inflated ideas about what our daily cuisine would be: and also not so difficult that I ruined it. We'd gotten at least five cookbooks as wedding presents, and I mildly looked forward to our eating our way through them. I sat in our little family room and watched the news, reading through our backlog of magazines during the ads. Then I wrote some more thank-you's, managing to acknowledge over half the gifts that had arrived in our absence. When I walked to the end of the drive to put the notes in the mailbox, I noticed for the first time that the Youngbloods had put up their own mailbox. That made sense, since we had the same address; it was a problem I hadn't thought of before, and here it was already solved. I ambled back up the drive, looking idly through the load of bills and occupant notices and free samples I'd found in the box. As we'd decided in our premarital counseling, I would be responsible for paying the month-to-month bills from our joint account, into which Martin and I each deposited a predetermined amount from our separate incomes. So I pulled out our brand-new joint checkbook, paid the bills, and signed the checks "Aurora Teagarden."
Okay, okay. I'd kept my name, that absurd and ridiculous name that had been my bane my whole life. When it got right down to it, I just couldn't become anyone else. Martin had had a hard time about that, but I had a gut feeling I was right. When I feel like that, I am fairly immovable. And I can't tell you how much better it made me feel. I had my own money, I had my own friends and family, I had my own name. I was one lucky woman, I told myself as I sliced strawberries.
Martin opened the front door and yelled gleefully, "Hi, honey! I'm home!"
I started laughing.
I was actually able to turn from the sink and say, "Hello, dear. How did your day go?" just like a sitcom mom.
I was one lucky, uneasy woman.
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING, on a whim, I went to Peachtree Leisure Apartments, a sort of independent old folks' home, as Neecy Dawson had so cheerfully pointed out. I'd been there before to visit various people, but not in a long time. There'd been a few changes. Before, there'd been a directory in the large lobby, and you could just walk in and take the elevator to the floor you needed. Now, there was a very large black man with a narrow mustache seated at a desk, and the directory was gone. There was a television camera pointed from one corner that embraced almost the whole lobby area.
"They was getting robbed," the man explained when I asked about the change. "People was coming in here, reading a name and apartment number, and just wandering through the building till they found who they wanted. They'd sell them magazines the old people didn't need, if they thought the old person was senile enough, or they'd just rob them if the old folks were feeble. So now I am here. And at night, from five until eleven, there's another man. Now, who did you come to see?"
Somewhat shaken at this picture he painted of wolves roaming the halls in Peachtree Leisure Apartments, I told him I'd come to see Mrs. Melba Totino. "She expecting you, Miss?"
"Mrs. No, Ms." What was I going to call myself? He was eyeing me warily. "No, Mrs. Totino isn't expecting me. I just came to thank her for the wedding present."
"She gave you something?" The brown eyes widened in a burlesque of surprise.
"You must be a friend."
"I take it this is unusual?"
But after his little joke, he wasn't going to say anything else.
"I'll call her, if you just wait a minute," he said. He picked up the phone, dialed, and told Melba Totino about my presence in the lobby. She would see me.
"Go on up," he said. "She don't get too many visitors." The elevator smelled like a doctor's office, like rubbing alcohol and disinfectant and cold steel. The guard had told me there was a physician's assistant actually in residence; and of course a doctor on call. There was a cafeteria in the building for those who "enrolled" for that service, and groceries could be delivered from one of the local stores. Everything was very clean, and the lobby had been dotted with old people who at least looked alert and