The nerve of that woman! Rosanne's hands were shaking as she set about cleaning up the kitchen at Schuyler Manor. Mavis and her oh-so-obvious probing had hit a nerve. Of course Rosanne remembered Mary Austin. Everybody in town remembered Mary Austin, just as they remembered the unfortunate way she had died. But for Mavis to be implying that Rosanne or anyone in Rosanne's family had anything to do with that poor woman's death--for two cents Rosanne would gladly quit working for Mavis Schuyler. It was obvious that Mavis was suggesting that Rosanne's husband Mike had something to do with Mary Austin. What else could she have meant?
Rosanne's hands stopped trembling a little bit by the time she was finished wiping down the glistening black granite counter tops. She stopped and stared down for a moment, wondering again why Mavis had chosen black granite for the kitchen. It was so grim, so bleak, so...totally Mavis.
But Mavis had also hit a nerve. Rosanne remembered a lot about Mary Austin. Especially how the woman had struck up a friendship with Mike that had gotten a little too cozy for Rosanne to feel comfortable with. Rosanne and Mike had lived a few blocks away from Mary Austin and somehow or other Mary met Mike and started asking him to come over and fix a broken window shade, help her with a chimney that smoked, chase out a bat that had gotten in her living room. She always thanked him with a beer or two and never seemed to extend an invitation to Rosanne to join them. Rosanne had always trusted Mike implicitly. Until that summer.
Stop it! You're being paranoid. Mavis only asked if you remembered her. She didn't say anything about Mike. She really didn't say anything at all.
Still, the question had unnerved Rosanne and she wanted nothing more than to go home, find her husband in his usual spot of sleeping in his recliner in front of the television set and know that everything was all right in her world.
"Hi, Rosanne." Tyler Schuyler entered the kitchen in his usual noiseless style and Rosanne jumped a good three inches into the air. "Sorry, did I startle you?"
"Tyler, you need to start wearing a bell," Rosanne replied.
Tyler laughed. "What fun would that be? You know I love to make you jump."
"One of these days I'll jump, have a heart attack and you'll have to find someone else to work for you."
"All right, I'll stop. I wouldn't want you to leave, Rosanne. It wouldn't be the same around here without you." Tyler began rummaging through the refrigerator for something to eat. He pulled out a bowl of leftover pasta and set it on the table. "What's this?" he asked, picking up a newspaper.
"I don't know." Rosanne looked over his shoulder. It was one of the tabloids and looked old. Funny, she hadn't noticed it lying on the table before.
"Geez, why is this here? It's from the 90s." Tyler pulled the paper open to a large color photograph of Burt Reynolds snarling at Loni Anderson. "Who left this here?"
Rosanne shook her head. "I don't have the faintest idea."
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