4 Decoupage Can Be Deadly

by Lois Winston

  “You’re crazy,” said Mama. “Look at him. He’s the spitting image of Karl.”

  “All part of his scheme, no doubt,” said Lucille. “How much did the plastic surgery cost you? What do you expect to get out of this scam? Money?”

  “You don’t have any money,” I said, stepping into the living room. “And Ira isn’t running a scam, Lucille.”

  She clutched Mephisto to her chest and glared at me over his squirming body. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you know this imposter.”

  “Yes, I know Ira, and I also know he’s Karl’s half-brother.”

  “Lies! All lies!” As she pounded her fist on the arm of the sofa, Mephisto wriggled free of her grasp and lumbered off her lap. “You’re in on it, too!”

  Ralph chose that moment to fly across the room and squawk his two cents. “Gods, what lies I have heard!” Cymbeline. Act Four, Scene Two.”

  “To what end?” I asked my mother-in-law. “What possible motive would I have for lying to you?”

  Lucille jutted out her chin. “I know I’m not wanted here. You’re all trying to drive me crazy and force me back into that horrendous nursing home. You’d stoop to anything to get rid of me.”

  Yes, including replicating Karl’s DNA, apparently.

  Lucille leveraged her cane to force herself off the sofa. She still wasn’t all that steady on her feet after her stroke and brain surgery, but she refused to use her walker. For a moment I feared she’d topple forward onto the floor. I lunged to steady her, but she slapped my hand away. “Don’t touch me!”

  She raised her cane and pointed at Ira. “I’m not listening to any more of these blatant lies. If you show up here again, expect to be arrested for fraud and false impersonation. Come, Manifesto.” She then turned her back on all of us and shuffled off to her bedroom, expecting her dog to follow. Devil Dog had other ideas, though, and instead headed for the kitchen.

  “Well, that went as well as expected,” said Mama.

  “Was this your doing?” I asked her.

  “Really, Anastasia! It was only a matter of time before she found out. I told you that.”

  I ignored her to confront the real culprit. “Why are you here, Ira?”

  Before he could answer, Nick and Alex burst through the front door. “Hey, Mom! Did you hear?” asked Alex. He threw his arms around me and crushed me in an exuberant bear hug. “Isn’t it the coolest birthday present ever?”

  “Whose birthday?”

  “Mine.”

  “Your birthday was three months ago. Trust me, I was there the day you were born. It’s not a date I’m likely to forget.”

  Alex laughed. “I know, but Uncle Ira didn’t know me back then. It’s a belated birthday present.”

  I extricated myself from Alex’s lanky arms and turned to the giver of the as yet undisclosed gift. Ira’s neediness rankled me from the moment I first met him back in early July. He’d been worming his way into our lives ever since. This wasn’t the first time he’d tried to buy my kids’ affection. The man had more money than common sense. “What did you give him, Ira?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Alex beat him to it. “A Jeep! He gave me a Wrangler, Mom! Look!”

  Alex grabbed my hand, pulled me into the foyer, and swung open the front door. A Jeep sat parked at the curb in front of Ira’s minivan.

  “It’s pre-owned,” said Ira, coming up behind us. “But it’s certified. And extremely safe.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I said, a fact that was so beside the point at the moment, that it didn’t even belong in the same galaxy with the conversation I needed to have with him. “Ira, you and I need to talk. In private.”

  “Mom, you’re not—”

  “Please go to your room, Alex, and take your brother with you.”

  “But—”

  “Now.” I hated playing the villain, but if I didn’t set firm boundaries now, I’d have an even bigger problem on my hands in the future.

  Alex stood his ground. “You’re not going to let me keep the car, are you?”

  Instead of answering, I pointed in the direction of his bedroom. He nodded toward his brother, and the two of them reluctantly dragged themselves down the hall.

  “Ira,” I said after the boys were out of earshot, “I know you mean well, but you can’t give my son a car.”

  “Why not?” asked Mama.

  “Because it’s inappropriate.”

  “We’re family,” said Ira. “How is it inappropriate?”

  Did I really need to explain? “You didn’t give Alex a video game, Ira. You gave him a gift that costs tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “I picked it up wholesale,” he said. “It wasn’t all that expensive.”

  Ira owned a string of car dealerships in Mercer and Hunterdon Counties, but the cost of the vehicle was totally beside the point. I stared at the hurt look on his face. “You really don’t get it, do you? Ira, you can’t buy your way into our lives.”

  Mama placed her hand on my arm. “He’s just being generous, dear.”

  “Look,” said Ira. “I have a lot of money. More than I know what to do with. What’s the point of being rich if I can’t derive pleasure from spending my money on people I care about? You have financial problems, thanks to my half-brother. Why shouldn’t I help?”

  “A half-brother you never knew,” I reminded him. “And my financial problems are not your problems.”

  Mama threw her arms up in the air. “For goodness sake, Anastasia. Stop being so stubborn. Family helps family. That’s why you opened your home to that pinko commie, isn’t it? Alex needs a car. For that matter, so do you.”

  She turned to Ira. “Have you seen that rattletrap she’s driving?”

  “Mama!”

  “Don’t Mama me. Stop being a martyr for once and accept Ira’s help. Lawrence and I have.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ira bought us a condo in Scotch Plains. Now Lawrence and I can get married.”

  “How does Cynthia feel about that?” I asked Ira.

  “She left me.”

  FOUR

  “I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure I meant it. My one and only encounter with Cynthia Pollack had me convinced she married Ira for his money.

  “It wasn’t working out,” he said.

  “What about the kids?”

  “She didn’t want to have anything to do with them. I never should have married her, but I was terribly lonely after Kristin died.”

  “Kristin?”

  “My first wife. I lost her to cancer two years ago.”

  I had suspected Cynthia was a trophy wife. Now I knew she was actually a gold-digger. I suppose that also explained Ira’s spoiled brat kids. I’d never met them, but from what Alex and Nick told me, I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect.

  Learning about Ira’s past went a long way to explaining his neediness and why he wanted to be a part of our lives. I felt sorry for him, but that didn’t mean I wanted him as any more of a fixture in my life. I dreaded the inevitable quid pro quo. If I accepted a car today, I’d probably get stuck babysitting three spoiled brats every weekend while their father dove back into the dating pool.

  “About Alex’s car?” asked Ira.

  “Please, Mom!”

  I turned to find my son eavesdropping from the hallway. So much for my private conversation with Ira.

  “You have enough money for the insurance?” I asked. Alex had worked all summer at Starbucks and continued working a few hours a week since the start of school.

  “I think so.”

  “And paying for driver’s ed lessons?”

  “I’ll teach him,” offered Ira.

  “He still needs to take driver’s ed for the lower insurance rate.”

  “I can work a few extra hours a week,” said Alex.

  “Along with the driver’s ed, your sports, and homework. I don’t see how you’ll have the time—”

  “I’ll make the
time, Mom.”

  “Without your grades suffering? You need to keep your GPA up to qualify for scholarships.”

  “I’ll keep my grades up. I promise. Please!”

  A second car would certainly make my life easier, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was about to enter into a Faustian bargain. “I’ll sleep on it,” I finally said.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Alex lifted me into the air and swung me around.

  “I didn’t say yes,” I reminded him.

  “But she will,” said Mama. She winked at Alex before he raced down the hall to tell his brother the news I hadn’t as yet agreed to.

  “I should be going,” said Ira.

  “How did you get both your car and the Jeep here,” I asked as I walked him to the door.

  “Two of my guys helped me. That’s why I got here so late tonight. I had to wait for both of them to be available this weekend.”

  “One more thing,” I said as he stepped outside. “No more surprises. Next time you consult with me before you do anything for or give anything to my sons.”

  “So Alex can keep the car?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  “I’d be happy to find one for you, too, Anastasia.”

  “I have a car.”

  “No, you have a rattletrap.”

  “But it’s my rattletrap. Goodnight, Ira.”

  “Goodnight, Anastasia.” He bent down and kissed my cheek, which creeped me out a bit, given his strong resemblance to Dead Louse of a Spouse.

  “We need to find a nice girl for Ira,” said Mama after I closed the front door. “What about some of the women you work with, dear? Are any of them single?”

  “Forget it, Yenta.”

  “Really, Anastasia!”

  “Don’t really me, Mama. How long have you known about the car for Alex?”

  “A few weeks. Ever since Ira started shopping around for one.”

  “And it never occurred to you to mention anything about it to me?”

  “And spoil the surprise?”

  I channeled Tessa and did a fair representation of one of her eye rolls. “How does Lawrence feel about his daughter walking out on Ira?”

  “He’s not exactly certain Cynthia walked out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lawrence suspects Ira actually threw Cynthia out, even though Ira claims Cynthia left him.”

  “Why?”

  “She insisted he send his kids off to boarding school. They were having some huge fights about it.”

  “And Lawrence still lives with Ira?”

  “He’s on Ira’s side.”

  “But he’s her father!”

  “It’s called tough love, dear. Cynthia needs to grow up. She’s a spoiled brat. Whether she left Ira or Ira sent her packing, doesn’t really matter.”

  “What do you mean? She’ll probably walk away with a huge settlement, given Ira’s apparent bottomless pot of gold.”

  “Not according to their pre-nup.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “A pre-nup?”

  “Ira insisted on one,” said Mama. “He might come across as a milquetoast, but according to Lawrence, he’s a barracuda when it comes to his money.”

  “That Jeep parked out front claims otherwise.”

  “A generous barracuda but a barracuda nonetheless. He and Cynthia weren’t married long enough for her to benefit financially in a divorce. Ira made sure of that.”

  ~*~

  Morning arrived, finding me no closer to a decision regarding Alex’s car. Instead of sleeping, I’d spent most of the night debating with myself. Did I have the right to deny my son the gift based solely on my uneasiness regarding Ira’s generosity? Would I feel the same if Mama had gifted him with the Jeep? Probably not. Had Karl not left me doggy-paddling in an ocean of red ink, I would have bought Alex a car for his birthday. I’d planned to. We’d planned to. Back in those bygone days of our comfortably middleclass American Dream life, now a distant memory.

  I had promised my son an answer this morning, and in the end I found no logical reason to justify making him hand back the keys. Before he left for school, I reluctantly allowed Alex to keep his birthday present from Ira.

  After one of Trimedia’s less-than-stable employees had tried to kill me a few months ago, Naomi used the opportunity to leverage some much needed benefits for her staff by leading the board into believing I intended to sue Trimedia. Along with receiving a cash settlement that allowed me to pay off a huge chunk of my Karl-induced debt, I and my fellow editors were now entitled to comp time.

  Even though our planning meetings for the issue six months out normally fell on the last Monday of the month, Naomi had bumped the meeting back a week due to the consumer show. So I took Monday off and caught up on all the errands, laundry, and cleaning that had piled up over the weekend.

  ~*~

  The next morning, as I drove to work in my rust bucket Hyundai, holding my breath through the constant creaks, rattles, and squeaks, I thought about compromising my principles even further. Car years, I decided, were equivalent to dogs years, which made my Hyundai fifty-six years old. Not ancient but the car already suffered from an acute case of car-thritis. Any day now I expected something major to fail.

  I managed throughout the summer without air-conditioning. I could manage without heat. I couldn’t manage without an alternator or a carburetor, even if I had no idea what either did. However, although tempting, I also couldn’t cross the line that would allow me to let Ira purchase a car for me. Such generosity suggested a level of intimacy I refused to encourage with my newly acquired half-brother-in-law.

  Yet I wondered if I’d stick to my high principles if it were Zack offering to buy me a car.

  I also wondered if it made sense to start playing the lottery. If anyone ever needed an extra million or two or ten, I was that someone. Hell, I’d settle for winning a few hundred thousand. Too bad I couldn’t bring myself to part with even a dollar of my hard earned money while red ink ruled my life.

  The first thing I did after arriving at work was hit the break room for a cup of coffee and something chocolate. I found a freshly brewed pot of coffee but not even a leftover crumb of a chocolate anything.

  On my way to my cubicle, I popped my head into Cloris’s cubicle. “No goodies this morning?” I could count on few things in this life, but one of them was that Cloris kept the break room supplied with goodies from her test kitchen and samples sent by vendors who wanted her to feature their products in her food articles.

  “Going through withdrawal?”

  “Hand over whatever chocolate you’re hoarding, or I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  “That bad, huh?” She pulled a plastic container from her tote and popped the lid.

  A decadent fudgy aroma wafted toward me. I grabbed a cookie and took a bite. Around a mouthful of pure heaven I said, “You’ve performed a miracle. I’m calling the pope to nominate you for sainthood.”

  “Good thing I’m Catholic. What’s up with you?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it while we unpack the show models and equipment, assuming the shipment arrived yesterday.”

  “It did. I noticed them off-loading the cases when I left work last night.”

  I grabbed three more cookies before we headed to the models room to retrieve the hand truck. As we waited for the elevator to take us down to the ground level, I devoured my entire horde.

  “Binging on chocolate. Zack out of town?” asked Cloris.

  I nodded. “And so much more.”

  “Lucille?”

  “And Mama and Ira. If I’d known what was waiting to ambush me Sunday night, I never would have gone home.” I gave Cloris the abridged version of events, finishing as we arrived at the entrance to the building’s physical plant. Dozens of cases holding the booths and models for all the magazines that had taken part in the show sat in the middle of the large concrete block room.

  The two of us stood in t
he doorway. “This place always freaks me out,” said Cloris. “I can never shake the feeling someone’s hiding in a dark corner, waiting to pounce.”

  “Ditto.” With its huge hissing furnace, clanking overhead pipes, wall of electrical panels, and one flickering low-watt bare bulb hanging from a fixture in the middle of the room, the place reminded me of too many suspense novels I’ve read. “The serial killer always sets up shop in places like this.”

  Cloris punched me in the arm. “You had to mention that, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s grab our stuff and get out of here before something crawls up our legs. You know how I hate spiders.”

  An odor of decay hit us as we approached the five large cases that housed our booth and models. I pinched my nostrils closed. “I think something hitched a ride back from the convention center in one of our cases.” I backed away. “Do you think it’s still alive? I don’t want to open the lid and have a rat jump out at us.”

  “I don’t think there’s any chance of that, not with such an overpowering stench.”

  “What if more than one rat climbed in and some are still alive?”

  “We’d hear them scratching around, wouldn’t we? It’s probably just one small mouse.”

  “Smells way too much for one small mouse,” I said.

  Cloris shook her head. “You’d be surprised how much one tiny dead mouse can stink. I found one in my basement last winter. I thought the sewer system had backed up, the place reeked so much.”

  I walked up to the case we needed to empty. “Let’s get this over with. If we’re lucky, Mickey kicked the bucket in one of the booth cases, not the models case.”

  We unfastening the strapping on either side of the case holding the models and flipped the lid’s metal latches. Cloris lifted the lid, and I proceeded to toss my cookies—literally—all over what was definitely not a dead mouse.

  FIVE

  Cloris grabbed my arm, and we both raced from the room, slamming the steel door behind us. I ran to the outer wall and pushed the button to raise the overhead door of the loading bay. We collapsed against the outer wall and sucked in fresh air.