Family Affair Read online

  Lacey picked up immediately as if she'd been expecting this call.

  "What if she doesn't accept?"

  "What are you talking about?" Lacey said.

  "What if Gitana won't marry me?"

  "You two have been together forever."

  "That doesn't guarantee anything." Chase checked her rear-view mirror. Rusty was now way behind her. He drove very slowly on the road. People groaned in secret agony if they got stuck behind him. They all referred to the mile-and a-half- stretch of dirt road as "The Road" like it was an entity unto itself. She supposed it was. In the summer, it was bone dry and the dirt devils reminded Chase of the over-farmed prairies in The Grapes of Wrath. In the winter when it snowed, the juniper and pinon trees were frosted and she felt like she was driving in a snow globe. In the spring, when the snow melted off the mountains the road was a muddy disaster and it was necessary to drive very fast to avoid getting stuck in it. Once she found herself bogged down in her Passat and had to be towed out by a neighbor with a tractor. Every season presented its own challenge and getting down the road in one piece was always considered a boon.

  Chase, having momentarily drifted off, found that Lacey had moved on to other subjects. "Do you think that boob cream really works?"

  "Boob cream?" Chase was now safely off the road and on the smooth pavement of the county road. Her car purred with happiness.

  "The one they advertise on the radio. It says it will increase your boobs by three cup sizes and make them look perky."

  "Have you lost your mind? Cream can't possibly augment your breasts." Chase recalled that Lacey was obsessed with her breast size. She was convinced that men would be more interested in her if she had bigger boobs.

  "But the ad says it's a new drug they're trying out."

  "So what if this experimental cream turns your boobs green and they become covered with warts."

  There was a silence. "I see your point."

  "You have nice breasts. Stop worrying about it."

  Chase was now stuck behind a tractor tooling down the two-lane county road at twelve miles an hour. She was going to have to pass.

  "I better go. Why don't you listen to NPR? They don't have any of those kinds of ads."

  "Boring," Lacey said. She clicked off.

  Chase waited for a safe place to pass and then blew past the tractor, barely avoiding the wad of tobacco spittle that exited the farmer's mouth as she passed him. "Yuck!"

  In avoiding the spittle trail she nearly hit a rabbit. That would not do. So far so good, no carnage to stop and bury, she thought. She wanted to get to the greenhouse in time for lunch. She'd only left herself a half an hour window. She cursed herself for not leaving earlier, but there had been the scavenger hunt for a decent outfit. It would not do to propose marriage in a T-shirt and shorts.

  She pulled into the parking lot with five minutes to spare. The greenhouse grounds were abuzz with activity. May was one of their busiest months. The help, who were distinguished from the customers by their green aprons over white shirts and khaki shorts, were intent on business. Chase cut through the hothouse and toward Gitana's office. The hothouse smelled of earth and flowers and damp. The sweet smells of the various orchids did a little dance across her olfactory system like butterflies landing on flower petals. She inhaled deeply and her contextual memory drew her back to a place and time... She reined herself in.

  Nora spotted her and came over. The heat was unbearable. Chase always felt like she'd been transported to some Amazonian jungle while remaining dressed in a traveling suit of good English wool.

  "Long time no see," Nora said, her face beaming. She looked larger in her green overalls and straw cowboy hat—a bit like Mr. Green Jeans in drag. Maybe Captain Kangaroo wasn't who he purported to be, Chase conjectured.

  The first time Chase had met Nora was in college and it had been a distinctly uncomfortable occasion. She had snatched Chase—after ascertaining she was the offender—from the hallway where she waited for Gitana outside her American Lit class. Nora had been dating Gitana at the same time Chase was spending every afternoon in her arms. Nora, it seemed, had discovered this, and held her by the neck against the bulletin board announcing upcoming readings. Gitana had fortuitously shown up before Chase lost consciousness and demanded Nora put her down, explaining that Chase was her soul mate and they were meant to be together. Nora was a philosophy major and big into existentialism. She dropped Chase who instantly crumpled on the hallway floor.

  "You haven't been here in forever; not since..." Nora trailed off. She looked at Chase's outfit then down at her own apron. She decided it was clean enough and hugged Chase.

  Chase, in the meantime, studied Nora's belt to see if all the tools were properly attached and then hugged her back. Nora had hugged her the last time she'd been at the nursery and a small potting spade had come loose, landing on Chase's foot, which, owing to the Keen sandals she was wearing, had lacerated her big toe. She hadn't cried that time like when she hurt her shoulder, but she had used a lot of swear words in succession that shocked most everyone who happened to be around.

  "Did it heal okay?" She glanced down at Chase's foot.

  "Yes, thank you. It's fine."

  Chase's presence had been noted. The greenhouse cleared out—all employees not helping customers made a hasty exit. "I always seem to have that effect on people here." She frowned.

  "Think of the power. Gitana is in her office," said Nora, not meeting Chase's eye.

  Chase went to the office. It was a small room painted a pale blue with Victorian lithographs of orchids with their scientific names engraved at the bottom of each frame placed tastefully about the walls. Chase had given them to Gitana for their fourth anniversary. She'd spent hours on eBay trying to outbid other freaky orchid people. It had been most frustrating but her diligence had paid off. Gitana had been delighted. The rest of the office was pure function, and thanks to Chase, very ergonomic with its cherry wood desk and file cabinets. Gitana looked up from her paperwork. "I knew it was you."

  "How?"

  "I saw everyone running."

  "I should be offended by that. Is it because I tried to drown one of your employees in the watering trough because she was making advances on you?" Chase inquired.

  "I think that might be it. The employees still talk about it."

  "Did you fire her?"

  "No, she quit and thankfully we didn't end up with a lawsuit." She straightened up her papers. "What brings you here?" She leaned back in her chair and looked suspiciously at Chase's clothes.

  "I want to get married."

  Gitana sat up quickly. "Don't you think that's a rather moot point?"

  "I knew it. You're creeped out." She sat down in the nearest chair, pouted and sighed heavily doing all three things almost simultaneously.

  Gitana got up and put her hand on Chase's shoulder. "Now, why don't you tell me what this is really about?"

  "I just think with the baby coming that we shouldn't be living in sin. It won't set a proper example. We don't have to have a ceremony or anything because that might jinx us, but I could give you this and you could say 'I do,' and we'd be all set." Chase pulled the ring box out of her pocket. She opened it and peered inside. "Wait, that one is mine." She dug in her other pocket. She'd put them in different pockets so she could keep them straight but had now forgotten which was which. Opening the other box, she said, "Okay, got it all straight now."

  Gitana studied the rings. "They look the same to me."

  Chase turned it so she could see the inscription on the inside which read, "I will love you forever."

  "What does your ring say?"

  "Something like that," Chase said evasively.

  Gitana eyed her. "Let's see it."

  Chase reluctantly handed over the ring. Gitana read the inscription aloud. "Safe, sane and successful."

  "I know it's not very romantic, but I saw it as pertinent. Now can we get on with it?"

  Gitana smiled. "All right." She st
uck out her hand and Chase put the ring on. She peered down at it. "I like it." Then she put the other ring on Chase's finger.

  "So I know we haven't had time to write out our vows, but I think this might suffice." Chase pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper from her breast pocket. She cleared her throat. "We promise to love each other for at least another eighteen years, argue as little as possible and not to commit any form of adultery. And I will stay on my medication."

  Gitana laughed, kissed her softly and said, "I do."

  Chapter Seven

  "I can't help it. My protagonist has to be fit," Jasmine said to the other five members of the writers group sitting in Chase's office. She peered down at her manuscript and back up at the group. "I mean how else is he going to chase down the bad guys?"

  Chase took a deep breath. She did a lot of deep breathing when she was in her writers group. Losing your temper with one's peers was poor form according to Gitana, not to mention rude. She'd told Chase, "Remember you're all here as allies to the creative process and not mortal enemies." Gitana was correct, of course. So Chase did her best. She summoned up diplomacy and took deep breaths. "Jasmine, most bad guys sit in dimly lit restaurants and bars where they eat very unhealthy foods. Those guys are a heart attack in the making."

  Alma offered, "Why don't you have your protagonist exercise at home? He could have a treadmill and while he's running his five miles have all these insights into the crimes he's trying to solve."

  Jasmine pursed her lips. She looked a lot like a grown-up Shirley Temple complete with blond ringlets and the endlessly sweet smile—ever eager for a lollipop. The lip pursing destroyed the image as did the tight, low-cut jeans and the stuffed halter top. Shirley Temple all grown up was hot. Chase tried really hard not to look at her boobs, remembering the T-shirt she'd seen in a catalog that read, "Tell your boobs to stop staring at me." That's how she felt right now.

  "I just don't get it," Jasmine moaned. "Everything starts out great and then it's like a beacon, the gym call. I put in the scene and bam I'm stuck with a protagonist doing bench presses. He has great pecs but no soul." Jasmine got up and threw the manuscript in the trash can.

  Luckily, Chase had emptied it earlier or the manuscript might have gone missing in the vortex of detritus.

  Alma got up and retrieved the manuscript from the trash can. Bo shook his finger at Jasmine. It had taken Alma a good minute and a half to get up because she was sixty-three and slightly arthritic, but she managed. Alma Lucero was a much better person than Chase.

  The thought had crossed her mind to go and retrieve it from the dust bin—like all the other things she ought to do—pick up litter when she saw it on the sidewalk, smile at a crying baby at the supermarket checkout counter, or offer assistance to the old woman trying to get a package in her trunk at the post office. She feared being rebuked—told to piss off when all she wanted to do was good. She buried roadkill. No language was required. No permission granted—only a sigh of relief from the Universe that something was being put right by someone who cared. For her this worked.

  "Young lady," Alma lectured Jasmine, "need I remind you that every word is precious. A gift from on high. To be so disrespectful is dangerous. To anger the muse is to court a dry spell. To show disfavor with the creative force is to bring down the wrath—"

  "I got it," Jasmine said, snatching the slightly crumpled stack of papers.

  Alma was writing The Book of Forgotten Moments. It was part memoir, part rumination on the mysteries of life and part philosophy on the nature of love. Alma had a lovely wrinkled face, high cheekbones and gray green eyes, her white hair was cut spiky and she dressed in loose-fitting organic cotton shirts and trousers. She wrote the most gorgeous sentences. She had Virginia Woolfs one-hundred and eighty-one word sentence beat by five words. Chase loved when they read Alma's work.

  Alma's book was literary and probably would never be published just for that reason. Chase felt like Alma taught them about using words to paint pictures in the reader's mind. The rest of them, Chase included, wrote plot-driven fiction. Theirs were stories where point A led to point B in a quick and concise manner. Alma's stories were filled with images of the garden, the sky, the raging river, the seedy motel with its dirty linen and the lost memory. Their work was a rush to the finish. Hers was a meandering path through a wildflower garden.

  "Here, give the pages to me," Chase said. Everyone stared at her with interest. "I need a few minutes with them."

  "Why don't I get us all coffee," Bo said. A good-looking, stylishly dressed dark-haired beauty with his cleft chin and aquiline nose, he should have been a model for International Male, but instead while working at Starbucks he wrote guy-to-guy mysteries, as yet unsold, and short porn stories for fag magazines.

  "I'll help," Delia offered while gazing with apparent admiration at Chase's soon to be displayed abilities.

  Delia had made it more than evident that she was in total awe of Chase and would fuck her on demand. Chase found this slighdy intriguing but also repulsive. She was thirty-seven and Delia was twenty-three. She realized that at Delia's age she had been like that, fascinated by older women, but unlike Delia had no confidence to pursue them. Rather she had engaged in hero worship and fantasies of being discovered as a misunderstood genius and subsequently mentored and fucked senseless. She would never admit this to anyone. Time had been a great and brutal teacher and she'd become the older woman.

  While Bo and Delia clanked the coffee things around, peering and whispering in her direction, Chase reconstructed Jasmine's twenty pages—slashing and rearranging, until she got a sense of the plot moving in a better and clearer direction. When she looked up, Delia was handing her a cup of coffee and Alma was smiling at her with sagacity.

  "Take a look." Chase handed the manuscript to Jasmine.

  Jasmine quickly perused the pages while the others waited. She studied the manuscript like an ER doctor ascertaining the patient's cuts and bruises. She looked up indignant. "You cut the gym scene, made my protagonist fat and ugly and put the murder on the first page. How could you?" Jasmine crossed her legs and scowled at Chase.

  Shirley Temple was pissed, Chase thought. She looked like someone had just stolen her umbrella drink.

  "I think it sounds brilliant. Can I see it?" Bo asked.

  "Feel free." Jasmine handed him the manuscript as if it were used toilet paper. "I don't like it anymore."

  "That's good," Alma said.

  "Why?" Jasmine asked. She sipped her coffee, her eyes still blazing.

  "Because you've divorced yourself from it."

  "I don't get it," Delia said, as she read the manuscript over Bo's shoulder.

  "Now, Jasmine can work on it without being invested in every word. She's too close to it," Chase said. She put more milk in her cup. Bo always brought coffee from Starbucks and she found it much too strong and too many cups gave her heart palpitations.

  "Exactly," Alma said. "And making your protagonist so different from you will make you create a character instead of a male version of yourself which is what you are doing."

  "Is it that obvious?" Jasmine asked, chastened.

  Bo handed the manuscript to Alma.

  "Whit Tamberlaine, detective extraordinaire, is pretty much you with a dick attached," Delia said, smiling.

  "Oh, my," Jasmine said. She appeared to be contemplating what that would be like.

  Chase had had a dream once where she woke up with a penis and spent the rest of the dream trying to convince everyone, Gitana included, that she was still a lesbian. Freud would have had a heyday with that one.

  "Jasmine, this can work. Just start from here and move forward. Find a photo of a rotund man, make a bio for him and start every chapter with someone doing something. You'll be all set. You can make Whit into a great character. Pretty people have it easy so make his life hard, make people treat him shitty and it will make the story much more interesting," Chase said. She had learned all of this the hard way from her much resp
ected yet sadistic editor.

  "How do you do that?" Delia asked.

  "Years of having my editor rip my work to shreds—it makes for tough skin."

  "But how can you not care when your creation is a part of you?" Jasmine asked, obviously still smarting from the attack on her manuscript.

  "To be a writer you have to be a cannibal," Chase replied.

  "Now, I need an explanation of that one," Alma said. She refilled her mug from the decanter on the table. She sat back and waited, her eyes shining with interest.

  Chase smiled. They probably thought she was pulling shit out of her ass. She had written her first novel when she was twenty. The first two went unpublished, eleven others had followed that were published. Over a million words in print, but she'd written more than she could care to count. Writing entailed actually sitting down and connecting ideas, stringing together words to make sentences that made paragraphs and consequently pages. In the rewrite, you cut off pieces. You took stuff from elsewhere in your experience, you read everything you could get your hands on and you learned from it, you cannibalized. You had to be tenacious and ultimately vicious or you never got there.