Steamed

demanded, “spill it. What the hell is your car doing in Cambridge?”
    “Hell! Hell!” Walker chirped from the backseat.
    “Dammit, I have to stop swearing in front of the kids. Walker, don’t say that word, please. Mommy shouldn’t have said that. And, Jesus, don’t say it in front of your grandparents.”
    “Jesus! Jesus!” Walker echoed.
    “I’ll just have to tell Mom and Dad he’s an extremely religious child,” Heather sighed. “Okay, Chloe. Go.”
    I caught my cursing sister up on Eric and Josh and the whole murder investigation. With the kids in the car, however, I had to spell out a lot of the story to avoid having Walker scream “dead body” or “sexy kisser” in front of my parents.
    When we reached my car, I’d finished feeding Heather most of the story. With an exasperated look, she warned, “We’re not done talking about this. I don’t like the idea of you hanging out with this Josh character.” Heather’s bad attitude and the two orange parking tickets on my car couldn’t kill my giddy mood. I started the engine and followed Heather to Newton.
    Heather and I had grown up in a white Spanish-style house on Farlow Road. Both of my parents, Bethany and Jack Carter, were professional landscapers and had created an incredible outdoor utopia with raised garden beds, cobbled pathways, and stucco walls. Vegetables, flowers, shrubs, and berry bushes and vines left little room for a lawn, and each year the few patches of grass that remained became smaller and smaller, overtaken by new plantings. My parents had published a successful series of books for the home gardener and spent much of their time testing out new ideas in their own yard.
    Heather pulled out her key and let us all in the front door. Heather and I had been out of the house for so many years that our bedrooms had been taken over and turned into greenhouses. The outside of my parents’ house was a shrine to taste and style, but the inside was a ghastly display of my mother’s obsession with hideous craft projects.
    “Lord, what has she done now?” Heather wondered aloud as we entered the living room. “Well, Chloe, at least we know where you got your warped decorating sense.”
    A series of wreaths made of yarn and silk flowers adorned the main wall. I stared at a particularly garish wreath constructed entirely of fake sunflowers. “Why couldn’t Mom have discovered a less obtrusive hobby, like jewelry making or scrapbooking? Why has she become obsessed with objects that have to be displayed?”
    “Just be happy she hadn’t discovered wreaths when we lived here. Could you imagine bringing your friends over to see this garbage?”
    “There are my babies!” Mom shrieked as she ran into the room, followed by our father, who was busy rolling his eyes and pointing to the new wall hangings. “I’ve missed my girls so much!” Tanned and fresh looking from their vacation in Acadia National Park, my parents showered us with hugs and kisses and immediately whipped out presents for the two kids.
    In typical sister-ratting-out-sister style, Heather proceeded to announce, “Guess what Chloe’s done? She’s going out with the man suspected of murdering the blind date she had last week!”
    “Jesus!” Walker said.
    “Thank you, Heather,” I said. “And Walker.”
    “What in the world are you talking about?” Mom said.
    How many times am I going to have to retell this? Can’t we all just focus on the news that I may have just met my future husband?
    “Heather left out a few details. Josh, the guy I’m going out with, is a very unlikely suspect,” I said.
    After I had yet again given the short version of the date-and-murder debacle, my father asked, “So the food stinks? Bethany, cancel the reservations we made at Essence for next week with the Morrisons.”
    “Definitely,” my mother agreed. “But you’re going to Magellan on Friday?”
    “I know! Can you believe it?” I squealed.
    “Have you all lost it?” Heather said. “This Josh person shouldn’t be at the top of Chloe’s dating list right now. He shouldn’t be on it at all. He could be a murderer!”
    “Oh, please, Heather. You’re so paranoid. Chloe wouldn’t go out with a murderer—she has excellent judgment. Besides, chefs hack up food, not people,” Mom said. “And you’re the one who sent her on this Back Bay Dates date with this poor Eric. You’re the one who started the ball rolling.”
    Heather defended herself. “Are we all