think if you took a look at what she has in mind—”
“Could we talk about it later,” I said. “I’m pretty tired.”
“Sure,” he said. But I sensed something off in his tone. I felt a sudden flash of anger—not at him, though. And not really at Mother. At life, which keeps throwing stuff at us at the wrong moment. I took a couple of breaths and swallowed the impulse to snap at him.
“Sorry,” I said aloud. “I know it’s important. Too important to talk about when I’m so tired I’m not really coherent. Not to mention so cranky I wouldn’t blame you if you let me walk home.”
“I understand,” he said. “I just thought, while she’s up here, that this might be a good chance for you and your mother to do some bonding.”
“Bonding?” I echoed. “Mother and I don’t need bonding. Mediation, occasionally, or possibly therapy. Have you been spending too much time in the psych department?”
“Just a thought,” he said.
But he meant well, I knew. He just hadn’t figured out yet that Mother and I could squabble noisily over everything under the sun without being really mad at each other. He and his mother hardly ever raised their voices, but when they did—look out. Mother and I rarely saw eye to eye, but we understood each other.