"I'd say you were a little too in touch with your emotions, Miss Lindstrom," Flint replied.
Robin resented having to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. He had no right to be so tall. "You're a cold man who hasn't got a clue about human behavior. Your children are crying out for help. Maybe I do fly off the handle a little too easily. Maybe I am a soft touch for a suffering youngster. But I'll take that any day over being an iceberg."
"What you are," Flint returned tightly, "is a person who lacks self-discipline. You may have the credentials to teach school, but you have nowhere near enough maturity to work for me."
"Well, I'm not working for you." The idea was preposterous. "Sorry, kids. As you can see, your dad and I don't get along."
"You would if you knew each other better," Caitlin said.
Robin suppressed a shudder. "I’m afraid you're overly optimistic."
"What's overly optimistic mean?" asked the smaller boy.
"It means thinking I can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,” Robin blurted.
“What’s a sow?” asked the littler guy.
"A pig," explained his sister.
"She called Dad a pig?" said the boy named Brick.
Caitlin began snorting in a fair imitation of a pig, and all three burst into laughter. Even Flint chuckled.
"I didn't mean to call him a pig, not literally," Robin said, then noticed the effect of a smile on Flint's face.
The transformation was startling. For the first time, the man appeared human. Not only human but warm, inviting, even tender. His hard gray eyes softened and his mouth curved as if inviting her to sample it.
In that moment, the space between them took on form and texture, a kind of liquid sultriness. She wondered how that hard mouth would feel pressed against hers.
Cold, Robin told herself. Like ice. "I have to go," she said. "Kids, thanks for the vote of confidence. I hope I see you again."
"We hope so, too," Brick said.
"Soon," said his brother.
"We leave nothing to chance," their sister added mysteriously. Oddly, she reminded Robin of Gigi.
"Neither do I." Flint was all hard edges again. "There’ll be no television and no computer games tomorrow. You kids have gone too far."
As she walked away listening to their howls of protest, Robin wondered how a stuffed shirt like Flint Harris had managed to produce three such expressive kids.
She imagined they drove their father crazy, and profoundly hoped so.
*
Whoever coined the expression "You can't go home again" must have had living with Gigi in mind, Robin reflected two weeks later. Moving in with her mother had been a mistake, but one that she was powerless to rectify.
It was a Friday afternoon and she'd just returned from interviewing for a job at the new experimental school, A Learning Place for Children. It didn't surprise Robin to find the Fortunes Told Here store crammed with her mother's tarot-reading students, but she hadn't expected to run into more people upstairs.
The living room, which had doubled as Robin's bedroom for the past week, was filled with a mixture of people sitting cross-legged on the floor murmuring variations on "om," such as "um" and "hum." One old lady seemed to be meditating on "Tums." Robin wondered what she'd eaten for lunch.
At the front of the room, the toga-clad man with long white braids sat on the coffee table, his arms and legs crossed. Above his head hung a blackboard on which was scribbled, "Higher Consciousness Class. J. Caesar, Instructor."
His "om" had mutated into a motorlike "vroom vroom" and, eyes shut, he held up two fists, palms down, rotating them as if driving a motorcycle. Robin couldn’t retrieve her laptop from the floor behind him without causing a disturbance.
Moving in had seemed like a good way to save money. So had taking a part-time job as a waitress. Now her shoulders and back ached from carrying heavy trays and her life was rocketing out of control.
So far, she’d met her student loan payments. But if a teaching job didn't materialize soon, she didn't know what she’d do.
Not stay here, that was for sure, she mused grimly as the white-haired man peered up and winked at her. "Got any beer?" he asked.
"The only spirits we have around here are dead ones," she told him.
Catching scowls from a couple of students, Robin went downstairs. She helped herself to a cup of coffee from the urn and waited until the tarot class ended.
Gigi fluttered to her, past racks of New Age books and mystic paraphernalia. "How did it go, darling? Did you land the job?"
"I won't know for weeks, at the soonest." Robin rubbed her legs, sore from wearing high heels to the interview. In two hours, she’d be hefting a heavy tray again. "Mom, do you think it's wise, letting a nut like Julius Caesar teach students?"
"He’s a pure soul," Gigi declared. "He renounced all his worldly goods to pursue a life of meditation."
"Meditation and beer," corrected Robin. "Will they be done soon? I’d like to get onto my laptop and send out more résumés."
"No need for résumés. The right job will present itself." Gigi nodded sagely. "Fate is taking a hand in your life. Recent events have made this clear."
Her earnest tone made Robin set down her coffee cup. "Mom, what's going on?"
"You'll see for yourself." As if on cue, the front door opened with the tinkle of wind chimes and in blew Gigi's friend Irma.
Irma couldn't have been more than seventy-five, but thanks to heavy smoking and hard living she looked as if she'd recently awakened from a mummy's tomb. Small and wizened with clawlike fingers, she was a whiz at frightening children on Halloween even without a witch's hat.
"We have to move up the séance," she told Gigi. "I can’t make it tonight. My grandson is being bar mitzvahed."
"I knew you'd come early," Gigi said. "That's why I dismissed my class ahead of schedule." Irma looked impressed.
The thump of footsteps on the outside stairway told Robin that the meditators were departing. She hoped Julius was leaving with them.
"It's a bit early in the day for a séance," Irma observed, "but we can make it work."
In the window, Gigi put up her “Gone to Commune With Spirits” sign and closed the shop. Robin followed the two of them upstairs.
Her chief worry since her mother got mixed up in the occult was that Gigi might go off the deep end. Her second concern was that her mother would get caught up in something dangerous. Whatever she and Irma were doing, Robin had better keep an eye on them.
She wasn't reassured to find the white-haired man still in the apartment, wolfing down a tuna sandwich at the table. "Meditating makes me hungry," he explained.
"Good," said Irma. "You can help us create a strong energy for Mortimer." That was Irma’s spirit guide who supposedly spoke through her during séances.
"Wait a minute." Gigi faced her friend. "We're going to use my guide. Horatio is the one who brought us Frederick."
Frederick, Robin supposed as she helped clear Caesar's lunch dish from the table, must be the restless spirit her mother had been talking about for weeks. Gigi claimed to have learned that he was searching for a woman from his past.
That wasn't a lot to go on, most likely, in Robin’s opinion, because Frederick was a figment of her mother's imagination. Just like Horatio the spirit guide.
"Now, dear," Irma said, "Horatio is a fine guide, but he's so young. Only—what—a hundred years old? Whereas Mortimer, as you know, recently celebrated his two hundred-and-fiftieth birthday."
"Frederick won't come to Mortimer." Gigi planted her hands on her hips.
"It can't hurt to try, can it?" countered Irma.
Robin wished the women would stop trying to one up each other. She also wished her mother had some normal friends.
"Well, I've only got a couple of hours before work, so we'd better get started," she said. A séance could drag on, depending on who was conducting it and how chatty the guide felt.
The blinds were already shut against the
mid-afternoon sun to accommodate the meditation class. When Gigi turned out the lights, the room sank into a yellowish gloom.
The four of them sat around the table, Gigi at one end and Irma at the other. Robin was glad she didn't have to hold hands with Julius, although she felt his foot bump hers more often than necessary.
Irma, who’d won the standoff, began to work herself into a trance. Apparently there was no rule of etiquette that barred hogging a ghost who’d been discovered by a friend.
"I call upon my spirit guide. Oh, Mortimer, speak to us...."
Robin relaxed and let Irma's voice wash over her. She'd participated in a couple of séances before and found them entertaining, if silly.
Suddenly Irma's voice deepened and took on a pseudo English accent. "Yes, I am here. I come to advise and guide you. I am Sir Mortimer."
Irma's face and manner changed until she almost physically became an elegant man of a previous century. The power of self-delusion or perhaps excellent acting ability, Robin mused.
What happened next surprised her, though.
"I should not be here," said Mortimer. "There is another guide, Horatio. I call upon Horatio." Now, why would Irma voluntarily yield control?
As Irma' s muscle tone slackened, Robin felt a jolt of electricity pass through her. Abruptly, Gigi spoke from the other end of the table in the Southern accented tones of Horatio. "I have before me the spirit of Frederick. He is deeply troubled. He seeks your help."
Her mother's acting skills rivaled her friend’s. A person might almost believe Horatio was real, if the idea weren't so preposterous.
"What kind of help? May we speak with him?" Gigi asked in her normal voice.
Her manner changed yet again. She stiffened, her jaw tightened, and she seemed to grow taller. "I am Frederick." The voice was definitely masculine, without an accent. "Please help me. I seek the woman I love."
"Who is she?" Irma asked.
"There is a link," said the spirit called Frederick, speaking through Gigi. "A link to someone here. Someone named ... Roberta. Or Rose."
"Could it be Robin?" suggested Irma.
Spare me. Why on earth was her mother dragging Robin into this?
"Yes, it is someone—not close to Robin—but someone she will soon meet. She must help.... I am called away....I must go," said the voice of Frederick, fading fast.
Did he have to answer his spiritual cell phone? Robin wondered sardonically.
The voice of Horatio returned. At Gigi's request, he tried to find Frederick again so they could continue the questioning, but he concluded that the other spirit truly had departed.
Gigi’s facial muscles relaxed. "Thank goodness you’re here," she told Robin. "I’m glad you heard that."
"Why?" Robin said. "You know I don't believe in this stuff."
"You should," said Irma.
"Keep your eyes open," Gigi added. "Frederick said you’ll meet the woman soon."
"I meet lots of women at the coffee shop. What am I supposed to do, ask every one of them if she has a dead ex-boyfriend?"
"You'll figure something out," said Gigi. "You're smart."
Robin heaved a sigh. The story had been so vague--like everything else that emerged from her mother's supernatural dabblings—that she doubted even Sherlock Holmes could find a useful clue.
Irma departed to dress for the bar mitzvah, and Julius wandered out to the beach, where a volleyball game was under way. Robin went into her mother’s bedroom to put on her waitress uniform.
When her phone rang out in the living room, Gigi ran to answer it, calling, "It's about Frederick's lover! I can feel it!"
The caller turned out to be the coffee shop manager. "I'm sorry," he told Robin when she picked up the phone. "We had a little accident and we have to close the restaurant for a couple of weeks."
"A fire?" she asked in dismay.
"No," he said. "If you can believe this, a man was trying to make a U-turn and his accelerator stuck. He crashed through our front window and took out a row of booths. Fortunately, no one was hurt."
After suggesting Robin call him in few weeks, the manager hung up.
"Fate," crowed Gigi when Robin told her the bad news. "The spirits want you to work elsewhere."
"Then why don't they offer me a job?" she grumped. She couldn't believe she'd lost two jobs in as many weeks. Now what was she going to do?
“It will appear,” her mother assured her.
Robin debated whether to scroll through a job site, but she was in no mood to concentrate. Until her benumbed brain clicked into gear, she might as well get some exercise, she decided, and went to put on her bikini.
*
The volleyball game was a pitiful mismatch, Flint noticed as he strolled along the boardwalk. Two young men, a middle-aged woman in cutoffs and an old man in a toga were beating the daylights out of two young women and a boy of about thirteen.
He checked his phone. The address given him by the academy belonged to a fortune-telling shop, which had an oversize sign and a flimsy facade. No doubt Miss Lindstrom rented the apartment above it.
When the next earthquake struck, this could be a dangerous spot. Beaches had sandy soil, which magnified the intensity of the shaking. Not only would that sign and the false front collapse, but the whole building might go.
The volleyball flew past, and a woman from the losing team darted past to swoop it up. She had pink hair to match her torn T-shirt. It featured a spider on the front, which, in turn, matched the spider tattooed on her shoulder.
"You're a bit out of your league, aren't you?" Flint observed as the player trotted by.
She surveyed him from the tips of his jogging shoes up his slacks to the polo shirt. "We could use some help. How about it?"
Flint was about to beg off when he noticed the other woman on the redhead's team.
If Robin Lindstrom looked good in a dance studio, she was nothing short of spectacular on the beach. Honey-colored hair floated around her shoulders, and her skin gave off a golden sheen, every bare inch of it, from her lively face down to her long, slender legs.
Her bikini left very little to the imagination. A man could almost feel how she would melt beneath him.
Flint took a deep breath. He had come to offer Miss Lindstrom a job, not to seduce her.
Chapter Four
"You people need to get organized," Flint said as he removed his shoes and joined the team.
Robin shot him a look of dislike. He supposed that, from her perspective, he deserved it, but Flint wasn’t accustomed to seeing from other people's perspectives.
What mattered were hard work, responsibility, achievement. When life threw you a curve ball, you learned to hit curve balls.
These people couldn't even hit a volleyball headed straight toward them. "Fan out," Flint advised. "You're leaving half the court uncovered."
"There is no court," grumped Robin, moving as far from him as possible.
"Picture it regulation size." Flint had no patience with excuses
They managed to keep the ball in play for several volleys, but the skinny white-haired man in the toga moved like greased lightning. "He's amazing," Flint admitted as he chased the ball. "What does that guy eat?"
"Chocolate chip cookies, tuna fish and beer," Robin said.
After a while, they rotated positions, which gave Flint a better view of Robin. He tried to keep his eye on the game, but in real life, unlike the Olympics, beach volleyball was a sport with many interruptions. Dogs walked across the court, kids ran after beach balls and oblivious strollers failed to notice the players until they were nose to nose with the net. He had plenty of chances to ogle Robin.
It must have been her dance conditioning that gave her a body like no one else on the beach: tighter muscles, slenderer thighs, firmer breasts. Flint tried not to remember how she'd felt in his grasp, hard against his groin and soft beneath his arm. He tried not to imagine how she would look if that bikini bra vanished—something any strong wind could accomp
lish—or how her blonde hair would spread across a pillow.
He'd had only one affair since Kathy's death. The woman had been an executive who hired his company's services. Her interest in his personal services had been confined to lunch-hour trysts.
Her no-nonsense approach to lovemaking had appealed to Flint at first, but finally he realized that he'd chosen her because he wasn't ready for any deeper attachment. The affair ended when the woman was transferred to another city, and as far as he could tell, neither of them regretted it.
He had a feeling that if he followed his instincts where Robin was concerned, they might both regret it very much.
The light was fading. Although opinions varied as to the score, the volleyball game ended in an obvious victory by the other side, and the players dispersed.
The pink-haired woman thanked Flint for his help and gave him another thorough examination. After excusing himself, he went to Robin.
Her lips pressed together as she regarded him. "Have you come about the sign?"
"The sign?" Flint repeated.
She pointed to the fortune-teller's shop. "My mother's sign. It violates your earthquake recommendations, right? I suppose you’ll demand we pull it down."
"I don't enforce the city codes, and in any case, my recommendations haven't been approved yet," Flint said. "I'm just an adviser. No, I’m here to see you."
Sunlight gleamed off the smooth curve of Robin's throat and flared in her blue eyes. "This better not be personal."
Flint couldn't believe her nerve. "If I want something personal from a woman, I rarely need to ask permission."
"That's right, I had a demonstration of your caveman technique at the studio.” She tossed her mane of blonde hair. "I suppose some women find that impressive."
Flint could feel his hands flexing with an urge to grasp this maddening woman and give her another sample of his caveman abilities. He wished he knew why, within minutes of encountering Robin Lindstrom, his entire body tingled with desire and his temper verged on a full boil.
Coming here had been a mistake. He couldn't possibly hire her as a housekeeper, no matter how desperate the situation.
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