by Paisley Ray
Doneski was lanky with feathered blond hair. I didn’t categorize him as fit or unfit. His physique was the only thing normal about him. He eyed our duffel bags. “Planning a slumber party?”
My shoulder bag dropped to the ground. “Don’t you have anything better to do than hide in the bushes?”
“Light?” he asked.
Sky reached in her pocket and tossed him a disposable BIC. After flicking it, he handed the lighter back.
Raising his gun alarmed me. Doneski was like a jumping jack firecracker. He had a short fuse and was unpredictable. It was only a matter of time before he was arrested; I just hadn’t settled on the exact illegal endeavor he’d choose. “Night like this, you never know what’s lurking. I can give you a discount rate for my protection.”
“Give me that,” I said. Twisting the firearm loose from his arm, I emptied the BB ammo into the grass, then shoved it into his chest. “Grow up, Doneski. We’re not interested in playing cops and robbers with you.”
“For your information,” he purred. “I don’t just shoot BB’s.” He rocked forward onto his toes. “I’m a member of BBFG.”
“What’s that?” Sky asked.
“Big Banger’s Firearm Association.”
Sky let out a snort, and I laughed in my throat.
I linked my arm into Sky’s and pulled her toward building nineteen. Over my shoulder I shouted, “Try not to shoot your big banger on your way home.”
Doneski clicked a fresh cartridge of BBs into his gun. “Call me if you get scared.”
Sky opened the lobby door.
“Markus is a pervoid,” I said.
We peered out of the building glass doors as the sunset vanished on the horizon. “He’s gone, but we could have another encounter.” She dug into her pocket for Trudy’s keychain. “Full moon. That’s lunar cuisine for extraterrestrials. Activity will significantly spike over the next four days.”
The light that reflected off the floor-to-ceiling metallic silver seventies wallpaper created a yellow and orange optical illusion of movement. If you stared at it too long, your eyes would cross, and a cluster headache could ignite.
Rubbing my temples, I closed my eyes. “Sky, I don’t believe in spaceships and little green men.” Thinking of Doneski and his BB gun, I didn’t feel threatened. He’d do anything for attention, and this was just one of his antics. Just like high school, I incinerated the encounter from my head.
I followed Sky up a set of open-back stairs. “Which apartment?”
“Top floor,” Sky said. “Three C, at the back.”
The hallway we walked along had been fumigated with lily-of-the-valley carpet freshener.
A lock clicked. It sounded like Doneski’s BB gun, and we spun around. Three doors behind us, a woman carried a trash bag toward the staircase. Her braided hair wound on top of her head like a pillbox hat. She hummed nonsense words. “Ocha kiniba, cheke cheke.”
“Hi, Mrs. Curtis,” Sky said, before slipping the key into Trudy’s door lock.
Squinting at the two of us, Mrs. Curtis pulled the garbage bag backward. She tightened her lip above her teeth, and froze like a bowler preparing for a strike.
Waving her hand like a windshield wiper blade, Sky said, “Remember me? Trudy’s sister, Sky Bleaux.”
Mrs. Curtis adjusted her frameless granny glasses. Her face relaxed and she moved toward us. “You startled me. I mean, with all the robberies in town, you just can’t be too careful,” she mumbled. “Two apartments in building seven, cleaned out. Where is Trudy? I haven’t seen her in weeks. Teaching all those aerobic classes, I hope she hasn’t strained any of her woman parts.”
“All her parts are fine,” Sky said.
A rasp shot up my throat. Last time I spoke to Trudy, her brain parts were definitely strained.
“She’s been staying with–er—a friend.” Sky explained. “This is Rachael.”
Mrs. Curtis’ hand quivered. Reaching out, she clasped the eye of Horus that hung on a chain around my neck. Closing her eyes she chanted baby babble. “Ooch, eech—ah—ah—ah—eke , eke.”
Sky grinned.
I snorted a giggle.
“It must be the moon,” Sky said, sending me into a knee bender spasm of laughter.
My parents taught me to be respectful toward teachers, neighbors, and clients. Basically, anyone ten years older than me, and I’ve only broken that rule of etiquette twice: when I met Trudy and now giggling in front of Mrs. Curtis.
The chanting slowed. She released my trinket and her eyes popped open. “Well, do tell Trudy I miss her company. And be careful girls,” she said over her shoulder. “Ophiuchus is in its rising phase.” Carrying the garbage bag back into her apartment, she clicked her lock.
“Ophiuchus?” I asked.
Sky pushed Trudy’s door open. “The thirteenth zodiac sign.”
“Have you been hanging out with my mom and Betts or something?”
She stiffened. “My hobby is planetary movement, constellations, and black holes. I don’t see colors around people, and I’ve never felt that I could prophesize. But I keep an open mind.”
“Don’t keep your mind too open, or you may end up like Mrs. Curtis. Did you see her eyelids flap open?” I asked.
“Hair wrapped like that is bound to turn off some circuitry. She needs to loosen her braids.”
Inside Trudy’s, I walked across a gym mat, careful not to stub a toe on a set of barbells. Over the past weeks, our house had acquired features similar to Trudy’s apartment. “You have to help me get your sister to move out,” I told Sky. “She pesters me to exercise and keeps asking if I’m coming to her ten o’clock.”
Biting her lip, Sky made a sympathetic grimace.
Plastic storage boxes were stacked into a pyramid on a dining room table, and a sofa and chairs rested somewhere below jars of glitter, boxes of mismatched silverware, chipped plates, buttons, and doorknobs. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Trudy was a junker.
Sky went into Trudy’s bedroom and came back with two bottles of Lambrusco.
I raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Trudy doesn’t drink. These were left over from a New Year’s party. She’ll never notice.”
Sky pulled drinking glasses out of the hall storage closet and handed one to me.
“I thought the tidying thief had been here. Why does Trudy have all this stuff?”
Settling into a corner chair, Sky said, “I have a theory. The tidying thief wasn’t from planet earth.”
The Lambrusco was sweet like fizzy grape juice, and I felt my muscles relax. “It’s obvious. Trudy concocted that story so she could move in with my Dad.”
Sky finished her glass and poured another. “No offense, but your Dad and Trudy. That’s just—eugh.”
Glancing out the balcony slider door, I checked to see if Doneski was still out there.
Sky removed her boots. “There’s one question we need to answer.”
“This better not involve inter-galactic travel,” I warned.
Widening her eyes, she twirled a strip of orange hair around a finger. “We need to figure out if it’s the sex, or emotional fulfillment? Once we know the big picture, we can concentrate on chipping away at it.”
I drained the bottle into my cup. “We don’t need to analyze the details. We just need a plan to separate them.”
From inside a pant pocket, she pulled out a joint and wiped lint off it. Flicking her Bic, she waved me toward her. Smoking happy grass was the best problem-solving suggestion she’d come up with. Inhaling was bound to trigger ideas.
“We could pay someone to hit on Trudy,” I squeaked. “Like a body-builder from the gym.”
Mulling that over, Sky shrugged without enthusiasm.
“I know,” Sky said. “Why don’t we plant a bottle of lindane shampoo in your dad’s shower?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
She giggled. “Prescription shampoo for crabs.”
I wasn’t buzzed enough to think t
hat was a smart idea. “They’d think it was mine.” I took the last hit before the paper disintegrated. “The perfect solution would be one that happened naturally.”
The pot smoke diffused Sky’s self-censoring, and the words she spoke had sharp edges. “Like your Mom and Dad getting back together?”
I rubbed the eye of Horus that rested on my neck.
“Have your parents been seeing one another?”
“Not really,” I confessed. “Mom’s been busy hanging out with Betts, getting ready for the psychic expo. I’ve only seen the PU’s—parental units—together once.”
“Maybe they were working things out,” Sky said.
I slumped on top of a rumbled quilt that covered the sofa. “I don’t think so. Yesterday in the shop, we heard furniture moving in the studio loft. Dad went upstairs to see what was going on. When he came back down his face was red. He said something about Mom and Betts improving the energy flow. As far as I can tell my parents are barely speaking.”
Sky licked her pointer finger and held it up. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. We need to get rid of the interference.”
“Interference?” My head felt foggy. Unsure if Sky had digressed into the MUFON lingo, I slid open the balcony door, and let fresh after-rain air into the apartment.
“If Betts believed your mom threatened to reveal insider information on the psychic thing—and if your mom became mad at Betts for questioning her loyalty—their alliance could be shaken. And with your mom back in town without psychic ties.” Sky shrugged. “You know.”
“Know what?”
“Your dad’s romance with my sister would become difficult.”
The sliding door curtain billowed around me making me appear ghostly. “You may have something. But can we pull it off?”
“As long as Betts isn’t psychic we can.”
“She’s not psychic,” I said with sudden insight, “unless you consider psychics masters at exposing vulnerability.”
“Maybe it’s time someone played on hers,” Sky said.
The night was quiet except for the noisy raindrops that beaded when they hit the deck. The wet drops drew goose bumps on my skin. I felt naughty, but what choice did I have? It was time for some reverse karma. I’d have to do some snooping and carefully choose the words I spoke to Mom and Betts. It could work.
Lighting a cigarette, I watched a white van with a dented bumper stop at a building diagonally across the street. A figure with a twig hat jogged in front of the headlights, and got into the passenger side. We didn’t need to worry about Markus Doneski. He had other plans and so did I. I rubbed my tongue over my crooked eyetooth. The Psychic and Paranormal Expo should be enlightening.
NOTE TO SELF
Don’t open kelp powder. Smells like cat piss, and may contain microbes that encourage you to wear excessive amount of neon spandex.
Betts’s removal—Wish I could just call an exterminator.
CHAPTER 6
Enlightenment
My shoulder stopped aching, but my head was pounding. I didn’t feel motivated to upholster the seats of the chairs I’d been restoring. Besides the Lambrusco and the residual pot that punished my brain, the client’s fabric selection—muddied orange velvet–launched waves of nausea up my throat. Thank God Dad wasn’t in this morning. There was a high probability that I’d lose my breakfast.
Since it was the Saturday before the Fourth of July, Edmond and I were only working until two. Travis was on the road, and he planned to be at my house by three.
Although Travis and I talked on the phone all the time, I hadn’t seen him since we’d slept together, in the literal, nonromantic sense. I thought he’d be “the one,” but turns out I’m attracted to gay men. With no chance of getting naked with him, I’d settled for his friendship. Because of a few minor incidents freshman year—falling out of a loft while intoxicated, being run over by a frenemy, shagging with a demented art forger, and being held at gunpoint by a wackadoo—he thinks my life is an action-packed riot. A complete over-assumption. Regardless, I tolerate his self-perceived normalcy in exchange for his cut-through-the-crap insight.
I hadn’t told him all my plans for this weekend. An uneventful night at the Psychic expo would prove that my life is truly dull, but with his company I hoped we’d manage a few giggles.
Laying the crushed orange velvet on the cutting table I winced. “What are you doing this weekend?” I asked Edmond.
“Lake O Pines.”
“In the bullet on wheels?”
He smiled and nodded. He’d refurbished a 1965 Airstream Safari. I wished I were the one road-tripping in a knock-it-until-you-rock-it romance-mobile. God, I was sexually frustrated. This summer had no promise of romance for me, but I hoped it would unearth something I could use to eradicate Betts.
Edmond answered the phone, while I fiddled with pinning a paper pattern on the fabric. He hung up. “I’m going to Geneva McCarty’s. She wants me to look at a painting. Wanna come?”
“Should we tell Dad?”
“Naw. He’s at Gert’s. Her air-conditioner is on the fritz.”
My mind was not in upholstery mode. A sales call would be a welcome distraction. The visit to Geneva’s would be a quick in and out. Afterward, I needed to get back to the shop and make nice with Mom. I hadn’t patched things up since the flambé-lesbian fiasco at our house. If I wanted her back in my life, I’d have to smooth out the prickly edges that made our recent conversations difficult.
Edmond dangled the van keys. “You can drive.”
GENEVA MCCARTY LIVED IN a fairytale Hansel and Gretel Tudor with neatly aligned slate roof tiles and drooping gables. The exterior was sandstone cut from a local quarry. An art studio, greenhouse, and storage shed nestled within the forest that surrounded her estate. With my foot off the gas, I glided down her driveway, passing half a dozen black iron lampposts. I’d been to her home a few times, but never with Dad.
The last time I was here, a year ago, Edmond and I picked up a Japanese silk shoji screen that had torn. A twang of guilt strummed along my veins. Something had gone wrong between Dad and Geneva. She didn’t seem overly difficult to me, but what did I know? When I read her customer file on Dad’s desk, I realized she’d been a client since before I was born. If she was a royal pain in the dunkus, I wondered why Dad continued to conduct business with her.
Edmond pushed the black button that rested inside an ornate scroll design on the front door, and we waited.
“Are you sure she’s expecting us today?” I asked.
Knocking loudly, he shouted, “Hello, Geneva.”
I stood with my back to the door, and looked at the rolling mounds of buffalo grass that carpeted the dirt between aged maple trees. This storybook lawn was lush, devoid of dandelions, thistle weeds, or patches of clover. Everything about Geneva McCarty seemed so well kept.
“Hello Edmond,” Geneva shouted from twenty-feet away. Wearing bright colored pedal pushers and a halter-top, she waved from the doorway of her tempered glass orchid house. Her garden-gloved hand set a pair of pruners inside a bucket she carried. “So sorry, I was re-potting some phalaenopsis and lost track of time.”
“Not to worry,” Edmond said, kissing her on both cheeks.
“Rachael, dear,” she said. “It’s lovely to see you. Your hair looks lighter. Have you been in the sun?”
She was always so perceptive about me. I guessed I reminded her of her youth. “A little.”
“The coloring suits you. Come in, and have a cup of tea.”
Geneva was born in the U.K., and although her accent had softened from years spent in Ohio, she still considered herself a Geordie. Edmond turned the stovetop on, and pulled out the cups and saucers while she led me to the summer porch. “So, how was your first year at college? Did you learn anything?”
“A few things,” I said.
“Did you meet anyone interesting?”
That was an understatement.
“What’s his name, or is there
more than one?”
I felt my face flush. Actually three, if I were honest.
“Oh go on and tell me. Give me something other than orchids and creaky joints to talk about.”
Relenting information, I said, “There’s a guy.” I checked the doorway not wanting Edmond to overhear. “Clay Sorenson.”
She sat in a corner wicker chair and opened her cigarette box.
“He’s southern. Studying physical therapy.”
“Are you in love?” Jeez, Geneva.
“Ladies,” Edmond mused as he poured tea from an oriental blue teapot. “Now, what needs to be repaired?”
She squeezed a lemon slice. “Cassandra.”
“Of Troy?” I asked.
“I had a fresh coat of paint applied in the study,” she said, drawing a sip, “and when the painting was removed from the wall, I noticed a buildup on the rocks below her feet. She looks dull.”
Edmond crossed his legs at the ankle, and blew on the steam that rose from his cup. “We’ll take her back to the shop—brighten her up.”
A wooden box with a worn indentation near the lid rested on a side table. Sliding her fingers inside, she pinched a dark brown Indonesian Kretek cigarette, and rolled it between her fingers. “How’s the Tiffany?”
“You won’t recognize it. The leaded glass arrived. Rachael has been helping me cut and grind the pieces and solder them into place.”
“Have you, love?”
I set my cup down. “The chandelier is killer.”
She fitted the unlit cigarette into a jewel-encrusted holder. “I fought for that lamp.”
“In a bar brawl?” I asked, re-calling my Freshman encounter with She-Devil, the feisty redhead who physically threatened me whenever I got close to Clay, my-almost-boyfriend.
Geneva and Edmond laughed.
“Practically. I won it at the Carnegies’.”
“Poker?” I asked.
Edmond moved to flick a lighter for her. As she inhaled through the lipstick-stained holder, the cloves inside the ragged paper cracked. I so craved a drag.
