Summer Flambè - Comic Suspense (The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles, No. 2)

by Paisley Ray

  I fumbled with a corner square of sandpaper and Dad interrupted me. He unrolled a felt case and offered me his woodworking tools. Dancing my fingers over the worn-handled chisels, I scanned the variance in shape and size of blades for shaping and carving. I slid my favorite tool from his case. It looked like a paintbrush, except the tip held a piece of sandpaper no bigger than your thumb. I used it to smooth scrollwork and hard-to-get-at corners. Dad smiled. “That’s one of a kind, designed by your grandfather.”

  We used an array of stains and paints, but Dad recommended I use potassium dichromate. Toxic stuff—orange and red crystals that came in a tin. He taught me how to mix the right consistency and color. We tested it on a piece of scrap mahogany and watched it react with the tannins, producing a rich brown stain. Later on, Edmond, Dad’s long-time assistant, would show me how to reupholster the seat.

  Once I’d finished gluing loose joints on two chair legs, I plugged in a fan to speed up the drying. My stomach gurgled and the bell on the door chimed.

  Looking up, I did a double take. Dad had ordered take-out lunch and I knew the delivery guy. Markus Doneski had gone to high school with me. While Dad went to get money, Markus moved toward me and muttered, “Well, well. If it ain’t Arty Farty O’Brien.”

  I hadn’t seen Doneski in a year and had actually fed his memory into my brain shredder. “Markus,” I scowled.

  “Miss me?” he asked.

  “Ah, let me think. NO.”

  Dad returned from the office. “You two know each other?”

  “Of course. I sat behind Rachael in Trigonometry.”

  Dad handed him a twenty. “Oh, nice. I bet you two have some catching up to do.” I seared Markus with my eyes and made a mental note not to order anything from the Hoagie House.

  THE CANTON MUSEUM OF ART had a new exhibit, and my dad went over to help the curator who was also a close friend of his. Figuring the chairs needed time to dry, and the phone was not ringing off the hook, I took a leisurely lunch out back. After I ate my Italian hoagie, I closed my eyes and worked on maintaining my daily dose of sun-induced vitamin D.

  Dad’s assistant, Edmond didn’t hear me come back from lunch. Climbing onto a stool, I half watched him shimmy his hips in a dance around a worktable. He sang with Elvis about being all shook up.

  Edmond swiveled his pointer fingers toward me and softened the volume. His forehead looked moist. In a winded breath, he sputtered, “There you are.”

  I walked over and dabbed his forehead with a rag. “Is this what you do when you’re,” I looked behind each of my shoulders, “alone?”

  He chuckled and his cheeks reddened, softening his bad-ass biker look. His shoulder-length black hair had grayed near his face, and he pulled it all back in a ponytail. The denim shirt and jeans he wore, combined with his furniture-polish-stained hands, fit the mold of a grease monkey, not an arty-farty restoration expert. “You make a great spy. Sneaking up on people.” He took the rag from my hand and hucked it in the wastebasket. “I don’t reveal secrets that easily.”

  Lunch had landed hard. I rubbed my stomach. “Are there any Tums tablets around?”

  “Check the Kittinger drawer,” he said.

  Stacks of client files and invoices rested on top of an antique walnut desk Dad had rescued. I sat down, and dug in the center drawer. I didn’t find Tums, but did find a peppermint Lifesaver. I popped it in my mouth and leafed through the folders. For insurance purposes, Dad always took before, during, and after photos of commissions.

  The Canton Museum was a regular client, and Dad had folders labeled by department. Some private collectors’ invoices also littered the desktop. Dad must have been working on billing before he left. I was surprised to see a folder labeled McCarty. We did work for her, which was weird since she and Dad were icy. Geneva McCarty was a brazen eccentric whom I’d met a handful of times over the years. She oozed money. Judging from the commissions we’d gotten, she had deep pockets. I flipped open her folder, and leafed through some of the projects. Mostly furniture repairs for nicks and scratches, gobs of painting restorations. A few custom frames, velvet jewelry box lining, and bookbinding. A Polaroid photo of a tattered leather-bound book rested in the folder. I picked it up and looked at it closely. A string wrapped in a figure eight securing two leather circles, held it closed. The title was engraved in gold lettering, the first letter of each word, narrow and enlarged, the rest of the letters simple, not ornate. The book was old, fifteenth or sixteenth-century, I guessed. Nostradamus’s Translation of Horapollon of Manuthis. A French book of notes on Egyptian hieroglyphics. Funky. Jogging my memory, I swore I’d seen this book somewhere.

  “Edmond, do you know how to bind books?”

  “No, but your father does.”

  The date on the yellowed invoice was May of 1968, the year I was born. Leaving the desk, I checked the chair legs. “What do you think?”

  He tapped the joints with a finger. “Let it dry overnight. Start the arms in the morning.” He motioned his head. “Give me a hand with the Tiffany chandelier?”

  Sheets of glass and a box of pendants were spread out on a worktable. Edmond had suspended the lotus flower chandelier on a pulley. Shades of green ranging from emerald to mint gave the glass the illusion of tangled vines. Interspersed among the grassy toned hues were delicate clusters of soft pinks. He and I traced cardboard templates for the missing glass and began cutting and grinding replicas. Once we finished, we’d apply copper foil, and weld the pieces into place with a soldering gun.

  A luster of light gleamed inside a coin-sized piece of leaded glass Edmond was inspecting. “How are things?”

  I smirked. “That’s a non-question question.”

  Edmond grinned, “Things in your life. I like knowing what you’re up to, your plans.”

  “My plan is to work here for college cash, and manage to survive summer without becoming mentally scarred by Dad’s overzealous, space-cadet girlfriend.” There, I’d said it.

  Edmond smiled empathetically, but didn’t make a big deal of my Trudy Bleaux adjective outburst. He was like family, and I allowed him to pry into my personal business. He answered my questions on topics that I didn’t feel comfortable asking Mom or Dad. Topics like my paternal grandparents, who had died before I could walk. Dad went all ice-cube when I’d asked about his mother’s favorite color, and if her handwriting was loopy or chicken scratch. Mom always pleaded the fifth, saying she didn’t know. Edmond told me yellow, and that her handwriting was like calligraphy, full of twirls and loops. Twenty years older than Dad, he’d worked for my grandparents when he was my age, and was the only means of information I had to my ancestry.

  When Dad inherited the furniture repair business, Edmond encouraged an expansion into fine art. Despite Edmond’s need to know my business, I categorized him under favorite, most trusted family friend.

  I traced a template for a missing piece of glass in the Tiffany.

  Wiping his glasses on a rag, he said, “Life doesn’t stand still. Whether we like it or not, it fluxes.”

  The battered chandelier we worked on had an intricate design. “Who brought in the…”

  He turned on the grinder, drowning my words. I watched him smooth a piece of glass. Repairing the chandelier was like fitting together the pieces of a tree canopy puzzle, and I didn’t look at the clock until the light streaming through the windows faded.

  Removing his protective glasses, Edmond wiped the lenses.

  I looked at the Swatch on my wrist. “Why hasn’t Dad called?”

  “He must be held up in traffic.”

  We tidied up the worktable, and Edmond turned off the lights. He wheeled his 12-speed Schwinn Le Tour limited edition outside, and set the alarm on the shop before he locked the door. The two of us sat in the mahogany Adirondack chairs, a barter trade from an artisan, that rested on a cement slab patio outside the shop.

  He patted my knee. “I’ll stick around. Make sure he shows.”

  A smoky haze of low clouds
drifted across the sky, diffusing the sunlight. It was perfect weather for shorts, t-shirts, no shoes. At least for a few hours until the mosquitoes began to feast.

  Chin up, he rested closed eyes.

  Watching the road for Dad, I asked, “Big weekend plans?”

  “Planting snap peas and beets.”

  He had been on the planet three times longer than I had, but defied age. His brown eyes were bright, his skin had some roadways, but no potholes or loose guide rails. His picket teeth gleamed of youth. In junior high, I’d asked him his secret. He told me: eat colorful vegetables, run like you’re being chased, Abolene cream on your face, elbows, and feet every night, and brush your teeth with baking soda.

  Tilting his head forward, he asked, “What about you? Any plans?”

  “Just hanging out,” I mumbled, “Hoping Trudy re-clutters her apartment and deems it habitable. My opinion of her would move up a notch if she moved move back to her own space this weekend.”

  Adjusting his graying ponytail, he suppressed a smile. “You don’t approve of Trudy?”

  Edmond was a perceptive guy. I grimaced wondering why he’d bothered to ask. Then again, unlike Dad, he’d asked. “She’s okay at a distance.”

  A horn beeped from a two-door, marigold Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible. The top was down. Nothing about Trudy was ordinary and even her curls defiantly cascaded out of the silk scarf she’d fastened over her head. Black and white checkered-frame sunglasses, scattered with neon shapes, edged down her nose. She could lose the head gear, but the car she drove was killer. I’d never tell her, but I drooled over her transportation.

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires. There was a female passenger in the front seat. Despite different hair color and cuts, the two women had strikingly similar walnut-colored eyes, and delicate noses that narrowed on the edge. Trudy put the car in park and waved over enthusiastically. “Hi Rachael, hi Edmond.”

  “Trudy, how are you doing?”

  I didn’t say anything, figuring not much had changed since I’d seen her eight hours ago.

  She slammed her door and sprang toward us. “I am fab-u-lous-so.”

  Edmond slipped on his helmet.

  Squeezing his bicep, she asked, “Been working out?”

  Color rose in his cheeks. “Just peddling.”

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked, secretly fantasizing she’d dump him for a more mature Edmond and his shapely biceps.

  Trudy adjusted her sunglasses and placed her hands on her hips. Sucking wind, she let out a sigh that flushed a crow out of a nearby Buckeye tree. “John was held up at the museum.” She smiled. “He asked me to pick you up. He’ll meet us back at the house.”

  Why didn’t Dad have the decency to call and tell me himself? That pissed me off. Trudy was not someone I wanted to spend any additional time with, not to mention the girl in her car whose arms hung over the passenger door. What a misfit. Her jet-black dyed hair draped down her shoulders, and she futzed with an orange chunk of hair that hung in her eyes. She began lacing it around her slim index finger while she cracked gum in a round of snaps. “Rachael, Edmond, this is my sister, Sky.”

  Sky popped her head up and smiled. Instead of waving, she separated her fingers down the middle, and saluted us a la Spock. She looked to be in her early twenties, well past the age-of-pretend. “Trudy, we need to get going. I have a MUFON meeting tonight.”

  “MUFON?” I asked.

  Sky sat up. “Mutual UFO Network. If you’re not doing anything, come to our midnight meeting. We’re looking for new members. I could pick you up after my shift at Orange Julius juice bar.”

  Two with the same gene pool. Great. Irritated, I mumbled, “I have plans,” and clamored into the back seat of Trudy’s convertible. Dad and I needed to have a chat. Trudy was not my buddy, and I was not cool with being chauffeured by her. I needed my own wheels. Four of them.

  LIKE A FUDGE POP on a stick, my fingertips were stained brown, and the edges of my nails had split. I peeled back the flappy bits that looked vulnerable to being snagged.

  “Power Boost,” Trudy said, “is an easy source of globular isolated proteins. Make sure you mention that when you sell the powder.”

  On the car ride to the house, I gathered that Trudy and Sky had signed on to sell some energy powder.

  Sky pulled out a map of Canton. Strategizing a door-to-door blitz that would rival any Avon representation, she’d highlighted some sections in pink and others in yellow. “You take the East neighborhoods, and I’ll take the West,” she told Trudy.

  At a stoplight, Trudy twisted her head back toward me. “Rachael, are you interested in making some extra cash?”

  Contorting the corners of my eyes and mouth downward, I flashed a “Yeah right” non-verbal response. I had experiences drinking concoctions, and ended up shagging with a creep who later tried to throttle me. And then there was an incident at a clambake where I blacked out. I erred on the cautious side when it came to consuming liquids. Peddling protein powder to unsuspecting Cantonians would be a non-happening event.

  Trudy had good traffic light karma. Riding in her open top car was the beauty salon equivalent to having my hair styled in a wind tunnel. By the time she parked in front of my house, my hair had been twirled into a complicated web of tangles and insects. Sidling out of the back seat, I self-consciously rubbed a hand across my flyaway hair. Luckily, the only person around was a kid who struggled with a dodgy pull cord on a push lawn mower.

  Trudy readjusted her headscarf, retying it around her forehead. Jovially she chattered an unhelpful observation. “Rachael, your left calf doesn’t have the same muscle tone as your right.”

  Pulling a stack of mail from the metal box, I twisted to look at the back of my legs. I hadn’t told Trudy about the night Big Blue, my college roommate’s Oldsmobile, had been purposely driven over me by a frenemy.

  I leafed through junk mail, while Trudy unloaded cans of Energy Boost from a case in the trunk of her car. She lectured, “Daily protein powder and my step class will build strength and have you toned by the end of summer.”

  Sky slammed the car door, then folded her body in half in a touch-the-toe stretch before moving to help Trudy sort and divide the cans. “I’ll sell at least a dozen at MUFON tonight,” she said.

  Flipping through the magazines and bills a second time, I hoped for a letter from Clay. Our last parting had been abrupt and we’d left our relationship open-ended. I wasn’t even sure if he’d speak to me when I returned to campus. I’d mulled over the details of our lip-lock in his dorm room and shared the series of events with Katie Lee. We both agreed that I couldn’t have stopped the interruption, i.e. Storm Cauldwell from the FBI, showing up unannounced as Clay and I explored…things.

  Bent down beside me, Sky plucked a dandelion cluster out of a sidewalk seam. “Expecting something important?” she asked and ate it.

  I fastened the metal door on the mailbox and grimaced. “Some dog could’ve marinated that.”

  “Um,” she smiled.

  Trudy closed the roof on her convertible. “Dandelion leaves are a body tonic. They provide more vitamin A than carrots, and support your liver…”

  In defeat, I left the two on the street, and marched up to my house. Inserting a key to unlock the deadbolt, the front door opened without effort, and pot roast heaven wafted in my face. The kind smothered in onion and garlic gravy, with sweet baby carrots, celery hearts, finger potatoes, and garden tomatoes—just like Mom used to make.

  My back stiffened. Dad only cooked cereal and toast. I dropped the mail in the entry and tiptoed toward the kitchen, careful to avoid the loose hallway floorboard.

  Soapy water filled one-half of the sink. Spices were out of the drawer and aligned next to the oven. Steam rose from two bread loaves resting on the cutting board.

  She was seated, her shoulders pulling the back of her sleeveless blouse seams taught. Her tanned arms were solider than I remembered. When I looked at the back of her head, I wasn’t sure.
Her hair was shoulder length with a touch of gray. Across from her a woman with short white hair, shaved in the back and spiked on top, looked up at me.

  “Mom?”

  NOTE TO SELF

  I am not okay carpooling with Trudy. How am I going to convince Dad to get me a car?

  Mom’s back, and she’s still hanging with Betts, the head nut-case she ran off with. Shit!

  CHAPTER 3

  In the Cards

  She turned before rising from the chair. Above her smile, shadows darkened the skin beneath her eyes. Hesitantly she said, “Rachael.”

  I fell into her open arms. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were coming?”

  Before she answered, Dad walked in the back door and froze. “Maeve? What are you…How did you get in?”

  Mom brushed imaginary creases off her pants. “The house was unlocked.”

  Dad glared at me as if I’d let them in the house. Staring back, I shrugged. Wheels inside his head ground, until an epiphany stuck, and he remembered his girlfriend had been the last to leave. Dad pinched his lips when Trudy stepped into the kitchen, scarf tails dangling behind her shoulder. Her head swiveled like a bobble from Mom to Dad. In the doorway, Sky stood on tiptoes, and peered over her sister’s shoulder. “Hello.”