Electric Blue - Nancy Bush Jane Kelly

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      “Have a chair,” Jazz said to me. He touched my elbow and gestured to a small sofa. A white crocheted antimacassar lay across its back, which was pretty strange since the sofa was that bright sky blue so popular in the 1950s—satellite blue—and its frame and design were contemporary to the extreme. It was the Victorian age meets mid-twentieth-century space age.

      And the damned thing was hard as cement.

      I shot another glance over at Logan, envying the fact he was in his own world. The tinny music kind of pissed me off. Its little beeps and whistles started sounding a lot like someone singsonging nanny, nanny, nanny…

      In the strained silence that followed, Jazz threw a glance toward Logan, before saying to me. “Maybe we should leave you two alone,” he said.

      “Um…no…” I smiled at him through clenched teeth.

      “You afraid to be alone with me?” Orchid questioned.

      I turned my attention to her. She was smirking. I could see it. “Mrs. Purcell, you’d be better advised—”

      “Call me Nana.”

      “—to meet with an estate lawyer.”

      She folded her hands in front of her, then, with Jazz’s help, settled herself back on her divan. “What’s your name?”

      “Jane Kelly.”

      “I’d rather talk to you.”

      “Well, okay…” She regarded me expectantly, waiting, so I added, “Nana,” though it sounded false on my tongue.

      It must have satisfied her, though, because she sent me a big smile—this one full of enjoyment. “Go on, then.” She flapped a hand at Jazz.

      “We’ll see you downstairs,” Jazz said. “Come on, Logan.”

      “Not yet. I’m almost to the end guy.”

      “Put it on pause and let’s go.”

      “Uh-uh. I wanna stay here.”

      Jazz looked a little nonplussed. He rubbed a spot just above his temple and closed his eyes, as if he were in pain. “Don’t argue…please?”

      “Fine!” Logan switched off the device and threw it onto the chair next to me. It bounced on the cushion once and slid to the floor, hitting the hardwood with a crack.

      Jazz looked pained. If Logan felt chagrined he hid it behind a sneer as he stomped from the room. Jazz followed him, closing the door softly behind them. I could hear Logan’s angry clomping on the stairway until he reached the first floor and it faded away.

      I was left with Nana.

      She said, “I shouldn’t feel this way, but Logan’s my favorite.”

      Her face shone with love.

      Maybe she was crazy.

      An hour and a half later I was back at my cottage and desperately in need of a drink. I didn’t care whether it had alcohol in it or not. Water would be fine. I just wanted to pour something down my throat and close my eyes.

      I called Dwayne and listened to his drawl on the answering machine. He might be home, he might not. He feels no compulsion to answer his phone while I can never hear a ringing phone without dashing to pick it up. Many times I’ve had to hold myself back. Sometimes you just know it’s a telemarketer.

      “Dwayne, come get me,” I said after the beep. “By boat or car, I don’t care. I need to talk to you about the Purcells.”

      I was in the process of hanging up when he clicked on. “I got my boat docked in front of the house.”

      “Well, bring it on over.”

      His compliance was a grunt.

      Dwayne’s cabana does have a boathouse and a lift, the latter being rusted and scary, kind of like huge metal teeth floating just below the water’s surface, so it’s not really usable. Consequently, he docks his boat at one of the easements around the lake. It’s not too far from his place, so it doesn’t delay him much, but having it currently parked right out in front shaved off at least twenty minutes.

      When he thrummed the thing into my boat slip—one of the benefits of renting from that skinflint Ogilvy—Binks tore down the steps before I could hoist my bag onto my shoulder. She danced and paced on the shore outside, waiting for a leg up, so to speak.

      “Well, get in,” Dwayne told her. The whining started full force. Dwayne pointed to the back of the boat, which was wide and flat, upholstered in tuck and roll. Finally Binks jumped aboard, unable to get a better offer, and scratched at Dwayne’s leg. He settled the dog in his lap.

      They were happily greeting each other when I stepped into the boat, rocking it gently with my weight. Dwayne loves my dog. He pretends that he just likes her, but he’s a worse sucker than I am. He just won’t cop to it. I sometimes don’t know how to feel about it. I’m both pleased and anxious. Like I’m worried they’ll like each other better than either one of them will like me? This is so pathetic I can scarcely let my mind touch on it.

      “So, ya went out there, huh?” Dwayne said, reversing and guiding the boat toward the entrance from West Bay to the main lake. A narrow bridge defines West Bay on the east end. Though it’s high enough to allow boaters to stand as you pass beneath it, I always have the sensation of ducking my head and pulling my arms in.

      “Yep.” I was seated in the passenger chair. Binks kept one eye on me, glancing at the floor of the boat and up again. She was measuring the distance, wondering if she should be on my lap instead. I ignored her, a bit miffed at the joy with which she received Dwayne. If she wanted to be on my lap, great, but I wasn’t going to beg for her attention.

      “They’re crazy.”

      I was tired of this pronouncement. Okay, they had their strange points, but I know a lot of people I would give wide berth to, if I could. Doesn’t mean they’re totally nuts.

      But I wanted to talk everything over with Dwayne, roll around the whole interview with “Nana,” which had been well, strange. So, magnanimously, I decided not to pick a fight with him.

      “Orchid Purcell asked me to call her Nana, so I did. With difficulty.”

      “I just never have gotten that,” Dwayne said as he pushed on the accelerator and sent the boat flying across the main lake. The water was dark green and slightly choppy from a stiff breeze. The sun shone weakly, sinking through a screen of clouds. I hunched down and Binks tucked herself under the dash by Dwayne’s feet. No fool she; Binkster knew she was going to get bounced around. “I’ve got a granny, and a daddy, and a stepmama, and a sister. I don’t need to add other people to the list, and call ’em grandma, or anything else. They’re strangers. Not blood.”

      “A stepmama isn’t blood, either,” I pointed out, intrigued. This was more information than I’d ever gotten about Dwayne’s family. I had met his sister, who was a piece of work. Her daughter, Dwayne’s niece, wasn’t much better. Luckily they lived in Seattle. Far enough away from Lake Chinook to keep them there most of the time.

      “My stepmama tried that when I was little. Wanted me to call her Mama. Make like she was gonna be my new mom.” Dwayne shot me a knowing sideways look. “Didn’t work out that way.”

      “How’d you talk her out of it?”

      “She showed up when I was about four. I ignored her till I was six. She’s just one of those kinda women.”

      “What kind?”

      “The kind that pinches you on the back of the arm in public while she’s smiling and acting like she cares about you. I refused to call her Mama, but my sister just jumped right in. I never called her nothin’ till I was fifteen. Then I called her some things I probably shouldn’t have.”

      “Such as?”

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