Breaking the Mould

by Victoria Hamilton

  She examined her old friend. He didn’t seem completely well, and she was worried. “You let me know if you need any backup though, Bill. Honestly.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’m done for the day. Moving it into place was enough of a chore for a Sunday. Billy and I will probably head on out for cocoa.”

  One person clapped. Jaymie turned to see the young woman, dressed in a long coat, who had been standing by Valetta. “Well met, Ms. Leighton Müller,” she said, her voice melodious.

  Jaymie nodded and smiled, then grabbed Jocie’s hand and turned to leave the scene.

  “Oh, don’t go! I had hoped to speak with you about joining your heritage society.”

  Jaymie turned back to her. “Come to our next meeting, Miss . . . uh—”

  “Jacklyn Marley,” she said, thrusting her hand out and taking Jaymie’s, shaking it vigorously. “I will indeed attend the next meeting. Is this your daughter?”

  “Yes. Jocie, this is Ms. Marley. Jacklyn, this is Jocie.” Jaymie examined her. She was smooth and self-assured, a woman about Jaymie’s age, but with dark brown hair in a chignon, and dressed chicly in a gray tweed skirt, black boots, and a gray plaid cape. Who was she, though, and what did she want of Jaymie?

  “You may be wondering why I’m approaching you. I’ve read your column, ‘Vintage Eats.’ I’m a writer and wondered if you had ever considered gathering your columns into a cookbook.”

  “Mama is writing a cookbook,” Jocie said, tugging on Jaymie’s hand. “Aren’t you?”

  “Hush, Jocie.”

  “Are you indeed?” Ms. Marley said with a smooth smile.

  “You’re a writer?”

  “I am. Or rather . . . have you ever heard of a ghostwriter?”

  “Sure.”

  “A ghostwriter?” Jocie stared up at the woman, her blue eyes large and round. “Mama says there are no such things as ghosts. At least not in my room, at night.”

  “I’m not that kind of ghost,” the woman said, crouching down. “I’m the kind of professional ghost who quietly goes about my business, writing, writing, writing for other people and never getting paid or getting any of the attention. Also known as . . . a ghostwriter.”

  There was an edge of bitterness to her words.

  Jocie spotted elderly Mrs. Klausner at the door of the Emporium, holding out a candy cane and beckoning Jocie. “Can I go see Mrs. K?” Jocie asked. The woman, who with her husband had run the Queensville Emporium grocery store for years, was renowned for her crabbiness, but she had a soft spot for Jocie.

  “You can, but five minutes, no more.” Jaymie eyed Jacklyn Marley as she stood and straightened. “Who have you ghostwritten for?” she asked, glancing over to see Jocie skipping up the steps to Mrs. Klausner.

  “Well, you’ve just met my most notorious client, Mr. Evan Nezer. That clutch-fisted old Scrooge with a corkscrew for a heart still owes me thousands of dollars in back royalties that he won’t let go of.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. I’d sue him, but he’d love that. Do you know, he has a double degree in economics and law and teaches at Wolverhampton College, but the joke on campus is he became a lawyer so he’d never have to pay one to represent him. He loves to sue!”

  “That explains so much,” Jaymie said faintly, thinking that the heritage society and Dickens Days was likely in for some rocky times.

  “Like his threatening to sue the handyman, yourself, the township and anyone else in his path. And he’ll do it.”

  “I do know him,” Jaymie muttered. “Or at least of him.” Evan Nezer had lived for years in the newer section of town near Heidi’s ranch-style home and had sued many more folks in Queensville, including his annual lawsuit to keep the Dickens Days celebration from proceeding. It never went anywhere, but it was a nuisance. If she recalled correctly, he had sued neighbors, his ex-wife, and even fellow academics whom he claimed stole his work. It was annoying, and him moving to the center of town to the historic Nezer home meant the members of the historical society would likely have to deal with him much more often. They must prepare a strategy.

  A young man pulled up and parked by the village green, eyeing the cider house with distaste. He got out of his silver sedan, checked his phone, then slipped it into his coat pocket. Catching sight of Jacklyn Marley, he strode over. “Jacklyn, my stepmother just called. She was taking a fit, screaming at me to get over here. Something about Dad getting beaten up by a handyman?”

  Jacklyn laughed. “Benjamin Nezer, this is Jaymie Leighton Müller. Ben, here, is Evan’s son.” She turned to the tall young man. “I thought you two weren’t talking?” she said with a sly smile, her eyes wide. She paused, then added, “Or do you communicate through La Bel-la?” She glanced over at Jaymie. “The lovely Bella is Nezer’s second wife. He screwed every last drop of life out of Sarah, his ex, and now he’s working on number two.”

  Jaymie eyed her uncertainly; there seemed to be some undercurrent to her words and phrasing, some digs at Mrs. Nezer that she didn’t understand, not knowing the parties involved.

  “Jacklyn, that’s not fair!” Benjamin said, his eyes narrow. “My mom and dad had their differences for years before they split.”

  “I thought you were on your mother’s side,” she said, jamming her hands into her pockets. Her tone was spiteful, but Ben didn’t respond. “Nice to see you’ve turned on her, too,” the young woman added, staring steadily at him, digging the spite in deeper.

  Given what Jacklyn had already told Jaymie about Nezer’s unpaid bill for her ghostwriting, maybe she was taking her anger out on the whole family, but working on a book must have been a long process, certainly long enough to get to know and dislike the whole family.

  Ben leveled a concentrated look at her. He looked like he wanted to say something, but his jaw tensed, his lips pursed into a hard line, and he turned to walk away.

  “By the way, he wasn’t being beaten up by any handyman,” Jacklyn called out, cupping one hand around her mouth to increase the volume. “That’s Bill Waterman over there, working on the cider house for the Dickens Days festivities. Your father threatened to sue him, that’s all. Business as usual.”

  Benjamin shoved his hands deep into his pockets and walked on, pausing to watch Bill winding up the rope he had intended to use, then striding past through the fringe of pines and across the lawn toward the Nezer home, flickers of his progress showing through gaps in the tree trunks.

  Jaymie turned to Jacklyn Marley. “That felt personal. Do you know him well?”

  She shrugged. “I worked for his father for the better part of a year, so . . . yeah. We know each other.”

  “What does Ben do?”

  “He’s a lawyer specializing in contracts.”

  “His father must be thrilled, given his litigious nature.”

  “Not so much. He’s disappointed in Ben, actually. They didn’t speak for a long time because of that. Until recently, when Ben decided to start sucking up to his father again.” Jacklyn chewed her lip and looked off in the direction Ben had disappeared. “Evan wanted him to go into financial planning and estate management and was disappointed when Ben became a lawyer.”

  “Sounds like a complicated family dynamic,” Jaymie commented.

  Jacklyn snorted in laughter. “You said it! That Bella is a handful. She married Nezer thinking she was moving up in the world, only to find out how deadly dull a professor’s life is, and how a professor’s wife has to make nice to the whole board of governors and college leadership. No glamour in that. Add to that the Nezer family housekeeper who lives in, the much put-upon Erla Fancombe.” She cast a glance at Jaymie, a wry smile twisting her lips. “Erla’s son, Finn, was a student at WC until Nezer accused him of plagiarism and got him kicked out.”

  Eye’s wide, Jaymie reflected that Nezer seemed to have made a second career of angering and alienating people. “You know the family doings very well.”

  “I’ve made a study of the Nezers, I suppose,” she mu
sed. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Evan as his ghostwriter, and much of that was in his home office. They’re an interesting tribe. Do you know he is actually an author of some note? Back in the eighties he published a couple of novels that made a big splash. I guess writing wasn’t lucrative enough. He was a professor of economics at that point but got a second degree in law and started suing people as a hobby.”

  “Nice hobby; making people miserable for fun and profit. I did not know any of that. You’d think once a writer, always a writer.” At least that was Jaymie’s experience from knowing a writer who was obsessive, always in the middle of at least two novels, and often more than two, as well as publicizing the latest book and planning the next. “So . . . I’m puzzled. Why did he need a ghostwriter?”

  Jacklyn shrugged. “It’s been years since he got those books published.” She twisted her lips and squinted. “He’s odd in some ways. Somewhere along the line he got . . . warped. The whole suing thing, for example, seems to have started in the nineties. He would sue you as soon as look at you.” She sighed. “He’s such a bitter Betty. Sarah, his ex-wife, he screwed out of every possession she ever had, even her heirlooms, and she’s not willing to fight it. I don’t know why not, since her husband moved on to Bella, wifey number two, even before they separated.”

  “You know that for sure?” Jaymie said, always uneasy about gossip.

  “I do. They didn’t always cohabit, from what I understand; she spent a lot of time . . . away. But they were married. Bella is younger, buxom and gorgeous, a virtual Nigella Lawson clone.” She glanced over at Jaymie. “You know who Nigella Lawson is, right?”

  “Of course. British cooking celebrity. I love some of her food.”

  “Well, Bella has the bod and the accent. Why she’s with an old geezer like Nezer, whose nads are probably shrunk up into his body, I’ll never know.”

  “What about Ben? Is that whole career thing the only reason they were estranged?”

  Jacklyn regarded Jaymie and grimaced. “I learned early, with Evan there’s always more. Originally, when the marital split first happened, Ben made the mistake of siding with his mother in the divorce proceedings.”

  “It’s too bad kids seem forced to take sides.”

  “I don’t think Sarah was forcing anything, it was all Evan.”

  “You seem to dislike him. How did you work with him for so long?”

  “I didn’t know him when I first started on the book. Ghostwriters need work. I got to know him, Bella and Ben over the year I worked with Evan. Anyway, it looks like maybe Ben has switched sides. I can’t imagine how hurt Sarah must be about her son sucking up to Evan now. But I suppose Ben has to think of his future,” she said with a nasty sneer.

  Jaymie, taken aback by her tone, said, “What do you mean?”

  “Papa holds the purse strings. Evan Nezer is quite possibly the Scroogiest fellow to ever stroll the bedizened streets of Queensville.”

  “Maybe he’ll undergo a miraculous ghostly intervention and will embrace Christmas and the Dickens Days festival,” Jaymie said lightly.

  “That would take more than visitation from four ghosts, it would take a heart and soul transplant. Not that he has a soul to begin with.” She paused, then with a dark look toward the Nezer property, she added, “Or a heart.”

  Two

  The week started busy, as always, with a Monday full of obligations large and small. Jaymie submitted her “Vintage Eats” column to Nan at the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler, and her editor ribbed her some about not finishing her cookbook yet. She had been working on her new take on vintage recipes for a couple of years, but the idea had morphed so much since her original inception that she had to keep playing catch-up with herself. And now, with a husband, a daughter, her food column, radio shows, food blog and multiple jobs, she was constantly racing to try to make it all fit.

  So dinner was a frozen pizza for Jocie and Jakob and a salad for herself. After a huge family weekend of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes drowned in gravy, as well as Oma Müller’s German specialty food, kӓsespӓtzle, a cheese noodle dish, she felt like a tightly stuffed bratwurst. She did up the few dishes while Jocie read a book for a report—one of Jaymie’s childhood favorites, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; she may have influenced Jocie’s choice a skosh—while Jakob set up his yearly spreadsheet for the Christmas tree business, which would start in earnest soon.

  Their evening promised to be busy, too. Jakob and Helmut were going over the business plan for the next adventure, the Müller Family Holiday Store, and they were meeting at the cabin since Jaymie was going to the Queensville Heritage Society meeting. She made a point of attending at least one a month, and this was the night for the final planning for the Dickens Days festival, set to go in just days.

  She had raced upstairs, carrying Hoppy and followed by Jocie and Lilibet, who climbed up on her and Jakob’s bed while she dressed in the attached bathroom. She came out and stood in front of the mirror. She eyed her reflection, while Jocie sat on the bed with Hoppy flopped on his back. She sorted through Jaymie’s jewelry tray while Lilibet lunged at necklaces and beads, batting and tussling with each piece. She was far from a kitten anymore, but had stayed small, a petite tabby darling with a coquettish personality and too much energy, kind of like Jocie.

  Jaymie wore a long navy sweater over patterned leggings, her favorite outfit at the moment, but it felt wrong for some reason. She twisted and turned in front of the mirror, unhappy with how she looked. Some women were full-figured but still managed to look elegant and put together. Jaymie could wear the same darn thing as the plus-size models wore and it looked dumpy on her. And she had to do something about her hair; it was long and shiny, a not-bad medium brown, but she never actually did anything with it other than tie it up in a ponytail or twist it into a bun.

  “What about this, Mama?” Jocie said, holding up a long silver chain with a blue and white Dresden bead and silver silk tassel on the end. “I gave that to you for your birthday.” She held it away from Lilibet’s outstretched paw, which paddled and batted the air frantically, trying to grab hold.

  Jaymie took it and held it up to her. “Good choice, honey,” she said, slipping it on over her head and pulling her long hair up and over the chain. She eyed it and nodded, then twisted around again, studying herself in the mirror. “I wish this sweater didn’t make my bottom look so wide,” she muttered to herself.

  Jocie stared at her in consternation, her big brown eyes filled with concern. “But you look so nice.” She slipped off the bed and stood next to Jaymie, only coming up to her waist. She turned, mimicking Jaymie’s movements perfectly. “My bottom is wide too.”

  Jaymie’s heart skipped a beat. What was she doing? She had morphed back into the teenage girl whose mother kept cutting back her portions because she was too heavy and needed to slim down. She knew her mother didn’t mean to be cruel; Joy Leighton had fretted that Jaymie would never find love, or peer acceptance. But it had left her daughter mortified by her own body, her growing breasts, her plump butt, her thick thighs. Weight was such a freighted issue for girls and women whose bodies wouldn’t conform to society’s dictates, but even those whose bodies were deemed perfect ended up self-conscious somehow. It was never easy.

  Tears welled in her eyes. This stopped here and now. She sat down on the bed and helped Jocie sit up beside her. “Thank you, honey,” she said seriously, holding her daughter close.

  “For what?” she asked, her voice muffled.

  Jaymie released her and met her gaze. Anything worth saying was worth looking someone in the eyes for. “I was wrong to criticize myself that way. You reminded me to be thankful for my healthy body, and remember how lucky I am to have it. Sweetie, a big butt, or thick thighs, or double chins . . . none of that matters. We’re healthy, and we’ll stay that way, if we can. We will exercise and eat vegetables and love ourselves no matter what. We’re lucky our bodies move and da
nce and jiggle and we can laugh and run and play.”

  “I like to dance,” Jocie said.

  Jaymie hugged her, inhaling the fruity fragrance of Jocie’s shampoo deeply. “Sometimes grown-up women need to be reminded to be grateful for all we have and all we are.” She let her go and met her brown-eyed gaze, tucking one blonde curl behind her daughter’s ear. “And thank you for helping me choose my jewelry. This is the perfect necklace for such a lovely blue.” She made a silent vow to never criticize her own or other people’s bodies again, not in front of Jocie, and not away from Jocie.

  They descended the stairs followed by the pets, and Jocie raced around the big open living room with Hoppy and Lilibet, the little dog barking as the young cat tore up a sofa and stood at the top. The two men sat at the kitchen table with the planning books for their next venture out in front of them.

  “This time next year we’ll have the Christmas store up and running!” Helmut said, his narrow face shining with happiness.

  “And we’ll all be ten times as busy,” Jakob added. He looked up at his wife. “You look beautiful! That color blue . . . so lovely on you. It brings out your eyes.” He got up and kissed her. “Mmmm . . . love you,” he murmured in her ear, just for her to hear.

  Her breath caught, as always. “I love you, too,” she said, framing his face with her hands and staring into his dark brown eyes. “Don’t work too hard.” Jaymie kissed him goodbye and headed out into the autumnal twilight, pausing by the SUV to take in a deep breath and whisper a prayer of thanks. She was a lucky woman, and she must never forget it.

  It was a crisp autumn night, the wind rustling in the leaves along the drive, sweeping them into piles. The forest opposite the cabin was a velvety dark mystery and the moon peeked through leafless limbs, silvery light glossing her vehicle. She got into the Ford SUV, started it up, and headed down the country road, bypassing the village proper on her way to the gathering. They were meeting, as always, at the Queensville Historic Manor. She was grateful for the warmth, the updated HVAC blowing warm air out of registers along the perimeter of the rooms. The sitting room and parlor had huge sliding doors that opened to make a room large enough for a meeting, or a wedding even, as Jaymie’s and her sister Becca’s had been held there in May. This was expected to be a large meeting, so the doors had been opened, and rows of chairs had been set up to face a dais by the far wall.