Skinny Dipping (19 page)

On the flat-paneled plasma screen hanging on the hotel’s beige wall, Joan Wilder slipped over the muddy edge of a precipice and careened down the Peruvian rain forest’s soggy hillside. She plummeted into a mosquito-infested pool and disappeared beneath its surface.

Joe, sitting in the middle of the hotel’s king-sized bed, plumped the pillow behind his back and turned up the volume. As a veteran of thousands of “Free HBO!” hours in hundreds of extended-stay hotel suites, he’d seen
Romancing the Stone
at least five times. But as he’d been surfing through the channels he’d caught sight of the familiar mudslide scene (which invariably made his skin crawl) and put down the remote. Because something about the scene reminded him of something…or someone.

As soon as Joan erupted out of the stagnant pool of water, her hair streaming with muck, he realized who: Mimi Olson.

Except Joan Wilder looked confused, and then when Jack landed in her crotch, shocked, and finally surprised into laughter.

Mimi had looked…like Mimi. Comfortable in mud. Unshockable. And there’d be no need to
surprise
Mimi into laughter, because she’d already be laughing. Joan was vague, with an air of naïveté. Mimi was matter-of-fact, and if she was naive about anything, he’d have a hard time figuring out what that could be. Maybe that’s why the whole ghost-talking thing seemed so out of place….

Once again, it occurred to Joe that he spent too much time analyzing Mimi Olson. It had been almost a week since the Werners’ anniversary party and he still kept seeing the expression on her face when she realized he was all but accusing her of conning Prescott. Of course, if she
was
conning Prescott, what was she going to say, “Gee whiz, busted. My bad. Want more crackers?”

No, she would react exactly like she had reacted, with insulted dignity and cold indignation. Which is also exactly how she’d react if she was innocent.

But which one was she?

There was one way he could find out. He could call Prescott and check up on her story. It was not a new idea. He’d toyed with it ever since leaving her apartment, but something held him back. As irrational as he knew it to be, he suspected he felt some misplaced sense of owing her his confidence because
he’d hurt her feelings.
This was such dopey reasoning that he wondered whether he was having some sort of midlife crisis. But in that case he’d be lusting after a cheerleader, not a slightly frumpy middle-aged Petra Pan. Not that he was exactly
lusting
after her. Not exactly. She simply…interested him as a type he’d rarely, if ever, encountered.

So, as the days passed, nondopey reasoning reasserted itself. If he had misjudged her, it was certainly understandable given the circumstances. And if it was only himself he was concerned was being taken for a ride, hell, he’d still be in the damn car. She was that appealing. But it wasn’t; it was Prescott, and he’d be damned if he’d apologize for being concerned for his son’s welfare. When you came right down to it, he didn’t owe Mimi anything; he did owe Prescott.

In fact, he
still
owed it to Prescott to find out exactly what sort of relationship he and Mimi had. Sure, part of his desire to discover whether she’d told him the truth or a lie had a personal basis, but he was pretty damn sure it wasn’t the greater part. He’d probably already been negligent by letting the questions he had about Mimi stew as long as they had.

He clicked the
MUTE
button on the remote and reached for his cell phone, scrolling to Prescott’s number. He hit the
SEND
button and waited. On the television, Jane Wilder arrived at a cantina wrapped in a Mexican shawl and wowed Jack. Mimi wouldn’t have bothered with the shawl and still would have wowed Jack. It was all a matter of attitude. And any woman who could carry off a starfish-bedecked terry beach robe could carry off damn near anything.

“Hello?” Prescott’s voice answered on the fifth ring. He sounded guarded.

“Hello, Prescott. This is J—This is your dad.”

A pause. “Yes?”

“I’ll be leaving Minneapolis in a few days and I thought I’d, ah, give you a call before I took off.”

Prescott didn’t reply.

“I’m heading for Hong Kong.”

“Oh,” Prescott said. Then, “Why are you telling me that?”

“Why?”

“You’ve, ah, never told me your itinerary before. Why now?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might be interested. They love Pi—
table tennis
in China. Do they have any, like, special paddles over there you’d like me to get you?”

Prescott sighed. “I’m not a little kid, Joe. You don’t have to bring me presents from your trips abroad.”

“I know. But when you were a kid, I never seemed to get a decent present for you, and now, I don’t know…” Why did he have to explain something as simple as wanting to pick up a gift for his own son to his own son? “I guess I thought I might finally get you something you’d actually like. Instead of something stupid.”

Another
pause. “I thought you were mocking me with the pet rock. Until I found out all the kids at public school had them. I’m sorry I threw it through the window.”

“Forget it. It was stupid.”

“No. You made an effort.”

Wow. Prescott had never expressed any appreciation for Joe’s intentions before, however far they fell from the mark. This was going better than he’d expected.

“It must have been like buying the kibble brand your vet recommends for your dog only to discover he hates it.”

Huh? Was this empathy? Oh, that’s right, Prescott had a dog. The dog Mimi had given him. A perfect opening. “That’s right. I ran into Mimi Olson at a function I was attending here in Minneapolis last week. She said you were taking care of a dog.”

This time the short silence was much more attentive. “You saw Mignonette Olson at some function? What function?”

“A party for some business associates.”

“Mignonette Olson works for a company your company is interested in?” Prescott sounded incredulous.

“No. She’s related to the owner of the business my company wants to buy.”

“She is?” Prescott asked. “Huh. I didn’t think the Olsons were that well off. I mean, they don’t seem to have much…Oh. Wait. That
is
cool! You mean they choose to stay in those huts? On purpose? Like domicile vegans or something? That is—”

“No,” Joe broke in before Prescott could wax even more poetic. “The Olsons are her father’s family. She’s related to this guy I’m working with through her mother’s side.”

“But she’s not an engineer or a tax lawyer or an accountant or does anything like you?” Prescott didn’t wait for an answer. He snorted. “Of course not.”

“Nope,” Joe confirmed. “Do you know what she does do? For a living?”

“No. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a nurse or a teacher. Maybe a kindergarten teacher. Why?”

Joe almost broke out laughing. Luckily, he didn’t. “You don’t happen to have her phone number, do you? Or know of any way I might reach her?”

“Why?” Prescott asked again. His voice had grown distinctly chilly. He was too old for this Oedipal crap. Even if his interest in Mimi had been a romantic one, he wouldn’t act on it. She was too far off in left field. Hell, if she really thought she talked to spooks, she might not even be playing in the same ballpark.

“Look, Pres,” Joe said tiredly. “I’m not interested in dating Mimi Olson. She lent me twenty bucks for a taxi. You know how I hate carrying cash. I’d like to return it to her.”

“Oh.” He bought it. “Well, I don’t have her number,” he said; then, his voice sharpening a little, “Why didn’t you just call this relative of hers?”

“Oh!” Joe said, not having to feign his pleasure. Mimi hadn’t been lying. “That’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks, Prescott.”

“Sure,” Prescott said doubtfully.

“So, I’ll see if I can find you the latest thing in Ping-Pong paddles, okay?”

“It’s called
table tennis
,” Prescott said and hung up.

For a few seconds, he and Prescott had had something like a conversation going there. Maybe there was hope here after all. He set down the phone, feeling pleased. Prescott and he had been talking more or less amiably; his son was not being readied for a severe plucking; Mimi had been telling the truth. Wherever she’d gotten the wherewithal to purchase that necklace—or whatever admirer had given it to her—Prescott hadn’t been involved. Joe supposed that meant he owed Mimi an apology.

Wait. No, he didn’t. He’d done what any self-respecting father does who thinks he sees his son being ripped off; he’d spoken up. It would have been easier, not to mention a lot more satisfying, to have kept his mouth shut and forgotten his suspicions and let nature run its course that night. God knows, he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t and now he was glad he hadn’t.

He just wished he’d gone about the thing with a bit more subtlety and a lot more composure. It was unlike him to be precipitous and accusatory.

And he had been accusatory.

Fraud or not, he owed her an apology, if not for his suspicions, then for his manner. He considered calling her but decided against it. He still didn’t know what to make of her. Just because she hadn’t ripped off Prescott didn’t mean she hadn’t ripped off others. In fact, that’s what she did. For a living.
Come on, Joe,
he told himself,
she works as a
medium
on a
spiritualist hotline. Which was pretty much the textbook definition of a scam.

No. He’d acted impulsively enough where Mimi Olson was concerned. He’d send her some flowers, get rid of his guilt, and that would be the end of it.

Now, if he could just stop wishing it wouldn’t be.

December

“So, if a minority of the heirs wanted to keep the land, they’d still have to buy out those who wanted to sell?” Mimi spoke into the little wand dangling in front of her mouth. Ozzie had lately sprung for new headsets.

“That’s the sum of it, Mignonette. And vice versa. But first, the property would have to be assessed,” the lawyer, Bud Butter, answered. “Could you excuse me for a minute?”

As she wasn’t paying him for his minutes—he was answering her questions as a favor to his best client, Tom Werner—she couldn’t very well say no. “Sure.”

Mimi shuffled through the papers on her desk while she waited, hunting for the piece of paper where she’d doodled the information Vida had given her. Vida, still trying to make amends for the “pathetic” comment, was relaying to Mimi as much intelligence about Debbie’s activities as she could ferret out. Which would have been great if Mimi had known what to do with this information but instead only served to forcibly remind Mimi why she didn’t like information: it made you crazy. It was like watching an avalanche charging down the mountainside. There was nothing she could do to stop it, but now, thanks to Vida, she would spend her last minutes staring over her shoulder in horror rather than in blissful ignorance. She thought maybe Vida and her information were giving her an ulcer.

Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to tell Vida not to bother reporting on Debbie’s nefarious actions. So, here she was on the phone with Tom’s lawyer, asking questions as if she was formulating a plan. She wasn’t. Not really. She was simply…figuring out what someone else could do if they wanted to.

A few days ago, Vida had called up to tell her that Debbie was petitioning Oxlip County to rezone the land around Fowl Lake so she could sell it to a townhouse developer and that she and Bill had managed to talk Naomi into “providing for the little Olsons’ academic future” by voting to sell the Chez. From a couple text messages Birgie had sent on the cell phone—and why would Birgie suddenly be sending her text messages, for God’s sake?—Mimi knew Johanna was crumbling under the weight of her heirs’ expectations—or rather, their lack of them—too.

From what Bud Butter had said, Mimi realized it didn’t matter. They either all said yes to keeping Chez Ducky, or the place went up for sale. Unless someone or some ones could buy out the share of the person who wanted to sell.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Bud had returned. “Where was I?”

“How you determine the value of the property.”

“Oh, yes. Generally the executor hires an independent assessor. In this case, who is acting as executor?”

“Birgie,” Mimi said. This was a point in favor of those who’d just as soon stall this whole selling process. Birgie wouldn’t hire anyone without tons of pushing and prodding. However, something told Mimi that as soon as Debbie recognized this obstacle, she’d hire an assessor herself and Birgie wouldn’t kick about it.

“Those who want to sell the land can’t make those who don’t want to do so, can they? For example, if I didn’t want to sell the land, I would have first shot at buying out those who do want to sell it, by paying them whatever their share of the fair market value would be as determined by the assessor?”

“Well, there are always variables, but in general, yes.”

As she’d thought. “Thanks, Bud.”

“No problem. If I can answer any more questions, let me know. Tell Tom I said hi and that I expect him to give me a chance to beat him at racquetball soon.”

“I sure will, Bud. Thanks again.” She clicked off and slumped back in her chair. She had no idea what the Chez Ducky property would be valued at—had Debbie said something about three million?—but she knew it would be much more than she could come up with on her own.

Her gaze drifted to her bulletin board, where she’d tacked up the latest digital photo from Prescott. She did
not
think about Joe Tierney.

She was very proud of this. She’d been angry at Joe Tierney. Angry and hurt and, worse, frightened by the hollow feeling she’d discovered sometime in the days after he’d left. She wasn’t angry anymore. Or hurt. Why, she had even laughed about Joe’s paternal posturing while Jennifer Beesing was teaching her how to make pecan patties last weekend.

True, she might have spared a few dark thoughts for him when Prescott had sent a note soon after Solange’s anniversary party. He’d said his father had mentioned in a phone call that he’d run into Mimi Olson in the city and wondered if Prescott knew her phone number or where she worked so he could get in touch with her again. Bullshit. Joe had been trying to scope out whether or not Prescott was calling her eight hundred number and to find out whether she’d been telling the truth or lying about her relationship with his son. What a good daddy.

But he
was
being a good daddy. He was doing what he could to see that his son wasn’t—what had been his charming term for what she did?—
exploited
. Mimi hadn’t replied to Prescott’s e-mail and Prescott had not mentioned Joe since. Good. Because without someone bringing up Joe, there really was no reason to think about him.

Which she wasn’t.

She fixed her attention firmly on the picture Prescott had sent. It showed three blurry canine images caught mid-dash on the beach at Chez Ducky. Prescott must have been standing on the frozen lake when he took the picture. It wasn’t the dogs that held Mimi’s eye; it was Chez Ducky. The beach was empty, the swimming raft tipped against the side of Cottage Six, the old flagpole simply a rusting pole surrounded by a crumbling concrete skirt.

She’d always thought of Chez Ducky as hibernating in the winter, patiently waiting for the Olsons to return. But in this picture Chez Ducky didn’t appear to be sleeping; it seemed to be dying. Unless someone intervened.

Mimi steepled her fingers and tapped her chin with the tips of her index fingers, wondering why someone wasn’t intervening. Someone like Birgie or Johanna. Someone commanding and wise should don the mantle of familial authority and go fight for Chez Ducky. Which meant not Birgie or Johanna. Certainly not Mimi.

There was another possibility. It was a long shot, but if Mimi could convince Solange that Chez Ducky presented a unique and possibly lucrative investment opportunity, her mother might lend her the money to buy out the others. Long shot? It would have to be a hole in one. But it was fast getting to the point where any shot was worth taking.

Mimi stood up and peered over the top of the cubicle. Brooke, the big blond soccer mom–cum–medium who occupied the cubicle next to Mimi’s, was sitting on the edge of her desk, chatting with Ozzie. She saw Mimi and picked up two bottles of nail polish from the lineup on top of her file cabinet. “Carnation or Miami Sunrise? Ozzie says Carnation.”

“Never doubt Ozzie’s taste,” Mimi advised. Ozzie gave Brooke a superior smile. “I need to be gone a couple hours after lunch. Can I go? I’ll take the phones Friday night.”

“Lately, you always take the phones Friday nights. And most Saturdays,” Ozzie said. “You need to get a life, Mimi. Seriously.”

“I have a life.”

“Ah-huh.” Ozzie and Brooke compressed their lips in unison and exchanged telling looks. “How long have you been working here? Three years? Four?”

“Five.”

“Right. And in all that time you’ve never had a serious boyfriend.”

“So what?”

“You need a life.”

“Life happens without boyfriends, Oz.”

“Not so you’d notice,” muttered Brooke, a three-time divorcée.

Mimi was not going to argue about this with Oz and Brooke, whom no one thought of as successful relationship experts. Except they did have them. Well, she did, too. Just not in the same way.

“Do you have the sort of great girlfriends you go on vacations with?” Oz asked, and then answered the question himself. “No.”

“You don’t even have a pet,” Brooke said accusingly. “I don’t think you even have a plant.”

“Aha!” Mimi trilled, triumphant, and wheeled around to point at the century plant clinging tenaciously to life in its pot at the window. “I do so. And what is it with people thinking I need to have things to take care of in order to be happy? Methinks that Brooke and Oz,”
and Vida,
she silently added, “doth protest too much.”

They both gave her pitying looks.

She thought of voicing another protest but decided to forget it. “Can you guys handle it here for a while?”

“Sure. It’s dead anyway.” Brooke laughed uproariously at her own wit. Ozzie raised his eyes heavenward. A light on Mimi’s phone console came on. She tilted her head to read the LCD panel.

“Hold on. Gotta take this.” She adjusted her headset and punched the line-in button. “Hi, Jessica. This is Miss Em.”

Brooke appeared at the entrance to her cubicle, grinning with malicious delight. Behind her hovered Ozzie, bouncing up and down on his toes to see around his much taller and wider employee.

“I have to know if Mom approves,” Jessica said without preamble.

“Of the boyfriend moving in?” Mimi waved Brooke and Ozzie away, and with one last roll of her eyes, Brooke went back to her cubicle and Ozzie returned to his office.

“Yes. Ask her.”

“What if she says no?”

Jessica met this posit with silence.

“Have you talked to your counselor about this?”

“Duh. Yes,” Jessica said and then added primly, “I don’t feel comfortable discussing my therapy sessions with you.”

Good.
“Okay. Let me see if I can make contact.” Mimi sat down in her chair and closed her eyes and concentrated. For once, Jessica didn’t interrupt her. After a couple minutes she opened her eyes. “Your mom’s not answering.”

“You mean she’s
gone
?”

“How can she be ‘gone,’ Jess? She’s already ‘gone,’” Mimi said reasonably. “I mean she’s not making contact. I don’t sense her.”

“Well, where is she?”

“I don’t know. They don’t wear GPSs. It’s heaven, not house arrest.”

“But why isn’t she answering?” Jessica asked, sounding pissy and, beneath it, worried.

“Let me try again,” Mimi muttered.

It was Jessica’s worry that had gill-hooked Mimi into taking the young woman on as a semipermanent client. Despite what she said, Jessica sincerely loved her mother. A lot of her anger seemed to be the result not so much of Jessica’s mother’s controlling her, but of the fact that she wasn’t anymore. Jessica missed her mother and she was angry her mother wasn’t interfering in her life anymore. She was like a fishing bobber suddenly cut loose from the line, unconnected and set adrift.

“Why isn’t she answering?” Jessica demanded again.

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s thinking. Maybe she’s busy. Maybe she just doesn’t have anything to say.”
Like my Dad.
The thought slipped in and out so quickly, she barely recognized it, certainly didn’t pay any attention to it, because she had no idea whether or not her father was Beyond the Veil.

“Not my mom,” Jessica scoffed.

“Death is a transforming experience, Jess.”

“But…what about Neil? Should I let him move in?”

Oh, noooo. This was one trap she was not going to fall into. When someone’s dead relative or friend or ancestor gave them advice, it was one thing, but she wasn’t playing at being anyone’s mother. Her one shot at messing with little people’s heads was gone.

The thought brought an unfamiliar throb with it. She’d passed that opportunity up. How many others had she missed? Opportunities? When had mother duty become an opportunity?

March, closing in on a year ago.

She wished these thoughts would leave her alone. She’d expected to be back to her old fare-thee-well state months ago, not to still be pestered by thoughts of what might have been (or who, she thought with an inner smile at the Baby Not) and questions about her father and where he was (or wasn’t). But she was.

“You there?” Jess prodded. “What should I do about Neil?”

Ditch him, Mimi almost said. From the many times he’d been in the background while Jess whispered her questions to her mother to Mimi, she’d gotten the image of a whiny, needy, passive-aggressive loser. Jess definitely did not need that sort of additional baggage weighing her down.

“Miss Em?”

Almost said. She didn’t want that sort of responsibility hanging over her head. What if Neil really was the love of Jess’s life? What right did Mimi have to interfere? It was one thing to relay advice from the dead, another to give it yourself.

“How should I know?” she finally murmured, oddly disappointed in herself.

“Mom’ll never approve,” Jessica said, suddenly doleful. “She never liked redheaded guys.”

“There is no hair color in heaven, Jess.”

Abruptly, Jess laughed. It gave Mimi hope for the girl that occasionally she could provoke an honest guffaw from her. Jess was coming around, no two ways about it. The counseling was working. Mimi wasn’t going to mess with that. At times, Jess was even sort of likable.

“You do
not
know that,” Jess said. “You always say you have no idea what heaven is like and that none of the deceased even tries to describe it.”

“True, but I’m hopeful.”

There was a second’s pause, and when Jess spoke her voice had taken on a hint of wistfulness. “Yeah. Me, too.”

Jessica hung up and Mimi jerked the headset off. She rescued her winter coat from the hook on the outside of her cubicle, shoving it on. “I’m going!” she called.

“Just a second. Hold on there, scout,” Brooke said, appearing in the door of her cubicle, carnation-colored fingernails splayed wide and held in front of her. “You mean you hung around just for the joy of talking to
Jessica
? Jessica the Snide? Jessica of the Massive Mother Complex?”

“Yeah,” Mimi said, buttoning her coat. “She calls every Monday at noon.”

“And you’re feeling some pressing need to make sure you’re here for her?”

Brooke was staring at her oddly. “Well, would you rather take her calls?”

“No, no, no,” Brooke shook her head. “I’ll leave that pleasure to you. It’s just, you know, you don’t like getting involved with needy types, and I think we both can agree Jessica falls into that category.”