by Sarah Hegger
“Hello.” Daisy approached more slowly, but the look on her face no less delighted.
“Daisy, darling.” Phi dragged her great-granddaughter into a hug. “You get lovelier every time I see you. You’re going to be a great beauty, just like your mother.”
Laura huffed beside Pippa. “More importantly, Daisy, you’re going to be clever and a woman who carves her own path in life. We do not define ourselves by our looks.”
If Laura hadn’t said it, Pippa would have agreed in a heartbeat. Or maybe if Laura had said it without that carrot-up-the-ass voice going on. As it was . . . What could she do? It was bigger than she was. “She’ll never catch a rich husband like that,” she said, low enough for only Laura to hear.
“Don’t start.” Laura threw her an icy glare and stalked after her children into the house.
Pippa followed, slowly. Her conversation with Matt and Nate needed some alone time to sort.
As she entered Laura placed her capacious purse on the kitchen table. That thing was half diaper bag, half Louis V, the real kind. They could have talked accessories. But no, they’d spent their teens trying to kill each other, and their twenties staying as far away from each other as they could. And their thirties, keeping it civil in front of the children. She could do better than this. She loved Laura. They were sisters, even if they behaved like one of them was adopted.
“Nana, do you have everything you need?” Laura hauled an iPad mini from her tote. “I’ll be going to Costco later and it’s no trouble to pick something up for you.”
Phi grabbed an oriental cookie jar off the counter. “I think I’m fine and Pippa can pick up anything I need.”
“Right.” Laura gave Phi a tight smile and shoved the iPad back into her mobile command center. “Pippa is here now.” She made it sound like a bad thing. “I’ll pick the children up at five thirty.”
Not a minute before and not a minute after. Pippa approved of on time; it shouldn’t bug her that her sister was the same. She was thirty-two. Time to stop the knee-jerk, tongue-pulling reflex action when Laura was around. “Unless you’d rather pick up Phi’s things.”
“No.” Laura tossed her head. “I don’t mind doing it, but I have enough on my plate.” Laura put her bag on her shoulder. “Do you still have the toys I left here last time?”
Pippa gaped at her. Phi had a range of toys in the house. She could never pass an Internet site without ordering more.
Phi had seated Sam and Daisy at the kitchen table. She put three cookies in front of each of them. A chocolate, a peanut butter, and another one Pippa didn’t recognize but it could have been raisin.
Laura struck. Snatching up the chocolate and peanut butter, she left the other one. “Nana.” She took the jar from Phi and returned the fun cookies. “You know we only do approved snacks.”
This liking-Laura thing would be a lot easier if her sister were only marginally less of a control freak.
Sam shoved his remaining cookie into his mouth.
Laura narrowed her eyes at her son’s bulging cheeks. “You did make them to the recipe I gave you?”
Phi nodded. “Well, you know I don’t bake anything, darling girl, but I gave the recipe to June.”
“I’ll fetch the toys.” Laura slammed the cookie jar back down on the counter. “Daisy knows exactly how much time on each toy, and I wrote Sam’s play instructions out for you last time. You do still have them?”
Phi nodded, obediently. Phi being all meek and mild should have had Laura on the alert. But then, you had to know Phi, and Laura had never bothered, because it never occurred to Priss Perfect that her instructions weren’t obeyed to the letter.
Laura bustled out of the kitchen to find the approved toys. They sounded about as fun as a kick in the teeth.
“These are not the same cookies we get at home.” Daisy popped the last bite into her mouth with a little smirk.
Phi puffed up her chest. “Aren’t they? I’m sure June must have made them exactly to the recipe.”
“Uh-uh.” Daisy shook her head. She leaned toward Phi and whispered, “These have sugar in them.”
“No.” Phi leaned forward as well until their faces were inches apart. “I would never do that to your mother. June baked the cookies exactly as the recipe said.”
Pippa bit back a giggle. June was no more in favor of Laura’s mission to rid the world of the scourge of sugar than Phi. Pippa would lay her head on a block that there was even a little extra sugar in those cookies.
“Right.” Laura charged back in and dropped a wooden crate on the table. Plastic was outlawed a couple of years back. “We’re working on organizational skills and planning at the moment.”
“Why?” The question got away from Pippa before she could stop it.
Laura’s look of scorn could have seared steak. Only Pippa had been getting it for so long, she’d developed immunity. “These are necessary skills in successful homework execution and laying the foundation for studying, later on.”
“Ah.” That’s what you got when you were dumb enough to ask.
An alarm went off on Laura’s phone. “I need to go.” A gathering of gear and a few last-minute instructions and Laura was out the door. It bit her in the ass to do this, but Pippa followed her sister out to her car, the conversation with Matt and Nate still circling Pippa’s thoughts.
Laura glanced at her in surprise. “Did I forget something?”
“No.” It seemed disloyal to Phi to have this conversation, but if Phi was getting forgetful or maybe losing track of things, she was better off knowing. When she left here, when, not if, it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra eyes on Phi. Even if they were the ever-scornful eyes of Laura. “Listen, have you noticed anything strange about Phi?”
Laura snorted and blipped her alarm.
“I mean more than usual.” God, she could smack her sister sometimes. Phi was Phi, and it was a great thing to be.
“In what way?” Laura opened her car door and stood beside it with a let-me-get-out-of-here look on her face.
“I don’t know.” Careful does it with Laura. “Has she been more forgetful lately?”
Comprehension chased across Laura’s face. “You’re talking about the thing with Bets and the groceries?”
Okay, Laura knew, so it felt a bit less like talking behind Phi’s back. “Yes.”
Laura shrugged, climbed into her car, slammed the door, and opened the window a crack. “You know what she’s like, Pippa. God, you spent more time with her than you did with our mother. She’s weird.”
“Eccentric.” The correction was automatic.
“Whatever.” Laura pushed the starter button and her car purred to life. “Call Mom.”
Laura’s car wound down the long drive and disappeared through the tall stand of trees surrounding the gate.
Inside the kitchen, Phi was queen of misrule. Sitting at the kitchen table with Sam and Daisy unpacking the offerings in the crate. Looked like a total yawn to Pippa. Not a Barbie to dress up or a Ninja Turtle in the whole thing.
“You know what?” Phi sat back in her chair and tapped the edge of her chin. “I have an idea.”
Sam’s and Daisy’s faces lit up. Phi’s ideas were always the gateway to a whole load of fun. “We’re working on organizational skills, and they’re very important.” She eyed Daisy and Sam in turn. “We should organize my costume wardrobe. The thing is an absolute mess.”
Dress up! Pippa’s favorite game with Phi, and by the way Sam hopped on his chair, his too. Daisy tried not to look excited, but failed as a huge grin split her face. Dress up with Phi—a wonderland of old operatic costumes, masks, props and makeup. Everything from feather boas to swords, and a huge, mirror-lined room to try them all out in.
Pippa’s phone vibrated and she checked the caller ID. Her heart sank, as Mom popped up on her screen. Laura must have dialed from the car. “Hi, Mom.”
“Pippa.” Her mother could load that word with more reproach than Saint Peter. “You’re home.�
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“Yes.” Couldn’t Laura have waited for her to call their mother first? Nope, that’s not how Laura did things. “I arrived yesterday. I was on the verge of calling you.”
Phi glanced at her inquiringly and Pippa waved them on. No dress up for ungrateful daughter Pippa.
“Yes,” Mom said, and left the heavy silence hanging. “I imagine you’re with my mother.”
“Yes.”
The only thing tenser than her relationship with her mother was the war raging between Phi and Emily. A pretty much one-sided war from where Pippa stood. Her mom kept a long, deep resentment going against Phi. Pippa understood, kind of. Phi was larger than life; growing up as her daughter couldn’t have been easy. But then growing up as Emily’s daughter hadn’t been a cakewalk either. Emily had rules, and lots of them. Mainly to counterbalance her own chaotic childhood. Dragged across Europe during the summer while Phi was on tour and spending the school year in Ghost Falls with her father.
When she’d gotten old enough, Phi had taken her along. Pippa had loved those tours with Phi, thrived on them. Her mother still bore the grudge, after all this time.
“I saw your program.”
And you failed. Her mother didn’t even have to say the words to send them zinging down the phone lines. I told you that you would fail and you did.
“Yes, it’s . . . complicated.” How to explain that it all started with Pippa getting into a relationship with her boss? Emily would point out the flaws in that plan, calmly and efficiently. She would also point out how she’d never liked Ray and said so on many occasions. Pippa didn’t need to hear what she was already living. “Things are not always put on air exactly like they happen.”
“Are you saying it didn’t happen?”
“No, it happened. Just not like you saw it happen.”
Silence, punishing and heavy in the absence of any sort of reassurance. Just once, could her mother ask how she was, and resist the urge to tell her why her answer didn’t cut it?
“Are you coming to see me, or must I come there?” She made Phi’s house sound like Sodom and Gomorrah. Which it must be for her mother. The plethora of vibrant color, the dramatic jumble of striking furniture. So at odds with the calm, tasteful tranquility of the home Emily had created around her girls.
“I’ll come and see you.”
“Fine.” That word wielded so skillfully by women of all ages. “Please call first because I have a rather tight schedule and I’ll have to fit you in.”
Of course she did. Mondays at the retirement center, Tuesday bridge in the morning, followed by the week’s baking in the afternoon. Wednesdays were spent at the local elementary school, doing what the teachers needed. And so the week went on. No point in asking if it had changed. Emily liked her routine and stuck to it. “I’ll call the day before.”
“Tomorrow’s no good, I have a town council meeting.”
“You’re on the town council?”
“Yes, Pippa, I am a member of this community and have been for forty-odd years. I feel obligated to give back to it.”
Unlike other people. People who left town and only visited sporadically. The sort of people who went to stay with their grandmother and not their mother. Those sorts of people did not know their duty and they sure as hell didn’t do it. People like her . . . and the sperm donor she refused to call father. God. This is why she hated coming home, this right here with her mother, and earlier with Laura. For Phi, she’d be here all year round if she could. And Laura and her mother knew it. “I’ll make sure I call first.”
“Okay, good.” Another awkward pause. “Are you all right?”
“Not really.” I’m shit, my career is in the toilet, my long-term boyfriend and his new piece of tail are the reason it’s in the crapper, and pretty much the entire nation thinks I’m the worst kind of bitch. “But I’ll be fine.”
“Call if you need anything.” But not during any of Emily’s scheduled events.
Pippa hung up and stared at her phone. What a mess. They went around in circles, the women in this family. Emily was at war with Phi, she and her mother didn’t get on. You didn’t need a degree in psychology to see the mud bogging them all down. Was she as bad as her mother? Holding on to past hurts and grudges, and building a barrier between her mother and herself with them? Probably. Her life. The giant cosmic joke of the day.
Was it any wonder she’d chosen to focus on her career? Family, love, attachments—it all got ugly and messy, and no matter how long you stayed away or how far you went, those nasty claws reached out and dragged you back in. Thumbing through her contacts, she found the one she wanted and hit call.
“Pippa.” The cigarette-stained vocals of the show’s longtime editor came down the line. “How are you, girl?”
“Not so good.”
Jen sucked in a breath. “Listen, babe, what they did to you was total shit. I didn’t do the editing, I want you to know that. Ray had someone else do it.”
“Thanks for that.” Outside the kitchen window a rescue cat sunned itself beside the fountain. “Listen, can you get your hands on the original footage?”
“Fuck! Just hang on.” The phone clunked in Pippa’s ear, and then the sound of a door closing before Jen picked up the phone again. “I love you, girl, you know that. Love you like a sister, but what you’re asking, it can’t be done.”
“Why?” Pippa’s frustration bled into her voice.
“Ray, girlfriend. You know who his father is.” Jen sounded defensive now. “If I got that for you, my job would be over. You know how this town works.” The phone crackled as Jen sucked on a cigarette. “Girl, I shouldn’t even be talking to you, but we go way back.”
Not back far enough, apparently. Pippa hung up not long after. Jen couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help her. It didn’t really matter which. Another door slammed in her face, and as angry as she was about it, Pippa understood. People had their own lives, and their jobs kept them fed.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and Pippa blinked them away. She couldn’t give up, because right now that job of hers felt like all she had. All right, she had Phi, but the rest of the crapshoot of Ghost Falls—it couldn’t be all there was.
* * *
Pippa glared out her bedroom window. Self-pity was for losers, and she was feeling sorry for herself. Ergo—great word and you didn’t often get a chance to use it—she was a loser. And driving herself crazy.
Thick, laden clouds rumbled overhead and provided the perfect soundtrack to her mood. A mountain storm blew in late afternoon and gathered drama as the evening wore on. It really was quite breathtaking, the pewter clouds truncating the mountaintops to sit heavy and expectant. Lightning flickered through their center as the wind picked up speed and howled through the odd nooks and crannies of the Folly.
Phi’s voice throbbed an aria, pure and deep from her room. A recording of Turandot. One of her finest roles. God, she’d been something in her time. Formidable. Her whimpering wuss of a granddaughter should try and be more like her.
Turandot stopped her lament and the house fell silent. Phi would be in her huge, pink bower of a bed, eye mask in place, hair tightly curled with bobby pins, about three inches of gunk on her face.
Pippa changed into her pajamas and climbed into her yellow butterfly bed. She’d been so excited the day Phi first showed it to her. The organza bed curtains swayed a little in the breeze, and butterflies danced and shimmered along its length. Wallowing was so not her thing. She needed an action plan, complete with options A, B, and C. It didn’t matter if those options changed, as long as the plan was there and she could execute. She got out her iPad and opened Excel. Planning was her crack, her mac and cheese, her washed-out sweatpants.
Column one, goals—stop being a sucky baby, right at the top of the list.
Pippa planned until her eyes got gritty, and by the time she switched off her bedside light, the rock in her chest felt a whole lot lighter.
A gust of wind tossed a patter of raindrops a
gainst her window. She snuggled deeper into her bed. To borrow a line from another kickass chick, tomorrow was another day.
Chapter Seven
“Pippa.” Matt cupped her cheeks and tugged her closer. He was going to kiss her. Her breasts tingled and her tummy tightened. The full sweep of his sensual bottom lip drew closer.
He focused on her mouth, eyes heavy with intent, and licked her forehead.
Wait. That couldn’t be right. But he did it again. A wet, cold, slopping lick on the forehead. Except Matt wasn’t here, because this was a damn dream and she was actually getting wet.
Pippa blinked open her eyes and got another drop on her cheek. The drops sped up, and she jackknifed into a sitting position. The bed on her left side was soaked. She scrambled out of bed and stood on the cold floor as more drops came down from the ceiling. Shit, the roof was leaking, right onto her bed. Goddamn it. Matt had mentioned something about the roof, and she’d let it slip her mind.
Waking Phi up was so not an option. The Diva did not rise until the Diva was good and ready. Well, the Diva wasn’t getting a cold shower in bed. Pippa stomped out of her bedroom and into the hall. The place was darker than a sinner’s soul with Phi’s heavy drapes blocking out any light.
Pain lanced up her foot as she stubbed her toe on the claw foot of a large chair on her way to the stairs. “Shit.”
No matter how much Phi didn’t like to be woken, Pippa wasn’t taking that staircase in the dark. She fumbled about, hit the wrong thing, which rocked against the wooden hall table, and found a lamp. Dim, amber light warmed the hall and gave her enough illumination to stagger down the stairs.
Phi had to have a bucket somewhere in this heap of stones. The kitchen was her best guess and she headed there.
She tried under the sink. Rags, detergents, rubber gloves, and enough dishwasher soap to wash years’ worth of dishes, but no bucket. The stables would have a bucket. Pippa twitched back the kitchen curtain and peered outside. Rain bucketed down and dropped more water onto the sodden kitchen yard.
