Free Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes Page B

man was thinking deeply and finally said—he was really incredible—“No one answered. Ain’t no one answered her, right?”
    The Woods were almost gleeful, both of them. “Yuh, yuh,” said Ubub.
    “So if this Mary-Evan person talked,” the old man went on with authority, “nobody talked back, nobody answered her.” He spat a stream of tobacco again, wiped the back of his hand over his mouthand looked at his shoes. “That poor little girl must’ve had the blue devils.”
    “What’s the blue devils?” I asked.
    Mr. Root pursed his lips, thinking. “Some call it the de -pression, like. I call it the worst kind of misery. Misery’s misery.” Then he was silent, as if he knew.

NINE
    I should have known better than to tell anyone about my exchange with the Woods, but I was so wrought up about what I’d discovered that when I got back to the hotel, I did. It was during Sunday dinner.
    We were at the “family table” in the rear of the dining room. Mrs. Davidow, Ree-Jane, Will and me, and, off-and-on, my mother, when she didn’t have to dart through the swing door into the kitchen, her dinner getting cold all the while. She had so much to do at mealtimes that she often ate her dinner standing up in the kitchen.
    Lola Davidow certainly didn’t have to eat standing up; by dinnertime she was usually so “oiled and lubed” (as Will put it) that she couldn’t stand up straight, anyway. That night she was eating her steak. Filet mignon, her diet food. She’s always going on grapefruit-and-steak diets, which sounds all right until you throw in the pitcher of martinis. The rest of us were eating fried chicken, including Ree-Jane, except she always gets white meat. That’s understood, and one of the waitresses had got a real tongue-lashing from Mrs. Davidow once because she had made the unforgivable error of putting the white meat in front of me and serving the chicken leg to Ree-Jane. The plates were exchanged, but not before I got my fork prongs into that chicken breast and wrenched out a big bite.
    This is an ongoing argument for me. It makes me absolutely furious. I wouldn’t mind at all taking turns about the white meat, but to have Ree-Jane always get the favored part of the chicken was unbearable. Neither would I mind so much if my mother didn’t own that chicken, so to speak, for it’s she who’s the Paradise part of that “family table”(you can bet Aurora always gets white meat of chicken), and not the Davidows. Of course, Ree-Jane just gloats fit-to-kill every time fried chicken appears on the menu.
    No matter how often I point out this favoritism to her, my mother won’t do anything about it. She always says that guests prefer white meat, and she has to make sure she holds some back in case a party orders it. Well, I said, if that’s the point, then it should be held back from Ree-Jane, too. Why make a fuss about such a little thing? is always my mother’s fuming response as she bangs around the pots and pans preparing to shut down for the night. She can’t stand all of this “dissension,” she keeps saying to me. All she wants is some peace and quiet. Well, I say, all I want is some white meat of chicken.
    But this particular dinnertime I didn’t care much about the drumstick I was eating (much to Ree-Jane’s disappointment, I’m sure, for her gloating went unattended), because I was too excited about what I’d found out.
    “. . . And they said her aunts wouldn’t talk to her. Isn’t that horrible?”
    At the other end of the table, Ree-Jane was laughing, heaving with silent laughter, and I assume had been all during my account. I felt my throat tighten. “What’s so funny?”
    The laughter now was audible. The words came out, broken a little: “. . . can just (har har) hear it now. I can (har har) hear it. You (har har) and the Woods (har har) mumbling and grunting . . .”—and here she made some disgusting sounds intended to mimic Ulub and Ubub.
    Her mother shook a