A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark Read online

  “I don’t! I want you to help Jenny. She doesn’t realize what a good thing we could have. I have a great job and I care about her very much, and—“

  “But does she care about you?”

  Aloysius bit his lip. They both knew the answer to that. “That’s how you can help her,” he said. “I know you sometimes make potions for people—“

  Marley started to stand but Aloysius laid a gentle hand on her forearm. He didn’t hold her down, but she let his touch kept her in place all the same. “I know,” he pressed on, “you could make a love potion for her.”

  She settled back and laid her soft, wrinkled hand on Aloysius’s. “Are you quite sure you understand what you’re asking, dear?”

  Aloysius began to realize that Aunt Marley did not truly appreciate the ordeals he was willing to endure to ask this request. Hadn’t he come to her party? He leaned back in his chair and laughed with the exasperated air of someone who can’t believe he has to state the obvious. “I’m asking you to make her happy!”

  “With a rape spell?”

  “What?” His grip tightened on her arm. “No, I don’t want... that. I want a love potion.”

  Marley leaned toward him, prompting him to take his hand off her arm. “But dear, that’s what love spells and love potions are. Rape magic. I get this too often, I’m sorry to say. Someone will hear a rumor—“

  “Aunt Marley… Aunt Marley, no. That’s not what I mean at all. I don’t want to force her to do anything. I just want her to let me make her happy.”

  “Dear, it’s only love if she chooses you. Do you understand? What you want is to take away her ability to say no. You want her to never deny you anything again.”

  Aloysius leaned back in his chair. His mouth was open and moving as though he couldn’t make the right words come out. Suddenly, being downstairs beside the naked models seemed preferable to being in this room, in this skin, having said what he’d just said. He looked at his aunt as though she’d just slapped him awake. “All I wanted...” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

  “I know what you wanted.” Marley laid one hand on his smooth, warm cheek. Her touch was cold and ghostly. “Do you understand who you are?”

  “Oh, damn.” Aloysius looked down at his trembling hands. “What is wrong with me?”

  Marley leaned back in her chair, smiling with relief. “I’m glad you said that, dear. I’m glad you gave the correct response.”

  It was Aloysius’s habit to ignore remarks if he did not know how to respond. “She’s not here, is she? I came at night because I thought she’d be gone.”

  “She isn’t here. Shall we?

  They stood. Aloysius walked to the door, strangely hyper-aware of his whole body, as though he was paying attention to it for the first time. He opened the door for them both.

  The music downstairs seemed louder than before. Aloysius didn’t want to be down there with them, not again. He felt too small and fragile for crowds and loud music.

  At that moment, a middle-aged woman in a scarlet pantsuit raced up the stairs to them. She wore a black eyepatch adorned with a silver skull and crossbones.

  “Marley, come and see! Fred and Freddy are playing ping pong, and they’re ferocious!” She clutched at Marley’s hand.

  Marley glanced at Aloysius. He waved at her. “I’ll go the back way,” he said. “It’ll be quieter. Aunt Marley, tell Jenny... I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I don’t want to talk to her myself—please tell her I won’t bother her anymore.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you. I’ll call you.”

  * * *

  Marley let herself be led away, feeling unexpectedly light-hearted.

  The scarlet pirate was quite correct: the two men battling at ping pong in the play room were grim and furious, and they played a hard, fast game. Marley asked Weathers for a special bottle out of her private collection and gave each contestant a glass during a break in the game. “For refreshment.”

  It was a potion, of course, but not a love potion. The effect was quite mild: their physical exertions became pleasurable, and by the end of the match the men were laughing together over a close game well-played. Their wives stared at them with wet, shining eyes; It seemed that the end of their long feud had finally come and both women were on the verge of tears at the prospect.

  As the crowd cheered the final point, Marley wandered without purpose—as she often liked to do—to the window. She saw Aloysius standing beside the sundial in her rose garden, absentmindedly stroking it with one hand. He must have been standing out in the chill for quite a while, thinking.

  As she watched, he seemed to come to some sort of decision and stalked off along the path toward the front of the house.

  She never saw her nephew alive again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Breaking Fast in the Usual Way

  Marley had her breakfast a little later than usual the next morning. Weathers prepared a bowl of milk-cooked steel-cut oats with a sunny-side egg laid gently over the top; the egg white was perfectly circular, and the trembling yolk lay in the exact geometric center. There were four thin, curled shavings of Italian parmesan near the edge of the bowl at the cardinal points, with the largest at North and each shaving at West, South and East slightly smaller.

  With Weathers, everything was done widdershins and everything was done perfectly.

  Marley lifted her spoon then set it down again. “Oh, Weathers, it’s lovely! It seems a shame to subject it to something as mundane and destructive as eating.”

  “Thank you, madam,” Weathers inclined his head by the barest degree. “However, I must point out that the cook’s art is wasted if it is not consumed. Eating is not destruction; it is culmination.” He turned toward the back of the house. “Ms. Wu has arrived.”

  “Oh, good. While I play my meager role in your artistry, she can walk the dog.”

  When Marley finished, she carried the bowl and spoon to the kitchen. Weathers stood at the cutting board, peeling cloves of garlic. He’d spent the entire night cleaning and it would have been cruel to leave yet another mess for him, even though he would never complain.

  Beside him, leaning against the granite countertop, stood Albert. He held a little plastic cup of yogurt in his damaged right hand and peeled off the top with a little grimace of pain. He was Aloysius’s half-brother, younger by a dozen years, and he also had their mother’s pointed chin and sandy hair. But where Aloysius’s hair was limp and floppy, Albert’s was short and unruly, and where Aloysius was short and slender, Albert stood six-foot-four and had the build of a linebacker.

  Marley set her bowl in the sink and smoothed the lapel of Albert’s sport jacket. “Good morning, dear. Another interview today? On a Sunday?”

  “And on the seventh day, he bussed tables,” Albert said. “Good morning, Aunt Marley. I think this one will go much better.”

  “Of course it will. I have every confidence in you.”

  “Afterwards, I have physical therapy at the VA, so I’ll be back late.” He raised his right hand and flexed the thumb, ring finger and pinkie. They nearly closed into a fist. Well, half a fist.

  “I’ll make sure Weathers leaves you something in the fridge. But I wish you had come downstairs for my party last night. You might have found something amusing.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t up for talking to strangers about.... Next time.”

  “That would be wonderful. Would you mind, please?” Albert set down the yogurt and opened the back door for her. She thanked him and went outside.

  It was a chilly morning for May in Seattle. The cloying humidity of the night before had given way to a faint blowing mist, and the air held a creeping rawness. Jenny Wu stood by the gazebo, leash in one hand and scooper in the other. Marley’s dog snuffled around the edge of the shrubbery, looking for a place she had not already marked as her own.

  Once that was cleaned up, Jenny approached the house, looking warily at each window and along the path. Her shou
lders were almost touching her ears and she took each step as though she thought a trap door might open beneath her.

  “Aloysius isn’t here,” Marley said. “He’s asked me to tell you he won’t be bothering you anymore.”

  “Oh!” Jenny was startled, then a little nervous. “Did you...”

  “Did I talk to him? Well, yes, but not the way that makes it sound. Mainly I listened to him, and he listened to himself, too, for the first time in a long while.”

  Being the sort of person who crossed a room to look out a window whenever someone told her it’s raining, Jenny glanced from one side of the house to the other. Then she sighed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I wish you had come to my party last night, Jenny. I don’t invite you out of politeness, you know! I think you would have had fun and met some interesting people.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Jacobs, but sometimes your parties are a little too interesting for me. Besides, I was afraid you-know-who would be there.”

  “Hm. You have a point, dear. He did drop by for that conversation, after all. Still we’re not going to pretend it’s the first of my parties that you’ve avoided, I hope. I invite you for a reason.” Marley took a deep breath and looked around. “I love this time of year, don’t you? A brisk wet chill makes me feel so alive! And it makes me appreciate the comforts of the house all the more. Still, it’ll be nice to lunch together in the gazebo this summer.”

  An odd look came over Jenny’s face as she opened the kitchen door. After Marley entered, she shooed the dog into his play room, hung the leash by the door and finally noticed Albert. She made a small surprised sound and leaned back to look up at him.

  “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “Hey.”

  “You must be the visiting nephew I’ve heard so much about. I’m Jenny.” She took a tiny, tentative step forward and raised her hand, stiff-armed, like the minute hand of a clock.

  Albert slid away from the counter and crossed the room to shake her hand. “I’m Al Smalls.” They didn’t break eye contact.

  Acting as though he was all alone in the room, Weathers was deboning chicken breasts and placing them in a bowl of salted water. Marley crossed to him and touched his elbow. He glanced at her, then turned his flat, somber gaze toward Albert and Jenny.

  “That’s some tie you have there,” Jenny said, sounding a little nervous and awkward. “The knot is perfect.”

  “It’s a clip-on.”

  “Ew. Really?”

  “No, I’m kidding.”

  She laughed suddenly, like the bark of a seal, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Damn, you made me do my embarrassing laugh.”

  For the first time since he’d come to visit, Albert smiled. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I liked it. I’d like to hear it again.”

  Jenny flushed a little. “Well, maybe we can arrange that.”

  “I’ll even wear a clip-on tie.”

  Glancing at the top of his head, Jenny looked ready to run her fingers through his hair. “And maybe we can arrange a haircut for you. A clip-on tie needs a flat top, or—“

  But Albert had already turned away from her, his smile gone. He dropped his spoon into the sink with a jarring clatter. “I have to get to that interview.” He didn’t look at anyone as he went out the door.

  Jenny’s face was still flushed, but she looked confused as well.

  Weathers turned to Marley, and there was the slightest hint of satisfaction and curiosity in his expression. For Weathers, that counted as uncontrolled ebullience. “Madam, thank you.” He turned his attention to his cutting board again.

  Marley glided over to Jenny and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Not to worry, dear. Not to worry.”

  “I always say the dorkiest thing.”

  “We all make unfortunate remarks, Jenny dear, and we often don’t know it was the wrong thing until it’s too late.”

  Marley’s bright blue spring rain coat hung by the door like a stooping servant awaiting a command. In the car port, Jenny let her employer into the back seat of the Town Car before getting behind the wheel.

  They went first to the athletic club for Marley’s morning yoga class and Jacuzzi. After that they had lunch, attended a talk on irrigation technologies in developing countries at the downtown library, visited the nearly deserted site of a preschool Marley was having remodeled, took a casual browse of a bookstore that only Jenny knew she owned, and finally indulged in a quick but fruitless tour of an antique store.

  In all, a perfectly ordinary Sunday. Marley rode in the back of the Town Car. Jenny drove. Sometimes they chatted amiably. Sometimes Marley read a magazine or stared out the window. Jenny carried the umbrella—bright red today, Jenny had given up hoping for a sensible black one—and opened every door. Marley’s hand never fell on a knob or latch.

  When they returned to the house, they sat together in the dining room under the glowing chandelier, with Marley at the head of the table. Weathers served them chicken soup with mushroom ravioli, salad, and a small crusty roll on the side. When Jenny had been hired four years earlier, they would talk over their meal, but over time Marley had grown less interested, and now they sat in companionable silence.

  At least, right up to the moment Marley laid down her spoon and said “Well?”

  Jenny glanced up at her, surprised. “Well what?”

  “There’s something you’ve been dying to tell me all day. Are you going to let it out, dear, or are you going to burst?”

  Jenny picked up her roll as though she might delay the rest of the conversation with a sizable bite, but she set it back down untouched. “Is it that obvious? Okay. There’s really no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to blurt it out. I’m going to graduate school in the fall.”

  Marley clasped her hands under her chin. “Well that’s wonderful, dear! Truly wonderful! Do you need a letter or something? I’ve always heard schools need letters. Oh! I know an amazing woman who runs a program in the mountains outside of Santa Fe. She’s a one hundred percent original thinker and it would be quite educational! You’d be out in nature, working toward your degree, and you wouldn’t have to wear a stitch for weeks and weeks. You aren’t planning to study snakes, by any chance?”

  Jenny’s eyes were wide and her lips pursed. “Entertainment Technology, actually. I’ve already been accepted at Carnegie Mellon.”

  “Oh. Isn’t that in Pittsburgh? Well, I’m sure they have a good program and I guess the rest can’t be helped. But you should have told me ages ago, dear. I could have been a help. I’m sure I know someone who could have given you an in.”

  “I know, Ms. Jacobs. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to do it on my own.”

  “Oh, of course!” Marley jumped out of her chair. Jenny stood, too, and they embraced. “I’m so excited for you!”

  “Thank you!”

  They parted. Marley noticed Weathers standing in the doorway watching them. “Weathers! Good news! Jenny has just given her notice! How much longer will you be with us, dear?”

  “Until the end of July, I think.”

  “Oh we still have weeks together! Good! That will give us plenty of time to sort out the money.”

  “You don’t have to—“

  “Now dear,” Marley took Jenny’s arm in hers, pinning her close. “You wouldn’t let me help you get into college, but you will certainly let me help you attend. My mind is made up! Don’t argue, you’ll only hurt my feelings.”

  “Okay, I guess.” Jenny was a little relieved and a little overwhelmed. “I’m going to miss you, though.”

  Marley hugged her again. “I’m going to miss you, too, dear, but I knew you’d be moving on someday. And it’s good.”

  Jenny broke the embrace. There were tears in her eyes. “I need to walk the dog again, and... I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Marley squeezed her hand and let her go. Jenny hurried to the kitchen with Weathers close behind. “Oh, look,” Marley said. “I did
n’t let her finish her soup. Ah, it doesn’t matter. Who can eat?”

  She bustled into the library and settled in behind her oak roll top desk. First she looked up Carnegie Mellon on her computer to confirm it was in Pittsburgh. That done, she pored over her paper and electronic contact lists. Surely she knew someone in the area. Jenny had worked for her for four years, and letting her move to a new state without making a few calls was out of the question. The girl needed protection.

  * * *

  The next morning, Marley asked Weathers to prepare something simple for breakfast. He brought her toast with strawberry jam and coffee. As she forced herself to sip and nibble, Albert walked in. He wore the same jacket and tie as the day before.

  “Another interview, dear?”

  He looked embarrassed. “I think I’ll do better today.” He ran his good left hand through his unruly hair.

  But Marley barely heard him. “Albert, dear, would you do me a favor? There’s a Cheval standing mirror in my office, nearly as tall as you, oval, with a walnut frame. Would you bring it out here, to the dining room?”

  “Of course.”

  Albert was surprised by how much it weighed, but he was quickly learning that rich people liked owning dense, heavy things. Having only the smaller two fingers of his right hand made the mirror difficult to carry, but he arranged it just the way Marley asked. When he was finished, she could stand in the doorway to the library and see into the foyer.

  “Wonderful. Now please go down to the basement and get me the fishing line off the shelf by the stairs.”

  “Fishing line?” Albert said and, receiving no response, fetched it for her. She was letting him live in her house and eat from her pantry; indulging her eccentricities without question was the least he could do in return.

  “Thank you,” she said as she took it from him. “Weathers?” He stood in the kitchen doorway, awaiting her instructions. She held out a deadbolt key for him. “Go upstairs and move the Scribe computer down to the library, please.”

  As always, Weather’s somber face was inscrutable, but this was the first time Albert had ever seen him hesitate. “Of course, madam,” he said, and went to the stairs.