When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae (32 page)

She pretended she didn’t notice him.

“Are you okay, Lib? You look a bit . . . under the weather.”

He waited while she dipped her brush into the primer can, then he dipped his.

“You know I took your sister out to be polite,” he said in a low voice. “Not because I’m interested in her.”

Libby sucked in her lower lip and bit it, hard, letting the hurt of it keep her focus where it needed to be. “I’m glad you had a nice time,” she said, so it would carry to where Paul was working, up under the eaves.

Paul’s cell phone rang and they listened for a minute while he talked to Josh. Then he said, “Hang on,” and climbed down the ladder to finish the call inside. He grinned as he passed them and clamped his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “We’ll have this baby sewn up by Friday. Easy.”

The screen door rattled closed behind him.

It wasn’t as hot as it had been the day before. The breeze was coming in from the north and Libby could smell new-mown hay over the clean smell of the primer.

Al leased a field in that direction. She listened and sure enough, there was the growl of his tractor. Mowing. While the sun shown.

She brushed away a drip that had fallen on the clapboard below the window sill where she was working.

“Libby can I ask you a question?” Dean spoke in a low voice.

She bit her lip again.

“Do you really want to sell this place?”

She didn’t answer.

“I know he wants you to. But what do you want, Lib?”

“It’s not a question of what I want, Dean.”

“Sure it is.”

As if on cue, one of the campers strolled up. “Whatcha doin’? Paintin’?”

“What I
did
want, past tense, was to get a place in the country and start a little organic farm,” Libby said. “But that didn’t happen. Instead, I ended up with a circus.”

“So you’re saying, if we could get rid of these jokers—”

“No use playing with ‘if’s,’ Dean.”

“I’m just saying—”

“The decision has been made. I’ve got a buyer, you know.” She glanced at the door, checking for Paul.

“Yeah, Gina was telling me.”

“I’ll be getting my money out, plus a little extra. It’s a good deal. The best I could hope for, under the circumstances.”

“But you haven’t signed anything.”

“Next week. I get the paperwork next week.”

“What if I told you I could get rid of them—your campers. For good.”

“There’s no way that happens, Dean. They think I’m holding the answer to the cosmos. Tyler tried to stop it—but like he said once, its viral. It’s all over the ‘net.”

“I’ve thought of a way.”

“No. No, Dean. I know you mean well.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Libby.”

She forced herself to keep painting.

“There’s nothing to lose,” she whispered.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Yes.”

Something rattled inside the house. It sounded like a frying pan.

Dean caught her wrist in his hand and her brush dripped primer onto the grass. “Libby, look at me.”

She looked at him.

He intended to kiss her. She was sure of it.

But then he dropped her wrist, picked up the second can of primer and disappeared around the corner of the house.

44

She was standing over the bathroom sink scrubbing primer streaks off her hands and arms, running only a thin trickle of water because Paul was in the shower and if she turned the faucet any higher, he’d lose all his pressure. And get blasted by cold water besides. Yeah, it was late August but Paul still wanted a hot shower, to get rid of the aches, he said.

She wiped the steam from the mirror to check her face. She must have scratched an itch at some point or brushed up against the house because the hairs around her right temple were frosted white and gummed together at the tips.

Condensation started to reform right away on the place she cleared—it was a tiny bathroom—and she noticed that through the film of moisture the paint made it look like she was graying at the temples.

“Lib, you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Hand me my razor, would you?”

It was on the side of the sink. She passed it to Paul around the edge of the shower curtain. “There’s the phone,” she said. “See you in a bit.”

She picked up the receiver. Gina.

“Well, Libby, you’re so smart, why don’t you talk to your niece? Here.”

Huh?

“Gina?”

No answer. Muffled noises. And then Maisey was on. “Aunt Libby?”

She sounded terrible. “Maisey? Maisey, what’s happened?”

But she couldn’t talk. She was crying.

“Where are you? Are you at your apartment?”

A sound that sort of passed for “uh huh.”

“I’ll be right there.”

♦ ♦ ♦

“Got a cig?”

Why Gina needed to smoke, Libby had no idea. Her sister hadn’t smoked for years, as far as Libby knew. But now there she was, bumming a cigarette off her daughter.

“In my room,” Maisey said in a little voice.

Libby took a seat on one end of the couch. Maisey sat on the other end, holding a hand-crocheted throw pillow to her chest.

“Maise, what happened. Did Tyler . . . ?”

She nodded.

“Alex?”

She nodded again.

Gina had returned with an unlit cigarette in her lips. “I need a beer,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “I’m going out to buy some beer. Lib, want a beer?”

“No, thanks.”

But she didn’t leave. She stood on the other side of the scratched coffee table and looked at Libby. Then she took the cigarette out of her mouth. “So, Libby. Are you happy, now? Are you happy? Look at her.”

Libby had been looking. And Maisey looked awful. Her hair fell scraggly around her face and her eyes were swollen and red and she was scrunched up and small, curled around the pillow like that.

“So what do you have to say for yourself? You think you’re so smart, you think you can walk into Maisey’s life and start handing out your stupid how-to-be-a-doormat advice. You think I don’t know what’s going on ? What do you—”

“Gina!”

Libby shouted it to make her stop. And then she said it. “You were right. Okay? You were right. And I was wrong.”

She turned to Maisey. “Maisey, do you get that? Your mom was right. Not about giving Alex a turn—it’s got nothing to do with Alex. What she was right about, was that you—that you don’t want to turn into me.”

“Damn right, she doesn’t.”

Maisey hadn’t moved or changed position. “Maisey, you deserve better. You deserve a boyfriend who adores you so much he’d never dream of . . . of going off with someone else.”

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Gina said.

“Of course it’s the p—”

“You two need to stop it,” Maisey said. She stood up and put the pillow down where she’d been sitting.

“Maisey.” Libby stood up also. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you to dump him. You needed to dump him.”

“I know.” She looked at me. “I don’t want him back. I hate this, I hate all of it. But I don’t want him back. Not anymore.”

“I’m going to get some beer,” Gina said, and picked up her purse.

Her feet thumped down the stairs outside the apartment door to the street.

“Are you okay?”

“I wanna go to bed.”

“Come home, Maisey. I want you to move back in with me. If you want.” And then Libby remembered she was selling her place. “Until I sell. Then you can come with me to Rochester.” She’d have to work it out with Paul, of course . . .

“Maybe. I dunno.”

“Maise, I gave you awful advice—it was the kind of crap I tell myself—the crap I told myself the whole time I was married to Wallace. And it doesn’t work. It’s never worked—”

“I know. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t have to listen.”

“You’ll be okay,” Libby said, and Maisey didn’t look very convinced but she nodded anyway.

Libby locked the door behind her when she left, hoping that Gina would be quiet when she came back, that she’d drink her beer quietly in front of the little television and leave her daughter alone.

45

It had seemed like they were making great progress on painting the house the first couple of days. But on Wednesday they had a couple of setbacks. Dean didn’t show up until after lunch. And about 11:00 Josh called again. Libby could tell it was something bad this time, and then after the call Paul filled her in. The FDA had objected to some marketing copy Dormet Vous Lustre had developed for a new wrinkle cream. All the collateral needed to be rewritten to finesse some of the product claims.

Fortunately, Paul didn’t need to go into the city—he could manage it all from Libby’s computer—but still, it took him hours to get it all sorted out.

Thursday went better. But by mid-afternoon it was pretty clear they weren’t going to be done.

Although Libby did have to admit one thing. The part that was finished looked awfully nice.

It’s funny though, isn’t it, how people will live in a place all worn down and junky, and then fix it up so it’s nice right before they move out?

She didn’t dwell on that thought. Paul was so proud. After Dean left that evening, they stood on the driveway, looking at their handiwork. Paul had his arm around her, and kept saying, “Sure is coming out nice, isn’t it, Libby?”

And she’d say, again, “Yes, Paul. It is.”

“So you going to list it, when, Monday?”

She took a deep breath to calm her stomach. Because she hadn’t told him yet, about that cable show . . .

“Libby?” He looked at her, and he didn’t look happy. The look startled her and then she realized: he thought her hesitation meant she was changing her mind about selling.

“It’s okay, Paul,” she said. “I’m definitely selling. Only—”

“Only what?” He’d dropped his arm from her waist and had fallen back a step, fixing his eyes on her face.

The poor guy. Waiting for some fresh shock.

“Well, you know how I mentioned that I may have a buyer.”

“Oh, sure. I remember you saying.”

“It’s someone Gina knows.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Yes! Exactly. The way Gina operates, there’s no telling if the deal will happen, right?”

He ruffled her hair affectionately. “You can be one smart cookie sometimes, Libby.”

“But the thing is, Paul, if it does go through, I’ll get more than market for the place.”

“Oh, really?”

So she told him the whole story. How Gina and Jade had figured that they should turn the place into a retreat. He looked pretty skeptical—the same expression as when he’d heard the campers talk about it all earlier in the week—so finally she led him inside to her office. “Look,” she said, stepping up to her desk and bending over her keyboard. She went to google.com, typed in “Findhorn,” and clicked on the Findhorn Foundation’s website. “See? Like this.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s in Scotland. It was originally a farm where some people . . .” The whole fairy idea was such a sore point that she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She couldn’t say, “where some people talked to fairies.”

But he knew what words had been left unsaid. “You’re kidding me.”

She shook her head.

“What a scam.” He’d taken over the mouse and was clicking on the Findhorn website.

“I don’t know why you say ‘scam.’”

He grunted. “So Gina thinks she’s going to buy your place and turn it into a retreat for whackos.”

“More or less. Yes.”

“I suppose as long as the whackos are showing up anyway, you might as well figure out a way to part them from their cash. So this guy she’s got lined up, what’s he doing?”

“Well, Gina doesn’t have any money.”

“Of course she doesn’t. What’s his name?”

“Simon Blackwell.”

“Libby, I realize that you’re your own woman, and all that. But why didn’t you discuss any of this with me?”

She avoided his eyes.

“Has he given you anything in writing?”

“Just a letter.”

“Let’s see it.”

She dug through her file cabinet for a minute, found the letter, and handed it to him.

“It doesn’t mention how much he thinks the property is worth.”

“No, just what it says here—that he understands that the property’s valuation is based on its use as a business, rather than a farm.”

“How much do you think he’ll offer?”

“I’m not sure. But I would expect to take out at least ten or twenty thousand. You know, after paying off the mortgage.”