The Queen Gene (17 page)

Renee ran her toes through the grass and kept her eyes on Anjoli, who was now holding court with the Junior Leaguers. They too seemed enthralled by her, nodding and smiling at her every word.

Adam waddled over to Anjoli and crookedly held out a plate for her. “Honky food!” he shouted. Mother was never into that whole bending-down-to-talk-to-children routine. She looked down and told him she didn’t eat hamburger, but asked him to leave the plate on the ground so Mancha could nibble on it a bit later. Adam looked perplexed. “Honky no want the buggers?”

She scrunched her face with disgust. “No, darling. Honky most definitely does not want any buggers, but thanks so much for asking.”

I wasn’t sure whether my motives were purely benevolent, or whether I was competing with Anjoli for Renee’s affection, but I decided I would confide in my new friend about how Jack’s and my marriage was on the brink of failure just three years earlier. That would show Renee who really overcame hardships. Compared to marital erosion, noisy neighbors and a neurotic dog would seem like small potatoes. Oh yes, and it would let Renee know that she’s not alone in her Pompeii-like marriage. Sometimes I was more like Anjoli than I cared to admit. The cruel injustice is that I was somewhat aware of my character flaws, and was troubled by my deficits. Anjoli had the luxury of delusion.

“How’s everything going with Dan?” I asked Renee, who interrupted her sipping of a margarita at the mention of his name.

“Okay,” she shrugged.

“Oh, I’m sorry if I’m overstepping. It’s just that your situation reminds me of my own a few years ago.” Renee raised both eyebrows as if to ask me how so. I lowered my voice and continued. “Jack asked me for a divorce three hours after I found out I was pregnant with Adam.”

“Really?” Renee said, urging me to continue.

“I was getting ready to tell him the big news when he dropped this bomb on me and said he wanted out of the marriage.”

“Wow,” she said, but clearly meant
Go on.

“Anyway, we spent more than a year living together as friends, if you can imagine that. It was horrible. I was still completely in love and willing to make it work, but Jack was out dating and moving on with his life as a single guy. He even got serious with this one woman. Took her along to the park with Adam. Brought her home to watch movies. It was hell.”

Renee went from being amused to compelled by my story. She was no longer smiling, but looking wounded, as though any story of a fractured marriage hurt her personally. I decided to stop. As surprisingly freeing as I found this confession, it was having the opposite effect on Renee.

“So what happened?” she asked urgently. “I mean, obviously you’re back together, aren’t you? You’re not still just friends, right? Whatever happened to the other woman?”

I smiled and realized I was mistaken about her reaction. “Her type will always show their true colors when the chips are down. Jack got into a car accident and guess how long it took for her to dump him after that?”

Renee smiled naughtily. “A few weeks?”

“Try a few hours. Jack wasn’t even conscious before she tore ass out of the hospital. She asked
me
to break up with him for her, so she wouldn’t have to wait around at the hospital.”

“You’re kidding?!” she shouted, unwittingly catching the attention of our other guests.

“I’m not. So I guess what I’m trying to say, Renee, is that things can turn around. Our marriage was over, but Jack and I are happier than ever now.”

“Did you go to marriage counseling?” Renee asked.

“We did,” I confirmed. “Listen, this is just between us, okay? I only told you because I want you to know that you’re not alone. We’ve all been there, we just don’t talk about it.” I realized, of course, that by asking her to keep this information confidential, I was perpetuating the problem of women feeling isolated in their misery. Still, I wanted to maintain some control over my personal life.

“Wow, that’s pretty incredible,” Renee said. “I’m glad for you, but I’m not sure I’m going to get the same happy ending.” She smiled. “Thanks for sharing that with me, though. I really appreciate it.” She tapped my arm affectionately. “You’re pretty amazing, Lucy Klein. But I don’t know why that should surprise me. Look who you’ve got as a mother!”

As soon as Renee uttered the word, my mother’s shriek could be heard for miles. The entire party stopped their conversations. Even the kids stopped bouncing in the inflated house to see what happened.

“Honky falled down!” Adam said and started crying.

Jack rushed toward her body sprawled in front of the house. Anjoli’s hip thrust out and her right hand was on her forehead. It was too sexy a pose for a serious injury. “My hip, my hip! I’ve broken my hip,” she shouted as a crowd gathered around her. She sobbed but also managed to delicately blot her tears away so her mascara would not run. “They say if you break a hip, you’re likely to be dead the next year.”

“I think that’s only elderly people,” Jack said.

Anjoli clutched her chest at the very mention of the word. “Well, I should be fine then. Help me up, darling.” She stood and limped into the house where I offered to call a doctor. “I really
will
be dead within a year then!”

As it turned out, Anjoli did not break her hip, but she did have a nice bruise to show for her tumble up the walkway to the house.

Jack and I exchanged a concerned look. “Our injuries-to-artwork ratio is disturbing,” he commented.

“I know,” I said softly. “What is the deal?!”

Chapter Twenty

The next afternoon my office phone rang. From the window I watched Anjoli sitting in the backyard sipping her tea and reading the newspaper as Adam tossed a gumball-sized rubber ball for Mancha to retrieve. They were perched in the area overlooking the guest houses, all three of which were motionless with inactivity. I’d seen Jacquie and Chantrell leave for the mall that morning. Maxime had taken off for one of his eternal hikes in the woods an hour earlier, and Randy had driven to town to purchase materials at the glass supply shop. (Who knew there was such a place?)

After spending his entire life with my mother, Mancha was no ordinary dog. He watched Adam toss the ball and just stared at it through his paper glasses. “Get ball, Cha-Cha!” insisted Adam. If a Chihuahua could make facial expressions, I knew his would be one of
You’ve got to be kidding!
The dog had no instinct to chase balls or engage in any other such canine silliness.

“Lucy,” said a man’s voice though the phone. I turned my head away from the window to focus on what the caller was saying. “It’s Earl from
Healthy Living
magazine,” he said. I sank into my hunter green leather chair which sat in front of my rustic, burled-wood desk that Jack made for me. I loved how it looked like a slice of tree with its undefined edges and tree rings on the surface. “Listen, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I was camping in Juneau. Y’ever been to Alaska?” I told him I had not. “Beautiful country. Don’t miss it. Really a sight to see. Anyway, I got your message, and I’d love to have you do a story for the Living the Dream section. The piece you did on the flax seed revolution is still getting letters.” This
had
to be a lie. Even I was bored by my pitiful attempts at humor throughout this thoroughly dull piece. “So tell me what you’ve got goin’ on there in your little corner of heaven.”

I sighed. “Earl, I’ve got to be honest with you. The dream has turned into a nightmare.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he replied. I peeked out the window again to see Mancha repeatedly reject my son’s efforts to play with him. “What’s going on?”

“First of all, not one visiting artist has created a single piece of art. The French guy has sunk into a depression and doesn’t do anything, much less sketch. He had an affair with the cellist who doesn’t play cello, but now goes out on endless shopping excursions with Maxime’s extremely bitter wife.”

“Maxime is?” Earl asked.

“Oh, sorry. Maxime is the French guy who used to do absolutely stunning sketches with thousands of ink dots the size of a needle prick. His wife, Jacquie, seemed like a breath of fresh air when she arrived, but quickly became a vitriolic demon of consumption. I’m serious, Earl,
all
this woman does is shop,” I said, laughing at how absurd it sounded. “So Maxime took up with Chantrell for a few weeks. She completely abandoned her cello and her research on the effect of music on vegetables.”

“Really?” Earl said, interested. “What effect is music supposed to have on vegetables?”

“I don’t know. She was involved in some fruit and flower research project before and wanted to expand it to vegetables.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Earl said.

“Except she doesn’t play anymore, so the only definitive result we have is that complete neglect of vegetables leads to their death,” I said. “She doesn’t even water them anymore.”

“Harsh,” Earl said.

“But wait, there’s more!” I said, imitating the tone of an infomercial hostess. “A month later, the glass sculptor arrived, and he’s neither depressed nor unpleasant, but everything he touches shatters. Even things he doesn’t touch! Every window in his house broke within weeks of his arrival. Don’t you find that odd?”

“I’ll spare you the joke about people living in glass houses,” Earl said.

“Please do.” I laughed. “So now I have three completely unproductive artists and an open house on Labor Day that we’ve already advertised. The entire community will show up and see the artist colony where no art is made. It’s a disaster.”

“Sounds like it,” Earl said, sympathetically.

“Oh, it gets better,” I continued. “Every woman that passes through the threshold of my home gets some sort of leg injury. I sprained my ankle. My friend Robin broke hers. We’ve had knee injuries, tetanus, twisted limbs, and bruises.”

“Really?” Earl sounded piqued with curiosity. “Only the women?”

“Yes, not only are the men spared from injury, but they’re assisted with home repairs.”

“What do you mean?” Earl asked, intrigued.

“I mean that Jack and his friend Tom, who does handyman stuff around the house, say that home repairs are getting done by themselves. Leaky faucets, bad wiring — all getting fixed without either of them lifting a finger!”

“Lucy,” Earl said tentatively, “can I propose something radical?”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Have you considered the house might be haunted?” he asked.

“Haunted?” I repeated, incredulous. “Haunted like
Poltergeist
haunted? Haunted like ‘I see dead people’ haunted? Haunted like ‘get out’
Amityville Horror
haunted?”

“Well, those are movies, Lucy,” Earl said. “What I’m talking about is the more mundane haunting. You know, spirits stuck between worlds?”

I had grown up with this sort of talk, so it’s not as though the idea of spirits stuck between worlds was something I’d never heard about before. It’s just that this was Anjoli’s realm. If anyone should have a haunted house, it should be her. She’d know what to do. Hell, she’d have a good time with it, throw a
bon voyage
party for the spirits or something. She’d have actors dressed like dead celebrities. It would be on Page Six.

“I don’t know what to say,” I told Earl. “I never considered it. I suppose anything’s possible.”

“Now that would be a story!” Earl exclaimed. “Even better than flax seed, I’d say!”

“I’m not sure, Earl,” I said. “I’m not sure I believe in haunted houses. I hope I’m not offending you, but it sounds a bit flaky.”

“Oh,” he returned with a tone that let me know I had, in fact, offended him.

“Earl, please. All of my life I grew up with a mother who was into every new age trend. I’ve seen it all, and frankly, I like living in a world where reason and logic dictate my actions.” I couldn’t help laughing aloud. “Okay, maybe not reason and logic, but the whole paranormal thing just doesn’t resonate with me.”

“I understand, Lucy, but the fact is that it doesn’t need to resonate with you to be real. Your house sounds like it’s haunted, and whether you choose to respond to it or not is your decision. But if it were my place, I’d look into it and fast.”

I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth next. “How would I even know if the house really is haunted?”

I could practically see Earl smiling on the other end of the phone as he delivered his easy joke. “Who ya gonna call?”

“Don’t say it.” I laughed.

“Ghostbusters!” we sang in unison.

“Seriously, Earl, who investigates this sort of thing? I mean, I don’t want some charlatan coming in and charging thousands of dollars for a problem that doesn’t even exist.”

“You can buy ghost detection equipment on the web. It’s fairly inexpensive,” Earl said. I wondered why we were even having this conversation. There was no way my house was haunted. There was even less way I was going to order ghost-seeking equipment and hunt for spirits lingering in my home. I thought the guys who combed the beach for lost coins and watches looked ridiculous. I cannot even picture someone using a ghost detector.

“I need some time to digest everything you’ve said.” I learned that dismissal years ago when a client said it to me. At the time, I thought it was a polite way of letting me know that my complex concept needed time to be broken down and properly appreciated. Now I know it’s a nice way of saying,
This conversation is over.

I went outside to join Adam and Anjoli who were still content in the backyard. “Reading anything good?” I asked my mother. She looked up and smiled. “Nothing more interesting than what you have to say, darling. What’s the good word?”

Maybe the house was possessed. Who was this woman inquiring about me?

“No barking at lady!” Adam scolded Mancha who was yelping toward the guest houses. I looked down, but there was no one around. I was grateful that Mancha wasn’t barking at Jacquie, our resident Cruella de Vil, who I suspect would want to skin him and make a pair of gloves for herself. Well, one glove maybe. Mancha yelped again and Adam reprimanded him similarly.