Mirror, Mirror

by Judy Baer

  Even though the money is tempting, it’s not motivation enough for me to overlook the shallowness of the concept. Besides, although the mover behind the program—Eddie—is really quite likable, the shaker— Frank—makes me shudder. The man gives me the creeps. I’ve met a few weirdos over the years. Not every producer and photographer is a sweetheart like Pete. Frank is a composite of every bad experience I’ve ever had.

  Funny, I don’t usually jump to judgment. Do not judge, so that you may not be judged and all that. God and I will definitely have to have a talk about this.

  My curiosity finally overrode my reluctance to talk to Pete and I answered the phone.

  ‘Hi, this is Quinn.”

  “Quinn, my name is Jack Harmon. I met you at Linda’s place.”

  I sat up so fast that I startled Dash, who looked at me reproachfully. The only time Dash likes fast movement is when he is running.

  “Yes. I remember you.” How could I forget? His dark hair and perfectly muscled body shimmered in my memory.

  “I couldn’t get you out of my mind after we spoke the other day.”

  I’m unforgettable. Good. This is very good.

  His voice reminds me of hot caramel—thick, rich and buttery. Very smooth. And very sophisticated. I’m becoming like my grandmother, describing everything I come in contact with in terms of food. To her, not only is her mailman a “tall drink of water,” but “sour as a pickle” and “a prune-faced” old grouch. Pete is “a dumpling” and my father, her “little pumpkin.”

  Or maybe I just need to eat lunch.

  “I think you may be perfect…”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “…for my son.”

  Oh, that Harmon man. Too young but intriguing, nonetheless.

  “As you know, Ben has juvenile arthritis. When he is suffering muscle weakness and inflammation, he really isn’t fit to go to school. When he’s under stress or having pain, he tends to be less outgoing and doesn’t participate as much.”

  “I’m sorry. It must be very difficult.”

  “We manage,” Harmon said tersely, as if discussing this cut at him like a knife. “I’d like to visit with you in person, Ms. Hunter, and I’d like you to meet my son. If the two of you hit it off and if you have room for one more student, perhaps we can work something out.”

  “I’d be happy to.” Not only was it a pleasant thought to see Handsome Jack, as I’d begun to think of him, but I was very interested in meeting his remarkable sounding son.

  “What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”

  Avoiding Pete, mostly. Fortunately that shouldn’t be too hard since he told me he was planning on going on a date with a woman he had recently met.

  “I’m free after two o’clock.”

  “I’d like you to come to my home. I’ll give you my address.”

  “It’s a date,” I said agreeably, then wished I could take back my poor choice of words. I was talking to a grieving widower with an ill child and his lifetime of memories.

  Unfortunately—for me, at least—the last thing this could be called is a date.

  Chapter Seven

  For as he thinks within himself, so he is. Proverbs 23:7.

  I closed my Bible and stared out the window where a rash of finches, sparrows, grosbeaks and the occasional pileated woodpecker were scuba diving in the birdbaths and grazing at the six feeders I’ve put up for them around my yard. I keep a pair of binoculars on a nearby table and whenever I forget, even for a moment, just how wonderful God is, I pick up the binoculars and stare at the birds.

  They are fragile, bold, determined, perfectly crafted little miracles. I particularly like to watch the gold-finches. Finches don’t start mating until most other birds are done, waiting, instead, for the thistle with which they build their nests to mature. Yet when winter comes they are no farther behind than the birds that nested much earlier.

  Our Divine Creator crafted us with equal attention to detail. We too can trust ourselves and our rhythms. Sadly Maggie hasn’t come to that yet. Her own beauty, intelligence and charm haven’t helped her one bit because she doesn’t think she is any of those things.

  Dash, who can read my emotions faster than I can comprehend them myself, removed himself from his doggy bed and came to stand beside me. He leaned against my leg as if his nearness would drive away the sadness I was feeling over Maggie.

  With my palm, I redirected Dash’s nose back to his bed. “Dash, go lie down, honey. I’m okay.”

  Nothing doing. Dash planted his feet and leaned more heavily on me, sticking to my leg like a sixty-pound piece of Velcro.

  “Let’s go to Uncle Pete’s, Dashy. He’ll cheer me up and you can play with Flash. You can stay there while I go to my appointment with Jack Harmon.”

  He detached himself and ran to get his leash. Go is one of his favorite words.

  First, I had to dig through Dash’s enormous plastic bin of dog food for a set of spare keys I’d had made for Pete.

  If a burglar came to rob me blind, Dash would not bark. Instead, he would accommodatingly show the thief where my cash, jewelry and car keys were stored. The only thing in the house that I know he would protect is his bin of dog food in the laundry room. Dash is emotionally attached to that bin and what it holds. He would make sure that, even though thieves moved everything I own into a semi and carted it away, the dog food would be left safely behind. Dash is a lover not a fighter, nor is he a self-respecting watchdog.

  I’m no dummy. Anything I want to be safe, like spare keys, I put in a plastic sandwich bag, zip it shut and toss into the bin.

  At Pete’s studio, Flash was at the door waiting for us. He adores me because I smell like his buddy Dash. And because I carry doggy treats in my purse.

  “Just in time,” Pete greeted me. “I picked up bagels. You want yours with cream cheese, butter or dry?”

  He pointed Flash toward the kennel, but the dogs had already heard the word bagel and headed straight for the kitchen. Not only do Flash and Dash know sit, heel and stay, they also are acquainted with sandwich, ice cream and burger. I suspect that there is really no end to their vocabularies but unless it is relevant to their stomachs or their comfort, they just don’t let us pathetic humans know what they’re thinking. Both dogs love to watch CNN and that terrifies me a little. What do they know that I don’t?

  “Cream cheese, of course, and strawberry jam—for the first half. Peanut butter and honey for the other half. Have you got French roast or Columbian coffee?”

  “That’s why guys like you so much, Quinn. You are robust, just like your coffee. I have cream, too.”

  We went to Pete’s minuscule kitchenette at the back of the studio. He popped the bagels in the toaster and poured me a cup of coffee so thick and black that it resembled watered-down tar. I dumped cream in to the cup, stirred and tasted. Perfect.

  “How was your date last weekend?” I like to start conversations with the juicy stuff. “You didn’t say how it went.”

  “Nice lady. No sparks.”

  “Will you see her again?”

  “The question is, will she see me? If she has good taste, she probably won’t. I was a pretty boring date.”

  “You’re never dreary around me. In fact, I was going to talk to you about becoming a little duller. I don’t want you coming up with any more of this stuff like your Chrysalis idea.”

  “It’s different with you. I feel safe.”

  “You mean you were in danger?”

  “When I date, I always feel as if I’m being looked over as husband material.” Pete sighed. “One of these days I’m going to get my foot caught in a snare and it will be the last you see of me. Whoosh. I’ll be sucked up into domesticity—mowing a lawn somewhere in the suburbs, coaching soccer and selling hot dogs at a booth in a parking lot to make money to buy helmets for an eight-year-old’s baseball team. I know you’ll never do that to me. Therefore, I feel safe.”

  “I had no idea men had so many troubles.”
r />   “It’s a changing world, Quinn.”

  “Maybe you’re too fussy,” I suggested tactfully. “Maybe your expectations are too high. You do spend a lot of time with fashion models.”

  “Having a stream of beautiful women coming through the studio has taught me one thing, Quinn. Looks alone aren’t enough.” Pete looked genuinely sad. “It’s that old Pharisees and whitewashed tombs thing. Pretty outside, but jaded or spoiled inside is not for me.”

  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.

  I got his point.

  He glanced at a life-sized black-and-white he’d done of a woman in a designer evening gown. Her head was thrown back, her eyes heavy lidded and her lips wet and full.

  He gestured toward the photo. “Between shoots all she did was argue with her boyfriend on her cell phone, scream invectives at him and threaten him with what she’d do to him when she got home. If I’d been that guy, I would have purchased a one-way ticket to Siberia before I’d take any more of that.

  “My mother wouldn’t have spoken to my father like that for anything in the world. She was pretty enough, but what was more important was that her heart was pure gold. She was crazy about Dad and he loved everything about her. That’s what I’m looking for now.”

  I recalled the many hours I spent in Pete’s home, playing Monopoly or putting puzzles together. His mother was always singing, always smiling. It’s no wonder she raised such a son.

  I gave him a hug. “I adore you, Pete. Beneath your sophisticated exterior you are a sentimental sap. I like that in a man, tenderheartedness, loyalty, respect for home and family.”

  “That reminds me. Have you heard from our other faux-sibling Maggie?”

  I gave him the recap of our conversation. “She needs to get back here to her friends. Hopefully tomorrow.”

  “The Three Musketeers, together again.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I have to go soon. I’m meeting with a potential new client and his son. The man is a widower and his little boy has juvenile arthritis.”

  Pete whistled. “Tough. I hope he’s smart enough to hire you, Quinn. You are a miracle worker with kids.”

  I stood up and kissed Pete on the cheek. “Thanks for the food and conversation. I’ll pick up my dog later.”

  “Thank you. Everyone else who comes here won’t even drink water because it makes their stomachs bulge for the camera. Someone who doesn’t care about the calories in cream cheese is a refreshing change.”

  The Harmon house is larger and more impressive than I’d expected it to be, an imposing brick Tudor-style with a four-car garage and two basketball hoops over the driveway. Odd, considering Ben Harmon would have a hard time playing ball. I drove the car into the circular driveway in front of the house and parked near the front door.

  The yard is a plush carpet and the shrubs and flowers have been meticulously tended, all of which I found very pleasing. I’ve been known to pick weeds out of strangers’ flower beds, pinch back dead flowers and use a watering can or two. I had none of these urges as I looked at Jack Harmon’s pristine yard.

  Eager to work with a man who liked order, I stood expectantly in the doorway waiting for him to answer the bell. Needless to say, I was taken off guard when he answered the door looking as if he’d been in an explosion in Betty Crocker’s kitchen.

  Chapter Eight

  He was covered with flour from head to toe. The abominable snowman of the suburbs. Frosty the Flour man.

  “Is it two o’clock already?” Flour man glanced at his watch, but it was also enveloped in a coating of paste.

  If I hadn’t met him before, it could have been difficult to tell Jack’s age with his hair flour-dusted to a dull gray. His eyes, peering out from the ghostly face were warm and brown, his cheekbones high, his features chiseled and his face strong despite the layer of Gold Medal.

  “We lost track of time,” he said by way of apology. “I thought we could whip a volcano together in no time. After all, we did a clay Brachiosaur in two hours and a replica of the White House in a weekend. But Ben insisted that he wanted his volcano to be papier mâché. Then he dropped the five-pound bag and it exploded like a…”

  He took a breath and looked up. “And you don’t care in the least how I came to look like Frosty the Snowman.”

  As he spoke flour shifted from his clothing onto the floor.

  “On the contrary. I find it fascinating. I’ve made more than one or two science projects myself over the years. Once I did a study of eyeballs and went to a butcher shop to get…er, samples. Nasty. Very nasty.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t tell Ben,” his father said grimly. “Even I have some limits.”

  “I promise. Where is this budding Einstein of yours?”

  Jack looked apologetic. “I’m sorry. You didn’t come to hear this, you came to meet Ben. So far I’m not measuring up very well, am I?”

  I didn’t say it, but I thought he was holding up beautifully. Not only was he pleasant, funny, well built and handsome under the gunk he wore, he was working with his child on a project they could share. That’s what counts with me.

  “Come into the kitchen, er, the scene of the crime. Sorry for how it—and we—look.”

  He led me into a huge country kitchen with a granite-topped counter, a fireplace, a large old-fashioned table with a pedestal bottom and comfy looking upholstered chairs. The adjoining family room was an attractive mix of soft couches and chairs, a large-screen television, books, boxes of games and colored drawings all signed by Ben. Perfect.

  A small boy sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. He was covered with even more flour than his father—closer to the bag when it exploded, no doubt—but I could make out tawny, gold-brown hair moussed into short spikes, a high, intelligent forehead and curious blue eyes. He was small for ten.

  I eyed him surreptitiously, looking for signs of illness. Other than the slightly enlarged and reddened knuckles in his hands and some stiffness in his movements, he was a normal boy, curious about the stranger who had come to his house.

  He smiled and his megawatt expression lit the room. “Hi, I’m Ben. Are you going to be my teacher?”

  That took me by surprise. “Today, I thought we’d get to know each other.”

  “To see if we’re a good fit?” Ben inquired like a thirty year old in a child’s body. “That’s what my dad says.” The boy studied me intently, his blue eyes disconcertingly piercing. “But I can tell that I like you already and you’re pretty, too. We need some new scenery around here.”

  Ben’s father shrugged helplessly again and smiled at me.

  “Since I like you, could you start being my teacher today? Dad’s okay, but we could really use some help with this volcano.”

  I looked at the large square of plywood and the cone of metal screening stapled into it. They’d placed a cup in the hole that would be the crater, shredded newspaper and mixed flour and water for the papier mâché. There had been one pathetic layer of the concoction on the cone when the flour exploded.

  “Looks like you two are doing fine. You’ll need more layers of papier mâché on that cone before it looks like a volcano. Then it’s just a matter of painting it to look like a mountain and making it erupt.”

  “That’s the problem,” Ben said, sounding as tested and tried as Job’s patience. “If we keep doing it Dad’s way, it will never look like a mountain. He just slops stuff on and says it’s good enough. I think we should make it look like this.” He pointed a grubby finger at a snapshot of Mount St. Helens pre-1980.

  “It doesn’t have to look like Mount St. Helens, Ben,” Jack said. “The project is supposed to be a working volcano, not an authentic imitation of a real one.” There was a comical expression on his face, half pleading, half proud, as if he didn’t know whether he should throw up his hands over this determined child or stick his thu
mbs in his lapels and boast of the child’s persistence.

  I rolled up the sleeves on my pale pink shirt. “Your dad can start cleaning up the mess and I’ll help you put on that second layer. If you have a small fan or a hair dryer, we can speed up the drying process. We can make this into Mount St. Helens without too much trouble.”

  “Awright!” Ben cheered.

  “A take-charge woman, we like that,” Jack said. “What do you want me to do?”

  I looked around at the floury surfaces. “Vacuum, maybe? And how are you with a dust cloth?”

  “I worked for a janitorial service in undergrad. I’m pretty good, if I do say so myself.”

  A man who knows how to clean a house? Do you have a single flaw, Jack Harmon?

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Ben said, over the grinding sound of the vacuum as we put another layer of newspaper, flour and water on Mount Harmon which eventually, if all went well, would resemble the other famous mountain. “You’re fun.”

  “Thank you. You’re a lot of fun yourself.”

  “My dad is, too. when he’s not working or worrying.” Ben carefully smoothed the side of the mountain with the palm of his hand.

  I glanced at him curiously. What exactly went on between those two cute ears of his, I wondered. This was an exceptional child—intelligent, mature for his age and sensible. His father deserves a lot of credit. Not everyone could use the hardships Ben’s suffered to make him into such a wise old soul in a young, hurting body.

  Jack finished vacuuming and returned to the kitchen. “Popcorn, anyone?” He looked at the emerging volcano. “Good job, you two! I wasn’t sure it was going to happen for a while, but there it is.” He smiled at me and I felt myself about to melt into a big puddle. “Thanks to you, Ms. Hunter.”

  “Quinn,” I managed to say even though my senses were reeling. An attractive domestic male who is good at parenting and can wield a vacuum cleaner like a Merry Maid—I must be dreaming, I decided. And his cologne smells good, too. Things just can’t get any better than this.