When Libby Met the Fairies and her Whole Life Went Fae

by Kirsten Mortensen

  “I love Paul. Loving him is what makes sense.”

  “But don’t you love Dean?” Maisey said in a low voice. “That morning when you were there—”

  Libby felt her face redden. Paul had reached his car. He’d opened the driver’s side door and was leaning in, out of earshot. “That’s different, Maisey. Someday you’ll—”

  “Hey, guys!”

  They turned around.

  Alex.

  Maisey’s arm was still linked in Libby’s, so Libby could feel her tense.

  “Whatcha doing? Hi, Tyler!”

  “Hey, Alexia.”

  “Ty and she were just going for a walk, right, Ty?”

  “Can I come, too? I’ve got something to tell you guys!”

  “Coming, Libby?” Paul called from the car.

  “It’s okay, it’ll be okay,” Libby whispered quickly in Maisey’s ear.

  Gina had gotten into Dean’s truck.

  He’d pulled away from the curb.

  Libby stood for a moment on the sidewalk, watching as Alex stepped between Maisey and Tyler and the three of them headed down the walk.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Paul said.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Three hours later and Gina still wasn’t home.

  Libby laid in bed, listening to Paul snore until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Got up and went downstairs, turned on a light and opened a paperback.

  Where could they be?

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  3:12 by the clock on the kitchen stove when she finally heard the low roar of a pick-up truck engine in the driveway.

  3:22 by the clock on the mantel in the living room when the front door finally opened and Gina tumbled in.

  Gina didn’t notice her sister at first, but Libby stood up to intercept her before she got to the stairs.

  “Well, hiya Libby.”

  “You guys took a detour on the way home.”

  “We went out for drinks. That man is . . .” She licked her lips and leered conspiratorially.

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea, Gina? What would Farley think?”

  “Oh, Farley!” She laughed. “Farley is fine. He’s always got his wife.”

  “His wife? Your boyfriend is married?”

  “Oh Libby, you’re such a prude.”

  Libby followed her into the living room. Now she stood, shaking, as Gina dropped her purse on the couch and kicked off her sandals.

  “So, first we went to this college bar in Geneseo. He told me the funniest story about one time when—”

  “I want you out of here, Gina.”

  Gina looked at her. Libby doubted she comprehended what she’d just heard—between her habitual self-centeredness and the alcohol fog, the actual words were probably gibberish.

  It was Libby’s tone of voice that had gotten her attention.

  “Libby, are you okay? You seem upset.”

  “Tomorrow morning. I want you out of here.”

  “Out of here?”

  “I will not have you living under my roof. Not one more day.”

  “What is your problem?”

  “What is my problem? What is my problem? You are my problem, Gina.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Has it ever occurred to you what you’re doing to Farley’s wife?”

  She stared at me. Still no comprehension.

  “Farley’s wife, Gina. The woman who is married to your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t understand what that’s got to do with—”

  “You slept with WALLACE.”

  That got through. Her mouth dropped open, then clamped shut, and for several long seconds Libby had her pinned with her eyes. Squirming slightly. But pinned.

  And then Gina broke away. “So what?”

  “How dare you answer me that way.”

  “It was a long time ago. I’m tired. I need to get to bed.”

  But Libby sidestepped to keep Gina from walking past her.

  “How dare you do that to me, Gina.”

  “Do what?” She met Libby’s eyes again, this time cocking her chin. “How did it hurt you? You didn’t know. Besides, you weren’t right for him. You didn’t love him. You weren’t giving him any.”

  “I was giving him plenty.” Libby’s voice was rising but she didn’t care anymore, if she woke Paul. Waves of anger were passing through her, so violently that her teeth chattered. “You bitch.”

  ”You’re overreacting, Libby,” Gina said uneasily. “Anyway, what does he matter anymore? He cheated on you. What do you want with someone who cheats on you?”

  “EXACTLY!” The last wave broke and the words were almost a howl. “And the answer is NOTHING. Which is why you are OUT of here, Gina. Tomorrow morning. And you’re not my sister anymore, do you hear me? You’re not my sister ANYMORE.”

  “You’re just saying that, Libby—”

  Libby bared her teeth. She couldn’t believe Gina was still trying to weasel her way out of it. “If you don’t get out of my sight right now,” she hissed, “I swear, I will hurt you. I will beat you to a pulp.”

  Gina glanced down at her sister’s hands, which were clenched, and finally something broke through that thick skull of hers. Fear, probably.

  She slunk past—this time, Libby stepped aside to let her go—oh, how tempted Libby was to slap her face as she passed—but she didn’t. She didn’t. She listened to Gina’s footsteps as she climbed the stairs.

  And then she went all weak and rubbery and collapsed onto the couch.

  43

  “What’d you say to Gina last night?”

  Libby should have felt marvelous. When you finally confront the demon, when you finally wrestle the demon and cast him out, you’re supposed to feel freed, light. You’re supposed to feel empowered.

  But she didn’t. She felt shattered. She felt like she’d swallowed a bomb and it had gone off and shattered her insides and now there was nothing left except shards and grief. And she felt, even more than that, like she needed sleep, hours and hours of sleep. The rims of her eyes stung and her muscles ached and her brain felt like mush.

  At least Paul had made the coffee. She poured herself a mugful.

  “Is she gone?”

  “Yeah. She was leaving when I got up. Maisey picked her up. What happened?”

  So he’d slept through their fight. That was okay by Libby.

  She took a deep breath. “I just got tired of her crap, is all.”

  “Yeah, I could see that. She can be a bit hard to take. But she is your sister.” He’d been buttering a piece of toast but now he put down the knife and came over to Libby and pecked her on the cheek. “You okay, though? You look like hell. No offense.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep.”

  He frowned slightly. “You going to be able to work?”

  “Yeah. A cup of coffee, and I’ll be fine.”

  His brow smoothed again. “Good. We can start primering today. We’ll have this baby sewn up by Saturday, easy. Sooner, maybe, if that Dean guy comes back.”

  “You think sooner? Like, how soon?”

  “Friday. Thursday, even.”

  “Uh, well. That would be nice. Give you a chance to, um, work one day this week if you wanted. Or take some time to relax, or whatever.”

  “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.”

  She suppressed an anxious sigh and carried her mug upstairs to drink her coffee while she got dressed.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  She’d just finished tying her sneakers when Dean’s truck pulled in, and she heard him and Paul “hey!” each other.

  So. Dean was going to show up.

  Which meant there was a chance the painting would be done in time . . .

  Libby’s mind flashed back to the previous night . . . to the sight of Gina, climbing into Dean’s truck.

  “It doesn’t matter, Libby Samson,” she muttered aloud to herself. “He can stick his dick wherever he wants to.” And at least today, she figured, he’d leave her alone. None
of this malarkey about following her around, continually making some pretense to work near her.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, listening, waiting for them to decide who was going to work on what.

  It sounded like Dean had volunteered to finish the last bit of scraping on the north side of the house.

  She went outside.

  “I want to primer,” she said to Paul.

  “Dean’s here,” he said.

  “Yeah, I heard him pull in.”

  “Here’s a brush.”

  She pried open a can of primer and started working.

  On the south side of the house.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Her luck held for a couple of hours. But by 11:00 or so, Dean had finished the scraping, and began to help with the primer. Only Paul was up working on the eaves, and Dean started primering next to Libby, on the ground.

  She pretended she didn’t notice him.

  “Are you okay, Lib? You look a bit . . . under the weather.”

  He waited while she dipped her brush into the primer can, then he dipped his.

  “You know I took your sister out to be polite,” he said in a low voice. “Not because I’m interested in her.”

  Libby sucked in her lower lip and bit it, hard, letting the hurt of it keep her focus where it needed to be. “I’m glad you had a nice time,” she said, so it would carry to where Paul was working, up under the eaves.

  Paul’s cell phone rang and they listened for a minute while he talked to Josh. Then he said, “Hang on,” and climbed down the ladder to finish the call inside. He grinned as he passed them and clamped his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “We’ll have this baby sewn up by Friday. Easy.”

  The screen door rattled closed behind him.

  It wasn’t as hot as it had been the day before. The breeze was coming in from the north and Libby could smell new-mown hay over the clean smell of the primer.

  Al leased a field in that direction. She listened and sure enough, there was the growl of his tractor. Mowing. While the sun shown.

  She brushed away a drip that had fallen on the clapboard below the window sill where she was working.

  “Libby can I ask you a question?” Dean spoke in a low voice.

  She bit her lip again.

  “Do you really want to sell this place?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I know he wants you to. But what do you want, Lib?”

  “It’s not a question of what I want, Dean.”

  “Sure it is.”

  As if on cue, one of the campers strolled up. “Whatcha doin’? Paintin’?”

  “What I did want, past tense, was to get a place in the country and start a little organic farm,” Libby said. “But that didn’t happen. Instead, I ended up with a circus.”

  “So you’re saying, if we could get rid of these jokers—”

  “No use playing with ‘if’s,’ Dean.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “The decision has been made. I’ve got a buyer, you know.” She glanced at the door, checking for Paul.

  “Yeah, Gina was telling me.”

  “I’ll be getting my money out, plus a little extra. It’s a good deal. The best I could hope for, under the circumstances.”

  “But you haven’t signed anything.”

  “Next week. I get the paperwork next week.”

  “What if I told you I could get rid of them—your campers. For good.”

  “There’s no way that happens, Dean. They think I’m holding the answer to the cosmos. Tyler tried to stop it—but like he said once, its viral. It’s all over the ‘net.”

  “I’ve thought of a way.”

  “No. No, Dean. I know you mean well.”

  “I don’t want to lose you, Libby.”

  She forced herself to keep painting.

  “There’s nothing to lose,” she whispered.

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes.”

  Something rattled inside the house. It sounded like a frying pan.

  Dean caught her wrist in his hand and her brush dripped primer onto the grass. “Libby, look at me.”

  She looked at him.

  He intended to kiss her. She was sure of it.

  But then he dropped her wrist, picked up the second can of primer and disappeared around the corner of the house.

  44

  She was standing over the bathroom sink scrubbing primer streaks off her hands and arms, running only a thin trickle of water because Paul was in the shower and if she turned the faucet any higher, he’d lose all his pressure. And get blasted by cold water besides. Yeah, it was late August but Paul still wanted a hot shower, to get rid of the aches, he said.

  She wiped the steam from the mirror to check her face. She must have scratched an itch at some point or brushed up against the house because the hairs around her right temple were frosted white and gummed together at the tips.

  Condensation started to reform right away on the place she cleared—it was a tiny bathroom—and she noticed that through the film of moisture the paint made it look like she was graying at the temples.

  “Lib, you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hand me my razor, would you?”

  It was on the side of the sink. She passed it to Paul around the edge of the shower curtain. “There’s the phone,” she said. “See you in a bit.”

  She picked up the receiver. Gina.

  “Well, Libby, you’re so smart, why don’t you talk to your niece? Here.”

  Huh?

  “Gina?”

  No answer. Muffled noises. And then Maisey was on. “Aunt Libby?”

  She sounded terrible. “Maisey? Maisey, what’s happened?”

  But she couldn’t talk. She was crying.

  “Where are you? Are you at your apartment?”

  A sound that sort of passed for “uh huh.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Got a cig?”

  Why Gina needed to smoke, Libby had no idea. Her sister hadn’t smoked for years, as far as Libby knew. But now there she was, bumming a cigarette off her daughter.

  “In my room,” Maisey said in a little voice.

  Libby took a seat on one end of the couch. Maisey sat on the other end, holding a hand-crocheted throw pillow to her chest.

  “Maise, what happened. Did Tyler . . . ?”

  She nodded.

  “Alex?”

  She nodded again.

  Gina had returned with an unlit cigarette in her lips. “I need a beer,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “I’m going out to buy some beer. Lib, want a beer?”

  “No, thanks.”

  But she didn’t leave. She stood on the other side of the scratched coffee table and looked at Libby. Then she took the cigarette out of her mouth. “So, Libby. Are you happy, now? Are you happy? Look at her.”

  Libby had been looking. And Maisey looked awful. Her hair fell scraggly around her face and her eyes were swollen and red and she was scrunched up and small, curled around the pillow like that.

  “So what do you have to say for yourself? You think you’re so smart, you think you can walk into Maisey’s life and start handing out your stupid how-to-be-a-doormat advice. You think I don’t know what’s going on ? What do you—”

  “Gina!”

  Libby shouted it to make her stop. And then she said it. “You were right. Okay? You were right. And I was wrong.”

  She turned to Maisey. “Maisey, do you get that? Your mom was right. Not about giving Alex a turn—it’s got nothing to do with Alex. What she was right about, was that you—that you don’t want to turn into me.”

  “Damn right, she doesn’t.”

  Maisey hadn’t moved or changed position. “Maisey, you deserve better. You deserve a boyfriend who adores you so much he’d never dream of . . . of going off with someone else.”

  “I don’t think that’s the point,” Gina said.

&n
bsp; “Of course it’s the p—”

  “You two need to stop it,” Maisey said. She stood up and put the pillow down where she’d been sitting.

  “Maisey.” Libby stood up also. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you to dump him. You needed to dump him.”

  “I know.” She looked at me. “I don’t want him back. I hate this, I hate all of it. But I don’t want him back. Not anymore.”

  “I’m going to get some beer,” Gina said, and picked up her purse.

  Her feet thumped down the stairs outside the apartment door to the street.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I wanna go to bed.”

  “Come home, Maisey. I want you to move back in with me. If you want.” And then Libby remembered she was selling her place. “Until I sell. Then you can come with me to Rochester.” She’d have to work it out with Paul, of course . . .

  “Maybe. I dunno.”

  “Maise, I gave you awful advice—it was the kind of crap I tell myself—the crap I told myself the whole time I was married to Wallace. And it doesn’t work. It’s never worked—”

  “I know. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t have to listen.”

  “You’ll be okay,” Libby said, and Maisey didn’t look very convinced but she nodded anyway.

  Libby locked the door behind her when she left, hoping that Gina would be quiet when she came back, that she’d drink her beer quietly in front of the little television and leave her daughter alone.

  45

  It had seemed like they were making great progress on painting the house the first couple of days. But on Wednesday they had a couple of setbacks. Dean didn’t show up until after lunch. And about 11:00 Josh called again. Libby could tell it was something bad this time, and then after the call Paul filled her in. The FDA had objected to some marketing copy Dormet Vous Lustre had developed for a new wrinkle cream. All the collateral needed to be rewritten to finesse some of the product claims.

  Fortunately, Paul didn’t need to go into the city—he could manage it all from Libby’s computer—but still, it took him hours to get it all sorted out.

  Thursday went better. But by mid-afternoon it was pretty clear they weren’t going to be done.

  Although Libby did have to admit one thing. The part that was finished looked awfully nice.