Silt, Denver Cereal Volume 8

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “Because this is what you do right before you leave,” Jacob said. “You start a lot of work and then wander off.”

  “Hey!” Valerie sounded indignant.

  He scowled at her.

  “Well, so what if I do?” Valerie grinned. “You miss me when I’m gone.”

  “Right this moment, I’d like to miss you some.” Jacob gave her a sly smile.

  Valerie chuckled.

  “When do you leave?” Jacob asked.

  “End of the week,” Valerie said. “Are you coming to my opening?”

  “No,” Jacob said.

  “What?” Valerie’s eyes welled with tears.

  Jacob scowled and Valerie laughed.

  “Jill can’t travel. Lipson is at a precipice, blah, blah,” Valerie said. “I liked it better when I had you all to myself.”

  Jacob laughed.

  “Okay, I didn’t.” Valerie grinned.

  “What’s the schedule?” Jacob asked.

  “Premiere next weekend,” Valerie said. “I’m in LA for two weeks to work on that animated thing and then back home for a month to train for the next movie. And . . .”

  She looked up at him and laughed.

  “You knew all of that,” Valerie said.

  “You’ve sent me ten updates,” Jacob said.

  “I’m going to miss you,” Valerie said.

  “I’ll miss you too,” Jacob said. “But you need to follow your dreams. You’ll be miserable if you stay here much longer.”

  Valerie nodded.

  “You’ll take care of Delphie and everybody?” Valerie asked. “Watch out for Charlie?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “We should be home when Jill delivers,” Valerie said. “I’d never leave if I didn’t think I would be home for . . .”

  “I know,” Jacob said. “Can I help you at all?”

  Valerie shook her head. Their eyes met for a brief moment in silent acknowledgement of their bond.

  “Ok, well, glad we got that settled,” Valerie said.

  She flipped her head and did her best flounce out of his office. She pulled his door closed because she knew it would bug him, smiled at Blane, and walked toward the entrance. She was almost to the front, when she remembered that she forgot to remind him to meditate. Not wanting to give up one of her last chances to boss him around, she turned around and went back to his office.

  She heard their CFO, Tres Sierra, call Blane. He got up from his desk and went to talk to Tres. She went past his desk to Jacob’s office.

  She opened the door.

  No Jacob.

  She glanced at Blane’s back and went into the office. Jacob was passed out on the floor. He was lying on his side behind his desk. He looked like he had fallen out of his office chair.

  Valerie closed the door and sat down near his head. She rolled him on his back. He made the low guttural noise he made when he was having a powerful psychic episode. Having never had one herself, Valerie always saw these as attacks of vision. She hated that her brother went away from her. She lived in terror that some day, he wouldn’t come back.

  “I told you to meditate,” Valerie said in a low voice. She put his head on her lap. “You get backed up and . . .”

  She looked up to see Blane looking in the office.

  “He’s having a vision,” Valerie said. “A bad one.”

  “I’ll cancel his appointments,” Blane said.

  Valerie nodded. Blane closed the door.

  “Okay, little brother, I’m here,” Valerie said. “Don’t get lost coming back.”

  Valerie settled in to wait.

  Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Nine

  Vision

  Tuesday morning—10:05 a.m.

  Jacob shook his head when Valerie closed the door. She only did that because she knew it bugged him. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing him get up to open it, so he waited a few minutes. This gave him a little time to obsess on his deepest fear—the Marlowe boys would kill Jill.

  He shook his head. No one seemed to know. When he asked Jill, she just smiled at him and told him she wasn’t Celia. Delphie was as wound up as he was about the whole thing. She was no help.

  He leaned forward to get up and . . .

  He had the sense of falling out of his chair. He felt the carpet greet him before his body disappeared and he was a soul walking.

  He was standing at the door of what looked like a bar. He pushed the door open and was assaulted by the stale odor of old beer, fried food, and warm bodies. The room was full of laughing drunks sitting at tables and a long bar that backed up against the right side. A woman near the back pushed a button on the jukebox and Peggy Lee’s “Hey Big Spender” came on the jukebox. The woman turned around.

  Jacob took a step back. She was the secretary who had made his life hell. She winked at him and went to sit down with one of the old guys he’d kicked off the Lipson Construction board. Shaking his head, he stepped into the crowded room.

  “Are you looking for me?”

  A woman stood at a table near the center of the room. She looked like a comic book gypsy. Her skin was dark and her accent was rough. Her excessive makeup was topped off by a fake beauty mark near the corner of her mouth. When she gave him a bright red-lipped smile, the weight her false eye lashes made her eyes thin slits. She wore a bright blue silk scarf in a turban on her head, gold rings on every finger, and a sheer bright orange skirt. With a jangle of at least a hundred gold bangle bracelets, she gestured to the small table in front of her where a Tarot deck was spread. He smiled and sat down across from her.

  “Hi Mom,” Jacob said.

  “I am not your mother,” the gypsy said. “I am Fifika, gypsy enchantress.”

  “Nice to see you too, Mom,” Jacob said.

  “Can’t you just play along?” Celia waved her arm over the cards again.

  “Sure,” Jacob said. “Tell me why I am here, Fif . . . What was it?”

  “I am Fifika.” Celia jangled her bracelets as she raised her arm over her head.

  “Fifika,” Jacob said. “The hamster’s name? Seriously.”

  Celia gave him a stern look.

  “Fine,” Jacob said. “Why am I here?”

  “You have a question,” Celia continued in her gypsy accent.

  “I do?” Jacob asked.

  Celia gave him a frustrated look that was straight out of Valerie’s play book.

  “I’m in a new place, M . . . uh . . . Fifika,” Jacob said. “How ‘bout you remind me? Can I have a beer while I’m here?”

  “No, you can’t drink beer in visions!” Celia said.

  “I wonder why not,” Jacob said. “Now that’s a good question for Fifika.”

  Celia scowled at him.

  “Why am I here, Mom?” Jacob asked. “I have a company to run and . . .”

  “You also have a few questions?” Celia asked.

  “Remind me,” Jacob said.

  “You were wondering about the babies?” Celia asked.

  “Yeah, that is weird,” Jacob nodded. “Why aren’t they killing Jill like I almost killed you? I adored you, loved you always, but without Delphie’s help you would have died in childbirth like all the women who’ve had Marlowe males before you. You and me, we’re the only ones who’ve survived.”

  “An excellent question,” Celia said in her Fifika accent. She tried to shuffle the deck of Tarot cards, but wasn’t able to. “Why won’t you let me shuffle?”

  “Because I never get much out of those cards,” Jacob said. “Plus, you know the answer. Just tell me; no props.”

  “You’ve become very impatient,” Celia said.

  “I have this feeling, Mom,” Jacob said. “It feels like everything is teetering on the top of an apex. If I change the balance in any direction everything will crash.”

  Celia scowled and her comic book gypsy face folded into itself with only her nose sticking out. If Jacob hadn’t been so upset, he would have laughed out loud.

 
; “I keep running from thing to thing, but I . . .” Jacob leaned forward. “I don’t have any idea what the problem is or how everything got to be on this mountain. If I don’t keep running, everything will fall apart. It’s not logical. Everything is really fine, more than fine. It’s just . . .”

  “That’s why you’re having this vision,” Celia said. “To deal with your uncertainty.”

  “Can’t you just tell me?” Jacob said.

  “I don’t know everything,” Celia said. “I can tell you about your boys, though.”

  “Okay,” Jacob said.

  The jukebox started to play “Hey Big Spender” again and Jacob groaned. Celia laughed.

  “The boys?” Jacob asked.

  “Your vision, my darling boy. If you don’t like the song, change it.”

  “How?” Jacob asked.

  “I remember a time when you felt like you could do anything in the world,” Celia said. “How did you get so . . . bound up?”

  “Everything I do now affects other people,” Jacob said. “If I turn that song off, that horrible woman will be upset. If I change you back to your regular self, you’ll be pissed. If I . . .”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s like my hands are tied.” He shook his head. “Like I’m the puppet master. If I move too far this way, bam, everything falls apart.”

  “You don’t want to lose everything,” Celia said.

  “I don’t want to lose anything,” Jacob said. “My life is . . . perfect and . . .”

  “Very hard.” Celia reached out and stroked his cheek with her red nailed gypsy hand. “I do know something about this.”

  Jacob looked at her.

  “You created all of this—Jill, the company, your life, your health—because it was what was good for you. Every choice you made, you made it based on what was best for you.”

  “I can’t live that kind of selfish life now,” Jacob said. “I have Jill and . . .”

  Celia tipped her head to the side. Jacob was struck at how odd it was to see his mother’s love and compassion on Fifika the gypsy’s face.

  “It’s better for you to bear this burden, to feel so uncomfortable yourself, so that you don’t lose everything.” Celia gave him a small smile. “Is that right?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “Remember when we did the ice crystal thing?” Celia asked. “It seems kind of silly right now but . . .”

  “Where Val and I loved the water and hated it?” Jacob nodded. “Val’s love was gorgeous and mine . . . see that’s what I mean! I have to be really careful because I can’t love very well.”

  “She’d already met Mike,” Celia said. “She was in love for the first time.”

  “Oh,” Jacob said.

  “Hey Big Spender” started up again on the jukebox and he looked over to see who was causing the racket. The evil secretary gave him a little wave and went back to sit down.

  “Turn off the music,” Celia said.

  “She’s enjoying it,” Jacob said.

  “You don’t even like her!” Celia said. “Good Lord.”

  “I don’t like her, but I don’t want any trouble with her either,” Jacob said. “Jill was really upset when that happened and she has the boys now and . . .”

  The volume of the music rose. Jacob’s ears began to ring. He dropped his head on the table.

  “Your vision,” Celia said. “You’re in control here.”

  He groaned.

  “You really never meditate, do you?” Celia asked.

  “I have a few other things to do.” Jacob snarled.

  “If you meditated, you would know that you created this room,” Celia said. “Do you trust me?”

  Jacob sat up to look at her. He nodded.

  “Turn off the music,” Celia said.

  Jacob raised his hand to destroy the jukebox.

  “Don’t do that,” Celia said.

  “You just said to turn off the music,” Jacob said.

  “With your mind, Jacob Marlowe. Do it with your mind.”

  Jacob rolled his eyes and lowered his arm.

  “Think,” Celia said. “Music off.”

  “Music off,” Jacob said.

  The jukebox turned off. The evil secretary got up from her seat and smiled at him. She walked to the jukebox.

  “Go away,” Jacob said.

  She disappeared.

  “You’re spending so much energy trying to hold everything together that you’ve become stunted,” Celia said. “You’re not growing. The business isn’t growing. Your love with Jill isn’t expanding. You’re not living.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do you remember what happened when you hated the water?” Celia asked.

  Jacob nodded.

  “You’re too powerful to be so uncomfortable,” Celia said.

  “I’m uncomfortable because everything is about to change!”

  “You’re uncomfortable because you’ve told yourself that things cannot change or you will lose everything,” Celia said. “Katy is not a tiny fatherless girl anymore. Jill will have your twins and they will be wonderful. You can leave Lipson Construction in less than a year. Valerie is growing. Your Dad will continue to learn and grow.”

  “Why won’t you tell me what’s happening to Jill and the boys?” Jacob’s voice rose with desperation.

  “Because you already know,” Celia said. “You also know what’s wrong. You just won’t let yourself know. You’d rather stay in this bar, listening to that horrible song, than actually risk taking a step in your life.”

  “But I’ll lose Jill?”

  “What would she say if you told her that?” Celia asked.

  “She would . . .” Jacob looked up to see Jill walk into the room. It wasn’t the Jill he'd married. It was when Jill was pregnant with Katy. Her long, dark hair was falling out of a braid down her back. She looked exhausted and so gorgeous. He smiled at her. She gave him a secret smile and went to take an order at one of the tables.

  “Why don’t the boys hurt Jill?” Celia asked in a low voice.

  “Because they have each other.” Jacob turned to look at her. “They’re not alone.”

  “Marlowe men are desperately lonely,” Celia said. “Even at birth, they know they’re different, unusual. Most of them spend their lives alone, in mines, and other crevices in the world. You don’t meditate because the silence feels lonely.”

  Jacob felt her words echo through his being. He nodded, and looked up to see if Jill was still waiting tables. She looked up from a table near the back and smiled at him.

  “You know, she’s never been angry with me for having Katy when she was so poor and . . .” Jacob smiled at Jill.

  “Why do you think that is?” Celia asked.

  Jacob shrugged.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Celia asked.

  His mother turned around and waved Jill over. Jill gave him a sweet smile, and turned to Celia.

  “What can I bring you?” Jill asked.

  “Why haven’t you been angry with my son for not taking care of you when you were pregnant with Katy?” Celia asked. “And letting you live hand to mouth when she was a baby?”

  “Gosh so many reasons.” Jill looked at Jacob and blushed. “If I’d known that Katy wasn’t stupid Trevor’s, I wouldn’t have stayed with him. I would have left and lived with Meg or . . .”

  Jill gestured to Jacob.

  “If Jake had known Katy was his baby girl, he would have moved mountains to find us.” Jill nodded. “Right?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “And why aren’t you mad?” Celia asked.

  “Because that’s just life,” Jill said. “I needed to go through everything that happened so I would be ready for life with Jake. If Trevor hadn’t left me and all of everything horrible, I couldn’t have what I have now.”

  Jill nodded and moved away from the table.

  “By trying to hold everything together, you’re . . .” Celia started.

  “Being very sel
fish,” Jacob said. “Blocking other people from learning what they need to learn.”

  “From growing,” Celia interrupted. “You’re stopping everyone from growing and by being uncomfortable you’re emitting waves of cosmic junk into everyone and everything around you. You’re powerful enough to lock everyone in that goo.”

  “Like what?”

  “Honey and MJ’s apartment project?” Celia raised her artificially arched gypsy eyebrows at Jacob. “Tanesha’s house? You didn’t finish the basement. Did you?”

  “No but they did move in,” Jacob said. “They say it’s perfect.”

  “Their perfect and your perfect are not the same things, are they?” Celia asked. “How much needs to be done on Tanesha’s yellow house?”

  “About an hour,” Jacob said. “More or less.”

  “And that poor apartment building has been stuck in inspection for . . .”

  “Three months,” Jacob said.

  Celia nodded.

  “You mean I’m causing this?” Jacob asked.

  “You’re not making all the chaos happen,” Celia said. “No one can do that, but you’re not making it better either.”

  Jacob looked up to watch Jill move around the room with a tray full of food.

  “She’s very beautiful,” Jacob said. “And she’s not moving now either. It’s driving her crazy. She can’t even get her hair done or see Tanesha’s house or . . .”

  Celia put her hand on his arm and he looked at her.

  “Let it go,” Celia said. “Stop holding on so tightly.”

  “I’ll lose everything,” he said in a low tone.

  “Or gain everything.” She smiled at him. “What’s wrong with Lipson Construction?”

  “Ah Mom,” Jacob said. “If we’re going to talk about work, can you change back?”

  She nodded and transformed into her usual form. He smiled.

  “Will you get us out of this bar?” she asked.

  With a nod, they were sitting on a bench looking at the back side of Mount Evans just off of Guanella Pass.

  “I loved it here,” Celia said.

  “I know,” Jacob said.

  “What’s wrong with my company?” Celia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jacob said. “Everyone I trust seems really skittish about this big new job. Why did we get it? Those guys I fired are hovering around the site like buzzards and . . .”