The Pandora Effect

by Olivia Darnell

  Perry and the insurance agent were sitting in the dining room looking at a stack of papers. She limped to one of the chairs and sat down. Perry got up at once to see what the problem was. He frowned at the blood on her foot and in her sandal.

  “What happened?” He asked.

  “An accident,” she said still disbelieving it. “I dropped one of the wind chimes.”

  “Oh,” he nodded. “Things happen.”

  “It’s nothing.” Angelica wiggled her toes. Maureen also joined them to inspect the wound.

  “You can’t be too careful these days,” Maureen told her. “You should put some anti-biotic cream on that. You could get an infection. Is your tetanus up to date?”

  Angelica stared up at the woman with a look of incomprehension on her face.

  “Do you have some Triple Anti-B?” Maureen asked. “It’s the best. It works like magic.”

  Perry looked at Maureen thoughtfully.

  “Triple Anti-B,” he repeated. “Works like magic. ‘Formerly when religion was strong and science was weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.’”

  “That’s an interesting notion.” Maureen smiled at him.

  “Something I saw in a Fortune Cookie,” he told her. “Better take care of that Angelica. You never know what biotics could lurk in a crystal iris.”

  The kettle began to sing on the stove and Perry left them.

  Angelica stood up, holding the bloodied sandal in her hand.

  “I suppose I should go and wash this.” She looked at it, frowning. “Are you sure you won’t need me to sign... to approve... for anything?”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Maureen said as she pulled more forms from the portfolio. “We’ll just look over the plans today and I’ll leave the literature with you and your husband and you can go over them together and decide what is best for you. If I can get the papers signed and a down payment by Friday, you will be covered as soon as I enter it in the computer. You should be set for your grand opening on Saturday.”

  “Of course,” Angelica agreed softly as she watched the woman closely and leaned toward her as if studying her face. “You aren’t married, are you?”

  Maureen looked up at her, surprised by the personal question.

  “No, ma’am,” she said after a pause. “Sh... Should I be?”

  “Don’t be taken in by my husband’s flatteries, Miss Fitzgerald,” Angelica told her with her usual blandness. “He has a propensity for speaking without thinking.”

  Maureen’s mouth fell open slightly. She did not know what to say.

  “I’m afraid he often allows his enthusiasm for the entire human race to cloud his judgment. Please, do not take advantage of his generosity or his checkbook, even though he may convey the notion, is not bottomless.” Angelica turned and limped out of the room leaving Maureen staring after her, totally insulted.

  Perry returned almost instantly with two cups of hot tea and set them on the table.

  “That’s a wonderful scent you are wearing,” he told her as he held her chair for her. “Is it floral or do I detect something else?”

  “It’s vanilla musk, actually,” she said quietly, her mind was still on the insinuations Angelica had made. Apparently, his wife thought she was not only after her husband’s body, but after his money as well. Did she look that bad?

  “Well, no wonder I like it then,” he sat down beside her.

  “This is green!” She blurted as she looked into the tea cup.

  “Yes, green tea from China,” he told her. “Good for whatever may ail you. XI Chun. Flourishing spring. Sometimes known as a before-the-rain tea.”

  “Before the rain?” She asked and sipped the hot liquid carefully.

  “Yes, that means they take it from the earliest, most tender leaves.”

  “That’s very interesting. It’s very... different.”

  “Mmm, hmmm,” he said and raised up a bit to look down the hallway where Angelica had disappeared. “Tea drinking is an ancient custom dating back thousands of years.”

  “Really?” She asked and took another, larger sip. She was still unable to understand why Angelica had attacked her. Had she done something wrong? Or was the woman that jealous of her husband? Certainly, someone as good looking as Perry Aliger would bear watching if one were married to him. But he seemed so utterly innocent somehow, though, perhaps a bit weird.

  “The first cup caresses my dry lips and throat,” he said and closed his eyes to inhale the aroma before taking a swallow. Maureen watched him with great interest. Yes, she thought, not what she was accustomed to at all. “The second shatters the walls of my lonely sadness, the third searches the dry rivulets of my soul to find the stories of five thousand scrolls. With the fourth the pain of past injustice vanishes through my pores. The fifth purifies my flesh and bones. With the sixth I am in touch with the immortals. The seventh gives such pleasure I can hardly bear. The fresh wind blows through my wings as I make my way to Penglai.”

  She realized suddenly that he was quoting some sort of poem and felt herself relax a bit. She waited for him to continue, but he sat staring across the table at the wall as if his soul had indeed flown off somewhere. Certainly, strange, but not a weirdo. She thought perhaps Angelica was too overbearing and he was lonely. She just wanted to make her pitch and get out before his wife came back to sit with them. For all she knew, Angelica Aliger could have been an axe-murderer on the lamb.

  “That was very nice,” she said trying to bring him back from wherever Penglai was.

  “The most famous of all Chinese poets wrote that during the Tang Dynasty over two thousand years ago. His name was Lu Tong. He declared that tea should be sipped as though it were life itself and never more than three cups at one sitting, but he apparently knew about more than three cups.” Perry turned his strange eyes on her and she froze momentarily. When he said no more, she picked up her cup and drank the rest down as quickly as possible.

  She shuffled the papers and laid them out on the table in front of him, but could not seem to focus her thoughts or her eyes on the forms. She could see his reflection in the polished surface of the mahogany and realized that even though he was looking down at the table, he was looking at her reflection as well and not the papers. Maureen opened her mouth to begin her presentation and was shocked to hear herself ask “What was that place he was flying off to?”

  “Penglai.” Perry’s eyes crinkled with amusement when she looked at him. The clock in the living room chimed one o'clock just in time to accentuate the word and caused Maureen to jump. “A mountain off the coast of Shandong Province. It is where the Chinese believed the immortals lived. Much like Mount Olympus in Greece.”

  “Really?” She picked up the tea cup and looked at the bit of tea left in the bottom. “I didn’t know the Chinese had gods like Zeus and Hera.”

  “Yes. Like those and many others.”

  “Have you been there? To the mountain, I mean,” she asked in spite her desire to leave.

  “Yes. I’ve been there several times.”

  “Do they live there?” Still unable to drag her attention back to the task at hand.

  “You mean the immortals?” He asked and his smile faded. “Yes, I believe they do.”

  “You’re kidding me!” She laughed. “I wish I could go someplace exotic like that.”

  “You can go there,” he told her.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ll never be able to save up that much money. It must cost a mint to go to China.”

  “It depends on how you go there.” He raised both eyebrows.

  “I would have to fly,” she told him. “I love to fly. I mean, how else would one get all the way to China these days?”

  “Flying is definitely the best way,” he nodded. “But another way is to think yourself there. I have found that tea drinking is helpful when you wish to find peace from a stressful day. I like to drink tea in front of the
windows. You can see things from a different perspective. Appreciate the beauty around you in the everyday, commonplace things. The beauty of a single flower. The sweet note of an evening bird. The iridescent shimmer of a dragonfly’s wing. You don’t have to travel to Penglai to appreciate the beauty around you.”

  Maureen sat listening to him, entranced by his words. Everything he described, she envisioned. No, not a weirdo. At least not one in the sense of the usual run of the mill type she had met in her line of work. It was always a test of courage to visit a new client in his or her home. You never knew just what to expect.

  Angelica appeared in the doorway and Maureen snapped back to the business at hand.

  “Well, I think you will be pleased with this plan, Mr. Aliger. It is cost effective and covers most anything that could conceivably happen in the course of running your business as you have described it to me. You won’t find another plan comparably priced with any other company, but of course, you are certainly encouraged to shop around before deciding.”

  Perry turned his attention to Angelica.

  “Are you making any progress?” His wife asked.

  “Yes, I believe we were,” he told her enigmatically.

  Angelica raised one eyebrow and turned to leave them.

  Maureen sat still. She was a bit winded from her little speech.

  “I trust your judgment implicitly.” He smiled at her. “Would you care for another cup of tea.”

  Chapter Thirteen:.

  Louis sat at the table watching Julia place the dirty dishes from his breakfast in the dishwasher.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I just forgot. But I told him we’d be there. And he’s got some stuff to give me for the booth. I can’t not go. Please come with me, Julia. You’ll like them. I promise. It will get you out of the house for a while. If you don’t feel like stayin’, we’ll leave. Simple.”

  “But it’s pointless, Lou,” she told him. “I don’t want to make new friends. Not now.”

  Louis frowned. If not now, when?

  “Please?” He put on his best pleading pout and little frown. It now seemed imperative that she go. It probably was pointless, just like she said, but he felt a strong inexplicable need to have her go with him to the Aliger’s house. Only a day before, he had been sure that he would have never taken her there. “For me? Just this once?”

  “Look at me, Louis!” She turned to frown at him. “I look awful.”

  He got up and bent to wrap his arms around her, pulling her close to him. “You do not look awful, honey.”

  “Yes, I do,” she mumbled into his chest.

  “Well, go and change then.” He pushed her away gently. “Put on that pretty green outfit I bought you. The one with the long skirt and the big wide belt. You’ll see. You look great in anything.”

  “I was planning on wearing that Saturday,” she protested, but her resolve was thinning.

  “You wear whatever you like,” he told her. “hell, you’d look good to me in coveralls and brogans.”

  “Yes, to you maybe, but you were always blind.” She smiled at him and pushed her hair back. She laughed softly. It gave him heart to hear her laughter. She had not laughed in a long, long time.

  “We won’t stay long. I promise,” he assured her and gave her another nudge from the kitchen. “I’ll finish up in here while you change.”

  She left him hesitantly and he watched until she was out of sight. He felt better already, but he still had a nagging feeling about the Aligers. It would be a real test of his character to have her and Angelica in the same room, but he resolved to pull himself together and be the husband he wanted to be.

  Perhaps if he could manage to get them both together in the same frame, he could figure out what it was about Mrs. Aliger that made him feel so strange and so... guilty.

  “You cannot begin to explain to me what you were doing,” Angelica said as she sat brushing her hair in front of the dressing table in their bedroom.

  “Is that what you want?” He asked from where he leaned against the doorjamb. “An explanation? What did it sound like I was doing? You heard the entire exchange.”

  “I did not,” she objected.

  A lie! He raised both eyebrows in shock. He had not known she was capable of lying. It came as a great surprise to know that she could do so with the greatest ease. “You were in the hallway the entire time. And may I ask how you managed to break the wind chime so conveniently? I’ve never known you to break anything, much less injure yourself.”

  “You may not ask!” She turned to stare at him.

  “Then I must assume that you deliberately broke it,” he shrugged nonchalantly and tapped his chin with one finger. “I base my assumption on the fact that you are one whose every action is a deliberate and calculated move. Ever the scientist. I cannot imagine that you could be careless.”

  “You are right,” she told him. “It is not like me to be careless. It is a quality most often displayed in you.”

  “Me? Careless?” He crossed the room to open the closet door.

  “You are far too free with these people, Peregrin! You must retain your objectivity. You must learn to restrain your tongue. You don’t realize the effect you have on them. Especially the females. That woman was totally confused by your romantic ramblings.”

  “Romantic ramblings?” He smiled inwardly and removed a dark blue pullover shirt from a hanger. “Is that what you call it? I don’t think she was confused at all. I believe she understood quite well. You never give them enough credit.”

  “That is not what I’m talking about, Peregrin!” Her anger was building. He was genuinely pleased with the reaction. “That is exactly what I mean,” she contradicted herself. “You were making sexual advances on her and she was responding in kind. I expected at one point that you were about to... to... It appeared that perhaps you would have actually... Had I not been there to stop you, I believe that you would have actually made some sort of physical contact with her.”

  Perry turned to stare at her, holding the shirt out in front of him.

  “You really thought that?” He asked her and his voice cracked as if appalled by the notion. His eyes sparkled with amusement. “What type of contact are you referring to, Angelica? Did you think I would kiss her perhaps? Or maybe something more substantial? Would it have bothered you? And, if so, why, in what way?”

  Angelica stood up slowly and turned around to look at him. She had resumed her usual bland expression. The anger had left her completely without a trace.

  “You are not being objective,” she told him. “You are wasting your time. You should be concentrating on your work.”

  “I am concentrating on my assignment,” he countered. “I learn new things every day.”

  “So I see,” she said quietly and resumed her seat in front of the mirror and picked up the brush. “You are here to observe these relationships and collect data. Nothing more.”

  “I am collecting data,” he said, sitting on the bed behind her. “These people are full of conflicting emotions. They do not say what they mean nor do they mean what they say. With very little effort they can be directed, misdirected, led and misled, but basically their intentions are motivated by a variety of mental emotions rather than actual physical needs. Emotions underlie every action. They would be a prime target for almost any malevolent faction. But I believe that they are well worth the study.”

  “So you have already formed an opinion,” she nodded.

  “Yes, I have made a pre-emptive evaluation,” he affirmed her statement. “Haven’t you?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I do not have enough data to complete a coherent profile.”

  She turned around to look at him, narrowing her eyes. “I do not understand how you could possibly say that you understand their motivational processes.”

  “I told you what you need to do to understand their motivational processes,” he reminded her.

  “Preposterous.” She t
urned back to the mirror and shook her head to inspect her shining hair.

  “You are fully capable of stepping down into the maze anytime you like,” he told her.

  “That is not in question,” she retorted firmly. “We will complete our study as planned and report.”

  “Of course,” he nodded. “What else can we do?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “What else is there to do?”

  “I detect a negative quality to your remarks,” he said. “What if the others find differently from you?”

  “It is not my concern, nor should it be yours.”

  “I like this place,” he said.

  “Irrelevant,” she said.

  “It’s very interesting,” he offered.

  “You are not suitable for this type of work. I intend to make a note of that.”

  “You have been considering me again.”

  “You force the issue.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do.” Angelica pulled out a drawer and dropped the brush into it before closing it with a clunk. She turned on him and he thought he detected the return of some of the anger she had displayed earlier. Her eyes were full of reproach. “There could be serious repercussions.”

  “Very serious,” he agreed, meeting her gaze without flinching. “I am not used to failure.”

  “Really?” She actually smiled, but her voice dripped with contempt. “Then perhaps you should re-evaluate your behavior because you are headed for certain failure.”

  “But, then failure is in and of itself an interesting experience that I have yet to add to my portfolio.”

  “You are obsessed with emotions.” She looked genuinely disgusted.

  “And you are obsessed with your quest for the truth. There are things in between.”