Samantha and Her Genie

by Daisy Dexter Dobbs

  Samantha laughed. “Not when you’re eating cheeseburgers and fries, it’s not.”

  “Hey, look at me,” Rosie offered. “I’m walking, aren’t I? And uphill, no less. I’ll have that grease bomb burned off by the time we get back to my car.”

  “By walking just a few blocks? In your dreams, Rosie. In order to burn off the number of calories we ingested it would take—”

  Rosie clapped her hands over her ears. “La-la-la-la. I’m not listening, Sam. Don’t burst my exercise bubble, no matter how unrealistic it may be. After all, walking a few blocks is better than just sitting on my ass, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.” Laughing, Samantha pulled Rosie into a buddy hug as they trudged along the sidewalk. “Corporate says I’m supposed to drop thirty in six weeks. Honestly, Rosie, I’m pretty satisfied with where I am now. I’ve mostly maintained my weight loss for almost two years and that’s been difficult enough. I really don’t want to start crash dieting now—even if it means not keeping a job I love.”

  “Same here. I wish we’d crossed those stupid no-more-than-ten-percent-weight-gain clauses out of our employment contracts before we signed on with TBT.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “ You know, Sam, if you had your own weight-loss company you’d make a fortune. Me too, because you’d hire me, of course, and I’d help you to build an empire so big and successful it would put TBT out of business in a flash.” Rosie snapped her fingers. “We’d crush ’em.”

  “Well, you dream big. I have to give you that.” Samantha chuckled. “Of course I’d hire you. And lots of money would be nice but that’s not why—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rosie cut her off with a dismissive wave. “I’ve seen those big blue idealistic eyes of yours look off into the distance with grandiose thoughts of selflessly helping thousands of unhappy fat people often enough to know your intentions are pure.”

  “Jeez, you make me sound like some sappy televangelist or something.” Samantha gave Rosie’s arm a playful whap. “It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no chance in hell I’d ever have enough money to start up my own company. All I can do is to try to sidestep TBT’s rules enough to make sure my clients know there’s somebody out there who genuinely cares about them.”

  Stopping in her tracks, Samantha pointed to a sign at the corner. “Hey, look. There’s an estate sale just down the block. Wanna go?”

  “You know damn well being a packrat is second only to being a foodie on my list of vices.” Rosie looped her arm through Samantha’s and they headed for the sale. “Maybe we’ll find a one-of-a-kind treasure that will bring us untold wealth and then you can start your business.”

  “Right. My house and yours are filled with dozens of treasures we were sure would catapult us into multi-millionaire status, remember? Crap. All of it. Pretty and interesting but entirely worthless crap.” Samantha’s eyes twinkled with a devilish gleam. “Let’s go get some more.”

  Once they reached the address they stood out in front, gaping in awe at the large Victorian home. The whimsical fretwork, gingerbread shingles, balustrades, spindles, turrets, and wealth of fanciful ornamentation captured Samantha’s attention. It was exactly the sort of house she’d always wanted to live in.

  “Wow…this place is huge,” Samantha said, mesmerized. “And adorable.”

  “And so old it’s practically prehistoric,” Rosie added as they raced up the long concrete walk and stone steps to the house.

  Samantha felt almost the same current of anticipation coursing through her veins as when she contemplated devouring a pint of super-premium, fudge-laced ice cream. There was something deliciously appealing about digging through other people’s castoffs and discovering fabulous little goodies like first edition books, decades-old jewelry, decorative household items or fashion accessories from eras long past.

  Even though she knew better, Samantha couldn’t help the rush of excitement that whispered, Maybe this time you’ll hit the jackpot and find a rare, priceless trinket that will change your life forever.

  It was a whole house sale, the estate sale’s organizers explained as they handed out information sheets and shopping bags. The kind of sale Samantha and Rosie loved best. They could scrounge around in the attic, basement, garage and every room in between, giddy as they hunkered down on hands and knees, checking dark, cobwebbed nooks and crannies for treasures.

  A brief paragraph about the house’s history stated it had remained within the same family since it was built for Abigail Henley in 1859. The last owner, Franklin Henley, a retired attorney and avid collector, had recently died, leaving no heirs. The first floor of the zoned commercial residence housed the offices of Franklin’s law practice. The entire contents of the house were being sold, with the proceeds going to the Abigail Henley Foundation.

  “Look at this.” Samantha ran the tip of her finger along the last sentence of the paragraph. “It says Henley House will be made available for purchase next week!” Samantha’s heart leapt at the words.

  Rosie shrugged. “Yeah, so?” She rubbed her friend’s back in a sympathetic gesture. “Sorry, sweetie, but you can no more afford to buy a house like this than you can a weight-loss center.”

  Samantha craned her neck, looking at the vast number of rooms and abundant space. “It might be big enough to have the weight-loss center on the first floor,” she said excitedly. “I could live upstairs. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Rosie gave her an encouraging pat. “Once you shell out the couple of million the house is worth, you can have it renovated for another mil or so. A mere drop in the bucket.” She snapped her fingers.

  Samantha’s shoulders sagged. “You never know…maybe I’ll win the lottery.”

  “Uh-huh. And maybe I’ll lose that twenty-five pounds corporate wants me to drop in the next six weeks.” Rosie rolled her eyes. “That’s okay, you just keep thinking positive, sweetie.”

  Already swarming with other hopeful treasure hunters, the old house was a junque lover’s paradise. After rifling through the kitchen and finding a few small items to add to their shopping bags, Samantha and Rosie headed for the basement, carefully navigating the narrow, rickety wood steps that led to a dank, dim, cavernous area piled floor to ceiling with stacks of…junk. There were few others milling about the room, apparently not eager to dig through the layers of dust and cobwebs or whatever it was that smelled of mildew.

  “These are kind of cool,” Rosie said, rummaging through deep wood shelves full of salt and pepper shakers in all sizes, shapes and colors. She cooed over a cute pair of porcelain cherub-shaped shakers, discarding them a moment later for a delft blue set of ceramic wooden shoe-shaped shakers. “Do you still collect these?”

  “I stopped hoarding them when I finally realized my little house wasn’t big enough for both them and me.” Samantha chuckled. “I sold them all at a flea market and figured I’d steer clear of them in the future.” Still intrigued with the vast assortment, Samantha spent time searching through them.

  “Then how come you’re still over here looking, instead of going off in search of something else?” Rosie snickered.

  “Old habits die hard.” Samantha shrugged. “Plus you never know when I might find the world’s rarest, most sought after salt and pepper shaker set, right?” She beamed a grin at her friend before getting down on her hands and knees to examine the lower shelves. “My new slacks are going to look like shit when I’m finished,” Samantha noted with a sigh.

  As she leaned forward, tucking her head under the shelf above and bracing her hand on the bottom shelf so she could get a better look, the rotted wood gave way. Her hand plunged through the soft, splintered surface while her cheek fell hard against the wood.

  “Oh shit!”

  “Jesus, Sam, what happened?”

  “The shelf was rotten.”

  “Are you okay?” Rosie joined Samantha on the floor. “Can you get your hand out?”

  “Yeah, I think—”
r />   After a long moment, Rosie piped up again. “Well? What? You think what?”

  “Rosie, there’s something under here.”

  Rosie’s eyes bugged. “Something as in treasure something or as in huge nest of spiders something?”

  “It’s hard. It feels like stone or marble…or maybe metal. I can’t tell.”

  “The world’s most valuable salt and pepper shaker, maybe?”

  Samantha laughed. “Don’t make me laugh when I’m stuck down here on all fours with my face plastered against a mildewy, rotten old shelf.” She snaked her hand in deeper, trying to get a good grasp. “It’s too far to the right. I can’t reach it completely. And it’s heavy.” The challenge spurred her on. By this time Samantha didn’t care what in the hell it was under there, she had to have it.

  “Sam.”

  “Maybe if we try to punch out some more of the shelf I can get to it,” Samantha went on, pounding on the wood with her other hand to no avail. Apparently she’d found the only vulnerable spot. “Come on, Rosie, help me pound on it.”

  “Sam.”

  “What!?” she barked, frustration tingeing her voice.

  As she removed the ceramic, animal-shaped salt and pepper shakers from the bottom shelf, setting them on the concrete floor, Rosie erupted with laughter.

  “Just go ahead and sit there laughing at me,” Samantha groused, “as I’m scrounging around in this spider-infested hole struggling to unearth a possibly costly treasure for us.”

  “Hold off on your treasure hunting for a minute, oh great white huntress, until I get this shelf cleared off,” Rosie said. Once she’d emptied the shelf she reached in the back, looping two fingers in the small circular hole at the center and easily lifted the removable shelf.

  “Oh,” Samantha said sheepishly. Sitting back on her knees she carefully withdrew her hand from the rotted wood, cringing as she brushed cobwebs and bug carcasses from her skin. Returning her attention to the area beneath where the shelf sat a moment before, Samantha zeroed in on the item she’d been trying to reach. The stone box was about five by seven inches wide and three inches high.

  “It looks really old,” Samantha whispered.

  “Maybe it’s filled with rare gold coins,” Rosie whispered back as Samantha grasped the box with both hands, carefully drawing it out of the grubby cavity.

  “Look at that strange writing on the metal strips around the box.” Samantha blew a thick layer of dust from its surface. “Maybe it’s an antiquity.”

  “It probably says made in Taiwan,” Rosie quipped. “Well open it, for chrissakes.”

  Samantha fiddled with the latch. “I think it’s stuck, she said an instant before the latch seemed to pop open on its own. Cradling the heavy box in her lap, Samantha lifted the cover and gasped at the sight of the multi-colored glass bottle nestled in layers of what look like silk. “Oh, Rosie, isn’t this beautiful? It looks like it was made of thousands of strands of glass. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “Neither have I. It looks like a perfume bottle. Whatever’s inside is probably so old it smells like ass.”

  Samantha laughed at that. “I’m going to wait until I get it home to examine it more closely so I can safely set it on something other than a concrete floor crawling with age-old crud.” She closed the box, latching it, and placed it in her bag. A wave of shoppers approached the shelves full of old salt and pepper shakers. “Come on, Rosie, it’s getting too crowded.”

  They rose from the floor, brushed themselves off and finished exploring the house. A few more items of interest were found, though none as intriguing as the stone box and its contents. As they were about to leave the last upstairs bedroom, Samantha paused at a Victorian writing desk, fingering an old faded photo.

  “Find something else?” Rosie asked, snapping her gum as she came to Samantha’s side. “Ooh, damn, he was a hunk.”

  “What a gorgeous man,” Samantha breathed, gazing at the sepia image of a tall, thirty-ish man dressed in Victorian garb and standing behind an elderly woman seated at the writing desk Samantha now stood at. “Look at those dark, piercing eyes, Rosie. It’s like he’s looking right at me through the centuries. And that big, broad chest…” Samantha felt a delicious twinge of longing as she studied the man’s striking features and powerful-looking physique.

  Look how long his hair is and how it’s pulled back in a ponytail,” Rosie noted. “Maybe he was an Indian.”

  “Native American,” Samantha absently corrected. “I don’t think so. His features look more…Mediterranean or something.”

  “Yeah, like a big Greek.” Rosie took the picture from her, turning it to the back. “Abigail Henley and unknown gentleman, 1859,” she read aloud. “Interesting.” She traced her finger over the man’s arm to where his hand rested on one of Abigail’s shoulders.

  “What?” Samantha asked.

  “The way he looks all solemn and stern, while Abigail’s expression suggests she was definitely quite pleased about something. I’d say it looks like Miss Abby had herself a boy toy.”

  “Imagine what he must have looked like naked.” Samantha and Rosie exchanged glances and wistful moans. “I have to have him.” Samantha quickly stuffed the unframed photograph into her bag of treasures.

  She laughed when she glanced up again to catch Rosie’s knowing smirk. “So he’s been dead for more than a hundred years,” Samantha offered with a shrug. “So what? I’ve got a vibrator and an imagination, don’t I?”

  Chapter Two

  “Are you sure you can’t come in for a while?” Samantha asked before getting out of Rosie’s car. “I’ll make us a couple mugs of sugar-free hot cocoa and we can examine our new treasures together.”

  “I’d like to, sweetie,” Rosie gave Samantha’s thigh a pat, “but I’ve got to pick Mandy and Kevin up from daycare and I’m already running late. I’ll give you a call later, okay?” Samantha nodded. Hesitating before she drove off, Rosie worried her bottom lip. “Listen, Sam, are you sure you still want to watch the kids tonight? It’s no problem if you’ve changed your mind. The twins can be a real handful.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rosie! I’ve been looking forward to watching those pink-cheeked little cuties all week. I even did some research online and found some new games specifically geared for three-year-olds.” Rosie and Charlie rarely got a chance to get out for dinner and a movie anymore and Samantha was more than happy to babysit. She adored the twins. And Lord knows she didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night.

  Their goodbyes said, Samantha carried her TBT tote full of unappetizing foodstuffs and her bag full of goodies from the estate sale up the steps and into her small house.

  Depositing bags and purse on the kitchen counter, she headed for the pantry. Hot cocoa sounded good. The sugar-free, fat-free kind she kept on hand was virtuous, low in calories and not too bad tasting, either. Returning to the counter, single packet of diet cocoa mix in hand, she eyed the reprimanding letter from TBT that had slipped out of her purse.

  “Thirty pounds in six weeks. Bastards,” she grumbled through a sneer. After staring at the offending envelope for moment, she made a beeline back into the pantry, emerging with a second packet of cocoa, a bottle of Kahlua and a bottle of Baileys.

  “I’ll just walk an extra mile on the treadmill tomorrow,” she promised herself as she searched a cabinet for her oversized mug.

  Once her chocolaty treat was ready, she added a big ruffle of lowfat whipped cream to the top and sat at the kitchen table, her sack of newfound treasures at her feet. One by one she drew out her special finds, investigating their surfaces for any sign of possible one-of-a-kind priceless rarity. She paused when she came to the photo of Abigail Henley and the darkly handsome young man. With a hearty sip of liqueur-laced cocoa and a wistful sigh, she set the picture aside, making sure to keep it within drooling distance.

  The stone box was at the bottom of the bag, cushioned in a pair of thick, crocheted doilies Samantha had purchase
d. The entire bag of junque had only cost her twenty-eight dollars, with the stone box and bottle accounting for twelve of that.

  As Samantha set the box in front of her, studying it over the rim of her half-empty mug of cocoa, the latch popped open of its own accord again, just as it had back at Henley House. She examined the curious writing, some engraved into the stone and some on the metal bands. It resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs in a way, but not exactly. Samantha didn’t remember seeing anything quite like it before.

  Upon close inspection she noted the silk fabric cushioning the bottle was old, fragile and delicate. It looked as if nothing more than a harsh breath could shred the aged fibers. The bottle, on the other hand, appeared to be in excellent condition. Holding the weight of the glass object in her hand it was sturdy and yet had an air of fragility because of the fine spun threads of glass making up the entire shape, including the bottle’s stopper.

  After draining the rest of the liquid in her mug and licking the last vestiges of chocolate from her lips, Samantha mused, “Let’s see if Rosie was right and whatever’s inside smells like ass.” She chuckled at the memory. Grasping the stopper firmly, she pulled, twisting slightly.

  In a moment the small bottle lay open in her left palm as she held the stopper in the fingers of her right hand. The kitchen table and floor vibrated, as did the light fixture above her head.

  Another one of Portland’s mini earthquakes, she figured, having grown used to the mostly innocuous quakes after living in the Pacific Northwest since she was a kid.

  Before she could bring the bottle to her nose to sniff it, it shuddered in her hand.

  And then the bottle grew warm.

  “Holy shit,” she muttered, slipping it back into the box so it was propped up against the back. She set its stopper on the table, scooting her chair back across the tile floor a foot or two when the bottle visibly shook.

  “This isn’t happening,” she said when a blue-gray vapor wafted out of the bottle. “This is not happening!” She dragged her gaze from the growing vapor long enough to eye her empty cocoa mug. “Jeezus, maybe those liqueurs were way past the sell-by date or something.”