by Tracy Ellen
Stella didn’t snort as she normally would, but started rapidly blinking and breathing hard. Her eyes went from shiny to glossy with tears. To stop her, I held up my free hand that should already have a nice cup of hot apple cider in its grip.
“Niece, look at me,” I commanded softly, staring into her anxious eyes.
Stella nodded her head, almost as rapidly as her twitching eyelids.
“I’ve got you, so close your eyes for a second,” I instructed, calmly. When she did, I said in a soothing tone, “Take a deep breath, center it, and release the breath slowly. Now do that again. That’s right, sweetness, breathe slowly in…and then slowly out.” Once she’d done that a few times and wasn’t so rigid, I said, “You are such a kind, smart, loving woman, Stella. That baby of ours you’re carrying is getting the trifecta of mothers.” She made the tiniest snorting noise, a mere squeak in the right direction. “I think it hits you hard sometimes that you’re really going to be a mother. You are terrified that you’ve made a big, fat mistake. Keep breathing, okay?” Eyes closed, her head moved in assent. Her hand gestured for me to go on, impatiently enough that I smiled. “That is a normal thought, not terrible. From what I’ve always heard from my sister Mac, it’s a question you will ask yourself all your life.” Stella’s giggle was faint, but there. “You keep on doing what you’re doing. Research the heck out of every aspect of motherhood and talk about anything that causes you anxiety. Don’t hold it in. Now, what’s the best remedy rule to alleviate angst, Stella my Belle?” To be fair about the raging hormones issue, I added, “Besides giving birth to the alien residing in your belly?”
“Knowledge,” she replied instantly, the giggle more pronounced.
“Yes, smart cookie. And…?” I prompted.
“Self-examination.”
“Oh my, you’re good, and that awareness helps to…?”
“Create a master game plan.” She clutched my arm with both hands, as if on the brink.
“Hot diggety, and a master game plan allows…?”
“Me to relax or take action, and not freak the duck out over every curve ball life throws,” she whispered triumphantly, opening her eyes and grinning. “I don’t know why I keep forgetting the master game plan rule, but I think I need to practice it every day. I’ve been freaking out big time.”
“Thank you!” I said fervently to the stars above.
Stella laughed. “No--thank you. Man, I needed that.”
I grinned back. “You’re welcome, my pleasure. Freak the duck out?”
“You know…” She pointed to her belly with both hands and mouthed, “Little ears.”
“Ahhh,” I nodded my understanding. We started walking to join the other girls. “Don’t let your Aunt Jazy hear you swearing like that or she’ll accuse you of being a pansy as…bass.”
“No shat? A pansy bass?” Stella asked, surprised. “Even for the baby’s sake?”
I shrugged. “Hey, I shat you not. Jazy takes her swearing ducking seriously.”
“Hard-ducking-core,” marveled Stella.
We laughed happily together, Stella to have hit upon on a new way to torture Jazy, and me to have diverted imminent hysterics so that we could get to the shopping.
Diverted by another delicious smell, I asked, “Are those mini donuts? Mmm, we love those.”
“I most certainly do not love those little shat balls of fried of propylene glycol and azodicarbonamide,” Stella scoffed in disgust.
“Good thing I wasn’t referring to you and me, but…” I pointed at her belly this time.
“What?” Stella cried, and then vowed with fierce conviction, “My baby will never eat that poison.”
“Hey, I thought those two products were FDA approved,” I protested futilely, as Stella marched me past the mini donut food truck. I shrugged and forlornly waved back at the man that had shaken the hot little puffs of golden perfection into a vat of cinnamon sugar and then held up a filled bag to me with an inviting smile.
“You may as well eat your yoga mat, Auntie Bel,” Stella scolded.
“The way my life is going, I might have to,” I muttered, my hurried meatloaf dinner a distant memory.
Stella exclaimed, “My gosh, just because the FDA approves a product doesn’t mean it’s actually safe to consume!”
“That’s true. How could I forget?” I laughed and elbowed her gently. “Good thing I have an eighteen-year-old niece that knows more than the whole Food and Drug Administration put together.”
She blushed and smiled, then snickered in response, “You’re welcome, my pleasure.” She waggled a warning finger. “But you’re still not eating any poison donuts!”
We had fun browsing the shops, my personal favorite being Shop in the City. The mother and son team that owned the store were great salespeople. It was not easy to merchandise a small boutique shop that carried everything from Minnesota memorabilia to beautiful clothing and exquisite costume jewelry, but they’d pulled it off successfully for years. The store always had something I couldn’t live without, and often several somethings.
I sprung for a round of ice creams at the Pumphouse Creamery, and then parted ways from the girls to go find Darcy. Her fortune teller’s tent was erected in front of the Minnesota Sword Club and was hung with colorful banners that proclaimed, “Fate and Fortune as seen by Madame Aphrodite” and “Madame Aphrodite sees all and knows all”.
Darcy’s husband, Arthur, had thought Aphrodite seemed classier for a fortune teller’s name. With four boys under age four, and a husband that was a sweetheart but about as much help as a fifth child, I bet Madame Aphrodite sometimes wished she could have read her own fortune before she joyously threw away her birth control pills.
Ambling towards the tent while finishing the last bites of my Stella approved treat, three little pygmy gypsies rushed out to circle me, brandishing miniature foam swords while all talking at once. Not that I could understand a single word, since the eldest wasn’t yet four and they were all shouting.
I dropped to my knees for a group hug, figuring they had a bigger chance of getting sticky from my face and hands than I did from their grubby paws.
If you had to have four children and they all had to be boys, then the three swarming over me would be my pick. Lively, well-mannered, funny, and incredibly cute, they all had names beginning with A like their dad. “Classy” names--Atlas, Apollo, Ajax, and Adonis. I didn’t know if each progressive boy being ten months apart in age from the next qualified them as Irish quadruplets, but it qualified their parents as certifiably insane.
Swallowing the last mouthful of my ice cream, inspiration struck. With their names and coloring, maybe I could borrow the three older kids and show them off to Luke’s Greek side of the family when they visited once every decade from the old country, so they didn’t curse me. The oldest was already three or so, but they were small boys, as their parents were not tall. I would need to consult with Damaris.
Arthur, a man-sized gypsy in flowing clothes and an embroidered vest, walked up holding the fourth little A in his arms. I greeted all the boys and chucked Adonis’ chin. I peeked closely at his face hoping the bushy red hair and blue eyes had miraculously darkened to brown curls and brown eyes to match Darcy, Arthur and the As one through three, but there was no change.
Madame Aphrodite came out of the tent, sending off a grateful, tittering teenager in a flurry of thanks.
I grinned. “Somebody liked their future prospects.”
My friend spread her arms wide and performed a sweeping curtsey of long scarves and tinkling coin jewelry. “Madame Aphrodite never disappoints,” she extolled throatily and then winked broadly at her sons, “a paying customer.”
All her men waved their swords and cheered wildly.
I gestured to the clapping boys and catcalling Arthur with a laugh. “Okay, now I get why you have so many---they’re your own tiny audience.”
She smiled and blew kisses to her adoring fan club.
Darcy was one of the ni
cest women I’ve ever met, and a font of commonsense. She looked like one of those sad waifs you saw in paintings with the big, soulful eyes and wispy curls, but nothing could be further from her personality. Always positive, Darcy volunteered for everything, never talked trash about people, and rarely raised her voice. The woman didn’t need to yell, she had the best “You are ducking dead” look ever. As her friend, I knew when Darcy didn’t like someone or disapproved of something from the absence of her words, rather than their abundance.
I couldn’t recall if Darcy had ever been arrested with any of us over the years, but now that she’d grown into her powers, I’d like to see her and Chief Jack go head to head in an eye staring duel.
We hugged and it was the regular Darcy voice speaking under the dramatic makeup, draping costume, and gaudy jewelry of Madame Aphrodite. She made a motion towards the heavy velvet flap and her dark eyes sparkled with secrets. “Go inside the tent, Bel.”
She normally laughed easily, but in a practical, down to earth way, never giddily. At this moment, she was acting giddier than the thirteen-year-old that just left her tent. She could barely contain her excitement.
“Okay,” I replied slowly, not understanding my wariness when I love mysteries, “but ladies first.”
She laughed and shooed me forward. “No, you go in by yourself. I have a surprise inside you are going to love! While you’re doing that, I’m going to get some cider for the boys before Arthur takes them home.” The A team all cheered louder at that news. As Darcy and Arthur herded their brood out of there while the little dudes sang out their goodbyes to me, my old school friend glanced back.
She laughed again to see I hadn’t budged. “Will you go inside already? I’ll be back in ten minutes and we’ll go have a glass of wine.”
I waved goodbye to the Milton men, and feeling vaguely foolish for my dread, ducked inside the flap. Temporarily blinded in the dim interior, I stood still one step over the threshold and listened. The only source of light inside was the battery-operated camping lantern that sat on a round table in the middle of the tent. The lantern was covered with a fringed scarf, casting a blood red shadow across the white tablecloth. Two empty chairs beckoned and an over-sized tarot deck was stacked neatly in the center of the table, ready for me to cut my luck.
Stepping further inside the tent, I looked around for my surprise while I followed my compulsion to cut the deck and turned over the card.
The Empress stared back at me.
“Well, well, maybe the job is mine,” I murmured with a snicker, clicking through the data banks to scrounge up what I knew about the individual meanings of Tarot cards. When I did scrounge up the Empress, I swore, “Oh, hell no!”
I threw the card quickly back into the deck and mixed them up. One of the three major arcana, The Empress was the creator. She represented the abundance of life, the arch-type mother, the luxurious bounty and sensual richness of nature. I was lucky that was a Rider-Waite Tarot deck or the blonde Empress card would even be pregnant.
I heard a swish of heavy fabric, a flap opened, and a tall figure stepped into the tent from the back. The flap fell closed before I could see any details. When I heard the lisping voice, none were needed.
“An-a-bel, I have been waiting all week to get you alone,” Svettie said, and raised her arm.
My eyes had adjusted enough to see she pointed a pistol at me.
Chapter XVI
“Under The Cover Of Darkness” by The Strokes
Sunday, 12/16
8:05 PM
Guns are fun until one is pointed at you.
Svettie noticed my hand creeping to my purse and threatened with her weapon. “No, no. You must come with me before your friends come back. They are a nice family, so behave, and I won’t hurt them.”
“You’re my surprise?” I asked bitterly. Here I thought Luke might pop in for a five minute quickie.
“Yes,” she answered impatiently, gesturing me forward while keeping the gun trained steadily on my chest. “I told your friend Darcy that we met in Europe and I was here in the Twin Cities unexpectedly for one evening only, especially to see my long lost friend, An-a-bel Axelrod. Let’s go, so you don’t make a liar out of me.”
I walked towards the back flap, my mind whirling. “Hey, where’s your Natasha Russian accent?”
“I was born there but never lived there, so your guess is as good as mine,” the tall woman retorted flippantly.
I must have been staring because again she impatiently gestured and said sharply, “Let’s go. Don’t try anything tricky or your niece, Stella, will regret it.”
At that threat, I had a vision of lunging across the room and bashing in those Chiclets for teeth, gun or no gun.
I took a deep breath to clear the red mist from my eyes. I clenched my fists so hard my long nails drew blood from the scabs that hadn’t completely healed since Pam’s hand had dug into me last week. The stinging pain helped. I would wait for my chance, but the fake Russian was going down for threatening Stella and my friends.
Svettie smirked at my expression while she relieved me of my purse. She followed close behind me out of the tent, the prodding poke of the gun barrel a constant reminder in my back.
“We’ll walk up this alley and around the buildings to come out on 48th near where you parked,” Svettie ordered near my ear, and I heard anxiety in her tone, but also an underlying gloating that she was enjoying her power over me.
I was picturing back kicking her and crushing her knobby kneecap when she said something strange, “You aren’t going to believe anything I say until I show you proof, so we have to hurry.”
In silence, she marched me along the back way through the shadows in the alley. A few people were on the 48th Street sidewalk when we emerged. With her gun hidden inside her jacket pocket, Svettie and I appeared to be a couple of women friends heading home.
“Did you pay to have Dickie Webster kill me, is that why you murdered him?” I taunted in a soft voice.
“No.” Svettie abruptly barked out a loud laugh, and a young couple walking past us shied quickly to the side at the sudden, strange noise coming deep from the skinny woman’s throat. Her Russian accent was phony, but that seal bark was straight out of Lake Baikal in Siberia.
I had wondered last week if I underestimated Svettie, but now I was certain I had also miscalculated the origin of her white fur boots, hat, and coat. There’s a Celtic myth of a sea creature known as a Selkie that could shed its seal skin to assume the shape of an alluring human, male or female. While it was true Svettie was abominable, she was no Yeti--she was a frickin’ seal woman out to capture a human man.
We passed my parked jeep, and I was about to continue questioning her when she slowed down. A few cars away, a nondescript sedan sat idling. As we approached closer, the passenger window on our side whirred down.
Svettie jerked her head towards the car. “Look inside.”
I didn’t get too close, but I bent at the knees so I had an unobstructed view of the front seat.
“Hello, Anerbel!”
As I gawked into the car, Dickie Webster erupted into nervous, braying laughter.
“Holy crap!” I whispered in astonishment. “I did hear you earlier tonight!”
Dickie’s laughter got louder and filled the night. When I glanced up at Svettie, she bared tiny teeth and folded her arms across her chest. I looked away, but not before noting she didn’t feel the need for a gun any longer.
“I didn’t mean to laugh then, but your kick was so vicious,” Dickie squealed out in delight between high-pitched whinnies.
Seeing my eyebrows meet, he quickly raised an appeasing hand. “Sorry, sorry. Nothing’s funny about anything,” another irritating giggle slipped out, “but if you could see your face right now.”
That was it.
Sometimes it worked out swimmingly to be short.
I dived in through the open window and Dickie fell back with a shriek. Imprisoned by his seat belt, I was able to grab
both his ears. I gave them a good boxing.
“How do you like my face now, Dickie, you little shatbird.” He shrieked for Svetlana’s help while I continued to rattle his brains and said furiously, “I was in the shower so can’t be sure, but I may have cried when I heard you were murdered!” I slapped one chubby cheek, not with a full batter’s swing, but hard enough to sting my sore hand. “That’s for ruining My Turn weekend.” It took me a second to get a good angle on his frantically thrashing pumpkin head, but I managed, and smartly slapped the other cheek. “That’s for ducking up my marriage proposal!” I put my hands on each side of his cheeks and squeezed them together until he had fish lips and his shrill cries were strangled gurgles. I leaned in and whispered, “You both want something from me, but just remember this, Dickie Webster. You left me for dead, and that nut you’re hooked up with out there? She tried repeatedly to screw my boyfriend, pulled a gun on me, and just threatened my pregnant niece. Nobody gets to do that to me and walk away happy--nobody.”
His blue eyes were round discs of terror when I released the sniveling fixer and sat back on my heels, panting lightly.
I ignored Svettie’s urgent exclamations behind me to get out of the car, that people were coming, and said, “Now man up, you big baby, and tell me what’s going on, or I swear to God…”
He kept his arms crossed protectively over his head, but when I made no move to beat on him more, Dickie cautiously peered at me. Seeing I was back in the passenger seat, he quieted down with the shrill whimpering that would do an entire litter of kicked puppies proud and lowered his arms.
Running a shaking hand through his tight white curls, he sniffed and wiped a single tear from his flaming chubby cheek. “I’m sorry, Anerbel. I tried my best to help you.” He shrugged piteously in a way I remembered all too well, although tonight he wore no swirling black satin cape and mask, just a short leather jacket and indecently tight jeans. “Everything is cocked up.”
