Family Affair

by Saxon Bennett

  "I thought it was a biological thing."

  "They got her mixed up with another woman." Chase earmarked the page with the cute flannel baby outfit. Yellow would be good—a nice gender-neutral color.

  "Like when the surgeon cuts off the wrong leg?"

  "Something like that." That cutting off the leg thing certainly stuck in everyone's head, Chase mused.

  "Can I decorate the baby's room?" Lacey asked. There was a gasp. "Next week she'll be two months along. We better get going."

  "I think seven months will give us enough time." Interior design was one thing Lacey was good at. She'd done wonders with the furniture purchases and placement in the unusual floor plan of Chase and Gitana's house. Classified as passive solar, the house was a long rectangle with large windows along the entire front of the house which made furniture placement a difficulty, but the house was energy efficient and that made Chase feel very hip and green. Chase closed the catalog and spun around in her chair to look at her early blooming flowers in the jewel garden. The daffodils and crocus were beginning to flower, dotting the garden with bursts of yellow and white.

  "When you coming to town?" Lacey inquired.

  "Tomorrow. I have to go to the shrink."

  This didn't appear to faze Lacey which Chase thought was good. Not everyone handled having a crazy person for their best friend. Chase could have been going to the dentist not the Behavioral Science building.

  "Call me when you're done and we'll go shopping. I'll work out a color scheme. Have you told Stella yet?" Lacey asked, effortlessly switching gears.

  "No, but I will." She was going to try for that night, but wanted to see if Gitana was up for it and didn't want to commit if she bailed. Potentially unpleasant activities could, in all good conscience, be put off. She did it with Ariana, her editor, all the time so what was the difference.

  "I wish I could be there."

  Chase heard pining in her voice. "I'd invite you, but this is a private family moment and I don't know how Stella is going to take it."

  "I know." There was a heavy sigh.

  Chase felt bad. “I’ll give you all the details."

  "Swear?"

  "Girl Scout's honor." Chase held up two fingers.

  "You got thrown out for being a belligerent anarchist."

  "I know, but I was a kid then. As an adult, I make oaths with complete sincerity."

  "Right. Well, I'm off to Jazzercise."

  "Have you seen Jasmine at class lately?" Chase inquired as Jasmine had missed their last meeting.

  Jasmine Carter was in Chase's writing group. She compulsively exercised and wrote thrillers, but her protagonists always ended up in the gym and the story got stuck there.

  "No, her husband is keeping close tabs on her. Her shrink advised cutting down on her exercise classes because she's excessive. She says she's concentrating more on her writing."

  "We'll find out next group meeting." Which, come to think of it was her turn to host. This meant she'd have to shovel out the writing studio and soon.

  Chase clicked off and got back to work. To keep on schedule, she had to write fifteen pages a day. She turned to her notebook and began scribbling, letting her imaginary world take-over. It was more comforting than the real world. In her world, she controlled everything.

  Gitana was home from work. The dogs dashed out the broken screen doggy door and were across the front yard before Chase had shut her notebook, got up and stretched. If anyone thought the writing life was glamorous they were sadly misinformed. Sitting was difficult for the hyperactive. Her back hurt, her fingers cramped up and her mind was tired from creating an entire universe in her cerebral cortex.

  From the front yard, she heard Gitana cooing and fawning over the dogs. Chase imagined Gitana as a mother. She'd make a great mother, a perfect mix of love and discipline. She herself was the one who needed serious reconstruction. One of her writing manuals purported that any subject could be mastered by spending sixty days in a decent library. Was the same possible with parenting?

  Chase made her way down to the sunroom and kissed Gitana.

  "How was your day?" Gitana asked, as she scratched first Annie's ears and then Jane's.

  "Well spent and yours?"

  "Profitable."

  That was Gitana's keyword for she sold a lot of orchids or she got a wicked deal on a shipment of orchids. She looked radiant. Had her pregnancy already given her that glow people always talk about?

  "Are you still willing to have that chat with Stella?"

  Gitana smiled. "No time like the present."

  She said it without cringing. Chase was impressed. "We'll feed the dogs and then pop over during her cocktail hour."

  "Is she more amiable then?"

  Chase nodded. "More like less argumentative. Her combat skills are slightly impaired." She bounced a tennis ball for Jane who caught it in midair.

  "At least that's in our favor," Gitana said, as she opened the kitchen door.

  Chase followed her in. The dogs came in behind them. Gitana set her bag on the counter and retrieved two biscuits from the treat jar. She indicated down with her hand and both dogs sat. She gave them their biscuits and patted their heads.

  "Let's get it over with," Chase said, filling the dog bowls with kibble and trying to look cheerful.

  Chapter Three

  Stella Banter lived in an enormous house in Four Hills. The silos of the missiles that were part of Kirkland Air Force Base were ostensibly in her backyard. She liked it that her property was protected in the finest manner. It went well with the rest of her well-deserved privileged life. Every time Chase pulled up in the circular driveway with its automatic black wrought iron gates—the letter "B" prominently displayed—she wondered about all this privilege and how much of it was truly deserved. Not that Chase had not benefited from the money—but she saw it as fortuitous, not a right. Novels of the horrors of the poor often popped into her head: Jude the Obscure, The Grapes of Wrath and Sinclair's The Jungle. She was simply a member of the Lucky Sperm Club and guilt welled up.

  "Her gardens always look so beautiful," Gitana said, as they passed through the poplar trees that lined the drive. Behind them lay manicured lawns and flower beds. There was a pond and a stone wall section lined with topiaries.

  "Yeah, and it takes two full-time gardeners and a lot of water." She parked in front of the house—a brick colonial something like Martha Stewart's Turkey Hill. They'd driven Chase's car, a steel gray Volkswagen Passat. The car irritated her mother because it wasn't flashy. It was 'the People's car,' Chase had informed her.

  "People without means, kind of car," was her mother's retort.

  She didn't want her mother to think that just because she was going to be a grandmother that their mother-daughter feud had come to an end. Driving the Land Rover might have signified that.

  Rosarita answered the door. "What a surprise!" She hugged both Chase and Gitana, her brown face beaming with delight. "She said nothing about you coming."

  "We wanted it that way," Chase said.

  "She's in the living room having her medicine." She ushered them through.

  Chase gazed at Rosarita with affection. She was from El Salvador. She saw Stella as her glorious benefactor. Stella could do no wrong. Her mother, quite out of character, was amazingly kind and generous to Rosarita, who in turn excused any of Stella's bad behavior. Subsequently, the evening cocktails were referred to as "medicine" versus a problem with the bottle.

  They walked down the statue-lined marble hallway to the living room. Rosarita offered to bring iced tea. "Is that good?"

  "Perfect," Chase said, as they entered the completely white living room decorated in what Chase referred to as overdone heaven.

  "To what do I owe this honor?" Stella said, waving a hand. Lithe with aristocratic facial features and bobbed platinum hair, Stella was still beautiful at fifty-seven.

  "We have some news," Chase said, taking a seat next to Gitana on the white leather couch.

/>   "Oh, yes. I wondered when you were going to tell me. You know, Gitana, we will have to sue." Legs crossed, Stella sipped her martini and studied them from where she sat on the barstool before the white vinyl wet bar.

  "Lacey told you. I'm going to kill her," Chase said. "She couldn't be here, so she beat me to the punch. That little bitch."

  "You'll do no such tiling. She couldn't help herself. When she first found out she was afraid you'd be mean and keep it to yourself as some sort of punishment." Stella narrowed her eyes, as if to test her theory.

  "Now, why would I do that? We're here aren't we? I told her we'd come tonight," Chase said.

  Rosarita brought in a tray with the pitcher of iced tea and two glasses. She gave Chase that warning look she always did when beverages other than vodka were being served in the white room. Chase nodded. "We'll be careful."

  Rosarita withdrew from the room. Chase poured them both a glass and squeezed in lemon from the little silver bowl on the tray. Rosarita thought of everything.

  "We didn't intend to leave you out," Gitana said. She sipped her tea and was silent. They'd decided that this was Chase's gig and that she should handle it.

  "We had some things to sort out. It wasn't exactly like Gitana chose motherhood," Chase said, getting irritated. She got up and grabbed three of her mother's favorite Faberge eggs from the sofa table. She juggled them. Stella pretended not to notice. Over the years full of arguments, Chase had become adept at juggling.

  "Motherhood is never chosen," Stella replied.

  "Gag me," Chase said.

  "We're still going to sue," Stella said, calmly sipping her drink.

  "They offered to pay all medical expenses," Gitana said.

  "Poppycock. Raising a child is an expensive endeavor. Don't I know." She pointedly stared at Chase who scowled back.

  "I don't remember you working at Circle K trying to make ends meet," Chase said.

  Stella waved her off. "We're going to sue for damages and enough money for a well-financed trust fund. That child will be going to Harvard when I'm done."

  "I don't think that's necessary," Gitana said, running her hand through her hair.

  Stella ignored her. "I'll take care of everything. I called Owen."

  Owen was their nasty, slimy, family lawyer. Chase loathed him.

  "And your fucked-up years are over," Stella said, pointing at Chase.

  "Excuse me? Please, not in front of the child," Chase reprobated.

  "Child?"

  "The shrimp in Gitana's uterus. She'll have eyes and ears any day. She could have them now for all we know." Chase threw the Faberge eggs higher. Long-distance juggling required more skill. If she ever quit writing she could join the circus.

  "How do you know the baby is a she? And as a matter of biology, he or she doesn't have ears yet," Stella said.

  "But he or she will, so we all have to watch our language," Gitana said, looking at Chase who had the filthiest mouth of them all.

  Stella got off the barstool and slid the ottoman over, propping up Gitana's feet and fluffing a pillow to put behind her back. Chase, who had never seen her mother give a flying fuck about anyone, was astonished. Although Gitana did look a bit like a rag doll her mother was playing with, Gitana smiled, did not speak and sipped her iced tea. She has the class of the ages, Chase thought. She studied her mother carefully.

  "As I was saying," Stella said. She put one hand on her hip, jutted one foot forward and clutched her martini. "Your fucked up years are over. You're going to be a father. It's time you behave and live up to your responsibilities."

  Chase stopped juggling in shock at this revelation. She managed to catch two of the Faberge eggs. They all watched the third one go sailing off. Gitana stuck out her hand, and like the lucky spectator at a baseball game, caught the egg. Chase placed the other two eggs in their stands. The gravity of being a parent hit her full force. Her mother was right.

  "Can I have a martini?"

  "Ha! I knew you'd come around." Stella set her martini down and went to sit by Gitana. "Together, we can reform her. More tea?"

  Gitana nodded.

  Chase refilled her glass and mixed herself a martini. The drink was vile, but it did straighten up her nerves.

  "Supposing my fucked-up years are over what are these next years going to be?" She went back to the white vinyl bar and swung around on the stool.

  "These will be the butter years. I've always likened the growing periods of a person's life to bread. First, there is the yeast rising, kneading and rolling—the form your choices make as to the course of your life. Then there's die baking, your life actions brought to fruition. As your life choices bring success there's buttering the bread."

  "And then you're toast," Chase said, unimpressed by the lengthy metaphor.

  "Where do the fuck-up years come in?" Gitana said.

  "Improper kneading," Stella said, pointing at Chase.

  "I think it's a bad batch of yeast. That stuff does expire, you know." She grimaced as she sipped her martini, it was awful stuff.

  "The center falls in and the loaf is misshapen."

  "More like incorrect oven temperature—the cook's fault," Chase retorted.

  "Subsequendy, a work gone awry." Stella pursed her lips.

  "In Binky Land." Chase said, referring to the imaginary world her mother had created. She felt sure this would put an end to the banal metaphors about stupid bread.

  Stella smiled. Chase, having thought she'd gotten the best of the debate, was perplexed.

  "You remember Binky Land?" Stella inquired of Chase.

  "I plan on continuing the tradition." She snagged a cocktail olive and went to sit by Gitana.

  "What's Binky Land?" Gitana said.

  Stella got up and poured herself another martini. She looked at Chase. If Stella was quiet it meant the floor was relinquished to the next speaker.

  "My odious cousin, Cliff, used to visit in the summer. He thought Peter Pan was a fag, so Stella came up with Binky Land to keep him quiet. It was a magical place where good and evil battle—like an amalgamation of Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia with a little of Kipling's The Jungle Book thrown in. It was really quite amazing."

  "Maybe you should've been a writer," Gitana said. She was notorious for trying to find a career for Stella. She was always telling Chase that a woman of her mother's intelligence needed an outlet.

  Stella waved her hand. "They were just silly stories meant to kill a summer's afternoon, but I think I did instill a sense of storytelling into the children. It's a pity someone's talent is not put towards more serious literature."

  Chase pursed her lips. Stella was back to being Stella. Once again, she had thrown away the opportunity to remove the barbed wire that surrounded herself and Chase, squandering it like pocket change with complete disregard for its worth.

  "Maybe you should write the Binky Land chronicles. Look at that Harry Potter woman. She's horribly rich. Certainly you could do diat instead of wasting your time with these moist mound sagas of yours." Stella threw her arms up in the air like she was at her wit's end with an errant teenager.

  "Someone, someone famous," Chase added, "once said that there are two great tragedies in life—not getting what you want or getting what you want."

  "Phish. I just think your talents are being wasted." She finished her martini. "Are you staying for dinner?"

  "No. We're meeting Lacey to look at baby furniture," Chase said.

  "But I thought..." Gitana started to say, but Chase squeezed her arm. "That's right, she's helping us design the nursery."

  "We'll grab a bite out," Chase said.

  "Off you go then," Stella said. She hooked another martini and walked out with as much dignity as she could muster down the hall toward the kitchen.

  Once in the car, Gitana asked, "Why did you do that to her? She's lonely and wanted us to stay for dinner."

  Chase started the car. "I'm punishing her."

  "Why?"

 
"I'll never be good enough. It doesn't matter that I've published eleven books when there's a zillion writers who aren't even published. She doesn't like what I write so all my efforts are nothing but a cipher in her opinion."

  "You could tell her you branched into mystery novels and it's coming along nicely," Gitana suggested.

  Chase shifted the car into reverse. Gitana put on her seat belt and firmly placed her head on the head rest. Chase slammed her foot down on the gas pedal and screamed down the driveway. "It shouldn't matter and besides it would ruin all the fun."