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Chapter
1
In retrospect, I should have known the day was
off. From the wee hours of the morning when I awoke to find Ralph—my neighbor’s
ninety-pound Rottweiler—in bed with me and hiking his leg, to waking up the
second time on my crappy uncomfortable couch with a hitch in my hip. Then the
coffeemaker mishap and realizing I was out of toothpaste. Pretty much, all the
markers were there. Aunt Ruby would have thumped me in the head and asked me
where my Barrett intuition was.
But I never had her kind of intuition.
And Aunt Ruby wasn’t around to thump me. Not
anymore. Not even long distance.
“Ow! Shit!” I yelped as my phone
rang, making me sling pancake batter across the kitchen as I burned my finger
on the griddle.
I’m coordinated like that.
Cursing my way to the phone, I hit speaker
when I saw the name of said neighbor.
“Hey, Tilly.”
“How’s my sweet boy?” she crooned.
I glared at Ralph. “He’s got bladder denial,”
I said. “Possibly separation anxiety. Mommy issues.”
“Uh-oh, why?” she asked.
“He marked three pieces of furniture, and me,”
I said, hearing her gasp. “While I was in the bed. With him.”
“Ralph was in the bed?” Tilly asked.
“That was the part that caught your
attention?”
“Well, I just don’t allow him up there,” she
said.
“It wasn’t by invitation,” I said. “I woke up
to him staring down at me and then he let it rip.”
I liked my neighbor, Tilly. She was from two
apartments down, was sweet, kinda goofy, and was always making new desserts she
liked to try out on me. So when she suddenly had to bail for some family
emergency with her mom and couldn’t take her dog, I decided to take a page from
her book and be a giver. Offer to dog-sit Ralph while she was gone for a few
days.
“Oh wow, I’m so sorry, Lanie,” she said.
“Not a problem,” I lied. I’m not really cut
out to be a giver. “We’re bonding.”
“How’s he eating?” Tilly asked. “Sometimes
he’s shy about eating around other people.”
I glanced over to see Ralph lick pancake
batter off the cabinet, then sit back on his haunches and lick himself.
“I think he’s doing all right.”
Tilly sighed on the other end. “Thank you so
much for this,” she said. “It takes a load off my mind to know he’s taken care
of.”
Something in that sentence or in her voice
sounded weird.
“So, how long are you going to be gone again?”
I asked.
“Um, well,” she began. “Things are a little
complicated, so it may be a little bit.”
A little bit. My weird radar perked up.
“Yeah?” I prompted. “Like—a week? What are we
talking?”
“Well, I’ll call you in a couple of days when
I know more,” she said. “It’s—you know, my dad is really sick, and family just
gets so—”
“Your dad?” I asked. “I thought it was your
mom.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “That’s what I meant.
Sorry, I’m just a little scattered right now.” She laughed. “I’m buzzing on too
much coffee, probably.”
Too much something.
Ralphed belched.
“Hey, remember,” Tilly continued. “When you
put him outside to leave for work, talk sweet to him so he doesn’t think it’s a
punishment.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Seriously, Lanie.”
“He peed on me!” I exclaimed. “His fragile ego
isn’t my biggest concern right now.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll send you
some money to clean your mattress. I actually kind of hoped he’d cheer you up.”
What? “Cheer me up?”
“You’ve been so—I don’t know—forlorn?” she
asked. “Since your aunt died, it’s like you lost your energy source.”
Damn, that was freakishly observant of her.
Maybe she got the Barrett intuition. She nailed it in one sentence.
Aunt Ruby was my energy source. Even from the next state over, the woman that
raised me kept me buzzing with her unstoppable magical spirit. When her eyes
went, the other senses jumped to the fight. When her life went, it was like
someone turned out the lights. All the way to Louisiana.
Honestly, I had this thought. That I’d feel
her more after she passed. After all, she’d been the one with all the
intuition. A rumor that had wagged tongues in Charmed, Texas my whole young
life. Something I’d thought was cool when I was little, spent most of my
teenage years denying, and mostly forgot as an adult—living hundreds of miles
away. Forgot until I’d go for a visit, anyway. One step inside that old house
left little question.
There hadn’t been any intuition my way,
however. No feelings. No aromas of baked apples or orange peels. No sudden
penchant for raw honey or the color blue or the new ability to sew. No Aunt
Ruby.
Well, maybe the honey part, but that was just
me. You can’t grow up in a bee-farming community and not become a honey addict.
I was truly alone and on my own. Realizing
that at thirty-three was sobering. Realizing Aunt Ruby now knew I’d lied about
everything was mortifying. Maybe that’s why she was staying otherwise occupied
out there in the afterlife.
Then again, lying was maybe too strong a word.
Was there another word? Maybe a whole turn of phrase would be better. Something
like coloring the story to make an old woman happy.
Yeah.
Coloring with crayons that turned into
shovels.
No one knew the extent of the ridiculous hole
I had dug myself into. The one that involved my hometown of Charmed, Texas
believing I was married and successful, living with my husband in sunny
California and absorbing the good life. Why California? Because it sounded more
exciting than Louisiana. And a fantasy-worthy advertising job I submitted an
online resume for a year ago was located there. That’s about all the sane
thought that went into that.
The tale was spun at first for Aunt Ruby when
she got sick, diabetes taking her down quickly, with her eyesight being the
first victim. I regaled her on my short visits home with funny stories from my
quickie wedding in Vegas (I did go to Vegas with a guy I was sort of seeing),
my successful career in advertising (I hadn’t made it past promotional copy),
and my hot, doting, super gorgeous husband named Michael who travelled a lot
for work and therefore was never with me. You’d think I’d need pictures for
that part, right? Even for a mostly blind woman? Yeah. I did.
I showed her pictures of a smoking hot dark
and dangerous looking guy I flirted with one night at Caesar’s Palace while my
boyfriend was flirting with a waitress. A guy who, incidentally, was
named—Michael.
I know.
I rot.
But it made her happy to know I was happy and
taken care of, when all that mattered in her entire wacky world was that I find
love and be taken care of. That I not end up alone, with my ovaries withering
in a dusty desert. Did I know that she would then relay all that information on
to every mouthpiece in Charmed? Bragging about how well her Lanie had done? How
I’d lived up to the Most-Likely-To-Set-The-World-On-Fire vote I’d received
senior year. Including the visuals I’d sent her of me and
Michael-the-Smoking-Hottie.
So later on, in Aunt Ruby’s last days, when
said boyfriend—a very fair, blond-haired GQ-style guy named Benjamin—wanted to
come with me to meet the woman that raised me, and be with me at the sparse
little funeral, I couldn’t do that. Not when Lanie Barrett’s husband was
dark-haired, tall and blue-collar sexy Michael. Which would have come as
somewhat of a surprise to Benjamin.
“I know, Tilly,” I said, pulling my thoughts
back to her as Ralph finished up cleaning the cabinets and had come nosing
around the counter to find the source. “I probably have been in a funk. Just—nothing’s
been the same.”
“Well, and Benjamin,” she said, and I could
hear the nod.
Damn, I really needed to stop talking to
people so much about my personal life. I forgot I’d told her about my
boyfriend.
“Benjamin was a douche,” I said, feeding Ralph
a burned pancake. Maybe he’d be less likely to pee on me tonight.
Benjamin was a douche. He called me cute.
He didn’t understand the insult, but it was
really the whole disclaimer phrase that went with it that got my goat. The
words still echoed in my head.
I’ve always wanted that average,
girl-next-door, dependable girlfriend. The one that isn’t too sparkly. Cute but
not gorgeous.
I wanted to throw up just thinking about it.
Nothing in my entire life had made me feel more mediocre than that. Whether it
was true or not, your man shouldn’t be the one to say it. Not that I was
looking for undying love. I didn’t do love. But I was certainly looking for
unbridled lust with someone who thought me above average.
My phone beeped in my ear, announcing another
call, from an unknown number. Unknown to the phone, maybe, but as of late I’d
come to recognize it.
“Hey Till,” I said, finger hovering over the
button. “The lawyer is calling. I should probably see if there’s any news on
the will.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll call you in a few
days and see how my Ralph is doing.”
So, not coming back in a few days.
“Sounds good,” I said, clicking over. “Hey,
Carmen.”
“Hey yourself,” she said, her voice friendly
but smooth and full of that lawyer professionalism they must inject them with
in law school. She warmed it up for an old best friend, but it wasn’t the same
tone that used to prank call boys in junior high or howl at the top of her
lungs as we sped drunk down Dreary Road senior year.
This Carmen Frost was polished. I saw that at
the funeral. Still Carmen, but edited and photo shopped. Even when I met her
for drinks afterward and we drove over to the house to reminisce.
This Carmen felt different from the childhood best
buddy that had slept in many a blanket fort in our living room. Strung of
course with Christmas lights in July and blessed with incense from Aunt Ruby.
That Carmen was the only person I truly let into my odd little family circle.
She never made fun of Aunt Ruby or perpetuated the gossip. Coming from a single
mom household where her mother had to work late often, she enjoyed the warm
weirdness at our house. It wasn’t uncommon for her to join us to spontaneously
have dinner in the backyard under the stars or dress up in homemade togas
(sheets) to celebrate Julius Caesar’s birthday.
Returning for the funeral, it broke me,
walking into that house for the first time without Aunt Ruby in it. It was full
of her. She was in every cushion. Every bookcase. Every oddball knickknack. Her
scent was in the curtains that had been recently washed and ironed, as if she’d
known the end was near and had someone come clean the house. Couldn’t leave it
untidy on her exit to heaven for people to talk.
We sat in Aunt Ruby’s living room and cried a
little and told a few nostalgic stories, trying to bring back the old banter,
but it was as if Carmen had forgotten how to relax. She was wound up on a spool
of bungee rope and someone had tied the ends down. Tight and unable to yield.
Still, we had history. At one time, she was
family. Which is why Aunt Ruby hired her to handle her will and estate.
A word that seemed so silly on my tongue, as I
would have never associated estate with my aunt or her property. But that was
the word Carmen used again and again when we talked. Her estate involved the
house and some money (she didn’t elaborate), but it had to be probated and
there were complications due to medical bills that had to be paid first.
Which made sense. It had taken almost two
months, and I had almost written off hearing anything. Not that I was holding
my breath on the money part. I was pretty sure whatever dollars there were
would be used up with the medical bills, and that just left the house. I
figured that would probably be left to me. I was really her only family after
my mom died young. Well, except for some cousins that I barely knew from her
brother she rarely talked to, but I couldn’t imagine them keeping up with her
enough to even know that she died.
I didn’t know what on earth I’d do with the
house. It was old and creaky and probably full of problems—one being it was in
Charmed and I was not. But it was home. And it had character and memories and
laughter soaked into the walls. Aunt Ruby was there. I felt it. If that was
intuition, then okay. I felt it there. But only there.
So I’d probably keep it as a place to get
away, and spend the next several months going back and forth on the weekends
like I had right after she passed, cleaning out the fridge and things that were
crucial. Mentally, I ticked off a list of the work that was about to begin.
That was okay. Aunt Ruby was worth it.
“How’s it going over there?” I asked.
“Good, good,” Carmen said. “How’s California?”
Oh yeah.
“Fine,” I said. “You know. Sunshine and pretty
people. All that.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Where did
I get this shit?
“Sounds wonderful,” she said. “It’s been
raining and muggy here for three days.”
“Yeah,” I said, just to say something.
“So the will has been probated,” Carmen said.
“Everything’s ready to be read. I wanted to see when you’d be able to make it
back to Charmed for that?”
“Oh,” I said, slightly surprised. “I have to
come in person?”
“For the reading, yes,” she said. “You have to
sign some paperwork and so do the other parties.”
“Other parties?”
“Yes—well, normally I don’t disclose that but
you’re you, so…” she said on a chuckle. “The Clarks?” she said, her tone ending
in question.
“As in my cousins?” Really?
“I was surprised, too,” she said. “I don’t
remember ever even hearing about them.”
“Because I maybe saw them three times in my
whole life,” I said. “They live in Denning. Or they did. I don’t think you ever
met them.”
“Hmm, okay,” she said, her tone sounding like
she was checking off a list. “And you’ll need to bring some things with you.”
“Things?”
“Two, actually,” Carmen said, laughing. “Just
like your aunt to make a will reading quirky. But they are easy. Just your
marriage certificate—”
“My what?”
Carmen chuckled again, and I was feeling a
little something in my throat, too. Probably not of the same variety.
“I know,” she said. “Goofy request, but I see
some doozies all the time. Had a client once insist that his dog be present at
the reading of the will. He left him almost everything. Knowing Aunt Ruby,
there is some cosmic reason.”
Uh-huh. She was messing with me.
I swallowed hard, my mind reeling and already
trying to figure out how I could fake a marriage certificate.
“And the second thing?” I managed to push past
the lump in my throat.
“Easy peasy,” she said. “Your husband, of
course.”
s smoking-hot body, he’d be okay.
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