Sandcastles

by Suzie Carr

  When she disappeared through the door, a strange buzz filled my head and tiny tremors vibrated through me.

  “Lia? Are you alright?” Dean asked, taking my hand and leading back to the couch. “You look like you’re going to faint.”

  I sat down in the spot she just rose from. “That woman is not right in the head,” I said through clenched teeth. “She’s irresponsible tossing predictions around like she does.”

  Dean sat down beside me, took my hand and squeezed it. “What did she say?”

  My heart clenched, tangled up around the new seed she just planted. It hadn’t even been two minutes since its induction into my body, yet it grew woody and thick and strangled me from the inside out. “She told me I’m imbalanced and urged me to visit the wellness center.”

  Dean stretched his eyes wide, and he eased up on the hand squeeze. “She’s not right in the head, like you said. Don’t pay her any mind.”

  I pressed my lips together, and leaned back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling tiles, hoping she really was not right in the head.

  Dean reciprocated the pose.

  We remained recumbent without speaking for several minutes, just being there together. At one point, he reached over and clasped my hand in his. “You do feel okay, don’t you?”

  “I think so.” I swallowed softly, afraid to wreak havoc on my potential fragile system. I pictured synapses in my brain snapping, blood vessels collapsing, bones crumbling, blood turning thick as oil, and cells changing from pink to black as they died off one by one.

  “We should ditch work and go play at the beach,” he said. “Just forget about everything for a few hours and come back clearheaded. I’ll call and reschedule our meeting with the new client. What do you say?”

  I squeezed his hand, comforted by his presence. “I say that sounds like a mighty fine plan.”

  He stood and pulled me up. “First one to the elevator gets to drive?”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter Five

  Willow

  Yvonne, my aunt’s wife, always followed her dreams. I admired that about her.

  When she wanted something, she just visualized it, and it appeared in her life. Most people accessorized their homes with artwork or family pictures. Not her. She filled the walls with endless affirmations, stenciled as borders in most every room, sparing only the laundry room and the pool house. Even years after starting that practice, she still sought out white space when a new affirmation inspired her. Aunt Lola and I always got a kick out of seeing her perched on top of a step ladder and singing off-key as she taped plastic letter stencils to the wall. When she dove into creative mode, she climbed up and down that ladder measuring, moving the ladder, re-measuring, and pressing the stencil against the wall with a satisfied grin on her face. Aunt Lola and I always just sat back, sipped wine, and remarked how much we wished we had half as much of her energy.

  My aunt always said things like, “I swear she’s got an invisible cylinder with endless energy strapped to that back of hers. If she keeps splashing our walls with her personality like that, we’re not going to have any more white space.”

  Yvonne’s late husband built her the home they now lived in. Their house far outdid any leading five-star tropical resort. Well, if you could get past all the affirmations, of course. The Queen Ann style house with its round tower, wrap-around porch, and complicated asymmetrical shape showcased its regal qualities. Step inside, though, and comfort coupled up with practical to create a soft, lived-in environment that clicked nicely with Yvonne’s earthy, energetic vibe.

  According to Aunt Lola, when Yvonne’s husband passed away from a massive heart attack only ten years after she had married him, he left behind a jewelry business worth thirty-two million dollars. He also left behind a mistress that crawled out of the ground like a big, fat, slimy earthworm and demanded she get part of the estate, as she had spent the last eight years by his side too.

  Apparently, Yvonne decided not to let the woman leave empty-handed. Quick-witted as always, Yvonne placed the key to her late husband’s safe-deposit box in her hand and said her share would be there. Of course, her share didn’t consist of valuables, but rather sappy sentiments. He had stored all of his precious childhood memories in that box, including coloring books with his scribbles, paper plates with the outline of his hand to serve as a turkey, and empty boxes of his favorite sweets like candy cigarettes, because he always feared the house would burn down and he’d lose those memories forever.

  After handing her the key, she asked her to wait a moment as she ran to get something else that might’ve been of interest to her. She landed back in front of the mistress and handed her a sealed box. “Open it in private. I’m sure he would’ve wanted it that way.”

  The mistress accepted the sealed box, which contained his dirty underwear and gym shorts, turned with a satisfied grin, and marched across the wooden porch and down the stairs. When she walked past the stone wall, separating the porch garden area from the driveway, Yvonne turned on the sprinkler system and laughed her ass off as Little Miss Horn Ball sprinted through the green grass to get to her car parked at the far end of the circular driveway.

  After that surprise visit, Yvonne decided to go on a self-discovery tour, using all her new money. She went to medical school where she specialized in internal medicine. Hating the system, with all its rules on efficiency over functionality, she ventured away from traditional, and sought a more holistic approach that would allow her time to get down to the root causes of illness and help people find answers that could bring a higher level of quality to their lives.

  When Yvonne set her mind to something, she got it. She wanted to learn eastern philosophy medicine from its authentic source, so what did she do? She dug and dug until she got what she wanted – a firsthand introduction to a well-known Indian healer who practiced Ayurveda.

  Ayurveda, otherwise known as the Science of Healing, was a 5,000-year-old system of natural healing that began in the Vedic culture of India, and a science that clicked with Yvonne right away.

  She had met her calling.

  After many years of training under that healer, she decided to return to America and open up The Physical Healing Center, and had managed to turn it into one of the area’s premiere Naturopath destinations.

  When I started working for her as a yoga instructor, she put me through some rigorous training, not just in her philosophy of yoga, but in all aspects of health, balance, nutrition, and even interpersonal skills. That woman knew how to operate a first-class center.

  Aunt Lola wanted nothing to do with that side of her. “I’m the one who gets to bring her back down to the Earth plane at the end of the day,” she would joke.

  I credited Yvonne for helping me to get over the emotional trauma of my failed marriage. All that chanting and summoning of universal energy that she insisted I do in my early employee training, helped me understand that negativity just bred more negativity and sucked the life out of anything that attempted to be its polar opposite. For years, I used to think I did something wrong to cause my ex-husband, Robbie, to be miserable all the time. Thanks to my new yoga training, I learned a few things. Turned out, he was just a miserable asshole all along!

  It still amazed me how much clarity could come from a few focused sessions of sitting on a yoga mat and humming to center myself. In those sessions, reality and truth always arrived and showed me Robbie had been miserable all along because he wanted to be, and no amount of smiling, cajoling, or spoiling him would’ve ever put a smile on his face.

  We disliked each other.

  He hated my eccentric side, and I hated all of his sides.

  He hadn’t smiled since before I got pregnant with Anthony. I found out later on, the only one who got to see his smile after that point in our marriage was Sharon, the woman who supposedly got to see more than his smile.

  When Yvonne taught me her methods of yoga and meditation, the anger disappeared, just as she told me it would. It
allowed me to forgive him. I no longer went around referring to him as an asshole or a conniving, two-timing bastard, even though that used to perk me right up. I now could even smile at his straight face when he dropped off and picked up the kids on his weekends. I’ve even offered him a soda from time to time.

  Sharon made him happy, and ultimately handed me a ticket to freedom.

  Win-win for both of us.

  I loved being free. I got to do things I loved, and without having to justify why. If I wanted to spend three hours in the living room repeating my sun salutations, I could damned well do that. Try explaining yoga to a man who thought a chakra was a form of voodoo.

  I no longer had to pretend I enjoyed things with him, like sex, sleeping in on Sunday mornings and having to listen to his snoring, or sharing the porch with him as he stunk up the air with his cigars that he started smoking when he found out I was pregnant with Charlotte.

  My aunt warned me about him, after I first introduced them. Stubborn me though, I ignored her advice to flee. No one before him had treated me to Saturday nights at the Dance Harbor or challenged me to games of pool at Sunday night Football events. In my naïve view, I had struck gold. Turned out I struck a dark dead end; I couldn't see the writing on the wall in front of me.

  “Life always works out to everyone’s advantage,” Aunt Lola loved to remind me. “It’s just a matter of which reference point you’re looking at life from on any given day.”

  I struggled believing her. Even now.

  Life hadn’t exactly worked out to my advantage. Specifically with Lia Stone. She kicked me out of her office like I was a no-good troublemaker. That same fear from the campground sat on her face like a mask. I only wanted to help her, not freak her out.

  I couldn’t erase the memory of her tense look from earlier that morning.

  So, I ventured to my aunt’s house to get away from that sinking feeling.

  I sat on a lounge chair under the large umbrella and sipped on some iced tea. Aunt Lola walked toward me carrying a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa. She wore her big straw sunhat, the one with a bow on its side and a floppy rim. She wore a flowery one piece with a skirt, and with every stride she took, her skirt flipped up in the air.

  We all dressed for July, yet April had barely started. We had a heated pool plus higher than normal temps to thank for that.

  My aunt handed me the chips and yelled for Anthony and Charlotte to come get some. They climbed their water-logged bodies out of the deep end of the pool and shivered all the way over to us, dripping and carrying on about how the slate burned their feet.

  “It’s hot out here, but not that hot,” I said.

  Anthony hovered his drenched, skinny body right over the bowl and dripped all over them.

  I nudged him backwards. “Honestly? Did I raise you to be a chip destroyer?”

  He flipped his hair and wrinkled his nose, digging in. “Yup. I love soggy chips.” He broke into a clumsy dance wiggling his butt and arms out of sync and singing how he loved them soggy chips, loved them real good.

  Charlotte scanned the bowl like her brother had poisoned the chips. “He ruined them.”

  I closed my eyes. One afternoon. That’s all I wanted. Just one peaceful afternoon without bickering and whining.

  “Charlotte, sweetheart,” Aunt Lola pulled her into her arms. “I’ve got some fresh ones in the pool house. What do you say we go get them and hide them from him?”

  I shot her a warning look. “Aunt Lola, stop. You’re spoiling her.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s what Auntie does, right?” She squeezed Charlotte. “We’ll be right back.”

  Charlotte took her hand and skipped by her side, forgetting all about that hot slated patio and how it burned her feet only moments ago.

  I laid back against the chair, closing my eyes while Anthony inspected the nearby spring grass for insects. In the black space between my closed eyes and lids, I saw Lia’s flabbergasted face again. “I’m such an idiot,” I whispered.

  “What did I tell you about talking to yourself like that?” Yvonne snuck up behind me and tossed a towel at my face.

  I groaned.

  “Why would you lie around saying that kind of trash to yourself?”

  “Because I messed up,” I whined.

  “Your aunt already told me about the train wreck.” Yvonne straddled the chair next to me. “Eh, it happens. We cause a pile up and we move on.” She squirted me with her water bottle. “Right?”

  “I should’ve just minded my own business.”

  “You’re damn right you should’ve.” She leaned back and took a good long inhale, raking her hands through her sun-bleached cropped hair. “I’ll tell you what you should’ve done. You should’ve approached her a little less like you were trying to sell her an annual membership to our facility. We’re not Bally Total Fitness.” She cupped her hand over her eyes and stared at me as if waiting on me to agree.

  “I wish I would’ve had the hindsight.”

  “Hindsight would’ve told you that you could’ve just invited her to an open house and let me talk her into a complimentary package deal that included full body scans.” She twisted her mouth to drive home the point that I acted way out of the responsible lines.

  “That would’ve been the obvious strategic move.”

  She cupped her hand on my shoulder. “Well, you and I both know that if we sat across from each other with a chess board between us, it’s likely you’re not going to win,” she talked through her laughter.

  I broke a chip in half and chomped down on it. “I hate chess anyway.”

  She looked up to the spotless blue sky. “You know the rules, sweetheart. We can’t go forcing ourselves on potential patients. They come to us when the universe tells them they should.”

  “I just wanted to help her.”

  She cupped her hand back over her eyes again. “Help her what? Avoid the regular stresses of life?”

  “I got a vision of her talking to a doctor.”

  She stretched her eyes. “I’d say that’s pretty darned clear, then. Roll out the casket, get the organ tuned up, and order the funeral flowers.”

  “I didn’t say she was going to die,” I said, raising my voice.

  “What did you sense exactly?”

  “She was pacing and upset.”

  “Maybe she was getting a boob enhancement consultation and he told her she couldn’t get a double D because her back couldn’t support it.” She cupped her boobs in her hands. “These suckers do hurt the back. Look at them. They’re like gigantic floating devices. Who needs a lifejacket out in the middle of the ocean when you’ve got a set of these attached?”

  I laughed. “You’re a nut.”

  “I have to be, to keep up with you and your aunt. You two will always be a mystery to me.” She sat up tall. “I prefer keeping it that way. Whenever I try too hard to understand you both, my brain gets all twisted up like a sailor’s knot.”

  I stretched my legs out in front of me. “We’re not that difficult.”

  She shot me a sardonic smile.

  “All I know is that I acted out of a sheer desire to help her,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to drum up business.”

  “I love you to pieces for being so sweet,” she said, putting her finger on the trigger of that squirt bottle. “But, that’s not how we operate. Capisci?

  I eyed her trigger happy finger. “Yes,” I said.

  She removed her finger and looked over at Anthony crawling around the grass on his knees.

  I sighed and leaned back again, closing my eyes and enjoying the light breeze. The cicadas, early to arrive that year in New England, chirped in full force, waving high and low with their song. The pool filter gurgled. Someone mowed grass in an adjacent yard. I slid into that sweet springtime pocket of relaxation. Then, Yvonne squirted me again.

  My eyes shot open and landed on her standing above me with her trigger finger depressed. “What do you say we just drown out this bad vibe here,
and teach your son how to do a cannon ball jump?”

  I wiped the water from my face and pulled my knees up to my chest. “I don’t know how to do a cannon ball jump.”

  “Oh,” she said, staring down at me. “I guess I have to do everything around here. She took off her sandals and her beach dress, and ran toward the diving board, giggling like a kid jacked up on sugary candy, waving her arms in the air, and yelling over to Anthony to watch and learn.

  He ran over to the pool, yanking his bathing trunks up higher, and arrived just in time to catch a glimpse of the most clumsy single flip cannon ball jump known to mankind. Water splashed everywhere, and soon the top of Yvonne’s short cropped hair bobbed up and down along side of the waves she created. “Ah, that was amazing,” she screamed, whipping her head around and flinging more water at anything within a ten foot radius.

  Aunt Lola and Charlotte walked out of the pool house door, took one look at the sea of wavy bubbles and turned to head back into the safety of the pool house with their fresh bowl of chips.

  Yvonne laughed at them, then swam to the side. “Well come on,” she said to me. “We don’t have all day to get that sourpuss off your face. Get on over to the diving board and have a go at it.”

  For anyone else, I’d close my eyes again. For Yvonne, I’d do anything she instructed. That lady knew her stuff. I certainly could’ve used some of her magic that afternoon. So, dutifully as ever, I climbed off the lounger, removed my t-shirt and headed over to the diving board where I proceeded to refresh myself in a good old-fashioned cannon ball jump.

  Chapter Six

  Lia

  Dean drove us back and forth to the beach. He didn’t once bring up Willow, and I didn’t either. We spent the day goofing off on one of Rhode Island’s big tourist destinations, the Cliff Walk in Newport, and then later pigging out on hand-churned ice cream in Brick Market Place. I enjoyed slipping into tourist mode, wearing my big shades and pretending like Willow’s visit that morning didn’t affect me in the least bit. Then Dean asked, “Have you ever considered scuba diving?”