The Queen Gene

by Jennifer Coburn

  Jack’s voice returned me to the present where he was still lobbying for a getaway to Florida. “Here’s the deal,” I began. Jack looked at me in eager anticipation. “I’ll call Aunt Bernice and ask if she’s up for a visit, but you have to strap on Adam’s carrier and take a hike with me right now. Five miles. And at the end you must say, ‘Thank you for making me appreciate the glorious winter.’”

  “I have to say ‘glorious’?”

  “Did I tell you Bern’s condo just put in a new Jacuzzi down at the pool?”

  “Grab Adam’s backpack and let’s go, glorious wife.”

  I realize we’ve only lived in the Berkshires for a year, but I know I’ll always be awestruck by its beauty. A crisp layer of pure white snow carpeted the woods around our property. I loved the sound of how it crunched beneath our feet as we walked. It reminded me of chewing cereal. Bare hickory and ash trees stood stoically, lining our path. Oak tree branches and pine needles were dusted with white powder from the season. Though it was a little over forty degrees, the sky was bright blue without a trace of cloud and the sun was shining as if for only Jack, Adam, and me. On these hikes, it was the unwritten rule that we said as little as possible. During the spring, I had been prattling on about an article I was working on when Jack hushed me. “Listen,” he said. We heard the ravens rustling about, rebuilding their nests. We enjoyed the squishing of damp earth beneath feet and the breeze rustling the maple leaves. At that moment, I learned not to pollute the forest with my chatter. Even Adam abides by this rule and only speaks up to alert us of something truly amazing, like he’s seen a deer or made a poop.

  I watched my breath escape and tried to make rings like people do with cigarettes. It never works, but I always try anyway. Glancing to my left, I smiled at the sight of Jack in his thick flannel jacket and wool hat carrying bundled Adam in his hiking backpack. As if he were reading my mind, Jack glanced at me and winked. “This is nice,” he said. “You look pretty.”

  I turned to thank him and tripped on a large rock hidden beneath the snow. My ankle rolled inward and I heard a snap. “Are you okay, Luce?” Jack bent to the ground where I had fallen. He untied my boot and examined my ankle, asking if it hurt when he moved it from one side to the other. “Does this hurt? How ’bout this? What about up and down like this?”

  “It all hurts, Jack!” I said, trying not to cry for fear of frightening Adam. Jack filled his hat with snow and made an ice pack for my ankle.

  “Do you want me to carry you?” he asked. Jack’s offer to carry Adam on his back and me in his arms was a generous one, but I said I could make it the quarter-mile back to the house. Jack found a large tree branch for me to use as a cane, and I hobbled back home. I looked like my Aunt Rita, who walked with a limp and a cane until she died suddenly at a Red Lobster in Florida last year.

  Chapter Four

  We returned home from our hike to the sound of the phone ringing. It was Anjoli calling to tell us that Paz had not responded to his hypnotherapy. “I may have to take him to Brazil, darling!” she cried. My mother periodically visits a healing center in the Amazon jungle where the longitudinal and latitudinal position on the map makes it the ideal place for recovery. Recovery from anything. That’s the way things work in my mother’s world of magical thinking. According to my Anjoli, the healing center was very exclusive and only accepted a handful of applicants. To qualify, one had to place his or her hand on a sheet of paper, hold it still for an hour, then send the paper in to the center for analysis. They would only tell you whether or not a person has been accepted to the program. They never give their handprint diagnosis because they don’t want clients to “put their energy into disease.” Mother has gone twice now and says they are gifted healers. Nothing was bothering her, but Anjoli just knows the week in Brazil prevented something terrible that was on the horizon.

  “Hold on, Mother,” I said. “Jack, can you change Adam’s diaper, please? I think it’s poopy.” He shot me a look as if to say, Gee, thanks. I returned with one that let him know I owed him.

  “That reminds me,” Anjoli continued. “I had Paz’s stool analyzed to see if the trichotillomania might be related to diet.”

  “And?” I urged her to continue.

  “Well, naturally I’m feeding him exactly what his nutritionist suggested, darling, but there’s hair in his stool. Isn’t that horrid?”

  “He’s swallowing the fur he pulled from his paws?”

  “He’s a very disturbed little dog,” Anjoli said. “Thank the divine spirit he found me. Perhaps we’re together for a reason. You know what the woman said when I had my past life regression done years ago, right?”

  “I know, I know, I saved you from a fire during the French Revolution and now we’re together so you can repay your karmic debt.” Where would I be without my mother’s constant salvation?

  Anjoli switched gears. “When are you coming to the city? I miss my baby!”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. Jack and I just agreed that we’re probably going to see Aunt Bernice in Florida next week. If she says it’s okay, that is.”

  “When has Bernice not said something was okay, darling?” Anjoli reminded me. “Drive in to New York, spend a few days with me, then take off from Kennedy or LaGuardia. We’ll go ice skating, do a little shopping, go to the theater.”

  Anjoli’s suggestion reminded me that strolling and skating were not in my immediate future. “I sprained my ankle today.”

  “When I first joined the Joffrey, one of the dancers sprained her ankle and she was out for six months,” Anjoli reported. I waited to hear her suggestions for alternative physical therapy, but none were forthcoming. “I was thrilled when Miss Dorothy suggested that I dance in her stead. Well, of course by the time she healed, everyone agreed that I was a far better Giselle than Natasha Frank had ever been. That’s how I got my first lead dance role, darling,” she sighed.

  “What a lovely story, Mother,” I returned. “Anyway, yes I am putting ice on it and keeping it elevated, and as far as I can tell there are no other writers waiting in the wings to replace me.”

  “Good thing it wasn’t your hands, darling.”

  “Yes, thank goodness for that.”

  As Anjoli predicted, Bernice was more than happy to have Jack, Adam, and me visit her in Florida. This was no surprise coming from a woman who hosted hurricane parties at her condo. There simply was no curveball life could throw her that would knock the smile from her face. As Jack predicted, Anjoli would insist on squeezing in a visit with us before we left for Florida. This was no surprise coming from a woman who hosts parties for herself on my birthday. (“Was it not I who did all the work that day, darling? Am I entitled to no recognition in this life?”) At least she offered to come to us.

  “Hello, my gorgeous darlings!” Anjoli said bursting through our front door. Anjoli’s entrances were a familiar extravaganza, but now upstaging her was Paz. Despite the fact that my mother wore a full-length fur coat dyed candy apple red and wrapped a black wool turban around her head so that all one could see were her enormous black sunglasses covering her flawless ivory skin, Paz now stole the show. He wore a red fur vest that matched Anjoli’s coat and what looked like a rhinestone-studded cone around his neck. She explained that it was a protective cover to prevent Paz from chewing his paws.

  “How many channels come in on that thing?” Jack asked, leaning in to give my mother a kiss. “Hey, little buddy,” he said, bending down to pat Paz. “How are the bitches treating you?”

  “Hello, Mother,” I said, bringing Adam to her. I was always amazed at how I unexpectedly filled with warmth when I saw Anjoli. We kissed on both cheeks, then she reached out for Adam. I long since learned that this gesture did not actually mean that she wanted me to hand her the baby. It was just her way of greeting him. He did not feel slighted in the least, though this time he did seem quite eager to pet her coat, and was equally fascinated by the tiny dog whose head looked like it was an undersized scoop of coffee ice cream lost
at the bottom of a rhinestone-studded cone.

  “My Honky here!” Adam shouted.

  Honky was what Adam called Anjoli. When he was thirteen months and started speaking his first words, Anjoli announced that she did not feel old enough to be a grandmother and would prefer if Adam called her by her first name. She rejected the titles Grammy, Mum-Mum, Nanna, Mom-Mom, and even Grantastic, and insisted that Adam should simply refer to her as Anjoli. I think my child is as bright as the next, but asking a toddler to pronounce Anjoli was setting the bar too high. Despite her coaching, all he could manage was “Honky.”

  I adore watching the expressions on African-American people’s faces when they hear my baby referring to his ashen-face companion as “Honky.”

  After Anjoli got settled in her room, she insisted on taking us all out for dinner at her favorite restaurant in the area. “I have some very important family news, darlings.”

  “What is it?” I asked. Jack was too smart to take the bait.

  “I’ll tell you at dinner while we’re all sitting down,” she said. Jack rolled his eyes. “Then when we come home, I’ll Reiki your ankle, Lucy.” I smiled. Mother swears she has healing hands, but I just enjoy her focusing attention on me. I knew my ankle would feel no better from Anjoli’s “energy work,” but it would be a nice chance for us to catch up.

  “So what’s the big news?” Jack asked. I wondered what people would think of our little table for five, Adam and Paz in their high chairs, Mother in her turban.

  “Adam, don’t feed the dog the crayon!” I yelped.

  Our waiter looked amused when Anjoli ordered rare fillet mignon for Paz and promised him a special treat if he didn’t nibble on his paws when his cone was removed.

  After we placed our order, Anjoli posed her hands flat on the table and paused for dramatic effect. “Someone in our family is going to have a baby,” she said.

  “You’re pregnant?” Jack joked. Then, turning to me, he added, “Didn’t you talk to her about birth control?”

  Anjoli smirked. “I must say, darling, ever since your recovery from the car accident, you’re much funnier than you used to be.”

  “Yeah, nearly lose your life and suddenly you realize how much humor there is in the world,” he smiled.

  Anjoli continued. “Yes, well anyway, as I was saying, there’s going to be a new addition to the family. Guess who’s having a baby?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Guess!” Anjoli implored as Adam knocked the cup of crayons to the floor.

  “Just tell us,” I demanded.

  “One little guess.”

  Jack, who was picking up Adam’s spill, offered, “Paz?”

  “Paz is a boy,” Anjoli reminded us. “Now you guess, darling.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll give you a hint. She’s the last person in the family you’d expect to be having a baby right now.”

  I pondered for a moment. “Um, me?”

  “Everyone’s a goddamned comedian in this family!”

  “Who is it, Mother? Who’s pregnant?”

  Now fully in the game, Anjoli perked up. “Did I say pregnant or having a baby?”

  “Alfie and George are adopting?” I asked.

  “Nope. Are you ready to give up?” Anjoli asked. Jack shot me a side glance, trying to contain his smile.

  “Yes, Mother. I give up,” I conceded.

  “Kimmy!” she announced as if she were opening the envelope to announce the Oscar winner for Best Picture.

  Kimmy is my cousin who jilted her fiancé at the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, then months later decided to marry herself in a ceremony at Anjoli’s apartment. She wore a gown that my friend Zoe made from small mirrors used on disco balls and bounced around to Billy Idol’s Dancing with Myself to kick off the reception. Anyone else would’ve been laughed out of town. Since Kimmy is a former model who bears a remarkable resemblance to Cameron Diaz, she was applauded for her ingenious expression of self-love and unconditional acceptance. Glamour magazine ran a two-page spread on it in its January issue.

  In August, Kimmy annulled the marriage. It was not because the relationship fizzled, but rather Anjoli’s astrologer said that if Kimmy was already married, the universe would consider her unavailable. Her love channel would be blocked and a relationship with a man would never materialize. I never challenged this idea, but was always tempted to ask why Anjoli’s married boyfriends’ channels weren’t blocked to her.

  “Kimmy of Kimmy and Kimmy?” Jack asked.

  “You know that’s over, darling,” Anjoli said.

  “Is she seeing someone?” I asked.

  “No,” Anjoli said, begging us to inquire further.

  “Turkey baster?” I asked.

  “No,” Anjoli said. “We looked into sperm banks, but the ones who offered what we’re looking for in a baby had so many silly little rules. I said to her, Kimmy, darling, you’re a gorgeous young thing. Who needs these self-satisfied, smug shitheads in lab coats? Take the train up to New Haven when you’re ovulating, find yourself an adorable little Yalie, screw his brains out, and be done with it.”

  I glanced at Adam as he mauled a piece of bread. One day he would learn that all of this wasn’t normal. He smiled and waved. “My Honky,” he said.

  “Honky loves her little babies,” Anjoli blew kisses at Adam and Paz. Our black waiter’s body jolted as he heard the proclamation.

  “Oh, darling,” Anjoli said, using her disappointed voice. “I asked for Paz’s steak to be cooked rare,” she said, gesturing to the dog. “This is medium. I hate to be a pain, but he has,” she dropped her voice to a whisper, “a medical condition.”

  “You’re sending back the dog’s steak?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t mind, do you, darling?” she asked the waiter.

  “Not at all,” he said, smiling, though I could hear him silently finishing the sentence, “Honky.”

  I gave the waiter the “I’m sorry” face, hoping he wouldn’t hate us.

  “No problem, ma’am,” he said. “We aim to please every customer. Even the dogs.”

  Before we left for Florida, we asked our friend Tom to check out the heating in the house. We had a bizarre pattern of cold patches in our home, which became even worse when Anjoli visited. Despite the fact that the heat was on full blast, there were spots where a full-on cold breeze blew through the house. I can’t even say it blew through the house. It was select spots, like a chair or a patch of carpet that felt about forty degrees cooler than the rest of the room. If anyone could fix this, it was Tom, our local Jack of all trades.

  Chapter Five

  On the plane ride to Florida, Jack turned to me. “You’re not going to chicken out again, are you?”

  “No,” I assured him as I glanced at Adam, who had drifted off for his afternoon nap. “This is the perfect place for it. No one will know me in Florida. There’s no chance anyone will recognize either of us. You’re sure no one’s going to be pissed off that I’m there?”

  “Nah,” Jack said. “It’ll be fine. They’ll be very welcoming, I promise.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive,” he said.

  “God, I’m nervous just thinking about it.”

  “That’s because it’s the unknown. Five minutes there, you’ll be fine. I promise. Have I ever led you astray?”

  “Jack,” I laughed. “You asked me for a divorce on the same day I told you I was pregnant. I’d have to answer yes to that question.”

  “I wouldn’t have if I’d known. You know that was bad timing, baby,” he said, patting my knee. “Plus, it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

  I giggled. “Three years later, look where we are.”

  “On a plane?”

  I scrunched my face as if to say, very funny.

  “Going to Bernice’s place?” Jack asked again.

  I gave him the same look. “You know very well what I’m talking about.”

 
; “Seriously, Luce. If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay. This was your idea, remember?”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Anytime you don’t want to go through with it, you just say the word, okay?”

  “No, no, I want to do it. It’s just new, so I’m a little nervous, that’s all.”

  “That’s fine, Luce,” Jack said. “Don’t start chewing on your paws, okay?”

  Aunt Bernice lived in a high-rise condo on South Ocean Drive in Hollywood, a strip identical to most in south Florida. It was lined with white dormitories of senior citizens who spent their days playing cards and bridge and swimming in the sparkling blue pool. Of course, there was the elderly version of a road trip which was the five-mile van ride to jai alai, greyhound races, or the “broadwalk.” Not the boardwalk the broadwalk, where every Wednesday evening a different band would cover anything from country western to pop. Along the broadwalk, vendors offered food and drink, seashell necklaces, and sunglasses until everyone turned in at nine.

  As our taxi pulled into the curved pebble driveway, we saw Bernice waiting in front of the building, sitting on a wrought-iron bench of mermaids and dolphins. She lifted her right arm to wave and smiled brightly. Aunt Bernice didn’t look like she was eighty-four years old, though her skin was tan and loose, her hair white. There was an energy about her that made her seem youthful despite the physical attributes of a senior. Her hips were wide enough to support what looked like the roast turkey Bernice carried around in her brassiere. Her arms were fleshy and soft, her hands a thin layer of brown tissue paper covering thick blue veins. Her vitality made her beautiful, though. Bernice and her sister Rita were constantly dieting together. Then again, they did everything together. In fact, the two widows purchased the condo as a joint purchase, but on the very night the deal was inked, Rita had a fatal heart attack at Red Lobster.