Hiss Of Death

Harry, Susan, BoomBoom, Alicia, and Coop laughed as they ran across the parking lot at the hospital auxiliary on Pantops Mountain through a sudden hard spring rain, drenching them.

“Thank God for remote keys.” Susan pushed the unlock icon on her overlarge fob.

Harry, already at the passenger side of Susan’s Audi station wagon, jumped in the second she heard the lock release. Dripping, Harry leaned over the passenger seat to grab the towel Susan kept in the back to wipe up after her own corgi, Owen.

BoomBoom scrambled to get into Alicia’s Mustang, and Coop got in her own car.

Susan slid behind the wheel. “Where did that rain come from? Wasn’t on the weather report.”

Harry shrugged as she wiped herself down. “Being a weatherman is the only job where you can be wrong half of the time and still pull a paycheck.”

“Got that right.” Susan glanced in the rearview mirror. “There goes the hair.”

After handing Susan the towel, Harry ran her fingers through her hair. “Just fixed mine.”

“You know, I’d whack this all off, but Ned loves my long hair. He even likes to brush it. I think when he was little he became mesmerized by his mother sitting at her makeup table.” She started her fancy station wagon, a gift from Ned, who wanted his wife to ride in style.

Susan couldn’t imagine living without her Audi, which she’d driven for two years.

“Funny, I haven’t thought of a dressing table in years,” said Harry. “My mom had one, too. You saw it. Had fabric around the two sides, hung to the ground. As I recall, it was a big rose print. She’d sit right up in the open middle, face to the mirror, lights blazing.”

“Your mother, like you, was so organized,” said Susan. “All her lipsticks stuck out from this little wooden box she’d made. Full of holes. Every lipstick had a place, and they’d never fall over or roll on the ground. Given her cats, I suppose that was an invention born of necessity.”

“I disappointed Mom. She wanted a girly girl and got me.”

“Oh, Harry, she loved you, and every Saturday the farm was full of cars, overflowing with boys. You were the most popular girl at school.”

“Because I could throw a football farther than they could.” Harry laughed. “BoomBoom was the most popular.”

“Maybe.” Susan turned toward Route 64, following Alicia and BoomBoom, as well as Coop. “Isn’t it great that Alicia bought a Mustang convertible? She could have bought a Ferrari or a Porsche—”

Harry interrupted Susan, something she rarely did even to her dearest friend, since she considered it impossibly rude. “Can’t believe you just named a Ferrari. I’m the gearhead, not you.”

“But I listen.” Susan flattered her, but it was true. “I just love that she bought an American car. Of course, she has her Range Rover for serious farm chores, but for her thrill car, she bought American. Said it makes her feel like she did in the sixties. Young.”

“Hmm. I never think about Alicia being in her fifties, because she’s so glamorous. Well, so is BoomBoom, but her face wasn’t plastered all over America like Alicia’s.” Harry considered that. “It’s a curse, fame. The people who seek it deserve it.”

Susan laughed. “My, aren’t we profound.”

Harry replied, “I’d punch you, but you’re driving. Anyway, Alicia never sought it. She more or less stumbled into film, and the camera did the rest. Camera loves her.”

“Yes, it does. And she had the sense to get out with bundles of money when she reached middle age. Course, inheriting Mary Pat Reines’s estate hardly hurt.”

“Ever notice how some people are just lucky? Lucky in love. Lucky in their careers. Some are lucky with money. I don’t know if you can have it all, but, boy, some people come close.” Harry studied the car in front of them. “Love that she bought the five-point-zero-L engine and tricked the Mustang out in red candy metallic.”

“Pretty cool. You never owned a convertible. Given how much you love cars—both you and BoomBoom—I’m surprised.” Susan got in the right lane so a Honda could pass her. “How come you never bought a convertible?”

“Couldn’t afford luxuries. All I could swing was the F-One-fifty, which I bought used. That 1978 isn’t the smoothest ride, but I think it looks terrific, especially since my wonderful husband had it painted and the upholstery tweaked for our anniversary.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Harry blinked. “Sorry. I’m a little concerned that you all had to wait for me while they called me back for second pictures.”

“That happened to me once. Sometimes the first set of mammograms isn’t clear. In my case, a bit of scar tissue showed up.”

“How’d you get that scar tissue in your breast?”

“I’ll answer that when you answer my question.”

“I can afford a convertible now, but I really am a purist. I love the line of a roof if a car is well designed, and the Mustang really is. So’s the Charger. Like the Camaro, that’s the Mustang’s competitor, in case you don’t know.”

“Didn’t.”

“Anyway, they’re all retro but forward, great designs and truly American. But to be safe, a convertible has to weigh more, sometimes as much as four hundred pounds more, and I abhor that. Hence, no convertible.”

“So it’s not a safety thing?”

“No. Most cars have roll bars that pop up. If they don’t, they’re usually built in so that if you flip, for instance, you won’t land flat up, which means you’ll be dead. There might be a kind of lip, which keeps you intact. I’m not being precise. Okay, I answered your question. Answer mine.”

“When we played lacrosse in high school, that complete shithead from Saint Anne’s whacked me right across the boob when no one was looking.”

“Thadia Martin. She was a bitch. There’s a great lesson in karma.”

“That she is. And it wasn’t a league game, either. We weren’t on Saint Anne’s schedule, since we’re a public school and they’re private. They’ve always been the big dog in lacrosse, and we were good. They thought they’d teach us a lesson.” Susan smiled broadly. “Wiped the field up with them.”

“Yeah, we really did. She’s out of prison now, and I heard she’s a rehab counselor. I think Paula mentioned her once with distaste.”

“Actually, she runs the entire drug counseling program, and Harry, I think they were smart to hire her. Who else knows how drugs can blow up your life but someone who’s served time for selling, for armed robbery?” Susan shook her head. “Crazy.”

“This country is crazy.” Harry looked ahead. “Turnoff. Route Three-forty.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. I just wanted to sound smart.”

The friends ate at South River Grille in Waynesboro. Coop, on her day off, enjoyed them all enormously and was very entertaining with her stories of the dumb stuff a sheriff’s officer sees, like picking up a fellow walking into the Mud House, a coffee shop, in red lace panties, brassiere to match.

• • •

That afternoon, when Susan dropped off Harry, the rain continued, though lessening in intensity.

Opening the kitchen door, Harry beheld kitty wrath.

“Wasn’t me.” Tucker glanced up, her big brown eyes radiating honesty.

“Brownnoser,” Pewter spat.

“Who did this?” Harry surveyed the broken vase knocked off the kitchen table, her lovely pink and white tulips still fresh.

Harry picked them up, snipped off the ends, put them in another vase, and filled it, adding a little sugar to the water. Slipping her fingers into heavy work gloves, she picked up the big pieces of glass. She’d learned the hard way never to pick up glass with bare hands. The fragments were dropped in a small cardboard carton, and she swept up anything she might have missed. Next came the mop. Finally done, she sat down to stare at Pewter, who pointedly sat next to the refreshed tulips with her back turned. Mrs. Murphy, head leaning on the table, sat opposite on a chair.

“Pewter, you could at least turn around and look at her.”

“She smells funny,” Pewter said, justifying her pointed inattention.

“Maybe it’s her new perfume. I’ve noticed it, too.”

Tucker, the olfactory expert, pronounced judgment. “Not the perfume. It’s a little different odor, not bad, just something different.”

“Pewter, I’m not fooled. You did the damage.”

“Mrs. Murphy chased me. I couldn’t help it.”

“What a fib.” Mrs. Murphy climbed up on the table now and boxed Pewter’s ears.

Harry grabbed the vase. “This is how it happened in the first place. You two.”

“It’s a rainy day.” Pewter knocked Mrs. Murphy upside the head, but she didn’t unleash her claws.

“You jumped on the table, and I followed. How was I to know you’d slipped sideways to take out the vase? You’re like a Porsche, Pewter, sixty percent of your weight is in your rear.”

“How do you know that?”

“I listen to everything Mom says about cars.”

“I’m not fat. I’m not built like a car. I have big bones.”

“Oh la.” Tucker rolled her eyes.

“I can jump down there and bloody your nose, Bubble butt.” Pewter leaned over the table, looking convincingly menacing.

“Calm down,” said Harry. “I’d like to sit here in peace.”

“You should have taken us with you,” Pewter sagely advised.

“That’s the truth.” Mrs. Murphy agreed with Pewter, which meant now they were best friends.

The phone rang. Harry checked the old railroad clock. Three-thirty. Could be the feed store. She’d ordered sweet feed. Usually they deliver. If they called, it meant they had run out.

“Hello. Crozet zoo,” Harry answered.

“The question is, is it a petting zoo?” Dr. Regina MacCormack, Harry’s general practitioner, laughed on the other end of the line. “Now, there’s a thought.”

“Harry, come into the office tomorrow. I want to go over your mammogram with you.”

Harry hesitated. “That means it isn’t good.”

“No point in keeping you worried. There is a peculiar small mass in the back of your right breast. Let’s look at it together, and I’ll tell you what I think and what comes next. Can you make it at ten?”

“I can. Thanks for not being evasive.”

“I know you too well. And no one wants a call like this. Is it cancerous? I don’t know. Come in tomorrow. Let’s talk. There is a test that I’ll recommend. You’ll have to think about it.”

“See you at ten.” Harry hung up the phone and looked at her three friends. “Dammit to hell.”