Shortly after I hung up the receiver on Mrs. Bissel, our doorbell scritched. We had one of those twisty doorbells that don’t chime. You twisted them and they scritched. Not sure how else to describe the sound.
“It’s probably the Castleton,” said Harold, rubbing his hands together and smiling for the first time in quite a while.
Sure enough, when Harold, who first approached the front door and peeked through the peephole, opened the door, several white-uniformed Castleton employees marched into the house. Only then did I think about the table not having been set for dinner.
“Good Lord!” I cried. “I forgot to set the table!”
“Please, ma’am,” said the person whom I presumed to be the leader of the uniformed Castleton squad, “we will take care of the table for you. I see the dining room straight ahead. Is that correct, ma’am?”
“Um…yes. Thank you.” My voice had gone tiny. I wasn’t accustomed to people calling me “ma’am,” no matter how polite and helpful they were.
“Just sit in the living room, Daisy,” Harold ordered. “I’ll see everything’s set out properly.”
“Thanks, Harold.” I gazed at him as he trotted after the line of white uniforms and started giving orders like a general directing troops.
“My goodness,” whispered Ma.
“How nice of him!” said Flossie.
“He’s all right,” said Mr. Prophet. “Even if he does like automobiles short enough so’s a man can stamp on ‘em and squash ‘em like scorpions.”
I squinted at him. “You saw Harold’s new Kissel Gold Bug parked outside?”
“That what it’s called? Ha! Looks like a gold bug, all right.” Mr. Prophet let out a rusty chuckle.
It did, sort of. Not that I’d ever say so to Harold, but I preferred his bright red Stutz Bearcat over his new Kissel Gold Bug. But Harold was Harold, and he could afford all the automobiles he wanted.
“Is the Castleton staff going to wait on us, too?” Ma whispered to me when I returned to my seat next to Sam on the piano bench.
“I don’t know, Ma. I guess maybe they are.”
“Like dining in a restaurant at home,” Pa murmured.
“Hellkatoot,” said Mr. Prophet, “eating with you folks is like dining in a restaurant at home for me every day. Vi Gumm is the best cook I ever met.”
Because he’d complimented Vi, I didn’t scold the scoundrel for bad language. Anyhow, I wasn’t sure Hellkatoot was a bad word. For all I knew, it was the name of a town in the Old West.
“That’s the truth,” said Sam, also ignoring the Hellkatoot situation.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would kidnap Vi,” said Ma.
Conversation, while desultory, remained on the topic of Vi’s missing status for several minutes. Then Harold strode back into the living room, gave a theatrical bow and said, “Dinner is served.”
So, like a bunch of schoolchildren being called in from recess, we rose and headed for the dining room. I noticed the Castleton staff had put another leaf in the table, and I wondered how they’d known where the extra leaves were. I didn’t remember ever telling Harold where we kept them.
Therefore, I asked him. “Where’d you find the extra table leaves, Harold?”
“Service porch. Figured they were either there or in the basement.”
“Brilliant deduction.” I nodded at him.
“But of course.” He inclined his head in a gesture a king might bestow on a peasant who’d charmed him. Good old Harold.
After some shuffling around, we finally found seats at the table. Because Vi had gone missing, Pa sat at the head of the table and Ma at its foot. Sam, Mr. Prophet, and I sat on one side, and Johnny, Flossie, and Harold on the other. Sure enough, the wait staff from the Castleton brought us bowls of French onion soup. Evidently, French folks like toast and cheese on their onion soup. Tasted swell, so it was okay with me.
Then I thought about the big pot of soup Flossie had brought us, and I felt bad. “Oh, Flossie! We should be eating your soup!”
Smiling across the table at me, she said, “Nertz, Daisy. Have my soup for lunch tomorrow. It’ll keep. You have that nice Frigidaire in your kitchen. Stick it in there, and you can have soup and sandwiches for lunch.”
“Thanks, Flossie.” I swear, I had the best friends in the world.
The Castleton’s pot roast was good, but not as good as Vi’s. Their buttered carrots tasted like buttered carrots, and their mashed potatoes and gravy were delicious. I’m not sure what they put into the spuds, but they were sure tasty.
“Good taters,” Mr. Prophet said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share many of his thoughts, but I figured thoughts about food were safe enough.
“Butter, cream and a little grated onion,” said Harold with authority.
“They put grated onions in their mashed potatoes?” I asked, surprised.
“Yup. Raul gave me the recipe, and I have Roy fix them that way now.”
“Interesting. I’ll tell Vi about them.” Then I remembered nobody knew where Vi was, and I almost cried. I resolutely swallowed my tears.
“It’s all right, Daisy,” Sam said softly at my side. Guess he’d noticed my distress. “We’ll find her.”
Wiping my mouth with my napkin and surreptitiously dabbing at my eyes with same, I said, “Thanks, Sam.”
“You cryin’ again, Miss Daisy?” said Mr. Prophet, frowning at me from across the table. “You’d best stop it. Your auntie’s just fine. She ain’t saddled a cloud yet, so stop actin’ like she has.”
Saddled a cloud? “What?” I asked. “What do you mean, she hasn’t saddled a cloud?”
“She ain’t dead, dam— dang it. You’re acting like we’ll be goin’ to her funeral tomorrow instead of findin’ her.”
“I can’t help it if I’m worried about her,” I snarled at the wrinkly old rascal.
“Daisy,” said Ma.
“He’s right, you know, Daisy,” said Harold. “We’ll find Vi. Tomorrow, the detective will get his police contingent searching for her, and you and I will visit the telephone company and Sam will talk to Mrs. Bissel. And Mr. Prophet will…do something useful”—a snort from Mr. Prophet didn’t stop Harold in his verbal tracks—“and the Buckinghams will pursue their own channels. We’ll find her. And quickly, too.”
“We will, Daisy,” said Flossie. She smiled at me so sweetly, I nearly broke down again. “Johnny and I know many, many people who are or have been pretty rough characters, and one of them might have a suggestion or two.”
“Or even three or four,” added Johnny. His grin helped cure my incipient weepiness.
“Exactly,” said Sam. “So stop sniveling. Please.”
“It’s hard for us to see you so unhappy, sweetheart,” said Pa.
Remembering his heart problem, I pasted on a smile. “You’re absolutely correct. I’ll stop being such a wurp.”
Mr. Prophet squinted at me. “You’re gonna stop being a what?”
“A wurp. A killjoy. A wet blanket.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Prophet. “About dam— danged time.”
“Oh, Daisy, you’re not a wurp,” said Flossie. “You’re worried, and being worried about your aunt is completely understandable.”
“Yes, it is, but I’d really like it if you wouldn’t cry again,” said Sam, squinting at me.
“Yes, darling,” I said. Then, because it just occurred to me to wonder, I asked, “Say, Sam, when did your parents come to the United States?”
With a frown I didn’t merit, he said, “Both of my parents were born and bred in New York City. Both families’ great-grandparents came from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the mid-1800s.”
“The Grand Duchy of Tuscany?” I said weakly.
“Yes. From the city of Florence, to be precise.”
“I didn’t know there was a Duchy of Tuscany,” I said, loath to admit my ignorance, but interested. After all, I’d be a Rotondo one of these days.
“Well, there was. Italy wasn’t a united country until recently. In fact, parts of Sicily are still rebellious.”
“I’ll be damn— Er, I’ll be darned,” said Mr. Prophet.
“Me, too,” I said, astounded. “Gee, we didn’t learn Italy in school.”
“What a surprise,” said Sam, acid fairly dripping from his words. “Now you know. So eat your dinner, all right? There’s no need for you to be a wurp. Vi will be home before you know it.”
If he said so.
Then it was I noticed Mr. Prophet take a little notebook out of his sling, from which he’d removed his left arm—against doctor’s orders, I’m sure—fetch a pencil from his jacket pocket and jot down a note.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, suspicious.
“Why, I’m just writin’ down some o’ your quaint old sayings, is all,” he told me, his faded blue eyes mocking me.
The rogue. I had believed my notations of his quaint old sayings had remained my secret. I should have known better. For all his antiquity and foul language, Mr. Lou Prophet was a canny old scalawag.
“Huh,” I said reminding myself of Sam. “My language is up to date and modern.”
“Yeah. Mine used to be,” said he. “Yours’ll be old soon enough.”
Sam laughed.
I didn’t.
The Castleton’s vanilla pudding was tasty, although I’m not sure what anyone can do to vanilla pudding to make it bad. Unless, of course, the making of same were left up to Ma or me. The ladyfingers tasted just like ladyfingers. Which is a disgusting name for a cookie, if you ask me. Very few people do ask me such important questions, which I consider a shame.
And the stupid telephone rang!
Harold stood up instantly, swallowed whatever he’d been chewing, and said, “I’ll get it.”
And he did. The rest of us sat stiff as statues at the table—well, all except Mr. Prophet, who—after he’d tucked away his pad and pencil—continued spooning up pudding as if nothing was wrong in the world. I’d have resented his attitude if I weren’t so accustomed to his strange, old-western ways by then.
We heard Harold remove the receiver from its hook and say, “Gumm-Majesty residence. No family members are available to speak right now.”
“I love Harold,” I whispered.
“He’s a good man,” said Mr. Prophet, making me blink. I already knew he didn’t disdain Harold for preferring men over women when it came to the bedroom, but I didn’t realize the old buzzard actually thought of Harold as a good man.
“Yes,” said Sam, to my further astonishment, “he is.”
Well, I’ll be blowed, as Mr. Prophet occasionally said. Still not quite sure what it meant, but I believe I used it properly just then.
“One moment, please,” we heard Harold say.
Every eye in the room directed its gaze to Harold’s form when it appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. He walked a little farther into the room and said, “It’s Mrs. Zollinger, Daisy. She said she wants to talk to you about your exercise class.”
I stared at Harold, my mind a blank. “My…what?”
With a shrug, Harold said, “She said you know all about it, but she wants to go over some details with you about it. The exercise class.”
“Oh.” It all came back to me. That wretched exercise class. “Darn it.”
“Better take it,” advised Sam. “We don’t want to advertise the family’s distress. The fewer people who know, the easier it will be—well, the easier it may be—to find Vi. Anyway, you might learn something from one of the church ladies.
And yet, once more my Voodoo juju sent a spike of heat through my chest. Blast the thing! But it motivated me to rise from my chair and walk up to Harold. If my stupid juju was trying to tell me something, I’d by-golly listen to it!
What a silly thing to say.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
My confusion virtually total by the time I reached the telephone—I had to swerve past a sea of white-clad waiter-type people to do so—I put on a cheery, but spiritualistic, voice when I said, “Hey, Lucy, what’s this about the class?” I watched as Harold strolled back to the dining room, also dodging waiters.
“Hey, Daisy. Sorry to interrupt your evening, but Mrs. Dermott said she’s bringing a Victrola to the church tomorrow at noon, and she wondered if you and I could begin teaching the exercise class then.”
“Tomorrow?” I said in a faint voice. What the heck day was tomorrow? What was today, for heaven’s sake?
“Yes. Tuesday at noon seemed to be the time favored by Mrs. Dermott and Miss Betsy Powell.” I swear I heard Lucy’s eyes rolling in their sockets. Miss Betsy Powell had a debilitating effect on a whole lot of people.
Anyway, Lucy cleared the what-day-it-was problem. “Um…” What did I have to do tomorrow? Get a private line at the telephone company. Maybe go to Mrs. Bissel’s house and talk to Dennis Bissel and his new chauffeur—if Sam would let me.
If Sam would let me? Nertz to that. I’d darned well visit Mrs. Bissel if I darned well wanted to.
Oh, Lord, I hoped Sam found his idiotic nephew and Vi before the end of Tuesday!
“Daisy?” said Lucy, her voice losing some of its pep. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh, no! I’m sorry, Lucy. I was just thinking about what I have to do tomorrow.”
“That’s right. You’re not a woman of leisure, are you?”
“No, I’m not. Neither is Regina Petrie, and she’s also interested in the exercise class.”
“Oh.” Lucy sounded confused. “I don’t believe I know Miss…Petrie, did you say her name is?”
“Yes. Regina Petrie. She’s a librarian at the Pasadena Public Library and a dear friend of mine. She’s also interested in attending an exercise class, but I haven’t spoken to her about a day or a time yet.”
“It would be nice to bring in some ladies who don’t attend our church,” said Lucy in a pleased tone. “We can invite others to the class, and more women can benefit from it, too. Why, we might even bring our church membership up!”
Crumb, I hoped Lucy didn’t intend to proselytize at the pesky exercise class!
“If they’re able to attend at noon or one on Tuesdays,” I reminded her. Then I added, “Regina Petrie and her fiancé, Robert Browning, both attend First Presbyterian,” so Lucy wouldn’t get any ideas that might drive poor Regina away.
What was I thinking? I wanted to get away from the exercise class!
“Oh,” Lucy said, sounding vaguely disappointed. “Well, that’s all right.”
“Yes. First Presbyterian is a fine church. But I’ll have to ask Regina about a day and time suitable to her schedule.”
“Yes. I didn’t even think about the schedules of working women. But Miss Betsy Powell works for the chemical company, and she said she can make it. Do you think you could telephone your friend and find out? If tomorrow doesn’t work, perhaps Wednesday?”
“Tomorrow won’t work for me. I already have a full day scheduled,” I told her.
“Oh, Well, maybe Wednesday then.”
I thought of something else. “What do you plan to wear as we exercise? Do you still have your gym bloomers and blouse from high school? I think mine are tucked away in a cardboard box in the basement, although I haven’t seen them for nearly ten years.”
“Oh, dear. I forgot all about what we should wear.”
Lucy wasn’t big on thinking.
Shame on me! I shouldn’t be so mean about people.
“But that’s a good idea,” she said before I could ask her forgiveness for thinking of her as dull and insipid, even though I hadn’t told her I did. It was probably just as well. “Maybe you can call your friend, and I’ll telephone the other church ladies who are interested, and we can figure out what kind of clothes to wear. I think my mother used to purchase my blouse and bloomers at Nash’s.”
“I made my own,” I told her. T’was but the truth.
“Of course, you did.” I heard a smile in Lucy’s voice.
“Very well, then. Perhaps we can postpone our first class until Wednesday? Maybe one o’clock? I’ll call Regina and ask her what time would be good for her, and if one isn’t good for her, I’ll telephone you. Um…how about I ring you tomorrow and confirm Wednesday at one? Will you be home?”
“Yes. That would be perfect. Thank you, Daisy.”
“Of course. Thanks, Lucy.”
I don’t have a clue why I was thanking her, but it seemed the polite thing to do. Anyway, she hung up the ’phone on her end, and I was about to do likewise, when a perfectly hideous Brooklyn accent smote my ears.
“What’s this about an exercise class at your church? You go to the Methodist Church on the corner of Marengo and Colorado, don’t you? Mind if I come?”
Tomorrow, first thing, I aimed to head to the telephone company and get a private line.
But I told Mrs. Barrow we’d be pleased to have her come to our exercise class.
What was one more lie added to the multitude of them already weighing down my soul?