Fatal, Family, Album

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Bartending skills?” I had no idea what he was on about. “You aren’t going to make drinks for the interns, are you?”

  “Certainly not. But I do plan to practice my drink-concocting skills on you, Lee, and Clancy. I need to polish my pour.”

  He winked at me and disappeared into the back room.

  A part of me wanted to ask questions. What exactly would he be mixing for us? Would the drinks all be alcoholic? Was it rude to drink in front of the interns? The practical part of me suggested that I accept my good fortune and move on down the highway. If I didn’t have to pay for the help, and if warm bodies were here who could make the grunt work go faster, all good, right?

  Time to tackle the embroidery flosses. A job I couldn’t delegate. A total pain in the backside. And a section that Margit or Brawny typically counted because both of them knew the threads and colors better than I. I started with the neutrals, white, off-white, grays, and blacks.

  After I finished those, I moved on to the browns. My head was spinning with thoughts about Nancy Owens, vanishing rhinos, gender identities gone amuck, and my AWOL daughter. When I fingered a denim blue, the same shade as Anya’s eyes, a lump crowded my throat. How was I going to get my daughter back? How could we help her get over her feelings about Brawny? Would she ever come home, short of getting Jennifer to kick her out?

  I kept counting packages of embroidery floss while the uber-organized Clancy settled our new helpers into specific areas of the store.

  Jeff presented me with a frosty martini glass. “Would you prefer a lemon drop martini or a Cosmos?”

  “Lemon drop martini?” It came out as a question, not a request, but Jeff raced away and came back with a silver decanter that he shook to a marimba beat. “Cha-cha-cha,” he sang while moving his hips to a Latin beat. “Behold, my first lemon drop martini. Try it, won’t you? Tell me if it’s too tart or too sweet?”

  “I haven’t had much booze. Just glasses of wine at Shabbat since Ty was born,” I said, “and a little whisky last night at Brawny’s insistence.” I hoped that didn’t make me sound like a lush.

  “A year without spirits makes one weak,” quipped Jeff.

  “You aren’t breastfeeding are you?” Clancy asked.

  “Yes, I am, but I’m also expressing milk. He’s happy with me or his bottle, although he prefers me. Ty is a regular chow hound. Detweiler keeps threatening to feed him pizza. But Brawny told me that alcohol does not get into your milk, and she would know. She’s studied such things.” I sniffed the drink in my hand. The color was a delicious pastel yellow. The fragrance reminded me of summer, and on this cold day, that alone boosted my mood. The sugar around the rim sparkled like diamonds, leaving the single slice of lemon to stand out like a jewel in a necklace. One taste and I was hooked.

  “This tastes terrific!” I leaned against the wall space between the racks of paper. The alcohol took all the pent up tension in my body and released it.

  Lee giggled. “Lucky for you, he has to practice making a lot of these and making them fast, to keep up with the demand.”

  “That’s an easy cocktail. Wait until you see the fancy-schmancy drink I’ll be making next. Prepare to be dazzled.” Jeff reached into the reusable grocery bag and withdrew a Tupperware container full of lemon peel cut into strips. Next, he pulled out a cigarette lighter. Holding the peel, he warmed it by waving the flame up and down the piece. With a deft gesture, he squeezed the peel. A burst of oil shot out – and like a fire eater in a circus, the liquid ignited with a dramatic whoosh.

  “Good show!” Clancy applauded.

  Jeff rubbed the peel around the rim of a glass and mixed another drink. Clancy reached for it and after taking a sip, pronounced it, “Excellent. I’ve never seen that trick with the oil. Pretty flashy. May I try it?”

  “Sure.” Jeff took her through the steps. When the oil ignited, Clancy crowed with delight.

  “You try it,” Jeff urged me.

  “I’m not into tricky moves.” Backing away, I put up two hands to emphasize my reluctance.

  “Come on, Kiki.” Clancy had finished her drink. “I want another of these. Help Jeff out.”

  “How can you ignore a plea like that?” Jeff handed me the peel. Holding one end in my fingertips, I warmed the skin with the lighter. When Jeff nodded, I squeezed the peel and flicked the lighter.

  To my joy, the lemon oil burst into flame. To my chagrin, the blast of fire surprised me. I lost my grasp on the peel, flinging it into the air.

  It landed on the tower of paper.

  “Where’s the fire extinguisher?” Clancy slurred her words.

  Smoke alarms shrieked so loudly I couldn’t hear her. “The what?”

  Drops of water ran down my nose. In my inebriated state, I wiped them off and stared in wonder at the wet spot on my hand. But not for long. The sprinkler system kicked into action. Water gushed from the metal heads overhead.

  Six interns converged on the center of my store. “This isn’t a drill. Get out. Go on,” I yelled as I pointed them toward the front door.

  “Go outside. I’ve got this under control. Kids? Outside. Everyone. Now.” The ever resourceful Jeff had located my fire extinguisher, which had been mounted on the support beam six feet to my right. With the grace of a man who knew what he was doing, he swept the foam mixture up and down.

  “Come on, Kiki,” Clancy tugged on my right arm and Lee tugged on the left.

  “It’s melting, awwww…” I did my best Wicked Witch of the West imitation.

  “Not funny.” Clancy glared at me. “Not even remotely amusing. You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

  “A little,” I admitted while Lee held the door open for me.

  “Out! Out!” Jeff shooed me toward the exit. “Lee? Get her out of here, please.” With Clancy’s help and Lee’s encouragement, I staggered onto our sidewalk as two firetrucks and an ambulance showed up.

  CHAPTER 11

  As promised, Jennifer Moore tapped on the store’s back door promptly at noon. She took one look at me, squinted, and looked harder. “What on earth happened to you? Two different shoes. A black smudge on your face. I think you’ve hit a new personal grooming low.”

  “Long story. Come on in and I’ll tell you. Especially if you brought food.”

  She held up a brown paper bag with the St. Louis Bread Co. logo on the front.

  “That just happens to be the magic password. Enter,” and I executed a sweeping bow to usher my friend inside. As I moved, my feet made squishy noises. The sprinkler had filled my shoes with water. Wet shoes are ever pleasant, and highly undesirable on a cold winter day.

  “Now that Jennifer is here, I’m going to run errands. I’ll be back.” Clancy shrugged on her Burberry coat and wrapped her scarf around her neck.

  I seriously doubted that she had errands to run. She was probably being polite and giving me some privacy. As Clancy shut the door behind her, I turned my full attention to Jennifer.

  Snowflakes dotted the shoulders of her dark green coat, and her high-heeled Steve Madden boots left wet marks on the floor. “Brrr,” she said, as she tugged off a pair of dark green leather gloves. “Cold and getting colder. I love this time of year. Is that smoke I smell?”

  I fought the urge to say, “I hate it,” although I do. I’ll never appreciate cold weather, even when a fresh snowfall blankets the ground in such a poetic way as it had this morning. On the other hand, I love living in St. Louis, and that means I have to put up with our extreme weather. Face-slapping cold like now, and in the summer we get muggy heat. You don’t stay here for the climate, I guess. However, once you realize how much the area has to offer in terms of culture, art, wildlife, beauty, history, and education, you’re more than willing to overlook the shortcomings of temperature and humidity.

  “What is that black mark on your face? Are you planning to start teaching face painting?” she asked, moving closer so she could see it better. After examining me up close and personal, she set the paper bag on the brea
k table.

  My eyes stayed glued to the bag. I was starving. “It’s probably just soot on my nose. Can we eat?”

  “Not until you tell me what happened.” She pulled off her cashmere scarf and pulled up a chair. Her perfectly made-up face must have been quite a contrast to my make-up free but sooty skin.

  “I set a rack of paper on fire.” My chin trembled.

  “How on earth did you manage to do that?”

  “I’d been drinking.”

  Her eyes opened so wide that her lashes looked like spiders against her skin. “Drinking? Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “By yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm,” she said with a nod. “Okay. I get the drinking part. You’ve had a bit of a shock with Brawny and all. And yes, before you ask, Anya told me everything. I don’t understand where the fire comes in. Did you light up a joint to relax?”

  I was shocked. “No!”

  “Was there a candle-lighting ceremony that got out of hand?” Jennifer looked honestly perplexed, and I was having a difficult time forming coherent thoughts.

  “There was no ceremony. Jeff Alderton was teaching me to make fancy cocktails.”

  “Really? I thought you were taking inventory. Instead, you were taking bartending lessons? What drinks were you making? Let me guess. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes? Hot Stuff? Blue Blazes?”

  “You laugh, but Jeff was practicing to be a celebrity bartender.”

  “Why would you need a celebrity bartender here?”

  This conversation was taking on “Who’s on First” aspects. I made the universal time-out symbol with my hands and suggested that I begin at the beginning. Jennifer listened carefully. I concluded my recitation with, “I was curious about how Jeff set the lemon peel on fire, and so he showed me. But I’d had a lemon drop martini first, so maybe I wasn’t as careful as I should have been.

  “Right.” Jennifer’s mouth formed a capital “O.” After a deep inhale and exhale, she added, “Well. Setting your store on fire is a very unoriginal way to get out of doing inventory. As your unofficial-official business advisor, I wouldn’t ever recommend it. I think you’ve figured that out already. Before you eat, show me the damages.”

  She did a slow tour of the store, taking in all the damage and shaking her head. “Drinking fancy cocktails. Lighting lemon peels. Setting inventory on fire. Wow, and it isn’t even noon. You have been a very, very busy girl.” Jennifer started giggling and couldn’t stop. “They don’t teach this in business school. No way.”

  When she got control of herself, she did a quick circuit of the store. “Not too bad. I’d say fifty percent of your paper is ruined. But we’d been discussing cutting that inventory and freeing up your space.”

  Yes, we had. I still dearly love scrapbooking. Really I do. However, the hottest trend is altered journals, and tiny altered scenes. Fairy houses and fairy doors are big. So are fairy gardens. Jennifer and I had looked over my figures. Scrapbooking was barely recouping its expenses. “The beauty of your business is that you are small and nimble,” she’d said. “Sit down with your crew and brainstorm ways you can keep up with the on-point trends. Too many business owners fall into the trap of thinking of their businesses written in stone. This isn’t one of the Ten Commandments. You don’t have to revere every item you’ve ever sold. Be a trendsetter.”

  Down in Florida, my friend Cara Mia Delgatto was doing all kinds of cool stuff. They’d started a weekly Coloring Club for adults. One of her employees made miniatures. Another taught DIY classes. As much as I hated to admit it to Jennifer, she was right: Scrapbooking had evolved. More and more people scrapbooked digitally. They kept their photos on their phones.

  Yet at the same time, the love for all things handmade had never ever been stronger. It was as if we were surrounded by digital this and digital that, and we had this very primal craving for what we could touch, stroke, and hold.

  “I don’t even know how to file an insurance claim,” I said, pulling off one shoe and dumping out the water.

  “I can help you with the claim.” Jennifer gave me a hug. “I’ve also got the phone number of a service that cleans up messes like this.”

  I covered my face with my hands and burst into tears.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Jennifer gave me a side-hug. I got a good whiff of her Prada perfume. It smelled a lot better than the burnt paper. “It’ll all be fine. This might have been the best thing that could have happened. It frees you to move on down the highway.”

  “I d-d-don’t care about the p-p-paper. I’m worried about Anya,” I said, between sobs.

  “Yeah, I figured as much. Come on. Let’s go sit down in the back. You can eat the lunch I brought you while we have a talk. Mind if I help myself to coffee?”

  All my friends know that I buy beans from Kaldi’s, a local purveyor of fabulous coffee. I’ve tried to cheap-out and buy whatever is on sale at the grocery store or Walmart, but that never works. Everyone notices and no one is happy when I do. The circuit breakers had turned off when the sprinklers went on, but I’d reset them and brewed fresh coffee because I knew Jennifer would be here.

  “Of course I don’t mind. You can drink all the coffee you want. I already owe you for the lunch. Seeing as how you’re feeding and housing my daughter, help yourself. While you do, let me call Brawny and see how the boys are doing.”

  It was a quick conversation. The boys were resting, and Brawny had gotten Erik to drink chicken broth and ginger ale, while Ty drank a little Pedialyte from his bottle. Today was one of those moments, I was happy that I’d accustomed my infant son both to the bottle and to breastfeeding. I thanked the nanny and turned my attention to Jennifer.

  “It’s going to be all right. Your daughter is processing emotionally heavy information. An overload.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise. You remember how stressed out I was when I decided to tell my husband that our son is gay.”

  Yes, I remembered that well. It marked the start of our real friendship because I stood by Jennifer and supported her. However, the situations were different. Vastly so. I blurted out, “But Stevie is your son, and you already knew he was gay. So it wasn’t exactly a shock. This is different. Brawny is the caregiver to our kids. This was a total curveball for all of us. We had no idea.”

  Jennifer looked at me curiously. “No idea that she once was a he, right? Anya was light on the details.”

  Jennifer looked over our stunning selection of mugs with sayings on them. This has become one of those inside jokes that makes Time in a Bottle a gathering spot for friends. People keep bringing us mugs with messages on them. The trend began when my friend and former cleaning lady, Mert Chambers, brought me a cup that said, “No more Mrs. Nice Guy!” Since then we’ve added everything from, “Sometimes I wake up GRUMPY and sometimes I let him sleep” to “As long as I get my own way, I’m totally flexible.” Those crazy, silly mugs have become a way for us to signal our moods, our politics, and our intentions.

  Jennifer held up the mug she’d chosen and admired the slogan: “When life hands you lemons, you still need sugar and water to make lemonade. Or maybe even a lemon-drop martini, eh?”

  “Is that a message directed at me?”

  “Yes, it is.” Jennifer used a paper towel and wiped off a chair before sitting down. I thought I’d gotten them all dry, but I hadn’t. She kept talking. “Like I said, Anya was light on the details about Brawny. I’m not asking you to reveal any personal secrets, but it might help me if I knew more.”

  I explained about Brawny’s “birth defect.” Jennifer’s eyes narrowed, and she seemed increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, I put my turkey and Cheddar sandwich down and said, “You look upset. Upset with me.”

  “Well…” She hesitated. “I’m trying to be fair to you. I’ve learned so much about gender assignment issues because of Stevie’s involvement with the LGBTQ community. I’m surprised you’re not better informed. Then I remind myself, this has bee
n my life since Stevie came out. I feel for Brawny, and of course, I feel for you. All your reactions are understandable, but this isn’t the Kiki Lowenstein I know and love. I suspect your feelings about Brawny are tangled up in Anya’s reaction and that lingering post-partum depression you’ve been struggling with.”

  Her implied criticism stung, and I reacted angrily. “You aren’t the one who discovered a transvestite was living under your roof, and that you, as the responsible parent you think you are, didn’t have a clue!”

  “Transvestite?” Jennifer echoed. “She isn’t a transvestite, Kiki. You need to get your facts right. Brawny isn’t a person who’s driven to dress in the clothes usually worn by the opposite gender. She was born with an unusual physical appearance. Then she was assigned a gender that did not match who she was, gender-wise. This situation was and is entirely out of her control. You don’t seriously think that anyone would choose this for herself, do you? What if Anya had been born with the same problems as Brawny?”

  Before I could answer, she continued in an increasingly passionate voice, “Can you imagine the misery that Brawny has endured? Being forced to act like someone she wasn’t? Can you imagine what it would be like when such a fundamental part of you is at odds? Put yourself in Brawny’s shoes. What if you’d grown up with parents who kept telling you that you were a boy? How would that mess with your head?”

  I felt instantly and totally ashamed. “I hadn’t looked at it that way. I tried, but I got all caught up in Anya being upset, and then in the boys getting sick. I just didn’t have enough empathy to go around. I am trying, Jennifer. I really am. This is all so new to me.”

  “I guess.” Jennifer pulled away from me. I could hear the disappointment in her voice.

  Not only is her oldest child Stevie gay, but Jennifer’s older brother was gay, too. Her father’s lack of understanding drove Phil to join the service. He died three months later while in Vietnam.

  “If you found out Brawny was gay, would you let her go?” Jennifer stirred her coffee gently, taking care not to slosh any of it over the side of the cup.