Raquel’s Abel
By
Leigh Barbour
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Raquel’s Abel by Leigh Barbour
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Copyright© 2009 Leigh Barbour
ISBN: 978-1-60435-355-6
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Raquel’s Abel
By
Leigh Barbour
Chapter One
I looked up to see Grandmother wheeling herself down to the pool area. Maria Elena, the woman I employed to take care of my grandmother, was probably taking a nap.
Being a glutton for punishment and anything edible, I had to ask, “Grandma, why isn’t Maria Elena with you?”
She arched her neck, being sure to jut her nose out. “If you are referring to my sister, Tatiana, I don’t know.”
“I don’t like you coming down the hill by yourself.” The sidewalk leading from the mansion to the pool was crumbling and entire concrete chunks were ready to break loose.
“I’m hardly alone, my dear.” Her eyes moved to the side quickly as if pointing to someone.
“Who is with you?” I hoped she wasn’t starting to imagine people now.
“As if you haven’t noticed.” She winked at me.
“Grandmother, no one is with you.”
“Don’t be that way.” She leaned toward me holding on tight to the armrests of the wheelchair. “He’s very sweet on you. And he’s so charming—as we used to say in my day—debonair.”
Sometimes she was as sharp as the edge of a guillotine. She’d gotten a clean bill of health from the doctor, so it wasn’t Alzheimers or dementia.
“Maria Elena should have brought you down here.”
“If you are referring to my sister, Tatiana, perhaps she’s taking a nap. She needs her beauty sleep, you know.”
“Her name is Maria Elena Caceres, not Tatiana. She’s from Ecuador. And she is the maid, not your sister.”
She made a raspy sound in her throat. “Raquel, you’ve always been my favorite, but you are very mistaken about who your grandmother is.”
I hoped one day she’d see the light, although it had been at least five years since she’d started insisting on this nonsense. “Grandmother, I know exactly who you are. You were born Mary Margaret Minor in Richmond, Virginia, in 1926.”
“That’s what people say who don’t want to accept the truth.” She stuck her nose up again, her eyes glaring at me. “I was born Anastasia Nicolaevna Romanov in Russia.”
“That’s funny,” I said with a lilt. “You don’t sound very Russian.” Sometimes I liked making her mad. A little anger might get her to stop this insanity.
“I have forgotten my native tongue. It was so long since I was there,” she said wistfully, as if remembering the Alexander Palace.
“Another thing, Grandmother, you were born in 1926 and Anastasia was born around 1901.” I looked over at her, but she wasn’t fazed by my remark. “You are much too young to be Anastasia.”
Her lips pressed together, pushing some of her wrinkles out. “How do you know I wasn’t born in 1901?”
“Your drivers license, your passport, and the fact you had my father in 1950.”
“I believe someone else bore that child, although I did so adore your father.”
“What a terrible thing to say.”
I looked around at our backyard and our old pool. The cement was so chipped that grass grew between the pieces of stone.
She eyed my freckles that always appeared when I sat out in the sun. “You should be careful. You’ll burn out here.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting a little tan.” What Grandmother really meant was that she was afraid she’d burn.
“I’m sure your gentleman suitor prefers you to be fair. It’s a sign of noble birth.”
“Gentleman suitor?”
“He’s standing right behind me and hasn’t taken his eyes off you since we came down here.”
“I can’t take any more of this.” I stood up, no easy feat considering I weighed close to four hundred pounds. “I’m going to get Maria Elena.”
“If you mean Tatiana, please have her join me here by the pool.” She fanned herself with a piece of tissue. “And be a doll and have one of the servants bring me my sun hat.”
One of the servants. Right.
I stormed up the crumbling steps that led to the back of the house. Above me, on the back side of the house, verandas overlooked the pool. They looked intact from here, but if someone ventured onto one, no doubt it would come tumbling down. Great-granddaddy built the house in the 1890s, and in spite of a rather good salary I made as a writer, I was unable to maintain the thirty-bedroom, two-wing mansion. In fact, there were times I wondered if the roof would come tumbling down on our heads.
As I neared the rear porch, I stopped to get my breath. I was going to be thirty-six soon and needed to get this weight off. The doctor reminded me just the other day that I was a borderline diabetic, and that very soon I might have to start taking heart medication.
After a few minutes, I regained my strength and charged into the house, determined to find Maria Elena. Grandmother could have fallen going down to the pool.
The television was on. I rounded the corner to see her watching those Spanish soap operas again. Even today, I rarely entered the room with dark wood paneling and worn sculptured carpet. When I was young, this had been known as the men’s room. Sometimes I still got whiffs of Granddaddy’s cigars.
“Maria Elena, my grandmother is down by the pool by herself.”
She glanced up at me, then back to the tube. “Look. Marcio get another woman.” She pointed to a swarthy man on the screen. “And poor Diana is almost finding out.”
I marched in front of her and shut the television off. “I don’t pay you to watch soap operas. I pay you to take care of my grandmother.”
She shrugged. “She is all right?”
I didn’t respond.
Maria Elena had large black eyes that looked out of dark skin. Her golden hair had black roots and split ends grazed her shoulders.
“My grandmother rolled her wheelchair all the way down there by herself.”
Maria Elena jumped up and made her body as stiff as a board like a soldier at attention. “Yes, ma’am, I go down there now!” She made her words sound like robot-speak.
I walked through the foyer that was bigger than some people’s entire houses. Above me hung an enormous chandelier that hadn’t been dusted in so long cob
webs ran from crystal to crystal. I proceeded to the kitchen that was big enough to serve an entire cruise ship. When I was small, having such an enormous cooking area had seemed normal. Back then we had three maids that worked hard to feed my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and my sister and me. Now there were just my grandmother and me, and occasionally Regina, my younger sister. That is, when she needed a place to crash between disastrous marriages.
I patted my pillowy midriff and grabbed the brochure sitting on the stainless steel island. Should I do this? I wondered as I looked once again at the diagram of the medical procedure I was contemplating. I headed back out to the swimming pool.
Maria Elena was already sitting beside my grandmother, sunning herself.
“Raquel, I’m glad you persuaded my sister to join me out here by the pool.”
At least Maria Elena had brought Grandmother the sun hat.
“Tatiana, it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Grandmother pulled the brim down to shade her eyes.
“It certainly is, Anastasia. In fact, I getting my swimsuit and going swimming.”
I glared at Maria Elena. “No you won’t. You need to get back up there to the kitchen and fix my grandmother something to eat.”
Grandmother turned and glared at me. “Tatiana, please forgive my granddaughter.”
Maria Elena smirked in my direction. “It all right, Anastasia.” She had the nerve to pat my grandmother on the hand as if she really were kin.
Maria Elena was a mystery to me. When I hired her, I told her she could make weekly phone calls to Ecuador at my expense, but so far I hadn’t seen any charges on the phone bill. And on her days off, instead of leaving the house, she stayed with my grandmother.
Grandmother looked back at the pool. “Raquel, there must be staff to prepare us something to eat.”
I gave Maria Elena a glare, letting her know I expected her to cook Grandmother something fairly soon. There were times I wanted to smack that maid back to Ecuador, and other times I realized she really did make my grandmother happy.
I opened up the brochure and began to read about the operation. The model on the front page was wearing a pink cat suit, but inside there was a picture of her when she’d weighed enough to sink a yacht. On the next page it showed what the surgery would entail—where they’d cut and exactly what they’d be doing inside.
“What are you looking at?” Grandmother asked.
“Something I’m considering.”
“I know what it is,” Maria Elena said in the annoying Spanish accent she exaggerated when she wanted to. “It called the bypassa gasatrica.”
“Gastric bypass,” I corrected.
My grandmother lowered her lip stretching out her cheeks. “I don’t know what it is, but that gentleman who’s always admiring you certainly doesn’t like it.”
“What’s his name again, Grandmother?”
“Sir, be so good as to tell me what your name is?” My grandmother spoke to someone supposedly standing next to me. “Oh, a nice name, young man. I’ll have you know I’m Anastasia Romanov.” She nodded at thin air. “Yes, I am the daughter of the Czarina Alexandra and the Czar Nicholas Romanov.” She gestured to her sister. “This is my older sister, Tatiana.”
Maria Elena wrinkled her nose up at hearing she was supposed to be older than my grandmother. I didn’t know exactly how old Maria Elena was, but she wasn’t much older than me.
“So, Grandmother, what’s his name so I’ll know what to call him?” I was still looking at the diagram of how they’d connect my intestine to my stomach.
“His name is Abel Rollins.”
“Nice to meet you, Abel Rollins,” I said to appease her so I could keep studying the brochure.
My grandmother leaned over and spoke in a whisper. “He appears to be quite taken with you.”
“That’s nice.” If I argued with her all the time, I’d go completely crazy. I put the brochure down on the wobbly glass-topped table and closed my eyes. Would I be brave enough to go through with the surgery? It was dangerous. The thought of getting an infection or other complications gave me goosebumps. And then there was the other issue—did I have enough money to pay for it? If I did without, I could swing it.
“I tell you dear. Whatever it is you were looking at, Mr. Abel Rollins doesn’t like it.”
“He doesn’t?” How could grandmother have such a vivid imagination? She had no idea what gastric bypass surgery was, anyway.
“You see? He took that piece of paper, wadded it up, and tossed it away.” My grandmother pointed toward the bushes.
“What?” I looked, but didn’t see anything. “I’m afraid I don’t see him, Grandmother.”
Maria Elena was squinting her eyes and pointing, pretending to see something.
“Do you see him, Maria Elena?” I asked wondering if she’d lost her mind too.
“I no seeing him, but the paper.”
“Of course she sees him. Your piece of paper, dear. You see he’s thrown it away.” My grandmother continued to point.
I looked at the table. My brochure was gone. “Where is it?” I pushed myself up from the chair. There was a piece of paper beside the bushes. Odd, I hadn’t noticed a breeze. I sidled across the yard, my heels being swallowed by the moist earth. After I got the surgery, would my feet sink like this?
I grabbed the piece of paper by the bushes. It was the brochure I’d just been looking at. It was all crinkled as if someone had balled it up intentionally. What was going on here?
“Maria Elena, did you do this?”
Her jaw dropped open. “No, Señorita, no, I no doing that.”
“I tell you. It was Abel Rollins,” Grandmother said with a smirk on her face.
Being around my grandmother was officially driving me bonkers. I decided to go in the house and get some work done on my next novel.
Later that afternoon my sister, Regina, came over.
“He’s left, huh?” I knew she and Carter were having problems. Like every other relationship, there were big problems after a year or two.
“He’s gone so I have the house to myself.” She sprawled out on one of the ancient lounge chairs next to the pool. Her string bikini made her legs look like they ended at her waist due to the last round of liposuction her husband graciously paid for. “I figure I can do better than Carter any way.” She stretched her arms over her head just to flaunt her figure at me.
“You know you’re thirty-three and you’ve been married three times.” I was neglecting to mention the two she’d lived with.
“You’re just jealous because you’re always a bridesmaid and never a bride.” Her dark brown hair was bobbed off so it made a perfect line from ear to ear. Her eyes were almost black, making her look sultry and sexy.
“I’m waiting for the right man,” I said defensively.
Regina only behaved this way toward me because of the bias my father had shown. They said when Regina was born, he would barely look at her. He’d walk right by her crib and come to play with me.
Maria Elena came pushing my grandmother down the hill toward the pool.
“Raquel, your suitor is back.” Grandmother’s voice could be heard across the yard in spite of her frail size.
Regina looked at me then back at Grandmother. “Suitor?” She looked at me. “Raquel, are you keeping a secret?”
I rolled my eyes.
“I talked to him this morning,” Grandmother continued. “His name is Abel Rollins. He’s had the nerve to put on one of your father’s smoking jackets.”
“He’s just another one of Grandmother’s hallucinations,” I said to Regina.
“A hallucination doesn’t grab a piece of paper and hurl it half across the yard.” Grandmother jutted her chin out at me.
I peered over at Regina, who was already starting to tan. We certainly didn’t look like sisters. I had pale red hair, light green eyes, and skin that burned easily in the sun.
“What is this piece of paper?” she asked.
“Something I haven’t told you.” I turned toward Regina, the chair creaking under my weight. “I’m considering having gastric bypass surgery.”
Regina’s eyes popped open then I heard a splash.
I jumped up and sidled over to the edge of the water. One of the metal chairs was in the pool. I turned around and put my hands on my hips. “Maria Elena, you threw that chair in the pool.”
“No, no, not me, I no do that.” She began to shake so hard the seat she was in began to rattle.
Grandmother raised her hand as if conducting an orchestra. “Raquel, don’t take that tone with my sister. You know very well Abel Rollins did it.”
I glared at Maria Elena. I didn’t see her do it, but who else could have done it? “Tomorrow, when the gardener gets here, please have him fish it out of the pool.”
“Fish?” Her eyes had grown large at seeing me really mad. Once I had actually threatened to fire her, and she looked like I was sending her to a firing squad. I’d backed down since Grandmother would be miserable without Maria Elena.
“I mean have him get it out of the pool.”
I sat back down beside Regina. “Did you see how that chair got into the pool?”
“No. All of a sudden there was a splash.”
I felt guilty. Maria Elena frustrated me, but somehow I doubted she hurled the chair in the water. I looked over at her. She was staring down at her hands. “Maria Elena, I’m sorry. It must have been the wind.”
She made a little smile, but I could tell I’d hurt her feelings. As irresponsible as she seemed to me, she always had tons of patience with my grandmother.
“So,” Regina began. “How are you going to get the money to pay for this surgery?”
“I don’t know. I saved up for the initial procedure, but after I’ve lost the weight, I have to get another operation for the excess skin.” That’s the operation I was scared to death of. Everyone said it was horribly painful.
Regina nodded.
“I guess I need to produce more manuscripts.”
Regina had never worked a day in her life, since she ran from one rich husband to another. “You need to write more interesting books.”
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