by Cathy Ace
“This cannot be safe,” said Bud, standing as close to the desk and the window as possible. “Not for Ellen and not for the folks who live below—or even above her. What if there was a fire? Do you think I should say something? Are there pills for this sort of thing, or is it not that simple?”
“Bud. Hoarding isn’t something Ellen necessarily sees as odd. She might see it as completely normal. If you’re going to raise it as an issue you’ll be opening a can of worms she might not even know exists. It’s not something you approach easily. In fact, a cognitive behavioral therapist would probably need to work with her for a long time to tackle this level of obsession and compulsion. Many don’t even think that hoarding and obsessive compulsive disorder are on the same condition scale, though, for me, the jury’s out. If, as I’m guessing, the loss of loved ones is at its base for Ellen, it might take years. In fact, with Annette’s death, it might get worse before there’s any chance it’ll get better. She has lost every member of her family to sudden death, after all.”
Bud took my point. “Okay, I won’t say a thing,” he said, rolling his eyes and holding up his hands in surrender.
“But you know what, Bud,” I was relating this new insight into Ellen’s psyche to the case of her sister’s death, “Ellen hoards, and we know that Annette collected, so maybe they weren’t ‘chalk and cheese,’ as Marlene Wiser described them—maybe they were both grappling with loss in their own ways. What if this means that Ellen possesses other personality and behavioral traits that are often associated with hoarding?”
“And what might they be?” asked Bud nervously.
“Oh dear—it’s a long list and we psychologists don’t really know the level to which they always, or only sometimes, present. It’s complicated.”
“I get it! You need multiple degrees and a brain the size of a planet to do what you do, but just give me the Cole’s Notes version, okay?”
“Anxiety, depression, neuroticism, self-consciousness, vulnerability, indecisiveness, impulsiveness, and perfectionism. All jumbled up, in different ways, somehow related and intertwined. We’re not sure which, if any, of these traits, have a causal relationship with hoarding, we just know they are observed traits. So they might lead to hoarding, or hoarding might lead to them. All we know is that they are related. Like collecting and hoarding: not all collectors become hoarders, but you’re unlikely to become a hoarder without first seeing yourself as a collector.”
“So am I on the slippery slope with my collection of baseball hats?” Bud looked alarmed.
“Is your collection preventing you from using your home for its purposes? Is it disrupting your life? Is it hurting those around you? Do you only find beauty, fun, or joy in your hat collection, or do you see it in absolutely everything? If it’s ‘No’ to the first three questions and ‘Just the hats’ to the fourth, you’re okay . . . so far,” I smiled.
“Here you go—these should work,” said Ellen breathlessly as she returned to the postage-stamp of a living room. I envisaged her lifting boxes in a small, confined space. She must be pretty fit, I thought.
“Bud—go to the last door at the end of the corridor, you can change there. Cait, you can have the bathroom, it’s first on the right.” Ellen handed me a bagged hanger, which I unzipped. Inside was a dress and a fluffy petticoat. “It was my Mom’s, she made it herself,” said Ellen softly. “She was short and . . . about your sort of shape. I hope it fits. What size shoes do you wear?”
“Six and a half,” I replied, heading for the bathroom, which was clean, though also stacked with boxes, smaller, all white.
“Oh great, my Mom’s size!” yelped Ellen. “I’ll just go find the right shoes and purse—YAY!” She seemed absolutely delighted to be doing this.
A few minutes later Bud and I stood looking at each other in disbelief as we compared outfits. He’d got away with it lightly: a red and cream 1950s-style leather jacket, obviously originally worn by a much bigger man, a pair of Ray-Bans, and his own jeans and shoes. He looked quite dashing. But me? The bathroom mirror had told me a part of the story, but Bud’s face told me the rest. I was wearing an early 1960s dress, with a buttoned-up bodice (which actually fit—wow!) and three-quarter length sleeves; the full, gathered skirt skimmed my knees and was held out by the petticoats beneath it. White stilettos, a white purse with a gold clasp, and white gloves finished off the outfit. The whole thing wouldn’t have been too bad if it hadn’t been for the pattern of the fabric: it was light blue, with stripes of yellow roses, surrounded by little white flowers all circling my body. I looked as though I’d been upholstered!
Ellen walked around me, as best she could in the limited space, and said, “You look fabulous! Oh, dear. You remind me of Mom!” She burst into tears.
I sighed. Ellen wasn’t the only one who felt like a good cry. All of a sudden, this “retro” lunch was looking like a bad idea.
I rushed to the bathroom to get some tissues. Handing them to Ellen, I asked, “Would you like a glass of water?”
“Thanks,” she snuffled. “There are some bottles in the fridge.”
I headed to the kitchen, circumnavigated more storage boxes, and pulled open the fridge door. A quick survey of its contents told me that Ellen lived mainly on salads and stir-fries. There couldn’t be any other reason for owning so many different types of oil—sesame, cold-pressed virgin olive, peanut, walnut, hazelnut, avocado, and flaxseed—all arranged in dark-glass bottles with handwritten labels beside a dozen small bottles of water. I grabbed one and headed back to the other side of the room.
While we waited for Ellen to stop crying, I tried to cheer her up by observing, “You’ve done a good job of kitting us out. Thanks. I wonder what Raj and Serendipity will wear. I bet they could wear almost anything and look good. Maybe Serendipity’s parents will let them raid their old closets.”
“I don’t see why you’re talking about them like they’re a couple,” sniffled Ellen.
“Oh come off it. Of course they are!” I realized what I’d said. “Or would that be a bad thing, if they’re at competing wineries?” I asked.
Ellen was beginning to calm down a bit. “Not really. Serendipity isn’t wine, she’s food. I guess if they were competing vintners it might make things a bit awkward. Anyway, I don’t think you’re right. He doesn’t see that much of her.”
I was puzzled. “When he scoots off to the gym in the afternoons, he could be visiting her then. She’d be between lunch and dinner at the restaurant at that time of day. They do seem very well matched, physically and in terms of lifestyle.”
“I guess,” Ellen replied curtly. “Could you guys make your way back to the truck, while I just sort out my makeup?” she asked plaintively. I got the impression from the way she’d been dabbing at her eyes that she wasn’t used to wearing mascara, and she was right, she needed to give her face some attention.
“Sure,” said Bud, “take your time.” Ellen gave Bud the keys for the truck, and the bags containing the clothes we’d arrived in, and we left her to her own devices.
Back at the truck, it wasn’t that easy to get into it. I felt ridiculous. Finally, after a few moments of silence, with Bud grinning over his shoulder from the front seat at me, and me not grinning back at him, Ellen joined us, started up the engine and we set off for lunch, hurtling around corners, across intersections and back along Lakeshore Road toward the MacMillans’ house. I was hoping that other guests at the luncheon would look as idiotic as I felt.
As I battled my petticoats in the back seat, I took off the white gloves I’d been wearing to be able to transfer the essentials from my own purse to the tiny little thing that Ellen had given me. It obviously hadn’t been designed to cope with anything more than a lipstick, a hanky, and some change; try as I might, all my bits and pieces weren’t going to fit. Finally, I managed to squash in my cellphone, nicotine gum, and my cigarettes and lighter. This not being the 1960s, I suspected that could probably live without lipstick for a while.
; Harvey Wallbangers and Sangria
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT LAKEVIEW Lodge, a few vehicles were already parked along the roadside and the driveway to what looked like a tiny, one-storey house with gray wood siding and white trim. Bud graciously helped me out of the vehicle (so that’s why men did that—because women wearing those skirts had no idea where their feet were!) and I tottered over the gravel on my kitten heels toward the front door.
Colin MacMillan was there to greet us, wearing a green velvet smoking jacket, a frilly pink shirt, and gray-green dress pants: the Jon Pertwee version of a Doctor Who outfit.
“Ah, ready to ‘reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’ at a moment’s notice, eh?” I quipped, puzzling both Bud and Ellen.
“Absolutely,” replied Colin, beaming. “You’ll spot Poppy, she’s Sarah Jane Smith from the Third Doctor period. I suggested she wear Amy Pond’s policewoman outfit, but she said it wasn’t ‘retro,’ so she’s gone with Sarah Jane. We don’t think many people will get it, but it’s 1970s clothing, and we’ll know, so who cares, eh? By the way, Mom said everyone’s to keep their shoes on today, ’cos of, like, the costumes. Some of them are great—like yours.” Colin seemed very excited, and clapped a little round of applause at me as he ushered us inside.
As we walked into the MacMillans’ house, my concerns about it being too small to host a large luncheon evaporated: the part of the house visible from the street level gave way to a huge edifice. Built on stilts, the house jutted out over the edge of the cliff face, with three floors of space for entertaining, all glass-fronted, facing the lake. A swimming pool, hot tub, and multi-layered decks were set to the side of the house, and the final stairway from the bottom deck led to a wooden jetty at which two boats were moored. Not your average dinghy-type boats, but sleek white things with lots of chrome that glinted in the sun. What a way to live!
“Hey, Colin, it’s bigger on the inside, like The Doctor’s TARDIS,” I quipped.
“That’s what I said the day we moved in, but no one got it,” he replied. He smiled, waved, and ambled off.
Bud nodded at Colin’s back as he left us. “You seem to have acquired a new puppy,” he noted. That’s what we call the students who latch onto me and make it their business to follow me about the university. There’s usually one in every class, and sometimes a whole string of them. It seems that I specialize in their acquisition. I don’t know why.
Having arrived late, the lunch was in full swing. Everyone had clearly taken the retro-dressing theme to heart. Bud headed off to chat to the Wild West era Wisers, while I searched the knots of people to find Raj, whom I’d decided would be my target at the lunch. Finally, I spotted him, dressed as a Beatle, standing beside Serendipity, who was wearing a simple white sleeveless shift dress, with a circlet of white flowers in her hair. She looked clean, and cool, calm, and I was just a little jealous that she looked so perfect.
Luckily, I was saved from having any less charitable thoughts about Serendipity by the bustling arrival of Lizzie Jackson.
“Good to see you. How are you? Long time no see,” she grinned. “Hey, you look great. Boy, that dress is just your size, Cait. Wherever did you find it?” She was almost vibrating with excitement.
I smiled politely as I replied, “Ellen rustled it up for me. Apparently it was her mother’s. Bud and I didn’t know about the dressing up thing, so we were lucky that Ellen had some clothes we could borrow.”
Lizzie grimaced and said, “Ah, have you been to Ellen’s apartment?”
I replied, “Yes. Have you ever visited there?”
She peered through her round glasses with eyes that became just as round. “Hmm,” she nodded. “She came to me about four years ago and asked for some advice about it. You know, the hoarding. Said she’d found someone she wanted to ‘make space for’ in her life and that she knew she’d have to make some real space for them too. Back then she was quite open-minded about such things, and we talked a great deal. I even showed her some techniques for meditation and self-hypnosis that I thought might help her.”
“Something like wakeful dreaming?” I asked.
Lizzie looked both taken aback and delighted. “Why yes, that sort of thing, but what’s a marketing person like you know about my field?”
Damn and blast—I’d forgotten my cover!
“I once helped promote a line of self-help books, and one of them was about mental reorganization,” I lied.
“Ah yes, it’s an area where folks can help themselves much more than they think. Ellen and I had a few sessions together, and she seemed to take to it like a duck to water. Surprisingly, she has a talent for using words to calm. I even thought she might be about to join us in the Faceting fold, but something happened. I don’t think that whatever relationship she was hoping for came to anything, and she became, well, as you see her now. Sometimes she’s quite scathing about our approach to life. You think she’d have let it go by now. But hey, that was her problem all along.”
I nodded. “Is the food good?”
“Oh yes,” she replied. “Sheri’s totally onboard with our views on food, and she’s had help for this.” Lizzie nodded in the general direction of the food-service tables as she spoke. “We’ve loaned her Ray from the restaurant to oversee the food prep, and she’s got some local girls to help with the serving and clearing. I think it’s a great idea to go back to some of those old favorites we used to enjoy in decades gone by. Of course, I love what Ray does with food at our place nowadays, but, sometimes, it’s nice to bump into an old friend on a plate, right?” She laughed as she added, “You should go see. It’s quite a spread.”
“I will,” I replied quickly, seeing a chance to escape, and I waved my farewell as I moved away.
As I wandered across the spacious, high-ceilinged room toward the food, I could see that every finish in the MacMillan home was about as high-end as it gets. On the laden tables I spotted aspic-encased salmon, slices of aubergine topped with tomato and parmesan, prawn cocktails, and even a row of fondue pots: all very retro.
“Hey, have one of these!” Colin appeared in front of me holding a tall glass full of an almost fluorescent orange fluid. A slice of orange and a maraschino cherry speared onto a little pink umbrella was balanced on its edge. “It’s called a Harvey Wallbanger, Mom says. Looks horrible, but everyone’s drinking them. It’s this, or sangria. And that’s got fruit actually floating in it.” He wrinkled his nose.
As he pushed the glass under my nose, I caught a whiff of Galliano and maraschino cherry, and it all came back to me: one too many of that exact cocktail during a friend’s birthday party in Swansea almost thirty years ago. I began to gag. I pushed the glass away as politely as I could. “Could I have sangria instead?” I asked, praying my saliva glands would calm down. “But first, the loo?” Colin pointed me in the right direction. Keep calm, Cait. Don’t go throwing up just because of your perfect memory.
Locking the loo door behind me, I took some deep breaths and ran cold water over my wrists. I patted my neck with dampened loo paper, and finally managed to think of enough things opposite to vomit inducing to calm my stomach: sea air, freshly cut grass, sunlight dappling through trees onto springy undergrowth. All freeing, cleansing images. It usually works.
Eventually, I managed to calm my gag reflex, and I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I had to get out there, find Raj, again, and get him to open up to me, a complete stranger. Easy! But first, a smoke. I’d have to ask where I could light up.
Peering out around the bathroom door, I spotted our hostess, who was dressed in a chequered, sleeveless dress that I suspected was of late ’60s, early ’70s vintage. I made a beeline for her, as she fluttered her way between guests.
“Hi Sheri, nice dress,” I opened.
“Thanks. Carol Brady did such a good job with all those children, don’t you think?”
Ah, the Brady Bunch. Right.
“Absolutely,” I replied, like a good little guest. “Wonderful spread,” I added, meaning
it.
“Thanks,” replied Sheri. “It’s not exactly gourmet, but it is all fresh, local, organic, and peanut-free, because of Colin, of course,” she replied, looking over my shoulder at the table traffic. “I just hope there’s enough of everything.”
“Oh, I’m sure there will be,” I replied. There seemed to be enough to feed a small army. “Is Colin allergic to peanuts, then?” I ventured.
“Yes. Always has been. It’s not so bad these days, it’s much better understood. In fact so many children have the same problem that his school is peanut-free now.”
“It must be tough to eat out,” I observed.
“Well, it sure used to be, but there are a lot of places now that offer peanut-free choices. SoulVineFineDine, for one, and Faceting for Life, for another. They’re both totally peanut-free restaurants. Even Pat, this morning, made sure everything was safe. He’s thoughtful like that. Well, with both Serendipity and Colin there, he would make special effort, of course.”