The
Madams
of
Mischief
Sherry M. Siska
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 Sherry M. Siska
All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
This book is available in print at most online outlets.
DEDICATION
This book is for the ones who believed, even when I didn’t. For: Jim, Kyle, Matt, Lindsey, Mom, Donna, Rebecca who were there at the beginning. For those I’ve lost along the way: Terry B., Marigail, Martha, and, most of all my Dad.
Chapter One
Destiny. According to my mom, whenever disaster strikes, you can put the blame right where it belongs: on that old Madam of Mischief. She likes to say that whatever happens was 'Meant To Be', that 'It All Works Out For The Best', and even worse, 'One Of These Days You'll Look Back On This And Laugh'. So far, I'm not convinced.
"Charli," she said to my sister, sixteen at the time, after I made copies of certain choice morsels of Charli's diary and sold them at school for a penny a page, "I know that it's hard for you to believe it right now, but I think this was 'Meant To Be'. Trust me honey, 'Everything Works Out For The Best'. One of these days, 'You'll Look Back And Laugh' over this."
Okay, so she was right that time. John Carsky, the best-looking, most popular guy in school, and the object of Charli's unrequited love, found several copies of the diary stuck in his locker, textbooks, gym bag, etc. He was embarrassed as hell, but, apparently, more than a little bit interested. They've been married for nine years now. Charli even started speaking to me again. Eventually.
Here's a better example: last year, when my boyfriend, Ricky Ray Riley, (yes, THAT Ricky Ray Riley) dumped me three days before our wedding, there was Mom dishing out her usual pep talk, 'Meant To Be', 'Works Out For The Best', 'Look Back And Laugh'. I'm still waiting.
Oh sure, it's all working out just great for Ricky Ray. He is, as you know, an up-and-coming country music star, well on his way to catching up with Kenny and Zac. It didn't hurt him a bit when he won that Grammy award a couple of months ago for his song, "Bye-Bye, Baby, Bye-Bye", either. In case you were wondering, that's the song he wrote, and sent to me, (via Federal Express, of course) to tell me that the wedding was off. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
It's just that I'm beginning to think that maybe Destiny has it in for me. Lately, it's been one dirty trick after another. Just when I thought things couldn't get much worse, they did. I found a corpse in Morley Park.
If you ask me, I don't think even Mom can figure out how that was 'Meant To Be'. And so far, it sure as hell hasn't 'All Worked Out For The Best'. We won't even mention laughing. Some things will never be funny.
Chapter Two
It all started because I'm a sweet, caring, loving sister. A couple of Sundays ago Charli called. She needed somebody to keep her kids the next day. Being sweet, caring loving me, I said yes. Charli, being Charli, neglected to mention that my duty was going to start at the ungodly hour of seven thirty in the morning.
That may not sound so bad to you, but I work at a 'Hot Hits' country music radio station (WRRR, 98.6 on the FM dial) and I'm on the air Saturday and Sunday nights, seven to midnight. The rest of the week I work a schedule that varies day to day, doing all kinds of stuff: commercials, remote broadcasts, filling in on the air if one of the other DJs is off. If I get really desperate for money, I even bartend. Anyway, the point is, I'd only had four hours of sleep when Charli and the kids blew in. Trust me, that wasn't enough.
Now, I may be a sap, but I'm not stupid. Fifteen minutes after Charli left I figured out that my apartment was way too small for me, three wild kids, and a slightly nervous cat. (That would be Delbert, a massive tuxedo cat named after the awesome Delbert McClinton.)What I needed was a sure-fire way to survive the next four hours. Preferably something that would leave me with my furniture and my sanity intact. But what?
"Aunt Marty." Adam, Charli's four year old, tugged on the back of my thread-bare terry robe.
"What do you need, sweetie?"
Enormous blue eyes stared up at me. "If you take us to the park, I promise to love you forever."
Kevin, the seven year-old, chimed in. "Me too. I promise to love you forever, too."
I've always been a big sucker for a tow-headed guy with a killer smile, so I didn't stand a chance against two of them. Besides, it sounded like a perfect plan. What could be better than a fun-filled morning at Morley Park? So what if it was more than a little hot and too damned early in the morning? When life gives you lemons, you're supposed to make lemonade, right? (Supposedly, optimism runs in our family. Along with insanity.)
I tossed on my “Queen of Denial” t-shirt and a pair of cutoffs, washed down three extra-strength Tylenol, dumped some smelly tuna glop in Delbert's food dish, and loaded the kids into my used-to-be-candy-apple-red, not-as-bad-as-it-looks sixty-nine Mustang. We sang two-year old Jaelyn's favorite song, 'Ricky Ray's a loser', (only Jaelyn can't pronounce her 'Ls' so it comes out Ricky Ray's a boozer) all the way to the park. Life was good.
Morley Park lies right smack dab in the middle of the Glenvar Industrial Center, about four miles from my apartment. The heat had already made bubbles in the tar. I thought about stopping to pop a few, but I didn't. Since Ricky Ray dumped me, I've been working on acting more mature. So far, according to Mom, the results are decidedly mixed.
An eight-foot high chain link fence wraps around the park, which is about the size of three football fields placed side-to-side. Thanks to the woods that surround the park on three sides, you don't see hardly anything of the surrounding industries.
The boys had the doors open before I'd even turned the engine off. They bounded out of the car and ran through the gate, headed straight for the swings, while I unhooked Jaelyn from her car seat. The jungle gym is just to the right of the gate. Across from the play equipment is a half-court asphalt pad with a basketball goal on one end. Huge oak, locust, and black gum trees with wooden picnic tables underneath them dot the rest of the park.
The kids didn't seem to mind the heat, but I sure did. I mopped my face on the sleeve of my shirt and looked around, trying to figure out the coolest place to sit. The oak tree behind the jungle gym seemed to be my best bet, so I traipsed back there and plopped down on a table.
I was evidently the only doting Aunt dumb enough to fall for the 'let's go to the park' ploy because we had the place to ourselves. I was hot and sweaty, the mosquitoes were using me for target practice, and the humidity was so high that I could almost feel my hair frizzing. Miserable didn't quite cover it. And, let's face it, you can only watch kids slip down a slide so many times without wanting to scream. I'd basically reached my boredom saturation point, and was trying in vain to get a signal on my I-Phone, when I heard gravel crunching.
Charli's friend, Vanessa Young, and her two kids drove up in their blue mini-van. She parked next to my car and tooted her horn. Adam and Kevin dashed out to greet them. Her kids hopped out of the van and began playing tag with Charli's boys. Jaelyn crouched underneath one of the slides, digging in the oak bark mulch that carpets the play area.
Vanessa took her time getting out. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around before trudging toward me. She lugged a big tote bag and a small six-pack cooler. Her baggy gray 'Ye Olde Glenvar Days' t-shirt and the denim shorts she wore looked like they were two sizes too big for h
er.
Apparently, she hadn't been to a beauty parlor in months. Her once-beautiful auburn hair featured about four inches of gray-streaked roots and it looked like a colony of rats had set up housekeeping in it. She also appeared to be exhausted. Her greenish-gray eyes were rimmed with heavy dark circles.
"Hey, Marty, hot enough for you?" she asked, when she reached me.
"I reckon. How about you?" I patted the table next to me. "Have a seat."
She dumped her stuff down on the bench and swiped at the table with a tissue. "I swear, I'm beat. I had to work a double yesterday. I don't know why they let three nurses have vacation this week. Do you realize that it's been exactly nine months since that bad ice storm. There were eight babies born during my shift last night."
She stuffed the tissue in her pocket and settled down next to me. "Where's Charli? I haven't seen her in weeks."
Vanessa and Charli were best friends when they were in high school, but they grew apart after graduation. Daddy always called them Quart and Pint; Vanessa is around five-ten and Charli barely reaches five-two. Mom fussed at him about it.
"Now, Don," she'd say, "you're going to make poor Vanessa self-conscious."
I'm not sure if Daddy's nickname had anything to do with it, but Vanessa still walks all hunched over, always looking down, and she turns bright pink if anyone she doesn't know very well talks to her.
"She drove over to Roanoke to go shopping. She's getting ready for some dumb mystery writing convention. She’s got some hare-brained idea that she can write a mystery novel and publish it on Amazon. How have you guys been doing?" I swatted at a mosquito and missed.
"Well, the kids are doing pretty well. It's still weird, you know. I wake up in the night, and reach over to his side of the bed. It always surprises me when I find it empty." Her eyes got all watery. "It always makes me feel so foolish. I mean, it's been eight months since the accident."
Eight months? I felt like a real louse. The last time I'd seen her had been at her husband's memorial service. He was killed in an accident of some sort while on a business trip. Somewhere in Michigan or Montana, I think.
"Has it really been that long? It seems like it was just last week. Did they ever figure out what happened to him?”
"Marty, you've been a real good friend."
Good friend? More like super self-centered louse. My face felt feverish.
She patted my hand. "I know you'll understand when I tell you that I really don't feel up to talking about the details. Do you mind if we talk about something else? Please?"
"Sure thing, sweetie." I slid my arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. It was sharp and as thin as a child's.
"Good Lord, Nessa! Honey, you're nothing but skin and bones." Miss Tact. I swear, it just popped right out of my mouth before I had time to think. Mom's always fussing at me about stuff like that. Among other things.
"I know. I've lost twenty pounds. I'm not bragging, because I didn't have it to lose." Her face reddened. "It's just that, well, I have all these damn bills and I've been working all the OT I can get. Whenever I work a lot I just can't eat."
We watched the kids play. A train rumbled by and the children darted over to the fence to watch it pass. A thin film of coal dust rained down on my car. Damn. I'd just washed it the day before.
Vanessa smiled and pointed at the table. "Look. All the graffiti on the table is about Ricky Ray."
She was right. The table was covered with odes to Ricky Ray, some written in ink, the rest carved into the wood. I read a few of the notes and shook my head.
"Disgusting!" I said. "Look at that one. 'Ricky Ray Riley rules'. When did they start teaching alliteration at the junior high?"
"Here. Look at this one."
I leaned over and checked out the one she was pointing to. "At least it was written by someone with a better imagination and a bigger vocabulary."
I pointed to one that suggested a biological impossibility.
Vanessa giggled. "I'd like to see Ricky Ray do that. Now that would be worth seventy dollars a ticket."
"That's for sure! I'll bet they could even get seventy-five!" We both snickered.
"What are y'all laughing about, Aunt Marty?" Kevin asked. He held Jaelyn's hand.
"Nothing, Hon. Go on back and play."
"Jaelyn pooped." I stopped laughing and sniffed. "P.U. She sure did. Geez, Jaelyn!" I turned to Vanessa. "Normally, I'd wait until Charli gets home, but I think this one is breaking some air pollution laws."
Vanessa started laughing again. "Desperate times call for desperate measures." She stood up and slapped me on the back. "I think I'm going to walk over to the swings for a minute or so. Good luck."
"Chicken!" I hollered, laughing, as she walked away.
I changed Jaelyn, pulled up her little black and white polka-dotted romper, and kissed her before I sent her back off to play.
"I'll be right back," I called to Vanessa, who was pushing one of her kids on the swing. He hopped off while it was in mid-flight, soaring through the air the way I always liked to do when I was a kid. It looked like fun. "I better get rid of this toxic waste."
"Looks like the closest trash can is back there next to the johns." She pointed back by the rear fence where the two lovely portable toilets, one pink and one blue, stood. The park was still under construction and permanent restrooms weren't supposed to be added until sometime in the fall.
I picked up the offending diaper and held it out at arm’s length, pinching my nose closed with the other hand. "If I'm not back in twenty minutes, call the cops."
Vanessa laughed.
I practically skipped over toward the green ninety gallon trash tote. I lifted the hinged lid of the trash can, swung it open, and tossed in the diaper. That's when Destiny not only called my name, she also spit in my face, thumbed her nose, and blew me a big old raspberry. Lucky me.