“Honey,” she said to Suzanna. “Trust me, she does not love kale.”
“How do you know?” Suzanna bristled.
“Well, dear,” Virginia said, giving Lizzy another snippet of cookie, “because nobody really likes kale. They’ll eat it, but they don’t really like it.”
In order to prove her point, Erinn guessed, their mother dropped a piece of kale on the floor for Piquant. The dog circled it, sniffed at it, and looked at Virginia. All three women stared at him—there was a lot riding on this moment. Which Wolf woman would emerge triumphant?
“Go ahead, Piquant,” Suzanna urged. “Try it.”
Piquant looked over at her and then sniffed at the kale again. He took a bite and started to chew as he continued to lock eyes with Suzanna. Suzanna’s mouth twitched into a small smile. Then the dog gagged and threw up. They all looked at the dog in horror. Lizzy clapped. Piquant started his little dog palsy shake and went to lie down at the victor Virginia’s feet.
“I’ll clean that up,” Suzanna said, heading off to the kitchen.
Erinn tried to get the conversation back on track.
“So, Mother,” Erinn said. “Tell me about your photography class.”
“Oh, you don’t want to hear about that,” Virginia said. “I mean, you just got back from being a real photographer.”
“Then why did you bring it up?”
“I thought Suzanna might find it interesting.”
Except for the oatmeal cookies, the visit really had been a bust, Erinn thought, as she pulled into her driveway. Her mother just didn’t seem comfortable with her. She could imagine Suzanna berating her for not having enough patience with their mother. Well, maybe not today, not after the kale incident.
She unlocked the trunk of her car and was startled by her cat, who leaped into the trunk and was glaring up at her. Was he angry at her for being gone several days? Erinn used to travel for business on a regular basis and the cat had always been fine. Had it been so long that he’d forgotten?
She reached down to pat him, but Caro yowled and shot out of the open trunk. As he skidded under a rosebush, Erinn looked at him in annoyance. What kind of homecoming was this?
“At least I don’t feed you kale,” she said to him as she lugged her gear to the front step.
Caro meowed accusingly as Erinn struggled to let herself into the house. The front door lurched open and Cary stepped onto the landing, closing the door behind her. She wore an expression that Erinn couldn’t read but whatever it was it didn’t look like good news.
Maybe the deal with Red, White, and Blu has fallen through. Bad news for Cary, but I could live with it!
“Oh!” Erinn said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Am I to assume Blu is ensconced within?”
“Blu’s moved in, if that’s what you mean,” Cary said.
Erinn tried to move past her, but Cary had her handle on the doorknob. Short of tossing her off the porch, which even Erinn knew to be bad form, she wasn’t sure how to get inside. She was gorilla-tired and just wanted to relax in her own bedroom and take a steaming bath in her own tub. She heard the cat let out another growl and thought, And make nice with my cat. What is wrong with him?
Erinn stared at Cary, who finally swung open the door. She struggled in with her gear and dropped it in the front hallway. She stood staring into her once beautiful living room. All her antiques, her overstuffed Morris chair, the rich tapestry drapes were gone. Her books were gone! The only thing that remained was her 27-inch LED monitor and keyboard, but instead of sitting on her mahogany claw-foot desk it was perched on a stainless-steel monstrosity that glinted in the harsh sunlight that was streaming through windows without any drapes. Instead they had some sort of scarflike pieces of gossamer fabric draped ridiculously over the frames.
Erinn stumbled into the room. Her Oriental carpet was gone, replaced by faux hardwood flooring. She walked around, touching the new furniture. Every single piece was a sacrilege. A sofa, pink and shaped like lips, faced the fireplace, one side flanked by a standing lamp shaped like a woman’s legs.
“I’m assuming you don’t love this,” Cary said.
Erinn studied the coffee table in front of the sofa, which was some sort of statue of a man on all fours, with his pants pulled partway down over his rump. He grinned up coyly through the glass top of the table.
“Where did you get this?” Erinn asked. “A proctologist’s office?”
“We needed to make this place look like Blu lived here,” Cary said. “And she hated everything.”
“But Blu doesn’t live here. And I hate all of this! Where is my stuff?”
“In storage, of course. You know when a production company leases a place they can stage the house any way they like.”
“I thought Blu was just going to move into the guest room.”
“Well, you were misinformed,” Cary said, not budging.
Erinn didn’t want to fight. Cary was her most constant employer, and even though Erinn obviously hadn’t read the fine print, she was getting a fair amount of money for the Red, White, and Blu project. She felt a little thrill when she thought about the junk-food-wine-pairing footage she’d have for Cary in the morning.
Two can play at the misinformed game.
Blu appeared out of nowhere. She was wearing impossibly short shorts and a thin cotton T-shirt that slid off her bony shoulders. She didn’t appear to be wearing a bra, but her breasts still didn’t move an inch.
Ah. They’re that kind of breasts.
She was standing in the doorway with what appeared to be part of a mop in her hand.
“Cary!” Blu said, her breathy voice coming in gasps. “My hair extensions came out.”
“Darling, you look divine,” Cary said. “Don’t worry about them. Just put them in a drawer or something.”
“I do not look divine,” Blu said. “I look gross. You need to call Elliot and get my extensions put back in.”
Blu noticed at last that Erinn was in the room and looked at her.
“Don’t I?” Blu asked Erinn. “Don’t I look gross without my hair extensions?”
Erinn caught Cary’s warning look and ducked the question.
“It’s been a really long day and I’m ready for a bath. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to feed Caro and go up to my room.”
Erinn saw Blu’s eyebrows flutter. What could that mean? Then she looked at Cary, who had the same expression on her face that she had had at the front door.
“I appear to be missing something. . . .” Erinn started.
“Ya think?” Blu snorted.
“Blu, darling, go to your room,” Cary said. “I need to talk to Erinn.”
“But what about these?” Blu shook her fists full of hair violently. Her breasts didn’t move an inch.
“I’ll call Elliot in a minute; now please go upstairs.”
Blu shot Erinn a withering glare and tromped up the stairs. From the entrance to the living room, Erinn saw her walk into the master bedroom and close the door. It struck her that if Blu was taking over the master bedroom, she was taking over the en suite bathroom as well. Along with making any sense of what was going on, the dream of a steaming bath started evaporating as well.
“Wait, Blu, that’s my . . .” Erinn stopped and looked, openmouthed, at Cary. “You gave that cretin my room?”
“Now, Erinn,” Cary said. “Look at this realistically. If this is Blu’s house she can’t be in the smaller bedroom, now, can she?”
“I feel the fool, you know,” Erinn said. “The complete and utter fool. You sent me to Cambria so you could do your bidding with my house.”
“Oh, Erinn, lighten up. We did what had to be done to make it seem real. Relax! I mean, your furniture is safe. Nobody died.”
“ ‘To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.’ ”
“Wow. That is heavy. I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Well
, I didn’t. Malcolm X said it. But if he hadn’t, I would have.”
Caro suddenly streaked through the foyer into the kitchen and back again, yowling the entire time. Erinn tried to catch him, but the cat flew up the stairs. At the top of the landing, he stared down at Erinn.
“My poor cat,” Erinn said. “He’s so confused by all of this.”
“Oh,” Cary said. “That’s not what’s wrong with your cat. Have you been out back yet?”
Erinn had completely forgotten about Dymphna, but she couldn’t imagine anything being worse than having her house taken over by Blu Knight.
“What’s going on out back?” she asked Cary, who threw up her hands.
“I have to call the hairdresser for Blu. The backyard is all yours, although I have to say, Erinn, I don’t know what you were thinking.”
Erinn threaded her way through the kitchen—thank God they had left that room alone—and let herself out the back door and onto the porch.
The ancient Roman poet Virgil wrote, “Each of us bears his own hell.” And Erinn never really knew what he meant until this very moment. Against the garden wall now stood ten rabbit cages, each containing a large creature that looked like an unwieldy cotton ball with ears and teeth. Erinn tried to make herself take a step toward them but found herself rooted to the porch. She snapped back to life as Caro streaked through the backyard in a frenzy and ran back into the house. The sound of feline distress brought Dymphna from the guesthouse. Dymphna was wearing a large sack slung over her shoulder that looked as if it weighed more than she did, and she was walking a furry creature on a leash. Dymphna and Erinn locked eyes.
“It’s good that you’re home,” said Dymphna. “You can help your cat adjust to the rabbits.”
“Those are rabbits?” Erinn pointed at them from the safety of the porch. “They’re the size of Volkswagens!”
“Better for harvesting wool,” Dymphna said serenely.
She started to shovel a small trowel full of grayish-green pellets from her sack into each cage, talking softly to each rabbit as she went.
“Why aren’t they in Malibu?”
“The sheep were in Malibu. I traded them in for rabbits, which I can raise at home.”
Erinn wanted to say that Dymphna was raising the rabbits in her home, but she realized that logic wasn’t really flying today.
“I’m not sure . . .” Erinn started. “Are you even allowed to keep thousands of rabbits in a backyard?”
“There are ten of them,” Dymphna said. “And you need a permit.”
“Well, I don’t have a permit!”
“No. But I do.”
“This is not going to . . .”
Dymphna put her index finger to her lips.
“Shhhhh. You need to speak softly. You’ll agitate them and that’s bad for their fur.”
“Dymph—”
Again, Dymphna raised her finger to her lips, but this time she didn’t look at Erinn. She just proceeded serenely with her work.
“You’re projecting very negative energy,” she whispered to Erinn.
Ya think?
“Dymphna . . . ,” Erinn whispered. She realized the diminutive woman couldn’t hear her harsh whisper from the porch. She walked down into the yard.
“We need to talk.” After filling a bowl, Dymphna patted each rabbit as she went down the row. It looked as if she was making eye contact with each one, but Erinn could see no rabbit eyes. Just fur.
“I understand why you’re so upset,” Dymphna said quietly, the ball of wool hopping beside her.
“Well, that’s a start.”
“I can’t even imagine what you must have thought when you saw your beautiful house destroyed like that.” Dymphna shuddered. “When they moved your leather sofa out and brought in those lips . . .”
Erinn had forgotten the fresh hell that was her living room. Perhaps Dymphna was the least of her worries. Caro did another demented spin through the yard, streaking to all four corners and then blazing back into the house. Dymphna watched Caro’s manic dance.
“We’re going to have to work on that,” she said.
“Let’s have a little chat.” Erinn tried again to get her attention.
I sound like my mother.
After feeding the last rabbit, Dymphna turned to Erinn with a smile.
“Sure. Come inside.”
Erinn felt herself getting misty-eyed as she entered the guesthouse. Dymphna had added her own small effects to the place, but it was essentially the same. Erinn sat wearily at the little café table and rubbed her eyes. She thought about how she drove from Cambria to Venice, just to be underappreciated by her mother and sister, then home, where she had been displaced by a faded reality-TV has-been and her cat had been displaced by ten enormous rabbits.
Dymphna patted Erinn’s shoulder as she placed a cup of fruit salad in front of her.
“You should eat this,” she said. “I can tell by your skin that you’re drinking too much coffee.”
Erinn was too stunned by the day’s events to do anything but take a bite of blueberries. Dymphna sat down across from her and put her little hand over Erinn’s.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
CHAPTER 11
SUZANNA
Traveling with a baby made it impossible to sneak up on people. By the time Suzanna had parked the car in front of Erinn’s, gotten a squealing Lizzy out of the car seat, wrapped various diaper and toy bags around her own neck, not to mention waited for Virginia to steer Piquant over to a neighboring lawn for a quick pee, a tense Erinn was walking toward them. Suzanna saw her first and called out, “Mom made Mac!”
Erinn’s tight posture visibly loosened as Suzanna pointed to the casserole in the back of the car. Erinn picked it up and sniffed at it. The sisters looked at each other. Even with a baby on Suzanna’s hip and a house full of outrageousness behind Erinn, the siblings traveled in a sensory time machine back to the days of eating macaroni and cheese with both their parents around a table made from an old oak barrel.
“We thought we’d pop in for a visit,” Virginia said, bringing her daughters back to the present.
The previous evening, Virginia had listened, wide-eyed, over a mug of Monk’s Tea, a blend of black tea and sunflower petals, as Suzanna filled her in on the details of Erinn’s new living arrangements. Not only was Erinn renting her guesthouse to a woman who brought ten rabbits with her, but the pop-culture princess who prided herself on knowing nothing that happened in the world before 1970 was living in Erinn’s completely—hideously—redecorated house.
“And Blu took over the master suite,” Suzanna said, adding in an almost whisper, “even the bathtub is Blu’s now!”
“Poor Erinn,” Virginia said. “This must be her worst nightmare!”
“I know,” Suzanna said.
Suzanna was the first to admit it, but growing up, she, not Erinn, was the daughter who usually had their parents shaking their heads in dismay. Sitting here, over a cup of tea, shaking her head alongside her mother, she tried not to let her sibling rivalry get the best of her. It did seem impossible, though, that Erinn, the woman who could make Aristotle look like a slacker, had gotten herself into such a fix.
Suzanna knew it wouldn’t take long for Virginia to figure out a way to get herself over to Erinn’s and inspect the situation. Suzanna knew her mother’s plan as soon as she woke up. She could smell macaroni and cheese baking in the oven. Clearly, a casserole sizzling away in the oven at eight in the morning meant it was going to be a bribe, not dinner. Erinn could not resist Mom’s macaroni and cheese, made with equal parts cheese and elbow macaroni. Erinn might be annoyed that her mother and sister had arrived without an invitation, but Mom’s Mac would get them in the door.
It worked. Erinn grabbed the casserole and ushered them around the side of the house.
“Why aren’t we using the front door?” Suzanna asked. A trip around back over the uneven cobblestones with all their gear, not to mention a toddler and a dog,
was going to be awkward at best and death defying at worst.
“We’re going around to the kitchen,” Erinn said, leading the way. “I’m ignoring the house.”
Suzanna exchanged a quick look with her mother. That didn’t sound good.
Piquant was straining at his leash and whining. Virginia kept pulling him back and sternly telling him to “Heel,” a command to which he turned a deaf doggy ear.
As they bumped through the side yard, Suzanna thought of pointing out that the kitchen was part of the house, but realized there was no way to make a rational argument to someone who has just said, “I’m ignoring the house.”
As they rounded the backyard, it was clear what was agitating the dog. Lizzy was the first of the humans to spot the wall of rabbits. She let out an ear-piercing squeak of delight. Lizzy struggled out of Suzanna’s arms and ran at the hutches. The added excitement in the air caused Piquant to up the indignant-barking ante.
“I knew they were here first,” Piquant seemed to say.
“Doggy!” Lizzy said, patting a wire cage that housed a rabbit larger and furrier than Piquant.
Suzanna wondered if Piquant thought they were dogs as well. The rabbits seemed fairly circumspect when Lizzy approached them, but started hopping around their cages as Piquant’s barking got more and more insistent. Piquant’s barking seemed to signal to Lizzy that all was not fun and games and the toddler started to cry. She raced back to her mother.
Virginia scooped Piquant into her arms with the same movement Suzanna used to lift Lizzy. Both women tried to quiet their armloads of unhappy little beings. The noise escalated—shrieking toddler, disgruntled dog, soothing mother sounds from both Virginia and Suzanna were now joined by weird barking sounds from all the rabbits.
Rabbits bark?
An elf in gypsy clothes suddenly came flying out of the guesthouse. Suzanna realized at once this must be Dymphna. With long hair spreading out behind her like wings, the tiny woman ignored the newcomers and crossed the yard to her rabbits in a few strides. Suzanna watched, fascinated, as the woman put her hand in front of each cage, and spread her fingers across the wire front. Suzanna wasn’t close enough to hear if she was saying anything, but it appeared that it was the peaceful presence of Dymphna, rather than any words, that settled each rabbit in turn.
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