I debated on what to say and finally went for truth. “That seems accurate. I’m sorry.”
“Grandma Chadwick had her heart set on Elgin and I breeding so the great-grandchildren would be up to her standards.” He sounded bitter.
“She does seem invested in you and Elgin getting back together,” I said.
“Elgin was just a childhood crush. I thought it was love because I’d never felt anything stronger, but once I met Vi, Violet, I knew it hadn’t been real.” He kissed the top of her head, placing his cheek against her hair. “This is real, Marshal Blake. I’m sorry I hurt Elgin, truly.”
“We both are,” Violet said and she sat forward in her chair regaining some color as she said, “I’ve had my heart broken and I would never want to do that to anyone else.”
I wanted to believe her. “So how did the two of you meet?”
“I was walking past at lunchtime and saw her waiting on customers. She looked so happy. I don’t know if I’d ever seen a woman look so happy doing anything.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Women are always unhappy with themselves, or something, or that’s how Elgin and all the women I dated were. My grandmother is pleased with herself, but I’m not sure she’s happy. She’s like all the beautiful women I knew before Violet. They were always saying they needed to lose five more pounds or more, even if they were so thin they’d lost all their curves. I know that some of them had eating disorders—hell, I had one, too—and before you ask, I know that eating disorders are addictions so I’m never really over it. I’m in recovery, except with food, you can’t stop without dying. It’s the only addiction that you have to keep doing.”
“Drinking and drugs you can go cold turkey,” I said.
“But not food,” he said, and seemed sad.
Violet patted his hand and turned so that he had to look into her green eyes. She touched his face gently. “Food isn’t the enemy.”
He smiled. “You were the first woman I ever dated that wasn’t dieting.”
“Even though your family thinks I should,” she said.
He hugged her. “They’re all crazy about body image. You know Grandmother Chadwick was a famous model?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“She wanted me to be a fit model, and Elgin wanted to look that good, so we trained together starting junior year of high school. We even did some modeling. I got lucky and was actually signed to a big agency. I modeled for a while instead of going to college, but I’m a man, I can’t marry well like Grandma did. I needed to do something, and I can’t act or sing. I move well enough, but if you want to be a professional dancer you need to be devoted to it, and I wasn’t. Being beautiful isn’t really a career unless you can model or act.”
I wasn’t sure what this had to do with anything, but I let him talk. Sometimes the best thing you can do when questioning someone is shut up and let them ramble.
Violet gazed up at him adoringly, literally adoring him. I looked at people with love in my eyes, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever adored anyone like that. If it was a spell, she had it, too. “The most handsome man I’d ever met walked into my bakery. He was so beautiful that I wasn’t shy around him the way I am when I try to talk to men I like. He was so far out of my league that I just talked to him about my cakes and pies.”
He smiled down at her and if it wasn’t adoring, it was love. “I’d never had a woman talk to me about desserts without complaining about carbs and calories. She just loved what she created. She was so happy in her life, in her work. I’d managed to get a business degree in college, but I didn’t enjoy working in an office.”
“You just need to find something that you love as much as I love baking,” she said, smiling.
He nodded. “I’m trying to figure that out.”
“You’ll find it,” she said, and she sounded utterly convinced that he would.
“Until I do, I have to keep working at the job I have. Did my grandmother tell you that she cut me off financially unless I gave up Vi?”
“No, she didn’t mention that.”
“She thought I couldn’t make it on my actual salary, and maybe I couldn’t have paid all my bills. I mean I’ve never really had to watch my money before.”
“That’s why I asked you to move in with me. We didn’t need to be paying two house payments and double the utilities.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I felt like a kept man at first, but what I made helped out.”
“Your grandmother didn’t mention that you had a job, only that you could have been a model. She didn’t say you were living together either.”
“She told you Vi was after my trust fund though, didn’t she?” He looked tired and sad as he said it.
“She mentioned it,” I said.
“Did she tell you that she threw a spell-breaker herb bundle into Violet’s face?”
“No.”
“She got it from some crackpot that called herself a witch. It was guaranteed to break love spells.” He raised Violet’s hand up so that he gestured with both their hands. “This is not a spell to be broken. I love Violet and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I want to grow old with her, and I’m looking forward to aging with a woman that will actually let herself age.” That was a definite jab at Grandma Chadwick.
“I love my mom and the fact that I look like she cloned herself. I’m looking forward to looking like her as I get older and having a marriage like her and Dad,” Violet said.
I don’t know if I’d ever heard a healthier and happier statement from an adult woman about age and romance. I began to see why William had found her a breath of fresh, romantic air.
“Her parents are the happiest couple I’ve ever met. I want that, too.”
“Why can’t your family understand that?” Violet asked.
“Because I’m rejecting everything Grandma Chadwick believes in, everything she values.”
“What does she value, Will? Beauty? That seems to be all she cares about.”
“She thought I was the only grandchild that was as beautiful as she had been, even the girls didn’t measure up, not even Elgin, just me. She had her heart set on me having the career she left to marry Grandad.”
“A lot of parents want their kids to follow in their footsteps,” I said.
“You look in shape. Do you starve yourself to be thin?”
“No, hell no. In fact, I’m the voice of reason with one of my boyfriends. He has some body dysmorphia from being a dancer.”
“Dancing, modeling, acting, all of it will fuck you up with food,” he said.
“You don’t have to do any of that anymore,” Violet said.
He smiled at her and then looked at me, the smile fading. “I don’t want to starve myself to keep visible abs anymore. I don’t want to weigh my food at every meal. I don’t want to treat carbohydrates as if they’re evil. I want to eat meat that isn’t chicken or turkey.”
“Red meat is yummy,” I said.
He grinned at me and I could see a younger William, just a glimpse before the sadness fell back over his face. “I love steak. I didn’t know how much until I got free of beauty prison.”
“Beauty prison?” I asked.
“Between exercise and dieting, looking good consumed my life. It was all Elgin and I did together almost. We’d see an occasional movie or ballet, but mostly we worked out and tried to find ways to eat less, or add protein to build muscles without adding calories, or we worked out harder so we’d burn more calories. If you want that, then great, but Grandma Chadwick made it my life from puberty to a year ago. It was her life, not mine. I didn’t know how miserable I was until I met Violet.” There was no magic here, the bakery side of things maybe, but not here.
“I’ll try to explain that to your grandmother,” I said.
“Good luck. I’ve tried and she just can’t accept that I’m happier now with a few more pounds on me than I ever was when I was modeling.”
“I’m glad y
ou’re both happy and sorry your family can’t understand it.”
“Thank you, and so am I,” he said.
“Now, do you happen to have a caramel butterscotch cake that I can take home with me and a cupcake in the same flavor? I promised someone at the office that I’d bring something back for them if it was good enough, and it was good enough.”
Violet smiled and looked a little more relaxed. “Yes, we have both. It’s one of our most popular flavors.”
The crowd near the door shifted. It was enough to make me look that way. Mrs. Chadwick pushed her way through the happy cupcake crowd and came striding towards us. She looked like an elegant and very expensive ship crashing through a harbor full of rowboats. She was still beautiful and thin and perfect from hair to makeup, to the designer dress with its matching overcoat that seemed a little hot for St. Louis at this time of year, but hey, suffering for fashion was all a part of beauty prison. She looked artificial here. I don’t know if it was the more ordinary people all around her, or me understanding her bullshit more. Whatever the cause, she looked like a movie star who was looking for a camera closeup, and that was great if it was your job, but it wasn’t her job, and this wasn’t a movie set.
“She’s bewitched you, too!” She was almost yelling.
Violet stood up, and for the first time, the happy baker was angry. “This is my place of business and you’re causing a scene.”
“You’ve put a spell on all these people. It’s in the cakes!” She grabbed a cupcake out of a customer’s hand and shoved it towards Violet.
“We’ll give you a free replacement, sir,” Violet said to the customer.
Mrs. Chadwick squeezed the cake in her hand, so that icing and bits of cake squeezed out between her perfect manicure. “I could buy and sell this place.”
“You already tried that, Mrs. Chadwick, and I won’t sell. I love my bakery.” Violet’s voice was icy with rage.
“William, come home with me. Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?”
He was still sitting down. With the two women standing over him, it was like blocking for a play showing him stuck in the middle of it all. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life; why can’t you believe that?”
“She’s made you fat. How can you be happy fat?”
William wasn’t fat, not even close, he just wasn’t as thin as he had been. No wonder he had an eating disorder if that was the message of his childhood. I stood up on my side of the table. “Let’s all sit down and be reasonable.”
She pointed at me with an icing-covered hand. “How could you eat her cakes and talk to her? I told you what she was!”
“Yelling won’t help the situation, Mrs. Chadwick,” I said.
“No, you’re right, it won’t,” and she seemed calmer. Great, maybe we were getting somewhere, and then she reached into the pocket of her overcoat and pulled out a gun. It was a small gun, a .380, but as she pointed it at Violet from less than four feet, it would be big enough to kill her. I went for my gun knowing that I’d never get it out in time to stop Mrs. Chadwick from pulling the trigger.
William stood up. He didn’t grab the gun, didn’t even try, he just stood up so that his body was between Violet and the barrel of his grandmother’s gun. I had my gun out and almost aimed when the other gun went off and shot William in the chest.
There was a lot of screaming from the crowd. I was about to shoot her, but the gun fell from her hand and she screamed, “William! No!”
He collapsed into Violet’s arms, but he was twice her size, so all she could do was help him fall to the floor. I was screaming at Mrs. Chadwick to put her hands on top of her head, but she didn’t seem to hear me. She was just staring at her grandson. I moved around until I could put my foot on her dropped gun, my gun barrel touching her thin chest. I slammed her to the table one-handed. She never protested or tried to fight back. I searched her with one hand while I kept the gun on her. I know I said out loud, “If you move, I will shoot you.”
I had to holster my gun to get the handcuffs out of my purse so I could put them on Mrs. Chadwick. The vintage Cartier watch was probably ruined, but I didn’t really care. I secured her to a chair and got her gun off the floor, put the safety on and tucked it into the stiff waistband of my skirt.
Someone in a green apron said, “I called an ambulance.”
Violet was cradling William in her arms, crying and begging him to be all right. I knelt beside them. He had a pulse, but I could hear that awful wet sound as he breathed. The bullet had hit at least one lung. He was suffocating. Fuck!
“Get me a clean plastic bag and tape,” I said to the aproned employee, who didn’t seem to hear me. I grabbed their arm and yelled, “Get me a clean plastic bag and tape, and we might save him for the ambulance. Move, now!” They ran off, but another employee was already there with what I needed.
I put the plastic over the wound and told someone to hold it in place while I taped it down on three sides leaving one side open for air to escape. The plastic should seal off the wound, until an ambulance could get here. I waited to see if it would work, and then his breathing evened out and I saw the plastic be partially sucked in against the bullet wound, and then expand out as he breathed.
“Thank God,” I said.
“How did you know how to do that?” the employee asked.
“I’ve seen this type of wound before.” I knelt there with William Chadwick’s blood on my hands and prayed that he would be all right—not just that he would live, but that he would heal and be better than ever. I wanted him and Violet to have a life together.
I could hear sirens. The ambulance was coming. I heard police sirens, too. I looked at Mrs. Robert Chadwick handcuffed to a chair. She looked horrified with what she’d done, and even through the makeup and the surgery, somehow she looked older, tireder, as if all the years were catching up with her at once. There was nothing beautiful about her by the time the uniformed police took her away.
The Supernatural Fraud Division cleared Violet. Apparently her only magic was being a fabulous baker who truly enjoyed helping people satisfy their sweet tooth.
Six months later I got a wedding invitation from William and Violet. Mrs. Chadwick pleaded diminished capacity in a bid to get out of jail. Unlucky for her, she shot her grandson in front of a U.S. Marshal. Courts like testimony from federal officers, or at least juries do. She had the best lawyer that money could buy, but money can’t buy you everything. I don’t think Mrs. Robert Chadwick is going to look good in orange.
A String of Pearls
Alistair Kimble
I stared out the Sunset Limited’s window, a one-way ticket on the maglev out of what I called Los Angeles Caidos to New Orleans. Nothing but black out there in the expanse. No horizon. No moon. No moon tonight or any other night in memory.
For three weeks I shocked my liver with bourbon and pummeled my stomach with worry.
Hiding.
Waiting.
Ruminating.
Hid in the black and firmly on the right side of the Veneer. No footprint over on the other side. Nothing. I was clean. In the now and in the real. No virtual.
I waited for a grab that never happened. The law must have been preoccupied or disinterested in a has-been hiding out. I waited in a tenement teeming with the unsavory and the mingled scent of piss and refuse.
No place for a lady, but I left lady behind bottles ago. Lovers ago.
Los Angeles Caidos. Good riddance. I sniffed. The devil summoned his fallen angel and I complied.
The Sunset Limited droned a clack-clack-clack in perfect intervals. Sleep hovered, collapse imminent. My eyelids fluttered. A glob of mascara drooped into view as I blinked away melancholy, the lashes clinging as they fought for separation.
The maglev would soon pull into the station. My husband—so old-fashioned of him—Mason would no doubt be there when I arrived, eager for the cargo I carried.
Rattles and clinks. The timbre of ice hitting glass. I ran my tongue
over crusty lips. My eyes burned from the trance brought on by the maglev’s piped-in clacking, as if some locomotive from a bygone era.
In the window glass, reflections of fire-warped metal and fire-warped screams. The stench of burning hair and scorched skin. Chaos and booze.
I caressed the string of pearls draped around my neck, the precious cargo. I owned no pearls. No one ever sprung for a strand. Special pearls, or so I’ve been told, as if they’d once touched the princess of Monaco’s skin or something. And this bracelet Mason lashed around my left wrist—special. Nothing fancy, but perfect as a restraint and instant inducement device, as if on loan from a dominatrix.
I turned my wrist over, studied the gleaming metal of torture. Oh, how horrid, but goes so well with everything. Does it come ringed in diamonds perhaps? Maybe if I behaved? Mason found humor in precious little, especially me. I’d paid for the remark.
My eyes flitted shut. My head lolled. Filled with mud. Throbbing. Forced my eyes open. Leaden legs. One leg crossed over the other, a flat black gown draped over. A black clutch rested on my lap. Mason’s lack of imagination worked overtime when he instructed me on the proper attire for my arrival.
“Lizabeth? Liz?” Haunted. Wounded. Victor. Vic. “How? What?” He choked on the words. A voice out of the past.
The cords in my neck protested, but I forced my head around anyway. A red carnation adorned Vic’s white jacket. A bold choice. Bolder by mixing white jacket with black slacks. He fussed with the cufflinks. Nervous. But he wasn’t the only one.
My gaze ventured nowhere near his face. Nowhere near his eyes. I could not. Not yet. Beyond Vic, polished wood and brass glared at me, as did a tall uniformed man behind a cherry bar. The crimson furnishings reeked of luxury, as did the few lingering people swathed in evening wear.
“Your hair,” Vic said. “I didn’t realize—”
Rather than raise my chin, I rolled my eyes up. Hopefully this time the lashes didn’t catch. My lips parted.
His breath caught, and those eyes—glassy. Augmented. Replacements from the fire. I fought for control. I once cared for Vic, deeply, and I’d exiled a piece of him deep into a corner of my heart, a heart in no danger of thawing, not while the specter of Mason’s designs demanded attention.
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