Family Affair (6 page)

Chase glanced at Lacey who was studying the labels of diet foods that lined the aisle. She sighed heavily and then whispered, "This is going to take forever."

"No, it's not. These people know what they're doing. Most of them have four-dollar prescriptions and pay in cash," Lacey responded not looking up.

"How do you know all this?"

"Duh, I have to get my birth control pills every month."

Having never bothered with contraception, this was news to Chase. She studied the older people in line. Waiting was always good for observation. She just had to get in the zone—that place where the person she observed made a picture in her mind, then she logged the details—their appearance, choice of shoes, their hands, the cadence of their voices, word choice, the banal stories they told to others. It all imprinted itself on her mind—stored away for future use.

Lacey broke her concentration. She picked up a Slim-Fast bar and asked, "Do you think this stuff tastes good?"

"No," Chase replied.

"Why not? It says it does."

"If something is supposed to have sugar in it and they take the sugar out it's like a house where you have removed the studs. What happens then?"

Lacey was an avid watcher of HGTV. It was like her college. Her eyes brightened. "Why, it would collapse."

"Consequently, sugar-free chocolate bars are studless."

Lacey wrinkled her brow. Chase smiled. Lacey wasn't one for quantum leaps.

A silver-haired well-coiffed woman waiting in line ahead of them turned around. "Honey, that stuff stinks."

She snatched it from Lacey and threw it at the magazine stand. She just missed the redneck with his butt crack showing as he leaned over to reach for the Low Rider magazine with a car and a woman with abnormally large breasts on the cover. He appeared not to notice the flying candy bar as he ogled the magazine.

"Wow, you've got an arm," Chase said. Not a softball player herself, she still admired the sport.

The woman smiled. She had sparkling white teeth and red lipstick—some of which was on her teeth. Chase admired that quality—if you're going to wear it, keep it on your lips and off your teeth. She suspected it was an expense thing—cheap stuff on the teeth, department store on the lips.

"Used to play fast pitch back in the day. I was a first-string pitcher."

Lacey was glaring at the redneck drooling over the magazine. "Could you hit that guy over there with the butt crack?"

"If I wanted to." The woman studied him and then pursed her lips in obvious contempt.

Lacey handed her a candy bar.

The woman smiled. "This is just between us." Chase and Lacey gave her my lips are sealed gesture.

The butt crack man stood unawares.

The silver-haired woman cocked her still lethal arm. "This is for the ladies, you big pervert." She let loose. The candy bar cold-cocked him in the back of the head. He turned around glaring, in search of the perpetrator.

Lacey was studying the label on a Slim-Fast can. The silver-haired woman looked straight ahead and then glanced at her watch affecting impatience. Chase picked up several cans of Slim-Fast as if to purchase them.

Finding no one to blame, he kicked the candy bar, rolled up the magazine tightly in his grubby paw, gave his pants a good yank and started to the checkout counter.

The silver-haired woman winked at them after she got her order. As she passed by she said, "Remember, girls, fight the good fight."

Finally Chase handed her script to a young man with a baby skin face, round as a pumpkin. He studied the script. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Incompetence always turned Lacey from nice girl into Cat Woman. Chase could tell she'd already been revved up by the butt crack episode and this poor bastard was going to get the brunt of it. "I don't want to tell you your job but two words—fill it."

Sometimes Lacey reminded Chase of her mother. Even their lexicons had similarities.

"You don't understand. We don't know what a sample pack is." His pumpkin face reddened.

"From what was explained to me, I start with the lowest available dose and gradually increase over a month long period," Chase said, hoping this would speed up the process.

The young man quickly looked up the drug. "This is an anticonvulsant." His eyes got large.

Lacey took full advantage of this. "That's right. Look at her. She could have a seizure at any moment."

Under the counter, Lacey kicked Chase in the shin. Chase doubled over in pain and groaned. "See, it's already starting. Do you want her to turn into a frothing maniac in the next five minutes?" Lacey said.

"I'll call the doctor. Please take a seat. We don't want her falling."

Lacey and Chase took a seat on the hard plastic bench at the side of the pharmacy. The geriatrics studied Chase like they were waiting for something to happen.

"Everyone's staring," Chase said.

"Seizures make people nervous," Lacey said.

"Ms. Banter, your order is ready."

At the counter the pumpkin boy handed her a cup of water. "I think you should take one right now."

Chase swallowed the tiny pink pill, wondering how drug companies decided on the shape and color of their medications. Then she took out her wallet and paid the twenty dollars.

As they walked out of the store, Chase said, "I feel better all ready."

Lacey rolled her eyes.

Chapter Six

"When are you going to ask her?" Lacey screamed into her phone.

Chase took her cell phone into the bathroom and closed the door quietly. She hoped the toast wouldn't burn in her absence. Due to the open floor plan and the subsequent lack of walls, sound carried and she didn't want Gitana to hear this conversation. They were probably the only people in the state who could sit on the toilet or take a bath and talk to the other one in the kitchen from upstairs. Thank God they didn't have any neighbors because they certainly didn't have any curtains.

"Today. I'm going to the greenhouse at lunchtime."

"Why there? It's not very romantic."

"Because I'm emotionally detached. I might get too intense and mushy and I'm not good at that. Besides, I'm paranoid and superstitious. All our friends who got married and had ceremonies in which a strange woman in a long burgundy robe muttered marital incantations are split up now. So I figure if I do it in an odd or unusual way we'll last. Hopefully, the goddess of sorrow will be deceived. It's kind of like Jude the Obscure during the good parts."

"Are you taking your meds?"

"Religiously. Why? Don't I seem better?"

"You're not as crabby, but you're still not right. Really, marital incantations and the goddess of sorrow."

"All right, I admit that was over the top," Chase said.

"Call me after."

She heard the toast pop. She thought she was behaving better. She hadn't said anything mean to her editor, Ariana, despite the fact they were in the editing stage of Chase's eleventh moist mound saga, Songs from the Open Window. Ariana seemed to notice the change, commenting one day that Chase hadn't sworn at her in the last two phone calls.

She'd seen Dr. Robicheck three times so far and she wasn't giving Chase queer looks despite her admission of burying road-kill so in death the poor rabbits and prairie dogs could have dignity instead of ending up in people's tires or being picked to pieces by the ever present crows that sat perched on telephone lines. Dr. Robicheck noted it down on her yellow legal pad, a look of complete stoicism on her face. This lack of expression concerned Chase. She wondered if Dr. Robicheck was really listening or only pretending to the way Chase did when she was bored, letting her mind wander to someplace more interesting.

She buttered the toast, putting peanut butter on hers and marmalade on Gitana's. Gitana's toast was usually cold by the time Chase brought it up, but she didn't seem to care. Chase always got up early. She was like the dogs. Three sets of eyes, one human, two canine popped open like a Jack-in-the-Box triggered by the morning light filtering in through the window. Day had arrived, time to get up. Gitana slept late by their standards. Chase let the dogs out and then fed them their breakfast.

Chase seemed to need less sleep than other people, excepting Lacey. Dr. Robicheck had asked about her sleeping pattern and she'd lied. Told her that she got a lot of exercise during the day and that she was very tired at night. She didn't tell her that she slept well at first, but then she'd wake up again in a couple of hours like the computer part of her brain had rebooted. Her thoughts would wind themselves around her until exhausted she fell back asleep again. Even then, her dreams would drift in and out and like a film director she ran parts over and over again, editing and rewriting until things turned out to her liking.

She didn't know why she felt she had to lie. It seemed like it was crucial to not let the doctor know about her most sacred place—the shrine of her imagination. Later she figured it out. She didn't want anyone tinkering with her mind. What if it screwed up her most precious possession—the ability to create? This was a room no one had the right to enter. It unnerved her that every shrink she'd met in her life was always very interested in her once they found out she was a writer, a real writer in their eyes because she was published. They were bigots. Being published was not the Holy Grail. She knew writers who deserved to be published more than she did.

A writer was a person who sat down, invented worlds and described what it was like using the best possible words they could find. She was not going to let Dr. Robicheck or anyone else into her fictional house of cards to forage. She invited people into this house and tried to put them at ease while she cooked up some surprises. She certainly didn't want that messed with. Now, the other parts of her life did need a little work and the good doctor was quite welcome to tinker with those.

She poured the coffee and put the toast on the tray and took it upstairs. Usually, the smell of coffee got Gitana's eyes open. She set the tray down and gathered up her medical instruments to give Gitana her morning exam. Gitana had insinuated that the daily blood pressure checking was not necessary, but Chase had ignored her.

Gitana opened her eyes. "Am I dreaming or is that real coffee?"

"Coffee is coffee. Decaf does not smell different."

She sat up and Chase puffed up the pillow behind her. "Ah, but there you are wrong. This is real coffee."

"It is. I looked it up on the Internet. Small doses of caffeine are not harmful," Chase said.

Gitana picked up the cup. She studied it. "It looks smaller."

"Oh, I hadn't noticed." She avoided her gaze. "Cream?"