ONCE UPON ANOTHER TIME

by McQuestion, Rosary

  “Well?” she said, her eyes practically gleaming.

  I turned an ear toward her. “Well, what?”

  She rolled her eyes and huffed. “I saw Jack last night. He said he called and left you a voice-mail.”

  A moan rose up from my throat like acid reflux. “Oh that,” I said listlessly.

  “Did you call him back?”

  I picked up my briefcase and walked toward Laura. “Not yet.”

  “Hey, you have something on the front of your jacket.”

  I looked down at the residue of white particles. “Is it that noticeable?”

  “Hmm, afraid so,” Laura said, biting into her plump lower lip. “But I have an idea.” She slipped off her jacket and handed it to me. “Put this on, there’s only a very slight difference in the blacks, but believe me no one will notice.”

  I weighed my options; blatant linty spot verses a different shade of black. I set my briefcase down, took my jacket off, draped it over the back of the chair, and slipped Laura’s jacket on.

  “Oh, and let’s plan on us doing lunch today,” said Laura. “Remember, I’m not trying to push Jack on you, but I asked Katelyn to meet us so she could weigh in on the Jack thing. You know, she’s known him for years and her husband and Jack are golf buddies.”

  “Fine,” I said, nodding mechanically as she followed me out of my office.

  * * * *

  The whole time in court, I had to fight to keep focused. Adding to all I had on my mind, the plaintiff’s attorney bore a strong resemblance to a ferret. It was very distracting.

  I tried not to stare at his Pinocchio nose, but I’d never seen anything so long and pointy. I wanted to leap up and touch it to see if any small amount of fingering would snap it off his face. Surely, the man must make enough money to be able to afford a nose job.

  Suddenly, the ferret’s words caught my attention and I quickly stated, “Objection, your honor. The plaintiff has demonstrated inflexibility, unreasonableness, and uncooperativeness toward my client in regard to the exchanges and issues concerning the minor child.”

  “And what are you specifically referring to counselor?” the judge asked, as he thumbed through the paperwork in front of him.

  “Besides the five-page document that the court reviewed in our last session, your honor, the plaintiff’s conduct in regard to his daughter’s ballet recital, which now has her wetting her bed, is representative of his behavior. He has exacerbated the already deteriorating custodial visitation situation by adversarial use of couriers to deliver messages to my client, just so he won’t have to speak to her. I cannot stress enough, to this court, the irrefutable harm he is doing to his own child.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Counselor is speculating,” yapped the ferret.

  “Overruled,” bellowed the judge as he visibly compared the files on his desk that included new evaluations, enthusiastically given to me by two leading psychiatrists.

  I turned toward my client seated to my left. Her eyes brimmed with tears. As my hand found hers I whispered, “Come hell or high water, I will win you full custody. I promise.” Instantly, the words from the dream I had about Matt came back to haunt me. Aubrey, promise you won’t stop looking for me.

  * * * *

  By the time I returned to my office, a sharp stabbing pain had settled between my shoulder blades. I assumed it was a residual effect from missing yoga class the night before. I slowly twisted my head from side to side to loosen the muscles and recalled my tortured experience of attempting to master the art of Bikram yoga. A series of twenty-six poses performed in a room hot enough to melt plastic.

  While trying the full locust, my belly was on the mat, my back twisted into a backward bend with arms and legs pointing skyward, while perspiration dripped from the tip of my nose. That was when I forgot to breathe and fainted. I opted for a beginner’s yoga class, held in an air-conditioned room.

  “Aubrey,” Ashley called over the phone intercom. “Are you going out for lunch?”

  “Yes, and I’m leaving soon. Please do me a favor. Seems people like leaving their life stories on my voice-mail, just take a quick message and tell them I’ll call back.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Also, could you run down the hall and catch Melanie before she leaves for lunch? She has a file on the Jenkins case that she’s never returned.”

  “Okay, I’ll go right now. Oh, one more thing, someone stopped to see you while you were in court this morning. Said his name was Gavin.”

  “Gavin who?”

  “He didn’t give a last name. I asked if he wanted to leave a message, but he said he’d get in touch with you later. He seemed secretive, but he was really cute for an older guy.”

  “Older guy?”

  “Yeah, you know, like middle thirties and tall, maybe six foot four--or five. He dressed kind of business casual.”

  I smiled inwardly thinking back to when I was Ashley’s age. At twenty-four, anyone over thirty seemed ancient.

  “He didn’t give any clue as to what he wanted?”

  “No, nothing, but he seemed anxious to talk to you.”

  “Well, it’s not the first time someone walked in off the street needing the immediate services of a lawyer,” I said, as I rummaged through my purse to find my tube of Strawberry Mocha lipstick and a mirrored compact. “I’ll see you when I get back from lunch.”

  I touched up my lipstick, blotted with a tissue and left to meet Laura at her office. She was sitting ramrod straight at her desk, talking to someone on her speakerphone, when she motioned for me to enter.

  “I see,” she said, tapping her ballpoint to the desk, her lips twisted into a tight knot.

  “Really, babe, I’d love to see you tonight,” said David over the speakerphone. “But I’ve got work piled up on all four corners of my desk. Let’s not make a big deal over this, okay?”

  I grimaced and slipped off Laura’s jacket and draped it over the back of the chair facing her desk when I heard David’s voice again. Only this time it was in my head.

  “I can do this. I can keep it together so Laura will never find out,” he voiced in my head.

  I gazed at the phone as if it were a snake slithering across the desk. Are there no boundaries to this strange, psychic ability?

  Laura peered up at me. I forced a smile, while thinking it was interesting that David was keeping something from her. I didn’t think it necessarily meant it was something bad. Maybe he was planning something special and wanted to surprise her. He’s done it before.

  “David, I’m not making a big deal over it. I’ll just see you tomorrow. Bye!” Laura grumbled something under her breath as she grabbed her purse off the credenza, almost knocking over a stack of Glamour and Cosmo magazines.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, fine. Let’s go.”

  That was convincing.

  Nine

  The intermittent deafening noise of juddering jackhammers, mixed loudly with the clanging of trolley bells as we walked down Kennedy Plaza. The scorching sun felt like flatirons on my shoulders. A city bus with its motor whining screamed past us belching out nauseous black clouds of exhaust, as we dashed across the intersection at Dorrance. Slipping into the cool, air-conditioned Biltmore Hotel, we crossed the European styled lobby, and waited at the hostess station at McCormick & Schmick’s.

  “Katelyn should be here any minute,” said Laura.

  “Speak of the devil,” I said while watching Katelyn cross the lobby. She waved both arms in the air like a flagman waving twin checkered flags at the Indianapolis 500. Her son Jimmy was best friends with my son, Nicholas.

  At a petite five-foot-two with chin length strawberry blonde hair, wide-set blue eyes, and pouty lips, the snug pink knit top she wore with form-fitting white Capri’s and two-inch kitten Dior’s fit her figure perfectly. Katelyn, who grew up in Texas, was a distinguished academic, a psychiatrist with degrees from Brown University. Not only was she the commencement speaker an
d Grand Marshall for the thirty-sixth anniversary of Brown’s medical school, she was quite the celebrity around Providence. Specializing in sex therapy, her newly published, unconventional mommies’ book, “Sex, Sizzle, and the Backseat of a Minivan” was flying off the shelves of every bookstore in town.

  “Hey, you two,” she said in her soft, southern accented charm as she approached us.

  “Day off today?” asked Laura while checking out Katelyn’s attire.

  “Well,” she said in a long drawl while placing a hand on her hip. “I was supposed to but wound up at the office this morning. Wouldn’t ya’ll just know that the one day I decide to sleep in, my office called and woke me up. My patient’s wife called the office in hysterics, saying she was rushing her husband to the clinic.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” I said.

  “No,” she said while looking up at me. “Turned out to be an erectile dysfunction, due to the little blue pills I’d prescribed.”

  “I thought those pills were supposed to help,” I said.

  “Oh, they did! He took too many and ended up with a stiff salute for more than ten hours, if you know what I mean.”

  “Ohhh,” Laura and I said in unison.

  The hostess came to show us to our table. As I followed behind Laura’s lean, runway model stride, and mass of platinum hair circling down her back, all heads spun in her direction. An invasion of jumbled men’s voices crowded my head, making me a little dizzy. “Oh, baby…” “Hot…” “Whoa…” “Too gorgeous…”

  I had a slight wobble to my walk. Surely, there must be an off switch in my head; I just needed to find it. Then like the sudden halt of the cicada, the voices came to an abrupt stop. I tripped over my own feet and stumbled into a chair almost losing my balance.

  Laura stopped and turned to look back at me. “Are you okay?”

  “I think you caught your heel on that snagged piece of carpet,” Katelyn said pointing at the floor.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the waitress.

  “Really, I’m fine. Just a little clumsy,” I said, hoping I had disguised my irritability knowing full well it had nothing to do with a carpet snag.

  No sooner had we slipped into our chairs, than a waiter and busboy rushed toward us, practically stumbling over each other to get to our table. I was used to this reaction from the staff. Laura’s beauty always stunned everyone. Catering to her as if they were her personal servants, the waiter finally turned his attention to me, but only because I was jumping out of my chair. The busboy, who couldn’t take his eyes off Laura, overshot the glass he was holding and soaked my arm with ice water.

  After apologies and much kissing up from the waiter and busboy, all three of us ordered the Seafood Cobb Salad.

  “Hey, I thought Cacey was supposed to be back from Spain this week,” Laura said, as she unfolded her napkin across her lap. “That horse show was held last week, right?”

  “Horse show?” I repeated, as I rubbed my arm trying to get it warmed.

  Laura nodded and gave me a vacuous smile.

  “It was the equestrian competitions in Jerez de la Frontera and later the horse races held on the beaches of San Lucar de Barremeda,” I responded.

  “Yeah, that’s what I just said; she’s at a horse show.” Laura rolled her eyes.

  The busboy came to refill my water glass and I quickly shifted my body to the far left, while Katelyn scooted her chair to the right.

  “Aubrey,” said Katelyn. She stared at me with an overzealous smile that showed her entire gums and straight white teeth. It was her fiendish looking Seabiscuit smile that always preceded something she wanted to say, but knew I might not appreciate hearing it.

  “You remember me telling you about my sister Teri’s divorce attorney, the single, good-looking one,” Katelyn said.

  “Yes,” I answered hesitantly.

  “Well, Teri happened to bump into him at the ArtBar on Chestnut.”

  “Oh,” said Laura, “did she tell you I saw her there? She looks absolutely fantastic!”

  “It’s the diet,” said Katelyn. “Aubrey’s the one who gave her the book.”

  “What book did I give her?”

  “You know the one on avoiding carbohydrates and starchy foods. Well, she followed it and lost twenty pounds.”

  “Wow, glad I could help.”

  “Anyway,” said Katelyn, “Teri had that newspaper article on you winning that big lawsuit case last week. She wants to send it to you with a congratulatory note.”

  “That is so sweet,” I said.

  “Yes, well, she had it folded up in her purse. By the way, that was a great picture of you standing on the courthouse stairs. Anyway, they got to talking, her lawyer mentioned the boring dating scene, one thing led to another, and she took the newspaper clipping out of her purse and handed it to him. She then asked if he’d be interested in dating you.”

  “She what!”

  Katelyn threw her hands up in mock surrender. “Ya’ll know how loose-lipped Teri gets when she’s drinking. But aside from that, he’s a good catch and very handsome. Teri said he was practically salivating when staring at your picture. So, if it doesn’t work out with Jack, there’s your other option.”

  “How embarrassing,” I said, rolling my eyes and hoping I never run into the man.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” said Laura as she snickered. “Before Cacey left for Spain, she told me when she gets back she’s going to consult with a few of her California friends, no doubt the Hari Krishnas of Hollywood. She’s thinking maybe you could try psychic channeling to find answers to your men problems.” Laura was barely able to contain her laughter.

  “Ha, ha, very funny,” I said sarcastically. “Can we for once just not talk about my dating life?”

  “Of course honey,” Katelyn said, trying to control her giggle. “I just want to say one thing and then I promise to shut up. I know Jack. He’s very sincere and above all, he’s honest. Plus…”

  As Katelyn rattled on about Jack, I knew she and Laura meant well by trying to help with my non-existent love life, but that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was worried about Matt. I had read in the research book I have that ghosts sometimes return because they died tragically and unexpected, like Matt. They may feel they have unfinished business on earth. I was scared Matt could get lost while crossing different planes of the universe. And if he did, could he ever make his way back?

  I suddenly heard someone speak in my head. “Yeah baby, your legs wrapped around my waist.” I looked around wondering who the jerk was that said that. I noticed a barge-like forty-something man seated to the right of our table chewing his French fries like a cow chewing cud. He raised an eyebrow and winked at me.

  “Pig!” I blurted out.

  “What did you just say?” Laura spouted.

  “Huh?” I gave a cursory glance at Katelyn and Laura. “Oh, nothing.”

  “You know,” Laura said, “you’ve been acting stranger than usual lately. Something’s up with you.”

  “I’ve noticed too,” said Katelyn.

  “No, no, everything’s fine,” I said, as I turned to sneer at the cud-chewer.

  Laura’s eyes narrowed. “You sure?”

  “Yes, quite.” I quickly picked up my glass and gulped my water.

  “Okay, well back to Jack,” said Katelyn. “Remember me telling you that he was already a twenty-something professor at Brown when I graduated. Well I can tell ya’ll this much, there wasn’t a girl in my class who didn’t swoon over him.”

  I clasped my fingers on my lap and studied the table. “I agree he’s handsome, smart, kind, and decent, but I just don’t think he’s my type.” I didn’t hide my less than thrilled attitude. However, Laura ignored my obvious lack of interest and droned on to Katelyn about the great time we had at dinner with David and Jack, while enlightening me on things I didn’t remember doing or saying. Even when our salads arrived and she was eating, she was like a chattering chinchilla--to the point of being irri
tating. I tied to be upbeat and listened attentively. Only once, did I groan until finally I had to put a stop to her rambling.

  “So, you sounded a little annoyed with David,” I interjected while she was in mid-sentence.

  “Ah, who?” she asked, her fork suspended in midair.

  “David, the man you’ve been sleeping with for the past five months?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Katelyn. “Maybe one day I’ll finally get to meet him.”

  Sticking the forkful of salad in her mouth, I knew Laura was stalling, trying to catch up with the unpredicted switch in topics. Whenever Laura became overly hyper, I knew she was trying to hide something that was brothering her.

  “Oh, you mean when I was on the phone with him before we left the office?” She took a deep breath, looked as if she was about to say something, but instead, she harpooned the scallop lying on top of a chopped lettuce leaf. She put the scallop in her mouth, gave a slight shake of her head, and waved her fork dismissively. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Hmm,” said Katelyn as she looked sideways at me.

  “No it’s not,” I said. “Come on, tell us what’s wrong.”

  She stabbed her fork into the salad again, looking as if she were trying to murder it. “Well, it’s just that...what I mean is...” The utensil clinked, as she dropped it onto her plate. She pressed the linen napkin to her lips and patted.

  “First you two have to promise this just stays between us,” she said sternly.

  “Of course,” I said.

  Katelyn nodded. “Absolutely.”

  “Okay, I’m not too proud to admit that I’m spoiled. Always have been and always will be. And you know I’ve never been the possessive type, but if David isn’t spending every minute of his free time with me, I get pissed. Sometimes my imagination runs wild.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Katelyn.

  “You know, like maybe he’s interested in someone else. I really don’t have a good explanation for why I feel that way. Just something about him that gnaws at the back of my mind.” Laura’s gaze traveled over the crowded dining room.