The Tea Party - A Novel of Horror by Charles L. Grant Page A

already past thirty and I’ll be home by midnight. It isn’t my fault I can’t get a sitter on such short notice.”
    “A sitter? Mother, you’ve got to be kidding. I would just die if Mary ever found out. God, Mother, please promise you won’t tell her you were thinking about a sitter.”
    “If you don’t want a sitter, you’ll be home before dark, and you’ll look out for your brother.”
    “Great. That’s just great.”
    She turned and saw with a start the girl she used to be, and not for the first time felt a little ill at ease. Despite her slender, not quite sexless figure, Heather could have been her at every age since birth.
    The girl smiled suddenly, all teeth and dimples, and ran into the room to hug her mother snugly. “I know, Mom. It’s just that it’s summer, y’know?”
    “I do know,” she said gently. “Believe it or not, the mother really does know.”
    Then she kissed her daughter’s forehead and shooed her out while she finished dressing—short-sleeve print blouse, cotton slacks, and sandals on her bare feet. And as she examined and criticized her mimicking reflection, she tried to reach some conclusions about her relationship with Clark.
    He was certainly handsome enough, and through all his occupational bombast he occasionally let slip more than a thin slice of wit. He had money, position, and was thinking of making a run for the State Senate next year, a run he would very likely complete successfully. But what else was there? He was generous, and tried very hard to make friends with the kids; yet there was a reserve in his manner, a puzzling distance she’d not been able to bridge. She had never discovered what really made him tick. When it came right down to it, she really didn’t know Clark Davermain well at all.
    He certainly, most definitely, wasn’t Douglas Muir.
    “Lizzy,” she told her reflection as a brush passed fast and hard through her hair, “it’s about time you either fish or cut bait.” She leaned closer to the mirror. “If you don’t love the man, don’t do it. The kids are doing fine, and Doug won’t be a monk forever.”
    She jumped then when someone slammed the front door on the way out and grimaced at the mess she’d made of her lipstick. A tissue for correction, and she stood back and sighed.
    For slightly more than a year after Ron’s death she had locked herself away in this split-level, thin-walled mausoleum and watched her world fall apart by splinters and chips until she could no longer stand the sight of herself in the morning. Then Keith wet his bed once too often, and when she had raised an hysterical hand to administer a spanking she saw Heather in the doorway, thumb in her mouth. Seven years old, in second grade, with her thumb in her mouth.
    Ron was dead. He wasn’t coming back. She was trained to be a lawyer, and there was no looking back.
    But it wasn’t until a year later that she had whipped up her courage and had gone out on her first date. She felt like a fool. All she had talked about was her late husband, and all he talked about was his job. It was another six months, on her birthday, before she went out again. She had a quiet party with the kids, got a sitter, and went down to the Depot for a drink with Judith Lockhart and her brother.
    It was the first time she met Doug, and the first time she realized that while she wasn’t actively hunting for a man, she wouldn’t have minded a bit if he had taken her back to the Hollow, stripped off her clothes, and ravaged her in the yard. The feeling had been so strong, she’d excused herself and ran all the way home and found herself in a cold shower, laughing hysterically, and crying.
    Since then she hadn’t exactly been a nun; on the other hand, she had never had more than a handful of dinners at the Shade Tree with him, and not once had he ever asked her to join him for a nightcap. The only consolation was the fact—carefully gleaned by roundabout interrogation—that Judith was