Under the Skin (10 page)

“Have you and Phillip picked the date yet, Mum?” Laurel dried her hands and tossed the dish towel on the counter. “Rosemary emailed me yesterday and was wondering.”

“Not yet,” I admitted, “but—”

Without waiting to hear the rest, Laurel ducked into the pantry and untacked the
Old Farmer’s Almanac
calendar from the wall.

Frowning slightly, she ran her finger along the weeks of June. When she had traversed most of the month, she let out a squeal. “Do you believe this, Mum? June thirtieth is a full moon
and
a blue moon—the second full moon in the month! And it’s a Saturday—
sweet!
”

Gloria jumped up to peer over Laurel’s shoulder at the calendar. “A blue moon—there’s your theme, Lizzie; so suitable!
And
your color! At your age, white would be too silly. And with your eyes, blue’s absolutely perfect!”

She pulled out her minuscule cellphone and began to punch in numbers. “I’ll just check with Keith—if by some miracle he’s not booked … blue flowers … What were those gorgeous blue flowers he used on the tables at Eleanor’s birthday luncheon …”

I started to protest that
I
had thought the summer solstice
would be a good time and then, like a leaden bell tolling, the voice in my head started up again.
What
was
Dodie trying to tell me?

“Gloria, stop right there,” I heard myself saying in a harsh tone I didn’t recognize. “Nothing’s definite yet.
Nothing
. You two just back off.”

Wednesday, May 16

T
hey stared at me as if I had just kicked one of the dogs. The shocked looks on their faces quickly gave way to a bustle of subject-changing small talk. Laurel asked her aunt how the beignets were made and, at the same time, Gloria began to quiz Laurel about her bartending job.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice choking. I grabbed the bucket of scraps for the chickens. “I didn’t mean to sound so … I had trouble sleeping last night and I guess I’m a little … Oh hell, I’m going down to feed the chickens.”

They broke off their chatter and turned wide eyes on me as I croaked out another
Sorry
and hurried out the door before I had to hear their soothing reassurances … or their questions. I made it off the porch before the tears came.

Crying doesn’t come easily to me. I’ve always fought against it, especially if I’m around anyone else. Maybe I see it as betraying weakness—I don’t know. I do know that it’s something I do best in private. And even then, only rarely. But when the tears come, despite my best efforts, they come in a torrent—as if to make up for a long drought.

So I picked my way down the steep gravel road, eyes
streaming, nose running, snuffling and sniffling in a way that I’m sure Sophia Loren would have had something to say about. I wasn’t crying because my wedding was in danger of being hijacked by Gloria and Laurel and their ideas and their themes—well, maybe that was some of it—but the thing that had me in its grip was the thought that, after all this time, after I’d finally made the decision to marry Phillip, to trust him—oh, bloody hell!

By the time I reached the place in the branch where a little trough over a rock allows me to fill a bucket with water for the biddies, I’d pretty much run out of tears and was reduced to gulps and the occasional hiccup. The inviting patch of grass by the branch was out of sight of the house so I plopped down in the shade of the trees and tried to regain some measure of calm. After wiping my face on my T-shirt, I closed my eyes and began to take deep breaths.

So many thoughts were fighting to surface—my feelings about Gloria … Why was I turning into such a bitch? And Phillip—
no
, Phil,
all of a sudden he’s Phil
.

Was I jealous of my sister?

Oh, please. I’m not the jealous type. Am I?

And that mocking inner voice whispered,
Not the crying type either, are you?

Something bumped against my shoulder and I opened my eyes to see Ursa. Shaggy, muddy Ursa, who had evidently been taking her ease in the little pool lower down the branch, was rubbing against me with what I chose to interpret as doggy concern rather than an attempt to dry herself.

I put an arm around the big dog, ignoring the dripping fur. I’d already trashed my T-shirt wiping my eyes and my runny nose—at least now I could cover up the evidence of my uncharacteristic crying jag.

Ursa sat down beside me with a heavy thump, then laid her head in my lap and promptly went to sleep.
“Our Zen dog,” Laurel calls her; whether it’s the result of philosophy or just a slow metabolism, Ursa’s approach to life is admirably laid-back.

Sitting there with my hand on Ursa’s flank, watching it rise and fall with her breathing, at last my mind slowed and faced the real problem—not when the wedding would take place nor what its theme would be. No, the real conundrum I’d been mentally dancing around was Aunt Dodie’s question about the Hawk—the guy Sam hadn’t trusted. Why the hell hadn’t I dealt with this? It wasn’t my usual policy to ignore painful necessities—and that’s what this was.

I knew that I loved Phillip, that he was who I wanted to spend my life with. But if I asked him about the Hawk … oh god … could I trust his answer, whatever it might be … would there be a wedding at all?

I dawdled away half an hour or more, feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, even pausing to do a little weeding in the bed of daylilies and black-eyed Susans that fronts the chicken yard. By the time I’d cleared the bed of incipient devil-in-the-garden, crabgrass (“crap grass” as some of the old-timers call it), and all the other weeds that had taken root in the rich soil, there was a huge pile of fresh green stuff for the biddies’ eating pleasure.

When I dumped the armload of weeds on the dirt of the chicken yard, Gregory Peck, the handsome Ameruacana rooster, began at once to scratch through the stems and leaves, all the while making encouraging clucking sounds to summon his harem. I sat myself down in the doorway of the chicken house and watched as he went through the always enchanting rooster routine of picking up choice bits, then dropping them so the hens could eat first.

The birds were still scratching and exclaiming
Oooh!
A lovely bug!
in their pile of fresh greens when I started back up the road. I felt sure that by now the telltale reddening would have faded from my face and eyes and that I would be able to deal with my sister rationally and unemotionally. Just as I would, in the fullness of time, deal with the questions raised by Aunt Dodie’s letter—rationally and unemotionally.

“Mum, where’s that burn ointment we used to have—the white gunk in the blue plastic jar?”

Laurel’s voice floated out of the pantry. Gloria was nowhere to be seen but from the back of the house I could hear the sound of music—and a man’s mellow voice exhorting the listener to climb every mountain.

“Did you burn yourself?” I asked, setting down the wire basket with the morning’s collection of eggs. “I kind of think I threw it out—it was almost empty and what was left had turned a funny color. It was only about twenty years old—probably its use-by date expired ages ago.”

I could hear the sound of Laurel rooting around on the crowded pantry shelves. “No, I don’t see it … maybe you have something else … peroxide, calamine, antibiotic ointment, cough syrup …”

“Let me see the burn, sweetie,” I said. “I’m afraid I haven’t gotten around to replacing that white gunk yet. I went on a rampage a while back and got rid of all the expired medicines. Believe it or not, the shelf is much tidier than it was before. How bad is the burn? I have a first-aid kit down at the shop. There might be some—”

Laurel emerged from the pantry with a cobweb draped across the top of her head—the medicine shelf is the topmost one, a holdover from our childproofing days.

“It’s Gloria who has the burn, not me. She said it was from the hot grease when she was frying the little
whatchamacallits. It’s not that bad but it was starting to bother her some.”

Laurel downed the last of her coffee and shrugged on her knapsack. “I need to move along if I’m going to have any time for my sketches. It’ll take me twenty minutes anyway to get up to the top of Pinnacle and—”

“Laurel.” I caught at her arm and followed her out to the porch. “Listen, sweetie, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m sure a handfasting is a lovely ceremony but I’m no more a Wiccan than I am a Christian. Having a religious ceremony would seem … well, hypocritical. Will you have a sandwich with us when you come back down? I promise to be in a nicer frame of mind.”

“ ’S okay, Mum, no biggie.” My daughter looked at me with a motherly kind of affection and gave me a one-armed hug. “It’s probably natural for you to be a little on edge, with the wedding coming up and all.”

With a glance toward the door, she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “And I can see how Aunt Glory would get right up your nose—no wonder Ben doesn’t go home more often. She’s already suggested that I change my hair, dress better, and think about getting a
real
job, maybe receptionist at a law office. Somewhere I’d meet someone
nice
.

“But anyway,” Laurel continued cheerfully, “I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and snagged a cider to take with me. I don’t have to be at work till five so I can stay up there till around three-thirty. Sweet!”

Another brisk hug and she was off, bounding down the steps, Molly and Ursa trotting after her. I watched them go, then turned to lean on the rail and stare for a bit at the distant mountains, listening to a persistent towhee calling from the shrubs below and allowing my thoughts to drift like a feather on the wind.

I was in a much better mood when I pulled open the screen door to return to the house.
New game. Now for
Gloria. Apologize again and try, politely but firmly, to make sure she doesn’t bring in her florist friend from Florida
.

The silly alliterative phrase made me grin and I began to think of ways to improve on it.
Fancy florist friend from Florida … fancy florist friend from freakin’ Florida … fancy f—

All f-words fled—well, almost all—at the sight of Gloria, in skintight turquoise and fuchsia, lying on the living room floor doing something slightly obscene with a fat iridescent purple ball. James was making little darts at her face with his tongue and she was fending him off with one hand while raising and lowering the other arm. It was quite a picture. Freakin’ funny, as a matter of fact.

“Lizzy!” Gloria gasped, removing first one and then the other leotard-clad leg from atop the ball and waving them about in the air. “I just don’t know if this is going to work.”

I called James off and put him outside but Gloria had stopped her … whatever it was and had assumed a cross-legged position on the mat beneath her. I began to apologize for my ungraciousness at her kind—though unnecessary—offer to help with the wedding but she waved my words away.

“Not a problem, Lizzy. I remember how touchy Mother was when she was going through menopause. You know, exercise can do wonders for your mood, as well as help with weight control …”

She cast a significant glance at my hips and continued. “I was going to suggest you might like to try Pilates but I think Pilates works better in a less … cluttered atmosphere. At home I go to this beautiful studio—very simple, very Japanese—a scroll on the wall, an ikebana arrangement on a low table, and one wall, completely glass, looking out on a meditation garden—all rocks
and moss and just a tiny trickle of a waterfall into a koi pond—”

“It sounds lovely, Glory,” I interupted, wondering if gritting my teeth every few minutes was going to damage them. “And you certainly have stayed in good shape. But, I tell you what, why don’t we take a walk together? That would be exercise.”

Of course a walk involved a change of outfits for Gloria and then I had to suggest that her choice of a sports bra and very short shorts was not a good idea for walking a mountain trail.

“Oh, but we need to go down to the paved road and walk there,” she insisted. “It’ll be a much better cardio workout—we can really move along. Do you have some hand weights?”

Not me. But Gloria did and we strode along in fine fashion: she, holding the little gray dumbbells and pumping her arms furiously; me, stretching out to keep up with her. I had to admit, my little sister was, indeed, in good shape. She could set a brisk pace and talk at the same time.

“… go to Hot Springs—that’s near here, isn’t it, Lizzy? Nigel—the one in Asheville who did my hair—he’s a psychic, by the way, and he was telling me about this really fabulous inn in Hot Springs that’s going to have a weekend psychic retreat. Nigel said there was this amazing man from Glastonbury—England, you know—who’s going to be in Hot Springs doing a retreat. Nigel says this man is known in the spiritual community as a really tuned-in medium who can put people in touch with their departed loved ones. Well, I started thinking and it seemed to me that—”

“Gloria?” I panted, “I didn’t know you were into … when did you get interested in this stuff?”

My sister has always been a devotee of self-improvement
workshops, often with an exotic spiritual slant: Tibetan color—or was it colon?—therapy, Mayan massage, Shinto chants for rejuvenation, Bulgarian bulge reduction—okay, I made that one up. But,
séances
? It just didn’t seem like her thing.

Still, Asheville
is
known as a New Age vortex—“the Sedona of the East” as one magazine article put it. It evidently hadn’t taken long for Glory to get sucked into that vortex—with Nigel’s help, I suspected.

Gloria looked sideways at me and replied without missing a beat. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lizzy.”

The words were said in a matter-of-fact way and not, I thought, intended to wound. But they did.

“Glory,” I said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to a stop, “listen—”

“Let go!” she squawked, coming to an abrupt halt and shooting me an accusing glare. “You’re hurting my burn!”