by Keziah Frost
“Oh, Norbert,” said Birdie, handing him a bouquet of asters.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Oh, put the dear things in water,” said Birdie, waving vaguely toward the bouquet. “It can wait until you fill a vase. Their voices are getting weak. They’re in a bigger hurry than I am.”
Birdie often said strange things like this. Especially to Norbert, the sole possessor of her one great secret.
Norbert made the flowers comfortable on his dining room table.
Ivy lost no time making herself comfortable on Birdie’s lap. She looked up at Birdie gratefully as Birdie massaged her with the tips of her fingers.
“The spirits in my house are restless, Norbert. Last night, when I got home from Margaret’s, they were all lined up. They do that, whenever they want to get my attention—when they’re warning me.”
Norbert sat in the floral arm chair across from Birdie’s striped one, and took a moment to envision the scene she described. He certainly did not believe in ghosts, nor any other psychic phenomena. But he did believe in Birdie. She had become a good friend.
“How do you mean, lined up?”
“They stand shoulder to shoulder. There are so many of them that the line goes clear through the first floor of my house and up the stairs.”
Norbert chose to see Birdie’s spiritual talk as metaphor.
“In other words, something is bothering you, Birdie?”
“Of course! What’s bothering me is their message. This is how they tell me that I’m not paying attention to something in my life, something that I should be able to see clearly for myself.”
Norbert smiled reassuringly.
“Well, then. This should be easy. What is it that you’re not seeing?”
“If I could see what it is that I’m not seeing, then I wouldn’t be not seeing it.”
Norbert could see that this was so.
Birdie twisted her rings, and pushed her reddish curls from her forehead.
“Would you read my cards?”
Norbert was only too glad to oblige, if Birdie thought this would help to clear her mind. Birdie shuffled and handed Norbert the playing cards one at a time, and he began to lay them out on the coffee table.
“Five of Spades. That’s a rift between friends, hurt feelings, damage that may be permanent.”
Birdie’s expression began to clear as she gazed off over Norbert’s shoulder. She handed him the next card.
“Queen of Diamonds,” said Norbert, “A controlling woman.”
“Carlotta,” said Norbert and Birdie together.
“You can stop now, Norbert. I see.”
Norbert gathered the cards together and placed the deck face down on the coffee table. It never ceased to amaze him how people saw in the cards whatever they needed to see, and gave fortune telling the credit.
“Have you and Carlotta had an argument?”
“Never. Carlotta doesn’t argue. Carlotta prevails. Oh, she’ll have petty arguments. But if something were really and truly bothering her? The last thing Carlotta would ever do is address the problem directly.”
“What’s the problem she won’t address with you?”
“What’s the problem she won’t address with any of us, Norbert?”
Norbert was stumped.
“It’s Mabel! Carlotta feels like we’ve all ditched her for Mabel. She’s terribly hurt.”
“Oh,” said Norbert, “I doubt that! Mabel’s no threat to Carlotta. I mean, Mabel’s a lot of fun--.”
Both of them said, “I can’t say she isn’t!”
“But,” continued Norbert, “Carlotta is the leader of the Club, for Pete’s sake, and has been since before God was born.”
They sat in silence for a moment, trying to imagine Carlotta with hurt feelings. It would have been easier to imagine a general with hurt feelings. Sentimentality of any kind was foreign to Carlotta, as far as they knew. She was always in command, and always the winner.
Norbert added, “She’s just been very busy lately.”
“You don’t know Carlotta. That’s exactly what she would say if she were hurt. She’s not busy. She’s pouting.”
-30-
What an artist needs, reflected Carlotta, is uninterrupted blocks of time.
Uninterrupted blocks of time were what Carlotta had aplenty, now that the Club was following Mabel.
Carlotta wrote with passion from six until eight every morning, filling her blue pages with fluid black lines. She wrote of all she had done for her friends over their five decades together, providing them with entertainment and education. She wrote of her selfless dedication to their happiness and development. She included every favor she could remember having done for each of them. She wrote about their ingratitude and desertion. Sometimes as she wrote, the page ripped under the gouging force of her pen.
If Carlotta was not careful, she mused, she risked making Mabel, instead of herself, the main character of her novel, so intent had she become in showing the hideousness of this interloper.
The best art is borne of pain.
Carlotta gazed out her window where the yellow leaves against the blue sky created a Van Gogh color scheme. She wondered if this pain in her heart was making her book a work of art.
-31-
Hope sat across from Norbert the fortune-teller. Of all Aunt Carlotta’s ideas, and she had had so many, the idea to bring Norbert into the café to read cards for customers was one of her best. Ever since he had come, not quite a year ago, Hope’s business had begun to prosper as never before. Sometimes, she would ask him to stay after the shop was closed to the public, and she would take ten minutes to consult with this kind man.
Today, she did not have the concern for the numerous chores that awaited her. Her new assistant Liam was getting started on the end-of-the-day tasks. Aunt Carlotta’s suggestion that she hire this shy high school student had turned out to be an excellent one, as her aunt’s suggestions invariably were.
Liam Hennessey had seemed very awkward, and Hope had had her doubts, but within a few hours she was relieved to see his earnest focus on the work and his marked desire to please. Comically, he had even said to her, “you can rely on me, Hope,” and then had turned three shades of red. Funny kid.
As Liam clattered away, Hope sat down opposite Norbert. She took the deck of cards from him, but put it to the side, unshuffled.
“When I was a kid,” she said, settling into the comforting atmosphere Norbert created in his little corner of the café, “I always envisioned my future in a house filled with children and pets. That’s all I ever wanted. I never could see a husband very clearly in this vision, but I assumed there must be one there, somewhere. But I could see all the kids. A child’s face in every window, kids on the porch, kids swinging from the trees in the yard. That was supposed to be my life. And here I am, living alone, and forty-six years old. I don’t know what happened.”
Norbert, smiling, seemed to consider. “Well, John Lennon said--.”
“Oh, I know what John Lennon said. But in my case, it’s ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy being with the wrong man.’ Men. One after the other.”
Norbert confided, “Well, come to that, I never pictured myself being a fortune-teller. I was an accountant for forty years and never gave card reading a thought. So there we are. I guess we know life doesn’t go according to plan.”
“But in your case, it’s like you’ve found what you were supposed to be doing all along! That’s what I want.”
“You’ve started on the road, Hope. It will certainly happen for you.”
“The foster care thing is such a roller coaster. You can’t imagine. I had a call last week, and it fell through. It was going to be a sibling group: an eight-year old boy called Deshon and his six-year-old twin sisters, Leesa and Mariah. I had four days to get ready for them. I set up beds, bought a few little things, but most of the activity was in my head. I lived with those children, without meeting them, for four days. I built it up, our
life together, imagined it all in detail: welcoming them, taking them to the park, starting them in school, family dinners, tucking them in. Then the caseworker called and said the kids’ grandmother decided to take them after all.”
Hope looked through the thick lenses of Norbert’s glasses, into his magnified brown eyes. She felt more peaceful.
“Maybe it’s for their best; I hope so. But my dream of a family just burst.”
Norbert was listening to her with great attention.
In a low tone, she added, “I feel discouraged.”
Norbert motioned to the cards.
“Just shuffle, and pull one from the top.”
Hope shuffled with focused attention. As she pulled one card, a second card flipped out of the deck and landed on the table. Norbert said, “There are no accidents! We have to take them both.”
He flipped them both face up and placed them on the table.
“Queen of Clubs!” said Hope and Norbert together. “And Nine of Hearts.”
“Looks like a young lady will be joining you very soon, Hope,” said Norbert. “Looks like a young lady with a mind of her own, too. And the Nine of Hearts says that your dearest wish is coming true.”
“How does it work, Norbert? How’d you do that?”
“It’s not magic or anything,” said Norbert, taking off his glasses and cleaning them carefully with a small white cloth. “It’s odds, I guess. In a deck of fifty-two cards, there are twelve face cards. Odds are about one in four that you’ll draw a face card. If you don’t, any of the other cards will give a meaning that you will make fit your situation. Because it’s human nature to see patterns and make meanings. But it’s even better if you do get a face card. The Kings are males, the Queens are females, and the Jacks could be either one. So, you pulled a Queen. Okay. Maybe your chance of getting a girl foster child is about fifty percent? So now I have half a chance of being right. If you get a boy instead, you’ll forgive me, and explain to yourself that the Queen was referring to someone else—a caseworker or yourself, for example. That’s how it works. It’s just our need to believe, that’s all.”
“Oh,” said Hope, disappointed. She paused. “Wait. What about the Nine of Hearts, then?”
“That is the wish-come-true card, no doubt about it. But it just fell out of the deck. Some other card could have fallen out instead—one meaning a legal document, one meaning a period of waiting—almost any card, you would make it fit your situation.”
“Oh. I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
Norbert was smiling. “In that case, forget about it. I actually have a strong psychic impression that you have a child coming to you very soon. A perfect match.”
-32-
Carlotta had what they used to call a “brainwave.” She was sure that Mabel did not speak fluent Spanish. Carlotta knew all about creating false impressions, and if she knew anything, this Mabel-woman was a fraud. If the Club would only see that, their servile worship of the venomous monster would end. Sure, Mabel could say some full sentences in Spanish, and even teach some lessons. That did not mean she truly spoke the language of Cervantes.
No one likes a faker.
A plan for exposure of the scam dawned in Carlotta’s productive mind with the suddenness of a beam of light, and with the sensation of angels singing, “Ah!”
Her granddaughter Summer was a Spanish teacher, and she actually was fluent in the Castilian tongue.
“Summer, dear, since you and Hope are so keen to meet Mabel, I was wondering if we could compare calendars. I’m just going to have hors d’oeuvres—are you available this Friday afternoon, say, about 4:30?”
The 4:30 hors d’oeuvres party in Carlotta’s gracious home didn’t look like a steel trap, but that is what it was: a trap set to spring. Only Carlotta knew this. She missed the days when at least Lorraine would have been in on the plot. Everyone—Lorraine, Margaret, Birdie, Norbert, Hope, Summer, and the soon-to-be ensnared Mabel—thought they were coming for a congenial little pre-dinner party.
Carlotta had prepared a few favorites with charming presentation and had just finished setting everything out on the dining room table when her guests arrived, all in one prompt fell swoop.
Actually, a swoop is the descent made by a bird of prey, reflected Carlotta. It was she who would be doing the swooping this afternoon.
Norbert had already introduced Mabel to Summer and Hope as they all arrived on Carlotta’s doorstep. They had just had time to say hello and make the obvious exclamations on the uncanny resemblance between Margaret and Mabel, when Carlotta opened wide her door.
As they came in, they brought with them a fly, which began to circle the rooms in a panic.
Carlotta smiled her welcome while Toutou wagged and wiggled joyfully, welcoming in the visitors. Carlotta let them have a little time to discuss whatever they liked and get comfortable, before she began the assault. She did it so innocently. No one would ever suspect her intention was to destroy.
“Mabel,” said Carlotta. “You have been teaching Spanish to everyone.”
“Everyone but you,” said Lorraine. “You oughta join us. We’re learning so fast!”
“Perhaps I will, someday,” said Carlotta. “I’ve been so busy.” Here she waited, willing to postpone her attack if any of her friends would like to ask her what had been keeping her so occupied lately.
“Spanish is fun!” enthused Margaret, who sat next to Mabel, as she always did now, enjoying the glances that bounced from her to her double and back again. “Mabel’s a good teacher!”
Carlotta took in a gasp of air, very lightly; no one heard.
“Aw, teaching Spanish to you guys is easy. It’s not like it’s rocket surgery, or anything.”
The woman doesn’t even have command of her native tongue. Surely she can’t be gifted in languages.
“Actually,” Carlotta turned the full force of her toothy beam on Mabel, “we have two Spanish teachers in the room. My granddaughter Summer is a real Spanish teacher, a licensed one, at the high school.”
She waited for Mabel to realize she was done for. Mabel seemed unaware of her doom, and smiled back.
Norbert, waving the fly away with one hand and with the other carrying a cherry tomato to his mouth, stopped and glanced from Carlotta to Mabel.
He must be getting a premonition.
“Summer, why don’t you and Mabel speak Spanish together? I’m sure we’d all love to hear you. Spanish is such a … well… such a staccato language, isn’t it?”
Carlotta’s secret opinion was that French was inherently somehow better than Spanish.
Summer, always glad of an opportunity to speak Spanish, began with a long rambling expression that seemed to end up as a question. Everyone was watching with interest, probably wishing that they could speak Spanish like Summer. With a friendly tilt of her head, Summer stopped and took a bite of her tomato and olive bruschetta.
Mabel, still chewing her potato croquet, held up a finger, so much as to say, she couldn’t talk with her mouth full. A pathetic ruse that wouldn’t last her very long. Carlotta tapped her foot. If Mabel hoped that someone would change the subject while she chewed, she could abandon that wish right now. Carlotta wouldn’t allow her to escape her comeuppance.
Swallowing, Mabel clapped her hands together, and drew them apart. On one hand lay the limp carcass of the fly. On the other lay an imprint of fly blood and one fly leg.
“Got it!” she exclaimed. “I hate flies, don’t you?” Mabel looked around at the group, who looked back at her, mouths open.
“Great reflexes, Mabel,” congratulated Norbert, chortling.
Studying her hands with interest, Mabel said, “Now I have to wash.” She held her hands up to Carlotta, who winced and signaled her toward the bathroom.
As Mabel left the room, Carlotta’s friends guffawed in amazement. Not in disgust or contempt, as any right-thinking person would have done. What was wrong with all of them? The more ghastly the woman was, the more they all seeme
d to love her. And if Mabel thought that Carlotta would forget about exposing her lack of Spanish, she would soon learn with whom she was dealing.
Just as Mabel returned, chuckling about the fly, Hope’s cell phone rang.
“It’s Children and Family Services!” she cried. “Oh!” and she ran, clutching her phone, into Carlotta’s kitchen.
“What’s going on?” asked Lorraine.
Summer said, “It might be a foster child for Hope. But it’s weird they’d be calling on a Friday night, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Lorraine, “the foster child that Carlotta volunteered us all to babysit—that foster child?”
Carlotta assumed a noble attitude.
“I can’t imagine that any of us has anything more important to do than to help a child who has no home and no support in the world. I’m sure we all feel that even Spanish lessons and hot air balloon rides are not as meaningful as being of service to a child in need.” Carlotta paused with the skill of a preacher sadly regarding a sinful congregation, and then added, “Was I wrong in assuming that?”
Birdie, giving a belly rub to Toutou, said, “It will be good to have a child among us again. Children teach us so much.”
Poor Birdie, always getting things backwards.
“Plus, kids probably love hot air balloon rides,” contributed Mabel, showing herself to be irresponsible as well as ridiculous.
While the conversation concerning the role the Club would play with Hope’s foster child—or children--went on in the living room, Hope was leaning against the kitchen wall, her heart beating fast, listening to Thundercloud.
A nine-year-old African American girl needed an emergency placement. Her current foster mother would not keep her a day longer. Could the child stay with Hope just for the weekend, until a new foster home could be arranged?
“We’re only asking you to keep her for the weekend. But if it works out for both of you, you could have the option of fostering her long-term. Even adoption might be possible eventually, if you want. Her birth mother has already signed over her rights to let the girl be adopted.”