Gone With a Handsomer Man by Michael Lee West Page B

to their funerals. They’d be laid out in mahogany coffins with leopard-spotted linings. Their dead selves would be dressed in formfitting black Dolce & Gabbana suits, also with a silk leopard lining. Instead of clutching little Bibles, they would hold Neiman Marcus shopping bags and iPhones.
    I would never kill a rat. What had a rat ever done to me? I’d use those live traps and call it a day. So I sure as hell wouldn’t poison those women. It’s flat impossible to poison skanks who never eat carbohydrates.

eleven
    Late that afternoon, I walked through the house, admiring how the arched windows reflected on the heart pine floors. I passed through the dining room, and my feet hit a wet spot. I skidded sideways into a mahogany lowboy. A candlestick knocked over and rolled into a puddle of water. I looked up. A stream of water trickled through the chandelier. It hit the long table and streamed over the edge, pattering to the floor.
    I ran upstairs to see if I’d left a faucet running. I hadn’t. When I opened the closet above the dining room, I saw the problem. The air conditioning unit had frozen and the tray had overflowed, leaking water through the dining room ceiling. I put a punch bowl on the table to catch the drips.
    Before I could call a repairman, Miss Dora arrived with a bottle of predinner wine. When she saw the leak, she opened her cell phone and said, “I’ll take care of this.”
    Twenty minutes later, her HVAC men showed up. While they tramped up the stairs to investigate the leak, I opened the wine and we stepped into the garden. A breeze stirred the confederate roses, and golden light fell in long stripes across the lawn. In the back, the garden was hemmed in by an old brick wall, and in the center of it was a gate that seemingly led nowhere, except to other people’s backyards. Miss Dora said the gate was original to the house, and it had once led to a kitchen. In modern times, it had allowed Uncle Elmer to trim weeds on the other side of the wall.
    “How many more hours until the deadline?” Miss Dora asked.
    “Seventeen,” I said. “I don’t guess he’ll change his mind.”
    “No, he’s pretty steamed,” she said. “You did beat him up pretty bad.”
    “Seriously?”
    “He had a black eye and a huge punk knot on his forehead, maybe the size of a jumbo egg.” She lifted her glass. “I never knew a peach could do all that. It’s a versatile fruit.”
    “I’ll say.”
    “I remember when Bing told me he’d met you. It sounded like he’d said, ‘I met a possum,’ but he’d really said, ‘I’ve met an awesome woman.’” She waved her hand, shooing a fly. “Honey, did you have a clue he was seeing two women?”
    “Not at all. I knew something was wrong. I never guessed what.”
    “Because he’s good at cheating. I watched his slow work on his first wife.”
    “Bing won’t talk about her. What happened?”
    “Gwendolyn was a stockbroker. Worked all the time. They were married three years. She didn’t catch him cheating until the end, so don’t you feel bad. You can’t outsmart a professional liar.” She waved at a fly. “The Jackson men need to be cheating on somebody or it just isn’t fun.”
    I hadn’t thought of it in those bald terms, but it made sense. He’d needed me for homemade cakes and Sunday pot roast, not entertainment.
    Miss Dora clapped her hands, then opened them, revealing a dead fly. “Little bastard,” she muttered.
    The repairman stuck his head out the back door. “The unit’s fixed,” he said. “Call if you have any problems. And I’m real sorry about the parking situation.”
    “What situation?” Miss Dora asked.
    “Your housekeeper yelled at me for parking out front,” he said. “But I won’t do it again.”
    “What housekeeper?” Miss Dora cried.
    “I probably got it wrong.” The repairman shrugged. “Maybe it was a neighbor?”
    “What did she look like?” I asked.
    “Just a lady in sunglasses and a hat.” He scratched