The Ninth Step Read online

  To buy used clothes, Kat had said, hate etched into the inflection of every syllable. Why can’t we ever have new? Go to the mall, be like normal people?

  She had nothing used now. Kat’s family barely sat on a sofa before she gave it away and bought another.

  Livie skirted the edge of Kat’s pool where Stella’s bright pink floaties bobbed merrily in the sun-stroked water. She plucked Zack’s tiny swim shorts off the wet bar and spread them on a nearby chaise to finish drying; she passed underneath the pergola she’d designed and planted in Chinese wisteria. She’d also designed the waterfalls and the rock gardens that surrounded the pool.

  Kat and Tim had begun building the house shortly after they married just as Livie had been graduating from Texas A&M with her shiny new horticulture degree. She’d been pleased when Tim offered her the job of landscaping the grounds, but then he’d acted as if she should do the work for free. He’d accused Livie of inflating her prices and she’d called him a tightwad. It had been all she could do to be nice to him, but then one day, someone called her, a prospective client, who said he’d been referred by Tim, that Tim had given her a “glowing” recommendation. He’d given her other referrals since then, dozens actually. And scads of unwanted business advice as if, as a woman, Livie couldn’t possibly have the brains for it. He was the patronizing older brother, patting her head, while she gritted her teeth, eschewing argument, for Kat’s sake. For the sake of maintaining the family peace. As if she agreed that she was Tim’s inferior, that women in general were, and it was wrong to go along. Livie wasn’t doing Kat any favors. As sisters they had used to be so honest with each other, but not so much anymore. Livie missed that, the candor they’d shared, the acceptance of each other’s foibles.

  She looked up at the sound of the glass door sliding open and her eyes widened as she caught sight of Kat. Still in her robe, wild-haired, red-eyed. And wearing socks, dark trouser socks. Kat had on what looked like Tim’s socks.

  “He’s gone,” she said, coming into Livie’s embrace.

  “Oh, dear,” Livie murmured even as she thought, Not again.

  “He took all his underwear this time and every tie he owns; he even took his pillow. I’m scared, Livie.”

  “Oh, Kat, he’ll be back. He always--”

  “He’s in a suite at La Colombe d’Or downtown. Can you believe it? While we live here like squatters.”

  Squatters? Livie followed Kat through the great room with its beamed and vaulted ceiling into the kitchen that was outfitted in acres of black granite, the latest in every appliance, a collection of stainless steel sinks set with silver fixtures that gleamed in the artfully placed down flow of recessed light.

  Livie could hear Carmella, Kat’s live-in housekeeper, running the vacuum upstairs. “Where are the kids?” she asked.

  “He came this morning and took them to school. He said he’s cutting off my credit cards and putting me on an allowance. He’s going to dole out cash as if I’m a teenager. It’s humiliating.”

  “Is this about Stella’s Prada sneakers?” Livie stowed the dozen eggs she’d brought in the refrigerator.

  Kat didn’t answer. She poured mugs of coffee and brought them to the kitchen island.

  Livie scooted onto a low-backed, leather upholstered stool and picked up her cup, looking at Kat over the rim.

  “What?” Kat demanded.

  “I’m not taking sides, I promise, but I have to tell you two hundred dollars for tennis shoes for a seven-year-old does seem a little extre--”

  “It’s not as if we don’t have it,” Kat snapped. “Tim’s at the top of his field. Women come to him from all over the world to get their noses done and their lips sculpted and their boobs inflated. What’s the money for? He hordes it like Silas Marner--” She flung her hands and then bent her head and the sob that loosened from her chest was dry and rough.

  “Oh, Cookie. . . .” Livie went to Kat and put her arms around her. “He’ll come home once he cools off. He always does.”

  “But I’m tired of being lectured for every dime I spend unless it’s something he deems worthwhile. Why is it all right for him to throw away a thousand dollars on a pair of handmade loafers from Italy, or to live in a hotel suite that costs a fortune, but I’m not supposed to want Stella to have adorable tennis shoes?”

  Livie could have answered that Wal-Mart sold adorable tennis shoes for a lot less than Prada. She could also say that Tim could have rented a room from Holiday Inn, too.

  Livie brought Kat a tissue and she blew her nose.

  “Once Stella outgrows them, those shoes will be worn by a dozen other children. Carmella’s whole family, her entire neighborhood, benefits from the things I pass along.”

  Livie smoothed circles on Kat’s back, feeling the knobs of her spine, the bump of her breath. She wondered if Kat ever thought of how shamed she’d been when she’d been on the receiving end of such largesse.

  “He makes me feel like it’s a sin to want beautiful things.”

  “I wish he’d let you work, let you earn your own money,” Livie murmured.

  Kat was a licensed cosmetician and hair stylist like their mom. Gus had bought Helen out when she retired several years ago and Gus and Kat had run the House of Hair together. Tim had found Kat there. Rescued her, he liked to joke. She’d done his nails. Livie tried not to mind, but it bothered her that a man would have his nails done, that he would go in for regular facials. Tim required a lot of pampering, a lot of high maintenance; he and Kat both did for all that he wanted to call himself a practical man.

  “I’m not like you,” Kat said.

  “Of course not.” Livie sat on her stool.

  “I never wanted to be all homey and domestic and June Cleaverish.”

  June Cleaverish? Did Livie appear that matronly? Maybe she did. Wasn’t it the perfect cover? No one would ever suspect June of acting the harlot either.

  Kat sniffed and dabbed her eyes. “It’s not as if either of us would even know a good man if we saw one. It’s not as if we ever had a decent father figure.”

  “What about Dan Moser?” Livie sipped her coffee. “He encouraged us to call him Daddy.”

  “Hah! Daddy Dan the pick up man. What about that other one. What’s his name--”

  “You’ll have to be more specific, Cookie.”

  “The one with the big hairy belly, Ed--Ed--?” Kat frowned.

  “McPherson,” Livie supplied.

  “McPervert is more like it. He always went around in his under shorts rubbing that hair on his fat stomach like it was an animal. Remember?”

  No, Livie thought. I don’t want to. But even before her protest was fully joined, she was transported back into the kitchen of her childhood, watching their mother perform the before-school routine dressed in nothing more than a diaphanous drift of pale chiffon that scarcely concealed the curve of her bare buttocks as she bent into the refrigerator, or covered the dark wedge of her pubic hair when she faced Livie to ask whether Livie preferred peanut butter or bologna in her lunch box that day, while the man of the hour panted in her shadow, his hardness thrust like a fist against his boxers. Livie had never known where to look, but at the same time she had felt herself drawn to look, drawn inexplicably over the ledge of some inner craving she hardly understood and she had despised herself for it. She had hated her body for responding.

  When her mom had caught Livie squirming, she’d laughed and called her a prude. Objections to her behavior brought on the “I work hard and deserve to relax” lecture. If Livie complained about getting slapped on the butt, or tickled unmercifully, Gus rolled her eyes. As if she’d ever let a fox loose in the hen house, she’d say. And it was true to a degree. Once on overhearing one of her lovers make suggestive remarks to Livie, Gus had gotten out the baseball bat she kept in her closet, and while Kat and Livie had looked on, wide-eyed, she’d backed the man straight through the house and off the porch. They’d never seen him again.

  “Now we have Phillip,” Kat said.<
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  “Married Phillip,” Livie said. “Was dinner terrible?”

  “No, at least I don’t have to go home with her nights anymore, lie awake listening to her headboard thump the wall.”

  “The circus of sex,” Livie said.

  “Starring Irma La Frog,” Kat said.

  The look Kat shared with Livie contained an entire sibling history of such nights, a sticky conglomeration of emotions: dark humor, the glint of derision, a studied forbearance. Kat sighed.

  Livie said, “You won’t believe who I’ve heard from.”

  “Who?” Kat’s brows rose. Her eyes were still swollen and her nose was scuffed and raw looking, but there was some color in her cheeks now.

  Livie took Cotton’s letter from her purse, regretting the impulse even as she slid it over to Kat, watching her, both dying for and not wanting her reaction.

  Kat unfolded the page, began sputtering almost immediately. “What in the--? I don’t believe-- How does he have the nerve?” She glared at Livie as if she were the one to blame.

  “When did you get this?” she demanded.

  “A few days ago.”

  “And you’re just now telling me? Where is he?”

  “Washington, the state,” Livie added.

  “I always figured he went to Mexico.”

  You and everyone else. The thought ran through Livie’s mind. But the only one who’d said it to her face had been that idiot detective, the investigating officer at the time of Cotton’s disappearance, Sergeant Loomis.

  “His buddies tell me your fiancé’s partial to the Yucatan. Margaritaville and all that.” Loomis had made the comment after he’d conducted a few cursory interviews. He’d pocketed his notebook, cracked his trademark moronic grin. “See you don’t hurt him too bad when he shows back up, Miss Saunders, ‘kay? I’d hate to have to run a pretty girl like you in on an assault charge.”

  Livie had wanted to slap the smirk straight off his flat, chinless, cop face.

  “You don’t suppose he’d come here?” Kat’s gaze narrowed. “You haven’t seen him?”

  Livie’s look said get real, while the voice in her head said, Only on every street corner, behind every bush. She’d been jumpy since the letter had come. She was having trouble sleeping. She toyed with her coffee mug. “I wish I knew why he wrote. Why now?”

  “Because he’s a worthless unfeeling jerk? A heartless bastard? It’s bizarre like everything else about him.”

  “Maybe he--”

  “You don’t think this makes up for what he did? You aren’t hoping for--?”

  “What? What would I hope for?”

  “I don’t know, Livie. You took it so hard when he left. It’s like something inside you broke, more than your heart, and if you ask me, it’s never gotten fixed.”

  “Because I don’t understand.” Livie slid off her stool and paced a short path over the heated bars of morning light that slanted across the floor. “Because I never had an explanation.”

  “Closure, you’ve never had closure.”

  “But what does that mean, closure?” Livie looked at Kat. “Everyone spouts off about it, but what is it exactly?”

  “It’s when someone who hurts you says they’re sorry. They explain--”

  “So what then? You tell them fine, it’s okay what you did? What if they murdered someone you love? Would that be okay?”

  “No, that’s not--”

  “How is an apology going to help me? I’m still here, thirty-five-years-old with no husband or children and no prospects. I’m alone, in an entirely different place than I expected--ahh--” Livie caught her lip, surprised to find she was close to tears. “You know what? Forget it. This is stupid.”

  “I told you, you aren’t over him.”

  “I am too. It’s just his letter, it’s opened it all up again. It isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t fair?” Their mother spoke as she came through the kitchen doorway.

  “Hi, Mom,” Livie said.

  “Hi, darling. Oh, Cookie. I would have been here earlier, but traffic was-- What’s this?” She took the letter Kat thrust at her.

  “What isn’t fair.”

  Gus set her oversized handbag on the bar, bracelets rustling. Livie caught the scent of White Diamonds, a richer undertone of shea butter.

  “It’s from Cotton,” Kat explained and then, helpfully, she reported all that she and Livie had discussed and delivered her opinion that Livie was a mess.

  “I’m not a mess.” Livie was indignant. Of the three of them, she was the least likely candidate to be a mess. Even they would say so.

  “There is one good thing about Livie’s man troubles,” Kat went on unperturbed, “they take my mind right off my own.”

  “I don’t have man troubles,” Livie protested.

  “You’re in la-la land,” Kat said.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Gus cupped Livie’s cheek, searching Livie’s gaze.

  “I’m fine, Mom. It’s kind of a shock, that’s all.”

  Kat said, “Charlie told the sheriff in Hardys Walk so he can keep an eye out.”

  “He said he was going to--” Livie tried to correct Kat.

  “Good.” Gus tsked her tongue. “What bothers me is that Cotton knows where you live. I imagine he found you through your website. I know you need that for your business, but it leaves you so exposed. Anyone with who knows what on their mind can find you and you’re so isolated out there in boonieville.”

  “Hardys Walk is hardly boonieville.” Livie was exasperated.

  “It’s the sticks compared to Houston,” Kat said.

  “It suits me, thank you very much,” retorted Livie. “We’re off the subject. “Why does everyone assume Cotton’s dangerous?”

  “Not dangerous, darling, worrisome.” Livie’s mother took a mug from the cabinet and helped herself to coffee. “Good grief, I thought I was coming over here to hold Cookie’s hand. Have you heard from Tim since he picked up the children for school?”

  Kat shook her head.

  “Why don’t you get dressed, do something with your hair. We’ll go to lunch at Maxim’s, my treat. You’ll feel better. Livie, you come, too. We’ll make a day of it.”

  A muffled progression of notes, the opening bars of Für Elise, chimed into the pause. Livie dug in her purse and took out her cell phone, looking at the Caller ID. “It’s Delia.”

  Kat straightened. “Does she know?”

  “I left her a message to call me, but I can’t tell her over the phone.” Livie looked up, stomach in a knot. “I have to go see her.”

  Kat groaned and slid off her stool. “Why do you always have to be so good all the time?”

  “It’s not that. I just--”

  “Maybe Cotton wrote to her too,” Kat said.

  “That’s what Charlie thinks.”

  “If that were true, she’d have called Livie, or one of us, to crow about it,” Gus said darkly.

  “Well, honestly, given the way Delia treats Livie, I don’t know why she has to tell her anything.” Kat carried her coffee mug to the sink. She bent over and peeled off Tim’s socks.

  Livie stowed her phone and Cotton’s letter and shouldered her purse. “I just have to, that’s all.”

  #

  Delia smelled of gin and the Blue Grass perfume she wore as a cover and she felt brittle in Livie’s arms. More scant than the perfunctory hug she allowed Livie to give her. They sat across from each other in Delia’s living room, Delia in one corner of the gold, crushed velvet sofa and Livie in the ancient matching platform rocker. A pillow was lumped uncomfortably against her back.

  Delia lit a cigarette and squinted at Livie through the smoke. Why in the hell are you here? Livie half expected to hear Delia say it. She glanced at the floor. Delia had on a pair of gold slides and her ankles below the hem of her slacks were bare, netted in a tracery of delicate blue veins. They looked swollen, probably from sitting so much, Livie thought, from never doing anything. Her heart pounded dully in her chest
.

  “Do you want coffee? I think I have some instant in the fridge.”

  “No, thank you,” Livie answered.

  Delia smoked and the sharp drag of her breath filled the silence. Livie wondered when Delia had last seen a doctor. She wondered if anyone besides herself looked in on Delia. As far as Livie knew, she had no family other than Cotton and his older brother Scott, whom Livie had only heard of. Scott had broken with the family and left home years ago. Delia had had an older brother, too, who’d died of a massive stroke.

  Jim Beaulieu had lived in Slidell, Louisiana, near New Orleans. He’d run the family-owned construction business there. Run it into the ground, Livie had heard Delia say. But Cotton had been close to his uncle; he’d worked for him summers while he was growing up. Cotton said he’d learned more from his Uncle Jim in a week than he’d ever learned inside a classroom in a year. Livie’d met Jim once in a country bar in Slidell. She’d been worried that he’d be bitter and difficult like Delia, but instead he’d been rollicking and huge, three hundred pounds at least.

  So heavy Livie had been nervous when he’d asked her to dance and then astonished by his grace. He’d wheeled her along with such delight and expertise, she’d been sorry when the music ended. She had thought Jim was charming, a man who was full of joy, who loved to laugh and to dance, a man who, like Cotton, found peace in working with his hands. Cotton had said Jim was drunk.

  Cotton had stared into a place Livie couldn’t see and said his uncle and his mom were both drinkers. The difference was that the booze didn’t make his mom as happy.

  Now Livie cleared her throat. Why had she come? Kat was right. She didn’t owe this woman anything.

  “It’s disgusting what people will do to get attention.” Delia was looking at the television.

  Livie glanced at the screen. She recognized Maury Povich sitting with a man and a woman and a younger girl who appeared to be sobbing into her hands. Livie asked, “What’s the problem?” because she didn’t see how it was possible that she could pull Cotton’s letter from her purse and hand it to Delia.