Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (25 page)

“You’re right. A date might be a little much at first. Maybe we should just take one thing at
a time. Let’s just say you smile at her and tell her she looks pretty. You can do that, can’t you?”

This time Ernest chose his words more carefully.
“Veronica won’t like it if I do that. She hates me even more than I hate her…and she’ll know I’m lying…and that will make her even madder….”

“That’s alright. As long as you do as you’re told. I’ll take care of those other things.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“Can’t what? Smile at her? Say nice things?”

“None of it,” said Ernest, with his head down.

“Ernest. Important events are happen
ing. Events that have taken me a lifetime to create. I’m counting on your help and it’s not too much to ask. Just remember how I rescued you, once upon a time, and you’ll know it’s not too much. Now I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”

“I always do everything you ask. Most the time I don’t even bother to complain. And I’m not saying I won’t do it…but…maybe I’m saying I can’t do it….”

“Now listen to me Ernest, and listen good. I don’t care about the strange way you look at people, or the toys you carry in your pocket, or the way you dress in black and white like a waiter. But when you start stepping on my plans, that’s when I start to care. You’re going to talk to Veronica and you’re going to say the things I tell you to say, even if you have to pretend you’re talking to one of your tin soldiers. Do you understand me?”

He said nothing.

“Do you know that I’m about to turn you in to the most powerful young man in the county, maybe even in the entire state? Do you care about that?”

“No.” And with that single word
, Ernest, the one who always tried to please, had crossed over onto the bad side of the line like never before. She tolerated his strange ways, mostly because she didn’t have a choice, but she never tolerated his lack of ambition. And even though they both knew he didn’t have any, especially her kind, he’d never come out and said it to her face like that. She stared at him. He felt exposed. Vulnerable. Abandoned. When she finally spoke again, the words came out quietly and slowly.

“I can’t do anything about that. I can’t make you grow a spine, Ernest. All I can do is give you fair warning. And if you don’t listen to that warning
, I’ll run you over like you was no more than vermin on the highway. And you know it don’t you, Ernest?”

“Yes. I do. I’m sorry, Dorthea…I’m sorry….”

~~~

If the good people
had any lingering doubt about how far Dorthea Railer had gotten her claws into Veronica Newfield, it completely vanished when large envelopes started showing up in the best Prospect Park mailboxes. Gray in color, like a raincloud, with embossed red foil trim, the envelopes looked stylish and intriguing. They also elicited remarkably similar responses from all who received them. Sophisticated wives and urbane husbands, all schooled in grace and reserve, opened the envelopes with interest, and then cussed like bar girls and back ally thugs. They’d been invited to a winter ball at Sunny Slope Manor, compliments of Dorthea Railer. Specifically, the invitation came from “Dorthea Railer on behalf of Veronica Newfield.”

Judith Newfield had
n’t been dead three weeks and Dorthea had the gall to pull this kind of stunt. RSVP? Hardly. Not even a regretful decline. Gauche climbers got regretful declines; common criminals like Dorthea got nothing. Maybe she might darken the manor’s doorway, maybe things had really gotten that bad for young Veronica, but they had no intention of being there to witness it. No, the indignant invitees didn’t send back the reply cards. They did other things to them. They shredded them and crumpled them and tore them asunder with religious fervor. They threw them to the ground, to the bottom of the birdcage, and out with the garbage.

And then, with their spleens only half empt
ied, they talked of their profound hatred for Dorthea Railer. Wife to husband, husband to daughter, sister to brother, everyone talked. And then they got on the phone with friends and neighbors and talked of their hatred some more.

Somewhere along the way, though, some small voice, perhaps belonging to a less volatile family member, or a wise old-timer, or an astute
financier, interrupted the fiery proceedings and mentioned the Castaneda Corporation. Annoyed glances and impatient sighs greeted this contribution, but, as sure as one plus one equals two, other easy calculations got made, and the results quickly sucked the hot air from the blossoming lynch mobs. Castaneda Corporation, the Newfield company that owned twenty-seven thousand acres left from the Spanish land grant, was the dominant economic force in the county. In some way virtually everyone’s life depended on, or at least got influenced by Castaneda. Yes, Dorthea Railer hosting a ball at Sunny Slope Manor looked like a flea pocked hen sitting on a stolen egg, but who’s to say she didn’t have her sights set on an even bigger prize. Maybe she already had it in her grasp.

At the Petersen mansion, for instance, Nils Petersen sat quietly in his easy chair as his son and daughter-in-law spewed diatribe
all over Dorthea’s invitation. Petersen Quarry, the biggest supplier of sand and gravel in the west, got its start by buying and quarrying a small strip of the wash land that ran between Santa Marcela and Prospect Park; they got rich, though, by quarrying, on very favorable terms, the surrounding wash land that belonged to Castaneda. The Newfields and Petersens had been united in this enterprise for seventy-five years and the two families went back even further than that. But now the lease had come up for renewal and with Bill and Judith out of the picture, Nils Petersen didn’t know for sure who ran Castaneda. As much as he disliked Dorthea Railer, he didn’t plan on putting his business in danger because of it. He’d be going to the ball, as would his son and daughter-in-law. They just didn’t know it yet.

The
Danmore fortune dated back even further than the Petersen’s, to the early days of Santa Marcela, when Jonah Danmore eschewed the countryside and paid Newfield’s high prices for city property. Year after year he bought it up, eventually becoming the second largest land owner in Santa Marcela. The modern Danmores, Tom and Jim, twins, and always referred to as the Danmore brothers, guided the family fortune as well as any of their ancestors had. They built Santa Marcela Mall, the only indoor mall in the county, but, lest they forgot their place, Newfield kept them in check by allowing them to own only one of the three parking lots adjacent to the mall. Castaneda owned the other two. The Danmore brothers also decided to attend the ball, dressed to the nines, and wearing warm smiles.

One by one, in like manner, minds got changed and reply cards got reprieved and retrieved, wiped off and taped up, filled out and sent off. In a few cases, where an acceptable degree of re-construction couldn’t be achieved, an apologetic note got sent instead, graciously accepting the invitation. Self-preservation trumped propriety
, and most families decided to attend. But not all. Grumpy old Mr. Grant, for one, wouldn’t be caught dead in Dorthea Railer’s presence and said so with his usual flair; across the top of his returned reply card, in bold red ink, he wrote: Go to hell!

Mack felt useless. Bad things kept happening to Sarah, and he didn’t have a clue how to help. First her mother had died, then, out of the blue, her aunt, and now she had the full weight of Sunny Slope Manor on her shoulders. Veronica, the rightful heir, had locked herself in her room and refused to help with the funeral or with the army of lawyers and accountants that descended afterward. Other than putting her signature on any piece of paper that might speed up her inheritance, she did nothing. As for Sarah’s worthless fiancé, he went skiing in Utah. Mack had seen pain and worry camped out on Sarah’s face at other times—with her family it came with the territory—but never like this. And what had he done about it? Not much. He’d watched, listened, anticipated, and fetched. He’d become a gawking errand boy.

One afternoon
a few weeks after her aunt’s funeral, Sarah led a quarter horse named Barney up to the tack house and tied him off to the rail. Mack saw the red-eyed anguish and wondered if it had been caused by old worries or new. Because of his mild disposition, she usually rode “Bombproof Barney” on trail and with a western saddle. He quickly grabbed the saddle pad from inside the tack house and handed it to her. She smiled weakly. He grabbed the big western saddle and threw it onto Barney’s back. And then he hovered. And cleared his throat. And tried to look inviting like a fluffy pillow. She looked at him a few times, and looked like she wanted to talk, and maybe cry, too. And then she got on the horse and rode off.

Disgusted with himself,
Mack threw a saddle and saddle pad over the tie-down rail. Maybe if he stopped trying to look like a fluffy pillow and started talking like a human being, he might actually end up being some help.

He ran a
nd fetched a horse.

~~~

Sarah headed straight for the trailhead. As a little girl, when she’d first seen the sharp rocks and sheer cliffs of Bryson Canyon, the sight had sucked the breath right out of her lungs and had turned her heartbeat into a spastic rendition of chopsticks. After the meeting she’d had that morning with Veronica and her aunt’s attorneys, she needed that kind of distraction, even if the canyon didn’t frighten like it used to, and even if Barney usually snoozed the whole way down. She leaned back, gave him his head, and tried to get lost in the rhythmic march down the narrow trail.

It must’ve worked because
when Sarah woke from her daydream, she found herself at the bottom of the canyon hanging halfway off the horse. He’d spooked and had jumped to the right, which had sent her falling to the left. Now she dangled there, like a drunken trick rider, holding onto a fistful of mane as she tried to right herself. Then he jigged backwards and down she went, landing on her seat. She watched in disbelief as Barney galloped back up the canyon trail, going faster than any barn-sour horse that ever lived.

So much
for Bombproof Barney, she thought. More like Barney the bum. She looked around to see what might’ve spooked him. Probably a scary shadow, or a weed that wiggled the wrong way in the wind, or, heaven forbid, a rock that looked like a buck-toothed gargoyle. “Stupid horse,” she muttered to herself, even though it hadn’t been his fault. She’d been slouching in the saddle like a wet washcloth and hadn’t been paying attention. If anything, she should be thankful it hadn’t happened up on the steep and narrow part of the trail. She got up, dusted herself off, and started walking.

Almost immediately something caught her eye near the top of the canyon. Even though it didn’t look like much more than a speck on the horizon
, she knew exactly what it meant: Mack was coming to her rescue, like usual.

When they met on the trail
some twenty minutes later, he looked her up and down and said, “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, except I don’t know how you got here so fast. Even if Barney ran the whole way he couldn’t have made it that fast.”

“He didn’t. I met him on the way down.” Barney, who’d been trailed back down the canyon, poked his head around Mack’s horse and gave Sarah a surprised look.

“And why were you coming
this way?” asked Sarah.

“To look for you,” answered
Mack.

“
How come?”

“Because I didn’t like the look on your face
when you rode off.”

“And what look is that?”

“The ‘I’m about to get bucked off my horse in Bryson Canyon’ kind of look.”

Sarah
smiled and said, “I don’t doubt it.”

“And the sad look of someone
who might have things to talk about,” he added, before dismounting and leading Barney past his horse, where he gave Sarah a leg up. Then he looked up at her and said, “Now will you tell me what’s going on, or will I have to unleash some very scary detective skills?”

The tides of change
can surge all they want but Mack will never change, thought Sarah. Even though she didn’t want him to fight her battles, it gave her comfort just being near him, like a rock wall to stand behind while she caught her breath. She looked at him as he got back onto his horse. He had on dusty clothes, and if he took off his cowboy hat, she’d find blond matted hair and a fine line of dirt on his forehead. That’s how he looked at the end of the day. Every day. And in the morning he’d show up looking all shiny and smelling good. He was steady and unchanging. He’d work hard tomorrow just as he’d worked hard yesterday. He’d do more listening than talking next week because that’s what he’d done the week before. And if he saw a cloud hanging over a friend on Monday, he’d look them over very carefully on Tuesday, which is what he was doing now.

The two
faced each other on horseback. Sarah quietly sighed and then started to talk. “From the safety of the hereafter, Aunt Judith has decided to give her daughter a spanking and has handed me the paddle.”

“Ok…” said
Mack.

“Veronica’s not getting her inheritance for
twelve years and I’ve been made trustee over the estate with instructions to give her money for essentials only.”

With wide eyes
Mack whistled and leaned back in the saddle. “I bet that went over like a…a….”

“Like a spoiled heiress who’s lost her inheritance?” asked
Sarah.

“Yeah, like that, and I don’t like it. Can I tell you why?”

“Yes….Please do,” she said, a bit startled. In Mack’s world this almost amounted to an outburst.

“Have you ever been bitten by a horse?”

“Just a few nips here and there,” said Sarah, “nothing too serious.”

“No, I’m talking about a nasty bite. The
kind that leaves a mark big enough to take a dental impression. Well, it’s always the same horse that does it, the one that never got taught any ground manners. You turn your back and bam they got you. And that’s how Veronica is. She never got taught any manners at all, but let me tell you, she doesn’t care if you turn your back or not, she’ll get you when you’re….” He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Sarah. “This isn’t helping, is it?”

“It
’s ok, Mack, I’ve had a few hours to work through some of this. You’re just getting caught up. I’m glad. There’s not another person in the world I’d want by my side.” She immediately realized how inappropriate that sounded and looked away. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she continued, “I know all about Veronica’s bad side, just like you do, but what about the good side? Do you remember when she was sweet and innocent?”

“No, not
really.”

“I d
o. Starting when I was seven and she was two. Somehow I understood that Aunt Judith didn’t like being a mother. Seven years old and I knew that. But it didn’t matter because I wanted to be Veronica’s mother. So I did it. From that day forward I took her by the hand and looked after her. When nap time came around I brought her in before Nanny Sally even had to say a word. When Nanny had the day off, I kept track of Veronica’s bottle, and her baby food, and did everything else for her before my mother had a chance to do it herself. And when Aunt Judith had guests and wanted to show off her baby daughter, I had to hide behind the curtain so Veronica went to her mother instead of to me. It was a little girl’s dream. I got to play mommy and have a sister all at the same time. And it lasted for almost ten years. And yes, she was sweet, even if it is hard to believe now.”

“
And you’re saying there’s some of that left in her?”

“I don’t know.
Maybe that’s what Aunt Judith thought.”

“Well,
there’s only one way to find out,” said Mack, “and that’s the part I don’t like. You’d have to do what’s never been done in the history of Sunny Slope Manor. You’d have to let her Royal Highness get knocked on her butt a few times.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you don’t get character just by sitting on a throne being queen of the universe.”

Sarah
thought for a moment, remembering one of her mother’s wall hangings, and before she could check herself said, “Trials produce endurance; endurance, character; and character, hope.”

“That’s right. And there ain’t going to be any hope until she gets some character
. That’s an interesting saying. Where’s it from?”

Embarrassed at the thought of
Mack finding out about her mom’s world class Bible thumping, she waved her hand and said, “It's Shakespeare.”

“Shakespeare? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Mack
shrugged, turned his horse, and they started back up the canyon, first side by side, then, when the trail narrowed, in tandem. On the way, Sarah filled him in on some of the other details from the meeting that morning at the law office of Mackey, Millington, Schneider and Pendigrass.

After Veronica had stormed out of the conference room,
and slammed the door hard enough to shake the walls, Roger Millington, one of the partners, explained that a testamentary trust, such as Aunt Judith’s, didn’t require a court hearing or a judge’s stamp of approval. Either Sarah accepted or she didn’t. If she accepted, she needed to immediately take control of the estate on behalf of Veronica and start fulfilling the duties of trustee. “Just start doing it,” he’d said. “It’s as easy as that…. Of course, a signed letter of understanding from Veronica might be prudent, but it’s not required.”

Of course
not, Sarah had thought, because if it had been, she’d be off the hook; Veronica would pluck out an eye before she’d sign such a thing. When it came to business, Aunt Judith didn’t make mistakes like that. She’d thought through every little detail. Where were the insurmountable obstacles when you really needed them?

When they got back to the stable, and had dismounted,
Mack took both of Sarah’s hands into his and said, “Sarah I want you to promise me something.”

“
What?”

“Veronica
can be unpredictable. Promise you’ll tell me if things start to go bad.”

“I will
, Mack. Thank you.” But then he didn’t let go of her hands. And she didn’t let go of his.

“I’ve been worried about you, you know,” he said.

Sarah felt the tears well up.

“Don’t carry everything on your shoulders,” he continued. “Let me help
. That’s what friends are for.”

Overcome by emotion, she only managed to nod her head, which seemed to satisfy
Mack because he immediately wrapped her up into a big hug.

~~~

Veronica held the steering wheel in a death grip and screeched the car out of the parking lot in Santa Marcela. The meeting had been bogus. A bunch of dumbshit lawyers had given everything to her cousin. She’d flashed the cutie pie smile, and they fell all over themselves, like usual. So Veronica gave them the finger and split.

Now
she tore down Highland Avenue, on her way back to Prospect Park, and a giant glazed donut thirty feet in the sky caught her attention. She hit the brakes, whipped a loud U-turn, and bounced her Mustang Mach 2 into the donut shop parking lot. She had an appetite like a cow. That’s how it worked. Six days a week she starved and one day a week she became a slave to giant donuts twirling in the sky. The cycle started every Friday afternoon, after her visit with Dorthea, when food went out of fashion as fast as cocaine went up her nose. That went on through the weekend and into the next week until she snorted her last line and came crashing down and started eating like a pig. If she played it right, the crash came Friday morning and she had only a few hours of hell.

Veronica blamed Dorthea for this rationing bullshit because she couldn’t decide if she wanted to be a drug dealer or a worried aunt. On Fridays she dealt, to her one and only customer. The rest of the week she gave out nothing but warnings about overdoses and death. And whenever Veronica lined up a backup dealer to plug up the gap, he almost immediately disappeared into the back of a police car or disappeared altogether, as in poof, gone for good.

But now Friday had arrived and Veronica counted the minutes until her meeting with Dorthea. In the meantime, she scarfed jelly donuts, chain smoked Virginia Slims, and stirred a simmering hatred for her cousin. Once again Sarah had weaseled her way into getting everything, while she, the rightful heir, had been left with a measly allowance. Sarah knew how to do that kind of shit. If she stood up and swore the earth to be flat, in no time at all she’d have a dozen idiots standing in line and nodding their heads.